Odysseus: The Return

24

I reached the palace as darkness was falling and the maidservants came out to receive me, to wash my hands and feet. Mai asked me to taste the roast to see if it was well cooked. Telemachus was outside, standing on the grass near the fountain, intent on planting a young ash tree (was it the season to be planting trees?). I was told that the queen was waiting for me in the hall for dinner.

Had I ever really been away? Had I ever left my island? Just then it seemed to me that I had never gone to sea. The sky was the same, the clouds as thin and wispy as they had ever been, the head of the pack looked like Argus (was it him?), the house in perfect order. I felt calm and I was enjoying that moment of peace. The sense of time never passing gave me the bittersweet sensation of an everlasting sunset, a lazy twilight that fluttered between evening and night.

Penelope was already sitting in her chair. Her eyes were edged with Egyptian bistre, her lips tinged red; she wore amber earrings and necklace. Her white gown was chequered and gave off golden reflections when she shifted. The neckline was opened in a wide rectangle at the front and back. It made me think of the gown with the ducklings that she was wearing when we first met and my heart was touched.

From the moment when I’d come ashore, I knew that reality would be different from my dreams. I knew that, as Calypso had told me, Penelope’s body would be different from the one that filled my imagination, but the light of the setting sun was flooding her with red gold and lighting up her eyes. She got up and came towards me. She kissed me, encircling my neck with her arms, pressing her hips against mine. What I wanted to do was take her up to our bed, nestled in the branches of the olive tree.

Euriclea removed my work tunic, passed her soft sponge over my skin and dried me gently. She dressed me again with a fresh tunic that skimmed my feet; it was purple, with a wide hem of white linen interwoven with golden threads. She wanted me to be happy as only a king can be: in his palace, surrounded by love and veneration, beloved by the gods. She almost made me feel like I was that happy king. Yet I wasn’t accustomed to such privileges any more.

I could hear the dogs yelping excitedly outside. Telemachus?

‘I’ve invited King Laertes your father,’ said Penelope. ‘I thought you’d be glad to see him.’

‘Of course, my darling. Is that him?’

She nodded. ‘I think it must be him. The dogs are noisier when Telemachus comes home. He always has a treat for them.’

The dogs, my father, my son, the setting sun, my royal tunic, my bride. Mai running the household. Every thing, every person, had its own colours, shone with its own light. Could my heart heal its wounds?

‘Go to receive the king,’ Penelope ordered the maidservants and they scurried to do her bidding.

Outside was Philoetius’ voice as he halted the oxen who were pulling the cart. Then my father’s voice.

‘Atta!’

‘I couldn’t refuse an invitation from the king and queen,’ he said, entering.

The maids approached him with a silver basin and two linen towels. I watched as they washed my father’s hands and feet. My steward offered him a golden cup and filled it with our best wine.

‘I’d forgotten how good the wine is in this palace,’ he said, winking. ‘I see it hasn’t changed. And I’d forgotten what it means to be treated like a king.’

‘Why don’t you move back here with us?’ asked Telemachus, coming in. ‘You would be treated with great respect. We’ll send someone to work the land on your farm and you can go back whenever you like, on the mule or by cart.’

‘I have to think about it,’ replied my father. ‘Old men have their habits and mine have become quite stubborn indeed, I’m afraid.’

I thought about what my mother’s spirit had told me when she appeared to me in Hades. I could see all the marks of that harsh, lonely life in my father’s body and on his face. Not much remained of the man I remembered, but I loved him all the more for that. It was my absence that had broken his heart.

We took our places around the table, and after the wine had begun to lighten our hearts and chase away ugly thoughts, it felt as if we’d returned to the old days, when King Laertes would invite the island’s noblemen to dinner and Mentor entertained us with his stories late into the night.

Penelope retired, ascending the stairs that led to the upper floor, and I stayed to talk with my father and my son. There was a powerful bond between us: the blood of the kings of Ithaca flowed in our veins. I felt that the moment had come to loosen the knot that had been choking my heart and my throat.

‘I’ve reflected long and hard these past days,’ I began, ‘and I’ve spoken to Phemius. He’s a wise man and he says what he thinks.’

‘And what does he think?’ asked my father.

‘That I should speak to the people. They haven’t seen me since I’ve returned. Phemius says I should have had mercy on the suitors after I had killed Antinous. I would feel better today, he tells me, everyone on the island and in the kingdom would feel better. Instead, nearly every single house is in mourning. Some of them weep because they know they’ll never again see the sons who left for the war with me. Others weep because in returning from that war, I have killed a great many others.’

They fell silent for a while, my father and my son.

King Laertes was the first to speak: ‘Phemius is a singer. You are the king. You are the one who brought about the fall of Troy after ten years of siege. We all know that men die in war and on the sea. That’s no fault of yours. As for the others, you already know what I think about them. Are you sorry that you killed the men who were humiliating your father, plotting to kill your son, seeking to climb into bed with your wife?’

I had an answer to his words but I bit my tongue. Instead, I said: ‘Father, I remember when you would return from one of your journeys. How your people would celebrate! We’d rush down to the port to see you disembark and you would ascend to the palace between two wings of people cheering and clapping. Since my return I’ve had to avoid meeting up with anyone, and if I do all I see is terror in their eyes.’

Telemachus hadn’t said a word. Perhaps the presence of a father he still wasn’t used to and a grandfather he had always considered the foremost authority on the island induced him to listen rather than speak his mind.

But then he asked me: ‘So what are you thinking, then? What do you want to do?’

‘I want to call the people to assembly, affirm my rights as their king and then ask for true reconciliation, offering a sign of reparation that will forever extinguish any ill will.’

I was thinking of the way Euthymides, Antinous’ young brother, had looked at me.

‘What kind of a sign?’

‘You’ll see when the time comes. But I want you to know that to do this, I’ll need you both: you, Father, and you, my son. The Ithacans will see the dynasty of Arcesius in its full might and authority. We’ll enter the assembly dressed in our brightest armour. You, Father, will be at my right, and you, son, at my left. I’ll speak to my people and after I’ve finished, each of you will be able to address them, if you so wish. The assembly will be dissolved at dusk. I will summon the noblemen separately after nightfall.’

‘But what can you propose that will be stronger than a sworn pact, like the one you pronounced at the gates of my house?’ asked my father.

‘You’ll see, atta. Well?’

‘As you wish,’ replied the hero Laertes, my father.

‘As you wish,’ replied Telemachus my son, as handsome as a god.

‘Tonight I will sleep in peace for the first time since my return to my homeland, and it will be thanks to you. Your rooms are ready. For the first time since I left my land so long ago, all three of us will be sleeping under the same roof.’

We bid each other goodnight and I went up to the bedchamber where Penelope was waiting for me, awake. Her big black eyes open in the darkness gleamed ever so slightly in the light of the moon.

I waited just two days before I sent out the herald to call an assembly. I had planned out what I was going to say word by word, although I was sure that I’d never manage to make my speech when I was actually faced with the parents of my comrades, their widows and orphans, and the parents of the suitors I had killed. Would they even come? Would they heed the herald’s call?

My father remained with us at the palace and I hoped that he would stay forever. The morning of the assembly we left the house together just after sunrise. Our suits of armour had been chosen with care and polished by the servants using ashes until they shone like gold. My father had had his hair washed and combed and it looked like silver. He’d donned his cuirass and greaves, and buckled on his sword. His helmet was under his left arm, while his right hand gripped his spear. On his shoulders was the light-blue cloak he was wearing the day I saw him descend from the ship returning from Colchis.

Telemachus wore the first suit of armour he’d ever owned. A gift from my father, it was the same he’d used on the day of the massacre. The armour I wore was very like what I had worn the day I left for Troy, with a purple cloak on my shoulders. All that was missing was the golden pin Penelope had given me as I was leaving, the one I described to her the night I tried to make her believe I was Aithon of Crete, the brother of Idomeneus.

The three of us met in the courtyard and the hearts in our chests were trembling. Tears were springing to our eyes.

The heralds were waiting for us with twelve young warriors, Telemachus’ personal guard. We set off and the news that the king was heading towards the city with his father and his son flew to every corner of the island, so that hundreds of people were soon flocking along our path.

I remember that day as one of the most troubled and difficult of my whole life. None of the onlookers spoke. They watched us in silence as we passed and I couldn’t look at them, either. I stared at an imaginary point directly in front of me, so as not to meet their gaze. At times, hostile shouts could be heard from the crowd jostling on both sides of the road, but all we needed to do was draw our swords and all voices were silenced instantly. Those who are willing to die first are always exceedingly rare.

When we finally arrived, the city’s main square was thronging with people. The warriors escorted us to the point where the king was accustomed to speaking: a roughly hewn slab of grey limestone, one cubit tall and four cubits wide.

I took my place at the centre with my father and son at my sides, so all could see the three sovereigns of Ithaca: the present, the past and the future.

We were greeted by a low hum of voices and a sensation of consternation that weighed on my heart. I signalled to the herald that I was ready to speak. He asked for, and obtained, silence.

‘Ithacans!’ I shouted. ‘Hear my words! I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, and I’ve returned to the land of my fathers after many years of trials and affliction. I am the conqueror of Troy and the king of this island and the others that surround it. I have summoned you here to tell you that it was not like this that I wished to return to Ithaca. Not alone, not after so many years and not despoiled of all that was dear to me! You all know that I never wanted the war, and neither did my father King Laertes. We did everything we could to avoid it. I went all the way to Troy with wanax Menelaus of Sparta to ask Priam to return Helen to her rightful husband. In vain.

‘Thus began a war that lasted ten long years. For all that time, I always took care of the sons you entrusted to me. Many of them were like brothers for me. I was always at the front, in every battle, never behind. I succoured the wounded and anyone in difficulty. I risked my own life time and time again. I was forced to abandon the bride that I had so shortly before brought into my house and my still babbling son, prince Telemachus, the same who shines now next to me in his armour.

‘If I had been fortunate, I would have brought back to Ithaca most of those who had left with me, along with immense treasure and the memory of the glory we had achieved. Together we would have mourned the fallen and raised a great mound near the seashore to remember them. That was not to be.

‘Instead we struggled on with courage, without ever forgetting our families and our homeland, but storms, hostile gods, bloodthirsty monsters and ferocious, savage peoples scattered my fleet, killed my companions, sunk our ships. I am the only one who survived.

‘What could I do? Give up, settle among unknown people in distant lands? Lose all hope of seeing my island, my wife, my parents, my son, my people? Never!

‘My heart wept at the thought of having to tell you that all your sons had been lost. When the billows cast me up on the beach of an island which turned out to be home to a noble, just people who promised to help me return, I never stopped hoping that some of my shipmates might have been spared. That someone had escaped death and that I would find him here in Ithaca, awaiting my return along with my people. That was not to be.

‘When I arrived I was alone, the sole survivor.’

Burning tears rose to my eyes as I pronounced those words and I felt a strange dizziness, as if I were still at the mercy of the waves, struggling to keep my balance on board my ship. My people were weeping with me. Tears poured down the cheeks of many, as I turned to my father, and to Telemachus, longing for some help from them. I felt like I had a boulder weighing down on my heart.

I forced myself to start speaking again. I still had to face up to the most horrendous event of all.

‘And when I finally found my homeland, it wasn’t like when King Laertes my father would come back after a long voyage abroad. Do you remember? Everyone would turn out to greet him and escort him to the palace, or take him onto their shoulders if he were wounded or exhausted from rough combat and a difficult crossing. It was as if the sun were back, after a long chill. That was how I dreamed that my own return would be like. That was not to be.

‘There was no one waiting for me, and I was filled by sad foreboding. I knew of the fate that had befallen wanax Agamemnon, murdered in his own house. Diomedes, flaming hero, forced to abandon his own land because his queen was plotting against him. Idomeneus as well, and others like him. Everything had changed in all those years. Everything was different. I didn’t recognize my own land! I had to hide, to disguise myself. A benign deity made me unrecognizable. And it was thus, clothed in rags like a beggar, that I entered my house after all that time away. The queen my mother was dead. My father, who had been forced out of the palace, was living on a farm with no one but a Siculian servant to aid him, sleeping on the ashes of the hearth in the winter and on a bed of dry leaves in the summer. My father, the Argonaut hero, living like a savage. No one, among the many he had helped, stood up to defend him.

‘I found my house overrun by arrogant, abusive men intent on consuming all that was mine. They acted as if they were the masters of the palace, insulting and inflicting blows on those who could not defend themselves and even bedding down the maidservants, taking their pleasure with those who were willing and violating those who were not. What’s more, they were scheming to murder my son, Prince Telemachus, who I hadn’t seen for twenty long years. Were it up to them, I would never have seen him!

‘They wanted to force my wife, Queen Penelope, to marry one of them. Desirous to take my place next to her in my bed, taking advantage of the absence of a man who could not defend what was his! Never was there a baser, more vile act!

‘Garbed in my beggar’s rags, they struck out at me, threw a stool at me, hurled a butchered ox’s hoof! They hadn’t recognized me? So what? They should have! They were still in time to save themselves.

‘But then a god ignited a fury in me. How otherwise could four of us have got the better of fifty men?

‘Would any of you present here have done differently? Say so! Say what you think!’

No word rang out in the still air. For a moment I thought I saw Mentor sitting on a stone chair in the middle of the square. But the image instantly faded into mist. ‘Where are you?’ I shouted in my heart.

‘I see that you would have acted the same way I did. I did what was right, but this doesn’t mean that I’m happy about what happened. And neither is Telemachus, who fought at my side.

‘The next day we had to face the wrath of the families of the men who had been killed. My father dealt the blow that brought down Eupites, Antinous’ father, but then a sign from the gods convinced us that we must make peace. A peace without joy. There is no joy in seeing the lifeless bodies of the sons of our land being gathered up by their despairing parents.

‘I promise to forget my own humiliation and the wrongs wreaked upon my family. You, if you can, will set aside your grief and forget this calamity. None of this would have happened unless the gods had willed it, unless it had been written in the fates of each one of us.

‘As for your sons or brothers or husbands who followed me to war and never came back, many were the victims of cruel, continuous combat which cut short their young lives and cast them into Hades. Others were taken by the blue-locked lord, the god of the abyss, and others still by the Sun who sees all, when driven by their hunger they killed and devoured his heifers. I had implored them not to touch the sacred animals, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. I wept for them all, for each one of them. Not a night passes without me seeing their faces in my dreams, without hearing their voices resounding in my heart.

‘I know that you hold me responsible. You are right to do so. I was their king and their commander. And I must tell you now that the endeavour we all began together is not yet over. An oracle ordains that I set out once again to offer sacrifice in a remote land. Only then can I truly make my return. This will bring peace and serenity to all of you and to me. Do not bear hatred towards me. Allow me to depart and to fulfil my destiny and yours.’

Astonishment was evident on many faces and low whispers raced through the crowd.

‘Tonight I will meet with the noblemen. I shall await them, alone and unarmed, at crow’s rock. But now those of you who accept my pact will come and stand, one by one, before this stone, to render homage to the king of today, the king of yesterday and the king of tomorrow.’

For long, endless moments no one moved and an oppressive silence fell over the assembly. Then one man got up and came towards me. I recognized him: it was Theoclymenus, the seer who had predicted the massacre and forewarned the suitors. Everyone knew him. He kissed my hand and bowed before my father Laertes and my son. He said, ‘Farewell, wanax,’ and walked away. We never saw him again.

That gesture reminded everyone that the gods had sent a warning that had gone unheeded. One after another, those present passed in front of the stone and bowed their heads as a sign of homage. Most of them kissed my hand. I was choked with emotion at the grief I saw in the eyes of my people, but at that moment I was their king and I had to prove that I had acted within my rights and the rights of my family.

When everyone had filed past me and had left the square to return to their fields and their homes, I left the assembly myself, together with my father and my son, escorted by Telemachus’ guard. I glimpsed for a moment, at the top of the stairs, a woman garbed in a dark cloak. When she moved I realized that it was Penelope, my queen. She hadn’t missed a word of what I’d said. I set off to catch up with her but something stopped me. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen him earlier: a boy alone, standing in the centre of the square, staring at me.

Euthymides. Antinous’ young brother.

He alone had not rendered homage to me, had neither kissed my hand nor bowed his head. It wasn’t hate that I saw in his gaze, nor the candid indignation that sometimes flashes in the eyes of an adolescent. His heart had simply suffered all it could. I returned his gaze with a melancholy look of my own and started off towards the palace.

King Laertes and Telemachus were waiting for me there. My father wondered if I had gone mad when I told them that I intended to honour my promise to meet with the noblemen on my own and unarmed, but they let me go.

I made my way to crow’s rock alone. When all the nobles had arrived, I told them: ‘The King of Scheria, glorious Alcinous, had me accompanied back here to my homeland in one of his ships, and he gave me an immense treasure. He did not want the King of Ithaca to return empty-handed after so many years. When I have returned from my last journey, I will divide that treasure among all of you who have lost your sons, whether at the hand of an enemy or at my own. Until that day comes, remain loyal to my son Telemachus.’

From that day on, I never had to look over my shoulder again. I could stroll through the market or amble down a country path without any worries. As the days and nights passed, my life seemed more and more like it had been before I left for the war. I would go hunting with Telemachus or to my father’s grove to prune his olive trees. My father spent long stretches of time with us at the palace. We had dinner together and even Penelope would stay up late to hear us talk of harvests and sowing, of changes we wanted to make in the fields or in the stables. And when I made love to my wife I felt a new sort of energy coursing under my skin. I was beginning to think that fate had forgotten me.

Months passed in this way, maybe years. One or two or more, who can say? One evening when Penelope was at the table with us, my father said to her: ‘I’ve heard about the tricks you once thought up to keep the suitors at bay. Astute indeed, worthy of your husband! Whatever happened to that shroud you were weaving for me?’

‘Atta, what’s got into you?’ she asked. ‘We’ve never been so well or so happy, and here we are enjoying the pleasure of your company. There’s no need for you to keep working, if you’re tired, although you seem stronger than you’ve ever been.’

‘Would you finish it for me? I’d like it embroidered with the Argo sailing the waves.’

Penelope’s eyes turned shiny. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘why I never finished it? Well, to avoid having to marry any of them, naturally, but mostly because it seemed to me that by unravelling the shroud I was weaving, I could lengthen your life. If you’re asking me to do this for you now, I will, atta, although it won’t be easy for me. I pray to the gods to grant you many more years to live with us in our house, loved and respected as you deserve.’

King Laertes my father stood and gently stroked her cheek: ‘Do it for me, my daughter.’ He wished us a serene night and retired to his room.

That night, Penelope started to reweave the burial shroud.