‘No,’ he replied, ‘wise Odysseus, valiant companion of so many battles, it was no storm that took my life, nor savage warriors protecting their land and their women. It was murder. It was my own wife who armed the hand of her lover Aegisthus.’
I could not help but recall his terrible, cruel sacrifice of Iphigenia, his own daughter – an innocent victim offered so that the greatest fleet of all time could set sail, so that our endeavour could commence. Perhaps he no longer thought of it, or perhaps he had buried the memory in the darkest depths of his soul. All he could remember was the wrongs he had suffered, the plot and the massacre, his wife’s betrayal.
‘As we made our return to Mycenae,’ he started again, and his voice sounded as dark and deep as bronze sounds when it is pounded, ‘fires carried the news from hill to hill, from mountain to mountain, all the way to the palace. The lookouts posted up on the tower of the chasm saw the flames and announced our arrival. When we entered the gate of the two lions, it creaked on its hinges and our chariots thundered down empty streets, past the silent tombs of the ancient Perseid heroes. The whole sky was dark, for the new moon shed no light, but the palace was not: it was bright with torches burning to celebrate our victory. Surely enough, the news of the fall of Troy and kingdom of Priam had already reached them. My wife had prepared a banquet. And it was there, like a bull at the trough, that I was slain by the axe of Aegisthus. But that was only the start of the carnage! My comrades were slaughtered as well, one by one, like swine. The floor smoked with their blood. Our bodies lay sprawled among the overturned tables and all around the great bowl brimming with wine . . .’
Terror gnawed at me but wanax Agamemnon, shepherd of heroes, hadn’t finished: ‘Odysseus, you’ve often seen warriors come to a bloody end, whether in the fury of the brawl or in fighting hand-to-hand, but even you, inured to the horrors of war as you are, even you would have shuddered. Your heart would have wept at such butchery. As I lay dying, with nothing to push back the bronze axe but my bare hands, I finally spied my wife, proud daughter of Tyndareus, Clytaemnestra. She turned her back to me and left the room. That bitch lacked the heart to close my eyes as I descended, groaning, to Hades, or even to close my mouth with her hands. If she could commit such a monstrous crime, against her legitimate husband, who among us can ever trust his woman again?
‘You who have yet to make your return, trust nobody! Say one thing but hide the rest. Keep your intentions hidden until you are sure that your wife is not plotting against you. But surely you, Odysseus, need not fear, because your wife is Penelope, daughter of Icarius, a wise woman who will have remained faithful to you. When we left, she had a child at her breast who now has certainly taken his place among the warriors. You will have the immense joy of seeing him a grown man. You will feast your eyes on him, clasp him to your chest . . .’
He sobbed, Agamemnon, wanax of heroes, and sighed. ‘I will never be able to embrace my own son. I never saw my boy grow up. I don’t even know what has happened to him. He must still be alive. I haven’t seen him here among the dead. Perhaps he’s been taken in by one of the other kings, my brother Menelaus in Sparta or Nestor on Pylos . . .’
We wept, facing each other in that still, dark air, in that world of regret and heartbreak. And it was then that I saw rise before me a sudden, appalling sight: the shadow of Achilles!
He hailed me. ‘Odysseus, glorious son of Laertes! My brave, reckless friend: can nothing stop you? How will you ever be able to think up something more foolhardy than this endeavour? You’ve dared to enter Hades, the kingdom of the deceased.’
I trembled. He was a frightful vision indeed, dressed in the armour he had been wearing when he killed big-hearted Hector. But it wasn’t real: there was no gleaming metal there, only its likeness. This was how he imagined himself, and it was thus that his spirit formed his image. But as I looked closer I could see the bronze was turning green, from being long abandoned, and I thought of that brilliant sunny day I’d gone with Nestor to Phthia of the Myrmidons to plead with Achilles to join in the war with all the other princes of Achaia. I had succeeded in convincing him and was so pleased with myself for having accomplished the task. And now, what was this thing in front of me? Who was this grey ghost speaking inside my heart? Why had such a bitter destiny been created for humankind? So deep was the sadness in his eyes that I thought I might find words to ease his melancholy; that I might speak to him as I did that day we walked in the woods, followed by his wondrous, unharnessed horses, Xanthus the blond and Balius the dappled. What a fool I was.
‘Achilles, most glorious of us all, most valiant, I’ve come here to learn my destiny, to question the prophet Tiresias and learn from him how I can get back to Ithaca. I have suffered greatly since we left the shores of the Troad. As I tried to make my return, I was swept up in a storm and dragged off course for many days and night. When the wind quit, we found ourselves abandoned in an unfamiliar world populated by monsters and by fierce, savage peoples. I have lost all my ships. I have seen my comrades massacred, slain like beasts at the slaughter. I have not yet reached my homeland. The gods have not yet had their fill – they sport with me and amuse themselves by inflicting every sort of suffering on me.
‘Do not grieve that you are dead, Achilles. I myself have desired to be so many times. When you died, we raised a gigantic pyre. Three hundred heavy-footed warriors escorted you there! Your glorious armour shone bright on your body. The flames rose high enough to scorch the vault of the heavens. We all filed before the blazing fire and one by one we tossed in locks of our hair, our belts, our silver-studded baldrics, our bracelets, even our rings with the seals that preserve our names. Then we raised a gigantic mound over your ashes and we sacrificed to your wrathful shade: an infinite number of victims, bulls and rams and men, prisoners bound by chains. Still now, a fire burns there day and night. Any sailor who passes along the coast of Asia sees those inextinguishable flames and says: “That is the tomb of Achilles, that magnanimous, valiant man whose shout alone was so powerful that entire armies would flee upon hearing it.”
‘What do I have to look forward to but suffering and despair? When my time comes, my body will lie forgotten on some deserted beach. You, instead, will always have power as you do, even here, over the pale heads of the dead.’
I fell silent and the hissing of Erebus, that deep, infinite lament, was the only voice in the darkness, until Achilles spoke: ‘Do not praise death, Odysseus, my shining friend. I would rather be a slave for the poorest and most miserable of men on the luminous earth than reign over the dead. Life is the only gift, the only treasure, the only magnificent adventure. I lost it for a mere moment of dazzling light, and I will spend eternity mourning it.’
Around him thronged many thousands of other ghosts, fallen warriors, and their faint voices sounded like birds chirping in the dark or bats squeaking. Only one of them, huge, majestic, stood apart and stared at me mutely with eyes of fire. I recognized him instantly and felt my heart wither in my chest: Ajax! Invincible Ajax, bulwark of the Achaians. It all came back to me, the shame and dishonour, the despair of the humiliated giant, the cruel, inevitable death that was his destiny.
I called out to him: ‘Ajax! Not even dead have you given up your anger over that cursed suit of arms! It was taken from you unjustly and given back to you too late. What a terrible misfortune for us! Because of that armour, the Achaians lost our greatest tower of strength. The way you left us was the font of immense suffering for me, for all of us. I beseech you, believe me: I would have given my life to bring you back. But your fate had already been decreed by the gods and I could not undo what had been done. Please, join us, speak to me, let us console each other, set aside our woes. Forget your grudge, I beg of you.’
I implored him, but he gave no answer. He turned his back on me and melted away into the multitude of weeping ghosts, dissolving into the fog.
8
THEN, IN AN INSTANT, it all disappeared. All that was left was the mouth of the cavern,
spouting forth dense vapours with an acidic stench. The faces of my lost comrades, their words, their regrets: had I dreamed it all? And yet the cold I felt was real, and real was the grey, icy rain that penetrated into my bones. Most real were the words of Tiresias, the Theban prophet. I remembered them then as I do now: they pierced my heart, my mind, like needles. The offspring of other words which I’d heard from the cyclops, from Calchas, from the mistress of wild beasts on that remote island: late and broken, late and broken, late and broken! But I was still alive, wasn’t I? Still putting one foot in front of the other on a muddy path under rain-swollen clouds. Distant thunder greeted my return to the world of the living.
Not a blade of grass, not a flower, not a ray of sunlight, not a living being around me. Or rather, nothing but a toad, a misshapen creature, that I saw scuttling down the path that had led me to the kingdom of the dead, croaking his hoarse protest against the wickedness of nature. When I got to the point where the footprints of the dead began, or ended, I looked to my left and there I saw the city of the Cimmerians on the black cliff, glowing like burnished metal in the flashes of lightning. I thought of my cry, the triple war cry of the kings of Ithaca. I’d raised it from my ship as I was leaving my island, I’d hurled it at the phalanges of warriors brawling under the walls of Troy. And now I howled it into the storm. It was louder than the thunder, than my fear, than my bitter melancholy.
I thought: ‘Why didn’t I see the shades of Hector, or Priam, or little Astyanax? Perhaps the lady of the Underworld wanted to spare me the sight of a decapitated trunk holding his own head in his hands, or a man stripped of his skin, stripped of his face, unrecognizable . . . or a rock-battered, mangled infant.’ I could no longer even call up an image of the enemy we’d defeated. We’d wiped out their bodies and their souls.
Then I started humming the lullaby that my nurse would sing to me as a child to put me to sleep. The song was a balm to my aching heart, and as I pushed forward it gave me strength. I got to the top of a hill and from there I could see my ship. My mates had stretched the sail from one end to the other, bound it fore and aft, and like chicks under the wings of their mother hen they were sheltering from the storm, keeping each other warm by staying close. Around them the white-rimmed waves lashed out at the jagged cliffs.
One of them saw me and yelled out: ‘Wanax!’ And the others started shouting as well, their voices joining in one by one. By the time I reached the shore, they had thrown out a line. I grabbed on to it and entered the water, advancing one arm’s length after the other, walking through the grey, gelid sea until I found the flank of my ship. My comrades hoisted me on board, carried me to shelter under the sail, rubbed me dry with a cloth and covered me with a cloak. I was livid with cold, and trembling.
When I looked at them, I saw my own face reflected in their faces, like in a mirror of bronze. I saw stupor, fright, incredulity. Although the rain was crashing down over our heads, an overturned shield stopped the fire of the brazier from going out, and the warmth it gave off slowly started the blood flowing through my veins again. I threw the cloak over my shoulders, went to the bow and saw that the wind was blowing in the opposite direction to the one we had sailed in on. I ordered my men to run up the sail, to take their places at the oars and to turn the prow seaward. I unsheathed my glorious bronze sword and sliced the hawser in two with a single blow. Perimedes and Eurylochus moved to man the steering oar. My ship left the shelter of the rocky shore and took to the open sea, advancing swiftly under a billowing sail.
We travelled all night, riding the foaming current of the great river Ocean, the next day as well and then the night after that. As time passed, the air became milder, the waves relaxed into long curved lines, light filtered through the clouds and finally the sun appeared, dazzling us with blinding reflections and heat that finally banished death from my clenched limbs.
‘What did you see?’ Eurylochus asked me. ‘Did you really meet the shadows of the dead?’
‘I saw what I went to see. I met the unhappy souls of our fallen comrades. My mother is dead.’ I could feel the tears running down my cheeks.
He didn’t dare ask me anything else, seeing the pain I was in. Until evening fell. Then he started up again from where he had left off: ‘Was our future revealed to you? Will we return home? Will we see our wives and children?’
His hand was clamped down hard on my arm.
‘Yes, but only if you all obey me, if you do everything I order you to do. If I’m not obeyed, it will mean the ruin of the ship and of all of us. We must act as one. If only one of us were to survive, he would no longer be a man; his life would no longer have any purpose, would it? Terrible trials await us still, without a doubt. But what can rouse fear in men who have sailed the livid Ocean through the lands of eternal night, in men who have dared to question the pale heads of the dead?’
Eurylochus asked no more, but raised his eyes to the stars, to the bear that guides the way north – she was behind us. He seemed deeply discouraged. He had certainly expected a blow-by-blow telling of what had happened after I’d been swallowed into the Underworld.
I simply couldn’t give him what he wanted. It was too painful for me to dwell on what I’d experienced – I could not bring myself to relive that world of death. All I told him was to steer straight until we reached the inlet to the inner sea. From there we would begin our journey home.
My days and my nights were filled with the trials that awaited us. I dreaded the thought of arriving at the island of Trinacria, finding the pastures of the Sun who sees all from above. Would we be able to resist our hunger? Would I be able to bend destiny? ‘Late and broken’ were the words that sounded continuously in my heart.
We sailed east for many days and I continued to hope that we would reach a point where the world of the impossible would give way to familiar places, recognizable lands. I longed to find my goddess again. Would I hear her voice anew, would she guide and protect me?
I still hadn’t understood how vast that world was.
It was quite early one morning, while I still slept at the stern under my cloak, when Perimedes’ hand roused me from slumber: ‘Wanax, there’s something strange going on. I can’t understand it. Look!’
I got up and walked to the ship’s rail. ‘I don’t understand,’ I replied. ‘What is it?’
‘Look at what’s happening,’ he said. ‘There’s no starboard wind, none at all. The sea is calm. And yet the ship is being dragged in the opposite direction. Even if I hold the steering oar fully to the left, it doesn’t matter. I cannot oppose whatever’s pulling at us.’
It was true. An unyielding force, as if a strong crosswind were at work.
I was determined to thwart it and stay on course. I gave my men orders to drop all oars into the water on the right side of the ship and row with all they had on the left side. A futile effort: it was impossible to change course.
‘Look!’ said Perimedes again. ‘Smoke!’
I felt a sense of growing presentiment. Could the smoke be coming from Circe’s house? We were soon to find out that it was. The outline of an island we knew well appeared distinctly at a short distance from the promontory where we’d first landed. That mysterious force was dragging us all the way to the port where we had once moored the ship and, as we drew closer and closer, I saw her.
She was standing on the height overlooking the port and was holding out her arms. It looked like she was calling us in. We manoeuvred stern-first into port, the way we chose to approach the shore whenever possible so we’d be ready to head back out to the open sea at a moment’s notice.
I jumped onto dry land and at that same instant Circe turned her back to me and started walking towards her house. I gave my shipmates a look. None of them seemed eager to join me.
I said: ‘Men, I’m going to follow Circe. The mistress of this place has certainly called us back to her island for an important reason and I must discover what it is. In the meantime, stock the ship with water and go hunting. Cook t
he meat and smoke it so that it will last longer. The rest of you will check the ship plank by plank to make sure no damage was suffered during our journey to the mouth of Hades. When all your work has been completed, search for Elpenor’s body and place it on the pyre. Raise a large mound over his ashes, plunge his oar into it deeply, as he asked me to do, and make ritual offerings to his spirit.’
The men all set to work as I started down the same path I’d followed the first time we’d landed there, the path that led to the home of the lady of the island. Circe ran out to greet me and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me close.
‘Did you call up the shadows of the dead as I bid you?’ she whispered. ‘Did you meet the spirit of the Theban prophet?’
‘I did,’ I replied.
She released me and looked into my eyes, satisfied that I had told her the truth. ‘I never thought that you would succeed. Or that you would return,’ she said.
‘And yet you urged me to go . . .’
‘I thought that if there was a single man in the world capable of succeeding, it would be you. I don’t want to know what Tiresias told you.’
‘Then why drag my ship back to your island? We had already said our farewells, and I never thought I’d see you again.’
‘Because there is a thought that obsesses you, a thought that won’t give you peace. And I know that I alone can help you understand why.’
I wasn’t expecting such words. My mind was confused. I suddenly feared, no, I was certain, that I’d dreamed up everything; that I’d never left her island, or perhaps never even left Ithaca. But then I looked around: there were trees, there was a house, there were clouds in the sky and butterflies on the flowers, and food on the table, and wine. And a woman of resplendent beauty standing in front of me.
She took me by the hand and led me to her bed. It was no longer perched on the branches of a tree with big white flowers, nor did it stand on a floor of red stone. There were soft carpets everywhere and the big bed lay upon them. It had neither feet nor a frame, but was soft, woollen, covered with linen and big pillows.
Odysseus: The Return Page 10