Odysseus: The Return

23

When the funeral banquet was over, the fathers and brothers of the fallen suitors left, heading down the path to their own homes. Eumeus and Philoetius returned to the palace to deliver the corpses which had not yet been claimed to the ships moored at the harbour, waiting to carry them back to their families on the islands.

A profound sadness flooded my heart, because revenge is always a poison that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. Fury burns itself out, frenzy melts away and your soul remains ice cold, aching with loss and sorrow. What anguished me the most were the days still to come. Who would I be able to talk to? How would I govern my land, how would I administer justice? How could I ever find joy in the company of my son when I knew that I’d deprived so many of my countrymen of the same joy? How would I find consolation in my wife’s arms, knowing how many women of Ithaca were tormented by grief? How would I be able to walk down the paths of my island, knowing that there could very well be an ambush lying in wait behind every bush or tree?

I watched Phemius as he advanced towards us and I realized that the days that inspired the poets were over. What awaited me was nothing but the slow wasting of my soul and long nights with my eyes wide open.

Phemius sat under the oak and watched as the mules were yoked to the cart that would carry the lifeless body of Eupites to his last resting place. My father had killed him and I had killed his son. I approached the poet and said: ‘Phemius, my heart is heavy but I had no choice. You saw everything that happened. Could I have forgiven them instead?’

‘Don’t you remember? Not much time has passed!’ Phemius cried out. ‘That’s exactly what Eurymachus asked you to do: “Forgive your people!” Why didn’t you? Is it not a king’s duty to be magnanimous? You’d already killed Antinous. How much blood did you need to sate your thirst for revenge? They had offered to pay you back for everything they had consumed in your house, and more. They would have done anything to placate your anger. It’s always better to look towards the future when you’re contemplating revenge and bloodshed. Think about it. Had you pardoned them, wouldn’t you be feeling better now? Wouldn’t you be walking down the streets of your island light-hearted, surrounded by the gratitude and admiration of your subjects? Wouldn’t everyone’s lives be better? Yours, theirs, even mine? And instead, look what’s facing us: grief, dismay, bitter cold and emptiness.’ He dropped his head and let the tears fall freely onto his bristly cheeks.

‘Have you forgotten the days of our youth, my king?’ he went on. ‘Have you forgotten those happy days? No fury, no blood, no infinite mourning. Hope, that’s what we embraced then, dreams, singing and joy. The sun, the sea, the clouds and the flowered meadows, the sunsets over a purple sea, the sails returning home, amazement and wonder at the adventure of the life that was waiting for us. That’s what you should have returned to, even if these long years had taxed you so sorely.’

He fell silent again. His chin dropped to his chest, the sea breeze ruffling his thinning hair and drying the tears on his cheeks.

I sighed. A strong urge to cry swept over me as well.

‘Do you expect an answer, Phemius? I only wish that an answer existed! But there isn’t any. Do you want to know why I didn’t forgive? Why I couldn’t be satisfied with a single victim? Because for ten long years that’s all I did: slaughtered, murdered, gutted whoever challenged me. Could I have gone into hiding instead? Fled? Shirked my destiny?

‘If I had been able to come back home after leaving Troy in ruins, none of this would have happened. I would reign now as Nestor does, beloved by his people, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.

‘It was not my fault, Phemius. Do you know how ardently I hoped? How I wept, searched, implored? But forces much greater than my own, immense, frightful forces, drove me away, further and further away, to the extreme limits of earth and sea, beyond the boundaries that men are held to by the gods. The longing to return never left me, believe me, but my life on the sea was to be no different than the years under the walls of Troy. I had to keep fighting. Monsters, savage man-eating creatures. I had to keep watching my comrades die, one after another, atrocious deaths. Cut down, strung up like fish, mangled in the jaws of horrendous beasts. .’ Phemius’ blue eyes considered mine for the first time; his chin was trembling. ‘I had to harden my heart, I would have been defeated had I not nursed hatred and vengeance. I wanted to survive. Should I have let myself drown, sink into the abyss?

‘When I finally got here, when I kissed my island, could finally smell it, recognize its clouds, I thought that everything could go back to the way it was.’ Phemius’ blue tears accompanied my words, dripping onto the dry sandy soil. ‘I went to Eumeus’ sty and met Telemachus there. He had just narrowly escaped death at the hands of his mother’s suitors. I held my son and we wept together. That embrace made me feel that I could reclaim all those lost years, that I could love again, think of the future, of my home, of my wife, of my father, the hero Laertes who had so suffered my absence. But then I was told that my house had been invaded, taken over by insolent pretenders to my throne who were menacing my wife and plotting yet another ambush to kill my son. I knew I had to act in secret. I disguised myself as a beggar and prepared to suffer insult and injury. You saw me yourself, didn’t you, Phemius? You recognized me under those rags.

‘It was what Tiresias, the Theban seer whose spirit I’d summoned up from Hades, had prophesied. “You will kill them all,” he told me, “either openly, with your slashing bronze, or stealthily, with deceit.” My goddess exhorted me to do the same.

‘And yet neither the prophecy of Theban Tiresias nor the goddess of the green-blue eyes would have led me to massacre them had I not wanted it. What drove me to it was feeling myself surrounded by enemies, feeling the shock of their blows. The ancient fury sleeping at the bottom of my heart awoke all at once and it blazed so bright it burnt my soul. Nothing could have stopped me. There was no mercy to be had. Black night had descended upon my home. The glorious palace of Laertes had become the very mouth of Hades. The sun itself was blacked out. Could I have avoided it? Answer me: could I have avoided it?’

It was only then that I realized my father had been listening to my words. He said: ‘You have nothing to blame yourself for, son. Nothing could be more craven than taking undue advantage of the home and honour of a man who is far away and cannot defend himself. You exacted justice and you acted like a sovereign. You pronounced your sentence and you carried it out. No one will ever dare to follow the example of those wretches again.’

Phemius rose to his feet. He said: ‘Come, my king. Let’s return home.’

In the days that followed I suffered no less pain than I had in ten years of war and in my long wanderings beyond the wall of fog. I couldn’t go back into my house, couldn’t speak to my son or my wife. I barely ate, and when I did, it was alone. The only people I felt like talking to were Phemius and my father. For days and nights, I told Phemius what had happened in the long years I spent away from home. Reliving those events made me feel better. I could see what I was describing so vividly that the images in my head seemed almost real. I could hear the sounds, the voices. I saw the colours of any number of distant, different skies, the light of unknown stars. Phemius listened to me intently without saying a word. He did not interrupt me as I spoke and never asked for explanations afterwards.

What I asked my father was how would I be able to continue living on the island, how could I reign over such a harshly wounded people?

‘What you did was your right,’ he told me. ‘You are the king of this land and the surrounding islands. What else could you have done? If you had pardoned them, many others would have followed their example, even on the continent. You don’t know what’s happened to the others. Agamemnon was murdered the night he returned along with all his comrades, in his own palace and by his own wife, Clytaemnestra, with the help of her lover Aegisthus. Diomedes was forced to leave Argus or unleash another war. His wife Aegialia was plotting to kill him. The same happened to Idomeneus. .’

‘I know,’ I answered. ‘I know.’

My father’s head dropped. ‘Our world risks destruction,’ he said. ‘The war has mown down the best of our youth, the men who could have been governing Achaia and holding us together now. The most valiant and powerful kings have died or disappeared: Agamemnon, Diomedes, Idomeneus, Achilles, Ajax of Locris and Ajax of Salamis. .’ I trembled upon hearing that name. I could see Great Ajax’s vexed spirit turn his back to me and vanish in the mists of Hades.

‘Nestor still reigns unopposed,’ continued my father, ‘but he mourns the loss of Antilochus, his best-loved son. When I first heard that he’d returned, I’d go often to visit him. He was inconsolable. Then, when I understood that you wouldn’t be coming back, I stopped. I didn’t want to weep over a lost son with him. At least he had others. I only had you. And when I lost your mother, I was alone. Alone in this house. I’ve been living without human companionship for years.’

‘I know, atta. You always told me that in war there are no winners. Everyone loses.’

Sometimes we’d go walking through the woods, down the mountain paths, and once, towards sunset, we found ourselves at the boulder that overlooked the palace. The place where, as a little boy, I would toss coloured stones, trying to see my future.

‘Remember, atta? Remember that afternoon? You’d been hunting, and you found me sitting right here. You stopped to talk to me, you, the Argonaut hero, the king of Ithaca. With a child.’

‘With my son. .’

‘What peace, what joy. You can’t understand what it was for me to hear you talk, to listen to your adventures. .’

‘And now the tables are turned. It’s you telling me about your adventures.’

‘You’re the best father I could have ever had, atta.’

‘And you are the son every father would have wished for. We didn’t have much time together, did we? But if you still want your father’s company, come by whenever you like. I have nothing to do.’

I’d go often. Being with him brought me serenity and Penelope encouraged me to spend time with him. Sometimes I’d take Telemachus with me. I liked the idea of three generations of Ithacan kings talking to each other, telling stories, going hunting in the woods or fishing along the coast.

Night was my torment. Everything took on the shape of a nightmare. My heart ached. I could find no peace. The shadows of the suitors crowded into the courtyard, squeaking like bats. I watched them diving straight into the mouth of Hades. That’s how I’d begun to see the well in the middle of the courtyard: as the well of souls.

I wouldn’t go to bed until very late at night, when Penelope was already sleeping. Or so I thought. But as soon as I had stretched out next to her, coming so light-footed and silent that she couldn’t have possibly heard me, she would sigh, and then turn to me and say: ‘Don’t torture yourself, Odysseus, don’t inflict more suffering on yourself. You’ve already suffered enough.’ She would caress me, press her body close to mine.

‘I know you’ll have to leave again,’ she would say then. ‘But don’t lose yourself to brooding now. How could it have gone any differently? It’s true, you spilled much blood, you gave vent to your anger. But you were right to do so. Your bow had waited many years for you. Your grandfather Autolykos had ordered you not to take it to war with you. Remember? He said it must never leave this house.’

Sometimes she took my head between her arms and whispered softly into my ear. Such a sweet voice. She was trying to get used to the idea that I’d be leaving again.

‘Where will you go?’ she’d ask me quietly in the dark.

‘Far from the sea. That’s what the Theban seer told me. That means east. Until I meet a man who asks me a question. That’s the sign that I’ve arrived.’

‘And when will you leave?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t really understand when myself. The gods will have to guide me. Ill fate has tainted my every move until now. I was kept from returning, made to suffer more than even I could have imagined. And now another journey looms: the last one. They will have to send me a sign. Athena has always protected me, always inspired me in my heart.’

‘Does she still speak to you?’

‘No. I haven’t heard her voice or seen her since the day of slaughter. If she’s still close to me, she’s so well disguised that I can’t discern her. She wanted to be there at the massacre. She wanted to see me in combat, watch as I struck, slashed, murdered. Now she must be thinking of other things.’

‘Don’t say that. It’s she who brought you back to me.’

‘So that I could leave again.’

‘But at least I’ve seen you, embraced you. We’ve made love, slept together in our bed, the bed you made for me with your own hands when we were still so young. You can’t imagine how much this means to me. I didn’t want to die without seeing you again. I couldn’t believe that destiny, or the gods, would be so cruel with me.’

‘After all these long years away from my island, seeing you was bliss. When I watched you come down the stairs, cross the great hall, so proud and so beautiful, I couldn’t believe it was true. My heart was full of shame, because I had to cover myself with rags and feign being a wrinkled old man. I wanted to be as handsome as a god for you.’

‘You’ve always been as handsome as a god for me. It’s impossible to put out that light in your eyes. . Will you make peace with your people?’

‘I have.’

‘No, you haven’t. You made a pact to avoid more bloodshed. That was only natural. No one wants to reign over an empty island.’

‘I thought you wanted me to avenge you: your honour, your anguish, your fears.’

‘I did. But now you must reconcile with your people. A king is a father to his people. You yourself have said so. You’ve inflicted a terrible punishment on them. Now you have to show compassion and atone for the blood you spilled so that it will not cry out from the earth and call for more.’

I said nothing. I held her close and sought sleep in her arms.

I awoke early, took the dogs, put on my sword and left the palace. I was looking for Eumeus. ‘What should I do?’ I thought, my heart wishing that Mentor were with me.

The wind picked up, blowing eastward from the sea, rustling the treetops on the mountainside. The dogs sniffed at the air as the wind ruffled the tufts of hair hanging over their eyes.

‘Is that you?’ I asked aloud, looking all around. ‘I need you. Can you hear me?’

The branches opposite from where I stood were stirring and the dogs were barking in that specific direction. My hand dropped to my sword. Out stepped a boy of thirteen or fourteen who threw himself at my feet. ‘It’s only me, wanax,’ he said, trembling like a leaf from head to toe. ‘Don’t hurt me.’

‘Who are you?’

The boy was terrified. His eyes were fixed on my hand and then dropped to the ground.

‘What are you afraid of?’ I asked.

He shook his head as if to show me that he couldn’t get a word out. His chin was quivering and he looked as if he were about to cry.

‘What’s your name?’ I insisted.

‘My name is Euthymides. I’m Eupites’ youngest son. Please don’t hurt me, I beg of you!’ He tried to embrace my knees, to kiss my hand.

‘You’re Antinous’ brother. . oh, mighty gods. What are you doing here?’

‘I was looking for a place to hide. In the city, everyone is saying there’s no man alive who can match your strength and that your rage is without limit. They’re saying that no one will be spared. You’ve killed my father and my brother. I beg of you, let me live!’

I helped him up from the ground and looked into his eyes. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong, Euthymides. You have nothing to fear from me. It wasn’t me who killed your father. It was King Laertes whose spear stopped him from attacking us.’

Euthymides burst into tears.

‘But it’s as if I killed him myself,’ I went on. ‘I have slain all those who offended the queen my wife, who plotted to murder my son and who gorged themselves on the property of an absent man who could not defend himself or his family. They forced my father King Laertes to flee to the countryside, to live in penury. But you have no blame in any of this. No one will hurt you. I swear it.’

The boy seemed calmer, but his look was still wary.

‘Do you want to talk to me?’ I asked.

He shook his head, without moving his eyes. He didn’t want to talk. His gaze burned into my heart.

‘You’d like to avenge your father and your brother. Wouldn’t you?’

No answer.

‘I know that’s what you’re thinking. I’m willing to give you my sword so you can exact revenge here, now, on me. But hear me out first. Imagine that you have to leave for a war you didn’t want, abandoning your bride, your infant son. You suffer unending grief: wounds, fear, hunger. Horror. You watch as the best of your friends die, one after another. Then, finally, after a very long time, you head back home. But you lose your way, you end up in a forsaken, unfamiliar world where you have to fight horrible, bloodthirsty monsters, where you have to summon the spirits of the dead from the Underworld to try to discover how and when you can ever return home. .’

The boy’s eyes were wide with wonder. He’d never heard such a story.

‘Then, after years and years, you finally set foot on your land again. But what is your home like now? Invaded by boastful, violent young men who scheme to devour your belongings, to seduce your wife, to kill your son. How would you have felt? What would you have done? Tell me, and then I’ll give you my sword and you can use it on me and avenge your family. Tell me, now,’ I repeated.

I don’t know what the expression on my face was like as I said those words, but the boy was staring at me in a stupor. He dropped his head and remained mute.

I drew my sword from its sheath and handed it to him hilt first. ‘If you think that your brother and your father were in the right and that I deserve to die, your time has come. Take advantage of it. You may not have another chance.’

He ran off weeping, instead, and I continued on my way towards Eumeus’ pigsty. I found him there making goat cheese. He came up to me and kissed my hand. ‘Wanax! Why didn’t you let me know? I would have made a good lunch for us, a meal worthy of you.’

He bustled about finding me a chair, stoking up the fire, arranging meat on a spit.

‘Don’t trouble yourself so,’ I said, ‘I haven’t got much of an appetite. I’ve come to keep my promises. As of today, you are part of my family. This is your house, the flocks and herds you care for are yours. You can choose a bride from among the handmaids, the one you like best. I hope she’ll give you sturdy children. One day you will tell them that the destroyer of sacred Troy is beholden to you for his kingdom. Tomorrow I will visit Philoetius as well, and I will give him the same gifts as a reward for his loyalty.’

Eumeus fell to his knees, deeply moved. He kissed my hand time and time again, repeating: ‘Thank you, wanax, thank you. I will be faithful to you as long as I live, and continue to work for you as I always have.’

‘Living. . it won’t be easy to live in this place any more. I longed to return for so many years, but now I feel like a foreigner in my own land. I’ve brought ruin and destruction upon my people. Who will ever want to talk to me again?’

‘You’re wrong,’ replied Eumeus. ‘Many, here in Ithaca, believe that you acted with justice, that the suitors deserved the end they came to. Don’t say such things. You’ve returned to your home and your family, try to find peace for yourself. Time takes care of everything. Those who are weeping now will forget their troubles, because no one can suffer forever.’

‘What about you? What’s it like when you go down to the city? Do you feel threatened? Do they hate you because you helped me?’

‘No, no one dares. Everyone, even your enemies, realize that without the aid of the gods, four of us could never have prevailed over more than fifty adversaries, some of whom were armed. Everyone knows that peace has been made.’

‘Peace. . I don’t know what that word means any more.’

‘Then why don’t you talk to your people? Why don’t you call for an assembly? Why don’t you allow them to see you? You need to understand what your people are feeling, both the good and the bad. When you’ve done this, you’ll know how to go on. You’ll stop tormenting yourself and you’ll forget the war and your long wanderings.’

‘Not now,’ I replied. ‘Not now. When it’s time for me to go.’

‘What? You’re leaving again?’

‘Thus it is written. This is the prophecy of the Theban seer, great Tiresias, who I called up from the kingdom of the dead.’

‘Let me come with you, then. I’ll follow you anywhere.’

‘No. This time I’ll go alone. At least I won’t have to mourn any more lost comrades or listen to their parents weeping and groaning.’

Eumeus knew why I had come to his house: I wanted to settle my debt with him. Whatever happened, I wanted him to remember me as a man of my word, a man who always keeps his promises.

We went on talking for a very long time, waiting for dusk and the flight of the seagulls, reminiscing on times long ago and forgotten happiness. I had restored law and justice to Ithaca, I had won back my house and my family, but the horizon was bleak, the clouds black and low.

In the end I left my faithful friend and descended the mountain slope, looking for the smoke wafting from my rooftop, seeking the sounds of home.