The Return From Troy

by Lindsay Clarke

  In that moment the crazed young man might have sprung up the stairs towards her if the spearmen had not been there to prevent him. As it was, Menelaus looked on astounded as Orestes released a violent shriek of pain and clutched his head with his hands. Then he was down on his knees, crumpled upon himself, rocking and gasping, as though he was being kicked by a hostile crowd. Pylades bent over him only to be pushed away unrecognized. When Orestes looked up there were flecks of white foam at his bps. His eyes bristled with terror. Raising the mutilated hand before his face, he tried with the other to fight off something that only he could see. He was groaning as he did so, and uttering frenzied pleas to Apollo for his aid.

  The spearmen fell back, blanching to look at him. Some of them made the sign to ward off evil. Pylades cast an anguished glance up at Menelaus; then turned back to Orestes, whispering his name, trying to reach him down whatever chasm had opened up inside him.

  ‘It is my sister’s ghost that haunts him,’ Helen cried.

  ‘No,’ Pylades shouted up at her, ‘his own Furies torment his mind. Because he loved his mother they will not let him go.’ He bent down over his friend again but Orestes recoiled from his touch as though an asp had stung him. He slumped to the marble floor, drawing his knees up to his chest and covering his head with his hands and arms.

  And that was how Hermione saw him when she joined her mother on the balcony, drawn there by the terrible noises rising from the hall.

  When he heard the frightened gasp that broke from her, Menelaus looked up and shouted, ‘Get away from there, Hermione. Return to your chamber now.’

  But Helen grabbed her daughter by the arm. ‘No,’ she cried, ‘let her stay. Let her see just what manner of man it is she wants to marry.’ She turned to confront Hermione. ‘Look at him well. This is the man with whom you’ve conspired behind our backs. This is what you’ve chosen for yourself. And don’t imagine that Orestes has any love for you. What he wants is Sparta. But go to him if you want him still. Take the curses of his house upon yourself. Go to him. I won’t stop you.’

  For a time Hermione stood frozen on the balcony, looking not at the man she had once believed she loved, but at the hostile fire in her mother’s eyes. She wanted to run from the hall but her legs felt faint beneath her. She was no longer a nineteen year old woman trying to seize control of her life, but a dumb animal petrified by the cruelty of a world she could not understand. All the years of unshed tears rose inside her and shook her where she stood.

  Knowing that she had been much the same age as this frightened girl when Paris came to claim her, that she had been younger still when Theseus had come, driven by nothing nobler than his lust, to carry her away, and that she too had wept for a vanished mother when she was only a child, it seemed to Helen as if the universe was no more than a cruel wheel on which generation after generation was born to be broken. For such a world there was no remedy but human tenderness. Blinded by tears, she reached out and pulled her daughter to her breast.

  Below them, in a hall now silent but for the muffled whimpers of a tormented boy, Menelaus looked down at his nephew’s trembling form. ‘There is nothing for you here, Orestes,’ he whispered as gently as he could. Exhausted by grief and pity, he too was weeping as he said, ‘You do right to pray to the god that drove you to your vengeance. Only he can help you now.’

  Some memory of this wretched invasion of the palace at Sparta must have been troubling Eteoneus when the chamberlain treated with suspicion two other young men who arrived uninvited at its gates not long afterwards.

  Earlier that day Menelaus and Helen had bidden farewell to their daughter as Hermione set off with a long train of attendants on the journey to the recaptured city of Iolcus where she had consented to wed Neoptolemus. In an effort to lift his wife’s spirits, Menelaus had commanded that there be a feast that night; so when Eteoneus came to him with the news that there were strangers at the gate, he sharply reminded him of the obligation of hospitality and ordered that the guests be given an opportunity to refresh themselves before joining the banquet.

  If Telemachus had been impressed by the splendour of Nestor’s citadel at Pylos, when he entered the palace at Sparta he felt as though he was being admitted to the Olympian hall of Zeus himself. Gazing at the profusion of gold, silver, amber and ivory on display around him, he whispered as much to Peisistratus, but Menelaus overheard him and gave a little laugh. ‘I confess myself fortunate in my wealth, young man,’ he said, ‘but I’m far from being a god, believe me. Merely a mortal who has had the rare luck to survive the mischance of war and return with something to show for his pains. But come, sit down while we wait for my queen to join us, and tell me what brings the two of you to Sparta.’

  Less awed by the magnificence of the palace than his companion, Peisistratus immediately announced that he was the youngest son of King Nestor; and when they had talked about his father’s ailing condition for a while, he introduced his friend Telemachus as the son of Odysseus of Ithaca.

  ‘When I last saw you,’ he said with a rueful smile, ‘you were still mewling in your mother’s arms, no more than a few weeks old. And look at you now. Your father would be proud of you, young man.’

  Telemachus was about to say that he had come in search of news of his father when their attention was distracted by the arrival of Helen and her ladies in the hall. Menelaus called out to his wife at once. ‘Look, my dear,’ he cried, ‘the sons of Nestor and Odysseus have graced us with their company.’

  Still troubled by what had happened to her daughter, and aware how her own passionate behaviour all those years ago had disrupted the lives of these two young men, Helen greeted them almost shyly. Smiling at Telemachus, she said, ‘Your build is much like your father’s, but you have the look of my dear cousin Penelope about your face. Tell me, how is your mother?’

  ‘She is well, lady,’ Telemachus answered, ‘but things go hard for us in Ithaca. My father has not yet returned from the war and there are those who insist that my mother must remarry.’

  Peisistratus said, ‘Telemachus tells me that Penelope’s many suitors are making her life a misery.’

  Menelaus looked back at Telemachus. ‘Is this truly the case?’

  ‘It is, lord. That’s why I’ve come here hoping to learn news of Odysseus — either that he’s certainly dead, which I pray the gods forbid, or that he’s alive somewhere and we can look for him to return to us soon.’

  Averting his eyes from the youth’s frank gaze, Menelaus exchanged an uneasy glance with Helen. Telemachus did not miss that exchange and his young heart lurched at the immediate assumption that they knew his father to be dead.

  But it was Peisistratus who said, ‘Do you have word of Odysseus?’

  ‘We do, we do,’ Menelaus answered, drawing in his breath. He turned away, looking for his seat and sat down with his eyes closed, shaking his head. ‘I blame myself for this. I should never have come to Ithaca all those years ago. I told him so the last time I saw him, outside Priam’s palace at Troy. I should have left him in peace with Penelope, which was all he wanted. He was the best friend that a man could ask for, and they were happy together. My quarrel was none of theirs.’

  ‘Is my father dead then?’ Telemachus brought himself to ask.

  Preoccupied with his own thoughts, Menelaus frowned up in surprise. ‘No, far from it,’ he said, ‘or at least he was alive when I last heard of him. But the news was already old.’

  ‘Then where is he?’ the youth demanded. ‘Why doesn’t he come home?’

  Anxious not to add to the hurt he was about to give to this sensitive young man, Menelaus chose his words carefully as he related what he had been told by the Phoenician Hylax about the choice that his old comrade had made. The task was made more difficult for him by the fact that he had only a vague idea of the events that had preceded that choice, but as far as he understood the situation: Odysseus had been the cause of a major scandal in an important cult centre of the Mother Goddess in a land to the w
est. Having undergone initiations in that cult, he had seduced one of its virgin priestesses, who then abandoned her sacred duties at the Oracle of the Dead in Cuma and fled with him to her island home of Ogygia. Reports both of the outrage they had left behind them and of their subsequent life together had been brought to Egypt by a Phoenician merchant whose trade took him occasionally to Ogygia. According to his report, the priestess was both young and beautiful. She was also deeply enamoured of Odysseus, who had given up the roving life of a pirate and was now living with his lover in great comfort and luxury. Menelaus assured Telemachus that he had carefully questioned his source, but as far as he had been able to ascertain, it was highly unlikely that his father would ever return to Ithaca.

  Telemachus received this news in silence, biting his lip; but in the very efforts he was making to remain impassive, Menelaus saw the disappointment and anguish he had caused. ‘You must try not to think too badly of your father,’ he said. ‘Odysseus is a good man. And war does terrible things to us all. If you can find room in your heart to do so, you should be glad he’s managed to find some peace after the long years of suffering at Troy.’

  ‘Ithaca is not at peace,’ Telemachus answered. ‘My mother is not at peace.’

  ‘I understand that,’ Menelaus said quietly.

  Helen reached out her hand to cover his. ‘This is not the news that Telemachus hoped to hear,’ she said. ‘He must be astounded by it — as I confess I was myself when I first heard it. The gods know that I’ve been a fool for love in my time and have some knowledge of these things; yet it amazes me that Odysseus would behave this way. I can only think he too has been afflicted by the madness of the goddess.’

  ‘I think,’ Telemachus said, ‘if you will excuse me, that I need a little time alone.’

  Menelaus watched as the youth politely lowered his head and backed away from him, before turning and hastening from the hall. Even though the wife that had once been lost to him was now at his side in this golden palace, tightly holding his hand as she too watched Telemachus walk away, the King of Sparta was overwhelmed once again by the unrelenting grief of the war. It seemed inexorable in the way it reached out, year after year, beyond those whom it had already killed and injured and widowed, to clutch the hearts of a new generation.

  When Helen looked up at her husband, she saw the tears rolling down his face, and all the pain of their lives was present between them as she tightened the grip of her hand, silently affirming what both understood: that they must love one another now as best they could or all this pain would be forever meaningless.

  ‘Come,’ she whispered, ‘Polydamna will mix the wine for us tonight.’

  Furious with grief, Telemachus had already made up his mind to leave Sparta and get back to Ithaca as quickly as possible. He might have left immediately had Peisistratus not calmly persuaded him that it would be discourteous to his hosts and that they needed to rest before setting out on the journey home. But Telemachus lay on his bed in turmoil that night. Odysseus was nothing to him now. He would go home and care for his mother as best he could. And if Ithaca was to be saved from Antinous and the others, he would do it himself.

  The following morning Menelaus pressed him to remain as his guest for a time, but the youth was adamant that he must leave. He was reluctant even to accept the gifts that his host sought to lavish on him. Horses and chariots were of no use to him on the steeps of Ithaca, he explained in embarrassment, while thanking Menelaus for his generosity.

  ‘But you must at least take a gift for your mother,’ Helen insisted as she saw her husband’s face fall. She picked up a solid silver mixing-bowl, rimmed with gold, and pressed it into the youth’s arms. ‘This comes from Sidon,’ she said. ‘It is reputed to have been cast by Hephaestus himself. Take it, please. It will remind Penelope of our love for her.’

  Sighing, Menelaus said, ‘I would gladly surrender half my wealth if it would bring your father back to you. But surely, among all my possessions, there must be something you desire?’

  Telemachus looked into his host’s sad face and saw how strong was the man’s need to offer some measure of compensation for the pain he had given. It would be cruel to refuse him. ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘did you bring papyrus with you when you came from Egypt?’

  ‘Many scrolls of it,’ Menelaus answered, a little surprised. ‘Is that what you would like?’

  ‘I have a friend on Ithaca,’ Telemachus smiled. ‘He will have a use for it.’

  Telemachus was standing on the strand at Pylos saying farewell to Peisistratus when a stranger approached him out of the crowd that had gathered about the ship. His head was draped in a thick cloak and there was a hunted look in his intense black eyes. ‘Are you the captain of this vessel?’ he asked.

  Telemachus frowned at the interruption. ‘No, the ship belongs to my friend Peiraeus. I have merely commissioned her.’

  ‘Then you may still be able to help me,’ the man urged. ‘I need to take passage out of Pylos as soon as possible. Where are you bound?’

  ‘For Ithaca. But …’

  The man grabbed his wrist. ‘My life is at risk,’ he said. ‘If I don’t get away from here today I’m a dead man. I beg you to take me with you.’

  Telemachus turned to his friend, asking if he knew this man, but Peisistratus shook his head and demanded to know where the fellow had come from.

  ‘From Hyperesia,’ he answered, ‘where I avenged my father’s murder on the man who killed him. Now his kinsmen are hunting me down. I swear that my vengeance was lawful.’ He held up his hands. ‘I bring no pollution with me.’

  ‘My friend has troubles enough of his own,’ Peisistratus frowned, ‘without involving himself in another man’s feud. Why should he help you?’

  When the stranger looked back at Telemachus, the intensity of his gaze was charged with a power that was deeper and more searching than mere entreaty. ‘My name is Theoclymenus,’ he said. ‘I am of the lineage of the seer Melampus. Like him, I have the sight. Will you give me your hand?’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Telemachus allowed the stranger to take his palm. He looked down into it for a time before raising his eyes to study the young man’s face. ‘You are seeking something,’ he said, ‘… something very close to you. You believe it lost forever. I promise you it is not. There are hard ordeals to come, but that which was lost will be restored to you.’ Then he gasped quickly three times, with his eyes closed. He uttered a little laugh. ‘It will happen very soon … That which you have been seeking abroad, you will find waiting for you … in Ithaca.’

  The Homecoming

  Bright on the morning air, he heard the sound of laughter. Birdsong and laughter. The laughter of girls at play. Odysseus stirred where he lay in a litter of dead leaves under the boughs of a wild olive tree. His throat was dry. His limbs ached. He could feel the crust of sea-salt drying on his abraded skin. When he squinted up into the light he saw the sun already standing high in the sky.

  Evidence all of it, against all expectations, that he was still alive.

  Poseidon had raised the seas once more and this time the storm had wrecked him. The steering oar was wrenched from his grip. The small craft he had cobbled together on Ogygia was thrown over by the waves, and he was out among the clashing billows snatching at the air. When he surfaced again he saw the upturned bottom of his boat protruding from the waters like a dolphin’s back. He swam for it, gasping, clambered onto the planks, and then he had no idea how long he had clung to the keel while the force of the tempest pushed him through the seas.

  Eventually the skies had cleared. Bleached by salt and sun, he lay bobbing on his cockleshell in the swell. When he eventually lifted his head, Odysseus saw the grey rise of a coast within what would have been swimming distance for a less exhausted man.

  Should he cling to his capsized boat, or let go and make a bid for the salvation of dry land? He lay with the sun glaring down at him, unable to decide. Then, barely conscious as the boat rose and fell, h
e saw the figure of a woman skipping like a sea-bird across the glittering crests. He could hear her voice beside him on the boat. ‘Deliverance lies on land,’ she whispered. ‘Take off your clothes and commit yourself to the waves.’ She held out her hands. He saw that she was offering him her long veil. ‘Hold on to this,’ she smiled. ‘It will guide you ashore.’

  But she could only be a phantasm of his exhausted mind; so he closed his eyes and clung on. He clung on until a wave stronger than most pushed his numbed fingers free of the keel and then the current grabbed him and the boat was gone beyond reach.

  Treading water, he realized that his sodden clothes would make it harder to swim; so he tugged them off, and stared through the spray towards the distant shore. Only one way now to find out whether he had the strength to make it through the breakers between. With a prayer to Athena at his lips, Odysseus thrust himself forward on the next wave. He heard the boom of the surf. Closer inshore came the clash of water against rocks.

  Had he survived all those days at sea only to have his body broken by land that might have saved him? Well, what difference now? He was all but dead already.

  Odysseus surrendered to the current. Bashed against a rock, he clung there for a time, scarcely able to see for the salt spray. Then his fingers were sliding down green slime and he was buffeted by waves again. With his senses blurred and the breath sucked from his lungs he was washed to a place where he was gazing down into water so clear that he might have counted every pebble. A wave thrust him down into those green depths. His ears were singing like shells. Then stones were rolling round him, plucked and knocked together by the surf, back and forth, shushing one another as they were caught where the mouth of a river met the push of the sea. He could lie there if he liked, and quietly drown in a few inches of foam, or he could find the strength to stand. Odysseus drank fresh water till his thirst was slaked; then he had pushed inland against the river’s strong current till he found a culvert where he could stagger ashore. Not far from the bank he came across a copse of trees. Collapsing in the shelter of a wild olive bush, he covered his body with leaves.