Odysseus: The Oath

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘Are you playing by yourself?’ asked my father’s voice behind me.

  ‘There’s no one to play with.’

  ‘What do you expect to see when you toss your stones?’

  ‘They predict the future.’

  ‘And what do they say?’

  ‘That I’ll make a long journey. Like you.’

  ‘That’s easy to predict. You live on an island that seems big to you now. In a little while it will seem small to you.’

  ‘I’ll go where no one else has ever gone.’ I looked into my father’s sea-green eyes. ‘How far have you gone?’

  ‘To where the sea breaks up against the mountains. They are very high, and always covered with snow. The snow melts into rivers that rush and tumble to the sea. The journey is so short that the water never has time to warm up even when the sun is out, and it stays icy cold until it joins the water of the sea.’

  ‘Is that where you found the treasure?’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘The nurse.’

  My father lowered his head. He had some white strands in his black hair.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But do you want the real truth or the tale that the singers tell?’

  That was hard to answer. Was I interested in the real truth? Why should I be? The truth isn’t something for children. Once you tell about something, it becomes true. Like: the king of a little island departs for a great adventure. All of the most powerful warriors of Achaia are going. Could he possibly stay behind? That was the truth. But then, I started thinking that . . . for real, there were only men, goats, sheep and pigs on my island. But if someone should venture far away, really really far away, who knows what he might find: monsters? Giants? Sea serpents? Why not? The gods? Why not?

  ‘Tell me everything,’ I said. ‘Father, tell me about your comrades: is it true they are the greatest heroes of Achaia?’

  ‘They are!’ he smiled. ‘Hercules . . .’ he opened his arms wide, ‘is the strongest man on earth. When he flexes his muscles it’s a fearsome sight indeed. I believe he could kill a lion with his bare hands. No one can win a fight with him. His favourite weapon is a club; he never uses weapons made of metal. But he can bring down a bull with that club. Sometimes he would pull our ship to shore all by himself, and tie the hawser to an olive tree . . . You know what? He was the one who cut down the pine tree that we made the ship out of. A trunk so gigantic that twelve men could not join hands around it! The last of its kind on Mount Pelion. Then the master carpenter crafted the vessel using his hatchet on the outside and an adz on the inside. It was Hercules who gave the ship her name: the Argo, because she is so swift.’

  I don’t remember how long we sat on that stone watching the slow movement of shadow and light on the contours of our island. I listened intently, enchanted by my father’s voice, chewing on an oat stalk. The words poured from his mouth like flocks of birds from a cliff when the sun comes up. The sound was like a hunting horn when it rises in pitch. It would stay with me my whole life. I still wake at night to ‘Get up, we’re going hunting!’ Now that he’s no longer alive . . . Atta . . . my father . . . my king.

  Who was the strongest after Hercules, then? Who was it?

  2

  I REALIZED THAT MY FATHER enjoyed spending time with me. He took me into the forest with him and the dogs; when I was too tired he hoisted me onto his shoulders.

  ‘One on top of the other we’re a rather tall man,’ he would say, laughing. I liked watching him laugh: he bared a row of very white teeth, squeezed his eyes until they were just slits and the laughter burbled from his mouth.

  ‘When are we going to see grandfather on the mainland?’ I asked him once.

  ‘Soon. Your mother would like to visit as well and it’s been a long time since we saw him. When I was away she didn’t want to leave the palace and the kingdom. Three years . . . a long time indeed.’

  Every now and then I returned to my favourite thought: ‘You’ve never told me about the treasure. What was it?’

  ‘Ask Phemius. He’s our poet, isn’t he? He’ll tell you a wonderful story.’

  ‘I want the true one.’

  ‘Are you sure? The truth isn’t so interesting . . .’

  ‘For me it is.’

  ‘Well, then . . . There’s a river that runs into the second sea. It is called the Phasis and . . . it carries gold. Glittering specks just under the surface of the water, but you can’t catch them. The natives put sheepskins on the bottom where the river isn’t very deep and hold them still with rocks. The gold specks get stuck in the fleece and are captured that way. Every two days they set them out to dry and then they shake them onto a linen cloth to catch the gold. Lots of it.’

  ‘So that’s why you needed such a powerful ship and the proudest warriors of Achaia?’

  My father laughed again: ‘Well said, little one. Who told you that?’

  ‘Mentor. And so?’

  ‘The place is full of fierce warriors. They hide under the sand along the banks and they jump out all at once as if the earth had just delivered them up. They let out terrible war cries and they don’t seem to feel pain. How can you bring down a man who feels no pain?’

  ‘Everyone feels pain.’

  ‘Not them. Maybe they have a secret: a herb, they say, some kind of poison. The gold from the fleeces is kept inland, in a cave, and is guarded day and night. So that was our problem: how to find the place, take the gold, get back to the coast and set sail. What would you have done?’ My father’s eyes shone, catching the sun for an instant.

  ‘I would have become friends with one of them.’

  ‘We did something like that: our leader, Jason, the prince of Iolcus, sent gifts to the princess, then asked to be received by King Aeetes, her father. Jason is as handsome as a god and the princess fell in love with him. They would meet up in secret in the forest. . .’

  I thought of the night he returned when he went into the nurse’s room and what I heard. It that what falling in love was?

  Then he lowered his voice, as if he were talking to himself, as if he didn’t want anyone to hear: ‘. . . and they would make love, savagely, without saying a word.’ Then my father’s voice rose again: ‘Until one day Jason showed her a speck of gold in the palm of his hand and, using gestures, tried to explain what he wanted. Up until then, no one had attacked us: we were camped on the beach with the ship’s stern tied to an enormous olive tree and we spent our days fishing. Tunas as big as pigs would get entangled in our nets and we’d roast big pieces of them over the embers. Then one day Jason decided that the time had come. We set off at night with the girl as our guide, agile and silent as a fox! The sky was black and the clouds dropped down from the mountains almost all the way to the plain. It was like we were blind.

  ‘We were all armed: gigantic Hercules with his club, I with my sword and bow . . . we were joined by Tydeus and Amphiaraus from Argus, by Zetes and Calais, the so-called twin sons of the north wind – blond, their eyes icy and skin cold – and by Telamon of Salamis, tall and strongly built with his hair gathered at the nape of his neck in a bronze clasp . . . along with Iphitus of Mycenae and Oileus of Locris. Castor of Sparta, the wrestler, was with us, as was his twin brother Pollux, the boxer; they were very young, no more than boys . . . then there was Peleus of Phthia, home of the Myrmidons, as well as Admetus of Pherai, Meleager of Aetolia and so many others. Fifty of us in all. Twenty warriors remained with the ship, ready to man the lines and set sail at a moment’s notice. Amphiaraus stayed with them, sitting at the prow and staring into the darkness. Amphiaraus has big, dark eyes; they can delve into the mysteries of the past and the future, and his pupils dilate like a wolfs at night. His deep, unblinking eyes followed us that night: we were invisible to all except him. He knew whether we would come back or whether we would all be annihilated. He was a seer . . .

  ‘Peirithous, the king of the Lapiths, the warrior who had battled the centaurs, stayed behind as well, close to the olive tree with his axe
at the ready to cut the line as soon as we got back to the ship.’

  I looked at King Laertes my father and I imagined him surging forward through the night, his sword in hand, with all the other champions: the strongest of Achaia, the mightiest of the world . . . I felt lucky. I looked at his arms, his bull’s neck, his wide shoulders, and I knew I was lucky. I was his son. His only son. His story enthralled me. I would have listened to him all day and all night.

  ‘Go on, atta, tell me more.’

  The time had flown and the sun was high now on our right and it put sparkles in the water of the port, imprisoned by the green mountains sloping down between the light blue of the sky and the deeper blue of the sea. We sat in the shade of a fig tree, dappled by the light. The cicadas screeched. The dogs slumbered.

  ‘A steep, precarious path led us through the forest. We crossed a rocky gully so narrow that only one man could get by at a time, and then a swampy valley covered with tall grasses. We finally arrived at the site of the cave and the girl halted us. Fifty of their warriors were standing in the darkness, leaning on their spears. Shadows among the shadows. She had to point them out to us one by one. The tips of their spears reflected a dim light, but it was enough for us to make them out in the dark. The dying embers of a campfire. At the entrance to the cave was a very tall warrior covered with snake skins. His face was dark and his hand was closed around the haft of his spear.

  ‘Jason signalled for us to fan out into a semicircle and, at that instant, the girl shot an arrow into the nearly extinguished campfire and let out a shrill cry. The campfire blazed up with a blinding flash and lit up all the warriors on guard and the one standing at the entrance – he was covered with scales and looked like a dragon; his teeth had been filed to a point like the fangs of a beast. All at once we hurled our spears, all of us, then charged forward with our swords in hand. Jason took on the snake man and the night air rang with the din of their clashing. We fought like lions. Hercules’ legendary strength prevailed in an incredible show of force; Tydeus relentlessly dealt one blow after another without stopping for breath; Telamon had run out of weapons he could throw and began hurling rocks and boulders; Castor and Pollux landed stud-heavy punches and with every clout you could hear the sickening noise of bones shattering. There I was, panting and drenched with sweat, finally satisfied that no enemies were left standing, when I saw Hercules dragging two enormous slaughtered warriors by their feet. Dead meat. Jason had even managed to defeat the dragon man; he lit a torch then and we followed the girl into the cave. It was there that we all saw a glittering fleece hanging from the branches of a petrified oak. We were inside the cave of the treasure! Jason took it from the tree.’

  My father stopped but I couldn’t break my open-mouthed stare. He was looking into my eyes to see the image already forming there of the treasure in the cave.

  ‘Dozens of jars, shiny copper jars filled to the brim with gold. We sank our hands into them and sparkles flew from the mouths of the jars, twinkling like a thousand little lightning flashes . . .’

  ‘Father,’ I said, ‘where is our share? Can I see it?’

  He seemed not to hear my question. ‘We put sticks through the handles of the jars and carried them off like that to the sea; two of us had to struggle to lift a single one.’

  I realized that I felt short of breath. I was panting as if it were me carrying that weight of copper and gold. My heart was beating in my throat and at my temples.

  ‘Before long the night resounded with an ominous rolling of drums, which soon became confused with the rumble of distant thunder. We crossed the forest, the swamp, sinking into the mud up to our knees, made our way down the steep, narrow path . . . The wild princess leading us seemed terror-stricken and was shouting out words that none of us could understand but she was certainly telling us to go faster, faster and faster, because the drums were getting closer, our enemies were almost upon us. Lightning flashed over the fog, beyond the threshold of the night, ghosts of pale light first and then the bolts of Zeus himself rent the earth and the sky, set fire to the fog . . .’

  ‘Atta,’ I said, ‘the words coming from your mouth are magic ones, like the words that Mentor and Phemius use. Do you even remember now what really happened?’

  Once again my father hadn’t seemed to hear my question. The dogs lifted their snouts to sniff at something carried on the wings of the wind from far away . . .

  ‘They were upon us all at once and the wild princess shrieked like a falcon rushing at its prey. She let her arrows fly and many hit their mark. Our assailants twisted and turned, making weird noises, but they neither screamed nor groaned; some tried to pull the arrows from their flesh. Maybe it was true that they didn’t feel pain, or maybe they were accustomed to ignoring it. We fought back as best we could, but we were all nerves. All we could think of were the jars full of gold that might vanish while we fought in the dark . . .’

  ‘Atta, why do people want gold?’

  This time my father interrupted his story to answer me. ‘I could say it’s because it is the most beautiful of all metals. It’s like the sun. Its colour never changes, it doesn’t spoil or rust and every precious thing is made from this metal. But perhaps the reason is that since many people desire it, everyone desires it. And if everyone desires it, that must mean it is the most that any man could desire. Gold is power. The diadems of kings and the gowns of gods are made of gold.

  ‘There was no time to lose,’ he said then, picking up his story where he had left off. ‘I recognized the voices of Zetes and Calais nearby and I called out to them: “Run, run like your father the wind, go and call your comrades from the ship!”

  ‘They heard me and they raced down the path leading to the sea so fast that it didn’t look as if they were touching the ground, and we began fighting our assailants in earnest, in single combat. The wild princess blazed with an energy like fire and storm, as if fatigue could not touch her limbs. She struck first with her axe and then with her dagger, and when for a moment I was near her, I saw – or smelled, I couldn’t say which – that she was covered with blood. Jason, at her side, was no less of a fury, and Hercules, our bastion, was roaring like a lion as he took on a swarm of enemies, who probably could never have imagined that so much strength could spring from a single body.

  ‘I don’t know how much time passed. I do know that some of us were wounded, others died, although we continued to fight with all our might. But why had Zetes and Calais not returned? How long could it possibly take for the sons of Boreas to cover the distance that separated us from the ship and return?

  ‘I turned to Tydeus then, and shouted: “The horn! Sound the horn, that they may hear you!”

  ‘Tydeus began to blow into the shiny horn and soon a cry was launched in response. The sons of the wind were on their way back, bringing with them almost all of the comrades who had been guarding the Argo. Even Amphiaraus was with them: clad in bronze, his eyes in the night reflecting the light of the torches like those of a wolf. Our enemies fled. Exhausted as they were, they could not take on our warriors.

  ‘We finally reached the ship as the sky began to lighten to the east. The wild princess stripped naked and washed in the sea and then climbed a rope up to the prow. We weighed anchor.’

  The sun was just setting behind Mount Neritus and the shadow of the mountain already covered a quarter of the island although the night was still far off. The land wind rustled the leaves of the oaks around us. I couldn’t say a word because I could not return to reality. I was still with the warriors battling in the dark, or maybe I was already on the ship, watching as the shore became distant.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ asked my father, getting to his feet and taking my hand.

  ‘I’m thinking that’s the way a man should live. Like you. You sail the sea and fight battles and win treasures.’

  ‘Yes, maybe that’s how men like us must live our lives, but today I’ve spent the day with you talking while we’ve watched the light and shadows pass
ing over our island. This is a good way to live too.’

  ‘So one day I will be able to sail the seas and I’ll meet up with wild peoples in faraway lands . . .’

  ‘You certainly will. But look over there . . . smoke is rising from the roof of the palace and that means dinner will be ready soon: meat and bread and good wine. The palace will one day be yours, son. And you, that day, will be king of Ithaca.’

  3

  MY FATHER LEFT again and again for other exploits; he journeyed to meet other kings or princes, to establish alliances, to punish unruly subordinates or plunder the territories of tribes living in the north or in other places even further away.

  Not everyone always came back. When the young warriors accompanying him lost their lives, they were buried far from home. Their parents would never have the consolation of a tomb on which to weep for them. Other times, if there had been the time to build a pyre, the king returned with their ashes inside an urn, a covered jar with two handles, which he would give to the family after paying last respects, as custom required. Others came back wounded or maimed. My father himself often returned showing the signs of bitter combat on his own body; days and days would pass in idleness while he regained the strength and the blood he had lost, like a lion that hides in the forest to lick its wounds after being attacked by a pack of fierce mastiffs.

  I was thirteen years old the day he was brought back to the palace from his ship on a stretcher borne by four men. He was pale as death and his chest was bound with bloodstained bandages. When the women heard the news they pulled out their hair and wailed as if they were grieving for a dead man. I cried too, but I swallowed my tears so no one could hear, the way I had been taught.