The Trojan War

by Bernard Evslin

  Just as Poseidon said these words the picture in the green bowl dissolved from that of Agamemnon spearing the elder son of Antenor, to a picture of the younger son of Antenor spearing Agamemnon. The younger son, Choön, drove his spear through the king’s shoulder. Agamemnon’s counterthrust pierced the lad’s eye-socket, and split his skull. But Agamemnon, bleeding sorely, was forced from the field.

  Grinning, Poseidon signalled to a naiad, who took up the bowl and poured out the blood-tinged water, and refilled it with clean water and returned it to the laughing god. Now Poseidon, conning the waters in the bowl, saw Hector rally the Trojans for a counterattack that carried them back over the field half-way to the fosse.

  Here at the lip of the fosse the best of the Greeks took a stand against the Trojan’s hurricane charge. Diomedes flung a rock at Hector that crushed the crest of his helmet and hurled him to earth, stunned. But Aeneas straddled the fallen Hector and covered him with his shield, and Diomedes could not follow up his advantage. Such was the fever of combat burning in Hector that his dizziness fled, and he sprang to his feet, ready to fight again. As Diomedes hesitated, seeking a way to get at Hector, Paris slithered near. Sheltering behind a tree, he notched an arrow to his bowstring, and let fly. It was a splendid shot. Had he ventured closer before shooting he would have killed Diomedes, but the tree was a long bowshot away, and the arrow struck downward, piercing Diomedes’ foot, pinning it to the ground. Seeing that Diomedes could not get at him, Paris laughed, and came closer, fitting another arrow to his string.

  “It was you, was it, prince of sneaks!” roared Diomedes. “Hiding behind a tree like a mountain bandit, and shooting arrows at your betters. Miserable ambusher! Puling abductor! Dare to come within my reach. Dare to meet me with spear or sword!”

  Diomedes stooped and pulled the arrow out of his foot despite the awful pain of the barb tearing backward through his flesh. Paris was so disconcerted at this stoic feat that he melted into the crowd again without shooting his second arrow. But Diomedes had lost much blood; he had to quit the battle.

  Now Hector, flanked by Troilus and Aeneas, swept like a brushfire along the bank of the Scamander where the Thessalians were making a stand.

  Paris had hastened to join this group because he preferred to shelter himself behind an impenetrable hedge of such shields. But he was welcome. His archery was inspired. It was as if Apollo himself had tutored him in bowmanship between one day’s fighting and the next. Every arrow he shot found its target in Greek flesh. He sent a shaft through the shoulder of Machaon, who fell where he stood. A shout of despair arose from the Thessalians. Machaon was their king; not only their king, but the most able healer in the Greek camp. Son of Aesclepius himself, he had been taught by the great surgeon, and had mastered his father’s art. This made him a grandson of Apollo, of course, but he had lost Apollo’s favor by fighting on the wrong side.

  It was old Nestor who leaped out of his chariot and lifted the fallen Machaon, and drove him safely back to the Greek lines. But the Thessalians were disheartened by the loss of their leader and would have crumbled before the Trojan charge had not Great Ajax come rushing up, and rallied their wavering ranks with a loud war-cry.

  All this time Poseidon was watching the battle in the visionary waters of his bowl. Octopi wrestled beyond the huge windows set in his palace of coral and pearl. Sharks glided, smiling their hunger. Shoals of long-legged naiads swam by, hair floating. Balloon-fish, giant rays, the artful twisted glyph, the only sea-creature that can outmaneuver an eel. All the rich traffic of the sea swam past his window—which he so loved in his ordinary hours, but which he failed to notice now, absorbed as he was in the shifting images of battle.

  He saw Ajax standing among the broken Thessalians, steady as a rock, with streams of Trojans dividing upon him as waves break upon a rock. The Thessalians gave ground; the Trojans swarmed. Ajax, for all his huge strength, was about to be overwhelmed. Then Poseidon’s heart bounded with pleasure as he saw Ulysses storm up in a chariot drawn by a pair of magnificent mares. Milk-white they were with black manes and brass hooves.

  “How did Ulysses come by that team?” said Poseidon to himself. “They belong to Rhesus. They are the get of my own surf-mares, sired upon them by Pegasus. But he could not be driving them, and Rhesus alive. What could have happened?”

  He shook the waters in the bowl until they darkened into images of the night before. He saw Ulysses and Diomedes, acting upon the information they had tortured out of Dolon, steal into the Thracian lines, cut the throats of Rhesus and twelve companions, leap into his chariot and whip up the beautiful steeds to a windlike rush back beyond the fosse.

  “So that’s how they did it,” said Poseidon to himself. “What devils they are, those two—crafty, bold, imaginative, ruthless. How can the Trojans possibly stand against such men; how could they have withstood them for nine years? Zeus secretly helps the Trojans; that’s the only explanation. Despite his oath of neutrality he is sending signs and portents to hearten the Dardanians beyond the limits of their own mortal strength. And yet he threatens with awful punishment any of the other gods who intercede.”

  Poseidon shook the waters in the bowl again, and returned to the day’s fighting. Ajax and Ulysses, shields locked, were making a stand on the banks of the Scamander. But they had each suffered wounds, and, step by step, were being forced back. Finally, Ulysses grasped Ajax, who was more seriously wounded, about his waist, thick as the trunk of a tree, and with an enormous effort hauled the giant into his chariot. Then he whipped up the white mares, who galloped so fast it seemed they were flying. With one bound they leaped the Scamander, pulling the chariot through the air after them, and sped behind the Greek lines.

  But now the Trojans were free to ford the river, storm the fosse, break the ramparts, and burn the ships. With the flight of Ulysses and Ajax, with Agamemnon, Diomedes, and Machaon wounded—and Achilles still refusing to fight—the battle had definitely turned in favor of the Trojans.

  But now Poseidon had decided. He could not retrace the process by which he had made the decision—but he recognized an enormous urgent partiality toward the Greeks. He lost no time. He sent a message by a naiad who swam underwater to a marg of the Inner Sea where a river cuts its way to the shore. There the naiad rose to the surface and sang a summoning song, which was answered by a nereid, a river nymph. She arose, tall, naked, brown-haired, and dripping, to meet her green-haired cousin. The naiad whispered the message to the nereid who swam upstream to the source of the river—a spring on the slope of the mountain. She arose from the water, sleek as an otter, and sang a summoning song. A song answered—far and coming near. Running over the fields came a troop of dryads or wood-nymphs. The nereid spoke to their leader, a tall, black-haired nymph with suave satiny muscles tightening her brown skin.

  “I will bear the message, cousin,” cried the dryad, laughing.

  She ran up the slope again, followed by her troop, screaming and laughing. The nereid watched them until they disappeared into a grove of trees, then dived back into the river and floated downstream. The tall dryad ran to a certain grove on the slope of Olympus where she knew Hera was wont to hunt. There she found the goddess holding a hooded falcon on her wrist, instructing it—which she did quite fluently. She was queen of the air and spoke the language of falcons and of all birds. The dryad knelt before her.

  “A message from Poseidon, oh queen.”

  “What have you to do with Poseidon, hussy?” cried Hera, who, like her falcon, would not be in good humor until their first kill. “Has he been hunting on these slopes again? Does he not have naiads aplenty that he must seek my dryads of the Sacred Grove? Why, he’s as insatiable as his elder brother, if that is possible.”

  “Pardon me, queen,” said the Dryad. “But I was not given this message by him, personally. It was brought by a nereid who swam upstream from the Inner Sea—and she had it from a naiad sent by the Lord of the Deep with this message to be given to you, and you alone.”

>   “What is it?”

  “He wishes to meet with you on a matter of much urgency. He will meet you halfway on the isle of Patmos.”

  “Urgent for him or for me?”

  “A most important affair,” he said, “which he could confide to your ear alone, but that you would rejoice to hear.”

  “Thank you then for the message,” said Hera.

  She uncinched the falcon from her wrist, and gave it to the dryad.

  “Take him back to the palace for me. Catch a rabbit and feed it to him, fur and all. But take care of your fingers.”

  Hera whistled. A chariot appeared, drawn by eagles. She mounted the chariot, uttered a piercing eagle scream, and sped away off the mountain toward the blue puddle of the sea.

  Poseidon’s residence on Patmos was a great cave. He received Hera very courteously.

  “Sister, forgive me for bringing you this distance. Had I come to visit you on Olympus, the wrong ear might have heard us speak, and a tattling tongue borne our business to Zeus.”

  “Ah, this is to be a secret from Zeus then,” said Hera.

  “A heavy secret. Heavy enough to crush us both … if we are not prudent. I have observed, sister, that your husband has broken his oath of neutrality in this war between Trojan and Greek, and has now tipped the balance in favor of the Trojans … though their numbers be fewer and their heroes less splendid. So I, who abhor dishonest dealing, have resolved to abandon my own posture of impartiality—by which, you know, I have truly abided, alone among the gods—and to cast my influence on the side of the Greeks, whom, I know, you favor also.”

  “That is well known,” said Hera. “At the moment it’s not helping them much, but I haven’t played out my string yet.”

  “Precisely,” said Poseidon. “And now I give you a new melody to play on that string. A most seductive one.”

  “Speak plainly, sir. I do not like this deep-sea riddling.”

  “Plain as plain, gentle Hera. I mean to intervene actively in the battle, for there is no time to waste. The Trojans have crossed the fosse, are about to burst through the rampart, and drive the Greeks into the sea, thus ending the war. I mean to visit that beach myself, and tip the battle the other way. But Zeus must not see me do this. Else he will hurl his thunderbolt, nail me to the indifferent earth with a shaft of light, then send his Titans to drag me to Hades and chain me to the roots of a mountain, in awful blackness, in choking dryness, there to abide for that endless, sleepless night called eternity.”

  “And you dare to defy him like this? Knowing the penalties? Truly, this is a change of heart, brother of the deep.”

  “It is that, high sister. And the success of my venture depends, as I said, on his remaining ignorant of what I am doing.”

  “How will he remain ignorant? He sits on his peak on Olympus, or a more private one on Mt. Ida, and studies the battle below with keen and vigilant eye. If you even approach the Dardanian plain he will see you.”

  “Then we must get him off that peak, sister. We must close that keen and vigilant eye. And of all the creatures on earth, of air, or in the sea, mortal or immortal, you are the one to do this. For you are the most beautiful, the most sumptuous, the most regal, the most intoxicatingly seductive personage in all creation. You must woo him off his mountain, hold him tight, and beguile him with such delights that he will forget the battle below. This will give me time to help the Greeks.”

  “I never realized you thought me so attractive,” said Hera. “We have known each other since one generation past the beginning of time, and never have you looked upon me with ardent eye, or spoken such words.”

  “The modesty of a younger brother. I knew you were destined for our elder brother, who was to be king of the gods and deserved the best.”

  “Well, it’s a dangerous, dangerous game,” said Hera. “Old Zeus is a male, true. And, like all males, vulnerable to a low blow. Nevertheless, he is very wise, very cynical, very mistrustful, very difficult to deceive for any length of time. However, I find you oddly persuasive this hot afternoon, and I will try to do as you ask.”

  “Trying is not enough; you must succeed,” said Poseidon. “Don’t forget, you were the first to espouse the Greek cause, and have kept it alive these nine years, you and Athena, against all the stubborn resistance of your husband.”

  “That is true. I hate Paris, loathe the Trojans, dote on the Greeks. And, suddenly, dote on you, dear Poseidon. So I shall return to Olympus and do what you want done.”

  “It is just before the noonday meal,” said Poseidon. “Would it not be better to approach him after he has dined? Like all males he has difficulty managing more than one appetite at a time. This gives us an hour or more.”

  “Gives us an hour or more for what?”

  “For rehearsal, sweet sister.”

  “You are full of ideas today, my wet lord. One of them better than the next …”

  HERA AND ZEUS

  POSEIDON WAS SLEEPY AFTER Hera left, and would have much preferred to nap the afternoon away in the flowery grove on Patmos. But he knew that the Trojans were pressing hard, and that he must act immediately. He mounted his chariot and hastened to Troy.

  Down on the field the Trojans had crossed the fosse and were storming the rampart, which they were trying to knock down with battering rams. A squad of them lifted a log and rushed toward the wall at a dead run, smashing it against the wooden palisade. The timbers groaned and shuddered, but still stood. The Greeks were thrusting down with their long lances from the top of the rampart. At each battering-ram charge the Trojans were losing men. Then Zeus sent a sign. He swerved an eagle in its path so that it crossed the sky to the right of Hector, and dipping closer to the beach than eagles ever fly. And Hector knew that the god of air and mountain had sent the eagle as a sign.

  Filled with joyous strength at this signal of divine favor, the Trojan leader now did something no man had ever done before. He ran to a wrecked chariot; with a mighty heave pulled off one of its wheels. Then, as Greek and Trojan watched him in disbelief, he lofted the enormous copper-spoked brass wheel, and whirled as if he were hurling a discus. The wheel flew on a flat trajectory like a discus well-thrown, and struck the rampart beyond the fosse, knocking a huge hole in it. Hector uttered a loud war-cry and charged toward the gap in the wall followed by his men. They crossed the fosse, climbed up the other side through a cloud of darts and arrows, then rushed toward the breached wall, still following Hector who was several paces ahead, his brass helmet flashing light.

  It was then that Poseidon came to the beach. All in gold he came, in a golden chariot, wearing golden armor, carrying a golden lance.

  “Too soon, too soon,” he said to himself. “Hera will not have had time to woo brother Zeus from his vigil. If I appear like this he will see me and hurl his thunderbolt. Yet, if I delay, the Trojans will overrun the Greek camp. I must act now—but in disguise—and let us hope that Hera on her part does not delay; or that her husband is not immune to her wiles. For Zeus sees quickly through disguises.”

  Poseidon then put on the form of Calchas, the Greek soothsayer, and appeared on the other side of the rampart among the Hellenes. He stationed himself near great Ajax, and faced Hector, who, with the eagle-rage still upon him, face and body glowing like a demi-god, was charging the center of the Greek line, held by Great Ajax, Little Ajax, and Teucer.

  Hera had not been wasting time. She knew how desperate the situation was. But, for all her haste, she made careful preparation. She knew that after a thousand years of marriage Zeus found her charms something less than irresistible. His changeableness in these matters had become a fact of nature, and indeed had produced a large variety of demi-gods and heroes. But Hera was ferocious in her moods too, had a volcanic temper, and time had never made her accept the ways of Zeus. So they had bickered down the ages with increasing rancor and, for the last few centuries, had seldom been together. Therefore, she fully understood how difficult was the assignment given her by Poseidon. She visited
Aphrodite, and said:

  “We have quarreled, cousin, but I think it is time to forgive each other. I will forgive you for having so shamelessly suborned Paris’ judgment and forced him to award you the golden apple as the most beautiful of us all. It is done now, and cannot be undone. It will not change. But I will forgive you if you will forgive me for all I have done and said against you, and for my ardent espousal of the Greek cause—which also will not change.”

  Now Aphrodite had a passive easygoing nature, especially in the summer. She was quick-tempered and vengeful like all the gods, but did not have the patience for feuds. Besides, she feared Hera.

  “Queen Hera,” she said, “you could not have uttered words to give me more pleasure. Long have I wearied of this quarrel between us. I apologize for any harm I may have done you and, with a full heart, forgive you for any injury you may have done me.

  The two goddesses embraced, but not too closely.

  “Since we’re friends again,” said Hera. “I am emboldened to ask you a favor.”

  “Ask away. I am sure the answer will be yes.”

  “Will you lend me your girdle—that magic garment which arouses desire in any man or god you fancy?”

  “Girdle? I wear no girdle. Look at me.”

  She pirouetted before Hera.

  “Do I look like I’m wearing a girdle, O queen? And what would I do with such a thing after my charms work on this man or god? It would just get in the way.”

  Hera frowned. “Come now,” she said. “Don’t trifle with me. Everyone has heard about your magic girdle.”

  “That which everyone knows is most likely to be wrong,” said Aphrodite. “I deny that any such girdle exists. What you refer to is simply the essence of those attributes which make me Goddess of Love and Beauty. Do not forget that I can make myself irresistible, as you say, not only to any man I fancy, or any god—but that my favor, extended to any other female creature, makes her irresistible to any god or man she fancies.”