The Odyssey Read online

The eleven black ships, like splintered shards, spun away through the mist, driven hither and thither.

  Odysseus was thrown off the bag as the winds inside it writhed free. Eurylochus was bowled heels over head to the very prow of the ship and left clinging to the figurehead. The cockerel was buffeted high into the air, and the oars were wrenched about like the legs of a dying insect, as the fleet was driven at the mercy of eight winds.

  The hot south wind burned their skin, and the cold north wind froze their hands to the ropes as they fought to save the masts. The ripped sails enveloped men like shrouds and carried them over the side.

  As in the siege of Troy the warrior Achilles killed Prince Hector, and dragged him by his heels behind a chariot three times round the walls of Troy, so the winds dragged Odysseus’ fleet three times round the ocean. Somewhere in the darkness below, Poseidon the Sea God felt his powers restored to him. He plucked up his eight winds, replaced them in his quiver and said, ‘Now listen, Polyphemus, my ugly son, and hear the first note of my revenge on Odysseus.’ And his hand, knotted with veins of purple water, took hold of the spinning fleet and hurled it – where? … Against the brass wall of Aeolia.

  Like hammers against a gong, the ships struck ‘eleven’ against the towering brazen walls, and the men were jolted against their own horrified reflections. Their sweating hands made greasy prints on the yellow metal. Their panting breath slubbered the shine, and their fists beat – clang clang clang – on the impenetrable walls, and brought the royal family to peer down from the roof.

  Odysseus called up, ‘Lower a basket and let me tell you the foolishness that brought us back here! Give us shelter in your friendly home!’

  A golden coin struck him in his upturned face, and others hit the men around him and made them cry out.

  ‘Get away, Odysseus of Ithaca,’ came the reply. ‘Get away from my spotless kingdom before the gods mistake me for a friend of yours. It’s plain to me that you have offended the immortals. You are a smell in the nose of Heaven that must be sneezed away. I am a god-fearing man: my wife and children are god-fearing people. I won’t help an enemy of the gods. I won’t. Now get away. Let go!’ And coins and sharp-cut jewels rained down in their faces and drove them down beneath the shelter of their benches.

  The eleven ships drifted unsteered, rolling in the swell. On the bottom boards of the boats, five hundred and more men prayed to Athene, Goddess of War, to Helios the god of the sun, to Hera the mother of the gods, and to Zeus the Almighty himself. (They did not pray to Poseidon, for in their heart of hearts they knew that his back was turned on them.) When they first saw the curving bays of Laestrygonia reach out to them like welcoming arms, Odysseus believed that their prayers had been answered.

  Two curving headlands circled a natural lagoon of green water so clear that fishing pots were visible several fathoms below on the sand. The entrance was so narrow that the ships went in single file, and Odysseus tied his own by a single rope, just outside. The ships already berthed in the lagoon were marvellous. They made the Greek fleet look like children’s canoes. Odysseus was so intrigued that he walked the length of the spit with his eyes fastened on them, and bumped into a tree.

  It was a brown tree with fine blonde hair coating the trunk, and roots which splayed out in only one direction and ended in … ‘Toes?’ said Odysseus, and looked up. A jolly, smiling girl leaned down and picked him up in the palm of her hand.

  She examined him on all sides, lifting his tunic with one finger to delight in his miniature underwear. Taking the end of her blonde plait, she brushed him down with it, still beaming with joy. ‘Look, Mother! Look what I’ve found! There are lots!’

  Gathering up as many Greeks as she could carry, she ran along the harbour promenade with them cradled in one arm like so many peg dolls. She beckoned the others to follow. ‘Come along, little ones!’ she called, and clucked and whistled and made little kissing noises as if to encourage them. They followed, spellbound with horror, and because their captain was tucked snug in the crook of her elbow.

  Her mother was equally pleased to see the visitors. She dwarfed her daughter, and her voice was as loud as a landslide. ‘Wait till your father sees who you’ve brought to dinner, my darling dear.’

  Her husband, King Lamus of Laestrygonia, dwarfed his little wife, and ships far out at sea thought that his white hair was snow on the mountains. They mistook his palace for a mountain range, for its buttressed walls reached so high that eagles nested in the eaves and clouds billowed like curtains in the arching attic windows. He was delighted by the guests his daughter had brought home to dinner.

  For King Lamus and all his Laestrygonians were cannibals.

  With great good humour, he crammed two sailors into his mouth and crunched on their bones and picked their leather clothing from between his teeth. Odysseus, driving his short sword into the elbow of the giant princess, heard her squeal and found himself plunging to the ground. Once there, he picked himself up and ran – leaping, zigzagging, somersaulting down the palace steps and on to the harbour promenade. As vulnerable and small as ants, he and his men swarmed back towards their ships, dodging and ducking the scooping fists of the giants.

  Somewhere in the belfry of the palace, an alarm bell began to clang, and out of houses high as hills came all the citizens of Laestrygonia. A cheerful, smiling people they were, with ruddy faces, thanks to their meaty diet. A harvest of five hundred men was a rare treat, though, even for them – a harvest festival of flesh. They stamped and ate and scooped and ate and fished with their hands into the clear water to scoop out those that escaped them on dry land. It was like ducking for apples. The Laestrygonians laughed out loud at the sport (even though their mouths were full). Some of the laughable little men even managed to reach their ridiculous little boats and axe the mooring ropes as if they might escape to sea! How absurd.

  The Laestrygonians merely took the boat-prows in finger and thumb and twisted them over, tipping men and oars and amphoras and sheep, storm-broken rigging and Trojan treasure into the clear, green water. Then it was an easy matter with tridents and throwing harpoons, to fish for the tender little oddities. They ate them raw, with only salt seawater for seasoning.

  King Lamus was first to notice the column of fleet-footed creatures running along the headland to the mouth of the harbour. He waded into the water, pointing. His citizens and subjects went after Odysseus and the fifty others who were heading for the harbour-mouth. One or two of the stragglers were picked off with harpoons, and each success was greeted with cheers from all sides of the lagoon. But a vexing number reached the tip of the mole and leapt off it into the outer sea. Too late, King Lamus saw that a single ship was moored outside the lagoon, that the creatures had jumped into it and were already bent over their foolish little oars.

  Odysseus slashed the bow line with his sword, and the fast-ship leapt through the swell with such a jerk that he lost his footing and sprawled on the deck. As he did so, a Laestrygonian trident flew over his head and impaled the first oarsman.

  ‘The gods forgive me,’ said Odysseus softly. ‘One ship left out of twelve! We are cursed indeed!’

  4

  The Pig-Woman

  ‘I don’t know if we shall ever reach home again,’ said Odysseus to his remaining crew. ‘All I know is this: a man’s fate is decided on the day he’s born, and we shan’t any of us go down dead to the Underworld a day before our appointed time. So stop that crying. Two days is time enough to spend crying. We have done what is expected. We have called the names of our dead friends three times across the ocean so that they shan’t go down nameless into the Underworld. Now we must turn our minds to the wives and children waiting for us at home. We must find out where in the world’s round, blue sea we are.’

  The men stirred, wiping their tear-streaked faces. They looked up at the sky, but it was one low, white fret of mist and even the sun did not show through. At night there were no stars. Navigation was out of the question.

  ‘Land!�
�� called the look-out.

  ‘Where? How can you tell?’

  ‘I can smell it. I can hear waves breaking on a beach.’

  And so they beached, not knowing whether this was mainland or island. When the sky cleared that night, the constellations were unfamiliar – strange beasts prowling an unfamiliar sky. The men shivered at the thought of meeting yet another race of cannibals, lotus-eaters, or monsters.

  A path led inland from the rear of the beach and, keeping close together, they followed it. Odysseus glimpsed a stag between the trees and went in pursuit, killing it with a single arrow and carrying it back to the ship across his shoulders. Laying it down, he ran after his men to catch them up. But he could not do so before they reached the farmhouse.

  It was a shady place of irrigation streams and springs. A walkway of overarching vines led to a curved door of brass. As the men approached, the doors swung open in welcome, ushering them into the shade of a dining hall. A table was laid there, and a woman with lilac eyes stood calling them by pleasant names. Her plaits of brown and golden hair were like the hawsers of a beautiful white ship all hung with flags.

  Odysseus saw the last of his men go inside. By running, he could have stopped the brass doors closing: he could have gone in with his men and sat down to dinner with them. But for some reason he hung back. His feet would not hurry him across the lawn of white moly flowers that silenced his tread. Instead, he sheared off around the house and walked about in the farmyard, looking into the pigpens, trying to quieten the unaccountable beating of his heart.

  Then he crept back to the window and watched what was happening inside.

  The woman with lilac eyes had seated his men at a table spread with white linen. She gave them fresh warm bread and bowls of tzatziki, with whey to drink, and peeled fruit, and parsley in soft cheese. At least, it looked rather like parsley, that sprinkling of green. She gave them wine, too, and more wine, and then …

  Odysseus dared not close his eyes, although what he saw was too horrible for one pair of eyes to witness alone.

  As they ate, she walked round the table – round the backs of their chairs. She carried a willow wand, plaited like her hair, and as she passed each man, she knocked him about the head with it – gently, as if she were teasing.

  But it was not teasing. Each man’s legs at once began to shrink, until he rolled on his haunches and could not keep his balance in the chair. He would reach out to steady himself, but his arms had shrunk, too. No hands at the end. Only hoofs. And the men fell out of their chairs and into their suppers – their snouts in their suppers.

  Snouts, ears, trotters – and curly tails splitting their tunics. They were pigs, every man of them. Pigs! The animals in the pigpens in the yard set up a nightmare squealing, and racketed against the bars.

  Odysseus ran back round the house, thinking to break down the brass doors, thinking to cut the long-haired woman in pieces for what she had done. But once again his feet would not speed him across the soft lawn of white moly flowers. It was some time later that he knocked on the door and was welcomed inside by the sorceress Circe.

  Her brown and golden plaits trembled a little at the sight of Odysseus (for although he was a small man of stocky frame, his hair curled like clematis, and his eyes were very brown). Nevertheless, she beckoned him indoors to a single place laid at the long, linen-covered table. Her accent, when she spoke, sounded as though she had been born in the very shadow of Pelicata Palace. But that was magic, merest magic, Odysseus told himself.

  ‘You are late,’ she said. ‘Your friends have already dined and gone to walk in the gardens.’

  The chair she sat him in was carved with flowers and birds. The wine she handed him smelled sweeter than the evening primrose. The meal she laid before him – tzatziki and olives, peeled fruit and cheeses, wine, honey and fresh warm bread, reminded him of meals taken with his Queen, Penelope, in the shade of Pelicata’s vineyard. But that was magic, merest magic, he told himself.

  He drank down the wine. He ate the food – even the small green herb like parsley – and then he sat back and wiped his beard with a linen napkin.

  She struck him hard with the willow wand. It raised a red line across his cheek. She said, ‘Handsome or not, no foul man must be allowed to keep his shape on Circe’s magic isle. Now get to the pigsty with the rest.’

  ‘No,’ said Odysseus, putting his feet up on the table.

  ‘I said –’

  ‘And I said “no”.’ He took out his sword and calmly thumbed the blade. ‘You see, lady, on the hour I was born some friendly god or goddess cloaked my heartbeat with wisdom. That same wisdom taught me that the little white moly flower is the antidote to many a magic potion and poison.’ And he spat out the petals he had pouched in his cheeks. ‘Now, before I kill you, you have one last magic spell to speak, madam. Give me back my men, or you will indeed be sorry that you were ever born.’

  ‘Odysseus!’

  He was taken aback by the sound of his own name in the mouth of a complete stranger. Circe sank to her knees in front of him and laid her head on his knees. ‘Odysseus! On the day I was born, a prophecy was written: that one day I should be overpowered by Odysseus, King of Ithaca. I cannot choose but love you: it is my fate! I pray you can find it in your heart to love me just a little in return!’ And she began kissing his knees passionately.

  ‘Lady! Please! You have just turned all my comrades into pigs! Love is not the word to describe what I feel!’

  At that, she took him by the wrist and pulled him to his feet, rushing him into the yard with her willow wand outstretched ahead of her. She fumbled with the gate of the sty and, as each pig dashed out in a frenzy of squealing, she rapped it across its bristly back.

  A moment later forty-five shivering men crouched whimpering in the yard, their hands and feet all clogged with mud, and pigswill clinging to their beards. They would have mobbed Circe and killed her where she stood but for a terror of her willow wand. Circe, meanwhile, was kissing Odysseus’ curling hair.

  He dodged away, blushing. ‘Next, lady, you can tell me the latitude of your island and where I should look for the Dog Star. This quarter of the sea is strange to me and I must set course for Ithaca.’

  Circe knotted her hands in her long shining plaits and burst into tears. ‘Oh, don’t leave me, Odysseus! Stay with me! A hundred years I’ve waited for you, and though it is my fate that I should love you and lose you, I won’t let you go so soon. I won’t! I won’t!’

  Odysseus was in a quandary. His solitary ship was in tatters. His men were exhausted. Out there, beyond the bowers of Circe’s magic garden, the god Poseidon sat seething on the sea’s bed. Even so, Ithaca was waiting – a kingless kingdom and a lonely queen. ‘I insist, madam. Tell me how I must steer to reach Ithaca.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Circe. ‘The gods have forbidden me to help you.’

  Odysseus gave a cry of exasperation and turned away, making for his ship.

  ‘Wait! If you stay with me one month, I’ll tell you how to find out that and more! I’ll send you to someone who knows the past, the future, and the truth, and will tell you all three!’

  ‘A month?’

  ‘A little month,’ urged Circe, and her white hands were already unbuckling his swordbelt and loosening his tunic.

  5

  Alive Among the Dead

  One month became a season. A season lengthened to a year. And only then did Odysseus think again of his three-island kingdom. Life with Circe was as sweet as lotus fruit: it tended to make a man forget his home and family. Then his best friend, Polites, came to him and said, ‘Poseidon’s memory may be long or it may be short, but yours has failed you altogether if you forget your beautiful Queen. Your men have wives and children, too, and we have been gone from them now for more than eleven years!’

  So Odysseus went to Circe and held her in his arms apologetically, and said, ‘It’s time to go. You promised me a year ago to send me where I can learn the route home and the secr
et of things to come. Who is this oracle? Where will I find him?’

  Circe bit her lower lip and clenched her fists. ‘Very well. I will tell you. It was written when I was born that I would love you and lose you. But you won’t like the directions I give you. You may not dare to follow them.’

  ‘Not dare, lady! I am Odysseus of Ithaca, hero of Troy, whose exploits –’

  ‘Yes, yes. All right. So be it. Your path lies through the shadows of the Underworld. There, among the spirits of the dead, you will find the oracle Teiresias. He can tell you what is past and what is to come, and what is true, besides.’

  ‘No!’ cried Odysseus. He put his hands over his ears and he screwed shut his eyes. ‘No! No! No! Unsay it, Circe! See how I tremble! See how the sweat breaks out on my face! Unsay it, Circe, or you’ll make a coward of a man who has looked death in the eyes fifty times and never flinched! Go down to the Underworld before my time? Rub cheeks with ghosts in the bottomless dark? Zeus! A man’s heart would shake itself to pieces! No! Never! No!’

  Circe was silent and her eyes delighted in the thought that Odysseus would stay with her now for ever. He threw himself down on her white couch and howled like a wolf for an hour or more. Then he stood up, took three deep breaths, squared his shoulders, and set off for the beach where his men were sleeping by the ship.

  ‘Aboard, men! Aboard now and I shall take the tiller! Circe the Sorceress has told me our route home, and it’s time to set sail.’

  As their red-prowed fast, black ship scraped its hull through the white sand, and its dry planks swelled at the touch of the sea, Circe ran down the beach and plunged knee-deep into the surf. ‘The gods keep you safe, Odysseus! Place your keel in the path of the sinking sun. Then River Ocean will draw you on without the need for oars. Bind the tiller and make sacrifice to Hades, God of the Dead.’

  Her voice roused Elpenor.

  A quick-footed but slow-witted fellow, Elpenor had gone to sleep on the flat roof of Circe’s house, and he had missed the ship. The sun shone hot on him as he slept. A red haze stuffed up his eyes when he opened them. He reached for the ladder by which he had climbed up to the roof, but stepped off into thin air. With a startled cry, he fell head-first and, in hitting the ground, snapped his neck.