Odysseus: The Return

8

Then, in an instant, it all disappeared. All that was left was the mouth of the cavern, spouting forth dense vapours with an acidic stench. The faces of my lost comrades, their words, their regrets: had I dreamed it all? And yet the cold I felt was real, and real was the grey, icy rain that penetrated into my bones. Most real were the words of Tiresias, the Theban prophet. I remembered them then as I do now: they pierced my heart, my mind, like needles. The offspring of other words which I’d heard from the cyclops, from Calchas, from the mistress of wild beasts on that remote island: late and broken, late and broken, late and broken! But I was still alive, wasn’t I? Still putting one foot in front of the other on a muddy path under rain-swollen clouds. Distant thunder greeted my return to the world of the living.

Not a blade of grass, not a flower, not a ray of sunlight, not a living being around me. Or rather, nothing but a toad, a misshapen creature, that I saw scuttling down the path that had led me to the kingdom of the dead, croaking his hoarse protest against the wickedness of nature. When I got to the point where the footprints of the dead began, or ended, I looked to my left and there I saw the city of the Cimmerians on the black cliff, glowing like burnished metal in the flashes of lightning. I thought of my cry, the triple war cry of the kings of Ithaca. I’d raised it from my ship as I was leaving my island, I’d hurled it at the phalanges of warriors brawling under the walls of Troy. And now I howled it into the storm. It was louder than the thunder, than my fear, than my bitter melancholy.

I thought: ‘Why didn’t I see the shades of Hector, or Priam, or little Astyanax? Perhaps the lady of the Underworld wanted to spare me the sight of a decapitated trunk holding his own head in his hands, or a man stripped of his skin, stripped of his face, unrecognizable. . or a rock-battered, mangled infant.’ I could no longer even call up an image of the enemy we’d defeated. We’d wiped out their bodies and their souls.

Then I started humming the lullaby that my nurse would sing to me as a child to put me to sleep. The song was a balm to my aching heart, and as I pushed forward it gave me strength. I got to the top of a hill and from there I could see my ship. My mates had stretched the sail from one end to the other, bound it fore and aft, and like chicks under the wings of their mother hen they were sheltering from the storm, keeping each other warm by staying close. Around them the white-rimmed waves lashed out at the jagged cliffs.

One of them saw me and yelled out: ‘Wanax!’ And the others started shouting as well, their voices joining in one by one. By the time I reached the shore, they had thrown out a line. I grabbed on to it and entered the water, advancing one arm’s length after the other, walking through the grey, gelid sea until I found the flank of my ship. My comrades hoisted me on board, carried me to shelter under the sail, rubbed me dry with a cloth and covered me with a cloak. I was livid with cold, and trembling.

When I looked at them, I saw my own face reflected in their faces, like in a mirror of bronze. I saw stupor, fright, incredulity. Although the rain was crashing down over our heads, an overturned shield stopped the fire of the brazier from going out, and the warmth it gave off slowly started the blood flowing through my veins again. I threw the cloak over my shoulders, went to the bow and saw that the wind was blowing in the opposite direction to the one we had sailed in on. I ordered my men to run up the sail, to take their places at the oars and to turn the prow seaward. I unsheathed my glorious bronze sword and sliced the hawser in two with a single blow. Perimedes and Eurylochus moved to man the steering oar. My ship left the shelter of the rocky shore and took to the open sea, advancing swiftly under a billowing sail.

We travelled all night, riding the foaming current of the great river Ocean, the next day as well and then the night after that. As time passed, the air became milder, the waves relaxed into long curved lines, light filtered through the clouds and finally the sun appeared, dazzling us with blinding reflections and heat that finally banished death from my clenched limbs.

‘What did you see?’ Eurylochus asked me. ‘Did you really meet the shadows of the dead?’

‘I saw what I went to see. I met the unhappy souls of our fallen comrades. My mother is dead.’ I could feel the tears running down my cheeks.

He didn’t dare ask me anything else, seeing the pain I was in. Until evening fell. Then he started up again from where he had left off: ‘Was our future revealed to you? Will we return home? Will we see our wives and children?’

His hand was clamped down hard on my arm.

‘Yes, but only if you all obey me, if you do everything I order you to do. If I’m not obeyed, it will mean the ruin of the ship and of all of us. We must act as one. If only one of us were to survive, he would no longer be a man; his life would no longer have any purpose, would it? Terrible trials await us still, without a doubt. But what can rouse fear in men who have sailed the livid Ocean through the lands of eternal night, in men who have dared to question the pale heads of the dead?’

Eurylochus asked no more, but raised his eyes to the stars, to the bear that guides the way north — she was behind us. He seemed deeply discouraged. He had certainly expected a blow-by-blow telling of what had happened after I’d been swallowed into the Underworld.

I simply couldn’t give him what he wanted. It was too painful for me to dwell on what I’d experienced — I could not bring myself to relive that world of death. All I told him was to steer straight until we reached the inlet to the inner sea. From there we would begin our journey home.

My days and my nights were filled with the trials that awaited us. I dreaded the thought of arriving at the island of Trinacria, finding the pastures of the Sun who sees all from above. Would we be able to resist our hunger? Would I be able to bend destiny? ‘Late and broken’ were the words that sounded continuously in my heart.

We sailed east for many days and I continued to hope that we would reach a point where the world of the impossible would give way to familiar places, recognizable lands. I longed to find my goddess again. Would I hear her voice anew, would she guide and protect me?

I still hadn’t understood how vast that world was.

It was quite early one morning, while I still slept at the stern under my cloak, when Perimedes’ hand roused me from slumber: ‘Wanax, there’s something strange going on. I can’t understand it. Look!’

I got up and walked to the ship’s rail. ‘I don’t understand,’ I replied. ‘What is it?’

‘Look at what’s happening,’ he said. ‘There’s no starboard wind, none at all. The sea is calm. And yet the ship is being dragged in the opposite direction. Even if I hold the steering oar fully to the left, it doesn’t matter. I cannot oppose whatever’s pulling at us.’

It was true. An unyielding force, as if a strong crosswind were at work.

I was determined to thwart it and stay on course. I gave my men orders to drop all oars into the water on the right side of the ship and row with all they had on the left side. A futile effort: it was impossible to change course.

‘Look!’ said Perimedes again. ‘Smoke!’

I felt a sense of growing presentiment. Could the smoke be coming from Circe’s house? We were soon to find out that it was. The outline of an island we knew well appeared distinctly at a short distance from the promontory where we’d first landed. That mysterious force was dragging us all the way to the port where we had once moored the ship and, as we drew closer and closer, I saw her.

She was standing on the height overlooking the port and was holding out her arms. It looked like she was calling us in. We manoeuvred stern-first into port, the way we chose to approach the shore whenever possible so we’d be ready to head back out to the open sea at a moment’s notice.

I jumped onto dry land and at that same instant Circe turned her back to me and started walking towards her house. I gave my shipmates a look. None of them seemed eager to join me.

I said: ‘Men, I’m going to follow Circe. The mistress of this place has certainly called us back to her island for an important reason and I must discover what it is. In the meantime, stock the ship with water and go hunting. Cook the meat and smoke it so that it will last longer. The rest of you will check the ship plank by plank to make sure no damage was suffered during our journey to the mouth of Hades. When all your work has been completed, search for Elpenor’s body and place it on the pyre. Raise a large mound over his ashes, plunge his oar into it deeply, as he asked me to do, and make ritual offerings to his spirit.’

The men all set to work as I started down the same path I’d followed the first time we’d landed there, the path that led to the home of the lady of the island. Circe ran out to greet me and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me close.

‘Did you call up the shadows of the dead as I bid you?’ she whispered. ‘Did you meet the spirit of the Theban prophet?’

‘I did,’ I replied.

She released me and looked into my eyes, satisfied that I had told her the truth. ‘I never thought that you would succeed. Or that you would return,’ she said.

‘And yet you urged me to go. .’

‘I thought that if there was a single man in the world capable of succeeding, it would be you. I don’t want to know what Tiresias told you.’

‘Then why drag my ship back to your island? We had already said our farewells, and I never thought I’d see you again.’

‘Because there is a thought that obsesses you, a thought that won’t give you peace. And I know that I alone can help you understand why.’

I wasn’t expecting such words. My mind was confused. I suddenly feared, no, I was certain, that I’d dreamed up everything; that I’d never left her island, or perhaps never even left Ithaca. But then I looked around: there were trees, there was a house, there were clouds in the sky and butterflies on the flowers, and food on the table, and wine. And a woman of resplendent beauty standing in front of me.

She took me by the hand and led me to her bed. It was no longer perched on the branches of a tree with big white flowers, nor did it stand on a floor of red stone. There were soft carpets everywhere and the big bed lay upon them. It had neither feet nor a frame, but was soft, woollen, covered with linen and big pillows.

‘Make love to me,’ she said as she stepped out of her gown.

I was no longer in control of myself. And she hadn’t even touched me with her stick! She embraced me, lay on top of me, she pulled me into a whirlwind, plunged me into an abyss, held me in her thrall amid the clouds of the sky. We went on making love until evening fell. I fell asleep in her arms and when I opened my eyes again it was night.

‘Eat,’ she said. And there before me was a table heaped with bread, honey, fruit. Time went by. ‘Are you tired?’ she asked me.

‘No.’

‘Good. Now that you’ve eaten, prepare yourself to take a journey. With me.’

I was lost again in her look, her smell, her hands, so long and slender. ‘A journey? Where?’

‘You’ll see. Get up.’

The wind rose, the leaves rustled on the trees and then the wood, the meadows, the stream, everything disappeared. We were on the battlefield. Behind us the camp and the ships, before us the city, the walls, the towers. The Skaian Gate! Chills and acute pain were what I felt.

‘Where are you?’ I whispered.

‘With you. Remember? That night you entered the walls of Troy for a second time, looking in every way like a Trojan warrior, but with a long rope coiled up, hidden in the inside of your shield. A clever scheme. .’

‘It’s not true.’

‘No? Come. I’ll show you.’ The wind that had carried off Circe’s house, the entire island with its woods and stream, was now blowing even harder, pushing clouds of dust down the deserted streets of Troy.

‘Can’t you see your footprints in the dust? Only you walk that way.’

‘It’s not me.’

‘You know very well it is. You just wanted to forget and you’ve succeeded. There you are, in front of the ramp. That’s where you agreed to meet Diomedes. He entered from a side gate on the northern wall. There he is, dressed as a Trojan as well. We’re almost at the highest point of the citadel. Down there is Priam’s palace. The sanctuary is this way. Can you see it? That’s you, dropping from the roof on a rope. You climbed up on the side where the colonnade is, where the guards couldn’t see you.’

I was split in two. I was the warrior lowering himself into the sanctuary and I was the vagabond observing the scene alongside Circe. She started to speak again and her voice was strange, distorted, because, I realized, I was hearing her from far away and long ago.

‘Look, you’re coming out on the rooftop. . And now you’re using the rope to lower something to the ground. . Diomedes is grabbing it. You know what it is, don’t you?’

I did not answer.

‘You do know, Odysseus, you know very well. It is the Palladion, the statue of Athena that makes the city that possesses her invincible. You are carrying her off so that Troy can be defeated and destroyed.’

I turned towards Circe and the metallic light in her eyes froze me. Her look was like a slashing sword. It was she who was having visions, now I am certain, those rapacious eyes were seeking out what I was not capable of seeing.

‘I wanted to go home,’ I said in a low voice.

‘And they wanted to survive.’

‘The strongest wins. That’s the law.’

‘Or is it the most crafty? Now you know why Athena won’t speak to you any more.’ Her words pierced me like a dagger of ice. ‘You committed a sacrilege against her by profaning her image.’

I shook my head incredulously. Part of me did not want to believe what the other part of me was affirming: ‘The night of the massacre I saw with my own eyes that Diomedes was running from the sanctuary. I remember it well — he was carrying something close to his chest.’

‘And from that moment on, you talked yourself into believing that it was he who had profaned the sanctuary, ignoring what you knew you had done. Forgetting, you became oblivious to your sacrilege.’

A thunderbolt exploded over our heads and we were back on the island, standing in front of each other in the middle of the night, listening to the silence.

Circe stared into my eyes again with tremendous power. No one could resist her.

‘Now you know. Don’t forget what has been revealed to you. Tomorrow you will set off again on your voyage. More trials await you. Any of them can destroy you. You will reach the rocks of the Sirens. Their song is gentle and very sweet, but it carries death.’

‘I’m not afraid of any rocks. I’ve come back from the mouth of Hades.’

‘It’s not the rocks that can destroy a man like you.’

‘What, then?’

‘The truth.’

‘Which truth?’

‘The one that can kill you.’

In the bottomless silence that surrounded me, I heard the shrieks of a griffin: the sun was about to rise.

Circe spoke again: ‘Then your ship, the last one remaining to you, will have to pass through the narrows. On one side and on the other deadly perils await you. You will have to decide. Whatever choice you make will mean death for your companions.’

The tears which I had been barely holding back welled up and poured, hot, from my eyes. How much more would I have to go through? How much pain, how much anguish? I had crossed the threshold of the gates of Erebus — what could be worse? Or had my daring to walk among the dead provoked even greater ire from the dark powers?

‘I have nothing more to tell you.’ The light in her eyes went out like a flash of lightning vanishes from the night sky, but as the glow of dawn spilled into the house, colour and life and feeling flowed back into her gaze.

‘This is truly the last time, son of Laertes. When you have crossed the threshold of this house, I will never see you again, but you will remain forever in my eyes and my heart. Of all those who the sea has cast up onto these shores, of all those who audaciously landed their ships here, you are the only one I will remember in the long silence of midday in the summer, on springtime nights laden with mystery, on those sad autumn evenings when the cranes abandon their nests and fly off to distant lands, in the whistle of the winter wind that raises white foam on the waves. Only the sound of your name will live in my heart, Odysseus of the myriad thoughts, patient and fearless, small, indomitable mortal.’

She looked at me with infinite tenderness — mistress of wild beasts, enchantress, most beauteous among the women of the earth and the goddesses of the heavens. And she wept.

I left without a kiss, without a caress, mindful that I would never have the strength to go back to my shipmates had I lingered a moment longer. I crossed the threshold and began to hear the cries of the animals inhabiting that place — souls in torment. I returned to my comrades and saw that they had completed the burial of our worthy friend Elpenor, sad spirit of Hades. They had raised a high mound over his ashes and into it had plunged the oar that had been his to grip when he would sit at the rowing bench and hasten our ship on her journey to the unfaltering beat of the oarmaster’s drum. Ten times we shouted his name, trusting that our voice would reach him in the nether world, land of the blind, among the pale heads. The wind carried it away, far away, over the cresting waves.

We turned the prow west and a steady, stiff wind sped us on our way. Once the sail had been hoisted, the men rested, after pulling the oars on board and laying them out under the benches, along the bulwarks. Only Perimedes was sweating as he manned the steering oar, keeping the ship true to her course, even with the glare of the sun in his eyes. In the afternoon, the shadow of the sail covered him and he was able to enjoy the sea breeze. All we could see was water in every direction, no matter where we trained our gaze, but I would have been a happy man had not so many thoughts been occupying my mind. Circe’s words nagged at me. I had no way of knowing when the time would come for danger to raise its foul head. How close were we to the Sirens’ lair? My eyes fell upon a finely crafted wicket basket full of the combs left behind after all the honey had been squeezed out of them. Only the wax remained. An idea suddenly occurred to me: perhaps I would be able to brave the voice of truth without it killing me.

We sailed for days and nights with fair weather and a hot sun — the rigging hummed in the wind like the strings of a lyre. There were times when I told myself that Circe had certainly been mistaken, or that she had said those words to persuade me to stay with her and give up on my stubborn plan to return. This was my most ardent hope, although it didn’t help to distract me from her predictions.

What tormented me the most was the notion that I had profaned the image of my goddess and that I had vexed and offended her. The very thought was poisonous to me. It made me feel completely alone and defenceless against treacherous, even deadly forces. But I had no way to go but forward. It was like when my ship was being pulled to Circe’s island: I realized that I had no choice and no power to avoid any of the trials that she had foretold.

And thus one day, I can’t remember which, we came within sight of a little archipelago made up of small islands. Nothing apparently grew on them, nor did they seem to be inhabited. Bluffs of bare rock, with a few bright-green pine trees. One of these was enormous. The roots snaked down through cracks in the rock, and great birds perched upon it, still as death on the gigantic branches. A distant melody, soft and unutterably sweet, drifted towards us from the cliffs steeped in the sea. Sirens! No one else could live on such barren crags in the middle of the sea. The wind, that had accompanied us so far without ever faltering, dropped all at once and anxiety flooded my heart. We passed close enough to one of those small islands for me to make out heaps of skeletons and corpses half devoured by animals and seabirds, a horrid sight! I had no doubts.

I picked up the basket with the wax and kneaded it in my fingers until it became soft and easy to shape. I was already talking to my men. ‘Listen to me!’ I shouted. ‘The ordeal that awaits us will be terrible to endure, but it is one of the last. I’ve been warned by an oracle: these are the islands of the Sirens. The bones and bodies you see on those rocks belong to sailors who were drawn in by the melodious, enchanting song that no mortal can resist. They ended up dashed against the cliffs and now their bones shine white on the bottom of the sea and on these rocks. They will never see their families or their homes again.

‘I will not let you run this risk. I will put this wax into your ears so that you will not hear them. But then you will have to lash me to the mast. I have to listen to their song! I have to hear everything the Sirens say. It may be crucial to knowing what awaits us. My mind may crack. I may beg you to untie me, order you, even, to loosen the ropes that bind me to the mast. You must not obey me. On the contrary, you must tighten the knots that hold me. Do not be moved by my tears or frightened by my screams, no matter how heartrending they are. My voice may change, and my face as well. Do not listen to me. Do not look at me. It won’t be me you are looking at, but some dark force speaking to you through my mouth. Row, row with all your might, make the foamy sea boil, get as far away as possible and only when you recognize me again as the man I am will you untie me.’

My comrades obeyed. They allowed me to stop up their ears and then they lashed me tightly to the mast using the knots that seamen know. Inextricable. The ship continued to advance with Perimedes at the steering oar, keeping us on course. I could feel the twist in the hull in the tremor of the mast base under my feet and I could see the archipelago nearing on my right, the crags and pines rising from the frothing sea. The melody became more audible as the ship was slowed by a strong cross-current which I could sense from the increasing pressure of the mast against my back. It was a subtle, penetrating song, sweet at first but then sharpening into an intense, agonizing tone. As the voices came closer, they turned into a chorus, winding around each other like the threads that form a rope. Finally, when the giant pine tree was bending over us, the voices became a single voice.

The voice of my wife!

It was Penelope singing, among those threads of song, a melody of infinite melancholy, one I knew well: ‘End the sting of nostalgia, bring him home to me!’

I did not bend. I knew it was my own heart singing and no one else; the voice of my longing to rest in the arms of my queen after so much suffering. But then the song splintered and other voices accompanied Penelope’s. There was Circe, and Helen. . and the voice of a woman I had imagined dead: poor, tortured Andromache. . and two more voices that I would not know, and love, until much later. They were sublime. Each was clearly distinct but they joined into a single sound, something I knew was impossible. I began to understand the song: it was the song of my adventure as a man, a king, a husband, a father, a friend, a son, an enemy, a hero, a coward. It was the song of my past, present, future life. . and what I understood was so painful that it tore shrill screams from my heart. I wanted to kill myself. I begged my companions to untie me, to loosen me from the knots that kept me bound to existence, much more than merely to the mast of my ship. I saw myself as I am now! Now that I walk in the deep snow talking to myself to keep my soul clenched between my teeth. Now that I suffer unspeakable, cruel, infinite sorrow. Now that I taste bitterness without end nor limit. . I who saw the pale heads, I who spoke to the ghosts of great Ajax, of Achilles, of Agamemnon, I who shed scalding tears before the grieving shadow of my mother.

I wanted to die.

To die so completely that not even an empty image wandering around the blind world of Hades would remain of me. I wanted to be no one, nothing.

Nothing did they spare me, those beautiful, alluring voices. The sharper the dagger is, the deeper and more deadly the wound. I understood, in that extreme, wondrous song the whole meaning of the curse contained in my name.

Then my comrades unbound me.