Odysseus: The Oath

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  He charged the Trojan front flanked by our greatest champions, in an onslaught of chariots, horses and warriors that ploughed into the enemy lines with a ferocious crash. Hector, on the opposite end of the front, was easily defeating the less-seasoned warriors drawn up there. I led my men in support of the main attack, pouring into the breach that Agamemnon had created and continued the massacre.

  Agamemnon fought like a lion until midday, with a fury that would have amazed even Achilles, slaying at least ten of the enemy by his own hand. For all that time it seemed that nothing and no one could stop him. The storm of unerring blows added to his momentum and inspired those fighting at his side. He was terror personified.

  I myself couldn’t believe what I was seeing. To our left the tomb of an ancient Trojan king, which surged like a cliff from the waves of the sea, was surrounded by warriors fleeing in every direction. At a certain moment, the Skaian Gate appeared, the city’s main bulwark looming over us. As we advanced, I could see limbs and lopped-off heads littering the ground, the work of Agamemnon and the other warriors.

  But when the sun rose to the centre of the sky, only then did destiny turn against us. I saw Agamemnon’s chariot racing back towards our camp, his face – no longer covered by the helmet! – a mask of pain. The king had been wounded!

  Hector must have realized what had happened and he turned in our direction. The sight of him struck terror into our hearts: he was travelling at tremendous speed, overturning everything he found in his way. He had surely seen Agamemnon retreating towards the rampart and imagined he could put us all to flight. Our men were indeed withdrawing towards the camp. Even indomitable Diomedes was yielding ground, and then decidedly pulling back in the face of Hector’s rage. What the Trojan prince wanted was to get at our ships and burn them. Now it was my turn to call after Diomedes, and I shouted with all the wind I had in me: ‘Where do you think you’re going, mate! What happened to your courage? You can’t expect me to stop him alone! Give me a hand, together we can do it!’

  Diomedes turned towards me and focused on me with that same strange expression he’d had when he picked me out of the crowd at his father’s funeral in Argus. A few moments later he was at my side and was aiming his spear. He flung it with a violent thrust at Hector, who was no more than twenty cubits away from us. The shaft flew as straight as an arrow shot from a bow and hit Hector square in the head. We saw him sway and then collapse onto the bottom of his chariot. His driver turned the chariot in the direction of the gate while Diomedes screamed any number of insults after him. He pushed his way through the enemy throng, shoving them aside with his shield and sword, desperate to get his spear back. He didn’t trust any other. I didn’t want to leave him alone and ran after him, catching up with him just in time: an arrow had nailed his foot to the ground.

  I planted myself directly in front of him, protecting him with my shield and trying to keep the enemies flocking in from every direction at a distance.

  ‘Don’t let up!’ Diomedes yelled. ‘I’m going to pull out the arrow!’ But as soon as I looked around me, I realized that I’d lost contact with all the others. Diomedes couldn’t keep on his feet and his men lifted him onto his chariot and had his driver Sthenelus take him away.

  I knew that it was all over for me.

  I heard Diomedes’ voice, then, as his chariot moved further and further away: ‘Don’t give up, Odysseus! Don’t give up, we’ll come back to get you!’ I remembered the promise I’d made to Penelope, that I’d come home from the war, and I saw her eyes and her filmy gaze. I whirled my sword and spear all around me, making sure that my shield was solidly fastened to my arm. I didn’t know how long I’d be able to hold out. I stopped for a moment, gasping for breath, and instantly became the target of an unknown man, who would soon be given a name: the man who had killed cunning-minded wanax Odysseus. A swift, solid spear took flight from his hand as I shouted out the triple war cry of the king of Ithaca:

  ‘He – ha – heee!

  ‘He – ha – heee!

  ‘He – ha – heee!’

  The spear had pierced my shield and breastplate without silencing my shout.

  But I was at the end of my strength. In no time at all they would have the better of me. I extracted the spear from my shield and breastplate so I could defend myself and I felt hot blood streaming down my thigh. The unknown warrior cried out in exultation, but a sharper, more vigorous cry blared out like a trumpet behind me: ‘We’re here, Odysseus!’ And an enormous shield, a wall of bronze, was raised before me. A huge body covered me, while another bright warrior set himself firmly beside me, on my wounded side. Ajax the Great! Menelaus!

  Menelaus grabbed my arm and someone else hoisted me onto a chariot. We took off swiftly, bouncing over fallen bodies and cast-off weapons, in the direction of the ditch and the palisade and then all the way to the ships.

  I was eased onto a bed; my armour was taken off me and tossed onto the ground – the noise rang loudly in my ears. Pain seared through my wounded side, but I clenched my jaw shut. There were so many screams of pain all around me.

  For a moment I lost the light; I could see nothing at all, but then I felt flames burning my flesh again and smelled an acrid, scorched odour. I opened my eyes to see Eurylochus, my cousin, bending over me with a red-hot dagger in his hand.

  ‘I’ve stopped the bleeding,’ he said. ‘You’ll heal.’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘The only ones still holding out are the two Ajaxes, Idomeneus and Menelaus; all the other commanders are wounded and incapable of fighting. Hector has come back out and he’s flanked by his best: Aeneas, Helenus, Deiphobus, even that spineless worm Paris has somehow found some guts and is shooting off arrow after arrow and hitting his mark every time. They left their chariots on the other side of the ditch, descended on foot and climbed back up the side of the rampart. They’re pressing against the palisade now with everything they’ve got, trying to take the gate off its hinges; the bolts look like they may give at any moment. Our men are utterly exhausted. They haven’t rested all day, haven’t eaten since dawn.’

  I felt my heart sinking. Could it be possible that so much toil, blood and grief had all come to this? My goddess hadn’t shown herself for such a long time. Perhaps she had abandoned me; even she could not defy fate. Or perhaps she simply no longer loved me. That was natural; after all, how could a being that would never die feel any real emotions?

  I said to my cousin: ‘Go outside, go to the top of the rampart and then come back to tell me what’s happening. This uncertainty is killing me! Go, and take care!’

  Eurylochus left and I dropped back down onto the bed, exhausted. My side hurt terribly; the pain was so acute that no other part of my body could relax or rest.

  Time passed and then my ears were assaulted by a confused noise: thousands of shouts melting into a single shout, into a single language, into a single, immense, senseless shudder of pain.

  How many of us would survive? Who would outlive the massacre and who would be cast headlong into Hades, leaving dreams, desires, hopes to the winds?

  As my heart pondered these questions, I heard voices very close to my tent. One of them was familiar to me: Patroclus!

  I slipped off the bed onto the floor, dragged myself to the tent entrance and looked outside. There they were, at less than five paces from me: Patroclus, helping one of our warriors who had been wounded. An arrow was sticking out of his thigh and he was bleeding copiously.

  It was the wounded man he was talking to: ‘I’ll get this out of your leg and medicate your wound, but I can’t stay long to help you. Nestor has given me an important mission. I have to talk to Achilles at once.’

  Before I knew it, Patroclus was running past me.

  ‘Patroclus!’ I called out.

  ‘Odysseus! No! You’ve been wounded as well.’

  ‘So have Agamemnon, Diomedes, and so many others. Even Makahon, our surgeon himself, is down. Patroclus, there’s no one at the head
of the army. The only men still out there are the two Ajaxes, Menelaus and Idomeneus. I even saw Nestor, old as he is, entering the battlefield to defy death.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Go. But tell me, what mission has the old man given you? I overheard you speaking to that warrior.’

  ‘I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone! No one must know. It’s our last hope.’

  He fled, swift as the wind. As I was pulling myself back towards the bed, Eurylochus burst in, sweaty and panting. ‘Hector has overwhelmed our defences,’ he said. ‘The Trojans are pouring in from every direction. They’re carrying torches!’

  ‘Help me,’ I replied. ‘Bandage this wound as tightly as you can, and help me get my armour on. I won’t die in a bed.’

  I LEFT THE TENT, leaning on my spear, and headed to Agamemnon’s tent, where I found Diomedes as well. We decided to join our men who were still in combat; our presence would give them courage, if nothing else.

  The clash became even fiercer. Hector sensed that victory was very close at hand; he was convinced that Zeus himself was protecting him and he seemed animated by unrelenting energy. But our own men were emboldened to see that Diomedes and I were still alive and they regrouped compactly around Idomeneus, the two Ajaxes and Menelaus.

  The battle dragged on without either side prevailing, but with heavy losses on one side and the other. Severed heads rolled on the ground under my feet, others were hurled by the Achaians towards the Trojan ranks. Men with spear shafts run through them front to back keeled over onto the ground, their fingers clawing into the sand in the spasm of death. I could see Agamemnon’s face, sallow with anguish, his features tense and twisted, his hand spasmodically gripping the handle of his spear.

  The howl of battle swelled in intensity until it pierced the clouds. The wind of madness had enveloped me again, whipping me into a delirium that made me feel I was outside of myself. I was no longer in my body, in my time, in that place. I was no longer perceiving what was around me, not measuring with my eyes or with my mind. It was in that kind of dimension that I could feel the presence of the gods and if Athena had removed the fog that prevents mortals from seeing them, they would have appeared to me in their true guise. If only I could have taken up arms, if only my wounded side would sustain me!

  Hector’s torch was getting closer and closer to our vessels. The battle was raging within sight of the ships; at certain spots even between one craft and another. The bulk of enemy forces was trying to isolate the ship of Protesilaus, the furthest from the centre of the camp, the closest to the rampart and the most exposed to the wind. If that ship was set ablaze the fire would spread to all the others.

  Ajax jumped onto the beached ship that had never been put to sea since the moment of our landing. He planted himself at the prow and grabbed with both hands an enormous spear with a huge metal head built for naval warfare. Many men were normally required to handle it; they would push it with great thrusts into the keels of enemy ships below the waterline in an attempt to sink them. But Ajax brandished it with no help, mowing down his adversaries, running through two or three of them at once. Men dropped to the ground all around him as he leapt from one rowing bench to another, roaring like a lion. Arrows rained like hail on his helmet, on the shoulders covered by a double plate of bronze, but he seemed not to feel them. His heart must have been shouting in his chest: ‘Hold out, do battle, rock of the Achaians, mountain that walks, do not give in to the fatigue cramping your muscles, to the pain in your chest. Hold out, friend, Great Ajax!’

  It was all useless anyway. Even Ajax, surrounded on every side like a boar by a pack of dogs, would fall. It was just a question of time. Ajax never asked the gods for succour; the only help he got was from his own arms, his great heart, and his friend of the same name. All at once, I became aware that what I was seeing was changing slowly before my eyes. I wasn’t seeing what was real. Colours were melting into one another and the racking scream of the battle, the shrill choir of thousands of men hit, pierced, slashed, was fused for me into a single strain, the same the solitary poet had sung for me at the port that night so many years before. Could that be me, crying such a bitter cry? I was like a man who has fallen into a swirling river who can no longer fight the force of the current. Arrows were whistling by me alongside my head, my neck, but I could do nothing to bend or dodge them. I didn’t know, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel. And as I awaited the final blow I sought deep inside myself the strength to shout out the triple war cry of the king of Ithaca for the last time.

  But the sound changed. It was a roar now, of thunder in a storm, the clash of thousands and thousands of shields beaten by thousands of swords. Something had changed the course of events; the scale of fate had sharply, swiftly tilted. The shouting I’d heard, so confused and unrecognizable at first, became clear and distinct. The shout was: ‘Achilles!’

  How was that possible? Ignoring my pain, I ran towards Protesilaus’ ship which was already being licked by fire. Hundreds of men with buckets and urns, with their own helmets, were throwing water at the flames, extinguishing them as they were born. The Trojans were fleeing as the Myrmidons exited their tents in their black, shining armour, a warrior as luminous as the star of Orion leading them. Orion, the most magnificent of all stars, but always accompanied by grief, tears and misfortune.

  It was him. Blindingly bright in his divine armour, a fury with his spear and sword. Reaper of men. He was a dazzling sight on his chariot and the Achaians were all streaming towards him. At his side were Menelaus, mighty Idomeneus, Ajax of Locris and Ajax son of Telamon both. Great Ajax had cast off his exhaustion and had once again taken up the shield of the seven oxhides. He was advancing with the others. I could see clearly now, could see Diomedes and Agamemnon at my side, watching incredulously as the Achaians were swept up in the impetus of the unstoppable warrior and were murderously chasing the terrorized Trojans in a rout towards the Skaian Gate.

  We made our way to the palisade so we could watch the flight of the Trojans as they scrambled across the ditch and sought refuge behind the gates of their city walls. Hector, back in his chariot, was among them. And there was Achilles’ sparkling helmet, topped by its swaying crest, crossing over as well. Automedon, his charioteer, dashed over hastily laid planks, urging on his master’s prodigious steeds, Balius and Xanthus, in hot pursuit. We lost sight of him then.

  Diomedes shouted: ‘Achilles is back!’

  As much as I wanted to, I could not believe in his words. I turned to Agamemnon and said: ‘It’s not Achilles. It’s Patroclus.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ asked Agamemnon.

  ‘I overheard Patroclus talking about a mission that Nestor had given him, and I asked him about it. He was in a rush and said that he couldn’t say anything, that it was a secret, but that it was the only thing that could save us from a complete rout. I’ll tell you what has happened: Patroclus has donned Achilles’ armour, taken his chariot and his driver. Wanax Agamemnon, quickly, send someone out to the field. We have to know what is going on.’

  Agamemnon didn’t wait to be asked twice; he dispatched one of his most trustworthy shield-bearers, Alcathous. He told him to take a chariot and two rested horses and to go after the army. And not to lose sight of Achilles. That’s what he called him. And then to come back at once and report to us. The man did as he was ordered. I kept my gaze trained on him as long as I could, until he dissolved into the red dust that covered everything.

  Our army continued to advance, nothing could stop them as they surged towards the Skaian Gate in waves, like the sea in a storm.

  ‘That has to be Achilles, who else could have done this?’ said Agamemnon.

  ‘It’s the terror of Achilles, not the man himself, that has turned the tide. The mere sight of his armour, his chariot, his driver, has spread sheer terror among the Trojans.’

  We fell silent for a long time, unable to say a single word. Our eyes were fixed on the army as we measured
the distance that separated them from the wild fig tree and then from the Skaian Gate. It was rapidly diminishing; they were truly closing in. I bit my lower lip until it bled and the pain in my side sharpened as if a spear were piercing my flesh at that very moment. Where had Alcathous, Agamemnon’s shield-bearer, disappeared to? Why wasn’t he back? Had he been killed?

  I can’t remember how much time had passed when I was shaken by the cry of Diomedes: ‘Something’s happening, look! Our men are retreating!’

  Then a chariot streaked across the plains before us at a tremendous speed: only Achilles’ horses could run so fast! A black foreboding gripped my heart but I said nothing. It wasn’t long before we could make out the colours of Achilles’ chariot and the figure of his charioteer, and then, almost in its wake, the chariot of Alcathous, which roared to a halt at the gate. The shield-bearer was panting hard by the time he reached us and we could see that he had participated in the fighting himself.

  ‘What’s happened? Talk!’ ordered Agamemnon.

  ‘It wasn’t Achilles! It was Patroclus in Achilles’ armour,’ he replied. ‘He was racing forward at an awesome rate at first, it seemed that no one or nothing could stop him, but then something happened. Perhaps he’d isolated himself by going too far, too fast; he must have been trying to reach the Trojan prince and kill him. When he was finally face to face with Hector, a Trojan warrior behind him thrust a spear into his back. And then Hector had an easy time finishing him off and stripping Achilles’ armour from his body.’

  ‘What about his body?’ I asked. ‘Patroclus’ body, where is it?’

  ‘A terrible brawl broke out over his corpse. The Trojans had managed to tie a rope to his foot and were trying to drag him over to their side, but then Menelaus and the two Ajaxes threw themselves into the fray, striking out in every direction, and won his body back. Just as I was leaving to come back and report to you, Hector himself entered into the melee and was determined to claim the body for himself. Ajax and wanax Menelaus managed to lift the body from the ground and hoist it up to their shoulders, so that all of our men could see that the corpse of Patroclus was still ours and would take heart. They’re retreating on foot, in order to bring him back here, to deliver his body to Achilles, but I don’t know if they’ll succeed, the Trojans are attacking from all sides like rabid dogs.’