Penelope's Web

by Christopher Rush

  Third, a wide fallow field, with the ploughmen and their teams being given a goblet of wine at the end of each furrow, and the golden field turning black under the plough – a miracle of craftsmanship.

  Fourth, a field of ripe corn, with reapers swinging their sharp scythes, and gathering binders and an evening meal. It is a king’s field, and the king looks on as a great ox is slaughtered for the reapers’ repast, for he is a generous king and a good leader of men, and the meat is sprinkled with the white barley.

  Fifth, a vineyard heavy with dark grapes, laughing boys, one with a lyre, and girls carrying the grapes. Round the vineyard is a ditch of blue enamel, and round that a fence of tin. The boy singing to the lyre is singing the lovely song of Linus, a song of longing, plangent and pure, a sad summer dirge.

  Sixth, a herd of cattle with two lions attacking the bull and the dogs barking and snapping but afraid to close. The oblivious cows, fashioned of gold and tin, are emerging from the byre and shambling down to a brook to drink. The brook is beaten gold, reflecting the gleaming sunlight, and the herdsmen too are made of gold.

  Seventh, a pasture in a glen, with a great flock of white sheep, all made of pale gold.

  Eighth, a dancing place, like the dancefloor Daedalus designed in Cnossos in Crete for fair-haired Ariadne. Young men and newly nubile girls with pouting breasts and bellies are spinning on it and running in lines to meet each other and touch hands.

  Ninth and last, the great River of Ocean runs all along the outer rim of the shield, glittering liquid all the way, metal mirroring water, a magical exchange of elements.

  If you had seen this shield, even without having heard the story behind it, you would have known at once that no armourer on earth could have made it. You would have sworn that it was indeed a creation of Hephaestus himself, and that a falcon whistling down the wind was the flight path of a goddess swooping down with it all the way from snow-clad Olympus.

  And yet all this glorious workmanship, this golden tribute to the sweetness of life, was fashioned not for the arts of peace but for the place of burst brains and strewn bowels and bloodied dust, the field of conflict and the theatre of war. And the shield, which Penelope, not Hephaestus, made for the doomed hero, depicted with bitter sweetness the enormity of what Achilles stood to lose when he lost his life. The dancing and drinking, the cities and the sea, the elders and young lovers, the stars and the gods up above, the feasting and singing, the pipes playing over the fertile fields, the whole parade of human existence – this is what you lose when you go to war and the shield of life suddenly fails.

  THIRTY

  Down along the beach alone went Achilles, and he wandered between sand and foam, following the curving tide, finding no place to go. He was rent by grief and anger and his very soul was torn in two. Sometimes the scalding tears blinded his footsteps, and he walked into the waves and threw the cold surge over his head and face, salt upon salt. Then he stood up and uttered again the terrible war-cry that cracked the sky and announced the fearful summons.

  The whole army will immediately stand to its arms!

  He repeated his vow that he would touch neither food nor drink until Hector was dead. Nor would he put on battle-dress, not until he’d stripped his own from Hector’s corpse. He’d fight him naked under the sky.

  But Thetis appeared out of the waves, holding the immortal armour, golden and dripping, the work of Hephaestus. She handed it to him and told him to go to war.

  ‘As for Patroclus, let him be for now. No amount of tears can sow sweet life back into the flesh of a corpse. Or wash death from the white face of a breathless man. Think instead of what must now be done. Put aside your anger, be reconciled to Agamemnon, and join the lines again.’

  So the Assembly was called. Everybody waited nervously, wondering what would be said, what could be said, after so much bloodshed and bitterness. Achilles went straight to the point.

  ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’ve acted in this way. Over a mere girl. I can’t think what made me do it. Except my own stupid pride. I could have wished that she’d been killed instead by an arrow of Artemis the very day I took her on board my ship, the day I sacked Lyrnessus. All those Greeks that have died in the dust of Troy – they’d have been alive now. Their deaths are on account of my anger. I wish I could obliterate that anger, unsay all the harsh words and bring those soldiers back to life. But I can’t. The best I can say is that I’m sorry and that I regret it bitterly. For my part, the quarrel is ended, it’s over. Now let’s go to war.’

  A noble speech, rewarded by thunderous applause, and a polite nod from Agamemnon, who took the floor, unlike Achilles, who had spoken from where he stood.

  ‘Yes, it’s been a hard time for all of us, and it’s been laid at my door. But I have to say I wasn’t to blame. My judgement was blinded, certainly. But by whom? By what? A man doesn’t deliberately blind himself. By the gods then, what else? They blinded me for their own inscrutable purposes. I had to submit to their will. But now I’m ready to make amends, just as if the fault were really mine. Which it is not. I’ll pay compensation exactly as I proposed, all the splendid gifts the excellent Odysseus has already offered you.’

  The excellent Odysseus did not appreciate his name being dragged into this disgraceful demonstration of hypocrisy, stupidity and stubborn pride – as if the mention of him lent Agamemnon’s response a degree of acceptability and decorum, which it certainly did not possess. As if he actually expected his men to swallow the speech as a true apology, which it certainly was not. To his credit, Achilles ignored the sham and shambles of an answer and replied calmly.

  ‘Thank you, Agamemnon, but the gifts can wait. Offer them at your convenience. Or don’t offer them at all. Keep them if you prefer. I don’t even want them. All I want is to engage the enemy. And I mean now. This is no time for gifts. Let’s take the field!’

  Impatient as he was, he had to be restrained. The troops could not be sent into action without a meal, regardless of Achilles’ fast. And while they were eating their rations, Agamemnon insisted Briseis be returned to Achilles’ tent. He swore he had not touched her all the time she’d been with him, and he sacrificed a boar to seal the oath. Talbythius swung the still twitching carcass far out into the grey sea for the fish to nibble to the bone.

  But when Briseis came in and saw Patroclus lying there so horribly mangled by the pitiless bronze, untouched by oils or unguents as yet, the clotted gore still sticking to him, she screamed and tore her clothes, slashing her bared breasts and lacerating her cheeks with her long nails until the blood ran down her neck. She threw herself on the corpse.

  ‘Alas, why should I stay beautiful? And what is there to live for? What is my life after all? A chain of sorrows linked by wars, nothing but wars. My husband was killed in action defending his country and my brothers too, when Achilles came and sacked our city. I wanted to die. And you, Patroclus, you were the one who showed me compassion at that time and refused to let me weep. Even when Achilles was sometimes harsh, you took my part, you never failed to soften him, you were always so gentle to me. And now even you have been taken from me. How can I ever be happy again?’

  And Briseis’s bitter words, and the hot scalding tears dropping on the cold corpse set off all the others, so that the tents were loud with the wailing of inconsolable women. But it wasn’t Patroclus they were crying for. Deep in her heart each woman was lamenting her own unhappy lot, reflected in Briseis. The moment had exposed in each of them a private bitterness and a secret sorrow. All of them were victims of war, cruel war. And the sound of lost lonely unhappy women left the tents and filled the unlistening air, rising up through the blue spaces, all the way to the blithe, deaf gods.

  This in turn set off Achilles again.

  ‘Poor women – they have suffered loss. And I myself could have suffered no crueller a blow, not even if they’d come to me with news of my father’s death in Phthia. Or my own son’s in Skyros. Maybe they’re both dead anyway, who kno
ws, dead in earth long since, while I’ve been fighting this sickening war, so far from home.

  And all for what? For nothing, absolutely nothing that matters to me, not personally. For what then? For deadly Helen, Helen whose very name turns men’s blood to ice. And for my leaders. What do I care about my leaders? Or about serving my country? It’s got nothing to do with my country, or with serving it. It never did. And I lost hope of home long ago. All I could hope for, all I was left with, was that you, Patroclus, you at least would have got back safe to Argos, leaving me dead in Troyland. At least you might have spoken to my son in Skyros, told him stories of his father, and comforted my own poor father in Phthia, crushed by anxiety and old age, and by daily expectation of my death and the shock announcement that every parent of a soldier dreads.’

  And Achilles broke down and gave way to grief, great shuddering sobs that shook his whole body.

  So the sound of human heartbreak filled the ear, like a shell that echoes with the long-lost, inconsolable ocean.

  But now the Greek soldiers came pouring out of the ships, as thick as snowflakes swirling when the wind sweeps cold and icy out of the northern sky and the wintry snow-clouds go scudding over the earth.

  And Achilles glittered above the entire army in the immortal armour, his helmet like a star, the spear as tall as the original ash on Pelion, the shield like the moon at its fullest, like the beacon gleam of a farmland fire, seen by seamen high on the uplands when the stormwinds drive them down the highways of the fish and their hearts are sick for home.

  Automedon took the reins, and Achilles leapt in beside him, bright as Hyperion in all his glory, calling to the four-footed sons of Lightfoot to bring him safely home again and not leave him behind as they did Patroclus, abandoning the friend on the field.

  The twitching ears of the stallions picked up the unaccustomed unkindness in the voice, and had they been ordinary horses they would have galloped all the faster, imagining that the master was dissatisfied with their speed. But Xanthus was far from ordinary and was endowed with the power of speech. So the horse spoke, and told Achilles that they were not to blame, that no wind could outstrip them, not even the west wind, swiftest of all, nor was it their sloth that had caused Patroclus’s death, nor yet uncaring animal hearts, but destiny, unshunnable, and Apollo, most sudden of the gods, and the bitterest critic of Achilles.

  ‘And destiny awaits you too,’ said the horse, rearing his head and flicking the barbed words back to Achilles with a shake of the mane, ‘a destiny equally unshunnable, and death at the hands of a hero and a god.’

  ‘I know my fate,’ said Achilles. ‘I have known it of old. But before I meet it I intend to kill Hector, the murderer of my friend. And I will make all of Troy finally sick of blood.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  A god gazing down from the snow-peaks of Olympus would have seen the Greek lines drawn up for battle by the black-beaked ships, massed around the maddened Achilles, and the Trojans facing them on the higher ground of the plain, all ready to clash again. But the sky’s imagined auditorium stayed empty for the spectacle. War has no audience other than the uncaring air, the vacuous clouds.

  In Penelope’s web it was otherwise, naturally. A great gathering of the gods that day, summoned by Zeus, who saw that Achilles’ embitterment was sufficient to inspire him to acts of superhuman slaughter and even storm the walls of Troy itself, thereby cheating fate. This was no ordinary day in the war: this was a day of destiny.

  Zeus wisely split the supporters into their two camps and kept them apart, as even on Olympus fights could break out during an important contest, and a god hurled from heaven could fall headlong for a day before landing flat on his back – on Lemnos or Lesbos, for example, unable to speak or move, or even breathe for another entire day.

  On the Greek side, Zeus placed Pallas Athene, Poseidon the World-girdler, called from the sea, fiery Hephaestus, luck-bringing Hermes and all their followers. And on the Trojan side, among their supporters, sat Ares of the Flashing Helmet, Phoebus Apollo of the Flaming Hair, Xanthus, Leto of the Lovely Locks, Artemis the Archeress, chaste as ice, and laughter-loving Aphrodite.

  The slight preponderance favoured the Trojans, but Zeus ruled that the influence of the inspired spirit of Achilles required a counterbalance, even among the spectators. Olympian evenhandedness should prevail. But after a brief speech he gave the gods permission to descend and invade the field, assisting either side as their sympathies and antipathies dictated, always within reason.

  ‘As for me, I remain neutral and above all that unseemly squabbling and interference. I intend to stay exactly where I am.’

  And he selected a shady Olympian glen, took his seat, and prepared to enjoy the spectacle.

  Enjoy. A barbarian, then? Ah, but this is art, Penelope’s art. And in art objectivity towards human suffering is not sadism but neutrality, dispassion. A god does not strictly enjoy the spectacle of pain, he merely permits it. War is a part of the eternal scene, like poverty or plague. Nobody wants war, but nobody, it seems, can do without it.

  What is it, after all? It’s theatre. The actors love it – it’s their profession, their trade – and the spectators need it. To fill up the hours of boredom, perhaps? People in the end get tired of peace. And who says that war is a curse? It’s water in the desert of dullness.

  Be seated then, if you please, before the endless human pageant. Welcome to the theatre of war.

  It started formally, with a duel between Achilles and Aeneas, who couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Achilles charging at him weaponed to the teeth but totally without armour.

  Of course he was.

  Immortal armour? Forged by Hephaestus? Achilles had meant what he said. He’d wear fuck all until he’d got his own armour back on his back and avenged his friend. Aeneas hurled at him, but Achilles moved with extra speed, unencumbered by armour, and the spear whistled overhead. Aeneas lifted a big boulder and made for Achilles.

  ‘I’m going to crush the cunt!’

  They ran at each other, Aeneas reckoning that their combined speeds from opposite angles would produce extra impact and cause maximum damage to his unprotected opponent. If it was an accurate hit he’d shatter every organ in the upper body.

  ‘And burst his fucking heart!’

  End of the war.

  But the two never even closed. The Myrmidons, anxious for their unarmoured captain, charged up so close behind him and in such a mass that they kicked up a huge fucking dust cloud and both fighters vanished in the choking white swirls. When it cleared, Achilles was left standing on his own, coughing and cursing and rubbing his streaming eyes. The rock that had been meant for his chest was lying on the ground close by. Aeneas hadn’t fancied a fight with a crowd of Myrmidons as spectators, liable to become participants. He’d fucked off. Been spirited away, if you will. However it happened, the first encounter was a bloodless one.

  It didn’t continue like that. Iphition came at Achilles like a fucking maniac at full tilt. But the silly bastard forgot to stop. Achilles stabbed at him with his spear as he came at him, aiming high and hitting him in the forehead. The whole head came apart, split neatly in two, such was the force of the impact.

  Iphition was born from the belly of a Naiad – a good cue for a fine speech from his killer. So Achilles addressed him thus.

  ‘Ah, my friend, you began life, I believe, cradled in the smooth white belly of a water-nymph, by the swirling fish-filled rivers of Hermus and Hyllus, at the Gygaean Lake, a beautiful place for your father’s estate. But this is where your cycle ends, on the dusty plains of Troy, far from these rushing waters. And the estate will seem less lovely to your father now, since you will not be returning to inherit it, and he’ll never see his only son again.’

  A speech worthy of an equally fine scene. And there it is: the swirling rivers, rich with fish, streaming far below snowy Tmolus in the fecund Hyde country, where his father Otrynteus, sacker of cities, had lain with the Naiad, unlocking her cold kne
es and warming her white belly with the hot sperm that became Iphition.

  Beautiful.

  Nothing beautiful about his brains, though, oozing out from the skull, split sweetly as a nut, or the blood clotting the darkening dust. Achilles left him where he lay, to be ripped to bits by the chariot wheels where the two front lines met, and to be crushed by the pounding hooves. There was time really for only the briefest of speeches.

  ‘Goodnight, loser. Incompetent fucking cunt.’

  Demoleon was Achilles’ second kill. He came up on his flank and hit him on the side of the head. The helmet he was wearing was useless. The driven spear pierced bronze and bone, going in at one ear and out at the other.

  Hippodamas was next. He was a tough young lad but didn’t like the look of Achilles coming at him in the killing zone and tried to get out of it as fast as he could go. Not fast enough. The flying spear struck him in the lower back and emerged at the abdomen. He roared like a young bull about to die at the altar with a cut to his throat. A nice quick kill.

  There it goes, like a butterfly, Hippodamas’s spirit flitting from the bones. Sometimes the bones are in no hurry to say goodbye. But even this strong young lad thrashed about for less than a minute before he died.

  Achilles was already lining up his next target, Polydorus. He was Priam’s youngest and his favourite, a fantastic runner, proud of his speed. But he was also a smart-arsed young cunt, shit-spoiled, and allowed to think that he always knew best. He didn’t. He didn’t know that Achilles, though a lot older, was also a lot faster. And so this windy little shrimp flew along the front line showing off and doing fuck-all else – till Achilles spotted him and sprinted after him in hot pursuit.