Chasing Odysseus

by S. D. Gentill

  Slowly, the beautiful witch moved from Machaon and wrapped her arms around Cadmus’ neck. She reached up and kissed him softly on the lips. For his part Cadmus showed no signs of resisting. “Odysseus, the nimble-witted King of Ithaca must go to the Hall of Hades and Persephone the Dread. I will tell him how to get there, and what to do when he finds the land of the dead. He must speak with Tieresias, the blind Theban poet, now long in the ground.”

  “Why?” asked Lycon.

  Circe moved from Cadmus to the youngest son of Agelaus, who coloured considerably. She ran her long fingers through his dark hair and whispered, “So sweet.” She stroked his face. “Tieresias alone can direct Odysseus home. Without his counsel the King of Ithaca will never again see the shores of his beloved kingdom, or know any other land as home.” She paused for a moment and then she went on. “I can also tell you that you will not get what you want from Odysseus until your ship sees home.”

  The sorceress unwrapped herself from Lycon. “You must go,” she said, “before I change my mind and seek to keep you for amusement. You have my word that I will release Odysseus, and all of his men, in three days.”

  They thanked the goddess and left her palace as she returned to her bed, and Odysseus. They did not light torches, but made their way back to the Phaeacian ship by moonlight, holding firmly onto Hero, for she could not see a thing. Occasionally, Lycon would stop and carve a warning into the trunk of a tree for future travellers who might wander into Circe’s lair.

  Beside their good ship, they built a fire and cooked a meal, for they were all ravenous. They exchanged their stories as they ate. When Machaon mentioned his meeting with Odysseus in the forest, his brothers sat up with interest.

  “Did he challenge you?” asked Lycon.

  “No — he thought he knew me.”

  “Who did he think you were?” said Cadmus.

  “Hermes.”

  “Hermes ... son of who?”

  “Hermes — the god, Hermes.”

  “You don’t look like Hermes!”

  “I wouldn’t know — I’ve never met him ... it is possible that the god is very handsome ... ”

  “You impersonated a god?” Hero demanded, aghast, as Cadmus and Lycon laughed.

  “Well, not really,” Machaon defended himself. “I just didn’t get a chance to disillusion him ... it would have been a shame to do so — Odysseus seemed quite keen on Hermes ... ” He shook his head. “Greeks ... Anyway, it turned out to be quite useful that Odysseus thought himself unenchantable by Circe.” He detailed to his brothers what had happened inside the house, as Hero prayed to appease Hermes for any affront Machaon may have given the god.

  “Do you think we should have just left Odysseus?” Lycon asked. “What if she decides to keep him?”

  Cadmus laughed. “Odysseus is not a young man, Ly — I don’t think he could take more than three days.”

  “It’s not going to be up to him,” said Hero.

  “Oh, I think she’ll keep her word,” Cadmus replied as he broke bread. “The poor woman was obviously completely besotted with me — it’s happened before — this thing with Odysseus will never last ... ”

  Lycon called him an idiot and soon the two were engaged in good-natured combat.

  Hero lay back on the gentle hillside and gazed up. She knew somewhere above her was the constellation they had been calling Agelaus. She wished that she could see it, and her eyes welled suddenly.

  Machaon, who sat by her, noticed.

  “Hero, are you unwell?” he asked, afraid that the poison of the lotus could be reasserting its effect.

  She shook her head.

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “Mac,” she said miserably, “why do you think that Cad and Lycon turned into wolves, and I became a mountain lion?”

  “That’s why you’re upset?” he asked, bemused. “You wanted to be a wolf?”

  “No,” she snapped, irritated. “I just wonder why I am so different from all of you.”

  Machaon smiled. “Well, you’re not a man, and you were born an Amazon.”

  “The three of you have as much Amazon blood as I,” she responded hotly. “Why is it you are nothing but Herdsmen?”

  “The blood of the Amazons seems to run only on the female line,” he said quietly. “And you were raised by our mother for a time. Lycon, Cadmus and I were only days old when Pentheselia abandoned us to the care of our father. Agelaus had us suckled by a gentled she-wolf so we could survive — perhaps that is what made us Herdsmen.” He looked carefully at her, and then asked her something he never had before. “Hero, do you remember your life with the Amazons? Do you remember much about our mother?”

  Hero was startled; this was not a place to which she allowed her mind to wander. She turned away from him.

  Machaon did not press her. He knew there was a dark, wounded place in Hero’s heart left by her life before Ida.

  Hero struggled with her silence. Her brothers so rarely asked anything of her. “I was alone,” she said finally.

  “But our mother ... ”

  “She was so beautiful, but ... I was alone.” Hero hesitated. “She tried to teach me to use the bow. I remember Pentheselia cried when she realised my eyes were so weak.” She wiped the tears angrily from her face, unsure why the story she had always known should now make her weep.

  “That’s when you came to us?” Machaon prompted gently.

  “They didn’t want me anymore. They took my name and drove me out of the village.”

  Machaon was sickened; she had been just a child.

  Hero wrapped her arms about her knees. “Pentheselia took me, and we rode. I thought that she, at least, wanted me. But in the end, she left me with Agelaus and walked away.” Her voice now hardened with resentment, even through her tears. “I did not even know that she was your mother too, until Agelaus told me.”

  Machaon remembered the day that Hero had appeared in their cave, asleep in the arms of Agelaus. She had been terrified of them at first, clinging to Agelaus whenever they came near. Machaon remembered his own disappointment. He might have seen his mother if she had waited. As it was, his only memories of the beautiful Pentheselia were distant and defiled. He had been on the lower slopes near the battle-field on the day she died. He had seen her lead her Amazons against the Greeks. He had seen her fall under the blade of the Greek, Achilles. His stomach heaved as he thought of what had followed — lust and blood and desecration.

  “I hate her.” Hero declared furiously. “She abandoned us. She gave me little, she gave you nothing!”

  Pulled by her words from the tortured images of the past, Machaon’s voice betrayed his surprise. Cadmus and Lycon had quietened, and now listened to the conversation between the eldest and the youngest of them.

  “Pentheselia gave us a great deal, Hero. She sought out Agelaus,” Machaon reminded his sister gently. “We have heard stories of what the Amazons do to their sons. At best they are exposed to die. I was not. Cadmus and Lycon also live because of Pentheselia ... in a way she gave us all life.”

  Cadmus glanced at Machaon. Agelaus would have wanted their sister to honour her mother. “Whoever my mother was,” he said to Hero, “it was not she, but Pentheselia who brought me to Agelaus. It meant that she had to walk away from Mac once again, which could not have been easy.”

  “How do you know?” said Hero sullenly. “She managed to do it often enough.”

  “Agelaus loved her, Hero,” replied Lycon. “She could not have been a monster, and, at least for a time, she had the good sense to love him in return.”

  For a while Hero said nothing. She did not know why she was suddenly angry with Pentheselia, or whether she had always been so.

  “I am glad she gave me to Agelaus,” she said finally. Vivid violent images of her life in the Amazonian village haunted her. She crawled into the protection of Machaon’s arm, suddenly wanting to hide. “I cannot be an Amazon,” she whispered.

  “Suddenly the souls of the dead
surged up from Erebus — shy brides, beardless youths, old men who had endured the suffering of a long life and the great throng of warriors who had fallen on the field of battle.”

  The Odyssey Book XI

  BOOK XVII

  FOR THE NEXT DAYS, Hero and her brothers waited, keeping an unobtrusive eye on the Greeks in the house of Circe. The crew seemed content with the benefits of her table, whilst their captain enjoyed the benefits of her bed. At some point a jet-black ram and ewe were tethered to the blue-prowed ship of Odysseus.

  Hero looked at them thoughtfully. “They are for sacrifice to Hades,” she said quietly.

  Her brothers, who had less knowledge of such things, deferred to her understanding of religious protocol. “Looks like we are going to the underworld,” said Lycon.

  “Perhaps we should have asked Circe how to get there,” Cadmus murmured. “Or at least how to get back ... ”

  “The ship will follow Odysseus,” Machaon reassured him.

  “What do you think Circe meant when she said we would not get what we want from Odysseus until the ship saw home?” asked Lycon suddenly.

  “Maybe we will have to follow the Greeks back to Troy,” Cadmus shrugged.

  “Or maybe she means Hades,” mused Machaon. “It’s the ultimate home of all men.”

  “Oh terrific!” said Lycon. “Hades sounds like a great place to stop for a conversation!”

  The sorceress kept her promise and as Eos mounted her golden throne on the fourth day, Odysseus’ ship pulled away from the shores of the island. Her sail was filled with a wind conjured by Circe, her crew so gripped with terror at the thought of their destination that they did not notice the small Phaeacian vessel following at a distance.

  All through that day the sails of both ships were kept taut by the favourable breeze, until the sun had finished its journey, and they travelled through the darkness.

  In time the black sea became covered in fog, and the Herdsmen could no longer glimpse their quarry. They put their faith in the extraordinary powers of their vessel and stood ready upon the deck. The sea was still and silent despite the breeze, and the only sound was the increasingly nervous prayers of Hero. The mist was so thick that though it should have once again been day, no ray of sun penetrated the vapour to light their path. The boat ran aground gently. The sons of Agelaus jumped into the fog-bound waters and dragged the ship onto the beach.

  They looked around them. It was not black exactly, but grey. The shore was dense with tall poplars and willows — this was a place of sombre legend — the dreaded Grove of Persephone. The sons of Agelaus could see, but not far, and the world no longer seemed to have colour.

  They could hear the voices of the Greeks, and the bleating of the sheep, and so they took their sister and walked quietly along the shore towards the sound. Before they left, Hero grabbed a cloth bag, into which she had placed the flowers and perfect fruits she had gathered on Circe’s island. She did not tell her brothers but she knew they could not go into the Halls of Hades without an offering for the gods.

  They saw the Greeks at a distance, for they were many and each carried a torch. The mist allowed the Herdsmen to follow quite closely with little risk of discovery. In any case, the Greeks seemed too fearful to look around them and kept their eyes instead upon Odysseus who walked at their lead.

  In time, they could see a river of molten rock in the greyness ahead. It flowed slowly towards the coast, where it united with the dark waters of what Hero guessed to be the River of Lamentation, a branch of the Styx that surrounded the heart of Hades. There, by a pinnacle of rock, stopped Odysseus. He unsheathed his sword and cut a trench in the ground, as long as it was wide.

  Lycon pulled Hero behind a branching willow as the Herdsmen made their way as close as possible to where the king stood. Odysseus’ own men stood back, ashen and trembling.

  Around the trench Odysseus poured milk and honey, then wine and finally water as libations to all the dead. Over this he sprinkled white barley and then he began to pray to the ghosts of men. He promised that when he returned to Ithaca he would sacrifice the best barren heifer of his herd and heap the pyre with treasures. To Tieresias the Theban, he swore to make a separate offering of the finest jet black sheep in his flocks. Having completed his invocations to the departed, Odysseus took the sheep and cut their throats over the trench, whilst he turned his own face away. As the dark blood poured into the pit, the souls of the dead swarmed up.

  Hero clutched Lycon’s hand in terror, for behind the trees they were close enough for her to see the great company of wraiths. Cadmus put an arm about her shoulders and put his finger to his lips, in case she should panic and begin to pray. Hero was already praying, though she did not make a sound.

  Odysseus instructed his comrades to flay the sheep and burn them, whilst they prayed to mighty Hades and august Persephone, who reigned in the underworld. He stood by the trench with his bronze sword in a white-knuckled grip, keeping the spirits of the dead from drinking the blood he offered.

  The soul of a young warrior was first to speak with him. Odysseus knew him, and called him Elpenor.

  “He was one of the men Circe turned into a pig,” Cadmus whispered to Machaon.

  “He must have died.”

  The spirit of Elpenor pleaded with his captain to return to Circe’s island and bury him in a fitting manner. It appeared that, in their anxiety to be on their way, they had left their crewmate exposed and unwept. Somewhat shamefacedly Odysseus promised to do what Elpenor asked.

  Next to approach was the soul of a woman who Odysseus called mother. The king was obviously moved by her presence, but still he did not let her drink from the trench, calling instead on Tieresias, poet of Thebes, to come forth.

  The soul of the Theban prophet emerged with a gold rod in his hand. Odysseus stepped aside and allowed him to drink from the pit. When the spirit again arose, his chin and neck dripped red. He regarded the Greek with sightless eyes and spoke in the voice of an authentic seer.

  “My lord Odysseus,” began the spectre of Tieresias, “You have come to me for some easy way home, but the gods have turned against you. Poseidon will not forgive you for maiming his son. Though Polyphemus was a monster to you, to the earthshaker, he was beloved. Notwithstanding this, you may yet see Ithaca, if you keep a tight hold on your men from the moment you approach the island of Thrinacie. You will see there the herds and flocks of Helios, the sun god. If you leave them untouched you may still reach Ithaca, but if you harm them your ship shall be destroyed.”

  “That’s it?” muttered Lycon incredulously. “We had to go to Hades for Odysseus to be told it wouldn’t be a good idea to steal from a god?”

  “At least he’s not destined to die unless he does something stupid,” whispered Machaon.

  The shade of Tieresias continued, telling Odysseus of what lay in store when he returned to his kingdom and where fate would take him thereafter. Finally the seer promised him a kind end.

  “Death when it comes to you, Odysseus, shall be Death in his gentlest guise,” said the spirit. “You shall die worn out by an easy old age, surrounded by a prosperous people. These words are the truth.”

  Tieresias the Theban then withdrew to the Halls of Hades, leaving the King of Ithaca to stand by the pit and allow those spirits with which he would speak to drink a draught of blood.

  Odysseus’ mother led a succession of wives and daughters of princes, who stooped to drink and then to speak with the man who made the offering.

  “The Pantheon has been busy,” Cadmus murmured as yet another apparition claimed, in life, to have slept in the arms of a god.

  “You notice no one claims to be the conquest of Pan,” Lycon replied. “Our god’s obviously been exaggerating a bit.”

  Eventually Persephone the Dread called the ghosts of the women back and they scattered in all directions.

  Still Odysseus remained, and more spirits emerged to drink and converse. Forth came the heroes of the Greek campaign who now live
d in the realm of the dead. Agamemnon, Patroclus and the great Achilles.

  The Herdsmen tensed with the arrival of this last spectre. In life, the champion of the Greeks had been the vengeful remorseless spirit of war itself. His shade seemed black against the grey, a shadow cast amongst the dead.

  “Achilles,” Odysseus exclaimed. “Revered as a god on earth, and now a prince amongst the dead. For you death has surely lost its sting.”

  The ghost of Achilles was less than enthused.

  “Have you come to take my place in Hades, Odysseus? Have you fashioned some clever trick to release me from this colourless pit of the dead.”

  Odysseus stepped silently back from the apparition.

  Achilles laughed. “A prince among the dead you say ... do you know who I have met in the royal court of Hades?”

  “There is no man dead or alive who does not know the legend of Achilles the greatest warrior on earth,” Odysseus responded hastily.

  “I have met Hector, Odysseus. Hector, whose body I dragged around the walls of Troy behind my chariot, in view of his parents, his people. Is that the legend of which you speak? I have met Pentheselia, whose body I used as it lay dead and bloodied beneath me. Is that my legend?”

  “We have all acted fiercely in the throes of battle, Achilles. It is the way we vanquish our foes that has given the Greeks dominion of the world. Death is not enough to strike fear into the hearts of some men ... we must show our enemies that we can inflict more than mere death.”

  “Heartily said, by one who is not yet merely dead. In Hades, Odysseus, I have met all those I have slain and then wronged. Their dead eyes have a knowledge more terrible than anything they could have done to me on earth.”

  “And you have the knowledge that Hades is well populated because of your great deeds,” the King of Ithaca declared, determined that there should still be glory in the end.