Penelope's Web

by Christopher Rush

  So speaks the silver-tongued lover, little knowing that tomorrow’s feast will indeed turn out to be an extended one, but not in the way he imagines.

  Meanwhile Penelope, wise as ever, uses this speech as an opportunity to make a cleverer one.

  ‘Thank you again for the compliment, Eurymachus. I must say they are flying tonight. But one thing does concern me, and it’s this. If you value me so highly as a prospect, and if your handsome young heads are really turned by the looks of a mature woman, it’s a wonder you haven’t done the proper thing by now.’

  ‘Tell us what it is,’ says Agelaus.

  ‘That’s right!’ shouts Leodes. ‘Tell us what it is, and by god we’ll do it!’

  ‘Well then,’ said the wise Penelope, ‘instead of just turning up here empty-handed, expecting free meals, I’d have thought you might at least have shown your ardour by bringing along your own beasts to the banquet instead of slaughtering mine. It doesn’t exactly make you seem keen, does it, that sort of meanness? It’s hardly an inducement. I mean, what is a woman supposed to think?’

  ‘You’re right,’ says Eurydamas. ‘We’ve not shown sufficient respect.’

  ‘We’ll change that!’ cried Peisander. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Well, there is one other thing, but I’m almost ashamed to refer to it.’

  ‘No – tell us, tell us!’

  Eurynomus and Demoptolemus are on their knees.

  ‘Surely then, surely it’s customary for suitors to woo a lady with gifts – I mean really valuable presents, to prove to her the degree to which she is adored and appreciated.’

  ‘I’ll be first!’ roars Amphimedon, always first to get drunk. ‘And I’ll send out for them right now!’

  Under his rags, Odysseus can scarcely contain his delight. A clever diplomat of a queen, wheedling gifts from her despised lovers and bewitching them by her beauty and her coquetry to provide tribute, which will go straight into her husband’s estate and compensate in some measure for all the wastage and losses. These will be the last gifts they will ever give and will never be taken back. This is a queen fit for a king, the perfect spouse for the artful Odysseus.

  The gifts are sent for and produced. The doomed fools fall over each other in their eagerness to impress. Antinous offers an embroidered robe, glittering with golden brooches, a dozen at least, with pins that clip into curving golden bars. Eurymachus presents a golden chain, elegantly made and strung with amber beads, each gleaming like a little sun. A pair of earrings from Eurydamas, lambent, lucent, lovely, each with a cluster of three droplets that fall like the tears of Niobe. And many many more follow.

  Penelope’s women carry all the gifts up to her apartments for her to assess in private and so appraise the relative worth of the donors, so she says, assuring them it will be a close-run contest. And the suitors, pleased with themselves, light three braziers in the hall and resolve to make a good night of it. Tons of logs are ferried in by the sweating slaves and left in piles by the braziers for the maids to throw on every so often and keep the firelight bright till dawn.

  ‘You girls keep the brands in the braziers,’ leered Antinous, ‘and we’ll keep our torches in you. They’ll be well lit up!’

  Raucous laughter.

  He grabbed one of the girls called Melantho, gripping her by the haunches. She pulled her dress over her head, turned her back to him, propped both elbows on the table and stuck her arse in the air. Eurymachus kept her as his own regular mistress but apparently liked to show her off in orgies. He climbed onto the table facing her, kicked aside the plates and pitchers, and took her head in his hands, forcing it into his groin. She flipped out his prick and gave it the works while Antinous went at her like a little bull from behind. He came quickly.

  ‘Your turn now, Pelias. Try this end.’

  Pelias was well oiled by this time.

  ‘Yes, Antinous, but not where your well-used knob has been, excuse me! Look, she’s dripping – and she comes like a man.’

  ‘Well,’ said Eurymachus, ‘so she’s a squirter. If that bothers you, try the arse. But get on with it, for fuck’s sake!’

  The whore took the prick briefly from her lips.

  ‘Yes, come on, Pelias, let’s have a bit of buggery while I’m finishing off your mate. Ah!’ and she gasped as Pelias obliged.

  Most of the other shagging was going on in the shadows, but the quartet at the table were too drunk to care.

  ‘When I own this palace,’ laughed Eurymachus, ‘I’m going to build a shrine where this table is, sacred to the nymph Melantho – the nymphomaniac!’

  After they’d taken her fill of her and she of them, she stood up, still naked, and threw on a few logs. She swept up a wine cup and stood knocking it back, her behind to the brazier. Her face was flushed. I approached her, holding out her dress, which I’d picked up from the floor. She snatched it from me and threw it away.

  ‘Keep your filthy mitts off my clothes, you old fucker!’

  ‘Well now,’ I said, ‘I was only going to suggest that you and the other girls get dressed and go back upstairs to your mistress where you belong. And I’ll look after all three fires. Even if the lads here keep on drinking till daybreak, I’m their man. I can carry on, I assure you. They won’t see me out – I’ll see them out first. I’m as tough as old rope.’

  The whore spat out her wine in my face.

  ‘There’s your answer, bastard head! You see, I can squirt at both ends! Now fuck off before I piss on you as well. Who asked you to stick your old oar in? Has the wine gone to your noodle? Or do you think you’re somebody now just because you happened to give a coward a thrashing? He was all mouth, and you’re still nobody. A real man would have flattened you. Now vanish, you old fart, before I set the dogs on you!’

  Eurymachus applauded her.

  ‘She’s quite a girl, isn’t she, my Melantho? How’d you like to be my age again and have her cupping your balls, eh? She’ll be in charge here when I’m the man, and Penelope will be her flunkey. As for you, old bummer, it’s time you left town – unless you want to do some real work for me up on one of my farms, dyking or ditching or felling trees. That would sort you out. But you’d rather turn up here to fuck up our feasts and stuff your gluttonous stomach, am I right? Of course I’m fucking right!’

  ‘Of course he’s fucking right!’ echoed Melantho.

  ‘Is he?’ I asked. ‘I’ll bet he doesn’t know what real work is. Listen, my lad, I’d like to take you out at dawn in summertime when the days are long, out in some hayfield, just the two of us, a sickle each and a whole day’s reaping ahead of us, and nothing to eat or drink till sundown. Or how about a four-acre field for the two of us to plough, with a pair of oxen apiece, beasts bursting with fodder, big buggers that don’t wear out, that pull away from you all day. Then we’d see whose legs and shoulders would last out and who’d cut the straightest furrow. Then we’d see what’s what. Then we’d see who’s who. Or if I were to take you out into the front line with the arrows whanging and the spears whistling and the chariots thundering at you in the dust – then we’d see which one of us shat himself first. You think you’re a big man, but you’re small fry, you’re a useless bully, and if Odysseus appeared in front of you right now you’d find even that nice wide exit over there a shade too narrow for you in your panic to abscond!’

  Eurymachus finally boiled over.

  ‘You old bugger! You really have lost your fucking senses, haven’t you? Are you off your face? Or is Melantho right? Beating that arsehole Irus has gone right to your head. But you’ve gone too far now, even for a crazy old cunt!’

  He whipped up his stool and hurled it at my head. I ducked quickly, and it hit the wine-steward on the back of the hand. He yelped in pain, sucking his knuckles, and the jug clanged on the floor, spilling the wine.

  Furore in the hall. My position didn’t look too good.

  ‘Who the fuck asked him to stay on anyway?’

  ‘He’s caused nothing but trouble.
’

  ‘Ruining the atmosphere.’

  ‘Setting us at each others’ throats.’

  ‘Is the steward all right?’

  ‘Oh, let’s call it a night – it’s almost fucking dawn.’

  Telemachus was quick to capitalise on the sudden lapse of energy and the descent into lassitude and drunken weariness, and he announced formally that the celebrations were at an end.

  ‘What the fuck are we celebrating anyway?’

  ‘That woman still hasn’t made up her fucking mind.’

  ‘And we’re lots of gifts down with nothing to show for it.’

  ‘She’s fucking fleeced us!’

  Grumbling and slurring, they shambled over the threshold like beasts to the slaughter and out and away into the thinning dark. Still cursing and stumbling, holding onto their whores, they went off in their various directions, staggering home.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  I was left in the deserted hall with Telemachus. We stood in the shadows and looked at each other in silence.

  ‘It’s time,’ I said, ‘to prepare the ground. Remember the plan: first get rid of the weapons.’

  He went to feed Eurycleia the agreed story, that they’d been tarnished by the smoke over the years and he’d pack them away in the storeroom for cleaning and polishing.

  ‘The old beggar will help me,’ he told her. ‘It’s not work for maids, and certainly not for whores. I won’t have any of them touching my father’s weapons.’

  ‘When the time comes,’ I said, ‘the women will be locked away too. Eurycleia will see to it that they’re confined to their quarters.’

  ‘Couldn’t we have taken her into our confidence by now?’

  I put a finger on his lips.

  ‘It only takes one to spread the word, and then our only ally – surprise, remember? – is no longer on our side. You know what women’s tongues are like.’

  At that point, Melantho flitted out of the shadows.

  ‘What, still here, old ogler? Cruising round the house at your age, looking for a piece of arse, no doubt. Who’d sleep with you? Or you thought you’d catch me again without my clothes, did you, you old weirdo?’

  ‘Take care, missy,’ I said. ‘If Odysseus had caught you without your clothes earlier on, turning his house into a brothel in his absence, he might have hanged you in them, strung you up on the spot.’

  ‘Odysseus my arse! He’s a fucking myth! He’s history.’ She flounced towards the doors. ‘And if you’re still mooching about here tomorrow night, you’ll be flung out into the street with a torch tied to your old balls! I’ll have my lover see to it.’

  ‘Your lover? You mean your whoremaster? Your little pimp.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  Another ugly scene.

  Easy to follow it with a woven one. Easy to bring down Penelope to apologise for her maid’s behaviour, overheard by Eurycleia. Easy to bring her down at last to meet her husband. Easy to maintain the disguise and act out the impossible, as people do in art, where nothing’s impossible and people are not their real selves.

  Spread a rug then, spread it on the settle, close to the fire, and let husband and wife come closer, let them speak their first words to one another in nineteen years, tricked by the swindler time, and by firelight and the dissembling shadows into innocent talk, the disguise impenetrable, arranged after all by Pallas Athene, cleverer than any mortal wife, even the divine Penelope.

  It all came out: the Trojan War, delectable, detestable Helen, the thousand ships, the mighty dead, the missing husband, the endless weary waiting, no news, the suitors from Dulichium and Same and wooded Zacynthus, the Ithacan lice, the heart worn out with longing, the loom trick, the exposure, the sudden unavoidability of marriage, her own parents insisting on a match, and not without reason, nineteen years and no returning. She was out of options. It was over. Penelope’s story.

  As for Odysseus, he had a tale to tell that would have filled up another web.

  Picture Crete, rich and wonderful, washed by waves, a lovely island, a golden brooch pinned to the sea’s azure robe. Picture its ninety cities, its many languages, its races, the Achaeans, the Cydonians, the Dorians, the Pelasgians and the proud native Cretans. Picture Cnossos, that great city, ruled for nine years by King Minos, the grandfather of the old beggar, no less, the royal vagrant, now seated with the Queen of Ithaca.

  Time to identify this beggar of royal blood, give him a name. Call me Aethon, he says, son of Deucalion and grandson of Minos. Aethon will suffice. Any name will suffice, except Odysseus. And next, picture Odysseus himself – the real Odysseus – bound for Troy but driven off course at malevolent Malea and putting in at Amnisus, where he’s made welcome by none other than Aethon, and is wined and dined while the wind howls hard about them. The northerly gale blew hard for twelve days out on the deep, but on the thirteenth day the gale abated and Odysseus put to sea. No man making for Troy knew whether he’d got there, and if he did, whether he ever came away again.

  Picture too in passing the tear on Penelope’s cheek, drawn there by the beggar’s lying yarns and the hand of the queen herself. Picture the east wind melting the snow that the cold west wind brought to the high hills and the thaws causing the mountain rivers to run down in spates, soaking the steep slopes. So did the falling tears fall in floods, drenching Penelope’s fair face, though her husband’s eyes stared hard and dry as iron, so cleverly did he suppress his sorrow, his tender tears, the master of disguise, the lord of his emotions.

  You may even picture the brooch Odysseus happened to be wearing when Aethon met him, seen by Aethon’s own eyes, pinned to his purple cloak: a golden brooch bearing an elaborate design of a dappled fawn struggling in the clutches of a powerful hound. The fawn’s little hooves were kicking desperately, but the dog ripped out the throat and throttled the animal brutally. That picture drew more tears from Penelope – not for the sake of the fawn, but because she recognised the brooch as the gift she’d given her husband before he left for Troy, and so she knew the old beggar was telling the truth, even as he lied.

  And picture finally the story of Odysseus’s return from Troy, all the troubles that followed from the Cicones and the Cyclops, because Polyphemus was the son of the nymph Thoosa, daughter of Phorcys, Warden of the Salt-sea Waves, and it was Poseidon who filled her belly with this child when he slept with her in her cavern, hollowed and hallowed by the sea. So Poseidon’s hatred remained implacable, intensified by the anger of Apollo, leading to the loss of the last ship and all her crew, nineteen days in the sea before reaching the sea-kings, cousins to the gods, who arranged the voyage home, interrupted however by Thesprotia and by Odysseus’s final trip – he’d gone to Dodona to discover the will of the gods from the sacred oak tree there, and to ask advice about how to approach Ithaca. When in doubt, go to Dodona. When you want to know something awful, approach an oak. When you need secret advice, ask a tree.

  And when you’re looking for truth?

  Ah, so we’re back to that, are we? What’s truth? Whatever it is, you won’t find it in the web. Don’t look there, not when you come home from wars and wandering with all those women behind you, the women you slept with. You did it a thousand times, so why shouldn’t she? Do her eyes give her away? The eye is the index to the soul, and the window to her chamber. You squint into them secretly but hard, the eyes of Penelope, and you try not to imagine them closed in contentment as she lies down with Amphinomous, the one she was fond of. How fond? She had a soft spot for him, so they said. How soft? And where? You know where, don’t you? You can picture that soft spot precisely, can’t you? And her eyes opening as wide as her mouth as Amphinomous gets it up, oh yes, very well, he thrusts and sucks and her nipples come up stiff and wet and leathery, like little pricks, and there’s that tense little smile on her lips, she’s pleasured but impatient, her knees are pulled right back now to allow him extra depth, her legs come up, her heels digging his ribs, she starts to buck, fuck me! fuck me! he turns her over roughly, her
arse in the air, like Melantho’s, like Calypso’s, like she did it for you so many nights, and she moves the arse for him now, like Calypso used to do, shifts it back and forwards, travelling slowly along the whole length of the wet swelling member, faster as he gathers speed, till he reaches under and cups her swinging tits, and she reaches back and cups his swaying balls . . . Oh, come quickly! Oh, come quickly, sweetest love, and suck my soul to thee! He comes. She comes.

  Over. No? Don’t be in too much of a hurry. He turns her over again onto her back, climbs aboard, sits on her tits, his prick still spilling over. She grabs it greedily and stuffs it in her mouth. He’s still pumping it out and she squeezes it tight, the Calypso trick, to arrest the release, to stop the flow, filling him with ecstasy, with pain. The seconds are centuries. Then she unclasps her hand and lets him finish. Her tongue comes out and licks the glistening tip, licks the wet purple clean, sucks it off and swallows. Amphinomous’s sperm is like snow on her red lips. He throws back his head and howls at the ceiling.

  I’ll make him howl all right, I’ll murder the bastard, I’ll rip those fucking balls off, and the prick too, I’ll stuff it up her cunt and then I’ll tear her all to pieces . . .

  No, no, calm down, old man, take time to pause, to contemplate, it’s not true, none of it’s true, look in the web and see. Oh yes, the web, the web. But suppose you look in the bed instead, the bed she contaminated with her lover, the favourite. Suppose you run up there right now and examine the linen, see if you sniff Amphinomous on the sheets. No, no need for that, look at her instead, look hard at her and see what you see – the faithful wife, the fuller bosom, the wider hip. She has a lot more middle now, that is true, more belly to romp on, more silver threads than I’d expected among the gold, more wrinkles round the eyes, the throat. They are still lovely eyes, though, and her mouth is still a succulent mouth. Has it sucked his cock?