Lost in the Funhouse

MENELAIAD

1

Menelaus here, more or less. The fair-haired boy? Of the loud war cry! Leader of the people. Zeus’s fosterling.

Eternal husband.

Got you, have I? No? Changed your shape, become waves of the sea, of the air? Anyone there? Anyone here?

No matter; this isn’t the voice of Menelaus; this voice is Menelaus, all there is of him. When I’m switched on I tell my tale, the one I know, How Menelaus Became Immortal, but I don’t know it.

Keep hold of yourself.

“Helen,” I say: “Helen’s responsible for this. From the day we lovers sacrificed the horse in Argos, pastureland of horses, and swore on its bloody joints to be her champions forever, whichever of us she chose, to the night we huddled in the horse in Troy while she took the part of all our wives — everything’s Helen’s fault. Cities built and burnt, a thousand bottoms on the sea’s, every captain corpsed or cuckold — her doing. She’s the death of me and my peculiar immortality, cause of every mask and change of state. On whose account did Odysseus become a madman, Achilles woman? Who turned the Argives into a horse, loyal Sinon into a traitor, yours truly from a mooncalf into a sea-calf, Proteus into everything that is? First cause and final magician: Mrs. M.

“One evening, embracing in our bed, I dreamed I was back in the wooden horse, waiting for midnight. Laocoön’s spear still stuck in our flank, and Helen, with her Trojan pal in tow, called out to her Argive lovers in the voice of each’s wife. ‘Come kiss me, Anticlus darling!’ My heart was stabbed as my side was once by Pandarus’s arrow. But in the horse, while smart Odysseus held shut our mouths, I dreamed I was home in bed before Paris and the war, our wedding night, when she crooned like that to me. Oh, Anticlus, it wasn’t you who was deceived; your wife was leagues and years away, mine but an arms-length, yet less near. Now I wonder which dream dreamed which, which Menelaus never woke and now dreams both.

“And when I was on the beach at Pharos, seven years lost en route from Troy, clinging miserably to Proteus for direction, he prophesied a day when I’d sit in my house at last, drink wine with the sons of dead comrades, and tell their dads’ tales; my good wife would knit by the fireside, things for our daughter’s wedding, and dutifully pour the wine. That scene glowed so in my heart, its beat became the rhythm of her needles; Egypt’s waves hissed on the foreshore like sapwood in the grate, and the Nile-murk on my tongue turned sweet. But then it seems to me I’m home in Sparta, talking to Nestor’s boy or Odysseus’s; Helen’s put something in the wine again, I know why, one of those painkillers she picked up in Africa, and the tale I tell so grips me, I’m back in the cave once more with the Old Man of the Sea.”

One thing’s certain: somewhere Menelaus lost course and steersman, went off track, never got back on, lost hold of himself, became a record merely, the record of his loosening grasp. He’s the story of his life, with which he ambushes the unwary unawares.

2

“ ‘Got you!’ ” I cry to myself, imagining Telemachus enthralled by the doctored wine. “ ‘You’ve feasted your bowels on my dinner, your hopes on my news of Odysseus, your eyes on my wife though she’s your mother’s age. Now I’ll feast myself on your sotted attention, with the tale How Menelaus First Humped Helen in the Eighth Year After the War. Pricked you up, that? Got your ear, have I? Like to know how it was, I suppose? Where in Hades are we? Where’d I go? Whom’ve I got hold of? Proteus? Helen?’

“ ‘Telemachus Odysseus’-son,’ the lad replied, ‘come from goat-girt Ithaca for news of my father, but willing to have his cloak clutched and listen all night to the tale How You Lost Your Navigator, Wandered Seven Years, Came Ashore at Pharos, Waylaid Eidothea, Tackled Proteus, Learned to Reach Greece by Sailing up the Nile, and Made Love to Your Wife, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, After an Abstinence of Eighteen Years.’

“ ‘Seventeen.’ ”

I tell it as it is. “ ‘D’you hear that click?’ ” I tell myself I asked Telemachus.

“ ‘I do,’ said Peisistratus.

“ ‘Knitting! Helen of Troy’s going to be a grandmother! An empire torched, a generation lost, a hundred kings undone on her account, and there she sits, proper as Penelope, not a scratch on her — and knits!’

“ ‘Not a scratch!’ said Telemachus.

“ ‘Excuse me,’ Helen said; ‘if it’s to be that tale I’m going on to bed, second chamber on one’s left down the hall. A lady has her modesty. Till we meet again, Telemachus. Drink deep and sleep well, Menelaus my love.’

“ ‘Zeus in heaven!’ ” I say I cried. “ ‘Why didn’t I do you in in Deiphobus’ house, put you to the sword with Troy?’

“Helen smiled at us and murmured: ‘Love.’

“ ‘Does she mean,’ asked Peisistratus Nestor’s-son, come with Telemachus that noon from sandy Pylos, ‘that you love her for example more than honor, self-respect; more than every man and cause you’ve gone to war for; more than Menelaus?’

“ ‘Not impossibily.’

“ ‘Is it that her name’s twin syllables fire you with contrary passions? That your heart does battle with your heart till you burn like ashèd Ilion?’

“ ‘Wise son of a wise father! Her smile sows my furrowed memory with Castalian serpent’s teeth; I become a score of warriors, each battling the others; the survivors kneel as one before her; perhaps the salin were better men. If Aeneas Aphrodite’s-son couldn’t stick her, how should I, a mere near mortal?’

“ ‘This is gripping,’ ” I say to myself Telemachus said. “ ‘Weary as we are from traveling all day, I wish nothing further than to sit without moving in this total darkness while you hold me by the hem of my tunic and recount How Your Gorgeous Wife Wouldn’t Have You for Seven Full Postwar Years but Did in the Eighth. If I fail to exclaim with wonder or otherwise respond, it will be that I’m speechless with sympathy.’

“ ‘So be it,’ I said,” I say. “Truth to tell,” I tell me, “when we re-reached Sparta Helen took up her knitting with never a droppèd stitch, as if she’d been away eighteen days instead of ditto years, and visiting her sister instead of bearing bastards to her Trojan lovers. But it was the wine of doubt I took to, whether I was the world’s chief fool and cuckold or its luckiest mortal. Especially when old comrades came to town, or their sons, to swap war stoies, I’d booze it till I couldn’t tell Helen from Hellespont. So it was the day Odysseus’ boy and Nestor’s rode into town. I was shipping off our daughter to wed Achilles’ son and Alector’s girl in to wed mine; the place was full of kinfolk, the wine ran free, I was swallowing my troubles; babies they were when I went to Troy, hardly married myself; by the time I get home they’re men and women wanting spouses of their won; no wonder I felt old and low and thirsty; where’d my kids go? The prime of my life?

“When the boys dropped in I took for granted they were friends of the children’s, come for the party; I saw to it they were washed and oiled, gave them clean clothes and poured them a drink. Better open your palace to every kid in the countryside than not know whose your own are in, Mother and I always thought. No man can say I’m inhospitable. But I won’t deny I felt a twinge when I learned they were strangers; handsome boys they were, from good families, I could tell, and in the bloom of manhood, as I’d been twenty years before, and Paris when he came a-calling, and I gave him a drink and said ‘What’s mine is yours …’…” ….

Why don’t they call her Helen of Sparta?

“I showed them the house, all our African stuff, it knocked their eyes out; then we had dinner and played the guessing game. Nestor’s boy I recognized early on, his father’s image, a good lad, but not hero-material, you know what I mean. The other was a troubler; something not straight about him; wouldn’t look you in the eye; kept smiling at his plate; but a sharp one, and a good-looking, bound to make a stir in the world one day. I kept my eye on him through dinner and decided he was my nephew Orestes, still hiding out from killing his mother and her goat-boy-friend, or else Odysseus’ Telemachus. Either way it was bad news: when Proteus told me how Clytemnestra and Aegisthus had axed my brother the minute he set foot in Mycenae, do you think Helen spared him a tear? ‘No more than he deserved,’ she said, ‘playing around with that bitch Cassandra.’ But when we stopped off there on our way home from Egypt and found her sister and Aegisthus being buried, didn’t she raise a howl for young Orestes’ head! Zeus help him if he’d come to see his Uncle Menelaus! On the other hand, if he was Odysseus’ boy and took after his father, I’d have to keep eye on the wedding silver as well as on the bride.

“To matters worse, as I fretted about this our old minstrel wandered in, looking for a handout, and started up that wrath-of-Archilles thing, just what I needed to hear; before I could turn him off I was weeping in my wine and wishing I’d died the morning after my wedding night. Hermione barged in too, almost as pretty as her mom, to see who the stranger-chaps were; for a minute it was ‘Paris, meet Helen’ all over again, till I got hold of myself and shooed her out of there. Even so, a dreadful notion struck me: what if Paris had a son we didn’t know about, who’d slipped like slick Aeneas our Trojan clutch, grown up in hiding, and was come now to steal my daughter as his dad my wife! Another horse! Another Hector! Another drink.

“Even as I swallowed, hard and often, the fellow winked at the door I’d sent Hermione through and said, ‘Quite a place, hey, Nestor’s-son?’ Which was to say, among other things, Peisistratus was tagged and out of the game. Nothing for it then but to play the thing out in the usual way. ‘No getting around it, boys,’ I declared: ‘I’m not the poorest Greek in town. But I leave it to Zeus whether what you’ve seen is worth its cost. Eight years I knocked about the world, picking up what I could and wishing I were dead. The things you see come from Cyprus, Phoenicia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Sidonia, Erembi — even Libya, where the lambs are born with horns on.’

“ ‘Born with horns on!’

“I did my thing then, told a story with everyone in it who might be the mystery guest and looked to see which name brought tears. ‘While I was pirating around,’ I said, ‘my wife’s sister murdered my brother on the grounds that she’d committed adultery for ten years straight with my cousin Aegisthus. Her son Orestes killed them both, bless his heart, but when I think of Agamemnon and the rest done in for Helen’s sake, I’d swap two-thirds of what I’ve got to bring them back to life.’

“I looked for the stranger’s tears through mine, but he only declared: ‘Lucky Achilles’ son, to come by such a treasure!’

“ ‘Yet the man I miss most,’ I continued, ‘is shifty Odysseus.’ “ ‘Oh?’

“ ‘Yes indeed,’ I went on,” I go on: “ ‘Now and then I wonder what became of him and old faithful Penelope and the boy Telemachus.’

“ ‘You know Telemachus?’ asked Telemachus.

“ ‘I knew him once,’ said I. ‘Twenty years ago, when he was one, I laid him in a furrow for his dad to plow under, and thus odysseused Odysseus. What’s more, I’d made up my mind if he got home alive to give him a town here in Argos to lord it over and leave to his son when he died. Odysseus and I, wouldn’t we have run through the grapes and whoppers! Pity he never made it.’

“The boy wet his mantle properly then, and I thought: ‘Hold right, son of Atreus, and keep a sharp lookout.’ While I wondered what he might be after and how to keep him from it, as I had of another two decades past, Herself came in with her maids and needles, worst possible moment as ever.

“ ‘Why is it, Menelaus, you never tell me when a prince comes calling? Good afternoon, Telemachus.’

“Oh, my gods, but she was lovely! Cute Hermione drew princelings to Sparta like piss-ants to a peony-bud, but her mother was the full-blown blossom, the blooming bush! Far side of forty but never a wrinkle, and any two cuts of her great gray eyes told more about love and Troy than our bard in a night’s hexameters. Her figure, too — but curse her figure! She opened her eyes and theirs, I shut mine, there was the usual pause; then Telemachus got his wind back and hollered: ‘Payee-sistratus! What country have we come to, where the mares outrun the fillies?’

“Nestor’s-son’s face was ashen as his spear; ashener than either the old taste in my mouth. If only Telemachus had been so abashed! But he looked her over like young Heracles the house of Thespius and said, ‘Not even many-masked Odysseus could disguise himself from Zeus’s daughter. How is it you know me?’

“ ‘You’re your father’s son,’ Helen said. ‘Odysseus asked me that very question one night in Troy. He’d got himself up as a beggar and slipped into town for the evening …’

“ ‘What for?’ wanted to know Peisistratus.

“ ‘To spy, to spy,’ Telemachus said.

“ ‘What else?’ asked Helen. ‘None knew him but me, who’d have known him anywhere, and I said to my Trojan friends: “Look, a new beggar in town. Wonder who he is?” But no matter how I tried, I couldn’t trick Odysseus into saying: “Odysseus.” ’

“ ‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ begged Peisistratus, disbrothered by the war; ‘what I don’t understand is why you tried at all, since he was on a dangerous mission in enemy territory.’

“ ‘Nestor’s-son,’ said I, ‘you’re your father’s son.’ But Telemachus scolded him, asking how he hoped to have his questions answered if he interrupted the tale by asking them. Helen flashed him a look worth epics and said, ‘When I got him alone in my apartment and washed and oiled and dressed him, I promised not to tell anyone he was Odysseus until he went back to his camp. So he told me all the Greek military secrets. Toward morning he killed several Trojans while they slept, and then I showed him the safest way out of town. There was a fuss among the new widows, but who cared? I was bored with Troy by that time and wished I’d never left home. I had a nice palace, a daughter, and Menelaus: what more could a woman ask?’

“After a moment Telemachus cried: ‘Noble heart in a nobler breast! To think that all the while our side cursed you, you were secretly helping us!’

“When I opened my eyes I saw Peisistratus rubbing his, image of Gerenian Nestor. ‘It still isn’t clear to me,’ he said, ‘why the wife of Prince Paris — begging your pardon, sir; I mean as it were, of course — would wash, oil, and dress a vagrant beggar in her apartment in the middle of the night. I don’t grasp either why you couldn’t have slipped back to Lord Menelaus along with Odysseus, if that’s what you wanted.’

“He had other questions too, shrewd lad, but Helen’s eyes turned dark, and before I could swallow my wine Telemachus had him answered: ‘What good could she have done the Argives then? She’d as well have stayed here in Sparta!’ As for himself, he told Helen, next to hearing that his father was alive no news could’ve more delighted him than that the whole purpose of her elopement with Paris, as he was now convinced, was to spy for the Greeks from the heart of Troy, without which espionage we’d surely have been defeated. Helen counted her stitches and said, ‘You give me too much credit.’ ‘No, by Zeus!’ Telemachus declared. ‘To leave your home and family and live for ten years with another man, purely for the sake of your home and family …’

“ ‘Nine with Paris,’ Helen murmured, ‘one with Deiphobus. Deiphobus was the better man, no doubt about it, but not half as handsome.’

“ ‘So much the nobler!’ cried Telemachus.

“ ‘Nobler than you think,’ I said, and poured myself and Peisistratus another drink. ‘My wife’s too modest to tell the noblest things of all. In the first place, when I fetched her out of Troy at last and set sail for home, she was so ashamed of what she’d had to do to win the war for us that it took me seven years more to convince her she was worthy of me …’

“ ‘I kiss the hem of your robe!’ Telemachus exclaimed to her and did.

“ ‘In the second place,’ I said, ‘she did all these things for our sake without ever going to Troy in the first place.’

“ ‘Really,’ Helen protested.

“ ‘Excuse me, sir …’ said presently Peisistratus.

“ ‘Wine’s at your elbow,’ I declared. ‘Drink deep, boys; I’ll tell you the tale.’

“ ‘That’s not what Prince Telemachus wants,’ Helen said.

“ ‘I know what Prince Telemachus wants.’

“ ‘He wants word of his father,’ said she. ‘If you must tell a story at this late hour, tell the one about Proteus on the beach at Pharos, what he said of Odysseus.’

“ ‘Do,’ Peisistratus said.

“ ‘Hold on,’ I said,” I say: “ ‘It’s all one tale.’

“ ‘Then tell it all,’ said Helen. ‘But excuse yours truly.’

“ ‘Don’t go!’ cried Telemachus.

“ ‘A lady has her modesty,’ Helen said. ‘I’ll fill your cups, gentlemen, bid you good night, and retire. To the second—’

“ ‘Who put out the light?’ asked Peisistratus.

“ ‘Wait!’ cried Telemachus.

“ ‘Got you!’ cried I, clutching hold of his cloak-hem. After an exchange of pleasantries we settled down and drank deep in the dark while I told the tale of Menelaus and his wife at sea:

3

“ ‘Seven years,’ ” I say et cetera, “ ‘the woman kept her legs crossed and the north wind blew without let-up, holding us from home. In the eighth, on the beach at Pharos, with Eidothea’s help I tackled her dad the Old Man of the Sea and followed his tough instructions: heavy-hearted it back to Egypt, made my hecatombs, vowed my vows. At once then, wow, the wind changed, no time at all till we re-raised Pharos! Not a Proteus in sight, no Eidothea, just the boat I’d moored my wife in, per orders. Already she was making sail; her crew were putting in their oars; my first thought was, they’re running off with Helen; we overhauled them; why was everybody grinning? But it was only joy, not to lose another minute; there was Helen herself by the mast-step, holding out her arms to me! Zeus knows how I poop-to-pooped it, maybe I was dreaming on the beach at Pharos, maybe am still; there I was anyhow, clambering aboard: “Way, boys!” I hollered. “Put your arse in it!” Spang! went the mainsail, breeze-bellied for Sparta; those were Helen’s arms around me; it was wedding night! We hustled to the sternsheets, never mind who saw what; when she undid every oar went up; still we tore along the highways of the fish. “Got you!” I cried, couldn’t see for the beauty of her, feel her yet, what is she anyhow? I decked her; only think, those gold limbs hadn’t wound me in twenty years …’

“ ‘Twenty?’ ‘Counting two before the war. Call it nineteen.’

“ ‘ “Wait,” she bade me. “First tell me what Proteus said, and how you followed his advice.”

“ ‘Our oars went down; we strained the sail with sighs; my tears thinned the wine-dark sea. But there was nothing for it, I did as bid:

4

“ ‘ “Nothing for it but to do as Eidothea’d bid me,” ’ ” I say to myself I told Telemachus I sighed to Helen.

“ ‘ “Eidothea?”

“ ‘ “Old Man of the Sea’s young daughter, so she said,” said I. “With three of my crew I dug in on the beach at sunrise; she wrapped us in seal-calfskins. ‘Hold tight to these,’ she told us. ‘Who can hug a stinking sea-beast?’ I inquired. She said, ‘Father. Try ambrosia; he won’t get here till noon.’ She put it under our noses and dived off as usual; we were high in no time; ‘These seals,’ my men agreed: ‘the longer you’re out here the whiter they get.’ They snuggled in and lost themselves in dreams; I would’ve too, but grateful as I was, when she passed the ambrosia I smelled a trick. Hang around Odysseus long enough, you trust nobody. I’d take a sniff and put the stuff away till the seal stink got to me, then sniff again. Even so I nearly lost my grip. Was I back in the horse? Was I dreaming of Helen on my bachelor throne?”

“ ‘ “Hold on,” said deckèd Helen; I came to myself, saw I was blubbering; “I came to myself, saw I was beached at Pharos. Come shadeless noon, unless I dreamed it, the sea-cow harem flipped from the deep to snooze on the foreshore, give me a woman anytime. Old Proteus came after, no accounting for tastes, counted them over, counting us in, old age is hard on the eyes too; then he outstretched in the cavemouth, one snore and I jumped him.

“ ‘ “ ‘Got you!’ I cried” I cried’ I cried” I cry. “ ‘ “My companions, when I hollered, grabbed hold too: one snatched his beard, one his hands, one his long white hair; I tackled his legs and held fast. First he changed into a lion, ate the beard-man, what a mess; then snake, bit the hair-chap, who’d nothing to hold onto.” ’

“ ‘Neither did the hand-man,’ observed Peisistratus, sleepless critic, to whom I explained for Telemachus’s sake as well that while the erstwhile hand-man, latterly paw-man, had admittedly been vulnerably under both lion and snake, and the hair- then mane-man relatively safely on top, the former had escaped the former by reason of the quondam beard-man’s fortunate, for the quondam paw-man, interposition; the latter fallen prey to the latter by reason of the latter’s unfortunate, for the quondam mane-man, proclivity to strike whatever was before him — which would have been to say, before, the hand-paw-man, but was to say, now, which is to say, then, the beard-mane-man, thanks so to speak to the serpent’s windings upon itself.

“ ‘Ah.’

“ ‘ “To clutch the leopard Proteus turned into then, then, were only myself and the unhandled hand-man, paw- once more but shielded now by neither beard- nor mane- and so promptly chomped, what a mess. I’d have got mine too, leopards are flexible, but by the time he’d made lunch of my companions he’d become a boar …”

“ ‘ “Ah.”

“ ‘ “Which bristle as he might couldn’t tusk his own tail, whereto I clung.”

“ ‘ “Not his hindpaws? I thought you were the foot-paw—” ’

“ ‘Just what I was about to—’

“ ‘ “Proteus to lion, feet into hindpaws,” I answered,’ I answered. ‘ “Lion to snake, paws into tail. Snake to leopard, tail into tail and hindpaws both; my good luck I went tail to tail.”

“ ‘ “Leopard to boar?”

“ ‘ “Long tail to short, too short to tusk. Then the trouble started.”(’)

“I replied to them: ‘ “A beast’s a beast,” I replied to her. “If you’ve got the right handle all you do’s hang on …” ’ ”

“ ‘ “It was when the Old Man of the Sea turned into salt water I began to sweat. Try holding an armful of ocean! I did my best, hugged a puddle on the beach, but plenty soaked in, plenty more ran seaward, where I saw you bathing, worst possible moment, not that you knew …” ’

“ ‘It’s Helen I’m telling, northing in our love-clutch on the poop. “I needed a bath,” she said; “I a drink,” said I; “for all I knew you might be Proteus all over, dirty Old Man of the Sea. Even when my puddle turned into a bigbole leafy tree I wasn’t easy; who said he couldn’t be two things at once? There I lay, philodendron, hour after hour, while up in the limbs a cuckoo sang …” ’ ”

My problem was, I’d too much imagination to be a hero. “ ‘ “My problem was, I’d leisure to think. My time was mortal, Proteus’s im-; what if he merely treed it a season or two till I let go? What was it anyhow I held? If Proteus once was Old Man of the Sea and now Proteus was a tree, then Proteus was neither, only Proteus; what I held were dreams. But if a real Old Man of the Sea had really been succeeded by real water and the rest, then the dream was Proteus. And Menelaus! For I changed too as the long day passed: changed my mind, replaced myself, grew older. How hold on until the ‘old’ (which is to say the young) Menelaus rebecame himself? Eidothea forgot to say! How could I anyhow know that that sea-nymph wasn’t Proteus in yet another guise, her counsel a ruse to bind me forever while he sported with Helen?” ’

“ ‘What was her counsel, exactly?’

“ ‘Peisistratus, is it? Helen’s question, exactly: “What was her counsel, exactly?” And “How’d you persuade her to trick her own dad?” “Everything in its place,” I said,’ I said. ‘ “Your question was Proteus’s, exactly; as I answered when he asked, I’ll answer when he asks.”

“ ‘ “Hard tale to hold onto, this,” declared my poopèd spouse.’ Odysseus’- or Nestor’s-son agreed.” I agree. But what out-wandering hero ever journeyed a short straight line, arrived at his beginning till the end? “ ‘ “Harder yet to hold onto Proteus. I must have dozed as I mused and fretted, thought myself yet again enhorsed or bridal-chambered, same old dream, woke up clutching nothing. It was late. I was rooted with fatigue. I held on.”(’ ‘) “To?”(’ ‘) “Nothing. You were back on deck, the afternoon sank, I heard sailors guffawing, shore-birds cackled, the sun set grinning in the winish sea, still I held on, saying of and to me: ‘Menelaus is a fool, mortal hugging immortality. Men laugh, the gods mock, he’s chimaera, a hornèd gull. What is it he clutches? Why can’t he let go? What trick have you played him, Eidothea, a stranger in your country?’ I might’ve quit, but my cursèd fancy whispered: ‘Proteus has turned into the air. Or else …’ ” ’ ”

Hold onto yourself, Menelaus.

“ ‘ “Long time my shingled arms made omicron. Tides lapped in and kelped me; fishlets kissed my heels; terns dunged me white; spatted and musseled, beflied, befleaed, I might have been what now in the last light I saw me to be holding, a marine old man, same’s I’d seized only dimmer.

“ ‘ “ ‘You’ve got me, son of Atreus,’ he said, unless I said it myself.”

“⁽‘⁽⁽“Me too.”⁾⁾’⁾

“ ‘ “ ‘And I’ll keep you,’ I said, ‘till I have what I want.’ He asked me what that was,” as did Helen,’ and Telemachus. ‘ “ ‘You know without my telling you,’ ” ’ I told them. ‘ “Then he offered to tell all if I’d let him go, I to let him go when he’d told me all. ‘Foolish mortal!’ he said, they speak that way, ‘What gives you to think you’re Menelaus holding the Old Man of the Sea? Why shouldn’t Proteus turn into Menelaus, and into Menelaus holding Proteus? But let that go …’ ” ’ ” Never. “ ‘ “ ‘We seers see fore and aft, but not amidships. I know what you’ve been and will be; how is it you’re here? What god teaches men to godsnatch?’

“ ‘ “ ‘It’s not a short story,’ I warned him.” ’

“ ‘I don’t see why it needed telling,’ Peisistratus declared. ‘If a seer sees past and future he sees everything, the present being without duration et cetera. Or if his clairvoyance is relative, shading into darkness as it nears the Now from the bright far Heretofore and far clear Hereafter, even so there’s nothing he needn’t know.’ ‘Oh?’ ‘Today, say, he knows tomorrow and yesterday; then yesterday he knew today, as he’ll know it tomorrow. Now to know the past is to know too what one once knew, to know the future to know what one will know. But in the case of seers, what one once knew includes the then future which is now the present; what one will know, the then past which ditto. From all which it follows as the future from the present, the present from the past, that from him from whom neither past nor future can hide, the present cannot either. It wasn’t you who deceived Proteus, but Proteus you.’ ”

I tell it as it was. “Long time we sat in the dark and sleepful hall: hem-holding Menelaus, drowseless Nestor’s-son, Telemachus perhaps. When windy Orion raised his leg over Lacedemon I put by groan and goblet saying, ‘I tell it as it is. Long time I wondered who was the fooler, who fool, how much of what was news to whom; still pinning Helen to the pitchy poop I said, “When shifty Proteus vowed he had all time to listen in, from a leaden heart I cried: ‘When will I reach my goal through its cloaks of story? How many veils to naked Helen?’

“ ‘ “ ‘I know how it is,’ said Proteus. ‘Yet tell me what I wish; then I’ll tell you what you will.’ Nothing for it but rehearse the tale of me and slippery Eidothea:

5

“ ‘ “ ‘Troy was clinkered; Priam’s stones were still too warm to touch; the loot was depoted on the beach for share-out; Trojan ladies keened and huddled, eyed us with shivers, waiting to be boarded and rode down the tear-salt sea. We were ten years out; ten days more would see our plunder portioned, our dead sent up, good-trip hecatombs laid on the immortal gods. But I was mad with shame and passion for my salvaged wife; though curses Greek and Trojan showered on us like spears on Scamander-plain or the ash of heroes on our decks, I fetched her to my ship unstuck, stowed her below, made straight for home.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Hecatombs to Athena!” Odysseus cried after us.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Cushion your thwarts with Troy-girls!” Agamemnon called, dragging pale Cassandra—’ ”

“ ‘ “Bitch! Bitch!”

“ ‘ “ ‘—by her long black hair. To forestall a mutiny I hollered back, they could keep half my loot for themselves if they’d ship the rest home for me to emprince my loyal crew with. As for me, all my concubines and treasure waited below, tapping her foot. Wise Nestor alone sailed with me, who as Supervisor of Spoils had loaded first; last thing I saw astern was shrewd Odysseus scratching his head, my brother crotch; then Troy sank in the purpled east; with a shake-plain shout, I’m good at those, I dived below to reclaim my wife.

“ ‘ “ ‘Call it weakness if you dare: unlike the generality of men I take small joy in lording women. Helen’s epic heat had charcoaled Troy and sent ten thousand down to Hades; I ought to’ve spitted her like a heifer on her Trojan hearth. But I hadn’t, and the hour was gone to poll horns with the vengeful sword. I thought therefore to knock her about a bit and then take at last what had cost such a fearful price, perhaps vilifying her, within measure, the while. But when I beheld her — sitting cross-legged in the stern, cleaning long fingernails with a bodkin and pouting at the frames and strakes — I forebore, resolved to accept in lieu of her death a modest portion of heartfelt grovel. Further, once she’d flung herself at my knees and kissed my hem I would order her supine and mount more as one who loves than one who conquers; not impossibly, should she acquit herself well and often, I would even entertain a plea for her eventual forgiveness and restoration to the Atrean house. Accordingly I drew myself up to discharge her abjection — whereupon she gave over cleaning her nails and set to drumming them on one knee.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Let your repentance salt my shoeleather,” I said presently, “and then, as I lately sheathed my blade of anger, so sheathe you my blade of love.”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “I only just came aboard,” she replied. “I haven’t unpacked yet.”

“ ‘ “ ‘With a roar I went up the companionway, dashed stern to stem, close-hauled the main, flogged the smile from my navigator, and clove us through the pastures of the squid. Leagues thereafter, when the moon changed phase, I overtook myself, determined shrewdly that her Troy-chests were secured, and vowing this time to grant the trull no quarter, at the second watch of night burst into her cubby and forgave her straight out. “Of the unspeakable we’ll speak no further,” I declared. “I here extend to you what no other in my position would: my outright pardon.” To which, some moments after, I briskly appended: “Disrobe and receive it, for the sake of pity! This offer won’t stand forever.” There I had her; she yawned and responded: “It’s late. I’m tired.”

“ ‘ “ ‘Up the mast half a dozen times I stormed and shinnied, took oar to my navigator, lost sight of Nestor, thundered and lightninged through Poseidon’s finny fief. When next I came to season, I stood a night slyly by while she dusk-to-dawned it, then saluted with this challenge her opening eyes: “Man born of woman is imperfect. On the three thousand two hundred eighty-seventh night of your Parisian affair, as I lay in Simoismud picking vermin off the wound I’d got that day from cunning Pandarus, exhaustion closed my eyes. I dreamed myself was pretty Paris, plucked by Aphrodite from the field and dropped into Helen’s naked lap. There we committed sweet adultery; I woke wet, wept …”

“ ‘ “ ‘Here I paused in my fiction to shield my eyes and stanch the arrow-straight tracks clawed down my cheek. Then, as one who’d waited precisely for her maledict voice to hoarsen, I outshouted her in these terms: “Therefore come to bed my equal, uncursing, uncursed!”

“ ‘ “ ‘The victory was mine, I still believe, but when I made to take trophy, winded Helen shook her head, declaring: “I have the curse.”

“ ‘ “ ‘My taffrail oaths shook Triton’s stamp-ground; I fed to the fish my navigator, knocked my head against the mast and others; hollered up a gale that blew us from Laconic Malea to Egypt. My crew grew restive; when the storm was spent and I had done flogging me with halyards, I chose a moment somewhere off snakèd Libya, slipped my cloak, rapped at Helen’s cabin, and in measured tones declared: “Forgive me.” Adding firmly: “Are you there?”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Seasick,” she admitted. “Throwing up.” To my just query, why she repaid in so close-kneed coin my failure to butcher her in Troy, she answered—’

“ ‘ “ ‘Let me guess,’ requested Proteus.”

“ ‘ “What I said in Troy,” said offshore Helen. “What I say to you now.” ’

“ ‘Whatever was that?’ pressed Peisistratus.”

“Hold on, hold on yet awhile, Menelaus,” I advise.

I’m not the man I used to be.

“ ‘ “ ‘Thus inspired I went a-princing and a-pirate. Seven years the north wind nailed us to Africa, while Helen held fast the door of love. We sailed no plotted course, but supped random in the courts of kings, sacked and sight-saw, ballasted our tender keel with bullion. The crew chose wives from among themselves, give me a woman anytime, had affairs with ewes, committed crimes of passion over fids and tholes. None of us grew younger. The eighth year fetched us here to Pharos, rich sea-quirks, mutinous, strange. How much does a man need? We commenced to starve. Yesterday I strolled up the beach to fish, my head full of north-wind; I squatted on a rushy dune, fetched out my knife, considered whether to slice my parchèd throat or ditto cod. Then before me in the surf, a sudden skinny-dipper! Cock and gullet paused on edge; Beauty stepped from the sea-foam; long time I regarded hairless limb, odd globy breast, uncalloused ham. Where was the fellow’s sex? A fairer yeoman I’d not beheld; who’d untooled him? As as his king and skipper I decided to have at him before myself, it occurred to me he was a woman.

“ ‘ “ ‘Memory, easy-weakened, dies hard. From its laxy clutch I fetched my bride’s dim image. True, her hair was gold, the one before me’s green, and this was finned where that was toed; but the equal number and like placement of their breasts, congruence of their shames’ geometry — too miraculous for chance! She was Helen gone a-surfing, or Aphrodite in Helen’s form. With a clench-tooth wrench I recollected what a man was for, vowed to take her without preamble or petition, then open my throat. Better, as I knew my wife no weakling, but accurate of foot and sharp of toe, I hit upon a ruse to have her without loss of face or testicle, and cursed me I hadn’t dreamed it up years past: as Zeus is wont to take mortal women in semblance of their husbands, I would feign Zeus in Menelaus’ guise! Up tunic, down I sprang, aflop with recommissioned maleship. “Is it Helen’s spouse about to prince me,” my victim inquired, “or some god in his fair-haired form? A lady wants to know her undoer. My own name,” she went on, and I couldn’t.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Eidothea’s the name,” she went on: “daughter of Proteus, he whose salt hands hold the key to wind and wife. You won’t reach your goals till you’ve mastered Dad. My role in your suspended tale is merely to offer seven pieces of advice. Don’t ask why. Let go of my sleeve, please. Don’t mistake the key for the treasure. But before I go on,” she went on,’ ” ’ ” and I can’t.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “But before I go on,” she went on, “say first how it was at the last in Troy, what passed between you and Helen as the city fell.…” ’ ” ’

“Come on, ‘Come on. “Come on. ‘Come on. “Come on,” Eidothea urged: “In the horse’s woody bowel we groaned and grunt … Why do you weep?” ’ ” ’ ”

6

Respite.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “In the horse’s bowel,” ’ ” ’ ” I groan, “ ‘ “ ‘ “we grunt till midnight, Laocoön’s spear still stuck in our gut …” ’ ” “Hold up,” said Helen; “ ‘Off,’ said Proteus; “On,” said his web-foot daughter,’ ” You see what my spot was, boys! Caught between blunt Beauty’s, fishy Form’s, and dark-mouth Truth’s imperatives, arms trembling, knees raw from rugless poop and rugged cave, I tried to hold fast to layered sense by listening as it were to Helen hearing Proteus hearing Eidothea hearing me; critic within critic, nestled in my slipping grip …”

“ ‘May be,’ Peisistratus suggested, ‘you can trick the tale out against all odds by the following device: to Eidothea, let us say, you said: “Show me how to trap the old boy into prophecy!”; to Proteus, perhaps, for reasons of strategy, you declare: “I begged then of your daughter as Odysseus Nausicaa: ‘Teach me, lady, how best to honor windshift aid from your noble sire’ ”; to Helen-on-the-poop, perhaps, you tell it: “I then declared to Proteus: ‘I then besought your daughter: “Help me to learn from your immortal dad how to replease my heartslove Helen.” ’ ” But to us you may say with fearless truth: “I said to Eidothea: ‘Show me how to fool your father!’ ” ’

“But I asked myself,” I remind me: “ ‘Who is Peisistratus to trust with unrefracted fact?’ ‘Did Odysseus really speak those words to Nausicaa?’ I asked him. ‘Why doesn’t Telemachus snatch that news? And how is it you know of fair Nausicaa, when Proteus on the beach at Pharos hasn’t mentioned her to me yet? Doesn’t it occur to you, faced with this and similar discrepancy, that it’s you I might be yarning?’ as I yarn myself,” whoever that is. “ ‘Menelaus! Proteus! Helen! For all we know, we’re but stranded figures in Penelope’s web, wove up in light to be unwove in darkness.’ So snarling him, I caught the clew of my raveled fabrication:

“ ‘ “What’s going on?” Helen demanded.

“ ‘ “ ‘Son of Atreus!’ Proteus cried. ‘Don’t imagine I didn’t hear what your wife will demand of you some weeks hence, when you will have returned from Egypt, made sail for home, and floored her with the tale of snatching yours truly on the beach! Don’t misbehave yesterday, I warn you! We seers—’

“ ‘ “ ‘ “My next advice,” Eidothea advised me, “is to take nonhuman form. Seal yourself tight.” How is it, by the way,’ I demanded of Proteus, ‘You demand what you demand of me in Menelaus’s voice, and through my mouth, as though I demanded it of myself?’ For so it was from that moment on; I speeched his speeches, even as you hear me speak them now.” “Never mind that!” ’ ‘Who was it said “Never mind!”?’ asked Peisistratus. ‘Your wife? Eidothea? Tricky Proteus? The voice is yours; whose are the words?’ ‘Never mind.’ ‘Could it be, could it have been, that Proteus changed from a leafy tree not into air but into Menelaus on the beach at Pharos, thence into Menelaus holding the Old Man of the Sea? Could it even be that all these speakers you give voice to—’ ” “Never mind,” I say.

No matter. “ ‘ “ ‘ “Disenhorsed at last,” I declared to scaled Eidothea, “we found ourselves in the sleep-soaked heart of Troy. Each set about his appointed task, some murdering sentries, others opening gates, others yet killing Trojans in their cups and lighting torches from the beacon-fire to bum the city. But I made straight for Helen’s apartment with Odysseus, who’d shrewdly reminded me of her liking for lamplit love.”

“ ‘How—’

“ ‘Did I know which room was hers? Because only two lights burned in Troy, one fired as a beacon on Achilles’ tomb by Sinon the faithful traitor, the other flickering from an upper chamber in the house of Deiphobus. It was by ranging one above the other Agamemnon returned the fleet to Troy, but I steered me by the adulterous fire alone, kindling therefrom as I came the torch of vengeance.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Why—”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Did Odysseus come too? Thank Zeus he did! For so enraged was Deiphobus at being overhauled at passion’s peak, he fought like ten.” ’ ”

“ ‘ “Not only fought—” “ ‘ “But I matched him, I matched him,” I pressed on, “all the while watching for my chance to sink sword in Helen, who rose up sheeted in her deadly beauty and cowered by the bedpost, dagger-handed. Long time we grappled—” ’

“ ‘ “ ‘I’m concerned about my daughter’s what- and whereabouts,’ Proteus said—” ’

“ ‘Could it be,’ wondered Peisistratus, in whose name I pledged an ox to the critic muse, ‘Eidothea is Proteus in disguise, prearranging his own capture on the beach for purposes unfathomable to mortals? And how did those lovers lay hands on arms in bed? What I mean—’

“ ‘ “Dagger I had,” said Helen, “under my pillow; and Deiphobus always came to bed with a sword on. But I never cowered; it was the sheet kept slipping, my only cover—”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Take it off!’ cried subtle Odysseus. Long time his strategy escaped me, I fought Deiphobus to a bloody draw. At length with a whisk my loyal friend himself halfstaffed her. Our swords were up; for a moment we stood as if Medusa’d. Then, at the same instant, Deiphobus and I dived at our wife, Odysseus leaped up from where he knelt before her with the sheet, Helen’s dagger came down, and the ghost of her latest lover squeaked off to join his likes.” ’ ” ’

“ ‘Her latest lover!’ Peisistratus exclaimed. ‘Do you mean to say—’

“ ‘ “That’s right,” Helen said. “I killed him myself, a better man than most.”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Then Odysseus—” began Eidothea.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Then Odysseus disappeared, and I was alone with topless Helen. My sword still stood to lop her as she bent over Deiphobus. When he was done dying she rose and with one hand (the other held her waisted sheet) cupped her breast for swording.” ’ ”

“ ‘ “I dare you!” Helen dared.’

“ ‘Which Helen?’ cried Peisistratus.

“I hesitated … ‘The moment passed … “ ‘My wife smiled shyly … “My sword went down. I closed my eyes, not to see that fountain beauty; clutched at it, not to let her flee. ‘You’ve lost weight, Menelaus,’ she said. ‘Prepare to die,’ I advised her. She softly hung her head …” ’ ” ’

“ ‘How could you tell, sir, if your eyes—’

“ ‘ “ ‘ “My next advice,” said Eidothea,’ ” ’ interrupting once again Peisistratus …”

Respite.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “I touched my blade to the goddess breast I grasped, and sailed before my flagging ire the navy of her offenses. Merely to’ve told prior to sticking her the names and skippers of the ships she’d sunk would’ve been to stretch her life into the menopause; therefore I spent no wind on items; simply I demanded before I killed her: ‘With your last breath tell me: Why?’ ” ’ ” ’

“ ‘⁽“^{) (}’⁽⁽“What?”⁾⁾’⁾⁽“⁾’

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Why?’ I repeated,” I repeated,’ I repeated,” I repeated,’ I repeated,” I repeat. “ ‘ “ ‘ “And the woman, with a bride-shy smile and hushèd voice, replied: ‘Why what?’

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Faster than Athena sealed beneath missile Sicily upstart Enceladus, Poseidon Nisyros mutine Polybutes, I sealed my would-widen eyes; snugger than Porces Laocoön, Heracles Antaeus, I held to my point interrogative Helen, to whom as about us combusted nightlong Ilion I rehearsed our history horse to horse, driving at last as eveningly myself to the seed and omphalos of all.…”⁽’⁽⁽“⁽⁽⁽’⁾⁾⁾⁾⁾⁾

7

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘By Zeus out of Leda,’ I commenced, as though I weren’t Menelaus, Helen Helen, ‘egg-born Helen was a beauty desired by all men on earth. When Tyndareus declared she might wed whom she chose, every bachelor-prince in the peninsula camped on her stoop. Odysseus was there, mighty Ajax, Athenian Menestheus, cunning Diomedes: men great of arm, heart, wit, fame, purse; fit mates for the fairest. Menelaus alone paid the maid no court, though his brother Agamemnon, wed already to her fatal sister, sued for form’s sake on his behalf. Less clever than Odysseus, fierce than Achilles, muscled than either Ajax, Menelaus excelled in no particular unless the doggedness with which he clung to the dream of embracing despite all Helen. He knew who others were — Odysseus resourceful, great Great Ajax, and the rest. Who was he? Whose eyes, at the wedding of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, had laid hold of bridesmaid Helen’s image and never since let go? While others wooed he brooded, played at princing, grappled idly with the truth that those within his imagination’s grasp — which was to say, everyone but Menelaus — seemed to him finally imaginary, and he alone, ungraspable, real.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Imagine what he felt, then, when news reached him one spring forenoon that of all the men in Greece, hatchèd Helen had chosen him! Despite the bright hour he was asleep, dreaming as always of that faultless form; his brother’s messenger strode in, bestowed without a word the wreath of Helen’s choice, withdrew. Menelaus held shut his eyes and clung to the dream — which however for the first time slipped his grip. Dismayed, he woke to find his brow now fraught with the crown of love.’ ” ’ ” ’

“ ‘Ah.’

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘In terror he applied to the messenger: “Menelaus? Menelaus? Why of all princes Menelaus?” And the fellow answered: “Don’t ask me.”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Then imagine what he felt in Tyndareus’s court, pledge-horse disjoint and ready to be sworn on, his beaten betters gruntling about, when he traded Agamemnon the same question for ditto answer. Sly Odysseus held the princes to their pledge; all stood on the membered horse while Menelaus played the grateful winner, modest in election, wondering as he thanked: Could he play the lover too? Who was it wondered? Who is it asks?

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Imagine then what he felt on the nuptial night, when feast and sacrifice were done, carousers gone, and he faced his bedaydreamed in the waking flesh! Dreamisher yet, she’d betrothed him wordless, wordless wed; now without a word she led him to her chamber, let go her gold gown, stood golder before him. Not to die of her beauty he shut his eyes; of not beholding her embraced her. Imagine what he felt then!’ ” ’ ” ’

“ ‘Two questions,’ interjected Peisistratus—

“ ‘One! One! “ ‘ “ ‘There the bedstead stood; as he swooning tipped her to it his throat croaked “Why?” ’ ”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Why?” asked Eidothea.’

“ ‘ “ ‘Why why?’ Proteus echoed.” ’

“ ‘My own questions,’ Peisistratus insisted, ‘had to do with mannered rhetoric and your shift of narrative viewpoint.’

“ ‘ “ ‘Ignore that fool!’ Proteus ordered from the beach.” ’

“ ‘How can Proteus—’ ‘Seer.’ ‘So.’ ‘The opinions echoed in these speeches aren’t necessarily the speaker’s.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘ “Why’d you wed me?” Menelaus asked his wife,’ I told my wife. ‘ “Less crafty than Diomedes, artful than Teucer, et cetera?” She placed on her left breast his right hand.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘ “Why me?” he cried again. “Less lipless than Achilles, et cetera!” The way she put on her other his other would have fired a stone.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘ “Speak!” he commanded. She whispered: “Love.”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Unimaginable notion! He was fetched up short. How could Helen love a man less gooded than Philoctetes, et cetera, and whom besides she’d glimpsed but once prior to wedding and not spoken to till that hour? But she’d say no more; the harder he pressed the cooler she turned, who’d been ardor itself till he put his query. He therefore forebore, but curiosity undid him; how could he know her and not know how he knew?’ ” ’

“ ‘ “ ‘Come to the point!’

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Hold on!”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘He held her fast; she took him willy-nilly to her; I feel her yet, one endless instant, Menelaus was no more, never has been since. In his red ear then she whispered: “Why’d I wed you, less what than who, et cetera?” ’ ” ’ ”

“ ‘ “My very question.”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘ “Speak!” Menelaus cried to Helen on the bridal bed,’ I reminded Helen in her Trojan bedroom,” I confessed to Eidothea on the beach,’ I declared to Proteus in the cavemouth,” I vouchsafed to Helen on the ship,’ I told Peisistratus at least in my Spartan hall,” I say to whoever and where- I am. And Helen answered:

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘ “Love!” ’ ” ’ ” ’ ”

!

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘He complied, he complied, as to an order. She took his corse once more to Elysium, to fade forever among the fadeless asphodel; his curious fancy alone remained unlaid; when he came to himself it still asked softly: “Why?” ’ ” ’ ” ’ ”

And don’t I cry out to me every hour since, “Be sure you demanded of Peisistratus (and Telemachus), ‘Didn’t I exclaim to salvaged Helen, “Believe me that I here queried Proteus, ‘Won’t you ask of Eidothea herself whether or not I shouted at her, “Sheathed were my eyes, unsheathed my sword what time I challenged Troy-lit Helen, ‘Think you not that Menelaus and his bride as one cried, “Love!”?’!”?’!”?’!”?

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘So the night went, and the days and nights: sex and riddles. She burned him up, he played husband till he wasted, only his voice still diddled: “Why?” ’ ”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “What a question!” ’ ” ’

“ ‘What’s the answer?’

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Seven years of this, more or less, not much conversation, something wrong with the marriage. Helen he could hold; how hold Menelaus? To love is easy; to be loved, as if one were real, on the order of others: fearsome mystery! Unbearable responsibility! To her, Menelaus signified something recognizable, as Helen him. Whatever was it? They begot a child …’ ” ’ ”

“ ‘ “I beg your pardon,” Helen interrupted from the poop a quarter-century later. “Father Zeus got Hermione on me, disguised as you. That’s the way he is, as everyone knows; there’s no use pouting or pretending …”

“ ‘I begged her pardon, but insisted, as in Troy: “ ‘ “ ‘It wasn’t Zeus disguised as Menelaus who begot her, any more than Menelaus disguised as Zeus; it was Menelaus disguised as Menelaus, a mask masking less and less. Husband, father, lord, and host he played, grip slipping; he could imagine anyone loved, no accounting for tastes, but his cipher self. In his cups he asked on the sly their house guests: “Why’d she wed me, less horsed than Diomedes, et cetera?” None said. A night came when this misdoubt stayed him from her bed. Another …’ ” ’ ” ’ ”

Respite. I beg your pardon.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Presently she asked him: et cetera. If only she’d declared, “Menelaus, I wed you because, of all the gilt clowns of my acquaintance, I judged you least likely to distract me from my lovers, of whom I’ve maintained a continuous and overlapping series since before we met.” Wouldn’t that have cleared the Lacedemonian air! In a rage of shame he’d’ve burned up the bed with her! Or had she said: “I truly am fond of you, Menelaus; would’ve wed no other. What one seeks in the husband way is a good provider, gentle companion, fit father for one’s children whoever their sire — a blend in brief of brother, daddy, pal. What one doesn’t wish are the traits of one’s lovers, exciting by night, impossible by day: I mean peremptory desire, unexpectedness, rough play, high-pitched emotions of every sort. Of these, happily, you’re free.” Wouldn’t that have stoked and drafted him! But “Love!” What was a man to do?’

“ ‘(“((’(((“ ‘Well …’ ”)))’))”)’

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘He asked Prince Paris—’ ‘You didn’t!’ ” “By Zeus!” ’ ‘By Zeus!’ ” “You didn’t!” ’ ‘Did you really?’ ” “By Zeus,” I tell me I told all except pointed Helen, “I did.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘By Zeus,’ I told pointed Helen, ‘he did. Oh, he knew the wretch was eyes and hands for Helen; he wasn’t blind; eight days they’d feasted him since he’d dropped in uninvited, all which while he’d hot-eyed the hostess, drunk from her goblet, teased out winy missives on the table top. On the ninth she begged Menelaus to turn him from the palace. But he confessed,’ I confessed,” I confessed,’ I confessed,” et cetera, “ ‘ “ ‘he liked the scoundrel after all …’ ” ’ ” ’

“ ‘Zeus! Zeus!’

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Young, rich, handsome he was, King Priam’s son; a charmer, easy in the world …’ ” ’ ”

“ ‘ “Don’t remind us!”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “One night Helen went early to her chamber, second on one’s left et cetera, and the two men drank alone. Menelaus watched Paris watch her go and abruptly put his question, how it was that one less this than that had been the other, and what might be the import of his wife’s reply. “A proper mystery,” Paris agreed; “you say the one thing she says is what?” Menelaus pointed to the word his nemesis, by Paris idly drawn at dinner in red Sardonic.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘ “Consult an oracle,” Paris advised. “There’s a good one at Delphi.” “I’m off to Crete,” Menelaus told breakfast Helen. “Grandfather died. Catreus. Take care of things.”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘ “Love!” she pled, tearing wide her gown. Menelaus clapped shut his eyes and ears, ran for the north.’ ” ’ ” ’

“ ‘North to Crete?’ ‘Delphi, Delphi, “ ‘ “ ‘where he asked the oracle: “Why et cetera?” and was told: “No other can as well espouse her.”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘ “How now!” Menelaus cried,’ I ditto,” et cetera. “ ‘ “Espouse? Espouse her? As lover? Advocate? Husband? Can’t you speak more plainly? Who am I?”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘ ” ’ ” ’ ” ’ ”

…

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Post-haste he returned to Lacedemon, done with questions. He’d re-embrace his terrifying chooser, clasp her past speech, never let go, frig understanding; it would be bride-night, endless; their tale would rebegin. “Menelaus here!” His shout shook the wifeless hall.

7

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Odysseus outsmarted, unsmocked Achilles, mustered Agamemnon — all said: “Let her go.” Said Menelaus: “Can’t.” What did he feel? Epic perplexity. That she’d left him for Paris wasn’t the point. War not love. Ten years he played outraged spouse, clung ireful-limpetlike to Priam’s west curtain, war-whooped the field of Ares. Never mind her promenading the bartizans arm in arm with her Troyish sport; no matter his seeing summerly her belly fill with love-tot. Curiosity was his passion, that too grew mild. When at last in the war’s ninth year he faced Paris in single combat, it was purely for the sake of form. “I don’t ask why she went with you,” he paused to say. “But tell me, as I spear you: did Helen ever mention, while you clipped and tumbled, how she happened to choose me in the first place?” Paris grinned and whispered through his shivers: “Love.” Aphrodite whisked him from the door of death; no smarterly than that old word did smirking Pandarus pierce Menelaus’s side. War resumed.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Came dark-horse-night; Paris dead, it was with her new mate Deiphobus Helen sallied forth to mock. When she had done playing each Greek’s Mrs., in her own voice she called: “Are you there, Menelaus? Then hear this: the night you left me I left you, sailed off with Paris and your wealth. At our first berthing I became his passion’s harbor; to Aphrodite the Uniter we raised shrines. I was princess of desire, he prince; from Greece to Egypt, Egypt Troy, our love wore out the rowing-benches. By charms and potions I kept his passion nine years firm, made all Troy and its beleaguerers burn for me. Pederast Achilles pronged me in his dreams; before killed Paris cooled, hot Deiphobus climbed into his place: he who, roused by this wooden ruse, stone-horses your Helen even as she speaks. To whom did slick Odysseus not long since slip, and whisper all the while he wooed dirty Greek, welcome to my Troy-cloyed ear? Down, godlike Deiphobus! Ah!”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Heart-burst, Menelaus had cracked with woe the Epeian barrel and his own, had not far-sight Odysseus caulked and coopered him, saying: “The whore played Clytemnestra’s part and my Penelope’s; now she plays Helen.” So they sat in silence, murderous, until the gods who smile on Troy wearied of this game and rechambered the lovers. Then Odysseus unpalmed the mouth of Menelaus and declared: “She must die.” Menelaus spat. “Stick her yourself,” went on the Ithacan: “play the man.”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘The death-horse dunged the town with Greeks; Menelaus ground his teeth, drew sword, changed point of view. Taking his wronged part, I invite one word before I cut your perfect throat. What did the lieless oracle intend? Why’d you you-know-what ditto-whom et cetera?’

6

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Replied my wife in a huskish whisper: ‘You know why.’

“ ‘ “ ‘ “I chucked my sword, she hooked her gown, I fetched her shipward through the fire and curses, she crossed her legs, here I weep on the beach at Pharos, I wish I were dead, what’d you say your name was?”

5

“ ‘ “ ‘Said Eidothea: “Eidothea.” I hemmed, I hawed; “I’m not the man,” I remarked, “I was.” Shoulders shrugged. “I’ve advised disguise,” she said. “If you find your falseface stinks, I advise ambrosia. My sixth advice is, not too much ambrosia; my seventh—” Frantic I recounted, lost track, where was I? “—ditto masks: when the hour’s ripe, unhide yourself and jump.” Her grabbèd dad, she declared, would turn first into animals, then into plants and wine-dark sea, then into no saying what. Let I go I’d be stuck forever; otherwise he’d return into Proteus and tell me what I craved to hear.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Hang on,” she said; “that’s the main thing.” I asked her wherefor her septuple aid; she only smiled, I hate that about women, paddled off. This noon, then, helped by her sealskins and deodorant, I jumped you. There you are. But you must have known all this already.’

4

“ ‘ “Said Proteus in my voice: ‘Never mind know. Loose me now, man, and I’ll say what stands between you and your desire.’ He talks that way. I wouldn’t; he declared I had one virtue only, the snap-turtle’s, who will beak fast though his head be severed. By way of preface to his lesson then, he broke my heart with news reports: how Agamemnon, Idomeneus, Diomedes were cuckolded by pacifists and serving-men; how Clytemnestra not only horned but axed my brother; how faithless Penelope, hearing Odysseus had slept a year with Circe, seven with Calypso, dishonored him by giving herself to all one hundred eight of her suitors, plus nine house-servants, Phemius the bard, and Melanthius the goat-herd …” ’

“ ‘What’s this?’ cried Peisistratus. ‘Telemachus swears they’ve had no word since he sailed from Troy!’ ‘Prophets get their tenses mixed,’ I replied; ‘not impossibly it’s now that Mrs. Odysseus goes the rounds, while her son’s away. But I think he knows what a tangled web his mother weaves; otherwise he’d not sit silent, but call me and Proteus false or run for Ithaca.’ There I had him, someone; on with the story. ‘On with the story. “ ‘On with the story,’ I said to Proteus: ‘Why can’t I get off this beach, let go, go home again? I’m tired of holding Zeus knows what; the mussels on my legs are barnacled; my arms and mind have gone to sleep; our beards have grown together; your words, fishy as your breath, come from my mouth, in the voice of Menelaus. Why am I stuck with you? What is it makes all my winds north and chills my wife?’

“ ‘ “Proteus answered: ‘You ask too many questions. Not Athena, but Aphrodite is your besetter. Leave Helen with me here; go back to the mouth of River Egypt. There where the yeasting slime of green unspeakable jungle springs ferments the sea of your intoxicate Greek bards,’ that’s how the chap talks, ‘make hecatombs to Aprodite; beg Love’s pardon for your want of faith. Helen chose you without reason because she loves you without cause; embrace her without question and watch your weather change. Let go.’

“ ‘ “I tried; it wasn’t easy; he swam and melted in the lesser Nile my tears. Then Eidothea surfaced just offshore, unless it was you …” Shipboard Helen. “Had he been Eidothea before? Had he turned Helen? Was I cuckold yet again, an old salt in my wound? Recollecting my hard homework I closed eyes, mouth, mind; set my teeth and Nileward course. It was a different river; on its crocodiled and dromedaried bank, to that goddess perversely polymorphous as her dam the sea or the shift Old Man Thereof, Menelaus sacrificed twin heifers, Curiosity, Common Sense. I no longer ask why you choose me, less tusked than Idomeneus, et cetera; should you declare it was love for me fetched you to Paris and broke the world, I’d raise neither eyebrow; ‘Yes, well, so,’ is what I’d say. I don’t ask what’s changed the wind, your opinion, me, why I hang here like, onto, and by my narrative. Gudgeon my pintle, step my mast, vessel me where you will. I believe all. I understand nothing. I love you.”

3

“ ‘Snarled thwarted Helen: “Love!” Then added through our chorus groan: “Loving may waste us into Echoes, but it’s being loved that kills. Endymion! Semele! Io! Adonis! Hyacinthus! Loving steers marine Odysseus; being loved turned poor Callisto into navigation-stars. Do you love me to punish me for loving you?”

“ ‘ “I haven’t heard so deep Greek since Delphi,” I marveled. “But do I ask questions?”

“ ‘ “I’ll put this love of yours truly to the test,” Helen said. Gently she revived me with cold water and pungents from her Nilish store. “I suppose you suppose,” she declared then, “that I’ve been in Troy.”

“ ‘So potent her medicaments, in no time at all I regained my breath and confessed I did.

“ ‘Severely she nodded. “And you suspect I’ve been unfaithful?”

“ ‘ “It would be less than honest of me to say,” I said, “that no fancy of that dirt-foot sort has ever grimed my imagination’s marmor sill.”

“ ‘ “With Paris? And others as well?”

“ ‘ “You wrest truth from me as Odysseus Astyanax Andromache.”

“ ‘ “In a word, you think yourself cuckold.”

“ ‘I blushed. “To rash untowardly to conclusions ill becomes a man made wise by hard experience and time. Nevertheless, I grant that as I shivered in a Trojan ditch one autumn evening in the war’s late years and watched you stroll with Paris on the bastions, a swart-hair infant at each breast and your belly swaggèd with another, the term you mention flit once across the ramparts of my mind like a bat through Ilion-dusk. Not impossibly the clever wound I’d got from Pandarus festered my judgment with my side …”

“ ‘Helen kissed my bilging tears and declared: “Husband, I have never been in Troy.

“ ‘ “What’s more,” she added within the hour, before the boatswain could remobilize the crew, “I’ve never made love with any man but you.”

“ ‘ “Ah.”

“ ‘She turned her pout lips portward. “You doubt me.”

“ ‘ “Too many years of unwomaned nights and combat days,” I explained, “gestate in our tenderer intelligences a skeptic demon, that will drag dead Hector by the baldric till his corpse-track moat the walls, and yet whisper when his bones are ransomed: ‘Hector lives.’ Were one to say of Menelaus at this present hour, ‘That imp nips him,’ one would strike Truth’s shield not very far off-boss.”

“ ‘ “Doubt no more,” said Helen. “Your wife was never in Troy. Out of love for you I left you when you left, but before Paris could up-end me, Hermes whisked me on Father’s orders to Egyptian Proteus and made a Helen out of clouds to take my place.

“ ‘ “All these years I’ve languished in Pharos, chaste and comfy, waiting for you, while Paris, nothing wiser, fetched Cloud-Helen off to Troy, made her his mistress, got on her Bunomus, Aganus, Idaeus, and a little Helen, dearest of the four. It wasn’t I, but cold Cloud-Helen you fetched from Troy, whom Proteus dissolved the noon you beached him. When you then went off to account to Aphrodite, I slipped aboard. Here I am. I love you.”

“ ‘Not a quarter-hour later she asked of suspended me: “Don’t you believe me?”

“ ‘ “What ground have I for doubt?” I whispered. “But that imp aforementioned gives me no peace. ‘How do you know,’ he whispers with me, ‘that the Helen you now hang onto isn’t the cloud-one? Why mayn’t your actual spouse be back in Troy, or fooling in naughty Egypt yet?’ ”

“ ‘ “Or home in Lacedemon,” Helen added, “where she’s been all along, waiting for her husband.”

“ ‘Tresently my battle voice made clear from stem to stern my grown conviction that the entire holocaust at Troy, with its prior and subsequent fiascos, was but a dream of Zeus’s conjure, visited upon me to lead me to Pharos and the recollection of my wife — or her nimbus like. For for all I knew I roared what I now gripped was but a further fiction, maybe Proteus himself, turned for sea-cow-respite to cuckold generals …

“ ‘ “A likely story,” Helen said. “Next thing, you’ll say it was a cloud-Menelaus went fishing on the beach at Pharos! If I carry to my grave no heart-worm grudge at your decade vagrance, it’s only that it irks me less just now than your present doubt. And that I happen to be not mortal. Yet so far from giving cut for cut, I’m obliged by Love and the one right action of your life to ease your mind entirely.” Here she led me by the hand into her golden-Aphrodite’s-grove, declaring: “If what’s within your grasp is mere cloudy fiction, cast it to the wind; if fact then Helen’s real, and really loves you. Espouse me without more carp! The senseless answer to our riddle woo, mad history’s secret, base-fact and footer to the fiction crazy-house our life: imp-slayer love, terrific as the sun! Love! Love!”

“ ‘Who was I? Am? Mere Menelaus, if that: mote in the cauldron, splinter in the Troy-fire of her love! Does nail hold timber or timber nail? Held fast by his fast-held, consumed by what he feasted on, whatever was of Menelaus was no more. I must’ve done something right.

“ ‘ “ ‘You’ll not die in horsy Argos, son of Atreus …’ ” So quoted Proteus’s last words to me my love-spiked wife. “ ‘The Olympic gods will west you in your latter days to a sweet estate where rain nor passion leaches, there to be your wife’s undying advertisement, her espouser in the gods’ slow time. Not fair-haired battleshouts or people-leadering preserves you, but forasmuch as and only that you are beloved of Helen, they count you immortal as themselves.’ ”

“ ‘Lampreys and flat-fish wept for joy, squids danced on the wave-tops, crab-choirs and minnow-anthems shook with delight the opalescent welkin. As a sea-logged voyager strives across the storm-shocked country of the sole, loses ship and shipmates, poops to ground on alien shingle, gives over struggling, and is whisked in a dream-dark boat, sleep-skippered, to his shoaly home, there to wake next morning with a wotless groan, wondering where he is and what fresh lie must save him, until he recognizes with a heart-surge whither he’s come and hugs the home-coast to sweet oblivion. So Menelaus, my best guess, flayed by love, steeved himself snug in Helen’s hold, was by her hatched and transport, found as it were himself in no time Lacedemoned, where he clings still stunned. She returned him to bride-bed; had he ever been in Troy? Whence the brine he scents in her ambrosial cave? Is it bedpost he clutches, or spruce horse rib? He continues to hold on, but can no longer take the world seriously. Place and time, doer, done- to have lost their sense. Am I stoppered in the equine bowel, asleep and dreaming? At the Nile-fount, begging Love for mercy? Is it Telemachus I hold, cold-hearth Peisistratus? No, no, I’m on the beach at Pharos, must be forever. I’d thought my cave-work finished, episode; re-entering Helen I understood that all subsequent history is Proteus, making shift to slip me …’

“ ‘Beg pardon.’

“ ‘Telemachus? Come back?’

“To.’

“ ‘Thought I hadn’t noticed, did you, how your fancy strayed while I told of good-voyaging your father and the rest? Don’t I know Helen did the wine-trick? Are you the first in forty years, d’you think, I ever thought I’d yarned till dawn when in fact you’d slipped me?’

2

“Fagged Odysseus’-son responded: ‘Your tale has held us fast through a dark night, Menelaus, and will bring joy to suitored Ithaca. Time to go. Wake up, Peisistratus. Our regards to Hermione, thanks to her magic mother.’

“ ‘Mine,’ I replied, ‘to chastest yours, muse and mistress of the embroidrous art, to whom I commission you to retail my round-trip story. Like yourself, let’s say, she’ll find it short nor simple, though one dawn enlightens its dénouement. Her own, I’d guess, has similar abound of woof — yet before your father’s both will pale, what marvels and rich mischances will have fetched him so late home! Beside that night’s fabrication this will stand as Lesser to Great Ajax.’

“So saying I gifted them off to Nestored Pylos and the pig-fraught headlands dear to Odysseus, myself returning to my unfooled narrate seat. There I found risen Helen, sleep-gowned, replete, mulling twin cups at the new-coaxed coals. I kissed her ear; she murmured ‘Don’t.’ I stooped to embrace her; ‘Look out for the wine.’ I pressed her, on, to home. ‘Let go, love.’ I would not, ever, said so; she sighed and smiled, women, I was taken in, it’s a gift, a gift-horse, I shut my eyes, here we go again, ‘Hold fast to yourself, Menelaus.’ Everything,” I declare, “is now as day.”

1

It was himself grasped undeceivèd Menelaus, solely, imperfectly. No man goes to the same Nile twice. When I understood that Proteus somewhere on the beach became Menelaus holding the Old Man of the Sea, Menelaus ceased. Then I understood further how Proteus thus also was as such no more, being as possibly Menelaus’s attempt to hold him, the tale of that vain attempt, the voice that tells it. Ajax is dead, Agamemnon, all my friends, but I can’t die, worse luck; Menelaus’s carcass is long wormed, yet his voice yarns on through everything, to itself. Not my voice, I am this voice, no more, the rest has changed, re-changed, gone. The voice too, even that changes, becomes hoarser, loses its magnetism, grows scratchy, incoherent, blank.

I’m not dismayed. Menelaus was lost on the beach at Pharos; he is no longer, and may be in no poor case as teller of his gripping history. For when the voice goes he’ll turn tale, story of his life, to which he clings yet, whenever, how-, by whom-recounted. Then when as must at last every tale, all tellers, all told, Menelaus’s story itself in ten or ten thousand years expires, yet I’ll survive it, I, in Proteus’s terrifying last disguise, Beauty’s spouse’s odd Elysium: the absurd, unending possibility of love.