We returned to the palace where the king had laid an enormous banquet for his people. As well as the animal that had been sacrificed, there were sheep and goats and even two white long-horned oxen. The meat had been skewered on spits and roasted and basketfuls of bread were served by the palace baker. Red wine as bright as pomegranate seeds was poured into cups and good cheer began to spread among the guests again. Nothing so terrible had happened, after all. The boy would heal from his wounds, get over his fright and have learned some common sense. Don’t challenge a stranger before you know who he really is.
The king spoke again: ‘Now I understand your tears when Demodocus sang of the trickery that led to the fall of Troy and the terrible night of the massacre.’
‘I thank you, wanax, shepherd of the glorious Phaeacian people,’ I answered. ‘Yes. The poet’s song brought me back to the bloodshed and pain that all we Achaians had to bear during the long, endless years of our siege of Troy. We lost our way on our return voyage and since then I’ve suffered everything that a man can suffer. I saw all the comrades who survived the war perish, even my brave Cephalonians. Devoured by monsters and savage flesh-eaters, strung up like fish by the dreadful Laestrygonians. I lost all my ships, everything. And arrived here beseeching pity at the knees of glorious Arete.’
‘Your suffering is over,’ replied the king. ‘I’ll give you a ship that will take you home and this time nothing will happen. We are descendants of Poseidon and we are capable of navigating towards any land in the world, be it the most distant and remote.’ He motioned to one of his guests, a robust man with greying temples: ‘Prepare a ship, the sturdiest we have, for fifty-two rowers, twenty-six on each side. Have the hull, the oarlocks, the mast and its housing all inspected. Do you see this man here beside me? You must be prepared to take him to his homeland, to Ithaca.’
I tried to thank him, as my heart commanded, for such great generosity, but he cut me short with a gesture of his hand.
‘Now that I know who you are, I feel even more strongly that you should stay and become my son-in-law. How long have you been away from home?’
‘In my time,’ I said, ‘twenty years.’
‘There is no other time,’ said the king. ‘Twenty years . . . I don’t think you’ll find anyone waiting for you. You’ll be returning without your ships, without your comrades. What is left for you there? Here you could generate a new race. The echo of your deeds will live on in the stories of the poets and the songs of the court minstrels and street singers. I’m sure there are many more adventures that you yourself can tell us about. The nights are starting to get longer, a most propitious time for telling tales with a cup of strong wine to fortify your heart.’
‘Great king,’ I replied, ‘every man on this earth would be honoured and fortunate to receive such a proposal from you. Your daughter Nausicaa is a fragrant flower, pure enchantment. But all I desire is to return. I want to see my home, the young bride I left with a child in her arms when I went off to the war.’
‘As you wish,’ said the king with seeming reluctance. ‘As soon as the ship is ready you can leave. But until then, linger here with us, cheer your heart with my wine. Later, if you are willing to indulge us, the queen and my daughter and all of us who rule the Phaeacians, tell us your story. Your name was unknown to us until now and we could not imagine who you were.’
‘I will,’ I replied, ‘even if it saddens me. Every comrade that I lost torments me still. But it is only right for me to repay your hospitality and, perhaps, speaking of all that happened with men and women who have welcomed and comforted me will help me make sense of things that I have not understood.’
EVERY EVENING after that day, when the tables had been cleared, I told of my misfortunes. The unfamiliar lands, the comrades who died but were never forgotten, the ghosts plaguing both my dreams and my sleepless nights, ghosts who still appear to me as the groaning wind whips through these vast empty spaces, swirling the snow over the icy expanse.
And yet, somehow, I felt relief in telling such stories in a safe, tranquil place, protected by powerful, wise people who lived like gods on their wondrous island.
When my evening of storytelling was over and everyone had gone to bed, I would often walk out onto the balcony. Sitting on the hard stone I would curl into myself, hugging my knees to my chest, and think, or sometimes weep.
‘Why don’t you wait for the good weather?’ Nausicaa would ask me. ‘The nights are longer than the days now; put off your departure until the return of the warm winds. It’s only a few months. You’ve waited so long, can’t you wait a little longer?’
‘I’ve made my decision, my lady. I don’t want to wait any longer.’
‘Are you in such a hurry to leave me?’
I couldn’t speak. How could I explain to this young woman in the bloom of her youth what lies in the heart of a man with so much pain, blood, despair behind him? But she’d look at me, expecting an answer.
‘You are the sweetest and loveliest person I’ve ever met throughout all these long years. You are beautiful, charming, as fresh as the first rose of spring: how could I ever wish to leave you? But it’s because you’ve entered into my heart that I want the best for you. You must be free to meet the partner that destiny has in mind for you. You’ll meet a man who will give you boundless love, and children as handsome and strong as sprouting palms.
‘I’ll never forget the day when you stood unwavering before me, seaweed-smeared and brine-encrusted as I was, naked and filled with shame, while your friends ran off to hide. You smiled and the sun started to shine again for me. But I’m tired now, exhausted by all the trials that I have gone through, by the ache of memory, by the nightmares that jolt me awake in the middle of the night. You have to forget me, Nausicaa. Leave me only the music of your name and the light of your eyes. You are young, and bound for life. I can only hope to face my decline with serenity.’
She turned to look at me: in her eyes, tears, on her cheeks, pearls of regret.
14
THE FEW DAYS THAT SEPARATED me from departure filled my heart with melancholy. I should have been serene, even happy. I was finally returning home at the head of an expert crew made up of the best sailors in the entire world, under the auspices of a king who descended from Poseidon himself. But every time I saw the look of dismay in Nausicaa’s eyes, my heart plummeted in my chest. I knew that look. I’d seen it in Penelope’s eyes every time I’d been about to leave; her counting every instant until we’d finally part. A sense of inconsolable desolation, of dread.
We would walk along the bank of the river for hours, even for days at a time, stopping every now and then in the shade of a palm or willow tree. Plants and trees of every type shared that wondrous land; those from warm climes and cold. We talked together about a great number of things, like the adventures I’d experienced and the wild lands I’d visited. Other times, instead, long silences fell between us, filled only by the remote, mysterious messages whispered in the sigh of the sea.
In the evenings I continued to tell my story at the palace: how I’d met up with the red-flower eaters and then the cyclops, how I had blinded him and then mocked him with ill-conceived words. I was uncertain whether to tell them about the curse he’d hurled at me, how he had called upon his father Poseidon, lord of the sea and the Ocean, to revenge him. I feared that the king might regret giving hospitality to a man who had earned the rancour of a god who was their ancestor. It had already happened once, with Aeolus, the tamer of the winds. He had thrown me out and refused to help me after he’d understood that a powerful god was enraged with me. But the king and his people had been generous and they deserved my sincerity, and so I decided not to hide the terrible words that had come out of the monster’s mouth after I had forever deprived him of the light of day.
I watched as Alcinous’ face darkened. The Phaeacians knew many things about the cyclopes, since they had once inhabited the land of Hypereia, which bordered the giants’ territory. They had often had to
defend themselves from that despicable race. But instead of fighting them off as enemies, they had chosen to set off for a new homeland, and thus had remained dear to the blue god, who often manifested himself to them openly, not covered by the clouds which always hide the gods from mortal men.
And I told, barely managing to hold back tears, of how the savage Laestrygonians, eaters of human flesh, had massacred my men, and how they had smashed and sunk all our ships by pitching huge boulders at them. All of them except one.
I was unable to tell them what the Sirens’ song had revealed. So greatly had it wounded my heart that I still suffer now. Not a day or a night passes without me trying to unravel that enigmatic revelation.
The men who would be accompanying me by ship to Ithaca were among my listeners. They heard me out with fixed expressions, never asking or objecting. Perhaps they didn’t understand. I couldn’t help but wonder at times: they had sailed all the seas in the world, why hadn’t they seen the things that I’d seen? Was their silence due to amazement or disbelief? Where had they been? Which seas had they navigated, which waves? On which lands had they set ashore? I wanted to ask whether they had ever passed the wall of fog . . . did that gloomy barrier truly separate reality from dream or nightmare? I didn’t dare. It was better not to lift the veils of that mystery when I was so close to returning to my own world. Even if I found that my world had changed greatly, I would still recognize it, surely. The circle would close. At least until I received the sign that would force me to leave again.
The night I told the story of Circe there was a new moon. The sky was covered with black clouds and a sighing wind was drifting in from distant lands. I told of how she had urged me to seek out the gateway of Hades, to summon up the shade of Tiresias and to ask him what my destiny held in store for me. A profound silence fell over the hall from my very first words: ‘I crossed the sea and entered the deep, boundless Ocean. I set ashore where a white cliff of smooth rock rose as high as the sky, piercing the clouds. The coast was bristling with jagged rocks above the surface and treacherous reefs below and the waves were boiling with white foam.’
I saw the sailors who would be on my ship murmuring something to one another. Had they seen it, perhaps? Had they boldly navigated as well beyond the extreme limits of the land and sea? I did not interrupt my story, I asked them nothing. There would be plenty of time during the long voyage that awaited us to talk about those places. I told the assembly about the fallen comrades I found there, mere shadows of what they had once been. I spoke of their desolation and the infinite sadness that enveloped them. And finally of Tiresias’ prophecy: that I would return late, a broken man, that I would find my home violated and invaded. That I would restore order and justice, but not for always. Another long, endless journey awaited me, no longer over the sea, but through mud, snow, ice; a journey of silence and screams.
Even the wind fell still and my words reverberated off the shocked walls. The twelve elders watched me, their faces placid and smooth as wax. A blade of cold air froze my breath. I saw it condense as I can see it now.
Reliving these adventures, my misfortunes and my grief, were like opening up wounds that had never scarred over. The loss of my comrades, their bodies mangled, buried in the stinking bowels of cruel savages, unworthy exequies, unworthy burial! I felt it all.
I told my whole story dry-eyed. I didn’t want to sadden the king and the assembly. It is thus that a guest reciprocates the kindness of his hosts, who have taken him in and fed him at their table. I ended my story with the night I was washed ashore on their island and it felt like I was still a prisoner of the swells that had flung me against the reefs and sharp rocks. I held up my hands, which still hadn’t healed. And, looking Nausicaa in the eyes, I told of our encounter, the scattering of her friends and handmaids as soon as they saw me, the help that she offered without asking for anything in return.
One still afternoon, some time after I had finished telling my story, Nausicaa led me to the sanctuary. Deep in the most secret penetralia of that sacred place was a large painting that represented the gulf, the city and the huge boulder that loomed over it. At the centre of the bay a ship was setting out to sea. Underneath the painting were painted marks, all of the same colour, that stood for words. They looked much like the ones I’d seen long ago on the rim of the shield wielded by wanax Idomeneus, king of Crete and Knossos: a perfect weapon that had belonged to King Minos, Lord of the Labyrinth, before him.
‘Do you want to know what the marks say?’ Nausicaa asked me.
‘Yes, I do,’ I replied.
‘They say that one day a man will show up on the beach and ask for our help to return to his homeland. A man hated by Poseidon, our god and protector. If the Phaeacians decide to take him to his destination, they may do so, but upon their return, their ship will be turned into a rock at the entry to the port, blocking all access, and the boulder will fall from the mountain and crush the city under its enormous weight, destroying its houses and killing its inhabitants.’
Tears streamed from my eyes. ‘So there’s no escape for me. I’m that man. And this curse has been lying in wait here for me from time immemorial. As has this atrocious dilemma: I can either accept your help and condemn you to annihilation, or forever give up my island, my family, my people.’
My heart rejected this cruel sentence. I even hoped that Nausicaa had invented it all to convince me to stay and forget about returning. But she saw the expression on my face, the tears streaming down my face, and perhaps she took pity on me. She said: ‘There’s one last phrase. It says: “If the god so wishes.” So it may not happen.’
‘Your father knows of this prophecy, doesn’t he?’
‘Certainly, as do my mother, my brothers and the elders.’
‘Why would they do this for me?’
‘Wouldn’t you do the same thing? We are a great people, with a great heart.’
‘I would do the same.’
‘So you can surely understand the choice of the valiant Phaeacians, uncontested masters of the sea.’
My eyes ran over the painting, poring over every detail, every corner, and then stopping in the middle. ‘That ship . . .’
‘What about that ship?’
‘It has no means for steering.’
‘You saw ships like this one down at the port, didn’t you?’
‘I thought the oars had been stowed away.’
‘No. None of our ships have steering oars. They always know the route. The sailors will ask you where your island is and the ship will know how to take you there.’
I was dumbfounded. I realized that mortals could become like the gods and perhaps even better, if we could live according to fair laws and were led by the highest minds. But my heart ached at the thought that by accepting such a generous gift, I would be exposing those people that I had learned to love – that wondrously wise king and queen, and golden Nausicaa herself – to mortal danger. To the possible extermination of their whole people.
How could I accept? Alcinous, who was aware of the threatening prophecy, had offered me his daughter, certainly his most precious treasure, in the hope of binding me to this land. So that I would stay, forget about returning. After all my stories, he was surer than ever that I was the fatal man, he who gives rise to hatred, and he was just as sure that I had nothing to go back to. He knew that my world didn’t exist any more, or was dying. We had been away too long. Many kings had died or had gone missing. Others, like me, had been given up for dead. Too many young men in the bloom of their years had left their lives on the fields of Troy.
But I could not give up Ithaca and I already knew in my heart what I would say. I asked Nausicaa if her mother and father would receive me. Nothing penetrated from outside, neither sounds nor voices. Only the light of midday poured in from above like molten bronze, along with the twittering of sparrows.
‘They will hear you today,’ she replied. That was all I needed to know.
KING ALCINOUS and Queen Arete receive
d me in their chambers before sunset. A golden light streamed in through the window that looked out on the garden. The singing of youthful voices, a girls’ choir perhaps, wafted in gently as if carried by the breeze from a distant land.
‘You’ve asked to speak with us,’ said the king. ‘Why is that? Is something worrying you? Aren’t you pleased with what we’ve promised you? Do you doubt our word, perhaps? The ship that will take you home is ready, the strongest and most seasoned of our young men have been chosen as sailors. And you won’t be going home empty-handed. Let no one say you’ve lost all your ships and men and that you return wretched and poor.’ As he spoke, the queen nodded in assent at every phrase.
This is how far they were willing to go! They would cover me with gifts so my dignity would not be called into question.
‘Great king,’ I said, ‘splendid queen, no doubts could arise in my mind regarding your promises. I have had endless proof of your magnanimity. You are like gods for me. You are greater than they – the gods have often been cruel and relentless with me and they continue to be so, despite my sacrifices and prayers. If I acted as I did, it was only to save myself and my comrades from horrible deaths. But today, in your sanctuary, I learned of the woeful prophecy that threatens the destruction of your people and city if you help a man who has come from afar to return to his homeland. A man that the sea has tossed up onto your shores.
‘I won’t be the cause of your ruin. I beg of you, all I need is a solid boat that I can handle myself. I’ll use a steering oar made with my own hands. I have experience in woodworking. In this way, you will not be punished by a god who hates me and who heaps suffering upon me. I will sail alone towards my homeland and if it is my destiny to perish in the attempt, so be it. I don’t want others to suffer. I won’t let the enormous mass looming over you tear free of its moorings and come crashing down on your beautiful city and the people living here.’