*
Her mother woke Melaina long before sunup. The procession of the dead had begun. They stepped outside into starlight and saw a cortege of horse-drawn hearses stretching through the streets. A torchbearer went before each, followed by men carrying weapons in one hand and pounding their heads with the other in the customary display of grief. Then came the hearse, followed by wailing women ripping their hair and clothes. An aulos player, his two-fluted instrument piping a mournful tune learned on some foreign shore, brought up the rear.
Melaina walked with her mother beside the train and through the dark until the procession reached the sea. Here the night's tree felling had produced timber now piled high along the beach. The restless surf gently tossed about the mustered battleships.
Melaina said, "I've never understood why we cremate the bodies, then bury the bones."
Her mother said nothing at first, then replied, "When Demeter came to Eleusis, she nurtured Metaneira's infant son, Demophoon, and while doing so placed him in the hearth to burn away his mortality. If Metaneira hadn't foolishly stopped Demeter, she'd have made him immortal."
"Fire can do that?"
"It nurtures the soul. This world's tribulations are the 'fires of life' given by the gods to make ready the soul for the Afterlife. If we don't experience the spiritual fires, we'll be stillborn in the next world. Demeter was simply accelerating the process. At the end of earthly life, we finish it off with literal fire, cremation."
"We are the beaten metal in the smithy of the gods."
"Well put, Melaina. Fire is the gateway between this world and the next."
"Palaemon's words," she said, "spoken to me but a few days ago."
"The smith is wise man. If he wasn't, I wouldn't put up with you visiting him."
"But why bury the bones?"
"Burial is the impregnation of Earth. We must be conceived within Earth's womb to be reborn in the Elysian Fields. Bones are symbolic of the soul's seed."
"As in the initiation?"
"Shhh. Don't speak of such things in public. The uninitiated might hear."
"But some don't cremate."
"Not everyone believes the same. Many want the body whole when left in Earth's charge."
Melaina looked north toward Eleusis, dreading that she might see a red glow, telltale sign of Persian fire. She added Palaemon to her list of worries should the Persians mount a land assault.
Along shore before the docked triremes, stacks of timber stretched into darkness. Each corpse was unloaded from its hearse and laid gently on the mound of limbs. When the funeral pyres were piled high with the dead, the male relatives stepped forward, cut dark locks of hair from their own heads and laid them across the corpses. The men dug deep pits, slaughtered a great number of beasts: cows, sheep, goats, pigs, and let the black blood flow into the earth. Bones, fat, and entrails they laid beside each corpse. The glistening red flesh they set aside for the feast to follow.
Two priests stepped forward, each carrying two torches, and approached Myrrhine and Melaina. They offered the two priestesses the flaming timbers.
Melaina realized then that she and her mother were to have the honor of lighting the pyres. Following victory over the Persians, rumors had spread that Ajax had been seen on the helm of the lead ship. Her prayer the night before battle was still on everyone's lips. As Melaina wrapped her fists about the rough stem of the two torches, she felt a wave of goose bumps. She remembered her vision of Kore from the night they performed the Mysteries, after seeing her father's apparition. Kore had carried two torches.
The women touched torches to the fresh-cut timber, but though they lingered with flames licking the gnarled bark, the fire would not light. Her mother stood back from the pyre, faced north, and motioned for the crowd's holy silence. Then the two priestesses held high the torches, so that they spread flickering light upon them all and the restless triremes afloat nearby. Myrrhine prayed aloud:
"O strong-hearted brothers: cold Boreas, god of north wind, and warm-whispering Zephyrus, god of brightening west wind, children of air, light-winged ones of the far reaches. Blow a lofty, quivering breeze upon these broken boughs; ignite our pyre so we may send these cold corpses to their rightful place in the Underworld."
Mother and daughter walked off in opposite directions along the beach, the flames now greedily enveloping the fallen limbs. The pyre was soon borne aloft by the roaring of a mighty internal wind carrying with it the chorus of wails. The stench of burning flesh filled the air with the rewards of war.
The igniting ritual complete, mother and daughter reunited to watch the women caretake the fire, nursing their loved ones into the Afterlife. The women's wailing mixed with the flames to form the confluence of two mighty skyward-flowing streams, one of sound, the other fire, wherein marks the entrance to Hades.
Soon the glowing skeleton of embers stood as one mighty deceased beast. Gradually the glow faded as pink-shrouded dawn broke to eclipse all but the brightest embers. When all was reduced to ashes, the women retrieved the bones of their beloved, and families who lived there on Salamis retired to their own cemeteries for the burials. The refugees of Attica collected the bones of their loved ones in urns, but the burials would wait until they could return home.
Before anyone left, several generals stepped forward; among them were Eurybiades, commander-in-chief from Sparta; Kimon; Xanthippus; Themistocles, commander of the Athenian fleet and engineer of the victory; and many others Melaina didn't recognize. The generals stood on a rise before the assembled crowd. Themistocles spoke with a new confidence, perhaps puffed up a little by arrogance. His voice boomed over the crowd so that even those in ships offshore could hear.
"By taking my advice and engaging Xerxes here at Salamis, the War Council has saved Hellas, gained a great victory, and preserved the Peloponnese. Already Xerxes prepares his land forces for evacuation. Although the full extent of his retreat is unknown, this bodes well for all. Soon we'll return home. Athens has been liberated!"
Before he finished, Aeschylus pulled Melaina and Myrrhine from the crowd. His eyes flashed excitement. "I've word from Eleusis," he said. "The Persians never made it that far west. The entire town escaped unharmed, and even the old Hierophant is in good spirits. Already I have a boat waiting at the dock. Soon as you collect your things, you can return."
Grandfather was right after all, Melaina thought but did not say, biting her tongue just in time. That was close, she realized.
The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis Page 28