How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Page)
Quote #1
"Look, they climb, and no one knows them;/they take their copper pittances, and your duty/from the time you watched them from your grandmother's house/as a child wounded by their power and beauty/is the chance you now have, to give those feet a voice." (XIII.iii.75-76)
The narrator's father reminds him to seek his poetic subjects in the beauty of his people's struggle through time. The image of these determined women clearly pulls at his heart and compels him to capture their lives in verse.
Quote #2
How many young Redcoats had died/for her? How many leaves had caught yellow fever/from that lemon dress? (XVII.ii.93)
Major Plunkett mixes his metaphors when speaking about the purpose of war in the Caribbean. The young colonialists who fell on the island may not have died out of love for the place or for the monarchy, but it's clear that Plunkett has Helen (the woman) on his mind as well. Had they also fallen for a lovely, local face?
Quote #3
Why couldn't they love the place, same way, together,/the way he always loved her, even with his sore?/Love Helen like a wife in good and bad weather,/in sickness and health, its beauty being poor?/The way the leaves loved her, not like a pink leaflet/printed with slogans of black people fighting war? (XX.ii.108)
Anyone living in a country with mudslinging political campaigns can identify with Philoctete's sentiments here. But for characters like Philoctete, Achille, and Seven Seas, their lives and loyalties are tied to the natural beauty of the land—quite separate from the political and commercial concerns consuming the island.
Quote #4
He sought his own features in those of their life-giver,/and saw two worlds mirrored there: the hair was surf/curling round a sea-rock, the forehead a frowning river,/as they swirled in the estuary of bewildered love,/and Time stood between them. (XXV.iii.136)
Achille recognizes that he and his father belong to two worlds: St. Lucia (that's the surf part) and Africa (symbolized by the river). The confusion comes from the complex love and loyalty they bear to both places.
Quote #5
I knew they all knew/about my abandonment in the war of love:/the busboys, the couples, their eyes turned from the smell/of failure, while my own eyes had turned Japanese/looking for a letter, for its rescuing sail/till I grew tired, like wounded Philoctetes,/the hermit who did not know the war was over,/or refused to believe it. (XXXIII.ii.171)
Things aren't going well in the love department for our narrator. Note the terms of war and surrender that he uses to describe his feelings of rejection. Bummer.
Quote #6
All I had gotten I deserved, I now saw this,/and though I had self-contempt for my own deep pain,/I lay drained in bed,/like the same dry carapace/I had made of others, till my turn came again. (XLVIII.i.241)
This sounds quite bleak, but it's actually a positive breakthrough by our narrator. He's finally learned to see the destructive role he's played in past relationships—something he can only do because he's ready to move past selfish and isolating behavior.
Quote #7
[…] the love I was good at seemed to have been only/the love of my craft and nature; yes, I was kind,/but with such certitude it made others lonely,/and with such bent industry it had made me blind. (XLVIII.i.241)
It's an age-old problem: Man spends too much time working/writing/learning and neglects everything else. It's a harsh reality that the narrator faces about his ideas of love, but at least that trip to Hell gave him some useful epiphanies.
Quote #8
She was his orb and sceptre, the shire of his peace,/the hedges aisling England, lanes ending in spires,/rooks that lift and scatter from oaks threshing like seas,/the black notes of sparrows on telegraph wires,/all these were in his letters (LII.i.261)
It's too bad that Major Plunkett doesn't think of Maud like this before she dies, but at least he's able to admit her importance in his life. She has become the best image of his lost homeland, everything that he loved and valued about the place. Note the use of the world "aisling," which is particularly Irish and means dream or vision. Maud has become his heavenly Celtic woman. Better late than never, we guess.
Quote #9
"Love is good, but the love of your own people is/greater." (LVI.iii.284)
Omeros has a deep conversation with the narrator about the proper use of war (ideally over a woman). His declaration here jibes with what the narrator's father told him in the beginning of his journeys: His talent exists to tell the story of the people he loves.
Quote #10
[…] as the sea moves round an island/that appears to be moving, love moves round the heart—/with encircling salt, and the slowly travelling hand/knows it returns to the port from which it must start. (LVIII.ii.291)
Is this the best few lines of Omeros? We think it's possible. Think about Achille's love of the sea and how it anchors him to his island, or how Hector literally can't live without his connection to the land. The narrator gets schooled by Seven Seas/Omeros about the reason for his journeys and his commission to write about his island. It's all about the deep love for the place and the people who live there.