The Dryad nodded furiously. “And we are further,” he went on, “since both of us are doomed to die, we are further obligated by the ineluctable courtesies of the cosmos to accept whatever comes of such an appeal for help made by a mortal man to a mortal Nymph? Isn’t that so, old friend?”
And once more the Dryad nodded; but this time resignedly rather than passionately.
“Well then, old sweetheart,” the crafty hero concluded, “I do most earnestly beg your help in this difficult situation, but unluckily”—and it would have been clear enough to Penelope, had it been she who was just then listening to the old king, that this heroic courtesy in face of the unregulated chaos of life was extremely unpalatable to the old creature to whom it was offered—“it looks to me as if, since I am a man who cannot escape death, by reason of my association with the body of my mother, and since you are not one of these immortal nymphs of fountain and grove and cave and river but like myself are doomed to old age, it seems that even working together we shall find it no easy task to get out of this appalling dilemma: but easy or hard, I will lay it before you, old friend, exactly as it is.”
He made a sign with his hand towards a large mossy stone a few paces to the North of her decayed and crumbling tree-trunk; and here they both sat down. “I understand from Eurycleia,” he went on, “and she of course gets all her knowledge of the tricks of our enemies from”—but catching a look on his companion’s face that he knew only too well, Odysseus interrupted his appeal for help and his tale of difficulties by reminding the Dryad that the aged Eurycleia was being assisted in the palace by the boy Nisos who was the younger son of Krateros Naubolides, the chief enemy of their House, as well as by the simple-minded maiden Leipephile who was betrothed to Krateros’ elder son.
“You see, old friend, we over-praised warriors of the last war before the last, are reduced, when our hoards of golden loot are exhausted, to living upon our native acres with very scanty attendants and upon pretty meagre fare, and if among these attendants there are some like the girl Arsinöe, who are captives of our bow and our spear, most of them are no different from the ordinary retainers of any well-do-do landowner.”
What he had seen in his old friend’s face that led him into reminding her of all this was a dark-scaled shadow of coiling jealousy that at the mention of Eurycleia’s name rose like the crest of a venomous tree-toad into the Dryad’s eyes.
But he hurried on now, speaking much faster, and clearly hoping by the mere rush of his words to drive back this moribund demon into its hiding-place amid the rotting roots of ancient hate.
“What I’ve decided to do now, my friend, is what I’ve been planning in the marrow of my bones for many and many a day; yes! you can guess what I mean. I’ve decided to call such an assembly of the men of Ithaca as there has not been for twenty years! To this assembly held in the agora, just as was the one about which they’ve so often told me when Telemachos made his great speech—and it’s ironical to think how absolutely impossible it is even to imagine his making a speech like that today—I’ve decided to appeal in person on behalf of my desire to hoist sail for the last time. I’ve decided to implore the people to help me finish the ship I’ve begun in the Cave of the Naiads. I’ve decided to implore them to furnish me with all the sail-cloth I need.
“And with this sail-cloth I shall hoist upon a mighty mast such a sail as has never been seen before upon any sea.”
They were seated so close to each other on that mossy stone that each of them was conscious of the smell of the other’s skin. The skin of Odysseus smelt in the nostrils of the old Dryad like a particular kind of sea-weed she was always especially anxious to keep from encroaching upon one of her favourite rock-pools where an uncultivated tract of land to the north of her dying oak-tree bordered on the sea.
The skin of the Dryad on the contrary smelt in the nostrils of the old king like an especially rare and fragrant fungus that grew out of the bark of the most ancient stumps of long dead trees.
Neither of the two old friends suffered the least distress from this vivid consciousness of the smell of the other’s skin. In fact a very curious phenomenon was the result of this mutual awareness, a sensuous result and a psychic result, and a result which gave each of them a peculiar pleasure. The fact is that from now on they would both enjoy summoning back at will, from, below their most sacred and secret shrines of intimately erotic “pot-pourri”, the separate smells of their separate skins fused together in one delicately united smell which was neither that of sea-weed nor of fungus but rather of those divine rock-roses of the land of the Graiai, the land that is called Kisthene, and that lies beyond Okeanos.
It was the Dryad and not the King who was the first to break the enchantment that had begun to wrap these two old friends round and about in its fatal folds as if with the invisible mantle of Urania, the heavenly Muse. “And now tell me, child of Laertes, what it is that in my crumbling corruption and my deciduous decomposition, I can do to help you fulfil your daring plan? Tell me, tell me, only tell me; and you’ll soon see what an old Nymph, even if she is destined unlike the Naiads and the Nereids, to perish utterly, can do to help you!”
“Well, it is like this, old friend,” and the cunning Wanderer gave her one swift sidelong glance out of his deep-sunken, glaucous-green, totally unreliable, wholly unconquerable eyes, and then, as he went on speaking, fixed his gaze on a small group of trees that was, as he well knew by this time, directly between the rock where they now sat and the little walled capitol-city of the island, “though it has been, of course, for years and even centuries, the custom with us for none but warriors, or at least none but grown-up males, to address the people’s assembly in the ‘agora’, this custom has of late grown less strict.
“Indeed in our life-time, as you, old friend, will remember, these assemblies of our traditional city-life have not only been open to all our people, but have been subjected to all manner of natural and even domestic interruptions. Now do you catch, my dear, what I am driving at? What I want to do is to get hold of this daughter of Teiresias and have her brought here under the good influence of young Eione and my faithful Tis, not to speak of young Nisos, who naturally enough, as happens in most Hellenic families, takes the opposite side to that of his elder brother in our civil strife; I mean of course, in this case, in the struggle between our House of Laertes and their House of Naubolides. Once have her safely here on the scene and I am confident she will exert such an influence on our side that my opponents will be completely vanquished. I’m perfectly well aware of the almost imbecile stupidity of Krateros’ eldest son, our young Nisos’ brother and of the equally helpless imbecility of the daughter of Nosodea who is betrothed to him. Our danger does not lie with them; though the House of Naubolides as represented by these simple old-fashioned Princes has actually, as all our islanders know, older and better claims to sovereignty than has our House of Laertes.
“No! No! the danger lies in an entirely different direction. It lies in the machinations and infernal cunning of this Priest of Orpheus who, by reason of our instinctive Hellenic weakness for mysticism and the occult, can lead us astray in any devilish direction he likes. It was only by the purest accident and by the boy’s sudden remembrance of that signature of the son of Hephaistos on the Pillar in our corridor that young Nisos was saved the other day from Hades alone knows what fate at the hands of this bloody-minded priest.
“And so, my dear,” Odysseus concluded, “the great problem for me now is how I’m to get hold of this thrice-precious little prophetic maid, Pontopereia, and transport her here. I know this Ornax place, this lonely promontory by the sea. But what about this Zenios and Okyrhöe? Heaven knows who they may be! Probably they are Thebans who claim descent from Kadmos himself, and possess magic powers beyond anything we’ve ever heard of!
“Well, old friend, there is my appeal to you—clear and definite enough but most damnably difficult. However! I know what tree is the king of all trees, and I know what Nymph is the emp
ress of all wildernesses, and since she rules by turning the wilderness into a garden—well, there we are!”
He turned his head away from the group of trees that led to the North and let his gaze rest on the Dryad at his side. Few old women in any forest have answered an old man’s questioning gaze with a more radiant look.
“I surely can give you advice in this matter, thou brave son of a brave father, and I’ll do so without delay! It is not of course by any wisdom of my own, that chance has given me my opportunity of jumping into your boat and of snatching thus boldly at the rudder. It is due entirely, as you can guess, to my goddess-friend Kleta, loveliest of the Graces.
“But listen, precious child of Laertes; listen and store away my words in the depths of your great bald skull! You know the place where our city-walls descend most steeply from the ‘agora’ to the harbour? And you know where there’s a second pair of walls at that steepest place that lead down between the rocks in a wider bend, though they too finally arrive at the harbour, only by a more circuitous route?”
Odysseus, who was listening intently, gravely nodded. “People don’t often nowadays go to the harbour by that roundabout way; for, though the shorter street is terribly steep, it’s only in bad weather that it’s really dangerous to man or beast. In fact so few people ever do go down to the harbour by the circular route of which I’m now speaking that there are places in it where those sweet-scented, bitter-tasting plants grow—your mother probably taught you their ancient name; but I only remember what Penelope used to call them when you first brought her here as your bride. Not a pretty name at all she used to call them!”
Again the king gravely nodded.
“Well, my child,” went on the aged Dryad, “just at the point where this roundabout way leaves the straight one there is an unwalled road, narrower than a street, but more frequented than an ordinary mountain-track, which leads to the summit of that ridge of rocks which your mother always maintained the farmers up there called “Cuckoo-Throne” or “Kokkys-Thronax”, but for which your father Laertes had a grander name that I’ve forgotten. But never mind the name! What I have to tell you now, my dear, is more important than the name of any ridge of rocks. The folk who dwell up here, when you get to the top, are almost all small farmers. Their houses, however, are large and look very comfortable from the outside.
“But you know that rocky ridge I’m talking about better than I do; so it’s silly to go on describing it to you. Anyhow, among the farm-houses up there—and part of this ridge must be nearly as high as Neritos—there’s a farm-house called Agdos where lives in complete loneliness a middle-aged farm-labourer of the name of Zeuks. This Zeuks has, as you can imagine, been so laughed at and so teased because of the resemblance of his name to that of Zeus, the supreme Ruler of gods and men, that he has become extremely eccentric and will only plough and sow and dig ditches and plant roots and prune trees for those among the farmers up there who use his name respectfully and never laugh at him because of it.
“In all these matters of words and letters, Odysseus my dear, I am as ignorant as this poor Zeuks, but I have the intelligence to know that if a farmer wants to get work from a hired man who isn’t a slave he’s got to treat him with respect.’’
The winner of the arms of Achilles once more nodded in grave acquiescence; but in his heart he thought: “When I hoist sail again I shall need no tying to the mast to keep me from the Isle of the Sirens!”
“It was,” continued the old Dryad, “because of his hatred of being laughed at, that Zeuks began to leave the island on short fishing excursions on board a small schooner called ‘the Starling’, and it was on these excursions, upon which he was entirely alone, that he enlarged, so to speak, the nature of his booty or loot and took to indulging in a little cautious piracy.
“For several years it was the prevailing idea among the farmers of Kokkys-Thronax that their whimsical neighbour Zeuks had discovered not only a particularly profitable sand-bank for fishing, but a particularly profitable market for his fish. The barns of Zeuks’ solitary homestead seemed to grow, autumn by autumn, fuller of the well-salted meats most necessary for the nourishment of strong men, and, spring by spring, of the honeyed sweet-meats most savoured at the festivals by women and children.
“But now, listen carefully to me, thou son of my lord Laertes. On the high ridge up there for three successive nights a great mist came out of the sea. This was long before your marriage with Penelope and she knew no more about the thing than you do yourself. It was your mother who knew all; and it was your mother who told me all. When those three nights were over—and you must understand, Odysseus, that it was then the identical time of year that we have reached today—very strange stories began to spread far and wide over our island. It was rumoured that during the three days when the unusual sea-mist covered that high ridge this unaccountable farm-labourer Zeuks had actually succeeded in bringing across the sea from Crete or Naxos,—Naxos I think it was, but I’m completely ignorant of everything outside what I call my ‘garden’ and how it could have been that a crazy one like this farm-labourer who wouldn’t labour if you didn’t treat him like the son of a prince, could do what no hero has ever done I cannot explain—succeeded I say in bringing across the sea and to that very ridge above our harbour, a living pair of immortal, super-magical, demogorgonic horses, Pegasos, born of the blood of Medusa and born with wings, and Arion, born of Demeter by the semen of Poseidon, and born white as the whitest dawn but with a mane black as the blackest midnight.
“But why do you turn your head away, Odysseus? And why do you sigh with that weary, cynical, bitter sigh? Is the whole subject full of infinite weariness to your mind? Is it so riddled and perforated with what a realistic shepherd of the people like yourself probably regards as romantic rubbish?
“But I will stop, Odysseus dear, if you feel that anyone who takes seriously such crazy local rumours cannot possibly be a real practical help to you in bringing Pontopereia the daughter of Teiresias here to influence the decisions of our Assembly.”
The hurt feelings in the old lady’s face were so vivid, and evidently must have risen from such a deep level of her whole being, that Odysseus looked at her in amazement. Since Penelope’s death his amorous propensities had been only aroused by his memories, and as these were almost entirely concerned with immortals, who by reason of having no blood in them except the liquid known as “ichor”, which has such a distinct cousinship with chlorophyll, the eternal greenness in vegetation, the physical effects of emotion upon flesh and blood had rarely attracted his attention; and when he noticed them at all, for he was as self-centred as a diamond, it was with so little disturbance of his own emotions that they were less to him than rain-drops on his bowsprit beard.
“What on earth’s the matter, old friend?” he enquired. “Of course I want your help, want it very much indeed, want it especially at this juncture when I’ve got to get hold of Teiresias’ daughter but can’t think of any way of doing it, except by crossing the island on my own feet and carrying the girl off, like a warm bundle over my shoulder!
“But you are a wise lady, a friend of my parents, and, I daresay, of my grand-parents too, and you know all that is rumoured from skin to skin, to say nothing of mouth to mouth, from this damned Ornax promontory to the top of this confounded ‘Cuckoo-Throne’ where the Agdos-place of your precious old Zeuks must be hiding those heavenly horses in his pig-sties till he can find somebody to buy them! Who but a wise girl like you, my dearest friend, could possibly have told me that there was a shy old farm-labourer, with a homestead named Agdos perched on the top of Kokkys-Thronax, or whatever it was mother called it, who had got the winged Pegasos and the black-maned Arion hidden in some creaky shed or ruined stick-house up there until he hears of a travelling merchant rich enough, and by the gods daring enough, to make him an offer? Aye! But isn’t it more likely that Pegasos and Arion will hoof this poor old Zeuks into the sea, and carry their purchaser to the Moon to sell him, than that an im
aginary Phoenician trader will offer to buy the winged offspring of the Gorgon and the black-maned by-blow of Poseidon’s rape of the mother of us all?
“But listen, my dear,” he went on; for with all his adamantine, mortised-and-tenoned, indurated, inveterate, homogeneous, impregnable, bowsprit-bearded egoism, the son of Laertes was born crudely kind and had acquired an almost supernatural discretion; and he could see that any off-hand sailorish jocularity which diminished the gravity of the startling facts the Dryad had disclosed was ill-suited to the tempo of the occasion. “It is clear that as in what you call your ‘garden’ you have worked at fulfilling the inscrutable intentions of our mother the earth, under whatever name she likes best to be invoked, so you have been permitted a most rare communion with every living creature, mortal or immortal, finned, furred, feathered, scaled, naked as a serpent, disembodied as a mist, such as ever has been, ever is, or ever could be associated with the surface of this rocky island.
“And when, as at this hour, in the presence of the most dangerous, crucial, important, and fatal conjunction of the Zodiacal Signs of my destiny upon earth, you my parents’ oldest friend, you the world-famous Dryad of the oldest oak in Hellas, take upon yourself the piloting of my boat through the earth-waves of mould and sand and gravel and clay, the only offering I have wherewith to thank you, Kleta-Dryad, is the cry of gratitude in my heart: ‘vox et praeterea nihil!’ as Petraia the Midwife always says, in the language of their New Troy, about her twin-sister’s Nymph in that Italian cave.”
He was silent, his eyes fixed steadily upon her face, his ten fingers, with the intention no doubt, in true Odyssean style, of simulating calm, resisting the natural human tendency to clasp and unclasp themselves under the pressure of agitating and anxious thought, tugging at the fastenings of his broad belt, while he even went so far as to indulge in the motion of a long shiver.
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