by Stephen Fry
Agamemnon sighed. ‘Very well. Odysseus, Diomedes – you’d better sail for Skyros immediately and bring back this Pyrrhus, or Neopotamus, or whatever his damned name is. Meanwhile – what the hell is that noise?’
The sound they had all heard was the clamour of the newly energized Trojans beating their swords against their shields. They had been reinforced by yet another powerful ally. EURYPYLUS of Mysia had just this moment arrived with a full contingent of fresh fighting men, and morale within the city had grown high once more.
In a strange episode that preceded the whole war, the Greek expeditionary force had invaded Mysia, mistaking the city state in the northwest for Troy itself. Achilles had speared its king TELEPHUS, a son of Heracles and the father of this Eurypylus. The wound was not fatal, but it festered. Achilles was persuaded to use the same spear (the spear of his father Peleus) to heal it, fulfilling a prophecy. In gratitude, Telephus promised not to involve Mysia in the coming war. Arriving to aid Troy now, his son Eurypylus was breaking that promise but satisfying his own deep love of adventure. Paris, Deiphobus and Helenus, the senior surviving Trojan princes, could not have welcomed him more warmly. One by one the whole court was shown, and allowed to handle, Eurypylus’s fabled shield. It was as huge and heavy as a cartwheel and divided into twelve sections, each depicting in intricately worked bronze one of his grandfather Heracles’ Labours. The central boss portrayed the great hero himself, club in hand and clad in his celebrated costume of the hide of the Nemean Lion.
Not only could Eurypylus boast this illustrious lineage, but he outshone even Paris in looks. Odysseus, who had encountered him during the attack on Mysia, described him as the most beautiful man he had ever seen. Beautiful or otherwise, he could certainly fight. Had it not been for the combined skill and courage of Teucer and Aias, the Achaeans would have been routed and Achilles’ son Neoptolemus might have reached the Troad too late to have been of any help.
It had been on the island of Skyros, years earlier, that Odysseus and Diomedes had sought out King Lycomedes and found the young Achilles hiding as a girl. Arriving on the island for a second time, now to seek out his son, they were amazed to be shown into the presence of a young replica. The same flame-coloured hair, the same proud bearing and flashing eyes. The lofty, self-confident air with which one so young grandly insisted the visitors state their business struck Odysseus as more comical than commanding.
‘Do we have the honour of speaking to Achilles’ boy Pyrrhus?’ he asked.
The boy flushed. ‘I am not a boy and I do not answer to that foolish name,’ he said. ‘You may address me as Prince Neoptolemus.’
‘I may,’ said Odysseus, ‘but that remains to be seen. For now I’d like to speak to your mother.’
The mockery in Odysseus’s tone was more than Neoptolemus could bear. His hand flew to his sword hilt. Diomedes quickly stepped forward and gripped his wrist.
‘I apologize for my friend Odysseus,’ he said. ‘He means no harm.’
Neoptolemus gaped. ‘Odysseus? You are Odysseus of Ithaca, son of Laertes?’
The arrogant manner was instantly cast aside and replaced by a rush of youthful excitement and something akin to hero-worship. He took them both at once to see his mother.
Deidamia was still in mourning for Achilles and declared herself entirely opposed to the idea of her son fighting in the war that had killed his father and made a widow of her.
‘I forbid it!’ she said. ‘And so does your grandfather.’
King Lycomedes nodded his head gravely. ‘You are too young, my boy. Perhaps in a few years.’
‘I’ve trained in the arts of war every day since I could walk,’ said Neoptolemus with some heat. ‘No one on this island can best me. And the oracle has declared more than once that it is my destiny to go to Troy and win great glory there.’
‘But it’s too soon, my boy!’
‘I’m ready. Ask anyone.’
Odysseus had discovered that the general view on Skyros was that Neoptolemus was every inch his father’s son. He had much of Achilles’ skill, strength and speed and all – if not more – of his hot temper and insatiable lust for killing.
‘We would not come for Prince Neoptolemus,’ said Odysseus, ‘if we did not think him more than capable of looking after himself.’
‘If he goes,’ said Deidamia, ‘it will break my heart.’
Neoptolemus hated to see his mother distressed and seemed now to waver.
Odysseus read the situation at once. ‘Your father’s armour is mine by right,’ he said. ‘Forged by the hand of Hephaestus himself. I have brought it with me. If you agree to join us I will, of course, bestow it upon you.’
‘The Myrmidons will follow you anywhere,’ added Diomedes. ‘They only await your place at their head.’
Neoptolemus threw this mother a pleading look of such desperate and agonized intensity that her resistance melted. She gave a moan and bowed her head. His face broke into a brilliant smile.
‘I’ll be back before you know it,’ he said, hugging her close.
A STRANGE VISIT
Back at Troy, Eurypylus and his Mysian troops, aided by a rampant Aeneas, had pushed the Achaeans over the Scamander and were threatening to pin them to their ships, just as Hector had done before. Agamemnon and Menelaus joined Idomeneus and Aias in a counter-attack, wounding Deiphobus, but Aias was put out of action by a well-directed rock thrown by Aeneas.
The din of battle on the plain could be heard in Helen’s suite of rooms high up in the royal palace. She was at her loom, listlessly weaving, as she did every day. Aethra, the mother of Theseus and Helen’s old companion, coughed gently to announce that a visitor stood outside, awaiting an audience.
‘What is their name?’
‘He won’t tell me who he is, my dear. Insists on seeing you. Won’t take no for an answer.’
‘Show him in.’
Helen was taken aback when Aethra led in a boy no more than fifteen years of age.
‘And who might this young man be?’
‘My name is Corythus,’ said the boy, blushing furiously. ‘I … I … have a message for you … I …’
‘Why don’t you sit down and take something to drink?’ said Helen, indicating a seat and nodding to Aethra, who poured wine. ‘You can gather your thoughts and tell me your message when you’re ready. This room is uncomfortably warm, is it not?’
The youth sat down and drank gratefully from the proffered cup. He looked up anxiously at Aethra, and Helen – sensing his unease – dismissed her with a slight movement of her head.
‘There now,’ she said, ‘we’re quite alone and you can tell me your message.’
‘It’s for you to see,’ Corythus said, passing over a small packet wrapped in the bark of a birch tree.
In some surprise Helen opened the packet and looked long and hard at the tokens inside.
‘This is from Oenone?’
Corythus nodded.
‘And you are her son by Paris?’
He nodded again and looked shyly down at the floor.
Helen’s mind filled with visions of the last ten years. She thought back to her life in Sparta with Menelaus before Paris came. What madness had overcome her? Was it real attraction to Paris or the work of Aphrodite that had led her to leave behind her home, her parents and most of all her beautiful daughter? Hermione would be thirteen years old now. Had she learned to hate the mother who abandoned her? Hot tears rolled down Helen’s cheeks as she thought of all she had left behind and all she had caused. All this death. Even now she could hear the screams of the dying and the clash of arms down on the plain. So many brave men killed and good women widowed. So many parents bereaved and children orphaned. All because of her. If it were not for her, Hector would be alive, Andromache would have a husband and Astyanax a father. And for what? All for a vain, cheating liar like Paris. He had not only ruined her life, and the life of all those in Sparta whom he had forced her to abandon, but he had betrayed his first wife Oenone
and this son, this poor, awkward, gulping boy shuffling before her. But she had to be honest. Everything Paris had done, she had done. She was cursed. She was death …
In the intensity of her grief and distress, Helen fainted to the floor. Corythus tried to call out for help, but his voice stuck in his throat. Not knowing what else to do, he went to her side to feel for a pulse.
At just this moment Paris came through the door. Seeing a young man paying intimate attentions to his wife, he was filled with jealous fury. He took out his sword and cut at the boy, slashing his throat. Corythus died on the spot. In the intensity of his rage Paris would have killed Helen too, if his eye hadn’t first been drawn to the bundle of birch bark by her side. When he had understood its meaning and realized that the youth he had killed was his own son, he was overcome with grief and shattered by remorse.fn62
Helen wanted nothing more to do with Paris. She never spoke another word to the man she looked on as the author of all her woes and all the woes of Troy and Greece. Their relationship was finally, entirely and irrecoverably over.
Nor had Paris’s victory over Achilles showered him in much glory. After all, the poison arrow had been directed, men said, by Apollo. Fine marksman as he was, Paris could never have found so small a target as the great hero’s left heel.
The killing by Paris of his own son marked the end of divine support for him. Aphrodite and Apollo, his greatest champions over the years, could not overlook a blood crime so dreadful. Paris’s days were numbered.
THE GOLDEN BOY
Beyond the city walls the Achaeans were sustaining terrible losses. Machaon, son of the divine healer Asclepius, was speared and killed by Eurypylus. His brother PODALIRIUS bore the body back behind the lines, where he brought all his arts to bear in a desperate attempt to revive him. But no herb, salve or incantation could bring Machaon – who had healed so many Greeks himself – back to life. Enraged, Podalirius flew into the fray. His fury and the fighting skills of Idomeneus and Aias pushed Eurypylus back from the stockade, but a quick flanking manoeuvre caused Agamemnon and Menelaus to become separated and encircled inside the Mysian ranks. Trapped and isolated behind enemy lines, the royal brothers would have been captured or killed had not Teucer waded in to rescue them.
At that moment a great cheer was heard from the shoreline. The ship of Odysseus and Diomedes had returned. With his sure eye for image, Odysseus had instructed Neoptolemus to put on his father’s armour and climb high on the prow. Whether it was Athena, Iris or some other deity who arranged the vision, no one could be sure; but just as Neoptolemus stepped up, a brilliant shaft of sunlight shone down on him through the clouds. The bronze, silver and gold of the shield flashed. The first Achaeans to see it set up a great cry which spread from the stockade to the fighting on the plain. The Trojan soldiers looked and saw with terror that their arch-nemesis had been reborn.
Shaking the great spear of his grandfather Peleus, Neoptolemus shrieked the blood-curdling war cry of his father Achilles, and the Myrmidons, recognizing it, roared with joy and beat their swords against their shields. Their clamour, depending on whose side you were on, either chilled or thrilled the heart.
Neoptolemus sprang down to lead the Myrmidons into battle. Newly energized and inspired, the Achaean army began to repel the Trojan advance. Neoptolemus soon demonstrated not only that he had much of Achilles’ athleticism and grace but that he was every bit as violent and bloodthirsty as his father too. As he twisted, swooped, leapt, ducked, darted, hacked, sliced, stabbed, speared and wove his way through the Mysian lines towards Eurypylus, the Trojans fell back, many convinced that this truly was Achilles new born. When he and Eurypylus finally met, they stamped their feet into the ground and crashed their two great round shields together. Neoptolemus was younger and fresher. Eurypylus was stronger and wilier. He had been fighting hard for days, but never faltered or took a backward step. The long and desperate duel that ensued might have gone either way, but in the end youth and speed won out. Neoptolemus ran round like a hound tormenting a bull until at last his spear found its mark and tore through the older man’s throat.
A groan went up in the Mysian ranks as Eurypylus hit the ground. Scenting victory the Achaeans pushed the Trojans right back to the city walls. Neoptolemus fell like a ravening eagle on those not quick enough to escape through the closing gates.
‘Now!’ he yelled. ‘Up the walls and avenge my father!’
Linking with each other like a chain of the ants from which they derived their name, the Myrmidons began to swarm up the walls. The panicked citizens on the battlements, men, women and children, hurled down rocks, bronze cauldrons, stone jars – anything they could find.
Were it not for a great blanketing mist that fell on the city at this most critical moment, the Greeks might well have succeeded in reaching the top of the ramparts and breaking the siege. The Trojans yelled down at them, crowing in triumphant relief.
‘Zeus! Zeus!’ they roared, convinced that the King of the Gods, the Sky Father and Cloud-Gatherer himself, had intervened to save them. Certainly the descent of the fog was timely and decisive.
Grumbling and disappointed, unable to see further than the limits of their own outstretched arms, the Achaeans laid their hands on each other’s shoulders and shuffled in single file back to the ships, the moment lost.
THE ARROWS OF HERACLES
Once more an agonizing stalemate loomed, and once more Agamemnon turned in frustration to his prophet Calchas.
‘What do the swallows and sparrows tell you now, you old fraud?’
Calchas smiled his gentle, sorrowful smile. ‘Only a foolish leader blames his messengers, and the King of Men, the great one I serve, has never been a fool.’
‘Yes, well, no one is blaming you, Calchas,’ said Agamemnon, gritting his teeth. ‘But you have told us, again and again, that you foresee a clear Argive victory in the tenth year of our campaign. There are not many weeks left. I am sure we would all be grateful for guidance.’
‘I know now,’ said Calchas, ‘that to secure victory we need the arrows of Heracles.’
‘What?’
‘The divine Heracles entrusted to his friend Philoctetes his mighty bow, together with the arrows that he had dipped in the deadly blood of the Hydra.’
‘Yes, yes, every child in the world knows that, but what do you mean we “need” them?’
‘You may recall, mighty king, that ten years past, when we stopped off on the isle of Lemnos on our way here, Philoctetes was bitten on his foot by a venomous snake.’
‘Of course I remember. What of it?’
‘The wound festered, and it was decided that he should be left on the island lest he infect us all. My lord, the flight of the cranes that rose up from the sands last night told me clearly that we need Philoctetes and those arrows. Without them we cannot defeat Troy.’
‘But surely the poor man must be dead by now? Alone on that island with such an injury …’
‘The gods have spared him. I have seen that he yet lives.’
Agamemnon heaved the gusty sigh of one much put upon by the weight of office, the malice of chance and the endless incompetence of underlings.
‘Right. Well. So be it.’ He turned to survey his staff. ‘Odysseus. You’re the one who persuaded us to leave the fellow behind. You and Diomedes go off to Lemnos and fetch him. Why are you still standing in front of me? Go!’
On Lemnos, Odysseus and Diomedes found Philoctetes, still in perpetual agony from the wound that would not heal. He had lived all these years in a den of his own making. It was littered with the feathers and bones of birds he had shot with his arrows. Seeing Odysseus, the author of his miserable isolation, he raised his bow. His emaciated arms trembled as he took aim.
‘Go on,’ said Odysseus. ‘Shoot. I’m sure I deserve it. I put our cause ahead of you. We thought that we had no need of you. We left you to rot. Now we find that we do need you, and I have dared come to beg for your forgiveness and aid. But why should you forgive m
e? Better we all die here forgotten. Why choose glory and fame in Troy when death awaits us whatever we do? Might as well end it here in this stinking lair as on the field of battle. One way we live for ever in posterity – in statues, songs and stories – the other we are forgotten. But so what? What has posterity ever done for us?’
‘Damn you, Odysseus,’ gasped Philoctetes. ‘If we do die together here, I’ll probably be cursed to spend the afterlife with you endlessly jabbering on in my ear.’
‘Oh yes, you can be assured that his shade will never shut up,’ agreed Diomedes. ‘It would be worse than the tortures of Sisyphus and Tantalus combined. Much better come along with us.’
As soon as their black ship dropped its anchor stone at the Achaean beachhead, Philoctetes was carried off and conveyed to the tent of Podalirius, who was delighted to be able to do something to take his mind off the loss of his brother Machaon. He applied a fomenting salve to the suppurating foot. The moment the preparation touched the wound, it foamed and fizzed. Philoctetes screamed and fainted. When he awoke, his foot was whole and the pain gone.fn63
Agamemnon put Philoctetes to work straight away. His poisoned arrows accounted for dozens of ordinary Trojans, but one prize was worth more than all the others put together.
A dashing figure in bright armour had ventured out from the city and was killing Greeks with a savage disregard for its own safety. Philoctetes took aim. His arrow flew towards the Trojan warrior, who swayed to one side. The tip of the arrow grazed his throat. The warrior took off his helmet and put a hand to the stinging nick. Hardly any blood at all. It was nothing.
‘Paris!’ cried Diomedes, clapping his hand on Philoctetes’ shoulder. ‘You’ve hit Paris!’
The figure in bright armour was indeed Paris. That morning he had burned the body of his son Corythus, the boy he had killed in a fit of misdirected jealousy. Remorse, bitterness and anger had driven him to a great and savage courage. Even now he shook off the arrow scratch and threw himself back into the fight. But the skin on his neck began to smart uncomfortably. He staggered as sweat broke out on his brow and the blood pounded in his ears. Helping arms lifted him up and carried him towards the Scaean Gate, past the very piece of ground where Achilles had fallen to his own arrow. By the time he was laid down on a bed in the palace, his whole body felt as though it were on fire.