The Bull From the Sea: A Novel

by Mary Renault

  I thought of my life, the good and evil days; of the gods, and fate; how much of a man’s life and of his soul they make for him, how much he makes for himself. What if Pirithoos had not come for me, when I was setting out for Crete? What man would I have become? What Cretan son had gone unborn, in the years that made Hippolytos? Or what if Phaedra had cried “Rape!” another day, when the earthquake-sickness was not on me? Yet I had made already the man who heard that cry. Fate and will, will and fate, like earth and sky bringing forth the grain together; and which the bread tastes of, no man knows.

  One morning when I had been there a month, or perhaps a season, I lay awake as the day was breaking. The cocks had crowed, and I could see the dark sea-margin against a glimmering sky. My thoughts were far off, at the bull-dance, or some old war; when the floor shook beneath my bed, and my cup fell from the stand beside me. Voices of folk just wakened filled the house, calling on Earth-Shaker Poseidon. The cocks crowed again; I remembered how noisy they had been before, crying all together. To them the god had sent his warning; but none to me.

  So I knew who had struck me, and why. The Immortals are just; one cannot mock them. He had cast off his son, as I had cast off mine.

  One of the women came to see I had taken no harm, and picked up the fallen cup, and went away. When all was quiet again, I pulled myself up a little on my good arm, and looked at the table across the room. The knife was there, which they cut my food with. If I roll from the bed, I thought, and along the floor, surely my arm will reach it. The earth grows weary of my weight, and has carried it long enough.

  To edge myself over, I lifted my left arm with the other, to shift its weight. And as I looked at the hand, I saw the fingers moving, grasp for grasp. Only a little way; but at my will they strengthened, and curved again. I touched them; the sense was dull, but it was there. The life was coming back to them.

  The sun was rising. I thought of Athens, and all that I had built there. And even though the god’s sign had left me, yet all that I was said “Mine!” So I lived, and waited.

  The seasons passed. Slowly, month by month, the life crept back into the dead limbs like sap into a withered tree. After the movement and the feeling, it was as long again till some strength returned. I stood against two men’s shoulders; then with one man; then holding by the chair; but it was another year before I could walk alone. And then I dragged one foot, as I do a little still.

  On a day in spring, I called the women to trim my hair and beard, and asked for a mirror. I looked ten years older; my hair was almost white; the left-hand corner of my mouth and eye still had a downward turn, and that side of my face looked always sour. But it seemed men would still know me. When I was ready, I picked up my staff and walked by myself into the sunshine. My men saw me, and cheered.

  That evening I sent for my steersman Idaios, and said to him, “Soon we sail home.” He answered, “Sir, I think it is time.”

  I asked him what he meant; he said he had heard there was trouble in Athens, or some disorder; but the men he had it from were ignorant islanders, and knew no more.

  When my men came and went, they had wisely kept as near the truth as they could; saying they were seamen of mine I had left upon the island to keep a base for my ships. People do not meddle with a pirate hold. With this tale, they would ask for news of me, and learn what was being said.

  Idaios had made out he was telling me everything; but now he owned he had been hearing rumors about Athens for a year. “My lord, I know you. One way or another, from doing too little or too much, you’d have come by your death. Well, I must answer for it. I did what seemed the best.”

  It was a good while since others had decided what was best for me. But I owed him too much to be angry. By his lights he was right; and I am still glad that we parted friends.

  And yet, when I got to Athens, I wished many times I had died upon the island, suddenly, at the hand of the god; they say the second time ends a man without pain. While I was there, sitting in the little window, watching a locust nibble at a leaf, or a lizard catching flies, I thought myself unhappy; yet in my mind I still possessed the fruits of all my life work, standing for men to see in the time to come. I was rich, if I had known.

  What is this man, Menestheus? Hippolytos once asked me that; he saw further into him man I, but still not far. His own mind was too single, seeing in other men not his own image, but a god’s child crying to be set free. He could never have followed to its heart that twisting labyrinth, nor seen with that squinting eye, nor read desires that did not know even themselves—he who had lent all his will to the gods of light. No; even he, if he had been king, would not have seen what he had to deal with. But maybe some god who loved him might have fought for him. None did for me.

  A conqueror, a rival, I could have understood. He would have seized what I had made, and boasted of it. His bards would make songs about the great realm he had taken from King Theseus, for himself and his sons’ sons. Such a man would never have left me living. But he would have left what I built to stand.

  But Menestheus … he is like a doctor who weeps over the sick, and gives them poison, persuading himself it will do them good. He has another man within him, whom he obeys, but whose face he has never seen.

  Little by little, while I was gone, the power came into his hands. But I am not even sure he plotted for it; that is, the Menestheus whom Menestheus knew. He would say of himself that he taught men to be free, to trust in themselves, to hold up their heads before men and gods, to bear no wrongs. It may be he would truly have taught these things, if the whole man had desired them.

  Did he want the people to love him? Yet he himself loved no man, for what in himself he was; a man was dead to Menestheus, unless he was a cause to fight for. But when at Menestheus’ urging he had embroiled himself with powerful enemies, where Menestheus had not strength to back him, and had increased his own wrongs sixfold, then he must hate six men where he had hated one before; so much the more would Menestheus love him, and take credit for having been his friend. In my own time, when I had a wild beast like Prokrustes to put down, I never moved till I could crush him quickly, and set his prisoners free. But Menestheus, if someone was oppressive, would threaten and bluster long before he could perform, so as to be praised for hating evil; then the man grew angry, and hurt all those in his power to hurt; and Menestheus had more wrongs to shout about. Men who did good in quiet, without anger, he thought were spiritless, or corrupt. Anger he understood; but he had no kindness for men before the wrong was done, which would have kept it undone.

  All custom he hated, whether it had outlived its use or not. He hated all obedience, whether to good law or bad. He would root out all honor and reverence from the earth, to keep one man from getting a scruple more than his due. Maybe there was only hatred at his core, and whatever he had found around him, that he would have destroyed. For surely if it had been men that he loved, or justice, he could have built something on the ruins that he made?

  Before, when I have tried to understand my enemies, it has been to plan against them. Why try now when it is finished, why not be content to curse? But while man is man he must look and think; if not forward, back. We are born asking why, and so we end. So the gods made us.

  Would he have had me poisoned or stabbed in Athens, if he had dared? The Palace people showed that they loved me still; he might not have lived long after. Was it cunning, or some flaw of will, or the wish to think well of himself, that made him leave me alive to struggle with the chaos of the broken kingdoms, worse by far than they were in my father’s day? When I banished him for his bad stewardship, he even went, but not very far. You need not go far now, to leave the Attic kingdom.

  Crete broke away two years ago and more; Idomeneus is King there. While I was sick, every man on the island knew that but I. Megara has found a prince of its ancient kindred; and they say that now when you cross the Isthmus, once more you need a guard of seventy spears. Only Eleusis keeps its Mystery, unchanged since Orpheu
s shaped it. A life is there that has grown beyond his or mine. It will take more than Menestheus, to put that out. More than darkness; a greater light.

  The secrecy of my sickness has fought against me. A few of the Shore Folk heard something, wild ignorant folk who did not know where to sell it, but let it blow here and there like thistle-seed. Perhaps the old wise-woman spun it into one of her tales. The truth has mixed with the lie I put about; they are saying I went down into the earth to ravish a sacred priestess, and was cursed by the Goddess, and spent four years there in a magic chair my limbs had grown to; that my legs are wasted, and my left foot limps, because when at last I was pulled free the flesh was torn away. From all this they argue that the gods are no longer with me, and my luck is out. Even missing the sea-marks, one can still make port.

  I saw young Akamas, whom I left in Euboia with a chief I trust. He will be safe enough there. The people of Athens do not hate him, but think him too much a Cretan, while Menestheus is of the ancient kin. I can hardly blame him for not having stopped Menestheus, who started his work when the lad was barely fifteen. He was so shocked by the change in me, that trying to hide it took up all his mind, and it was hard to find out what he thought. But he seems not to hate Menestheus, even to think of him as a man who has done his best. Year by year, as he has been growing up, his heritage has been shrinking; it seems his ambition too has been growing backwards. Of his mother, we did not speak.

  He is happiest among the other lads in Euboia, dancing and riding and making love (he does not care for girls) and being as like as he can to all the rest. I can see a day when Menestheus leads forth the men of Athens to some foreign war he should have kept them clear of, with Akamas carrying a shield under his command; if he wins honor among his comrades, he will ask no more. Yet he is my son; and, as I have seen, a god has touched him. Some day, I believe, in Athens’ hour of need, the god will speak again, and give her back a king.

  As for me, I cannot stand steady in a chariot now, nor grasp a shield; my left-hand fingers have never got back their grip. And I, who stood on the Rock of Athens and broke the northern hordes; who cleansed the Isthmus, and changed the customs of Eleusis; who killed Asterion Minotaur in the throne room of the Labyrinth, and carried the bounds of Attica as far as the Isle of Pelops: I will not sit down in the house of my fathers to hear young children say, “Was that Theseus once?”

  Menestheus has sowed; let him do the reaping. Yet these are my people; and I tried to warn them, before I went away. Age after age, the tides have risen in the northland. They rose in my day; they will rise again. I know that they will rise. But my face has changed, and my voice; the people thought I was calling this evil down, as a curse upon the City. And thus I parted from Athens. Maybe the gods are just; but the man is gone who could have shown it me.

  It was for Crete that I set sail. Idomeneus is a man I can understand. Being once secure in power, he will be noble; and I have never wronged him, for that to make me ashamed. If I had gone to my old Palace in the south, to end my days there, he would have been courteous and free, offering me the show of kingship as I did to his father once. To sit on a Cretan terrace, watching the darkening of the grapes; a man might do worse, who can do nothing better.

  So I set out from Euboia. But a wind of fate blew me to Skyros.

  It is a windy island, shaped like a bull’s brow; on one horn hangs the Citadel with a tall cliff under, for fear of such pirates as I have been. Not that Skyros has been the worse for me; it has a name for stony fields and half-filled grain jars, and I have never robbed the poor. King Lykomedes made me as welcome as if it were ten years back. As we sat over our wine, he told me he often puts out to sea himself upon adventure, when the last harvest has been poor. I had heard so, though our paths have never crossed. He is a man of the Shore Folk, dark-bearded, with shadowy eyes, one who does not tell all his mind. It is said of him that he was reared in the shrine at Naxos, and is the son of a priestess by the god.

  Of this he did not speak. We swapped old sea-tales; and he told me he, like Pirithoos, was sent in his boyhood to the Kentaur hills. Old Handy, he says, is still alive in some high cave on Pelion; his people are fewer, but his school goes on. One of his boys, the King of Phlia’s heir, is a guest here now on Skyros; hidden to avoid some fate of an early death, which his priestess mother saw in omens. They chose an island to stop him from running away; for the death-fate carried an everlasting fame along with it, and the boy would have gone consenting.

  As we sat in the window, Lykomedes showed him to me, climbing up the long stairs of the rock. Up he came, out of the evening shadow into the last kiss of the sun, as springy and brisk as noonday, his arm round a dark-haired friend. The god who sent him that blazing pride should not have added love to be burned upon it. His mother will lose her pains, for he carries his doom within him. He did not see me; and yet his eyes spoke to mine.

  King Lykomedes, standing at my shoulder, said, “He was off somewhere, when your ship came in. He will think this the great day of his life, when he learns who is here. Whenever, for his father’s sake, I try to keep him back from some reckless dare or other, he always tells me ‘Theseus would have done it.’ That is his touchstone for a man.”

  He beckoned up his servant, saying, “Go tell Prince Achilles to wash and put on his best, and come up here.”

  I said it had been a long day and a rough crossing, and I would rather see the boy tomorrow. He called the man back and said no more of it, but led me to my room. It is near the crest of the crag; for the palace is built into it like a swallow’s nest. In the glow of the sunken sun one could see all over the island, and, beyond, great sweeps of sea.

  “In clear weather,” he said, “one sees Euboia. Yes, that point of light must be a watch-fire there. But you are used to an eagle’s perch; I think your rock is higher?”

  “No,” I answered. “Yours has a hill below it, and mine a plain. This stands higher by far. But if you take cliff for cliff, just the sheer drop, I daresay there is not much in it.”

  “If my house speaks of home to you,” he said, “so use it, and I am content.”

  I lay down, being tired, and sent off my servants. I was thinking, before I fell asleep, of the flashing light-footed boy, awaiting tomorrow. It would be good to spare him that. Let him keep this Theseus who speaks for the god within him. Why change a god for a lame old man with a twisted mouth? I could warn him of what he is; but it would not alter him. Man born of woman cannot outrun his fate. What need, then, to trouble his short morning with the griefs of time? He will never live to know them.

  So I was thinking, when weariness closed my eyes. I slept; and I dreamed of Marathon.

  It seemed I was wakened by a great din of battle. I leaped from my naked bed; I was in old Hekaline’s cottage, young again, with my arms beside me. I snatched them and ran outside. The sun shone brightly; beached along the strand was a great fleet of warships, full of outlandish warriors scrambling ashore. They were too many for pirates; it was war, and a great one; for all the men of Athens were there, drawn up to defend their fields. As one finds in dreams, there was something quaint about them; they had helms of bronze, with curving crests like the hoopoe’s, and little round shields painted with beasts and birds. But I knew them for my people; and few enough they looked, facing that horde, as we were when the Scythians came. I thought of the City, the women and children waiting; and I forgot I had ever suffered wrong from Athens. Once more I was the King.

  It was all foot-fighting; I don’t know where the chariots were. Just then some chief started the paean, and they gave the war-yell, charging at a run. I thought, “They know I am with them! Marathon always brought me luck, and I am the luck of Marathon.” My feet were light as I raced up through the press into the vanguard; and when I reached the line of the barbarians, in my hands was the sacred ax of Crete, that I used to kill the Minotaur. I swung it about my head; the outlanders gave backward; then the men of Athens knew me, and started to cry my name. The enemy wer
e on the run for their ships, clambering and falling and drowning; it was victory, clear and sure. We gave a great yell of triumph; and my own noise woke me. I was lying with the moon upon my face, by the window that looked down at the crags of Skyros. Sound travels far on a quiet night; even so high, I heard the sound of the sea.

  The dream is gone; why has it left no grief of loss behind it? Hope comes in these waves, like water filling a dried-up pool. Here from the window, I see the sea smooth as a mirror spread with moonlight; yet the sound grows. Is it true, then, as Oedipus said to me at Kolonos, that the power returns? The gods sent me as a guide to him; have they sent Lykomedes now to me? If my house speaks of home to you, so use it.”

  Yes; it is rising. Not high and exultant, as it was upon the Pnyx; but steady, sure and strong. Bitterness scours away in it. I will not offer my death to strangers, like Oedipus of Thebes. Let Father Poseidon have it, to keep against my people’s need. There will be a time, as my dream foretold. In the dream they had no king with them; maybe he would not make the offering. They knew me, and cried my name. Some harper had brought it down to them. While the bard sings and the child remembers, I shall not perish from off the Rock.

  This balcony clings to the living cliff. I see a walk beyond it, threading the crag. That will do well. If I go from here, it might be said that Lykomedes murdered me. It would be discourteous to shame my host. But there is only Akamas left to ask my blood-price; and he, though he is half Cretan, knows well enough how the Erechthids die.

  Surely goats made this track. That boy, Achilles, might scramble here for a dare. No place, this, for a dragging foot; but all the better. It will seem like mischance, except to those who know.

  The tide comes in. A swelling sea, calm, strong and shining. To swim under the moon, onward and onward, plunging with the dolphins, singing … To leap with the wind in my hair …