Odysseus: The Return

5

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: my fleet, at such a short distance from the destination we had so long desired, was being pushed away by the violence of the wind and sea. I shouted to be heard over the din of the storm: ‘What happened? Where are we? Why didn’t you wake me?’

Only the howl of the wind answered me. The men were racing back and forth on the ship. Elpenor was clutching the handle of the steering oar at the stern but could barely hold it steady, so great was the force of the breaking waves. Massive amounts of water were pouring into the hull and the men at the oars were struggling to steady the ship, so she would not tip sideways into the waves. The sail had been partially, but not completely, taken in, a sign that the crew had been surprised by the storm. My eyes fixed upon the big sack, no longer stowed in the hold at the stern and secured with strong ropes, but flapping from one side of the boat to the other. The silver chain that closed its mouth was gone. Desperation seized me, but what was happening left me no time to speak with my men. I had to save the fleet and guide it back to calm waters; the rest I would take care of when the time came.

We sailed for many days and nights. I never moved my eyes from the long slanting line of fires that signalled the presence of the other ships. Then, just like the first time, the winds stopped blowing almost all at once, a thin mist hovered over the flat sea, and the air was filled with silence.

Little by little, above the mist, the peaks of an island appeared and then a plume of dark smoke rising towards the sky. Walls and houses of bronze were next, and then a palace encircled by bastions made of a greyer, more opaque metal. It advanced slowly towards us, cleaving the fog, and the waters opened into two waves tipped with white foam. The gods had helped me! The wind had carried me back to the floating island of Aeolus, tamer of storms. We had become friends: he would help me again.

As I made ready to go ashore, signalling to the rest of the fleet to remain at a distance, a voice thundered from above: ‘How is it you’re back, king of Ithaca? Hadn’t I closed up all the contrary winds in the skin and left Zephyr alone free?’

His voice had changed. The charming sovereign of the island, who had hosted me for a month of banqueting with his children, the sons and daughters who were married to one another, now spoke with an incredibly powerful and rather threatening tone. The air trembled, the sky rumbled.

I replied: ‘Noble lord, hear my words! I manned the steering oar for eight days and eight nights without ever closing an eye, for fear of being surprised by the unexpected. On the ninth day, when I was finally in sight of my island, I fell prey to sleep. When I awoke, the storm was raging against us and the winds brought me back here. The skin that you had given me was open. I beg of you, in the name of hospitality: help me once again, close up all the foul winds in the sack and allow Zephyr to carry me home again!’

Silence fell again, heavily. The voice of the tamer of winds tore through the still air: ‘Leave now, and don’t ever dare to come back! If you did not succeed in reaching your island with everything that I did for you, this means you are an abominable being, hated by the gods. I will not help you and thus turn the gods against myself. Get out of here, I said, forever!’

At that moment I understood, as if lightning had struck me, the meaning of my name. I was not he who hated, but he who aroused hatred. I had never before fully felt the curse inherent in my name. The inextinguishable hate of a god pursued me.

The words of Polyphemus, which I had tried to drown at the bottom of my heart, surged back then, clear and strong: ‘. . may he return late, a broken man! All his companions lost. .’ Until that moment, I’d forced the words he’d used to petition his father out of my mind, pretended to myself that I hadn’t understood them.

I gave orders to bring the ships about because we had no choice — the wind was blowing in that direction. I would act as if the worst had not happened, I would not surrender. I would fight with everything I had to get my mates and my ships back to Ithaca as soon as the wind changed direction. Then I sank to the aft deck, covered my head and my face with my cloak, and wept.

I left the island with a heavy heart. I couldn’t help but ask myself what had happened when I was sleeping in that slumber that resembled death. Perhaps my shipmates had loosed the chain that closed the neck of the large skin, imagining it contained sparkling treasure and precious gifts. I thought of Aeolus, the tamer of winds: did he truly have the power to trap them all in a sack? Or was it a way to make me believe that he did? I remembered the words I heard once from a sailor who had brought my father back to Ithaca from Iolcus after the expedition of the Argonauts. He told me: ‘There’s a point, very far west from here, where all the winds cancel each other out, resulting in a perfect calm. The problem is that it doesn’t last very long. The way it ends is that one of those winds, but only one, starts to blow again. If it blows east, you’ll find your home and your family. If it blows in the opposite direction, you’ll find yourself lost in unknown places that very few have ever made return from.’

Then the weather cleared up. The sun shone in a cloudless sky and a warm wind began to prevail, pushing us north and west, but my comrades seemed rueful and tormented. For two more days, we never spoke about what had happened. In the end it was me who brought it up, with Eurylochus, Elpenor, Euribates and all the others: ‘I found the sack open. I don’t want to know what happened when I fell asleep, because my anger won’t change things. Whatever it is you did, there’s no remedy for it now. All we can do is remain together and use all the resources of our minds and bodies to fight off ill fortune. What I want to tell you is this: the winds starting blowing against us because that is what winds do; we all know that winds change. And that’s all. Nature acts in every moment of every day and every year of our existence on this earth, while the gods act only now and then, and always remain hidden. We conquered Ismarus, we overcame the temptations of the red flowers, we defeated the cyclops, that bloody monster, and we were about to reach the homeland we have been longing for. Destiny decided differently, but we must not lose heart. I’m asking you to believe in me, because my only aim is to get you back home. I promise that I will share the spoils of war with you. You will not return to Ithaca empty-handed after so many long years. But only after we’ve entered the great port of Ithaca.’

I believe my words rallied them; at least, they went back to work with renewed vigour. After four more days and four more nights of sailing we came within view of a craggy, lush land, covered with red, yellow and blue flowers and deep-green foliage. The sea bottom beneath our boats was strikingly visible as the waters took on a light blue and then an intense green colour. It reminded us greatly of certain parts of Achaia and this touched our hearts. On our left was a small island connected to the mainland by a narrow sandy strip, which led to a wide arching beach so white that its sands sparkled like silver. There was also a larger island, shaped like the head of an arrow, joined to the mainland by a slightly wider stretch of sand mostly covered by shrubs. Dolphins leapt out of the sea, accompanying our ships. On either side of us, schools of iridescent silvery fish slid through the water like a festive procession leading the fleet ashore. The seven vessels sailed in a straight line at a short distance from the coast. There was no danger: the water was transparent as air, and the sea bottom was perfectly visible. When we had passed the second peninsula a wide channel opened to our right, leading inland.

‘What shall we do, wanax?’ asked Eurylochus.

‘We’ll enter the channel. It will probably take us to a safe, sheltered harbour. We need water and food. Perhaps we’ll be able to hunt here, and pick wild fruit. I don’t see any inhabitants along the coast or any other signs of danger. But keep your weapons ready — the bows foremost, then the spears and javelins. When we land, a few of us will venture out unarmed, knowing that the rest of you are behind us, ready to defend us with the same rage and swiftness you showed under the walls of Troy.’

They obeyed and relayed the alarm status to the rest of the fleet. Each ship responded by flashing shields. I watched with pride as they attached quivers full of arrows to the rails. As I kept watching, they drew their bows and hooked the bull-tendon strings. Their chests were fitted with shining bronze cuirasses and their legs with greaves.

Their shields hung from the rails: the sun reflected by the water lit them up, one after another. My ships. . I can still see them gliding over the shining waters. Slim, perfect, powerful cetaceans.

Each of them had a lookout posted at the top of the mast. They scanned the slopes of the high, rocky banks of the channel. We made our way forward in complete silence until a point where the channel seemed to end but, as I approached, I saw that there was another narrower passage that led to a second basin: a marvellous, perfect haven. A spring gurgled nearby, and flowed into the harbour.

I signalled for the others to follow and they did so, one after another, slipping into the well-sheltered pool.

There were no ships moored there, but many large boats filled with fishing gear. On the heights above us, tall, solid stone towers were scattered here and there, with parapets at their tops. My fleet was arranged in a semicircle facing the coast. I chose three of my men, Cephalonians all, as scouts; they lowered themselves into the water, which was shallow enough to allow them to walk ashore.

‘Go and see if there is a city nearby,’ I told one of them, our herald, ‘and if possible find out who governs it. Perhaps they will be able to tell us where we find ourselves, and the route we must follow to return home. We’re travelling through a remote region that none of us knows.’

I watched as they reached the shore and approached the spring. A girl soon walked up to them. She was very beautiful and wore a bright gown of multicoloured wool, with golden necklaces and glittering pendants on her ears. She was carrying a jar on her head and had come to the spring to draw water. The men seemed to be conversing with her. It was only then, when I saw them next to her, that I realized how tall she was. Gigantic.

The girl raised her finger, pointing to something behind the hill. The men waved and signalled to us that they were going to follow her.

Eurylochus came up to me: ‘I don’t like this place. It seems deserted and yet it feels like someone is watching us from those towers up there.’

‘If they are, they’ll see that we have no hostile intentions. We’ve made no show of arms. We’ve just sent out a few men, who’ve asked a girl for directions. We’ll wait for them to come back. Don’t worry — they’ll return soon.’

We waited all afternoon for our comrades to come back. Euribates and Elpenor put out fish-traps and nets. The sea bottom was crawling with shrimps and crabs bigger than any I’d ever seen before. I sent a few more men to shore to collect reserves of fresh water. They filled jars at the spring and passed them from hand to hand in the low water until the last man of the chain hoisted them aboard ship. Standing in the water had the odd effect of distorting their proportions, so that the part of their bodies outside the water seemed long and their legs short and stubby. prepare for spending the night. It would have made sense to go ashore, light fires and cook a meal and then stretch out on the sand to sleep comfortably, but something told me that Eurylochus was right.

‘We’d better stay on the ships until our men return. It will be safer.’

I had just said this when I heard shouts coming from the area where the spring was. Two of our men were scrambling down the slope that led to the sea as fast as their legs could carry them.

‘We have to get away from here!’ they were yelling. ‘Fast! Fast!’

They dived into the sea and swam swiftly to the ship of Perimedes, the chief of the Cephalonians, who quickly pulled them on board. I drew up with my own ship so that it was nearly touching theirs. ‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘Laestrygonians! Fierce, gigantic savages!’ replied the herald in a ragged voice. ‘They got our shipmate, cut him to pieces and devoured him. It’s a miracle we got away.’ Their eyes were filled with terror. Gasping to catch a breath, they were sobbing like children. And these were my tough, seasoned Cephalonian warriors. I didn’t wait an instant, and shouted out: ‘Let’s go! Head east! We’re getting out of this trap! Row, row, row as fast as you can, set to it!’

These words were not out of my mouth when an incredibly loud noise rent the late afternoon silence. I saw an enormous boulder rolling downhill along one of the gullies carved out by rainwater. It was picking up speed at a tremendous rate as it fell. A short rise at the bottom of the long slope gave it the lift it needed to go sailing through the air. It fell square on one of our ships, breaking it in two. Screams of pain and despair echoed behind us but I shouted for my men to keep rowing. There was no time to stop or try to save the crew flailing in the frothing waves.

Another boulder appeared at the rim of the crater that crowned the high cliffs encircling the harbour and, as if pushed by invisible hands, started rolling down towards us. Then another, and another, and yet another: it was a frightful sight and the din was terrifying. One after another, the ships were struck, broken, smashed, reduced to shapeless wrecks. The sea was covered with splintered planks and ruined gear. The beautiful, agile ships that had braved so many a violent storm had been destroyed and the clear, calm mirror of our hidden haven was thick with blood and dust, strewn with corpses, wounded sailors and survivors who were desperately trying to swim to shore. That was when we learned what the boats were for. Giant brutes boarded them clutching harpoons, and steered them through the water, spearing anyone who was still alive as if they were fish. They pulled the bodies on board and took them to shore. It wasn’t difficult to understand what they were going to do with them, given the reports of the men who had already met up with them.

I found myself alone, with my ship and my crew, outside the port. I had lost the entire fleet that had followed me to Troy, which had departed from the port of Ithaca so many years earlier amid blaring bugles and fluttering standards. Unhappy companions of so many battles, of so many adventures! I wept bitterly. My shipmates wept for them, an endless stream of tears. I couldn’t stop thinking about those who I had forced, against their will, to leave the land of the flower-eaters, the land of oblivion. They would still be alive, enjoying seductive pleasures, free of any worries. If not happy, at least untroubled. Now they were only dead meat, butchered for the meal of ferocious savages.

We didn’t stop until we got to the open sea, out of reach of their boats, and then we dropped anchor. I was desperate for help, for advice, but my goddess was silent! It was no use invoking her. Regardless, in the silence of my heart, I prayed with agonized intensity that she light a tiny spark, no matter how small, in my mind, so that I might understand.

It was dark above us and below us. The sea was a sheet of bronze and the moon was new, but all at once the light ignited inside me and I understood everything with a clarity that stunned me.

What had happened was exactly the same as in the land of the cyclopes, although ending in a very different way. Then, as now, we had reached a perfect port where the waves were utterly still and a group of us went inland to reconnoitre. One of our men here had been ripped apart and devoured by a gigantic creature, and several of our comrades suffered the same fate in the cyclops’ cave. But this time, the aim of the brutes was frightfully precise, and the boulders that were thrown struck our ships and sank them. All the ships but mine. The message was clear and it was evident who had sent it to me: the god of the abyss. The blue god with his seaweed locks had finished what his son, blinded by my own hand, had not succeeded in doing. Smashing my vessels, sending ships and crews to the ocean depths.

Terror flooded my heart. One single hope: if Athena had lit that light in my mind so that I could clearly understand the significance of the events, perhaps she would also try to show me the way out. In that part of the world, where the sea knew no bounds, Poseidon was so strongly present that she could not appear to me, not while I was awake nor while I was sleeping, not as an ethereal mist, not in disguise. What she could do was stimulate my mind to understand and see clearly the designs of the gods, to seek a way to escape, to find the path that Fate had prepared for me, for Fate was stronger than the gods themselves.

That was the saddest night of my life, because I had never lost so many of my comrades before, not even on the bloody fields of Troy. I wept until dawn brightened the horizon, until the stars in the sky paled and vanished in the growing light. Like the other survivors, I remembered our dead companions in silence, shedding bitter tears, distilled by pain, into the water of the god who was our enemy.

At the hour when the sun appeared I glimpsed an enormous dark shadow gliding under the surface of the water, which rippled as it passed. Was it the god of the abyss, alongside my ship? Was he studying the keel, strong and well made, but fragile against his infinite power? Was he already planning how and when he would destroy her?

Perhaps, and yet my heart did not want to surrender. Because I had something that the powerful god of the seas and the ocean did not even know about: my fear of death and my boundless love of life, not only my own but that of the others, of my shipmates, my friends, my distant wife, the child I had never seen grow up. I would fight. I would fight to my last breath, even more furiously than I had under the walls of Troy. And when my time came, I would face Death by staring into her empty eyes.

I spoke to the lord of the depths, that shifting shadow under my keel: ‘Oh god of the blue locks, you have heeded the prayers of your son, who I myself, Odysseus the son of Laertes, blinded. But where were you when I watched him pull the limbs off my comrades, grind their bones between his teeth? I listened as he belched up their flesh while he snored, that revolting bloody monster. What should I have done? Waited until he devoured every last one of them? What I did wasn’t enough — I should have ripped out his heart and eaten it. It was my right, the right of a guest violated and offended, a right that your brother, the great Zeus himself, holds sacred.

‘You took many lives yesterday in exchange for a single eye put out, the lives of brave men. Each one of them had a house, a wife and children, and had fought with courage for years and years under the walls of sacred Troy, always dreaming of the day he would return to his distant homeland. None of them will ever return. But I will bring my shipmates back home, in this royal ship of mine that still holds the treasures of Troy. When I meet the parents of those you killed I’ll tell them how and by whose hand their lives were spent, so that they may raise a mound on the seashore and sacrifice victims to their shades. They will finally find peace, you can be sure of it. I do not know what will become of me, because it’s impossible for a mortal to escape the wrath of a god as powerful as you, but Fate is a veiled divinity, stronger even than the gods. I will seek my destiny in every corner of land and sea, I will follow my path to its very end and not even you will be able to stop me.’

The black shadow slithered down to the depths of the sea and vanished in the dark. I gave orders to weigh anchor and loosen the sails.

WE SAILED for days and nights, drinking the water of the Laestrygonians contained in big jars at the stern. Then one day, at the first light of dawn, Perimedes, who had climbed to the top of the mast, sighted land.

It was a long promontory that extended into the sea right in front of us, covered with a thick blanket of shrubs and bushes. Here and there an oak could be seen, and there was a dense wood of tall oaks further inland. We all lined up at the bow, but there were no cries of joy as there would have been had our fleet been with us. We were alone, and we stood silently gazing at this unknown land, until the ship touched sand at the beach.

We all disembarked and I gave orders for all the men to don full armour, since I didn’t want one more comrade to die a defenceless victim. After we had ensured that the ship was solidly anchored we began to walk and headed to the highest point of the promontory. From there we could see a wide, deserted gulf and, beyond a brief stretch of sea, a small island. It was very beautiful and completely forested. Eurylochus approached me: ‘Look,’ he said, ‘down there, past that clearing. Smoke!’

He was right. A slender column of smoke was rising from a spot where the forest seemed thickest, just beyond a clearing. Flocks of birds soared from the trees, white wings wide. Their shrill cries were muted by the distance. A single house stood on the entire island. We could spy no further signs of human presence, nor had we seen any on the mainland, where we had anchored the ship.

‘Who could be living in a place like that, wanax?’ asked Euribates.

‘Maybe a shepherd. He might use a raft to take his sheep to pasture,’ replied Eurylochus.

‘There’s no trace of any other structure,’ I said, ‘as far as the eye can see.’

I could feel irresistible curiosity growing in me. I had to go. I wasn’t thinking of the dangers that might be lurking there, I wasn’t considering that Poseidon in his wrath might have devised a way to do away with us once and for all. I said: ‘We’ll return to the ship and then we’ll go and see who lives on that island. We’re armed, and still numerous, but we’ll take no risks. We have to understand where we are and how far we are from Achaia. We’ve been sailing blindly for too long, without a route. We have to search for someone who can help us.’

My shipmates nodded in agreement and together we returned to the ship and cast off the moorings. Each man took his place at the oars. The sea was calm enough and the sky was luminous. Once again, the world opening before our eyes seemed to be free of dangers. We went ashore on a wide, completely deserted, sandy beach. There was not a single human footprint, but traces of a great number of seabirds. The waves were barely visible, but they curled over the sand for a very long way.

We secured the ship and, one after another, set foot on dry land. I assigned six men to go with Eurylochus to discover where the smoke was coming from, and then to come back and tell us.

‘It won’t take you long. As you’ve seen, a man could easily walk the entire perimeter of the island in half a day. Do not stop for any reason. We’ve suffered too much grief already. Come back, and remember that every moment of delay will cost us anguish and worry.’

Eurylochus promised that he would obey my orders and he set off on foot with his men. They soon disappeared into the thick growth of myrtles and wild olives.

When the echo of their footsteps and their chatter died away, the deep silence was broken by a song. A clear, melodic voice. The voice of a woman, as sweet as that of a bride sitting at her loom.