The Penelopiad

by Margaret Atwood

  'Are you expecting news?' I asked.

  'I'm always expecting news,' he said.

  Ithaca was no paradise. It was often windy, and frequently rainy and cold. The nobles were a shabby lot compared with those I was used to, and the palace, although sufficient, was not what you would consider large.

  There were indeed a lot of rocks and goats, as I'd been told back home. But there were cows as well, and sheep, and pigs, and grain to make bread, and sometimes a pear or an apple or a fig in season, so we were well supplied at table, and in time I got more used to the place. Also, to have a husband like Odysseus was no mean thing. Everyone in the region looked up to him, and petitioners and those seeking his advice were numerous. Some even came in ships from far away to consult him, as he had a reputation as a man who could undo any complicated knot, though sometimes by tying a more complicated one.

  His father, Laertes, and his mother, Anticleia, were still in the palace at that time; his mother had not yet died, worn out by watching and waiting for Odysseus to return and, I suspect, by her own bilious digestive system, and his father had not yet quitted the palace in despair at his son's absence to live in a hovel and penalise himself by farming. All of that would happen once Odysseus had been gone for years, but there was no foreshadowing of it yet.

  My mother-in-law was circumspect. She was a prune-mouthed woman, and though she gave me a formal welcome I could tell she didn't approve of me. She kept saying that I was certainly very young. Odysseus remarked dryly that this was a fault that would correct itself in time.

  The woman who gave me the most trouble at first was Odysseus's former nurse, Eurycleia. She was widely respected - according to her - because she was so intensely reliable. She'd been in the household ever since Odysseus's father had bought her, and so highly had he valued her that he hadn't even slept with her. 'Imagine that, for a slave-woman!' she clucked to me, delighted with herself. 'And I was very good-looking in those days!' Some of the maids told me that Laertes had refrained, not out of respect for Eurycleia, but from fear of his wife, who would never have given him any peace if he'd taken a concubine. 'That Anticleia would freeze the balls off Helios,' as one of them put it. I knew I should have reprimanded her for impudence, but I couldn't repress my laughter.

  Eurycleia made a point of taking me under her wing, leading me about the palace to show me where everything was, and, as she kept saying, 'how we do things here'. I ought to have thanked her for it, with my heart as well as my lips, for there is nothing more embarrassing than to make a slip of manners, thus displaying your ignorance of the customs of those around you. Whether to cover the mouth when you laugh, on what occasions to wear a veil, how much of the face it should conceal, how often to order a bath - Eurycleia was an expert on all such matters. That was lucky, for my mother-in-law, Anticleia - who ought to have taken charge in this way - was content to sit silently and say nothing while I made a fool of myself, a tight little smile on her face. She was happy that her adored son Odysseus had pulled off such a coup - a princess of Sparta was not to be sneezed at - but I think she would have been better pleased if I'd died of seasickness on the way to Ithaca and Odysseus had arrived home with the bridal presents but not the bride. Her most frequent expression to me was, 'You don't look well.'

  So I avoided her when I could, and went around with Eurycleia, who was at least friendly. She had a fund of information about all the neighbouring noble families, and in that way I learned a great many discreditable things about them that would be useful to me later on.

  She talked all the time, and nobody was the world's expert on Odysseus the way she was. She was full of information about what he liked and how he had to be treated, for hadn't she nursed him at her own breast and tended him when he was an infant and brought him up as a youth? Nobody but she must give him his baths, oil his shoulders, prepare his breakfasts, lock up his valuables, lay out his robes for him, and so on and so forth. She left me with nothing to do, no little office I might perform for my husband, for if I tried to carry out any small wifely task she would be right there to tell me that wasn't how Odysseus liked things done. Even the robes I made for him were not quite right - too light, too heavy, too sturdy, too flimsy. 'It will do well enough for the steward,' she would say, 'but surely not for Odysseus.'

  Nonetheless, she tried to be kind to me in her own way. 'We'll have to fatten you up,' she would say, 'so you can have a nice big son for Odysseus! That's your job, you just leave everything else to me.' As she was the nearest thing there was to someone I could talk to - besides Odysseus, that is - I came to accept her in time.

  She did make herself invaluable when Telemachus was born. I am honour bound to record that. She said the prayers to Artemis when I was in too much pain to speak, and she held my hands and sponged off my forehead, and caught the baby and washed him, and wrapped him up warmly; for if there was one thing she knew - as she kept telling me - it was babies. She had a special language for them, a nonsense language - 'Uzzy woo,' she would croon to Telemachus when drying him after his bath - 'A google woogle poo!' - and it unsettled me to think of my barrel-chested and deep-voiced Odysseus, so skilled in persuasion, so articulate, so dignified, as an infant lying in her arms and having this gurgling discourse addressed to him.

  But I couldn't begrudge her the care she took of Telemachus. Her delight in him was boundless. You'd almost have thought she'd given birth to him herself.

  Odysseus was pleased with me. Of course he was. 'Helen hasn't borne a son yet,' he said, which ought to have made me glad. And it did. But on the other hand, why was he still - and possibly always - thinking about Helen?

  x

  The Chorus Line: The Birth of Telemachus, An Idyll

  Nine months he sailed the wine-red seas of his mother's blood Out of the cave of dreaded Night, of sleep,

  Of troubling dreams he sailed

  In his frail dark boat, the boat of himself,

  Through the dangerous ocean of his vast mother he sailed From the distant cave where the threads of men's lives are spun, Then measured, and then cut short

  By the Three Fatal Sisters, intent on their gruesome handcrafts, And the lives of women also are twisted into the strand.

  And we, the twelve who were later to die by his hand At his father's relentless command,

  Sailed as well, in the dark frail boats of ourselves Through the turbulent seas of our swollen and sore-footed mothers Who were not royal queens, but a motley and piebald collection, Bought, traded, captured, kidnapped from serfs and strangers.

  After the nine-month voyage we came to shore,

  Beached at the same time as he was, struck by the hostile air, Infants when he was an infant, wailing just as he wailed, Helpless as he was helpless, but ten times more helpless as well, For his birth was longed-for and feasted, as our births were not.

  His mother presented a princeling. Our various mothers Spawned merely, lambed, farrowed, littered,

  Foaled, whelped and kittened, brooded, hatched out their clutch.

  We were animal young, to be disposed of at will, Sold, drowned in the well, traded, used, discarded when bloomless.

  He was fathered; we simply appeared,

  Like the crocus, the rose, the sparrows engendered in mud.

  Our lives were twisted in his life; we also were children When he was a child,

  We were his pets and his toythings, mock sisters, his tiny companions.

  We grew as he grew, laughed also, ran as he ran, Though sandier, hungrier, sun-speckled, most days meatless.

  He saw us as rightfully his, for whatever purpose He chose, to tend him and feed him, to wash him, amuse him, Rock him to sleep in the dangerous boats of ourselves.

  We did not know as we played with him there in the sand On the beach of our rocky goat-island, close by the harbour, That he was foredoomed to swell to our cold-eyed teenaged killer.

  If we had known that, would we have drowned him back then?

  Young children are ruthless and selfish:
everyone wants to live.

  Twelve against one, he wouldn't have stood a chance.

  Would we? In only a minute, when nobody else was looking?

  Pushed his still-innocent child's head under the water With our own still-innocent childish nursemaid hands, And blamed it on waves. Would we have had it in us?

  Ask the Three Sisters, spinning their blood-red mazes, Tangling the lives of men and women together.

  Only they know how events might then have been altered.

  Only they know our hearts.

  From us you will get no answer.

  xi

  Helen Ruins My Life

  After a time I became more accustomed to my new home, although I had little authority within it, what with Eurycleia and my mother-in-law running all domestic matters and making all household decisions. Odysseus was in control of the kingdom, naturally, with his father, Laertes, sticking his oar in from time to time, either to dispute his son's decisions or to back them up. In other words, there was the standard family push-and-pull over whose word was to carry the most weight. All were agreed on one thing: it was not mine.

  Dinnertimes were particularly stressful. There were too many undercurrents, too many sulks and growlings on the part of the men and far too many fraught silences encircling my mother-in-law. When I tried to speak to her she would never look at me while answering, but would address her remarks to a footstool or a table. As befitted conversation with the furniture, these remarks were wooden and stiff.

  I soon found it was more peaceful just to keep out of things, and to confine myself to caring for Telemachus, when Eurycleia would let me. 'You're barely more than a child yourself,' she would say, snatching my baby out of my arms. 'Here, I'll tend the little darling for a while. You run along and enjoy yourself.'

  But I did not know how to do that. Strolling along the cliffs or by the shore alone like some peasant girl or slave was out of the question: whenever I went out I had to take two of the maids with me - I had a reputation to keep up, and the reputation of a king's wife is under constant scrutiny - but they stayed several paces behind me, as was fitting. I felt like a prize horse on parade, walking in my fancy robes while sailors stared at me and townswomen whispered. I had no friend of my own age and station so these excursions were not very enjoyable, and for that reason they became rarer.

  Sometimes I would sit in the courtyard, twisting wool into thread and listening to the maids laughing and singing and giggling in the outbuildings as they went about their chores. When it was raining I would take up my weaving in the women's quarters. There at least I would have company, as a number of slaves were always at work on the looms. I enjoyed weaving, up to a point. It was slow and rhythmical and soothing, and nobody, even my mother-in-law, could accuse me of sitting idle while I was doing it. Not that she ever said a word to that effect, but there is such a thing as a silent accusation.

  I stayed in our room a lot - the room I shared with Odysseus. It was a fine enough room, with a view of the sea, though not so fine as my room back in Sparta. Odysseus had made a special bed in it, one post of which was whittled from an olive tree that had its roots still in the ground. That way, he said, no one would ever be able to move or displace this bed, and it would be a lucky omen for any child conceived there. This bedpost of his was a great secret: no one knew about it except Odysseus himself, and my maid Actoris - but she was dead now - and myself. If the word got around about his post, said Odysseus in a mock-sinister manner, he would know I'd been sleeping with some other man, and then - he said, frowning at me in what was supposed to be a playful way - he would be very cross indeed, and he would have to chop me into little pieces with his sword or hang me from the roof beam.

  I pretended to be frightened, and said I would never, never think of betraying his big post.

  Actually, I really was frightened.

  Nevertheless our best times were spent in that bed. Once he'd finished making love, Odysseus always liked to talk to me. He told me many stories, stories about himself, true, and his hunting exploits, and his looting expeditions, and his special bow that nobody but he could string, and how he'd always been favoured by the goddess Athene because of his inventive mind and his skill at disguises and stratagems, and so on, but other stories as well - how there came to be a curse on the House of Atreus, and how Perseus obtained the Hat of Invisibility from Hades and cut off the loathsome Gorgon's head; and how the renowned Theseus and his pal Peirithous had abducted my cousin Helen when she was less than twelve years old and hidden her away, with the intent of casting lots to see which one of them would marry her when she was old enough. Theseus didn't rape her as he might otherwise have done because she was only a child, or so it was said. She was rescued by her two brothers, but not before they'd waged a successful war against Athens to get her back.

  This last was a story I already knew, as I'd heard it from Helen herself. It sounded quite different when she told it. Her story was about how Theseus and Peirithous were both so in awe of her divine beauty that they grew faint whenever they looked at her, and could barely come close enough to clasp her knees and beg forgiveness for their audacity. The part of the story she enjoyed the most was the number of men who'd died in the Athenian war: she took their deaths as a tribute to herself. The sad fact is that people had praised her so often and lavished her with so many gifts and adjectives that it had turned her head. She thought she could do anything she wanted, just like the gods from whom - she was convinced - she was descended.

  I've often wondered whether, if Helen hadn't been so puffed up with vanity, we might all have been spared the sufferings and sorrows she brought down on our heads by her selfishness and her deranged lust. Why couldn't she have led a normal life? But no - normal lives were boring, and Helen was ambitious. She wanted to make a name for herself. She longed to stand out from the herd.

  When Telemachus was a year old, disaster struck. It was because of Helen, as all the world knows by now.

  The first we heard of the impending catastrophe was from the captain of a Spartan ship that had docked in our harbour. The ship was on a voyage around our outlying islands, buying and selling slaves, and as was usual with guests of a certain status we entertained the captain to dinner and put him up overnight. Such visitors were a welcome source of news - who had died, who'd been born, who was recently married, who'd killed someone in a duel, who had sacrificed their own child to some god or other - but this man's news was extraordinary.

  Helen, he said, had run away with a prince of Troy. This fellow - Paris was his name - was a younger son of King Priam and was understood to be very good looking. It was love at first sight. For nine days of feasting - laid on by Menelaus because of this prince's high standing - Paris and Helen had made moon-eyes at each other behind the back of Menelaus, who hadn't noticed a thing. That didn't surprise me, because the man was thick as a brick and had the manners of a stump. No doubt he hadn't stroked Helen's vanity enough, so she was ripe for someone who would. Then, when Menelaus had to go away to a funeral, the two lovers had simply loaded up Paris's ship with as much gold and silver as they could carry and slipped away.

  Menelaus was now in a red rage, and so was his brother Agamemnon because of the slight to the family honour. They'd sent emissaries to Troy, demanding the return of both Helen and the plunder, but these had come back empty-handed. Meanwhile, Paris and the wicked Helen were laughing at them from behind the lofty walls of Troy. It was quite the business, said our guest, with evident relish: like all of us, he enjoyed it when the high and mighty fell flat on their faces. Everyone was talking about it, he said.

  As he was listening to this account, Odysseus went white, though he remained silent. That night, however, he revealed to me the cause of his distress. 'We've all sworn an oath,' he said. 'We swore it on the parts of a cut-up sacred horse, so it's a powerful one. Every man who swore it will now be called on to defend the rights of Menelaus, and sail off to Troy, and wage war to get Helen back.' He said it wouldn't be
easy: Troy was a great power, a much harder nut to crack than Athens had been when Helen's brothers had devastated it for the same reason.

  I repressed a desire to say that Helen should have been kept in a locked trunk in a dark cellar because she was poison on legs. Instead I said, 'Will you have to go?' I was devastated at the thought of having to stay in Ithaca without Odysseus. What joy would there be for me, alone in the palace? By alone you will understand that I mean without friends or allies. There would be no midnight pleasures to counterbalance the bossiness of Eurycleia and the freezing silences of my mother-in-law.

  'I swore the oath,' said Odysseus. 'In fact, the oath was my idea. It would be difficult for me to get out of it now.'

  Nevertheless he did try. When Agamemnon and Menelaus turned up, as they were bound to do - along with a fateful third man, Palamedes, who was no fool, not like the others - Odysseus was ready for them. He'd spread the story around that he'd gone mad, and to back it up he'd put on a ridiculous peasant's hat and was ploughing with an ox and a donkey and sowing the furrows with salt. I thought I was being very clever when I offered to accompany the three visitors to the field to witness this pitiful sight. 'You'll see,' I said, weeping. 'He no longer recognises me, or even our little son!' I carried the baby along with me to make the point.

  It was Palamedes who found Odysseus out - he grabbed Telemachus from my arms and put him down right in front of the team. Odysseus either had to turn aside or run over his own son.

  So then he had to go.

  The other three flattered him by saying an oracle had decreed that Troy could not fall without his help. That eased his preparations for departure, naturally. Which of us can resist the temptation of being thought indispensable?