Shingle-Short and Other Verses/Maui’s Fish
Maui’s Fish.
“Te Ika a Maui.”
Maui’s Fish.
(After the Maori Legend.)
[1]Maui, the Fisher, would have gone fishing
In the canoe with the sons of his mother;
He had a thought in his head.
But these Brothers begrudged him.
“He is young and audacious,” they grumbled, “and wilful;
We are not too sure of his birth and his breeding;
His cunning is great, and his tricks are perdition;
What law does he follow? What reverence is his?
He will trick us, perchance he will wreck, peradventure may drown us—
He surely will scare us!” said they.
“Bide thou here,” said these clever and cautious old brothers of Maui;
And forth on the broad breast of Ocean
Push’d the canoe, and were off
To their old fishing-ground.
Maui the Fisher paced on the sea-beach,
Thinking....thinking....
Working the while at the fish-hook he held in his fingers:
A very old bone he was carving and fitting,
And paving its hollow with blue-and- green [2]paua,
Paua, purple-and-blue in the sun as the shimmering water,
In the sea-water, bright as the sun.
“Can I sail in the sea-weed?” says Maui;
And a fine tuft of hair he set on it,
Thinking....thinking....
And twisted a stout line upon it—
And behold! there he ended his toil and his thinking together!
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughs Maui the Fisher,
And looks out to sea!
Late that night, when these Brothers, safe back from their fishing,
Wearied with toil, snug and rounded with supper,
Snored in the wharé,
Maui, the youngest, still hungry on purpose,
Alert and attentive—Hush!
Crept from the side of them—Hush!
From the warm wharé creeps out, to the darkness,
Out, to the cold, lonely beach:
Finds the canoe, and there, under the bottom-boards,
Ha! in he crawls, and lies close.
Huge is the night, and the loneliness gruesome and terrible,
Sharp howls the wind, the old Sea moans there over his shoulder—
As a widow, a mother, they wail, at a death, at a [3]tangi;
And the Darkness was dreadful all round, a deep darkness of Death!
“Laugh, O my heart!” murmurs Maui,
And waits for the Dawn.
And at Dawn come his Brothers, intent on their old daily duty—
In their old fishing-ground to catch fish.
And they look to their tiller, they look to their paddles,
But, under those sound boards amidship, what need to examine?
(Aha!)
“Now, where is our Maui, our fisher of fishers, this morning?
Full belly, sound sleeper, is simply out-witted,” they chuckle;
Then out on the laughing blue Ocean
Push forth their canoe, and are off
To their old fishing-ground—
To their old fishing-ground, indeed?
Maui is with them! Oho!
Paddle and paddle, paddle and paddle....
They had gone a long way,
To the first place for casting the hooks they were nearly arrived,
When Maui no more can keep silence. Ho, ho! and Ha, ha!—
Up pops his head at their horrified feet!
An earthquake! As huts in an earthquake,
Hither and thither they topple and tumble and sprawl.
Were they startled, those wary old Brothers? They nearly upset the canoe!
Were they vext? They were far from the land!
Now this way and that, as a [4]weka, that peers for provision,
With faces wrath-wrinkled as mud-holes are wrinkled in summer,
They twisted their eyes and their necks, staying still on their paddles,
And piteously ask’d of each other:
“O Friends! what shall we do?
If we go on, and he with us,” they said, “he will surely upset us,
If we go back, it is far—and what fish for our supper?“
“Cast him out!“ whispers one. “If we do, by some craft he will catch us—
Remember the noosing of [5]Ra”, they reply, “Remember the Theft of the Fire
(Fire, like Maui, perturbing and mischievous: true, ’tis a relish to fish)—
Who is safe from him? What shall we do?”
So they toss back and forth in the unsteady hold of their purpose,
Like river-waves, reaching the sea, but the tide flooding in.
Well, now, Maui had pity upon them.
“Let me paddle,” says Maui, “or steer!”
But Oh, no, no, no!
“If he paddle,” say they, “we are dead! he will surely capsize us;
If he steer,—we are wreck’d on some rock;
If we go on, misadventures are bound to befall us;
Back—one is fallen already, since where are our fish?
And, drown’d—alas, he would drown us!”
So, like men out at sea without paddles, they toss in a torment.
Till Maui had pity upon them again, and he said,
“Lo, in your confusion but now, how the waves were splashed over!
Keep me—to bale the canoe.”
Then speechless they sat, looking one at the rest,
Till one hopefully said,
“Well, he cannot do much with a baler!”
So then, o’er the bright lips of Ocean, up-bursting with laughter,
These Brothers went cautiously steering and paddling,
While Maui (a shell was his baler),
Baled out the canoe.
Now, pay attention! Behold,
Every shellful he baled from the boat, lo it was but a shellful,
Till, throwing it over, he stretch’d it—no longer mere shellfuls,
Murmuring [6]karakias, secretly chanting enchantments,
Seas! he threw seas overboard.
The water spread....spread...., the land faded, faded....and faded....
“Hold! Stop!” cried the Brothers. “Where are we?
Far, far past our fishing-ground! Put back, and quickly!” they cry.
“Ah, not yet!” Maui pleads, “O my Brothers, a little way further!
I know of a place where the fish are as fern in the forest,
So many! and fat as fat pigeons, and sweeter than berry-fed pigeons, those fish!
Let us on!” And his tongue was of oil, and his words as a feast in the cooking;
(He knew what they wished) and their ears and their hearts were bemused.
On, onward they went:
Paddle and paddle, paddle and paddle and paddle....
The Sun looking on from the North, and Maui still baling and baling.
Till once more spake the Brothers:
“No man hath fished here since the days of our fathers; here anchor!”
“Not yet, Ah, not yet!” Maui said; “A canoe’s length, a little way further!
Ah, Brothers, those fish! So immense
That one piece of one fish will most nobly provide for our supper,
So bold, they will race to the hook, and two castings will fill us,
The wink of an eye see us full.”
Aha! Bright was his bait, and he knew what he wanted,
By the ear and the stomach he caught them, these Brothers, these fish!
Paddle on, paddle on, paddle on....
Now the land is gone from their gaze;
To the edge of the world they are come!
Now the Sea was their world,
And the Sun from the opposite side look’d upon them,
He looked from the West, and their spirits grew dark,
Their hearts roll’d in their breasts!
“Never man can have fish’d here before. Let us anchor!” they pleaded;
And Maui said, “Anchor, and fish!”
For he knew where he was, and he knew he was where he would be.
Oh! Oh, those fish!....Enough! It was even as he said—
So many! so large! and they surely desired to get eaten!
Lo! at the cast of the hook, how they came flocking, and flocking!
Two castings apiece, and behold! the canoe, it was full!
Great then were the hearts of these Brothers! They said,
“It is well! and now let us for home.”
But Maui said humbly, “O Brothers!
Here is one without fish. Behold, I have had neither share of the sport or the spoil.
Lend me a hook, O Brother!—Brother! lend me thy hook”
(To one and another he said it). But they taunted him, all, and refused.
“Fishers have hooks, not the maggot that hides in the timber.”
“Canst thou fish with a hook, little Trickster, indeed? but try fishing without!”
“Yet will I fish,” answers Maui, and lo! lo! the wonder.
They murmur admiring, in envy they muse, and amazement,
As he draws from his mat the carv’d fish-hook,
The jaw-bone well carv’d of his heroine ancestress.
Bright in the sunlight the paua that lined it,
The hair that adorn’d it waved bright in the wind.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughs Maui the Fisher,
The Sun and the Sea also laugh, when they look on that hook!
But—where was the bait?
“O my Brothers,” says Maui, “Behold
To what catch I encouraged you hither!
Can we verily take it all home? See the gunwale, how low in the water!
Spare me, spare me one morsel of all these great fish of your fishing
For bait to my hook.”
But they jeer’d im delight: “Aha! So art thou caught, little [7]Pipi?
O friend! what is the use of fine fish-hooks, and ever so fine,
Without bait?” And they gave him no bait.
So then Maui bethought him.
He smote on his nostril. The blood of his head ran out, copious and living—
With his blood he baited his hook.
And, now laughing no longer, but grave, and firm of attention,
He casts the hook into the Sea.
“Prosper it, O [8]Tangaroa!”
And Tangaroa,
Lord of the deep and the surface,
Lurer to enterprise, lover of daring adventure,
Heard!
A bite! a bite!
Lift it! Pull! Pull!
Oh, the weight!
Hold, hook of noble extraction! Hold, trustworthy well-twisted line!
Tug! Pull, pull!
“A rock! ’Tis a rock thou hast cleverly caught,” cry the Brothers—
No! for in comes the line....in....in....
“’Tis a whale. This great Maui! so mighty, no lesser fish suits him.
The water is troubled; I said if he came, so would grief.”
And truly the water was troubled, a wave struck the side,
The sun sank, it grew chilly and dark.
“The old ground was good. We were fools to have ventured beyond it—
Give up, Maui! Let us go home.”
His back is bent, his muscles are tauten’d,
Sweat pours in the Sea....Pull! Pull!
“A [9]taniwha, surely! some terrible monster has caught us!
Give over!” He would not. Pull! Pull!
Then, “Over with him!”—urges one, but the rest were afraid.
“Cut his line!” But they could not: it held.
And now the waves bubble and gurgle indeed!
A storm he is raising, this fish!
Splash! Now the water foams into the boat—Now
the Brothers must bale her,
Maui the Fisher would fish.
....Oh, the swirl and the tumult! Oh, waves, like great ridges and gullies!
Like a bladder of kelp, rooted firm there below, like a kite of the waves,
The canoe jerks and staggers. Bale! Bale!
Bale!....All the fish must go out!
Ah, sweet food! Ah, the horrible tricks of this mischievous Maui!
Ah, the huge billows bursting....Bale! Bale!....
—Darkness, tumult and storm,
Thus all the night through, baled they and bellow’d they,
All the night through, Maui fought with his fish.
Toward the Dawn,
Lo, a Sea of thick shining! Behold the thick waves of great fishes!
This way and that way darting and shooting in masses,
Anxious, in haste to escape.
What is lifting them? Pull!
What is under them? Pull!....
The first beam strikes on the water....
The Brothers rub at their eyes....O pull!
Pull! What is this that they see?
Thro’ the waves, flashing!
To the light, flashing!
Bright, bright up-bursting, startling the light.—
Oh, the sharp spears and spikes! Oh, the sparkle of summits of crystal,
Springing up, up!
[10]Tongariro! O [10]Taranaki,
Your splendour! your shooting of spear-points, keen, sea-wet, to the sun!
[10]Ruapehu, Kaikoura, Aorangi, Tara-rua, long-arm’d Ruahine!—
Midsummer clouds, curling luminous up from the skyline:
Far-fallen islands of light, summon’d back to the sun:
Soaring [11]Kahawai-birds—
How ye soar’d, shining pinions! straight into the heaven high above you:
How ye shot up, bright Surprises! seizing, possessing the sky:
How firm, great white Clouds, ye took seat!
Pull, Maui! Pull!
For what follows, beneath them?
A waving, a waving and weaving of light and of darkness—
A waving of hands and of hair in the dance!
Lo, is it a garden of kelp?
Is it Night, coming up from the deep, up through fold upon fold of the Sea?
Pull!
Behold, it approaches! it darkens, it pierces the water
—Lo! Lo!
Tree-tops! Lo, waving of branches! Lo, mosses and fern of the forest!
—How sweet on the salt came the breath of the forest, that summer sea-morning!
Sweet on the spacious silence the ring of the [12]Tui’s rich throat!
[13]Kauri and [13]Totara, [13]Rimu, and [13]Matai and [13]Maire,
Red-as-blood [13]Rata, and bright-as-blood [13]Pohutu-kawa,
[13]Manuka dark-ey’d, Convolvulus, Clematis star-ey’d—
The glittering of you that morning! fresh, dripping with dews of the Ocean,
New rays to the young, early sun!
The host of your [14]taua, address’d as to fight! of your lances and [15]meres of green-stone,
Bristling all suddenly upward, lustrously tossing in glory,
A green sea, high in the air!
Pull on! Pull away!
I see shining and shining below here.
Is there a Sun in the Sea? a young Sky in the water?
A Sea, deep in Sea?
Or is a great paua-shell, empty, vividly variegated,
Shadow playing with shine, blue and green in the arms of each other,
As they lie on the lap of the Sea?
Lo! it nears! it arrives! on the face of the water it floats—
Land—Ho! Land!
Yea, sparkling with freshness, audacious with newness, laughing with light,
Land! a young Land from the Sea!
A dark land, of forest; a bright land, of sky and of summits,
Of tussock sun-gilded, of headlands proclaiming the sun:
Tattoo’d with blue—behold [16]Waikato! lo [16]Wanganui!
Ey’d with quick eyes—[17]Wakatipu, and over there [17]Taupo:
Plumed with sky-feathers, with clouds and with snow: begirt with the mat of the Ocean
Border’d with foam, with fine fringes of sand, with breast-jewels of clear-coloured pebbles:—
Up it sprang, out it burst from the folds of the foam, out it stood;
Bare-bright on the jewel-bright Sea:—
A new Land!
There it stood!
And the Sea, now at rest, laid her down with her arms round about it,
Thrusting the tongue and the touches of love ’gainst the limbs of the living,
Caressing her newly-born, laughing and singing for joy.
And, up-coiling his line, disentangling his fish-hook, now Maui laugh’d also—
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Maui the Fisher,
“Behold, I have caught me a Fish!”
Enough—Even so!
With a hook of the Dead, with a bait of the Living,
With the thought of his head, with the blood of his body, the sweat of his heart,
With pangs and with laughter, with labour and loss,
He truly had caught him a fish—the canoe was aground—
O [18]Te Ika a Maui—The Fish!
But turn now your eyes on those worthy, wise Brothers of Maui,—
With grimaces nibbling their faces, with eyes and with mouths round as sea-eggs,
They squat on their haunches, stuck still:
Dumb as [19]heads in the old days held fast in the mouth of the oven,
Dumb as fish,—who would ever have thought it?
But hear now their guile!
“O my Brothers,” said Maui,
Meet is it I go with thank-offermgs to thank Tangaroa—
Tangaroa, who gave me this fish:
[20]Rangi also, and [21]Tawhiri-matea, who hid it below.
But abide till I come!” he besought them with earnest persuasions,
“Till these gods are bespoken, with hand or with foot,
O defile not my Fish!
When I come, I will portion it all.” So he went.
But what then said these Brothers?
Aha! As the [22]kotare, perched and asleep, hears the fish-rippled water, and straightway awakes,
They awoke!
“Who is Maui?” said they “who that babe, with his portion, and portion?
What wits he of division? What recks he of custom, time-honour’d?
What does a young man know?
His fish! Was it not our canoe?
Come!” They trampled his words underfoot, and leapt out on the beaches.
“This my land!” shouted one, and he set up his paddle upon it,
“This to me!” “This to me!” cried they all;
They wrangled and strove.
But the land, this Te Ika a Maui,
Beholding their impudence, seeing their greed and their quarrel,
Laugh’d—for they were not her master—
Laugh’d! Lo, she wrinkled her skin, shook her sides, laugh’d wide with her lips....
“Ha, ha!” and “Ha, ha!”....
Till Maui, returning, instead of a smooth land, and Brothers in waiting,
Found this fellow, sprawl’d on the top of a sudden-rear’d mountain:
That, deep in a gully new-cloven: this other, head-first in a swamp;
And all abash’d and ashamed.
Louder then laugh’d Maui the Fisher.
“Ha, ha! Well done, the land!
Ha, Tangaroa, well done!
My Fish, my Fish, is alive!”
This is the tale of the Fishing of Maui,
Of the birth of New Zealand, Te Ika a Maui.
Hear yet!
I speak but one little word more.
Still alive is that Fish!
Here, on the edge of the world, on the rim of the morning,
She stands, Tangaroa’s dear daughter, a vigorous virgin,
Fresh from the foam.
Still the daylight is young in her eyelids, and on her full forehead;
Her brown limbs gleam from the bath,
Dew is yet in her wind-tossing hair.
The wild winds are her walls, and she stands here, untamed as sea-water,
Brave with the heart of the Ocean, sweet with the heart of the Sun.
Ay!
A sea-wind for freshness, a sea-wave for brightness,
A sea-sunrise for beauty, a strong sea for strength,
Here she stands, Maui’s Fish, here she shines, a new Land from the Ocean,
Alive ’mid the ever-live Sea.
Alive! Yea, Te Ika—
Of the Bone of the Past, of the Blood of the Present,
Here, at the end of the earth, in the first of the Future,
Thou standest, courageous and youthful, a country to come!
Lo, thou art not defiled with the dust of the Dead, nor beclouded with thick clouds of Custom:
But, springs and quick sources of life all about thee, within thee,
Splendid with freshness, radiant with vigour, conspicuous with hope,
Like a beacon thou beckonest back o’er the waters, away o’er the world:
The while, looking ahead with clear eyes,
Like Maui, thou laugh’st, full of life!
And do not regard overmuch
Those tedious old Brothers, that still must be pribbling and prabbling about thee
(Paddlers inshore: when a Maui has fish’d, then they claim the canoe!)....
Laugh at them, Land!
They are old: are they therefore so wise?
Thou art young, Te Ika: be young!
Thou art new: be thou new!
With keen sight, with fresh forces, appraise those old grounds of their vaunting,
Dip in deep dew of thy seas what swims yet of their catch, and renew it,—
The rest, fish very long caught,
Toss it to them!
And address thee to catches to come.
Rich hauls to bold fishers, new sights to new sight, a new world to new eyes,
To discoverers, discoveries! Yea,
Offspring of Maui! recall the experience of Maui
A dead fish he did not receive it? No, No!
He endured, he adventured, he went forth, he experimented,
He found and he fetch’d it, alive!
Yea, alive! a Fish to give thanks for.
Ah, ah, Tangaroa, well done!
Thou livest, Te Ika a Maui!
Enough! My last word:—
Live! Dare! Be alive!
- ↑ Maui (pronounce approximately Mow’-ee): The Polynesian Hercules, with a certain spice of Mercury, also of Prometheus. He clipped the wings of the Sun, stole fire from the Fire Goddess, fished up New Zealand from the sea, as here related, and all but conquered the Goddess of Death.
- ↑ Paua (Pá-wa): The iridescent Haliotis shell.
- ↑ Tangi (Táng-ee): The Maori wake. Literally, “a crying.”
- ↑ Weka (wék-kah): The New Zealand wood-hen.
- ↑ Ra (Rah): The Sun.
- ↑ Karakia (kah-ráh-kee-ah): An incantation.
- ↑ Pipi (pin-pee): A kind of cockle.
- ↑ Tangaroa (Tah-nga-ró-ah): God of the Sea.
- ↑ Taniwha (Táh-nee-whah): A sea-monster.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Names of New Zealand mountains. Approximate pronunciation—Tong-ah-rée-ro, Tah-rah-nák-ee, Roo-ah-páy-hoo, Ki-kóo-rah, Aow-ráng-ee, Tah-rah-róo-ah, Roo-ah-hée-nay.
- ↑ Kahawai (káh-ha-wy): A fish. Kahawai-bird: A species of tern.
- ↑ Tui (tôo-ee): A honey-eating Bush bird, with a very sweet note.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 13.7 Kauri, etc. (Kow-ree, Tô-ta-ra, Rêe-moo, Máh-ti, Mi-reh, Ráh-tah, Po-hoo-too-káh-wah, Máh-noo-kah): New Zealand Bush trees.
- ↑ Taua (táh-wah): A warrior band.
- ↑ Mere (mér-ray): A flat club.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Waikato, etc. (Wi-kàt-o, Wa-ngah-nòdo-ee): New Zealand rivers.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Wakatipu, etc. (Wak-a-típ-oo, Tów-po): New Zealand lakes, one in the South, the other in the North Island.
- ↑ Te Ika a Maui (Tay Eeka ah Mów-ee): The fish of Maui—the Maori name properly for the North Island only of New Zealand, but often for the whole country.
- ↑ Heads, etc.: The reference, in itself an insult to the Brothers, is to the cooking and eating, in cannibal days, of slain enemies. The Maori oven was a pit dug in the ground and lined with stones for heating.
- ↑ Rangi (Rah-ngee): The sky.
- ↑ Ta-whiri-matea (Tah-wheeree-máh-tayah): God of the Winds.
- ↑ Kotare (kóh-tah-ray): The kingfisher.