Odysseus: The Return

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  We stayed for one long month at the court of Aeolus, his wife, and his sons and daughters, all united in marriage amongst themselves. Every day, as evening fell, the king invited us to his table, ready with a thousand questions for me about the war, its bravest heroes, our most daring endeavours. He never tired of listening to my stories and I never tired of telling them. This is how a guest repays the hospitality he receives, by recounting events that the master of the house will never be able to see or experience in person. I could feel his interest becoming keener day by day. He asked about Hector and Achilles, about Great Ajax and about the king of Achaian kings, Agamemnon. At times he even clapped his hands like a child when I began my tales.

  The strangest thing was that he never asked to know my name, as was the right of any host with his guest. Nor did I tell him who I was. He called me his ‘guest’ or his ‘dear friend’ and that was fine with me. One evening it was I who bid him to speak: ‘Oh lord who reigns over this island, I would like to ask you some questions, for I am always desirous to learn that which other men do not know.’

  ‘Speak, then, and I will answer you.’

  ‘From the moment we arrived, I have never felt a breath of wind. How is this possible? I have never seen an island without wind, although the islands are quite numerous in my homeland and I have visited a great number of them.’

  ‘I shall tell you why: I am a tamer of winds and I have power over them. This power has been given to me by the gods. They know well that I have never abused this gift.’

  ‘I had imagined as much,’ said I, ‘and I would thus appeal to you for that which lies closest to my heart. My companions and I have suffered greatly under the walls of Troy and on our voyage at sea as well. Our greatest desire is to see our home again, the land where we were born and where we have our houses and our families. On this unfamiliar sea we despair of finding our way. Help us, I beg of you, tell us how we can find our home again.’

  The lord of the winds smiled: ‘I will be glad to do so, because I have much enjoyed this time with you. Prepare for your departure and tomorrow I will join you at the port.’

  We took our leave, rendering homage to him and to the queen, and returned to our ships. I was happy because I felt that the end to our troubles and tribulations was near. Would we have to cross the wall of fog again? Would we return to familiar waters, recognize the invisible paths of the sea?

  The next day, the ships were ready, loaded with food and water, and the men were sitting at the rowlocks, their hands gripping the oar handles. When Dawn tinged the sky and the sea foam pink, Aeolus, the lord of the winds, appeared on a litter borne by eight servants. Next to him was a well-sewn skin, its mouth closed with a silver chain. He stopped in front of me: ‘Listen well to what I am about to tell you, even if it seems impossible to believe. In this bag, I have trapped every unfavourable wind that could push you off your course. The only one I’ve left free is Zephyr, which blows from the west. All you need to do is steer straight and you will arrive at your island.’

  I never took my eyes off Aeolus as he spoke. I was careful not to miss any tiny movement of his face or his lips, any change of the light in his eyes, and it seemed to me that, after having pronounced the last word, a shadow crossed his features. It was barely perceptible, and yet his mouth seemed to twist into a mocking, or perhaps pitying, smile. I swiftly told myself that I was imagining it, because my heart wanted to believe completely in his promise. When I thanked him I had tears in my eyes. His servants stowed the big sack, made of a single bull hide, under the planks at the stern of the royal ship, my own, and I went aboard. I had the signal for departure hoisted and the horn sounded once, twice, three times.

  The fleet made a wide circle inside the port, then my ship ventured out into the open sea and behind us the other ships, sailing in an oblique line so that I would never lose sight of any of them, by day or by night. My eyes turned back to seek out Aeolus, the tamer of winds, and the walls of his city reflecting the light of the sun. I left a lookout at the bow and went to the stern so I could govern the steering oar myself. All day and all night.

  Is it possible for a man not to sleep? Even as an entire day elapses, or two, or three? One would say not, but if you keep your thoughts anchored to the tasks you attend to, every strain becomes bearable. You continue to tell your heart: do not sleep, heart of mine, hold out, you’re already within sight of your island, you can already smell the scent of myrtle on the breeze. Your ship has already been sighted from the high palace on the mountain. A procession is being prepared to come and meet you. Your standard has told them that the king is back. Your son is leading the procession, garbed in blinding bronze, and behind him is the queen his mother, your bride, even more beautiful than when you left her . . .

  Stay awake, stay awake, stay awake. I trusted no one, perhaps not even myself. I didn’t want any unexpected event to surprise me, didn’t want to let destiny or some god play a trick on me. The most dangerous was not Poseidon, even in his wrath. The worst was Hypnos, the sleep who is brother to death. He swirled around me, tried to seduce me with the never-changing sing-song pounding of waves against the prow. I envied my men as they stretched out on the rowing benches at night and, covered with their woollen cloaks, slept.

  I wouldn’t have thought it possible that a man could go for two days without sleeping. And yet three, four went by. The wind was as monotonous as the waves, always the same, blowing and singing the same song with the same voice. I forced myself to keep thinking that with each passing hour I was that much closer to having my desires come true. That bitter nostalgia that Penelope had once sung about in Sparta was about to end. But even that gentle voice was turning into a tedious, formless refrain. Sleep, the twin of Thanatos, wanted me to surrender, wanted me to crawl under the benches in exhaustion, oblivious to my surroundings, so that he could freely command my destiny. ‘But I am Odysseus son of Laertes, king of Ithaca, destroyer of cities and I will not yield.’ Thus I sought to inspire strength and pride into my weary heart.

  Every now and then, during the day, I would allow myself a moment of watchful rest, certain that I could never fall asleep under the blinding sun, with the screeching of the seagulls, given my obligation to lead the fleet. I’d learned to sleep while awake and to remain alert in my sleep, calling on my goddess, who I hadn’t heard from in such a very long time. The men couldn’t understand what I was up to. They thought that I had lost my faith in them or that folly was fogging my mind.

  ‘Why don’t you try to sleep for a short while. What is this delirium?’ asked Eurylochus. ‘You’ve always trusted me with the steering oar, and I’ve never given you anything to complain about.’ But any voice that spoke to me in that way was the voice of the god who wanted to put me to sleep and deprive me of my return, and I became even more strongly convinced that I could not surrender, could not allow anyone to touch the helm.

  Four, five, six days passed. I was performing a miracle, something that no one before me had ever succeeded in doing. The longing for sleep turned into pain, becoming sharper and sharper. Pain that did not help me stay awake, but only hurt me; my heart, my eyes, my mind. At night I could hear the harpies cawing from the yard at the top of the sail. They were perched up there, rapacious, just waiting for me to fall asleep so they could tear me apart. How often I drew my sword! The boundaries between day and night, wakefulness and sleep, madness and reality, no longer existed, and this generated a weary anguish in me that weakened me without disabling me, annihilated me without killing me.

  I spent the seventh and the eighth day in the same way. I ate often, but in small quantities so as not to burden my stomach nor weigh down my eyelids. I could not become accustomed to my condition. The brief snatches of rest seemed to help at first, but then seemed to make me even drowsier. The smell of land was wafting out to me or perhaps I was already asleep and dreaming. The last night was the longest and the most difficult. I felt tormented, and the men watched me with eyes full of dismay. They didn
’t recognize me any more; I had become a stranger to them.

  On the ninth day, just before dawn, I saw a dark mass on the horizon and the outline of a mountain that I could not have mistaken for any other on earth.

  Ithaca.

  My island, her fragrance, her colours, her surroundings were for me like the body of the bride I had so long desired. My eyes, red from such inconceivable strain, filled with tears and the salt burned them. I would soon touch the stones and sand, the rocks, the bushes . . . I would see my son.

  For a moment I thought it was a dream, as the dawn showed her rosy fingers behind the dark mass of the mountains. Then I plunged into total unawareness.

  When I opened my eyes, a storm was raging.

  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 transpare
nt 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.