Odysseus: The Oath

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

Nestor nodded without saying another word. He accompanied me all the way back to Ithaca.

  TIME PASSED, much too quickly, and the day arrived. Agamemnon and Menelaus’ heralds landed at the main port and I summoned all of the best youth of my island, the sons of the most important families. My friends. They came from the nearby islands as well, all young men in their prime, shining in their armour, ready to answer my call to arms. They seemed not to realize that in that distant land, on those fields of battle, death would be lying in wait. They were anticipating, instead, a great adventure of which poets would sing, and minstrels would tell fantastic tales. They were sure they would come back laden with booty and fame. Joking among themselves, they bragged and talked about treasures waiting to be plundered, and beautiful Asian women to be brought back as slaves and concubines.

  We armed twelve ships. We filled them with food, weapons, tents and clothing, and everything that would be necessary for a long war.

  Since my return from Phthia, my heart had been preparing to say farewell to Penelope. Telemachus was too little to understand; too young to remember me. Or perhaps he would recognize me one day, the way I recognized Laertes my father when he returned from Colchis.

  But Penelope . . . how could I say goodbye to her? I would have preferred to fight a dragon than face the anguish in her gaze, that expression of a wounded deer in her eyes. Because I was the one who had shot the arrow. And yet, incredibly, she helped me. She came down to the port, just like any other woman on the island, with the same acute pain in her heart. She waited until my parents had embraced me, until my mother had cried all her tears, her face buried in my neck, until my father had said: ‘You will win this war, king of Ithaca. Make us proud of you and . . . come back, pai, come back to us. We’ll be waiting for you.’

  Euriclea, my nurse, overcame the impulse to embrace me like a mother. She lowered her head in front of Penelope, her mistress, and accepted the baby from her arms. My queen threw her arms, so white and perfect, around my neck, and she gave me a long, intense kiss, shamelessly, like a lover, and then she put her mouth to my ear and said: ‘Remember these lips, my king, remember how I took you into my arms last night, remember with what passion I gave you my body. No woman in the world can love you as I do.’

  She stepped back and, aquiver with tears, looked at me and then said: ‘Now smile, so I can see your eyes change colour one last time.’

  I forced myself to smile. She took out her final gift to me, a magnificent red cloak, threw it over my shoulders and then fastened it using a golden pin shaped like a deer in the clutches of a hound. I whispered into her ear: ‘I will think of you every moment. Remember me every night when the moon rises from the sea. Take care of our son, our bed, my dog and my bow.’

  Euriclea knelt at my feet and kissed my hand. ‘My child, my child,’ I could hear her say through her weeping.

  I gave Telemachus a kiss and began walking down the pier until I reached the steps to the royal ship, but as I put my foot on the first one, I heard barking and I turned: Argus!

  ‘I can’t take you with me,’ I said. ‘You have to stay here with Telemachus. You have to protect him while I’m away. When I come back we’ll go hunting together.’

  He seemed to understand my words. He licked my hand and whined as I got on board. A sailor cast off the moorings and my ship pulled away from the shore, pulled away from Ithaca and everything in the world that was dear to me. I felt my heart splitting in my chest, but I remembered that my men at the oars and at the helm were waiting for the triple shout from the king of Ithaca that announces the start of a war, and I walked up to the prow. The other ships were fanning out so that each one of them was equally distant from my own. The sailors pulled in the oars and raised them up as if they were warriors’ spears. I donned my bright armour then, and shouted at the top of my lungs:

  ‘He – ha – heee!

  ‘He – ha – heee!

  ‘He – ha – heee!’

  And they replied to my cry with a roar, beating time with the oar handles against the wooden benches.

  We departed.

  22

  I can remember, I can see, as if it were now, how the expedition unfolded. The first thing that I realized was how fundamental my role in the war was. My small kingdom was the northernmost of all, and I sailed at the head of the western branch of the army. I remember how from the stern I watched the other eleven Ithacan ships follow the royal vessel I commanded, built by Laertes. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the other fleets uniting with ours one by one from the other ports, from the gulfs and from the coves, like streams flowing into a great river as we sailed south: the ships of Meges from Dulichium, of Thoas from Chalcis, of Ajax of Locris, son of Oileus, and finally of Kings Polyxenus and Amphimakhos, who shared the throne of Elis, a coastal kingdom with a great gulf at the north and the open sea to the west. We continued our descent, and by the time we arrived at the entrance to the bay that lay before the palace of Pylos, we were an impressive fleet indeed. Nestor’s ships were waiting there to join us. We divided into two formations and entered the inlets on either side of the harbour that lay between the island and the mainland. We then reunited in two lines, and faced the Messenian fleet drawn up in full force. There were ninety ships, brimming with warriors: they matched, even surpassed, the entire squadron we had assembled up to that point.

  I personally went aboard the royal ship to turn over command of our formation to Nestor. It was his right as the eldest among the kings and because his fleet and his army were the most powerful and numerous.

  ‘We meet again, wanax,’ I greeted him, ‘and I bow to the power manifest in this display. I’ve never seen such a thing.’

  ‘Look who’s here with me, pai,’ he replied affectionately and he called over Antilochus, the son most perfect for this war. Perfect to fight it, win it, perfect to die.

  ‘Antilochus . . . we were just boys, it seems like yesterday, and look at us now . . .’ I said.

  ‘You’re a king now,’ he replied.

  ‘And you, my friend, are the pride and the boast of Messenia, of glorious Pylos and of wanax Nestor, the knight of Gerene.’

  He smiled: ‘It will be an honour to fight at your side, king of Ithaca.’

  We clasped each other, each of us pounding his fist on the other’s bronze-clad back. There was a tremendous vibration in the air, the odour of pitch and of pine, the clatter of bronze and the crash of the sea. In that moment, among those tens of thousands of youths, there was no one who didn’t want to be part of this, no one who would have preferred to be back at home, perched safely on a boulder watching the ships parade down the coast and listening to the lapping of the waves.

  Not even me.

  We rode at anchor for three days, so as to finish loading up all the extra provisions that Nestor had prepared; he seemed to have an abundant supply of anything we could desire. The third night I remained awake until very late, well aware that we’d be leaving the next morning. There was a thought that had been nagging at me ever since I’d left Ithaca: why hadn’t I seen Mentor at the port as I was leaving Ithaca? My faithful counsellor had not come to say goodbye. Why not? Where could he be? Why hadn’t he come to hear my plea to watch over Telemachus and my whole family? Why hadn’t I sent someone to look for him? I could sense an odd state of consciousness coming on; that same feeling I’d had on certain nights in Acarnania and Arcadia. I was hovering between two worlds: one visible and the other invisible, but just as strong and as present.

  In the middle of the night, when the stars had already started to set and the waters of the bay were a slab of marble, I saw a light flashing out at sea. A boat was approaching my ship, as silently as if the oars were not touching the water. Who could it be at that time of night? And why hadn’t the sentries noticed? We were safe and in friendly territory, but there still had to be someone standing guard, especially at night.

  ‘Who goes there?’ I called out when the boat pulled up alongside the right flank of my shi
p. A man grabbed the anchor rope to hoist himself aboard and a voice replied: ‘Don’t you recognize me?’

  ‘Mentor? What are you doing here so late at night? Where are you coming from?’

  ‘If you help me get on I’ll tell you.’

  I held out my hand and I helped him climb over the railing. He was as light as air.

  ‘Are you hungry? Thirsty?’ I asked.

  ‘Neither hungry nor thirsty,’ he replied.

  ‘How did you find my ship in the midst of so many others, in the dark?’

  ‘Usually wanax Odysseus doesn’t ask questions, he gives answers,’ he said in a teasing tone. ‘I saw your standard.’

  ‘In the dark?’

  ‘In the moonlight.’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘You’re right, the moon is out now.’

  ‘It was out earlier as well, believe me. Perhaps you couldn’t see it because your thoughts were elsewhere.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come to the port to say goodbye in Ithaca?’

  ‘Why didn’t you send someone to look for me?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering that myself. The thought has been troubling me since I left the island, and yet I’m unable to come up with an answer.’

  ‘Because you felt in your heart that we’d be meeting again anyway?’

  ‘Perhaps. Where are you coming from?’

  ‘From a long journey. And I bring news.’

  ‘Sad news? I can see it in your eyes.’

  ‘Terrible. But I won’t tell you if you don’t want to hear it. I won’t let the words out from between my teeth; I will keep them in my heart.’

  ‘I want to know.’

  ‘Hercules. He’s gone.’

  ‘No! It can’t be true!’

  ‘You know I’m not lying. You know that if he were alive he’d already be waiting for you at Aulis in Boeotia, his homeland. Do you think you’ll see him there?’

  ‘No. You’re right. Achilles will be there, but he won’t.’

  ‘He is no longer part of our time.’

  ‘How can that be, if there is no man or animal strong enough to triumph over him? Did an insidious illness drain his life force before killing him?’ My heart was weeping because Hercules had lived, fleetingly, in my time, but not in my place or my space. I had never been able to meet the greatest man who had ever set foot on mortal ground; I had only imagined him.

  ‘I saw him die,’ said Mentor. ‘It was not so long ago. There is a cliff which overhangs the foaming sea of Pallene on which Mount Olympus casts its shadow. He stood there, as still as a stone column, looking like a god, in front of a gigantic pyre. A young shepherd stood next to him, holding a lit torch. Hercules nodded, and the boy set the pyre ablaze.

  ‘An earth ramp led to the top of the pyre. Hercules must have built it himself, I thought. I watched as he threw his club on the ground. It bounced twice and then lay there. He stripped off the lion’s pelt that covered him and walked naked up the ramp and into the midst of the swirling flames. They rose roaring towards the sky, erupting in a storm of smoke and sparks against the twilight clouds.

  ‘With every step he took, I could hear savage cries, see inside the flames images of the monsters, ferocious beasts and wild creatures that he had fought and slain . . . I could see the spirits of Hades that he had challenged and won. Now they all wanted revenge. They were ripping him apart.’

  ‘Why didn’t you try to stop him?’ I cried. ‘You yourself brought Eumelus to Pherai so he could declare Hercules’ innocence. You were there when he brought Alcestis back from the Underworld single-handedly, and restored her to her husband’s side.’

  A breeze blew softly close to the surface of the sea, making the shrouds quiver like the fingers of a practised singer barely skimming the strings of his instrument. My heart was swollen with grief at the story that Mentor told: the end of the greatest of all heroes.

  ‘There was nothing I could do. Hercules was walking into his own funeral pyre, alive, because even though he was innocent, he never got over the sight of his murdered family, nor had he been able to bear the solitude he had been condemned to. He knew he had to join those whom he had loved and never forgotten. When he got to the top of the ramp, he threw himself into the flames

  ‘I don’t want to listen any more!’ I shouted. ‘I can’t take this!’

  Mentor did not pause: ‘His howl of agony shattered the solid mountain rock and a landslide crashed to the valley, uprooting the pine trees that tumbled down one on top of another with a roar like thunder. His scream rent the clouds that the night had turned black.’

  A long, mournful silence fell over the sea and the ship. Now my mind was transparent as alabaster, as Egyptian glass. My thoughts were like stones on the bottom of the bright sea.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

  Mentor did not open his mouth but I could nonetheless hear his voice say: ‘Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.’

  ‘Athena . . . Where is Mentor? Tell me, please tell me.’

  I had the impression that her lips were moving: ‘He’s sleeping. In a secret place that only I know. This way I can take on his likeness.’

  ‘How long have you been Mentor, for how long has Mentor been gone? When did I meet you thinking it was him? When did I meet him?’

  ‘Do not grieve for him. I must do things that he couldn’t do or wouldn’t know how to do. Don’t fear, I will always be at your side.’

  Having said this, she plunged into the sea and emerged instantly in the guise of a pure white seagull. I watched as she flew far away, almost transparent in the light of the moon.

  A profound bitterness overcame me. I thought with infinite melancholy of how Hercules had given in to his desperation . . . of how Jason, prince of Iolcus, had run his ship onto the rocks, smashing it along with his mind and his heart. Of how Mentor, my faithful friend, had disappeared so that my goddess could hide herself in his skin. Was he dead, perhaps?

  I waited anxiously for dawn, I waited until the sun rose and the wind had made its voice heard among the shrouds. I saw Nestor’s royal ship crossing the bay, pushed forward by many oarsmen, who sang an old song to keep time as they rowed. All of the ships followed and I entered their wake, with my eleven ships behind me and behind them other kings and other ships.

  I tried to forget the images and sounds of the night, telling myself that it had been a dream, but a voice inside me told me it was all real, that I had never fallen prey to sleep, and that there was no escaping truth.

  We passed the furthermost tip of Messenia, where there was said to be one of the entrances to Hades. After two days of navigation we reached Cape Tainaron. Between Cape Tainaron and Cape Malea, we were joined by the contingent of Menelaus, king of Sparta, with sixty ships. I steered my ship alongside his, and we met on my vessel.

  ‘Hail, wanax Odysseus, my friend,’ he said, and embraced me.

  ‘Hail, wanax Menelaus, my friend,’ I answered.

  King Nestor, Ajax Oileus and the other kings joined us and I had wine poured for everyone. I stored it in a large clay jar that I had my servants continuously wet with seawater, so it would stay cool. We all had dinner together on the ship at anchor, on a quiet sea. Everything seemed to favour our voyage. The gods knew who was right and who was wrong.

  ‘I’ve never drunk a finer wine,’ announced Menelaus. He poured some of it into the sea to propitiate the god of the abyss, to help our journey.

  It was late at night when each of my guests returned to his own ship. We set sail again at the break of dawn. In the gulf of Argolis we were joined by the hundred ships of wanax Agamemnon, the Achaian king of kings, the lord of Mycenae, who I hadn’t seen for some time, as well as the fleet of Menestheus of Athens. Diomedes of Argus arrived with his ships as well: he was the commander of the Epigoni, who had sworn to avenge the deaths of their fathers, the Seven who had dared to challenge Thebes. Last of all we were met by Ajax of Salamis, who like me was from a small, poor island. Like me, he had only twelve ships
, but his glory and fame were immense: he was the first cousin of Achilles and he was huge and powerfully built. From the prow of his ship hung his shield, made of seven layered bull hides; it had been created just for him, to cover his colossal frame. As one after another of these fleets were added, the army grew tremendously in size and I suggested to Nestor that the lines of ships should be distanced, so that if a storm broke out the ships would not be dashed against one another.

  After four days of navigation, we reached Aulis in Boeotia, where Achilles and Patroclus were waiting for us, along with Automedon, the charioteer who governed Balius and Xanthus, the horses who were as fast as the wind. The prince of Phthia of the Myrmidons had kept faith with his promise and honoured the pact of the princes. There in Aulis was also anchored the great hundredship fleet of Idomeneus, the lord of Knossos and all of Crete.

  I climbed up the mountain that overlooked the bay and I beheld a spectacle that I could never have even imagined. One thousand ships at anchor, perhaps fifty thousand men. I nearly couldn’t believe my eyes. The best of Achaian youth, gathered there so we could cross the sea and wage war on Priam’s city. But the sight of such an enormous force brought other thoughts to my head. When had so many ships and so many warriors ever been assembled for a war? For how long would the memory of such an incredible endeavour be handed down from generation to generation? And was it truly possible that the reason for the incredible show of power that I was witnessing before my very eyes was merely to avenge the offended pride of one of the princes of Achaia? Not only were all the princes who had made the oath present, but so were many more who hadn’t been present at Sparta, even though they were ready now to claim they had. Perhaps Agamemnon had convinced them.

  I couldn’t stand the idea that there might be a reason behind the waging of this war that was different from the one I knew about, a reason that remained hidden from me.

  When the sun set behind the mountains behind me and the routes of land and sea were darkened, I counted the number of nights that I’d already spent at sea, apart from Penelope, and I was struck by how much I already missed her love, her scent, her eyes and her hair, her white arms and shapely breasts. I realized how much I missed Telemachus, the touch of his little hands, the sound of his tiny voice that would one day be booming, shouting out the triple war cry of the kings of Ithaca. How many more nights and how many more days would I spend away from them? When would I receive news of them and they of me?