CHAPTER 41: The Funeral
Agido couldn't stop screaming. Her face swelled to bursting, veins dilated and blue against her forehead, cheeks flushed crimson. Still her screams echoed along Eleusis' streets, unconsoled even by Anaktoria.
Morning came without a breath of air, and the sunlight filtered through a dull haze. Myrrhine's cheeks were wet and her heart in agony when she sent runners to Athens for Aeschylus and Kallias, to Kolonus for Sophocles, and Phlya for Kleito. She walked the length of the courtyard to the smithy, where the crippled blacksmith sat in silence as if awaiting his own death sentence, bellows not breathing, fires but dying embers. She heard the far-off thud of axes as woodcutters felled giant timbers to warm the hearths of Eleusis.
"Come witness," she said, "the corpse of she who was not merely loved, but the loveliest of the beloved."
He hobbled after Myrrhine to the chamber where the body lay. He fell before it pouring torrents of tears, his words now marked by the Ionian dialect. Around the lifeless form, he pranced on dwarfed legs like some dumb beast. Grief expended, he spoke with uncharacteristic pessimism. "The gods never take villainy but by chance, the noble always."
"Melaina never felt that way."
"Her generous nature wouldn't allow as much," he said, "but I've seen the wicked given excellent care, Hades never calling rogues and knaves but gleeful in stalking the valorous and just. The gods want the most precious with them."
"Be grateful they allowed her with us as long as they did."
"A grievous task we have to live a bleak existence without the one who makes it bearable. Never has the world seen the like of this one."
While awaiting the arrival of family and friends, Myrrhine rummaged her small store of clothing, holding out sable-hued grieving rags. She had nothing suitable in which to dress the corpse and began to worry about it. Before the gates of Palaemon's home, she placed a bowl of lustral spring water and sheared a lock of Melaina's blond hair for the threshold. Palaemon set giant Akmon and Damnameneus to scavenging wood for the funeral pyre and digging the grave. Melaina would lie beside her father at the family cemetery close by.
Helios had already reached the zenith and begun his descent when Hipparete arrived, followed shortly by melancholic Philokleia, Aeschylus' wife, fully within her element and weaving her web of woe. "Punishment for the way you raised her," Philokleia said.
Myrrhine was staggered by the cutting remark but remained silent. Neither Aeschylus nor Kallias were among the mourners. Myrrhine thought it strange, but knew that sending the dead to their final destination was women's work. Hipparete brought a glorious white, ankle-length himation for the deceased, so that was one worry Myrrhine could set aside. No word of Kleito. Perhaps Mnesarchides wouldn't allow her to come.
"Thank goodness you're here, Hipparete," Myrrhine said. "You can help keep my emotions within bounds."
Myrrhine sought restraint in grieving. Law prohibited loud wailing or other unseemly excesses. She didn't know how she could possibly watch the body burn. Just then, all Melaina's best traits came to full bloom. How gentle she was with children, her willingness to give, her devotion to country. There'd be no more illuminating questions, no prophecies. The wonder had gone from Myrrhine's life.
Myrrhine would allow no one but herself to handle the body and trusted others only to retrieve fresh sea water, the origin of all life, and dowse the sponge. But Myrrhine took the sponge herself and tenderly, gently caressed her daughter's body with it, as might a lover, using soothing strokes. She washed the breasts, dabbed dried milk from the nipples, rubbed them with perfumed olive oil as if for a wedding. She washed with particular care the navel where Melaina had been connected to her own body fifteen years before, the tortured privates where Melaina had given birth, smoothed away blood crusts. The limbs were most sorrowful, rigid already with death's creeping stiffness.
The face she washed last, most painful, and allowed herself a single mournful wail. "I hoped you'd nurse me in my dotage, deck my corpse with loving hands." Delicately she washed away caked foam from the lips, affectionately scrubbed the nose, eyelids, fondled the ears. She fixed the golden silk hair, soft, manageable. How many times she'd brushed and braided it, felt its rich curls between her fingers. Lastly, she cut two locks and rolled one within each of the scrolls that Melaina had written for the babes.
The women moved the body to the death couch, Hipparete and Philokleia helping slip on the himation, prop the head with a pillow. Myrrhine added her daughter's favorite earrings and necklace just before Palaemon returned with a gold lip-band to hold Melaina's mouth closed and a gold strophion to grace her head, add queenly presence.
Myrrhine was content with a single bronze obol slipped between the lips, but Palaemon wouldn't have it and substituted two gold-foil coins he'd made himself, Charon's pieces. Myrrhine put a honey cake in Melaina's hand to distract Kerberos when she arrived at the Gates of Hades, and remembering the eagle broach, pinned it between the breasts.
"Yes," said the smith, "she wore it well."
The dark, smelly forms of Akmon and Damnameneus moved the couch upon the high-standing bier and set it in the center of the chamber, feet facing toward the door. Myrrhine draped it with a white cloth and spread myrtle branches over the feet. She swept the chamber and the floor of the smithy, saving the sweepings in a leather pouch.
Death's garniture was complete.
As darkness descended on the ruins of Eleusis, strangers journeying by sea and land gathered before the blacksmith's home. Unaccountably, they'd heard of the death. Observing great composure and quiet, they entered, said prayers bierside, then lingered in the courtyard. Many brought sacrificial animals, slaughtered them, and held their own funerary banquet.
From among them emerged Pindar, the famous bard Myrrhine had seen at the Isthmus. "I'm on my way to witness the siege of Thebes, my home, see it burned or saved. Never would I have thought that the little priestess I saw dance at Poseidon's temple could be dead.
Myrrhine asked if he'd sing before continuing on his way. "Rather than a dirge to incite an unseemly tempest of grief, let it be inspirational. Melaina would have wanted it so."
Pindar accompanied himself on the lyre and sang standing before the crowd in the courtyard, his voice lofting a forlorn refrain.
The death yoke comes hard for all us left behind
but even Kronos, father of all,
can undo none of the Fates' determined endings
whether in right or wrong. The good soul,
pure from all dishonorable deeds, passes
where ocean-breezes blow round the Isle of the Blest
and flowers of gold blaze from radiant trees.
For them, Helios shines in meadows red with roses,
shaded by the incense tree laden with golden fruit.
So shall it be for the deceased here.
Pure was her heart, loyalty to Hellas ever her cause.
Afterward, a chorus of maidens clapped their youthful palms and danced around the bier. Myrrhine let it go awhile, enjoying the sweet voices that reminded her so much of Melaina's. Finally, she stepped forward. "Hold the hymn, stay the dancers!" she called. "Enough! Time for bed. Fatigue is the enemy of us all. Let the mourning continue at the procession early tomorrow."
She thanked Pindar and sent him on his way.
Myrrhine hadn't slept in two days and went to bed hoping for at least a little rest. They'd all be up long before first light. By law, the burial had to be complete by sunrise. She hugged the crying babies to her, each frail squeak reminding her of their need for nourishment. She'd tried goat's milk without success. Little Theonoë spit up, and Zakorus got mad about it, clenching his little fists and wrinkling his brow. She'd find a wet nurse in the morning after the funeral. Before bed, she ingested the rest of the herb Kleito had given Melaina, the kakhry, to produce milk. An overdose taken all at once, it was worth a try. She dozed thinking that she had become her own daughter. Both babes were so precious.
Myrrh
ine woke several times, reasoning that Melaina's death had been a dream, and finally felt it so strongly that she rose and walked into the death chamber, only to find Melaina still on the bier, flesh cold and firm, tight within the grasp of death's stiffness. She stood over the body expecting Melaina to awake, sit up. She remembered that Death and Sleep are twin brothers who dwell in the country of dreams. She kissed Melaina's face, couldn't quit kissing it, the cold lifeless flesh sweet nectar to her lips. She returned to bed.
A ruckus in the house, followed by the babies' wails, woke her. She started at a chill across her bosom, then realized that her bedding was soaked. Tightness in her breasts caused her to pull open her nightgown. Milk flowed copiously. The kakhry had worked. She put a child to each breast, as had Melaina, an elbow cradling each. She felt that sensual, sexual heat creeping into her bosom that she'd not known since breast-feeding Melaina. How she'd missed that feeling. And how different were the two babes. Little Theonoë quietly sucking, placid, pensive, gentle at the nipple, sighed. Shiny-headed Zakorus' greediness already showed, sweat puddles under his eyes as he worked hard at the warm breast, butted when flow slowed like a kid at the nanny's udder, squealed. Guilt swept over Myrrhine, enjoying Melaina's children so.
Myrrhine arrived late at the procession, the bier already upon a funeral wagon. Ghost-like shapes wailed about it. Why the hearse? she wondered. The walk to the family cist tomb is but a short one. Pallbearers would be more appropriate. Dogs stretched awake, yawned. Birds rustled at their roost. Bright stars broke the black overhead. Arkturus, the star that ushered in the harvest of grapes and pears, hung well above the horizon. Oh, how Melaina had loved sweet pears! Kallias' four high-spirited black horses, barely visible in the darkness, stood impatiently before the train. All was ready, waiting. But the procession faced the wrong direction, west not east.
Aeschylus stood before the horses ready to give the command forward.
Just then, Kleito arrived by carriage. Waterfalls of apologies poured forth from her along with tears upon seeing Melaina's corpse atop the bier. Myrrhine hugged her, passed a babe to her, the other to Hipparete. Myrrhine turned back to question Aeschylus.
"She'll not be buried in the family cist," he said.
Fear seized Myrrhine. Aeschylus seemed no longer her late husband's brother, but some evil spirit hovering about the death train. "But Kynegeiros' daughter demands burial alongside her father."
"Not so," he said.
"But the pyre and grave have been made ready beside him."
"I ordered them changed last night, timbers moved, trench filled."
Myrrhine saw Agido and Anaktoria nearby and did not want them to witness her hostility, then thought it better that they learn early men's unjust nature. Rage flamed in Myrrhine's heart, a great hurt fueling it.
"What idiocy! Have you gone mad?" She turned to Kallias. "Why shield yourself behind Aeschylus, Kallias? Is this your doing? You want your wife buried with your family?"
Kallias shuffled his feet. "She'll not be interred there either. Our marriage was never consummated."
Myrrhine, standing close to Kallias, felt a sudden hatred for him, had to check her fists. She had never hit a man. "Melaina warned me of your fickle heart. She saved your life in Asia. Think about what you're doing." She turned back to Aeschylus. "Still, the procession points in the wrong direction. Burial along the Sacred Way is to the east."
"The Sacred Way has nothing for this corpse."
"Cowards! Why didn't you reveal this maliciousness last night? I'm a woman, not one to reverse men's dictates."
"We'd not trouble you unnecessarily," said Aeschylus. "It's the epilepsy. I'll not have the frenzy pollute those already laid to rest."
"Many the hero who died with the falling sickness, yet was given a glorious burial."
"None's death was caused by it."
"Where's the burial to be then? Some dark world corner to hide this shame that is my lovely daughter?"
"West of the city."
"Hence the hearse instead of pallbearers. But all that lies out there is the burial site of those disgraced centuries ago by the futile siege of Thebes, the leaders of Argos' armies who died in the struggle between Oedipus' sons. That is a burial site for commoners, slaves, and those humiliated by defeat."
"The same."
"Melaina during life was infinitely kind. Even as a child, she'd invite my breast to other infants, serve them at her own bountiful table. Remember her prayer before the battle of Salamis? Her call to you to find your own courage? Surely you'd not reward such kindness, such honor, with ostracism."
Aeschylus stood silent.
"Enemy within my own family! I should have known your mischief wouldn't end with marrying off my daughter without me. But this cunning deception strikes at the heart of divine justice. Many an evil will this act spawn."
Myrrhine shrieked, then left the lot of them and returned inside the house. She took up a dull blade, chopped at her hair, scraping at it angrily until it was cut close about her face. She noticed broad streaks of gray that had come upon her overnight. Then she turned her nails upon her cheeks and unleashed sharp pain that lured ever deeper. Runnels of bright blood merged with her tears' stinging torrents. She cherished the sharp pain, delighted as her nails stripped skin from her own flesh. She rubbed filth into her grieving cloths, ripped them, covered herself in hearth ashes.
She returned, unleashing her fury anew on Aeschylus. "In this bosom festers wrath and hate immeasurable."
Aeschylus shook his head. "Don't surrender to unwarranted grief and rage. The law requires natural sadness and goodwill instead of wild, frenzied mourning."
"You forget," she said, "when Zeus apportioned honors, Grief asked and Zeus granted a share."
"Yes, but only a share."
The procession moved slowly through the dark city gate. Kleito held a babe in one arm and helped Myrrhine walk with the other. They left cobblestone for the dirt road west toward Megara, past the earth-scarred quarry to a stone enclosure at the edge of town where the ancient Argive warriors lay buried. Beside the enclosure, Myrrhine saw a tower of timber and a hill of dirt beside an open grave.
Myrrhine turned on Aeschylus again. "Do not do this evil thing," she said. "Lead us back beside her father's grave."
Aeschylus remained silent.
Myrrhine clenched her teeth, so her words hissed through them. "The procrastination of the divine in punishing the wicked is infamous. But never you mind the slow grinding. The mill of the gods ever turns. Soft though she treads, divine Justice in her own season seizes them unawares, deals the fatal blow." Then she put him out of her mind and turned back to her daughter.
Myrrhine fell to her knees on the soft, fresh earth. Here she'd have the last glimpse of her daughter in this life. She climbed upon the bier, took Melaina's stiff hand in hers. "Ah me! What mournful dirge shall I sing to you? O Melaina, how can I now go through life? Hear me, sweet daughter. Never did I realize how much I loved you. My life is gone, my heart in ruins. Hear me, daughter. It is I who call! Ruined me, printing a kiss on your dead lips." With great spasms of sobs she fell upon her daughter, embraced her, cuddled her face.
Finally, she stepped down, and Aeschylus and Kallias hoisted Melaina upon the funeral pyre. Myrrhine saw Palaemon, his twisted shape never looking so burdened by deformity, hovering about, stepping forward as if to help, then stepping back shaking his head.
Myrrhine took a torch from Aeschylus and stepped up to the felled timbers. "O Melaina! Forgive me, dearest! Had I Orpheus' tuneful voice to charm Demeter's daughter, I'd descend into the Underworld and return you to life. Not even Kerberos, Hades fell hound, could hold me from restoring you." A great pain seized Myrrhine's chest as she touched flame to tinder. She circled the pyre, spreading fire along its flanks.
The greedy blaze leaped along the timbers, wetting each limb with cleansing flame, licked her daughter's garments until they also burned. "O divine Demeter, I release my daughter to the fire to make
her immortal. Receive her into your care. If it weren't for these two babes, my limbs would be stretched beside hers on these same flames."
Myrrhine saw the dark shapes of Akmon and Damnameneus hovering just outside the firelight and thought of a use for them. "The grave pit must be larger, deeper," she said. That set them grumbling about the first pit they'd covered in, but still their huge shapes again bent hard over their shovels. Myrrhine's mind was a whir of odious thoughts.
She cast her eyes over the desolate landscape, then looked out over the bay. These were the deep black bogs where frogs croaked, dread children of lake and land who live in both worlds representing both the living and dead, speaking their, "ko-ax, ko-ax," from the depths of marsh rushes. Myrrhine made up her mind to work something dirty to repay Aeschylus for burying her daughter in this forlorn moorland.
As the flames rose skyward, loosing their roar of sorrow, Myrrhine stepped back from the heat, then stepped forward again, relishing the pain it caused her lacerated cheeks. Her daughter was on her own, lost from view by the conflagration. Loud cracks scattered coals, and sparks soared skyward, trails of brilliance dancing into the heavens. Ever higher, upward it burned, the purifying flame soaring amid the stars, all accompanied by Myrrhine's wails of woe as her daughter winged her way to Elysium.
As the fire died, glowing skeletons of coals ribbed the pyre. The iridescent timbers gave way and crashed to the ground. Myrrhine stood within the ashes, searching for her daughter's remains. As the glow faded, she decided against letting anyone help bury Melaina's bones. Fetching the babes from Hipparete and Kleito, Myrrhine passed them off to Palaemon despite their whimpers of protest, then turned on Aeschylus.
"Off with you, scoundrel!" she shouted. "I'll not have you at the burial."
Aeschylus stood his ground. "I fear you devise some cureless ill against us all. Say you'll quench your thirst for this sea of misery."
"I do only what benefits my daughter. Should I catch you here when I sacrifice, I'll slit your throat and throw your blood-drained body into the pit along with her urn of ashes." She picked up and threw a clod from the burial mound, hit him in the chest.
Aeschylus was visibly shaken, and Philokleia stopped her ranting. Both slinked grudgingly off into the darkness.
Myrrhine hugged Agido and Anaktoria, bid them leave with their parents, then told Kleito to wait at the grotto. "No need for you to be part of what I am about to do," she said. Kallias and Hipparete had already left aboard the carriage.
With them gone, Myrrhine realized that Sophocles had not attended the funeral. No matter. She quickly turned to the smith. "I'll need Akmon and Damnameneus to do something dirty." She then faced the two dark shapes, feeling camaraderie, fidelity, great comfort in their presence. "If you're not up to it, say so. I'll not hold it against you. My anger rages out of control."
Myrrhine knew the two tended to be short on words, and now only heard a grunt from each, something low, harsh, favorable.
"I want the four black stallions. Can you get them?"
"Kallias will not part with them willingly," said Palaemon.
"He need not know. Follow him, quickly! Steal the horses!" An inspiration seized her. "Also, bring a single thin sheet of lead, enough for a curse tablet, and a nail. Bring Kallias' chariot. Steal everything breakable, pots, jars, from wherever. And most of all, a sharp blade of the finest bronze, a hammer, and an apple."
Akmon and Damnameneus didn't wait for Palaemon's okay. They disappeared, hungry to execute a fell deed.
Myrrhine did not douse the coals with wine, nor did she loiter as the embers cooled. She collected the ashes, skull, rib bones, knuckles, ankles, charred vertebrae while relishing the sting of the hot coals as they singed her daughter's cinders into her own hands. She scooped the melted metal, puddles of gold left by the eagle-broach, headband and strophion, then draped herself in Melaina's hot ashes that they might burn her daughter's essence into her.
All this she placed alongside the delicate bones within the funeral urn: blackened joints first, next the fine fingers and toes as were left, gold puddles, all capped by the skull. The ordering she changed several times, unable to get it right. Only the smith's troubled countenance hovering over her put a stop to it. She looked up into his face, set aglow by the coals of the burned out pyre, heard the children wailing in his arms.
"Forgive me," he said, "for what I'm about to ask, but I've seen you harden yourself to this task such as I'd never believed possible." He stopped talking and stood blinking in the dark. "Though I've the words, I lack the courage to speak."
"Don't tremble so, Palaemon. I know nothing but good could cause your questioning."
"It's thoughts of Medea troubling me."
Myrrhine wondered what on earth could be the connection with the Kolchian sorceress of ancient days. Then, she realized. Medea had killed her own children. "Brave Palaemon, I read your heart, and I'm sorry for causing such concern. Never could I steel myself to slay the children. Rest assured, I've not calculated such a murderous deed."
Myrrhine climbed down into the grave pit, dark scar in Mother Earth, and brought Melaina's metal urn with her. Her sandals bogged in the moist earth, and she noticed the musty, earthy odor of the Underworld.
"Dear daughter," she said aloud, "I'll leave here for now what remains of your earthly form. But never think I'll rest until you're laid alongside your father."
Myrrhine climbed to the surface amid the rhythmic clap of horses' hooves. Kallias' carriage careened into sight, the black steeds greedy at the run, puffing steam, the chariot stacked with clanking vessels of every shape, size, and material. Akmon worked hard at the reins, bringing all to a halt, while Damnameneus labored to keep the clanging jars from cracking.
Myrrhine asked for the nail and lead sheet first, and as would a schoolchild writing upon a tablet, she scratched harsh, querulous words into the soft surface.
May Aeschylus, the tragic poet, go to Tartarus,
and likewise Kallias, the richest man in Athens.
I bind Kallias before Hermes the Restrainer and Persephone,
the tongue of Kallias, the hands of Kallias, the soul of Kallias
the feet of Kallias, the body of Kallias, the head of Kallias
because he deserted his wife, my daughter.
I bind Aeschylus before Hermes the Restrainer,
the hands, the feet, the tongue, the body of Aeschylus,
the will of Aeschylus for improper burial of Melaina.
Myrrhine labored over each word, ensuring the letters were of uneven size and written in different directions, upside down. Greater the disorder, the more powerful the curse. She folded the tablet and, taking the bronze nail into her hand, grew large and menacing, the likeness of some awful goddess of inevitability, she seemed, divine Fate herself. Through cold lifeless lead, she hammered home the nail as if marking the close of an age, then tossed the curse tablet into the grave alongside the urn.
Akmon and Damnameneus unharnessed the carriage beside the grave and took the horses behind the ancient gravesite wall. Myrrhine asked for the sword and saw that they'd thieved the glorious blade that Aeschylus had captured from a Persian at the battle of Salamis. "You've exceeded all my hopes," she said.
She asked that they bring forward the first horse.
The black stallion trembled in her presence, nervous ripples cascading along its obsidian flanks. She spoke sweet warbled words into its ear, reached for the flowing mien, then slit its throat in one swift stroke. The horse didn't bolt, just stood dumbfounded while its gaping wound waterfalled blood into the grave. Slowly its legs gave way before collapsing in a heap in the grave.
Myrrhine wiped the blade on her gown, asked for the apple and the second horse. "Blindfold it," she said, knowing it'd bolt at the sight of its felled companion. She split the apple and rubbed it on the horse's nostrils, let its molars crunch the pulp, so it'd not smell the fresh blood. Each of the remaining three she sacrificed in this way, said a prayer over the
stack of fresh bodies, and finally, threw Aeschylus' sword in on top.
"Throw the jars from the carriage here on the ground," she said, "and give me the hammer." Then she loosed her rage.
They carefully set the first pot at the side of the grave, and she smashed it with the hammer, shoved the pieces in on top of the horses. Bewildered, the two gently set the next jar on the ground before her, and she smashed it as well. Akmon and Damnameneus finally caught the mood and began throwing jars to the ground, crashing them into the grave pit. They'd brought more than pots and serving dishes, having stripped Kallias' stable of all his saddles, bridles and blankets.
The medal urns Myrrhine smashed with the hammer, clanging like a dull bell ringing over the plain and out into the swampy bay, sending word to all the Underworld that a beloved was coming amongst them. The grave brimmed, and they heaped dirt upon it, packing the mound tight as the bright morning sun broke the eastern horizon. Myrrhine deposited the house sweepings she'd brought with her, then scattered brilliant flowers over the mound.
Myrrhine hurled herself to the ground and hammered the earth with her fists as if pounding the gates of the Underworld. Long she beat the nourishing earth, bent forward on her knees, wailing to Hades and cold Persephone, tear-soaking her lap. She finished with a call to Melaina. "Daughter of Kynegeiros, have a happy life in Hades. Pass swiftly through the golden gates of Elysium. No year-long mourning will I keep, but all my life."
The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis Page 87