His punishment was a clever one – it engaged his vanity.
He looked at the apple. For the first time he began to think that he had colluded in his punishment. Why had he fought against the gods? He already had more than enough. He had a kingdom, he had power. True that the gods had stirred up the Athenians against Atlantis, but what had the war achieved? His beautiful cities and harbours were sunk. His palace was decorated with fishes. There was no such place as his world.
Why had he not recognised the boundaries of his life, and if he had recognised them, why did he hate them so much?
Always boundaries and desire …
It is fit that a man should do his best and grapple with the world. It is meet that he should accept the challenge of his destiny. What happens when the sun reaches the highest point in the day? Is it a failure for morning to become afternoon, or afternoon to turn into peaceful evening and star-bright night?
Heracles was more afraid now than he had been in his whole life. He could accept any challenge except the challenge of no challenge. He knew himself through combat. He defined himself by opposition. When he fought, he could feel his muscles work and the blood pumping through his body. Now he felt nothing but the weight of the world. Atlas was right, it was too heavy for him. He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t bear this slowly turning solitude.
In the garden, Atlas became aware of another pres ence. Veiled Hera was standing by her tree.
‘Atlas,’ said Hera, ‘why do you lie there?’
‘Are you sent to punish me?’ said Atlas.
‘Pick up the apple,’ said Hera.
‘I can’t.’ Atlas laughed. His position was ludicrous.
‘Atlas, do you know what this tree is?’
‘It is your tree, given to you by Mother Earth.’
‘And what is Mother Earth’s greatest gift?’
‘Knowledge of past and future,’ said Atlas.
Earth is ancient now, but all knowledge is stored up in her. She keeps a record of everything that has happened since time began. Of time before time, she says little, and in a language that no one has yet understood. Through time, her secret codes have gradually been broken. Her mud and lava is a message from the past.
Of time to come, she says much, but who listens?
‘The apples you have taken are your own past and future,’ said Hera.
Atlas was afraid. His future was at the ends of his fingers, and too heavy to be moved.
‘The third apple is the present,’ said Hera, ‘made from your past, pointing towards your future. Which is it Atlas? Only you can decide.’
‘Why could not Heracles pick the fruit himself?’
‘Heracles stole from me once. He will not steal from me again.’
‘Why did you send Ladon to guard the tree?’
‘Anyone who plucks these apples will be like the gods, knowing past and future as though they were today.’
‘That would be a blessing for mankind.’
‘That would be a curse,’ said Hera. ‘Humankind continues in ignorance because knowledge destroys them. Everything that man invents he soon turns to his own destruction. Your brother Prometheus stole fire and what did men do with that gift? They learned to burn each other’s crops and houses. Chiron taught you medicine and what did you learn to make? Poisons. Ares gave you weapons, and what did you do with them but kill each other? Even you, Atlas, half man half god, destroyed the most beautiful city in the world. You preferred to ruin your own farms than see them harvested by another. You scuttled your own ships rather than see them in the hands of the enemy.’
‘The gods made war on us,’ said Atlas.
‘So you made our job easy and wiped yourself out.’
‘Why do you talk like this?’
‘To help you make a choice.’
‘I have no choice.’
‘That is what you said when you made war on the gods.’
‘There is no choice. There is Fate. No man escapes his fate.’
‘Look at the tree Atlas.’
Atlas rolled on his side and looked at the tree, strangely shining. He could not count the fruit.
‘You chose three apples. Did you choose them by accident or chance?’
‘When I looked there were only three apples on the tree.’
Atlas was puzzled. He had seen the tree laden with fruit, just as it was laden now, but while he had been picking the apples, there had seemed to be only three, the three he had to choose.
‘There was no enchantment, Atlas. You could not see the tree as it is. You could not see the changefulness of the world. All these pasts are yours, all these futures, all these presents. You could have chosen differently. You did not.’
* * *
Atlas said, ‘Must my future be so heavy?’
Hera said ‘That is your present, Atlas. Your future hardens every day, but it is not fixed.’
‘How can I escape my fate?’
‘You must choose your destiny.’
Dark-minded Hera vanished and Atlas was alone. He held the apples lightly in his hand. He had no idea what Hera had been telling him, he hardly knew whether he cared. He had to go back to Heracles now, and his only plan was to persuade the hero to hold up the world for a little longer.
No Way Out …
Heracles was asleep.
He dreamed he was a single moment in a single day. A note struck and sounded. Gone. He was the chime of Ladon’s scales. He was the whistling hiss of the Hydra. He was the hoof-beat of Artemis’s hind. He was a cattle bell, he was the bottom G of the boar, he was the singing sound of Diomedes’s mares, he was the operatic shriek of the Stymphalides, he was the bass of the Nemean lion, the bellow of the Cretan bull. He was the noise of running water through the Augean stables, he was the whimper of a dog, he was the sigh of a dying woman.
Then he was himself, and he was tearing at his flesh as though it were a shirt he could pull off. He was the sound of his own agony.
He woke in a sweat. He couldn’t even wipe his brow. He stared unfocussed into the serene starry- ness of the universe and wondered if he shouted loud enough would he get a reply?
There was no noise. There was a noise and he hated it. The buzz, buzz, buzz outside his head.
‘ATLAS’ he yelled ‘ATLAS’ and on earth there was thunder in the mountains.
‘There’s no need to shout,’ said Atlas. ‘I can hear you.’
There he was, tall, smiling, standing in front of Heracles, blissfully free of any burden. Heracles felt his skin burning with jealousy.
‘Did you get the apples?’ he said, trying to sound cool.
Atlas reached into his pouch pocket and brought them out, still shining with their strange light. Then he said,
‘Heracles, I’ll take these to Eurystheus for you.’
‘Wouldn’t hear of it mate,’ said Heracles. ‘You’ve done enough already.’
‘It’s no trouble,’ said Atlas.
‘You don’t want to go all that way just to deliver a few bits of fruit.’
‘I thought I might visit my daughters too,’ said Atlas.
(‘Bloody hell’, thought Heracles, ‘those girls will keep him forever.’)
‘You aren’t getting tired are you?’ Said Atlas.
‘Tired? No mate, I love it here, makes a change, no problem.’
‘Well then’, said Atlas, ‘do you want anything before I go?’
Heracles was nervous. If he made a fuss, Atlas could just walk away. Heracles couldn’t put the world down without help. Atlas could trap him here forever.
* * *
‘Since you ask, I’d like a pad for my head – take the weight off. Bloody Switzerland.’
‘What’s wrong with Switzerland?’ Said Atlas.
‘The mountains mate. They’re sticking in the back of my neck.’
Atlas was kind hearted and he did not want to see Heracles suffer, so he searched through his bag of belongings and found a thick fleece that he could fold into
a cushion. He bent over Heracles and tried to fit it behind his neck.
‘Matterhorn mate …’
‘What?’ said Atlas.
‘You’ll never get it under the Matterhorn. Look, just take the world for a second, and I’ll fit the pad on my shoulders, and then we’ll be straight. Oh and don’t squash the apples will you?’
Unsuspecting Atlas nodded and bent down to put the apples on the floor of the universe. Then with a light flick he spun the Kosmos off Heracles and held it over his head.
Heracles quickly picked up the apples.
‘Better make yourself comfortable mate. I’m not coming back.’
For a second Atlas did not speak. Then as he studied Heracles’s grinning face, he realised he had been tricked. Wily Heracles had no brains but plenty of cunning.
What could Atlas do? He wanted to hurl the universe at Heracles, crush him, annihilate time and make the story start again.
‘Come on Atlas’, said Heracles, ‘you’ve had your fun.’
Slowly, so as not to spill one drop of milk, Atlas lowered the Kosmos back onto his shoulders, and bent himself under the burden. He did it with such grace and ease, with such gentleness, love almost, that Heracles was ashamed for a moment. He would gladly have dashed the world to pieces if that would have freed him. He saw now that Atlas could do just that, but did not, and he respected him but would not help him.
‘Goodbye Atlas,’ said Heracles, ‘and thanks …’
Heracles turned away in his lion skin, swinging his olive club, the apples at his belt by his side. As he pushed the stars out of the way and began to fade though the warp of time, Atlas saw his past, present and future, disappear with him. Now his life had no demarcations, no boundaries. There was nothing, and wasn’t nothing what he had wanted?
But why was nothing as heavy as nothing?
He turned his head, and just for a moment he didn’t see the universe balanced there on his back. It was himself he was carrying, colossal and weighty, little Atlas desperately holding up the Atlas of the world.
Then the vision was gone.
But Through
Heracles delivered his apples to Eurystheus.
Glad to be rid of his grocer-duties, he struck south, and founded the hundred-gated city of Thebes, in honour of his birthplace.
Honour or not, birthplace or not, Heracles soon tired of being a city-dweller. Leaving behind his fine clothes and all-night feasts, he dusted out his lion skin (now a little threadbare), and travelled until he came to the Caucasus Mountains. Here, Prometheus had been chained alive for more time than anyone could remember.
Heracles knew he was close to Prometheus’s rock-face prison, when he saw the griffon-vulture circling overhead in the first light of morning. Every morning the vulture tore out Prometheus’s liver, and every night, his liver grew back again, so that he should never escape punishment for stealing fire from the gods.
Not wishing to be seen, Heracles hid behind a rocky outcrop, and watched as the vulture swooped closer and closer. Its curved beak began to graze, then puncture, the pale flesh of Prometheus’s stomach.
His face creased in agony, yet not crying out, Prometheus flattened his back while the vulture ripped open his stomach muscles and put its whole head into the man’s gut to tug out the liver. While it rummaged there, it flapped its great wings to keep airborne, and used the man’s hipbone as a perch for its claws.
The liver hanging half in and half out of the bloody wound, the bird gave a fierce pull, and Prometheus cried out. The liver dangling from its beak, the vulture flew straight upwards, dripping spots of blood and tissue onto the stained rock.
Prometheus fainted.
Heracles came out from his hiding place and held a skin of water to Prometheus’s lips. Prometheus revived and thanked Heracles, and out of pity Heracles covered the wound from the blinding sun and the flies that tormented Prometheus through the day.
Prometheus asked Heracles if he had seen his brother Atlas, and Heracles suddenly remembered the manner of infinite gentleness with which Atlas had resumed the impossible burden of the world. Gently, Heracles wiped Prometheus’s brow and promised to intervene with Zeus that day for an end to the punishment.
Good as his word, he set off, leaving his water flask and a reed straw.
When Heracles wanted something he usually started by shouting for it.
‘ZEUS! FATHER ZEUS!’ His voice rolled round the mountains, slipping boulders and sending small rocks tumbling into crevasses.
Zeus was with Hera, in an intimate moment, on a golden couch, and Hera, raising one eyebrow and smiling to herself, pulled Zeus back towards pleasure.
Heracles was getting angry. If shouting didn’t get him what he wanted he used his club, and so he ran to the top of the highest mountain, careless of the blazing sun, and began to hammer on the sky.
The gods felt the commotion and some wondered if the giants were attacking them again. Hermes was sent to discover the source of the riot, and when he saw Heracles threatening to split the sky in two, he agreed to take him to Zeus’s palace.
Zeus knew nothing of this until Heracles opened the bedroom door and found his father on top of his stepmother. Hera turned her beautiful head towards Heracles and gave him that ironic look that he hated, while his prick went kangaroo.
As Zeus withdrew himself from Hera and covered her up, he said to Heracles,
‘What do you want with the gods?’
‘Pardon Prometheus,’ said Heracles. ‘He has suffered enough.’
‘Mercy from a murderer,’ said Hera, without looking at him, ‘Well well.’
Now Zeus had long repented of his punishment to Prometheus, and he was glad of an excuse to pardon him. But not even a god can go back on his word, and so Zeus had to change the punishment from a reality to a symbol. Prometheus must wear a ring made out of his chains, and set with a stone from the Caucasian Mountains. Heracles was to kill the griffon-vulture with an arrow.
‘You’ll enjoy that won’t you?’ said Hera, sweeping by him in a silk shift and stroking his unshaven cheek with a hand that smelled of myrrh. When she had left the room, Zeus shrugged his shoulders and patted his rough son on the back, as if to say,
Women, what can you do with them?
All night Heracles sat by Prometheus until his wound closed over, just before dawn. Prometheus was heavily sunburnt, but his stomach was pale like a child’s because the skin was new every day.
As Heracles dozed, his dreams were filled with the beating of wings and a scorching in his body. He dreamed he was carrying the world again, but the world had a sharp beak and talons and savaged him wherever he stood. Again he tried to tear off his flesh as though it were a shirt.
He woke up with no time to lose. The vulture was upon Prometheus, it’s beak already scoring a thin red weal across his stomach. Heracles aimed his arrow and shot the bird in the throat. It fell in vast circles, down and down the unscaleable rocks and into a dry gully too far away to see. Heracles snapped Prometheus’s chains with his bare hands, and laughing and crying, Prometheus followed him down the mountain to a great feast held in his honour by the men for whom he had stolen fire so long ago.
Zeus himself appeared at this feast in his usual guise of the stranger. Hera sent her apologies. She had a headache.
Zeus had brought Heracles’s arrow with him and he set it in the heavens as the constellation Sagittarius. Heracles was flattered by this especially because it was Hera who always raised up his enemies into the stars. He felt that Zeus had at last acknowledged him. He felt he was at last being rewarded, instead of punished, for the hero, the conqueror, the good man that he was.
Prometheus came to Heracles out of the shadows of the fire.
‘Heracles, you have saved me and I thank you.’
‘I would save you again, a thousand times,’ said Heracles.
‘Then save my brother Atlas. Ask Zeus for his pardon too.’
Heracles smiled and nodded and turned back to the fire and
the feasting. He would not save Atlas, no matter how much he pitied him, because there was the only man who could take his burden, and Heracles would never do that again.
He looked up and saw Zeus the Stranger gazing at him keenly as if he knew his thoughts.
Heracles looked away and all he seemed to see in the fire was Hera’s mocking smile.
Leaning on the Limits of Myself
What can I tell you about the choices we make?
Fate reads like the polar opposite of decision, and so much of life reads like fate.
When I was born my mother gave me away to a stranger. I had no say in that. It was her decision, my fate.
Later, my adopted mother rejected me too. And told me I was none of her, which was true.
Having no one to carry me, I learned to carry myself.
My girlfriend says I have an Atlas complex.
When I was small, my bedside lamp was a light-up globe. Accrington wasn’t on the map, and England, hardly so, but the seas of the world seemed infinite, and I thought I could sail them until I came to a better place; a place that would be a yes and not a no.
When I was smaller than small, in the orphanage, the room outside my window had a big globe pendent light, made of white china. It looked like the moon. It looked like another world.
I used to watch it until the image of it became sleep, and until the last tram whooshed past, the bend in the road made audible by the air concertina’d in the rubber pleats.
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