The Labyrinth: 1
Zeus himself could not undo the web of stone closing around me. I have forgotten the men I was before; I follow the hated path of monotonous walls that is my destiny. Severe galleries which curve in secret circles to the end of the years. Parapets cracked by the days' usury. In the pale dust I have discerned signs that frighten me. In the concave evenings the air has carried a roar toward me, or the echo of a desolate howl. I know there is an Other in the shadows, whose fate it is to wear out the long solitudes which weave and unweave this Hades and to long for my blood and devour my death. Each of us seeks the other. If only this were the final day of waiting.
The Labyrinth: 1 - meaning Summary
A Maze of Divided Selves
The speaker is trapped in a maze that is both a physical prison and a figure for a divided, repetitive existence. He has lost touch with his former identities and senses another being moving through the same enclosure. Their mutual search is driven by fear, loneliness, and violence: each expects the encounter to end in death. The poem turns the classical labyrinth into a vision of inescapable fate.
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