Meanwhile, the various women with whom Odysseus had slept on his voyages hear of his return and send him all his bastard sons and daughters. He puts them to work, deeply moved by one of them only, his daughter by Calypso. Telemachus and a representative of his people, a man who had lost his arms at Troy, plot to kill Odysseus. In the summer, Nausicaä comes at last in her bridal ship, and the wedding with Telemachus is celebrated. A minstrel sings of Crete and of her cruel, military god, most suited to Odysseus’ temperament. During the wedding feast, Odysseus discerns preparations made to kill him, confronts his son at once, yet rejoices to see in him such manliness and revolt. He promises to leave Ithaca the next morning, and that night, with his companions, loots his own palace of food and weapons, then leaves at dawn without saying goodbye to his son or wife. The friends launch their ship and set sail for unknown destinations.
BOOK III
Odysseus goes to Sparta. To while away the time as they row and sail, Orpheus tells a story of a male and female worm, representative of man’s stubborn spirit, who find ways of overcoming God’s attempts to kill them by fire, hunger, flood, and death. At the same time that Helen, in Sparta, is filled with ennui and longs to be abducted once more, Odysseus dreams of her calling him for help, her armpits dripping with blood. He wakes up, startled, and directs his crew to make for Sparta. Completing the story of the two worms, he recounts how they had settled in a far northern village which God had partly destroyed by a meteor, and how one day the male worm had smelted the ore, discovered iron, then matched his iron sword with the copper sword of God and had slain that old decrepit man in heaven. Thus, Odysseus implies, will the lowly barbarians with their new iron weapons conquer the decadent bronze civilizations. The companions now sight land, stop for food and water, then after three more days disembark near Sparta. As a present for Helen, Odysseus chooses a magic crystal ball given him by Calypso, takes Kentaur with him, steals a chariot and horses, and makes for the capital. He considers how Helen has never been for him a carnal temptation, but has always inspired him to the high valor of the mind.
As they ride along the Eurotas at harvest time, they encounter members of the barbaric blond Doric tribe who have been descending into Greece from the far north, and who symbolize for Kazantzakis the new savage blood which is to revive the now decadent Greek civilizations, first by destruction and then by intermarriage. Odysseus rejoices that he was born in a time of upheaval and transition between shifting cultures and new worlds. As they sight Mt. Taigetus, the five-fingered mountain which looms above Sparta, Odysseus suddenly realizes that he has come here with the hope of convincing Helen to run off with him on new adventures. Stopping by a roadway shrine to Aphrodite, he prays that his wish may be granted. When they arrive by nightfall at Menelaus’ castle, they find the hungry peasants in revolt because their king has been confiscating most of their harvest, but as they are about to attack, Odysseus suddenly leaps before them and frightens them into storing all their harvest in the castle by telling them that they are in danger of attack by the blond Doric barbarians. When Menelaus has at last guessed who this stranger must be, he cannot find him, for Odysseus has penetrated into the dark halls of the castle to seek Helen. When they meet, both are deeply moved, and recall the past glories of the Trojan war. At supper that evening, Odysseus is scornful of Menelaus’ soft life, and warns him that the barbarians will find him an easy prey, but Menelaus defends the comforts of old age. Odysseus speaks of the new god, barbarous and savage, who is rising now to replace the civilized gods of Mount Olympus, and feels himself disturbedly in sympathy with the destruction this new god symbolizes. When they part for the night, he presents Helen with the crystal ball.
Unable to sleep, Odysseus roams the palace and bids farewell to vested wealth and comfort. An obscure reaction has been fermenting within him against his own aristocratic class, and an awakening sympathy with the hungry workers, the Doric barbarians (symbolic of periodic primitive powers that destroy decadence and sow the seeds for other cultures). Kentaur explains to the slaves that by the new god Odysseus means the new metal, iron, which the barbarians have brought with them and which will soon destroy the old gods and civilizations based on bronze. After Odysseus helps drunken Kentaur to bed, he feels a sudden love and compassion for all mankind, and envisages the earth slowly distilling all phenomena to the pure honey of the spirit.
BOOK IV
The second abduction of Helen. Menelaus dreams that he is riding with Odysseus through scenes of contentment, but that his friend proffers him the sword of contention. On awakening, Menelaus rides out with Odysseus to show off his lands and wealth, assures the villagers that they are safe from attack by the barbarians, and orders the young men to prepare games of skill with which to entertain their guest that evening. They pass through summer harvests, watch straggling tribes of blond barbarians gleaning what poor scraps remain, and rest in olive groves where for the last time Odysseus tries to persuade Menelaus to accompany him on new adventures; but when he sees that his friend is concerned only with the comfortable virtues, with profit and loss, he fiercely decides to abduct Helen. They continue their ride to the upland pastures of Mt. Taïgetus where Odysseus admires the brave young shepherd, Rocky, who has climbed the high mountain crags to kill the marauding eagles that have been stealing his lambs. Odysseus requests and receives the shepherd lad as the sixth and last member of his crew, though Rocky goes with him reluctantly. Menelaus believes that a man should follow whatever fate has ordained for him, but Odysseus replies that it is man’s duty to fight his fate, surpass his doom, and even his god. Meanwhile Helen, with her retinue of Trojan slaves, laments the destruction of Troy, and in her crystal ball sees a preview of her flight with Odysseus, and a glimpse of Knossos.
The two friends return with Rocky to the castle, and as Menelaus bathes, Helen tells Odysseus that she has resolved to leave with him. They plan to steal off together the next morning. That evening the aristocratic youths, the workers’ sons, and the bastards spawned on the Spartan women by the blond barbarians, dance in the palestra to entertain their guest. The workers’ sons perform a dance of harvesting which is wrathfully stopped by Menelaus as it quickly turns into a rebellious hacking for freedom. The young men of the aristocracy dance with a harmonious restraint and proportion admired by Menelaus, but scorned by Odysseus who sees them lacking in tragic awareness of the spirit’s and body’s strife. Then the bastard sons rush into the arena in a mock battle which swiftly turns real until blood flows. Menelaus stops them in rage, and rises to present the wild olive wreath to the youths of the nobility, but Odysseus snatches the spray and presents it to the bastards, indicating thus his contempt both for the ineffective poor and the elegant rich, and his preference for the outlaw virtues, the illegitimate and lawless, that which destroys traditions and smashes frontiers. He declares that only the strong have the right to rule. At the castle gate, representatives of the blond barbarians request permission from Menelaus to settle in his land, and when Menelaus grants their request in fear, Odysseus with scorn sees that this is the inevitable conquest of decadence by virility. At the farewell feast that night, although he is planning to betray his friend by stealing his wife, Odysseus—half in genuine sorrow and half in cunning—speaks of his great love for Menelaus and of his sorrow at parting, and Menelaus, sentimentally moved, gives his friend a gold statue of Zeus, the god of friendship. Odysseus vows eternal friendship, but when his friend falls into a drunken sleep, offers Helen new adventurous paths of danger and strife, and rejoices when Helen, though afraid of his cunning and savagery, accepts freely. Meanwhile, Kentaur advises Rocky like a good friend, consoles him and warns him of the dangerous yet alluring life all lead who follow the unpredictable archer. In a dream that night, Odysseus has a vision of Zeus as a wrathful god of friendship betrayed, but dismisses all the Olympian gods as figments of men’s hearts and fears. When day breaks, the three friends steal a chariot and make off with Helen.
BOOK V
A
rrival in Crete. At nightfall of that same day, they reach the rest of the crew, and swiftly set sail, though toward no certain destination, inspired by Helen’s presence. A fierce storm blows for three days and finally smashes their rudder. Concerned for Helen only, Odysseus curses a baleful and murderous god. In cowardly fear, Orpheus whines that God is demanding a sacrifice in expiation for the abduction of Helen, but though Hardihood approaches to cast her into the waves, he finds that he cannot, overwhelmed by her beauty. Odysseus rejoices at his manliness and declares that he will make Hardihood king of the first land they sight. Almost immediately, the storm subsides, and Crete is sighted, a land of great wealth, but now in its decadence.
They land in the harbor near Knossos, fall into a tired sleep, then wake next day at noon. Odysseus sells the golden god of friendship for food and clothing, the crew members scatter throughout the colorful port, and Helen and Odysseus meet a peddler who tells them they have arrived on a holy feast day when their senile king, Idomeneus, Odysseus’ old companion at Troy, is climbing holy Mt. Dicte to commune in a cave with the priestess of the Bull-God and thus regain his virility that his people and land might once more become fertile. (Throughout his poem, Kazantzakis has taken many incidents and symbols from Frazer’s The Golden Bough, as here the fertility rites and rituals of primitive peoples.) The peddler sells Odysseus an ivory god of seven heads: the first is bestial, the second is savagely martial, the third voluptuous, the fourth represents the flowering mind, the fifth tragic sorrow, the sixth a serenity beyond joy and sorrow, and the seventh the ethereal soul. For the first time, Odysseus is deeply moved by the prescience of the gradual purification his vision of God must undergo, from the pure beast to the pure spirit.
Leaving Captain Clam, Kentaur, Granite, Rocky, and Orpheus in the harbor to repair their ship and to keep watch, Odysseus joins a stream of pilgrims and mounts toward Knossos with Helen and Hardihood in a hired cart. Their waggoner tells them of the bull rituals soon to be celebrated. The blond barbarian gardener, who gives Helen a drink of water on their way up, is the one who will later become her husband, symbolizing the merging of archaic and savage blood to produce the new coming “classic” race. They reach the palace and find it being decked with lilies and palms by the Serpent Sisters, priestesses of Mother Earth. Amid leopards and her three Negro lovers, Diktena appears for a moment, the second daughter of the king, the priestess of the holy temple harlots. As Odysseus goes to announce their arrival, confident of an immediate welcome, the blond gardener suddenly appears and silently offers Helen a cluster of grapes, then vanishes. Odysseus returns, furious at his repulsion by the palace guards, and all three sleep with the other pilgrims on the courtyard tiles.
Early next dawn, the Serpent Sisters supplicate Mother Earth in dance to fructify their king, and thus all of Crete, but their dance is suddenly interrupted by Phida, the eldest daughter of the king, who hates her father’s decadent realm and plans an uprising with the slaves and her group of dedicated women, the Rebels. She falls screaming in an epileptic seizure, but when Odysseus rushes to her aid, the palace eunuchs suddenly rush out and take her away.
Meanwhile, old King Idomeneus has crawled into the holy stalactitic cavern on Mt. Dicte where priestesses masked like cows surround him, as from a hollow bronze bull the high priestess of the Mother Goddess arises, and the sham ritual begins. King and priestess come to an understanding whereby he gives her property and gold in exchange for a nine-year blessing of fertility and strength. The news is blazoned by beacons from mountain peak to peak until it reaches the palace and town where the people spread their garments on the streets that their king may pass upon them and impart to them his new virility. When on his return Idomeneus is told that his youngest and virgin daughter, Krino, has not been caught to be his incestuous bride in the bull ritual, he orders that the men sent to catch her should be put to death. Krino is the leader of a virgin band of Mountain Maidens who in the sacred ritual oppose the Holy Harlots led by Diktena.
After being made to wait ignominiously, Odysseus and Helen are admitted to the king’s presence and his decadent inner court. Idomeneus resolves to make Helen his ritual bride and to kill Odysseus, because his presence anywhere always spells disaster, but when Helen refuses unless Odysseus is Spared, the king consents, though forebodingly, then commands the Serpent Sisters to prepare his bride in seven days and nights for the holy bull ritual.
BOOK VI
The bull rituals at Knossos. Seven days later, at cock crow, the Serpent Sisters entreat their Bull-God to descend and fertilize the earth and their people. The bull arena quickly fills, the common people crowd in the upper tiers, the painted lords and ladies of the court sit below. Though Odysseus gazes on all with loathing, he still marvels at any manifestation of mysterious and brief life. When the sun rises, the King appears wearing the mask of a black bull with golden horns, mounts his throne, and signals for the games to start. In the center of the arena, on a white bull’s hide, Helen lies, naked, beside a hollow bronze cow. As a herd of trained bulls is let loose in the arena, Helen calls out, in ritual, to be saved from the Bull-God, but Diktena and her Holy Harlots exhort her to submit. Krino defends the body as a chaste and pure instrument of God, and Diktena as flesh to be offered him in sacrificial and lustful rites.
As the pre-rituals end, and the Holy Harlots scatter amorously amid the archons, we are given glimpes of the hard lot of the slaves in contrast to the lustful decadence of the court. The King signals again, seven bulls are loosed in the arena, and the famous acrobatic dancing and somersaulting begin, led by Krino. Further scenes of poverty and oppression in Crete are shown; at noon, as a thresher and his wife eat their scant food in the fields, the King orders the games stopped and the feast spread. The slaves scurry to prepare and serve the meals; a slave mother rushes with her baby into the sunlit court from her dark dungeon, and finds that it is dead—only Odysseus hears her scream, and feels that he is responsible for all the pain on earth, as if he were earth’s only savior. Gradually in Odysseus an almost Christian consciousness of the world’s suffering is being awakened, and a sense of responsibility toward pain and oppression. He is dazed by the rot and stench of the civilization around him. At this moment, Diktena claims him for her partner in the orgies to be held that night, and Odysseus resolves, to Hardihood’s disgust, not to spare himself anything of degradation, knowing that a strong soul cannot be soiled.
Meanwhile, in the arena, Krino has been strangely drawn by Helen’s beauty; the two women kiss and caress each other in the burning sun until Idomeneus, enraged by jealousy, orders Krino to play with the fiercest bull of all, who has secretly been fed irritating and intoxicating herbs. Although she knows that she is going to her death, Krino plays acrobatically with the bull, is suddenly gored, tossed high in the air, then falls impaled on the double-ax standard of the Bull-God. It is now twilight. The thresher and his wife have gone home, the slave mother buries her child, and the Serpent Sisters escort the common people out of the arena so that the orgiastic secret rituals of the nobility may begin.
At the full moon, the lords and ladies of the court don the hides and masks of various animals, the Serpent Sisters raise Helen and place her in the hollow bronze cow, and as the King slowly approaches, a bull is slain, and all fall upon it and eat it raw. As Idomeneus steps into the bronze cow, the lords and ladies engage in orgiastic lust throughout the arena, Diktena stuffs Odysseus’ mouth with the bull’s loins, and both fall into an erotic embrace. Suddenly Phida appears, shrieking, flies to where Krino lies impaled, and receives the dripping blood on her outstretched arms until her enraged father orders her driven out of the arena at spear’s point.
Meanwhile, the five crew members have been drinking in a harbor tavern where Captain Clam tells them of secret arrangements he has made with the blond barbarians who are now setting sail for their native land to bring reinforcements. As the decadent nobility feast through the night, Hardihood comes and reports to Odysseus that in his wanderings throug
h the labyrinthine palace cellars he had discovered a secret forge where a captive barbarian was forging weapons of iron for Idomeneus. Phida had suddenly appeared and given herself to the ironsmith in exchange for iron weapons promised her and her Rebels.
At early dawn, the slaves come to gather their drunken lords and ladies, and the blond gardener again appears suddenly and makes off with Helen. As the Mountain Maidens wash and bury Krino, Phida and her troop of Rebels sing and dance songs of poverty, oppression, and revenge until Odysseus, deeply moved by all he has seen and done, joins her in a dance and song of slaughter and rebellion. Phida falls into a paralytic swoon, and her Rebels take her away. Unable to sleep, Odysseus lies by the riverbank and listens to a slave singing of freedom. Finally, as he drowses and falls asleep, his old companion, Death, makes the first of his many appearances, lies beside him in comradely embrace, and the two sleep together. For a brief moment Death, also, falls asleep and dreams of life.
BOOK VII
The conspiracy to destroy Knossos. In his sleep, Odysseus dreams of Fate in the form of a woman who stabs him with three knives, with three great experiences and adventures in life: woman in youth, war and glory in manhood, and death in old age. At sunset Hardihood and Odysseus watch the decadent lords and ladies strolling by the riverbank, and mark them down for slaughter. For three days and nights Odysseus broods in agonized silence on the projected destruction and massacre of Knossos, and calls on his God for help, but the god that finally appears is a tearful and frightened likeness of Odysseus himself. Odysseus’ image of God is to change, gradually, from a timid god to a god of battle. Realizing that it is God, not he, who needs assistance, Odysseus dismisses him in scorn, but tells Hardihood that he has had a vision of a savage and flaming god of heroic proportions.