by Ralph Hardy
CHAPTER XII
My master meets fair Circe
As I stand watch over a herd of sheep, a mountain sparrow, gray chested and with a black crown, alights on the sheep paddock and calls to me.
“Be you Argos, the Boar Slayer?” he asks me.
“I am he, little one. But please, draw closer. Your voice is small, and my ears are not as sharp as they once were.”
Hearing this, the sparrow hops down from the paddock and perches on a fence rail, but he says nothing.
Perhaps he is resting, I think. Truly, though, I had never seen a sparrow remain so still, for it is their manner to remain in motion, alighting here and there, never stopping for more than a moment. Nor is a sparrow easy to converse with, for they seem to forget what was said a moment before.
“Gentle sparrow, you have found me, the Boar Slayer. Why did you seek me out?”
Hearing my voice, the sparrow lifts his tiny head, as if trying to recall his purpose.
“Why am I here? Why? Oh, yes, I remember. I was sent to find you.”
“Sent by whom, agile one? Who sent you? Did my master, Odysseus, send you?” I allow myself to think this for a precious moment.
“No, it wasn’t your master, Aptos—I mean . . . Argos. Your name is Argos, is it not?”
“It is. But who sent you then, little one? Try to remember.”
I wait patiently while he thinks.
“Hermes,” he says finally. “Yes, that’s who it was. Swift Hermes asked me to send this message to you.”
Hermes, son of Zeus, has a message for me? Truly, the gods are good. “What message, little flyer? What did the god say?”
The mountain sparrow hopped to another rail.
“I don’t remember.”
“Try, Insect Catcher. You must remember. You must or you will anger a god.”
The sparrow hops to another rail and turns his head, as if in deep thought. Suddenly, although it is a cloudy day, I notice a ray of sunlight shining on his head, bathing him in gold.
“Oh, yes,” he says. “I remember now.”
I knew then that the golden light was Hermes himself. Hermes, who moves easily between the realms of the gods and those of men, was speaking through the sparrow. And so I sit next to him to hear his story.
The sparrow was from Aiaia, where lives the beautiful Circe of the golden tresses, who talks to mortals though she is the daughter of Helios, who lights the day, and her mother is Perse, who is the daughter of Ocean. The mountain sparrow had seen my master and his men arrive there, on her island, despondent and full of woe.
For two days my master and his men mourned their fellow sailors who had been lost to the Laestrygonians, but at dawn on the third day, my master took up his spear and his sword and set out to explore the island, to learn of its inhabitants, and to seek the way home to Ithaka. High on a cliff he saw smoke from the halls of a great building, and so he turned back, hurrying to his men to give them hope. Along the way, the gods took pity on my master and sent a great stag with towering antlers on his path, and my master slew the beast and carried it down to the ship.
“Dear friends,” he announced, “sorry as we are, we are not yet doomed to Hades until our day is appointed. Come, let us feast on this stag that the gods have provided for us, for we are worn out by hunger.” And together they made a great fire and ate late into the night beside their ship. When the rosy dawn came again, my master roused his men and said, “Dear friends, now that we have eaten and slept, I tell you I do not know what course to take. When I climbed the highest point on the island, I saw nothing but the vast sea all in a circle around us.”
Hearing this, his men groaned and pulled their hair with this sad news, but then my master said, “Wait, there is more. In the center of this island I saw smoke rising from a hall. Perhaps the inhabitants can tell us what direction to aim our prow.”
“What if it’s another Cyclops?” asked one man, and they all cried out in fear at that memory.
“We can never know until we find out for ourselves,” my master replied. “Come, we will draw lots and divide ourselves. Half will explore the source of the smoke and half will remain here.”
And when they had done that, and they were divided in half, brave Eurylochos was chosen to lead his group of two and twenty men to the center of the island, and the mountain sparrow followed them. When the men reached the great hall, they heard the spinning of a giant loom and the enchanting voice of the golden-locked Circe. Then Polites, one of the leaders of the men, said, “Friends, someone is singing sweetly inside, and I think there is no monster within. Come, let us call on her and see if she is a goddess or a mortal.”
And when they called out to her, Circe opened the doors, revealing herself to them, and invited them into her hall. But Eurylochos, suspecting treachery, waited outside.
Once inside, Circe seated the men on chairs and benches and gave them a potion of wine and drugs, along with pale honey and barley and cheese. Such was the power of the drugs that the men forgot their own country and stared only in wonder at her while she drew forth a wand and touched them each on the shoulder, turning them into pigs. Then she herded them into pens and set them about eating acorns and small ears of corn, but they cried, too, for though they were pigs, their minds remained as before.
This did Eurylochos see with amazement, and then he stealthily crept back along the trail toward the black ship, to tell my master what had happened to his companions. But when he arrived, so great was his grief and despair that he could not speak, but only cry out in lamentations for many hours. Finally he managed to tell his tale, but my master did not console him. Instead Odysseus slung his great bow across his shoulder and sheathed his great sword.
“Guide me back there,” he commanded, but stout Eurylochos fell to his knees and begged him not to go.
“Great Odysseus, do not take me there against my will,” he pleaded. “Leave me here, for I know you will not return nor bring back our companions. Rather let us make haste with those who are left so that we may avoid the day of evil.”
“Then stay, Eurylochos, if you will not guide me. For I am compelled to find my men and return with them.”
And Odysseus left then for the glen, climbing high over a mountain to reach the valley where he hoped he would find his companions. Along the way he met a young man carrying a golden staff. This was Hermes himself, who had taken the form of the young man, and he took my master by the hand and asked, “Where are you going, grieving one, alone through these hills? Do you know your men have been captured by Circe and turned into the shape of pigs? Do you come meaning to set them free?”
“I do come for my men, though I knew not they were captured by Circe, golden youth,” answered my master. “Nor did I know she had changed them to swine.”
How like my master to never reveal everything he knows!
Then Hermes said, “You cannot get them out yourself. But come, I will help you with your troubles. Here, take this medicinal flower before you go into Circe’s house. She will try to enchant you and put drugs in your food and wine, but this will protect you from her evil charms.”
“Then I will take the medicine and pray to the gods that it is strong.”
“There is more,” the fair-haired youth said. “Once you have eaten her food and drunk her wine, Circe will strike you with her long wand. When she does, draw your sword as if to kill her. She will be afraid and invite you into her chamber. Do not refuse the bed of a goddess, but make her first swear an oath, that she will release your companions from their misery and that she has devised no evil hurt for you.”
My master thanked Hermes, and after eating the black-rooted flower, which would protect him, he hurried on toward Circe’s home in the glen. Once he reached her house, my master shouted for the goddess, and she opened the shining door and invited him in. There she bade him sit on a finely wrought chair and drink a cup of her poisoned wine. Then, when he had drained the cup, she struck my master with her magic wand and comma
nded, “Go to your sty now and lie with your friends there!”
So she spoke, but my master, drawing his sharp sword, rushed toward her as if to kill her. The goddess screamed aloud and ducked under the sword, falling to her knees and crying out for mercy.
“What manner of man are you, and where did you come from?” she demanded. “Who are your parents? No other man beside you could have withstood my drugs once he drank them.”
“Release my men,” my master demanded, “and I will tell you my name.”
The goddess shook her head. “You must be Odysseus, of the black ship,” Circe said. “I was warned that you would come my way, and now you have.”
“I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, on my return from Troy,” my master said, and demanded again that his men be released.
“I will release them,” the goddess said. “But first let us retire to my chamber so that we have faith and trust each other.”
So she spoke, the mountain sparrow said, but my master trusted her not.
“Swear a strong oath,” he demanded, “that you will release my men from your magic and that you will not seek to unman me, nor devise evil against me.”
And the goddess swore a great oath and led him into her room, where her servants bathed my master, washing away the weariness of his journey, and then anointed him in oil. When he had bathed and dressed in a fine tunic, the servants brought food to my master, but he touched it not.
“Brave Odysseus,” Circe said. “Why do you touch not food or drink, but look like a man eating his own heart? Do you suspect me of treachery? Did I not swear an oath to you?”
So she spoke, and my master replied, “O fair Circe, how can a man eat when his companions are not free?”
Then Circe walked out through the palace, holding her wand in her hand, and entered the sty where my master’s companions were kept, and touched them all with her wand. Soon where there had been bristles and curly tails stood tall the fine men of my master’s black ship, and they ran to my master and clung to his hand, begging him to take them back to where their ship lay in harbor.
But Circe spoke and persuaded my master otherwise. She told him to return to the ship and drag it onto land, stow their possessions, and then return with the entire crew.
And so my master left the citadel in the glen and returned to his fast black ship where his crew wept tears in lamentation, thinking their companions dead.
“Weep no more,” he said to them. “Your companions eat and drink their fill in Circe’s hall while we tarry. Drag the ship up onto the beach and stow your goods. Circe has bid us all to her citadel.”
The men did as my master ordered, except for Eurylochos, who addressed the men thus: “Poor wretches! Where are you going? Why do you seek evil in Circe’s palace? She will turn us all into swine or wolves or lions so that we can guard her great house.”
My master, upon hearing this, nearly drew his sword, but instead his men obeyed him and not Eurylochos. When they had finished their tasks, they left Eurylochos alone by the hollow ship, but he soon followed after.
When they reached Circe’s hall, she bathed them all with loving care, anointed them with oil and put about them mantles of fleece and tunics. Then when they entered the room where the rest of their companions were feasting, they burst into tears, so happy were they to be together again. But Circe said, “Cry not, for I know of your suffering on the sea and the damage done to you on land. Eat your food and drink your wine until the spirit returns to your chests.”
“Fair Circe will nourish them, will she not?” I ask the mountain sparrow when he says this.
“Aye, Boar Slayer. She knows herbs and potions that will restore your master’s men, it is true.”
The mountain sparrow says nothing for many minutes. Never have I known a sparrow to not chirp incessantly until this one. I watch as he hops onto another rail, in the shadow of a branch, and the golden light no longer shines on him. Hermes has gone, but there is more I must know.
“Tell me, bravest of birds. When will they leave Aiaia? What is the rest of Hermes’s message?”
“What message do you speak of, strange dog?” the sparrow asks, and he begins to fly away.
“Mountain sparrow!” I snap.
He pauses midflight.
“I know where there are fields of grasshoppers waiting for your sharp beak,” I say, hoping he will stay longer. “But you must first return to that rail yonder and finish your tale.”
After a few moments the sparrow returns to the rail and the light reappears.
“They may never leave that island, Argos,” the sparrow says finally. “Circe’s potions will cure their bodies, but steal their minds. Already they have forgotten their homeland. Some do not even remember their names. You should forget them too. Even your master, Odysseus. That is Hermes’ message to you. Now, where are those grasshoppers?”
“Three stadia over to the west is a newly threshed field,” I whimper. “You will find them there.”
“I thank thee, Aptos,” he says, and flies away.
Now I stand on my hind legs and place my paws on the rail where the golden light had shown, hoping that Hermes has more to say, but alas, the light is long gone, and I am alone.
CHAPTER XIII
Telemachos learns to hunt
At first I did not believe the mountain sparrow, but as the days pass and no black ship is sighted at the harbor, I begin to fear the worst. Odysseus, sacker of cities, would not forget his homeland, his beloved wife, his valiant son, and his loyal dog unless a goddess had emptied his mind.
My mistress Penelope weeps every night by the sea. When the suitors leave, she takes her torch, and she and I climb down the narrow trail to the rocky beach, and she lays her hand on my shoulder and cries to the gods for the return of my master. Great is her despair and terrible are her lamentations. Most nights she holds the torch up as high as she can, waving it in great arcs above her head, as if my master’s sleek black ship is bearing toward us, and the lookouts, perched high on the mast, on seeing the torch, will guide the black ship safely home to Ithaka. The ship never arrives.
Then, when the torch is nearly extinguished, I guide my mistress back to our house, walking slowly so she doesn’t stumble along the path. At the door I step aside and let her enter, while I begin another night of sentinel duty, patrolling the sheep pens, guarding them from the mountain wolves, and human thieves too, until at dawn, when Apollo begins his journey across the sky, I curl up next to the barn and sleep for a few minutes until the roosters crow. Such is my fate now.
As the months pass, Telemachos grows into a young man. His voice no longer squeaks when he talks, and hair has begun to grow on his face. Every morning tutors come from the village and work with him. How hard he studies! He has learned all the gods by name and what prayers to say to them. He practices his letters and reads poetry. Sometimes he reads it to me, and I confess, it puts me to sleep. Then there are the numbers! I do not understand the marks he makes, but he must understand it well because the tutors no longer strike him on the wrist—although perhaps now they are afraid to. Then, in the afternoon, there is wrestling and spear throwing, archery, and boxing. On days when there is wind, he goes to the harbor and practices his sailing. A king must know all these things, and one day Telemachos will be a king.
But now he is a boy who misses his father.
Now, in his thirteenth spring, Telemachos has turned even more inward, for there is no man about to teach him the ways of the hunt, as boys learn at this age. And so Telemachos broods. I know he wishes to hunt, because he spends long hours practicing with his bow and hurling his spear at gourds, but he knows nothing of tracking game, of staying downwind from the fearful doe; he knows not the footprint of the wild pig, nor where the hares make their warrens. Neither does he know to strike a pair of antlers with hard wood to taunt a buck into showing himself, nor does he know where the point of the spear must go if a boar charges. In short, he knows nothing about how to hunt like a man, and so I w
ill teach him to hunt like a dog.
This morning Telemachos rises early to practice with his bow. I follow him out to the pasture, where he sets up a gourd, and when he sets down his bow to lift the gourd up to the fencepost, I take his bow in my mouth and trot away. He runs after me, calling my name, but for once I disobey him and continue to lead him away from the house and toward a stream deep in the wooded valley where the deer come to drink. But humanfolk are so loud! How to get him to stop calling my name?
I stop and let him catch up to me, and I put the bow down at my paws. When he stoops to pick it up, I take one end in my mouth and begin to tug, leading him farther into the woods. He follows me, curious to play my new game. But it is not a game. To hunt is to live. I crouch down and slowly creep up a hill, sniffing the air to make sure the wind has not changed. Telemachos, as smart as his father, soon realizes what I am doing and crouches low alongside me. Together we slither into the wood, barely disturbing a leaf. Every few minutes I stop to sniff the air, and Telemachos sniffs as well, although humans have pitifully small noses. Then I rub my face in the dirt, and the boy does too, darkening his shiny face, which animals can see for leagues.
We pass a tree where a young buck has rubbed off the bark with its antlers. I stand on my hind legs and lean against the tree, showing him the missing bark. I think he understands. Farther along the trail, where it grows wet, I see the footprints of a deer. Telemachos walks past it, so I growl softly until he turns, and then I put my nose next to the footprint and growl again. He sees instantly what he’d missed. Now he knows we are close to our prey.
As Apollo carries his chariot higher, we reach the hidden stream. There we duck under a laurel and wait. First one small doe appears, then another. Soon they are joined by as many deer as there are whiskers on my snout. I look at Telemachos and lick his bow hand. Slowly he notches an arrow and raises his bow. Then, as often happens in the morning, the wind shifts, bringing our scent to the deer. Several raise their heads, alert, ready to flee.