by Byrne Fone
The firelight casts strange shadows against the tents, small gray canvas ones for most of the men, larger ones in regimental colors for captains, spacious ones for great lords and allied kings, the largest, striped, its poles gilded and with pennants flying, for Agamemnon. The walls of the camp, looming at a distance in darkness, seem to rise higher in the shadows the firelight casts. We come to where the men are gathered, the camp parade ground. The men are not, as they would be at a review, armored and standing at stiff attention. Instead they lounge in groups, or sit around small fires, talking with one another, throwing dice, or passing leather cups of wine and water, sharing flat loaves of bread and red clay dishes of lentils and onions. We move around the edge of the field; no one notices us as we come to one side of the dais where Agamemnon sits with Menelaus by his side. At the center of the circle of men stands the man we have come to hear.
He wears a long robe, somewhat soiled, and cape of some dark equally untidy material, which is, in odd contrast, clasped at the shoulder with a brooch of rich and intricate workmanship, set with carnelians, and filigreed in gold. His face is lined and sunburned, set off by white hair flowing over his shoulders. He seems to stare into the firelight as if finding there dancing images with which to people his songs, though of course he sees nothing, since he is blind.
I wonder what tales he will tell tonight. To recall the men to faith in deity, perhaps he will revive old songs of the birth of the gods and the foundation of the world. To sober them and remind them of their duty to gods and kings, he may tell terrible tales of vengeance and humiliation, warning songs about how that dread Goddess Nemesis punishes those who walk with too much pride. Or he might amuse the men with lewd accounts of Pan and how he pursues young women and sweet boys into glades and groves and has his way with them. The men will like these stories. But perhaps to steel their resolve and inflame their warrior hearts, he will tell the deeds of Ares, God of War, who loves battle for its own sake and delights in slaughter and the sacking of towns, or of Jason and the brave Argonauts who captured at great peril the Golden Fleece. I am sure that Agamemnon will have ordered him to tell that tale to remind his men that Troy is their Golden Fleece.
But tonight he tells no old tales. Instead he has verses from a new story, the one that all the world knows that he has long been making. Agamemnon must have commanded this. Slowly he begins, voice like a clarion, surprisingly strong in a man so old. It carries to the furthest reaches of the field, and its echoes return from the encampment walls. He tells the story of the outrage committed against the ancient house of Atreus--the terrible wrong done to the noble Menelaus and the dishonor this has brought upon Agamemnon his brother, all men’s lord. At this the soldiers raise a hearty cheer and they cheer even more loudly when he recites a catalogue of Trojan vices. Soon he has them worked to frenzy, booing and hissing at any mention of the scheming and vicious people whose sole aim is to rule the world and destroy the cities and rape the wives of decent god-fearing men. “Thus our heroes have come to Troy,” he loudly intones, “to make the Trojan warriors drink dark blood and bring their walls crumbling to dust.”
The men are in a thoroughly good mood now, hanging on his words. Lowering his voice and leaning intimately toward the troops who strain to hear him, he begins verses describing Helen, Menelaus’ queen. In his rich, deep, and hypnotic voice he chants the honorifics that he has written about Helen--“Praise her, White-armed Helen, that noble, devoted, and ever-faithful wife.” A keen ear can hear from the ranks a muffled burst of knowing laughter. Menelaus hears it too and his eyes darken and his brow furrows. The men listen eagerly as the tale progresses: upstart Paris, son of the Trojan king steals Helen away; he seduces her. Some of the men give their mates jabs in the ribs, winks of complicity, and others snicker. At this Menelaus and Agamemnon adopt suitably outraged glares. The commanders, standing at the head of their cohorts, shoot dark looks in the general direction of their men. Those in the front ranks quickly compose themselves, but from the rear ranks the snickers continue. Even in the women’s tent I have heard that the men say about Helen: “ She had it coming because she wanted it.” How I hate these men.
This bard tells stories for men: tales about how men win and break the hearts of women; how women betray good men and do them wrong. Nothing pleases a man more than to hear that women cannot be trusted and that they deserve the treatment men mete out to them. He has no laments for women taken in battle, for young girls raped or old women slain, for mothers who have lost a daughter, for women who are captives and slaves. He has no lament for me. He pauses a moment and looks into the firelight with sightless eyes. Does he see visions there, sometimes brilliant and detailed, sometimes vague, fleeting, difficult to discern? Are his visions as terrible as those I have seen? Did he too look into the future when this terrible war began and see what I saw so long ago when I was just a girl?
One day I went to walk alone, on the high cliff above the sea. I sat in the grass, the myrtle and thyme sweetly scented around me. A songbird sounded a trill, another answered. Hawks swooped in the sky. A small silver-green chameleon running across a pile of stones nearby stopped and looked at me for a moment, flicked its tongue in greeting, and quickly disappeared. No wind stirred. The sea, a silver mirror, stretched endlessly and brilliantly into a vast distance. I thought that I could see to the ends of the earth. Then a cloud appeared from nowhere, a dark one. The birds were suddenly silent. A chill wind clutched me, and I was in the vision trance that I had come to know so well.
This is what I saw: an altar of rough hewn stone raised high on the headland, the ocean stretching out below for miles into the misty dawn. Men in armor gathered. A priest stands before the altar chanting prayers. On the altar an image. A goddess. It is Artemis, Mistress of the Bow, terrible in her ferocity, her arrows and her bow ready at her side. Next to the altar a man, his face is covered by a golden mask. He wears the robe of priest as well, but he is no priest. All the world knows that mask. It is Agamemnon.
They stand as if painted on a wall, waiting for a sign. The sign is the dawn. The first rising of the sun shoots a silver ray across the sea and touches the altar stone. At that moment a ram’s horn sounds. A procession appears; veiled women lead a young girl. She is dressed in white, a white cloth band about her head. She staggers as she comes, her eyes unfocussed and unseeing. Perhaps she is drugged. Upon her appearance a terrible sound arises from the assembled onlookers, beginning like a soft gust of wind it mounts into a moan of anguish and of fear. I see some men avert their eyes. As the girl passes, a woman, standing apart and deeply veiled, but more richly dressed than the rest, reaches out to the girl to try to touch her. The gesture is futile and the girl passes by. The veiled woman turns toward the masked king. Wordlessly she points at him, accusingly and then raising her arm high above her head in a swift gesture she brings it suddenly down, as if stabbing with a knife. Though she is veiled, who can doubt her name? It is Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s queen, mother of Iphigenia, his beloved daughter, she who stands, bound, before the altar,
The priest throws incense on the fire, sprinkles water on the girl, and turning to the masked king, hands him a knife. I see his hand tremble as he takes it. Prayers I cannot hear are addressed to heaven by the priest. The women lead the girl to the altar. She is limp, like a rag doll, and the priest takes her by the shoulders and, just as he would do with any sacrificial creature, turns her and begins to force her body down backwards on to the altar. With a cry the king suddenly pushes him aside and lifts her, cradles her in his arms, and lays her gently down on the stone, just as the sun touches her white robe, enveloping her in its glowing early rays. The king stands above her, in his hand the knife, it too catching the bright rays of the sun. My vision suddenly fades, I sink into darkness, and all I hear is the echo of a distant scream.
Women are always the real victims of war. The worst war stories are always ours, for we never share in the glory. That belongs only to men. Ours is the pain, the loss, and the death
, ours sometimes the blame and always the shame. My shame is that I am a captive and a slave. Taken by Achilles, slave to Agamemnon. We women are always captives of war, captives of men’s designs and desire, captives of their lust, captives of home and hearth, of the larder and the loom. If I am a captive, so is Helen, so is Briseis, who has now become my dearest companion for she has been given to me by Achilles, to whom by right of conquest she actually belongs, as a handmaiden. Is Andromache any more free for being a Princess, or Hecabe for being a Queen? Do they not all too, like I do, tarry in the women’s quarters fearfully awaiting the summons of their lord to come to give them pleasure? Do they not all wait for the unendurable night, for that command to lie in drunken arms, and submit to slavering kisses from lips that reek of stale wine? We all wait by the hearth and by the loom for them to return--from battle, from the fields, from the assembly, from the temples, from the arms of some boy or harlot. We wait for them to decide when we should carry their child. Then, when after our agonies a child is born, we wait for them to say whether it should live or die, allowed to live because it is a boy and strong, or exposed because it is weak and only a girl.
Men say that is what the gods intend for women. Men say that it is woman’s place to obey her lord. Men say that women who dishonor their lord should suffer death. If Menelaus wins his Helen back, will he kill her for dishonoring him? Women are the chattel of men, property to be used and discarded, allowed to live or condemned to die. If Agamemnon tires of me, will he kill me, Chryses’ daughter, just as he killed Iphigenia, his own child?
My reverie is broken by the cheers of the men. The stories told, the army, roused to patriotic frenzy by the perfidy of the Trojans and to militant pride by the nobility of the Achaeans, settled down to drink, as men do when they have nothing else to occupy them and few women to share. Escorted back to the tents, our little procession of women passed close by to the dais where Agamemnon and Menelaus still sat, drinking with the story-teller. I had pulled my shawl to cover my head, but as we passed the king saw me out of the corner of his eye.
“Look, there she goes,” he shouted. “Isn’t she a beauty? That’s Chryseis. You should tell her story some day,” he said loudly. “I took her from her father. That would make a good story. And I’ve got some other stories that would spice it up, if you know what I mean.”
Laughing, he clapped his brother on the shoulder and drained his cup. My face burned with shame and without waiting for him to give me leave, I began to run back to my tent; I could hear him shouting after me: “Run all you want, I know where you are. Better get ready.” His raucous laughter followed me as I ran through the twisting narrow aisles between the tents. My guard loped along by my side. He held the tent flap open for me.
“Sleep, my lady,” he said kindly. “He may be too drunk to remember that you were even there.”
But drunk though he was, he did remember me. I hear shouts coming from the parade ground and the sound a crowd makes as it leaves a building or a stadium, a disorderly sound, nothing comprehensible, people talking or laughing, the noise rising and falling as hundreds of people walk or run, hurrying somewhere. The men are returning to their quarters. Just then there is a clash of arms at the door; the guards have come to attention. The flap is thrown wide and Agamemnon enters.
“Dismissed!” he shouts at the guards. There is rage in his voice. The guards march away. He unlooses his cloak, undoes the sword belt and lets his sword drop to the ground.
“Help me,” he commands, gesturing to the breastplate he wears. I go to him, unlace it; that too falls to earth. He throws himself on the bed.
“Bring me drink,” he commands.
There is no one here; Briseis has gone to ask for more wine and honey and not returned and so I pour some wine from the bronze pitcher into a goblet. He takes it without thanks and drinks it down and holds it out for more. I fill the cup again.
“So fair-cheeked Chryseis,” he says, “Did you enjoy the tale our bard has to tell?”
He drains the cup and throws it to the ground and comes to where I stand, his breath is strong with wine. It reminds me of the stinking breath of the soldier from whom Achilles saved me. I back away, looking for a way to escape him, but he stands between me and the entrance to the tent. His eyes are dark and his face is red with wine and anger.
“Tell me, slut, did you enjoy them? Did you think of your father?” Suddenly he slaps me. I stagger back. He advances and takes my arm, pulling me to the bed. He forces me down and with both hands pinions my shoulders to the mattress. Then he is astride me; his knees press into my sides. His fingers grip my shoulders. I struggle, but he is too strong. “Tell me,” and his voice now is low and menacing, “Tell me, whore, do you want your father? Or will I do just as well?”
He looses one hand from my shoulder and starts frantically pulling at the brooch that holds my gown. I begin to scream. He hits me again. I taste blood on my lip. “Tell me! Tell me!” he shouts and rips the garment from my shoulder, baring my breasts. “Tell me!” he shouts again. “Will I do just as well?”
My heart beats as if it will burst. I try to push him away, but I am overcome with terror. He rips at my clothes, pulling them away from my body. I try to hit him, but I cannot. His strength overwhelms me. I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the pain.
Then I am suddenly aware that his grip on my shoulders has loosened. There is no violence, no violation. He is breathing hoarsely. Then he goes limp and like a discarded rag doll falls heavily upon me. “I am not your father,” he faintly says, “ I have no daughter now,” and buries his face between my naked breasts and begins to sob.
I am overtaken almost as if by ecstasy, like the wild and soaring ascent I knew when Apollo possessed me. All the fear drains away. I am filled with strength. I struggle to push him off me and he slips heavily to the floor, snoring now, unconscious. I watch him there, this King of Kings, this Lord of Men, this drunken, broken, despicable sot. All I feel is contempt. I despise this man. I hate him for what he has done to me. I have feared him for his rage and his brutality. I have suffered at his hands and been humiliated. I hate him still, but I fear him no longer. Without fear I slip back into my bed. In the middle of the night I waken. Through half-closed eyes I see Agamemnon struggle to his knees, and unsteadily rise. He stands, looks at me, and stumbles out of the tent into the night.
Chapter 8
Chryseis
In the dusk of the tent, dust motes swirl in the moonlight that slips between the seams of the walls, the smell of incense masks the odd sickly smell that has been everywhere of late heavy on the air. From a distance I can still hear the songs of drunken soldiers. I have sent Briseis to see what news there might be. I wish I could, like she, leave the tent and run into the open air. The women in the other tents can come and go as they please. But I cannot. My captivity is a silent one. I am not allowed to speak to the other women, for they are, as am I, captives of war. They are all survivors of battle: in one tent a cabinet maker’s young wife—her husband dead, her child thrown into the flames of their burning house; in another the daughter of a local farmer, raped by a cohort and forced to watch as her father was hunted down for sport and her mother spitted like meat on a spear. Some belong to Menelaus, others to Agamemnon, a few belong to no one in particular and to anyone in general. The truth is that faithful wives, virgin daughters of sober farmers, pretty girls deep in first love with handsome boys now dead, even mothers of sons who died for their country have now no identity save as whores.
I have only Briseis to speak to. At first she had little to say, doing my bidding willingly, but silently because I am kind to her. Like me she is lost in her own private misery. She too is a captive, a well-born girl—well a woman because she is older than I-- snatched in the midst of battle because she caught some soldier’s eye, taken as a prize along with oxen and cooking pots and cloth and stores of food. Like all women who are captured she was raped. She is older than I. As she became less fearful she became more trusting
and told me her story—a husband murdered, she humiliated and raped by the men who killed her lord. She is a handsome woman even now; she once must have been beautiful. I have grown to love her, but I fear for her too. No one will ransom her, and as what remains of her beauty fades no one will want her, and so she will become like many such who have ceased to please, a worn prize of war, a thing to be bartered for something better.
Among all these wretched women I rank the highest. Because I am Agamemnon’s prize I have my own tent, larger than the others; I have slaves to serve me; I have silks and soft fleeces on which to sleep. I have all the luxuries, save freedom and friendship. Ah, yes. I am chief whore among them all.