The Return From Troy

by Lindsay Clarke

  At that point Aegisthus left a silence in which he composed himself to speak of the circumstances surrounding his own birth, for in all his years of exile he had never previously confided in anyone. He might have found it impossible now had he not been urged on by this queen’s insatiability for truth.

  Sensing his uncertainty, Clytaemnestra said, ‘My own life is well acquainted with horror. We are kindred in that, you and I. The truth can only bring us closer.’

  Aegisthus smiled in assent and went on to tell how Thyestes had sought refuge at the court of King Thesprotus in Sicyon. On a visit to that city many years earlier he had fathered a daughter who had since grown up to become priestess to Divine Athena. Though he had not seen her since she was a babe in arms, it was to Pelopia that Thyestes now turned for consolation. Afraid that she must instinctively recoil from him as he recoiled from himself, he was overwhelmed with gratitude at the unexpected warmth with which Pelopia received him.

  ‘She was a consecrated priestess as well as his daughter,’ Aegisthus said. ‘Perhaps she came to believe that she could heal her father’s troubled soul? Whatever the case, Thyestes began to nurse an unholy passion for this beautiful young woman who had brought hope to his blighted life. That passion became an obsession, and when Pelopia realized that her sympathy had been mistaken for some stronger emotion, she sought, as best she could, to withdraw.’

  Sensing the agitation that must be in the fissures beneath his dry, ironical regard, Clytaemnestra listened in fascination as Aegisthus went on to tell how Thyestes, denied his daughter’s company, had taken to stalking her. On a night when she was due to make her offerings to Athena, he concealed himself in the shadows of a grove from where he could spy on the sacrificial rites. He watched in a state of intense excitement as she drew the knife across the throat of a black ewe. When the offering was made, Pelopia clapped her hands and led the temple maidens in the dance to the goddess. Thyestes saw her lose her footing as she slipped in a pool of blood that had drained from the severed arteries of the ewe. When she rose to her feet her tunic was splashed with stains. Covertly he followed her to watch her wash away the bloodstains in the temple fish-pond; and there, crazed by the sight of her nakedness, Thyestes masked his face with his cloak, pressed his sword at her throat to silence her, and took her by force.

  He must have woken from that demented trance of passion to see his daughter sobbing on the ground beneath him. Dropping his sword, Thyestes backed away. Unable to speak, scarcely able to breathe, he turned and ran. With his mind descending into ever deeper turmoil, he kept on running until he was gone from Sicyon, and when he came to the sea he took ship for distant Lydia.

  ‘Some days after Pelopia had been found in a dumb state of shock,’ Aegisthus said, ‘Atreus arrived in Sicyon looking for Thyestes. No longer virgin by then, and therefore no longer priestess to Athena, Pelopia had been taken into the king’s care. When Atreus saw her sitting sadly in the court, he too seems to have fallen under the spell of her strangely familiar presence. Assuming that the girl was the king’s daughter, he asked Thesprotus if he might take her for his new wife.

  ‘For some time Thesprotus had been worrying over how to keep at bay the imperial might of his powerful neighbour in Mycenae, so he immediately saw the value of such an alliance. But he also knew that Atreus would recoil from the proposal if he learned the truth of what had happened to his ward. So Thesprotus cannily decided to say nothing of Pelopia’s tragic fate. Atreus returned to Mycenae with his bride and nine months later Pelopia gave birth to a son.’

  Aegisthus paused again, reaching for his wine. When he resumed, his voice was held under still colder control. ‘Having already turned his back on Agamemnon and Menelaus,’ he said, ‘Atreus was delighted by the birth of a new heir. But shortly after recovering from her confinement, Pelopia took the baby from its crib and carried it into the hills around Mycenae where she left it to die. Imagine the consternation here in the Lion House! Atreus told himself that his young wife must have been overwhelmed by the madness that can sometimes possess a new mother. But as he sent out people to search for the child, he was fearful that the gods were still conspiring against him. To his enormous relief, the infant was found unharmed in the care of a goatherd who had given it to one of his nanny-goats for suckling.’

  Clytaemnestra said, ‘So that is how you came by your name!’

  Aegisthus smiled. ‘Atreus named me for the strength of the goat that had shown me more tender mercy than my mother did. And so, entirely unaware that my conception, birth and survival were all the work of a malignant fate invoked by a chain of curses binding one generation to the next, I grew up in the citadel at Mycenae as the half-brother and unloved companion of Agamemnon and Menelaus, who had withdrawn into a conspiracy of mutual support after the execution of their mother. As you can imagine, they did not greatly care for me!’

  Looking at the man he had become, Clytaemnestra could see that even as a child Aegisthus must have been troublingly beautiful. His corn-coloured hair, intense, periwinkle eyes, and lean body, delicately boned but with the promise of an athlete’s swift strength, would have contrasted with the brawnier, more rumpled features of his two stepbrothers. Accordingly they would have taken pleasure in informing him that he had the vacant eyes, rancid stink and doubtless the randy morals of the she-goat who had suckled him. Yet, however painful the insults he took, Aegisthus said, he remained confident that he was the favoured heir of Atreus. Sooner or later a day must come when he would be given the power to make his tormentors eat every word with which they had wounded him. In the meantime he was content to scheme alone, looking for ploys to darken their father’s mind against them without ever appearing openly to do so.

  Thyestes, meanwhile, had grown restless with his state of exile in Lydia. He was driven by the single obsessive thought that all the evil fortune in his life had been engendered by his brother Atreus. So Atreus must die. And when he was dead, Thyestes would seize the throne of Mycenae. And then there would be sanity and justice in the world again.

  Seven years after he had fled from Sicyon to Lydia, Thyestes learned from traders putting in at Smyrna that discontent was rife in Mycenae. Long years of drought had taken a dreadful toll on the surrounding countryside. As crops failed and livestock perished, people murmured that no land had ever suffered such prolonged misfortune unless its king had offended the gods, and there could be no more monstrous crime than the one that Atreus had perpetrated on his brother. The pollution of that crime must be cleansed; but the oracle at Delphi had long ago proclaimed that the drought would not lift until Thyestes returned. So how much longer must the people wait for the god’s demand to be answered?

  Confident that the wind was now blowing in his favour, Thyestes took ship back across the Aegean. His intention was to put in at Euboea where King Nauplius, who had no love for Atreus, would give him shelter. From there he would proceed to Delphi and seek guidance on how best to avenge himself on his brother.

  ‘At Delphi,’ Aegisthus said, ‘he received what was, perhaps, the strangest oracle ever pronounced by the god. How else should a man take vengeance on his brother, he was told, except by raping his own daughter?’

  ‘But in his madness he had already done that,’ Clytaemnestra said.

  Aegisthus smiled. ‘Which was exactly the confusing thought that came to my father when he heard the judgement of the god. Surely such madness could not be required of him again? So he came out of the temple into the glare of the day bewildered and dismayed, scarcely aware of his surroundings. And by a gesture of chance such as happens only through the will of the gods, he did so at just the moment when Agamemnon and Menelaus arrived in the forecourt of the temple. Atreus had sent them there to make placatory offerings on behalf of his stricken city. It was Menelaus who recognized Thyestes first. He pointed him out to Agamemnon who immediately commanded their guard to seize him. Thyestes was brought in fetters to Mycenae; but the gods were far from done with him.’

  Aegist
hus took a drink from the goblet which Clytaemnestra had replenished for him. ‘As it happened,’ he continued, Atreus was away from Mycenae at that time, putting down a band of brigands who were causing trouble on the Corinth road; so his sons threw Thyestes into the dungeon to await his return. I remember Agamemnon taunting me about their achievement, bragging that Atreus would now recognize who his true heirs were. They would soon be back in his favour, not some upstart goat-boy who belonged among the stinking shepherds who had found him … things of that sort. The oracle had been fulfilled. Thyestes had been brought back to Mycenae. The god had been obeyed. Soon the drought must be lifted. Surely Agamemnon must receive his father’s thanks and praise! Imagine his disappointment, therefore, when Atreus merely nodded as though having difficulty digesting the fact that his brother was back in the city and that something must now be done about him. Though I was only seven years old, I saw at once that he could not bring himself to look in the face of the man he had so savagely wronged. Certainly, he could not bring himself to order his brother’s death, even though he had no wish to see him live as a continual threat to his own security. And then I think that some god must have whispered in my ear that Atreus was in need of my help. In any case,

  I spoke up in the silence of the hall. “The oracle decreed that Thyestes must be brought back to Mycenae,” I said. “It did not insist that he must be allowed to live. If my father wishes it, I will gladly put an end to his wretched life.” I remember that Atreus looked at me as though seeing me for the first time - a seven-year old boy confidently volunteering to commit murder as if it was the most natural thing on earth. But that was exactly how it felt to me.’

  Conscious of the quickening of her heart, Clytaemnestra stared at her guest in fascination. Looking into those intense blue eyes, she had no difficulty imagining the peculiar innocence of the child who had uttered those terrifying words even though not a shred of that innocence was evident in the smile across from her.

  ‘Of course, Agamemnon began to scoff immediately,’ Aegisthus continued, ‘but Atreus raised an imperious finger to silence him and asked if I would truly do this thing for him. “If the father I love desires it of me,” I answered at once. And he said, “I do. I do desire it.” And so the thing was decided. Agamemnon sought to protest, of course, claiming that such an important task would be safer in his own hands than those of a mere child. But he could only blush when Atreus demanded to know why he had not done the job already. Was it perhaps because Agamemnon believed that Thyestes was indeed his father?’

  Aegisthus smiled at the irony of the gods. ‘I think it must have been the first time that the question of Agamemnon’s paternity had been so openly raised between them,’ he added, ‘for he blanched at the imputation and strode from the king’s chamber in a blustering sulk of rage. I cannot now say which gave me the greater pleasure, to receive this earnest of the degree to which I was loved and trusted by Atreus, or to see my tormentor Agamemnon so roundly humiliated by the man he had sought to please. Either way, when Atreus offered me the loan of his own sword to do the deed, I proudly declared that my mother Pelopia had already given me a short sword as a portion of my birthright heritage from Sicyon. I was used to its weight, it could be concealed more easily in the folds of my cloak, and I would prefer to use it as the instrument of Thyestes’ death. What I did not say was that the sword had exercised a powerful fascination over my mind ever since the solemn occasion when my mother first presented it to me. The bronze blade was finely chased with a hunting scene: a wild boar, a pack of hounds and men with spears; and the pommel was delicately fashioned in the form of the head of Artemis. I had never displayed the weapon in public where my half-brothers might. learn to covet what was my most prized possession, and my heart was excited now by the thought of putting it to use in what must be the most noble of all causes, the defence of my father’s life and honour.’

  Aegisthus fell silent for a time. Aware that he was now approaching the climax of his story, Clytaemnestra poured more wine into his goblet. She watched him stare into its depths before drinking. She saw the shadows of memory move across his dark, angular features. She waited patiently for him to speak.

  Without telling his mother what he was doing, the boy Aegisthus had taken his sword from its place of concealment and made his way down the stairway to the vaulted store-room beneath the citadel which served as a prison in those days. Having seen no one but his gaoler for days, Thyestes looked up at the unexpected sight of a small boy approaching him through the gloom with an oil-lamp in his left hand and his right hand tucked inside the folds of his cloak.

  ‘We had never seen each other before,’ Aegisthus said, ‘and when he saw from my clothing that I was well-born he demanded to know whether another of his brother’s brats had come to crow over him. I held the lamp so that I could study his face and was struck by his resemblance to Atreus. This man was younger, and there was a hungrier look about his cheeks and eye-sockets, but he was unmistakably the brother of the man who had sent me to murder him. He sat crouched against a wall that had been carved out of the solid rock, with his hands firmly tethered at the wrists and one leg shackled by a bronze chain fixed to a cleat in the wall. The store-room stank of his piss and shit. “You are my father’s enemy,” I said, “and I have come to put an end to your life.” Of course Thyestes snorted at that, and shook his head as if to convince himself that he wasn’t merely dreaming. But then I put the lamp down where it would shed most light and advanced towards him, taking my sword from the folds of my cloak. He said, “Is my brother so great a coward that he sends a child to do his dirty work these days?” Then he pulled himself up to his feet, saying, “Come on then, little boy, you’ll be doing me a kindness.” He held his bound wrists up above his head, exposing his stomach to my blade, but then, as I drew back the sword ready to plunge it deep into his flesh, he moved with surprising nimbleness, pushed his free leg between my own, and tripped me to the floor. The sword slipped from my grip and the next thing I knew this big, half-naked man was leaning over me with the hilt of the sword gripped in his bound hands staring down at me. “Shall I kill you then, spawn of Atreus,” he said, “as Atreus killed my children and served their poor flesh up for me to eat?” I was staring up at him, wide-eyed, with the sword blade trembling above my throat. Then I heard him gasp as though he had been pushed from behind by a god. “Where did you get this?” he demanded. I lay beneath his weight, unable to grasp what was happening. He was staring not at me but at the head of Artemis on the pommel of my sword. “Where did you get this sword?” he shouted. “Tell me or I’ll cut the tongue out of your head.”

  ‘Thinking he was accusing me of theft, I gasped out that the sword had been given to me by my mother. Immediately Thyestes demanded to know who my mother was. “Pelopia,” I stammered, “daughter of King Thesprotus of Sicyon.”

  ‘He lowered over me more closely then, shaking his head as he scrutinised my face. “How old are you?” he demanded, and when I told him I was seven, I could see his mind working quickly behind his eyes. “And your mother is Pelopia?” He pressed the point of the sword to the skin of my neck. “You swear you are telling me the truth?’’ Terrified of this strange, violent man, I swore on my life that I spoke the truth and was amazed when he lifted his weight off me and stood trembling in the gloom. I would have scrambled away then but he held me down with his foot, demanding to know whether Pelopia knew that he was here in Mycenae under confinement. I said that I didn’t know for sure, but I didn’t think so because she rarely left the women’s quarters and Agamemnon had kept his prisoner secret as a surprise for Atreus when he returned. Then, “Listen to me, boy,” Thyestes panted. “If you wish to live you must swear on the head of Divine Artemis here to do exactly as I say. Believe me, more than both of our lives may depend on it.” Then he pushed the pommel of the sword into my hand and made me swear a terrible oath that I would obey him. As I stammered out the oath, I could hear the rasp of his breath. I could feel his skin tremb
ling next to mine. “I know your mother,” he said. “She is very dear to me. Bring her here to me now. Tell her that the father she once loved begs to have words with her.”

  ‘I lay in a state of confusion, wanting only to be out of that evil place, unable to understand what he could mean. But, “You have sworn,” he growled. “You will bring a terrible fate down on your head if you fail to keep that oath. Now go. Go quickly. Bring Pelopia to me.” He lifted his foot off my chest. I got up, unable to take my eyes off him. Then I turned and ran for the stairs.’

  ‘And your mother,’ Clytaemnestra said, ‘tell me, how did she respond to this?’

  Aegisthus faltered for a moment. ‘My mother was a strange, fey creature, who rarely left her apartment unless it was to feed the birds or stare out across the hills as though in expectation of someone or something. And she was prey to fits of black depression, when she would speak to no one but me, even though I could understand almost nothing of what she said.’ For the first time he looked up at the woman across from him with a pained frown. ‘I loved her very much and was greedy for more of her love than she was able to give me; but I was also alarmed by her strange, distracted ways. And that night she was as confused as I was by what I had to tell her. For a time she would say nothing in answer to the questions I gabbled out. But when I told her of the dreadful oath I had been made to swear on the head of Artemis, she gathered her mantle about her shoulders and accompanied me, shivering all the way, down the dark stair to the dungeon.