As he dropped off to sleep, his last thoughts were of Stephanie. He still had no intention of telling her the whole truth about his mission, but she had been sweetly sympathetic about the handicap from which he had suffered during his unusual childhood, and it was a great comfort to think that he could now talk to her freely about his unorthodox activities.
By half past nine next morning, they were well clear of Patras and once more running along the road that followed the shore of the broad gulf. Across its blue waters, the mountains rose in a magnificent procession to the heights of Parnassus towering above Delphi. Even at such a distance their main features stood out distinctly, owing to the extraordinary clearness of the atmosphere which is peculiar to Greece.
Stephanie had so far made no comment upon Robbie’s manuscript and, after they had covered ten miles, he could restrain himself no longer from asking her what she thought of it, as far as she had read.
‘I like it, Robbie,’ she replied; then, after a slight hesitation, she added: ‘But it’s rather an unusual book, isn’t it?’
‘In what way?’ he asked guardedly.
‘It’s difficult to explain. It’s crammed full of slang expressions that you rarely use except when you are talking about the Immortals. That makes it unlike both the person you seem to be, and an ordinary book, so rather queer to read. Surely, too, in these days authors don’t refer to their “gentle reader”.’
‘I don’t see why they shouldn’t. I like to think of my readers as though they could be my friends.’
‘I’m sure you do, Robbie. That’s just the sort of thing which is so nice about you. What puzzled me most, though, is your attitude towards the Olympians. Things you have said to me have given me the impression that you almost think of the gods as divinities still to be venerated; yet you give them awful characters.’
‘They had different standards from ours, so one can’t blame them for always hopping into bed with one another. Admittedly, they could turn pretty nasty if they felt they had been insulted, but most of the time their decrees were just, and they spent much more time protecting people than harming them. Anyhow, it wouldn’t have been right not to tell the truth about the way they behaved.’
‘Yes, I agree about that; but they don’t seem exactly the sort of people one would choose to worship.’
‘Most races have chosen worse. Look at the Babylonians, who worshipped Moloch, and the Aztecs with their frightful gods who were always demanding human sacrifices. Come to that, how about the Christians? They took over Jehovah from the Jews, a harsh, jealous old brute who hated to see people enjoy themselves and had to be constantly pacified by the smell of burnt offerings.’
Stephanie laughed. ‘I suppose you are right. But how about your treatment of the Heroes? You always seem to be poking fun at them, and as far as I have read they all appear to have been dead from the neck up.’
‘A lot of them were. Odysseus was an exception. He was as cunning as a cartload of monkeys. And Hercules had some pretty bright ideas. But, generally speaking, it’s not fair to judge them by their brains. The great thing about them was their chivalry and courage. Most of them were Princes, who could have lived very pleasant lives if they had chosen to stay at home. But instead, they were always game to risk their lives to protect their peasantry from terrible monsters, or to suffer years of discomfort fighting not for themselves but to right a wrong done to one of their friends. The one thing they cared about was their honour, and never giving in before they had done what they set out to do. By that, they set a wonderful example to the whole people of Greece; and if it had not been for that spirit, Greece would never have survived the Persian hordes.’
For a while they were silent, then Stephanie said: ‘In your first chapter about the Royal Family of Olympus, you say lots about Zeus and Poseidon and the innumerable affaires they had, but practically nothing about the third brother, Pluto. Didn’t he care for the girls?’
‘The chronicles don’t give much information about him. They record only two cases of his being unfaithful to Persephone.’
‘In view of the family temperament and the fact that she lived with him for only one-third of each year, that seems somewhat odd.’
‘It does,’ Robbie agreed thoughtfully, ‘but perhaps he was really no better than the others. You see, he possessed a helmet that made him invisible whenever he visited the Upper World; so there is no saying what games he may have got up to without anyone being able to pin them on him.’
‘That’s certainly a thought. And his own kingdom sounds so gloomy that I should think he liked to get away from it as often as he could.’
‘Oh, it couldn’t have been so bad if you were the boss of it; at least, not as described by a chap named Er.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Er was a brave warrior who had a most extraordinary experience. He was killed in battle; so his chums did the usual, and put his body on a nice big bonfire. But it wouldn’t burn, and after being cooked for twelve days he suddenly sat up and got off the red-hot ashes as fit as a fiddle. He said he had spent the twelve days in Hades, and had been sent back to tell everyone what it was like down there.
‘According to him, it had a great vestibule called the Garden of Persephone, where black poplars and willows grew. Then inside, the Judgment Hall and Throne Room would have made the Palace of Versailles look like a pig-sty by comparison. Their walls, floors and ceilings were covered with wonderful designs in every kind of precious metal and the whole place glittered with precious stones.
‘After crossing the Styx, the shades of the dead were brought before the three judges, Aeacus, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and given their deserts. The lucky ones got chits for the Elysian Fields and the bad hats were sent to do time in Tartarus, but the great majority were drafted into great gloomy caverns that were sort of concentration camps in which they stood around for years and years with nothing to do.
‘However, Er was able to cheer up his pals by telling them that none of the shades was stuck in these places for ever. While the incoming queue was disposed of, another queue was being passed out up a passage where Heaven and Earth met in the rainbow. A character known as Necessity sat on a throne there with her three daughters, the Fates, who were named Lachesis, Clotho and Atropos.
‘Necessity told the outgoing shades that they were about to be born into new bodies. Then she offered them in turn the choice from a big collection of lots, the outsides of which were marked “tinker”, “tailor”, “soldier”, “sailor”, and so on. But it was an awful pig-in-a-poke, because all sorts of other things were written inside. Some of the men who had an early choice naturally picked King, or rich merchant, only to find that they would be born blind or have their all taken off them by pirates, and some of the girls who snatched at beauty or S.A. found that their fathers would sell them to brothel keepers to pay the rent. They could change their sex if they liked and, of course, they weren’t all unlucky. But really the whole thing was a bit of a hoax, because they all had to work off debts of one kind or another that they had incurred in their past lives, and the Fates had already fixed things so that, in their next lives, they would get, good or bad, what was due to them.
‘Finally, Er saw all those people pass on to the treeless plain of Lethe, where there was a broad river beside which they had to doss down for the night. It was so hot there that they all got throats like ash-cans, and had to quench their thirsts at the river. Most of them drank so much of the Lethe water that it caused them to forget they had ever lived before; but there were a few who didn’t drink quite so much, and that is why some people are born still retaining vague memories of their past lives. A little before dawn, they were all turned into shooting stars and scattered over the world, to descend invisibly into the bodies of the mothers who had been chosen for them.’
‘Then the ancient Greeks believed in Reincarnation,’ Stephanie remarked. ‘Do you?’
Robbie nodded. ‘Certainly I do. I’ve read books about all sorts of religion
s, and it is the only belief that makes sense. In nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of every thousand, to grant eternal bliss or condemn to unending torment according to what a person has done in a single life would be a travesty of justice. It is impossible to believe in a god who would want any creature of his to roast in hell-fire for ever. But to have to work one’s passage through many lives, each based on what has gone before, and gradually learning to control all the brutal, primitive instincts, is very different. Then, when at last a person becomes incapable of a mean or unkind action, he really has earned the right to be promoted to some happier state of being than we know on earth.’
‘I’ve never thought about it much, but it certainly sounds logical that one should be given a chance to make good the evil one has done and learn to become a better person.’
For a while they fell silent, then Stephanie asked: ‘Was Er the only mortal who is said to have gone down to Hades and brought back an account of it, or were there others? That is, apart from Hercules when he had to go there to collect that ghastly dog?’
‘Yes; Orpheus did, although he wasn’t there long. He was the all-time-high pop-singer of those days. When he got back from going with Jason to pinch the Golden Fleece, he fell for a sweetie called Eurydice and made an honest woman of her. But while she was jiving at their wedding feast, she was bitten by a snake and died that night. As you can imagine, Orpheus was absolutely shattered, and when Death carried her away he followed him down to Hades. Charon, of course, refused to ferry him across the Styx, but Orpheus was simply wizard with his lute. First he played to the old boy, then to Cerberus. The ferryman rowed him over the river and the Hell-hound let him through the gate. Having got in, he performed his very best number in front of the King and Queen. Persephone, being a nice girl, begged her lord and master to let Orpheus have his brand-new better-half back. Pluto was a bit reluctant, but he agreed, provided that Orpheus didn’t look behind him while Eurydice followed him out. Just before they reached the gates of Hades, Orpheus couldn’t resist the temptation to make sure that his poppet was really behind him. She was there all right, but the instant their eyes met, he’d had it. Eurydice’s rosy flesh suddenly became transparent, the gates clanged to, and he found himself outside them, having lost her for good.’
‘What a terribly sad story.’
‘I can tell you a similar one, that had a happier ending. That was about Hercules again. He really was a terrific guy, and didn’t give a hoot for either god or man. This affair arose from Apollo having tried to put a fast one over his old pop. Zeus was no Victorian parent, but all the same he was not the kind to stand for any nonsense, and he sentenced Apollo to serve for nine years on earth as a mortal.
‘One of Apollo’s main interests being cattle, he got himself a job as herdsman to Admetus, King of Thessaly. The King treated him so well that, when his nine years were up, he decided to show his gratitude in a very unusual way. After a little haggling with the Fates, he persuaded them to agree that, when Admetus’s time came to die, he should be allowed to live on if he could find anyone who loved him well enough to go to Hades in his place.
‘In due course, Death sent a messenger to tip the King off that very shortly he would be coming his way. Admetus fairly rushed round, trying to find somebody willing to stand-in for him, but no one would play. He was just about to go down for the count when his young wife, Alcestis, stepped into the breach. She said she’d rather die herself than live on without her old tickley-whiskers, provided only that he would promise not to marry again, because she couldn’t bear the thought of a step-mother who might be unkind to her children.
‘Admetus must have been a pretty poor fish. He wept a lot but, nevertheless, accepted her offer and made the promise. Alcestis took a bath, put on her latest Dior creation and fell into a swoon. The funeral rites were duly performed and Death carried her off.
‘Shortly afterwards, Hercules turned up. Seeing that the house was in mourning, he said he wouldn’t stay and, of course, if he had known that it was Admetus’s wife who had just died, he would have flatly refused to inflict himself on the bereaved husband. Knowing that, and being a great stickler for offering hospitality to strangers, Admetus said not to worry, the dead woman was only a friend of the family. Then he did the usual drill of putting a wreath of flowers round Hercules’s neck, producing some good bottles and having his dancing girls do their stuff.
‘Hercules liked his liquor, so he got a bit lit up and started singing bawdy songs at the top of his voice. An old retainer then tapped him on the shoulder and said: “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, behaving like this when the poor Queen’s body has only just been taken out of the house.”
‘That sobered up our Hero and, seeing how generously his host had treated him, he felt he ought to do something about it. So, instead of going to bed, he made enquiries about which way Death had gone, and hurried off after him. In the morning he came back with a young woman smothered from head to foot in veils and said to Admetus: “Look, old chap. I was terribly sorry to hear that you’d lost your wife; so I’ve been out and got you a girl to cheer you up. And, believe me, she’s a stunner,” or words to that effect.
‘But Admetus put up a good show then. He replied: “That’s awfully decent of you, but no can do. I shall never love anyone but Alcestis, and I’ve made up my mind never to have a woman in my house again.”
‘Hercules did his utmost to persuade him to change his mind, but he wouldn’t budge. You can guess the rest. The Hero unveiled the lady and, of course, she was Alcestis, whom he had torn from the very arms of Death.’
‘Did they live happily ever after?’ Stephanie enquired.
‘As far as I know.’
‘What a pleasant change. So many of your characters seem to come to a sticky end.’
‘Or worse,’ Robbie commented with a rueful smile. ‘Some were condemned to eternal torment. Even the sufferings of the damned in Dante’s Hell can have been no worse than some of the punishments the gods thought up for people they sent to Tartarus.
‘There was Tantalus, who had been King of Phrygia. Why, I haven’t an idea, but the Immortals did him the extraordinary honour of inviting him to dine on Olympus, and he stole some of their nectar and ambrosia. Not content with that, he asked them back, and just to see if they were clever enough to know what they were eating, he killed his own son, Pelops, cut him up, cooked the bits and served them to his guests for dinner. Of course they rumbled him, and before he knew what had hit him he was down in Tartarus. They put him waist deep in the middle of a lake that had trees all round it bearing the most luscious fruit, but every time he tried to drink the water evaporated, and every time he stretched out a hand to grab a fruit a gust of wind bobbed it out of his reach. There they left him to suffer the torments of hunger and thirst for ever.
‘Another bad egg who got it in the neck was the tyrant Ardiaeus. He killed lots of people just for the fun of it, among them his father and his brother; so the gods decreed that he should spend the rest of Time being dragged backwards and forwards through a hedge of enormous thorns. Then there were the Danaides, about as nasty a bunch of girls to go to bed with as any you could imagine.’
‘Why, Robbie? Don’t spare my blushes. Tell all.’
‘Oh, it wasn’t anything of that kind. They were the daughters of a chap named Danaus. There were fifty of them, and—’
‘Fifty! My hat! He must have kept their mother busy.’
‘It’s hardly likely that they were all by one wife. Anyhow, he had a brother named Aegyptus, who had fifty sons. The whole family lived in Egypt, but the brothers quarrelled, so Danaus took his girls off to Greece, where he did in the King of Argos and seized his throne. After a while, Aegyptus’s boys began to miss their pretty cousins, so they crossed the Med. to Argos and suggested putting an end to the family quarrel by marrying them. Danaus agreed, but he was still mad with Aegyptus; so he gave each of his girls a dagger, and told her to stick it good and hard into her husband on th
eir wedding night. All except one of these sweetie-pies did as they were told, and turned their bridal couches into a blood bath.’
‘How absolutely barbarous!—’
‘That’s what the big boys on Olympus thought. Aphrodite and most of the other big girls were of that opinion, too. They all agreed that, if that sort of thing were allowed to go on, it would discourage chaps from getting into bed with girls, and lead to a lot of young people becoming psychopathic cases through frustration; so an example must be made. The forty-nine Danaides were packed off to Tartarus and condemned to try to catch water in sieves for ever and ever, amen.’
‘What punishment did the father receive?’
‘I’m sorry to say I don’t know. He certainly deserved anything he got. So did a chap called Ixion, who murdered his father-in-law by throwing him into a burning ditch. The ancients were frightfully hot on paying proper respects to one’s in-laws; so he would have been for the high jump if Zeus had not granted him sanctuary on Olympus. But while up there, he was ass enough to make a pass at Hera; or rather, at a piece of cloud that Zeus, having tumbled to the way Ixion’s mind was working, had made to look like Hera. He let Ixion have his fun with the cloud, too; but afterwards he told him that, for his cheek, he should learn how his father-in-law felt while burning in the ditch. Then he had Ixion tied to a wheel that never stops turning in Tartarus while he roasts over a slow fire.’
Across the water to their left, they could now see a headland that protruded from the Isthmus of Corinth, almost enclosing the waters on the south side of the gulf in the great bay that forms a fine, natural harbour for the city. To their right, vineyard-covered slopes rose gradually to steeper heights crowned by a flattened dome many acres in extent and several hundred feet above sea level. Near its crest and straggling down its sides, several sections of great ruined walls could be seen. Pointing at them, Robbie said:
Mayhem in Greece Page 25
