The Return From Troy

by Lindsay Clarke

  Odysseus lay awake for a long time afterwards, brooding on how heavily the hands of the gods had come down against him since he had sailed from Troy. That Poseidon should oppose him with storms at sea was to be expected — the blue-haired god of the deeps had favoured Troy throughout the war. But that Divine Athena, the goddess he had always revered, should permit his wife and child and island to be taken from him — the thought of that was more than he could bear. Yet how could any Argive warrior expect favour of her when, in the scramble to plunder Troy, not one of them had made atonement for the way her temple had been violated? His own mind had been in such turmoil at that time that he too had neglected to make offerings to the goddess who had singled him out for special favour. Athena had visited him in the dream through which he had conceived the stratagem of the wooden horse, and by doing so she had made him the instrument of her victory; and if it was she who was causing him such anguish now that he could hardly hold his head up on his shoulders, then he need look no further for the cause than in the blindness of his heart.

  He did not wait for Hanno to come to him again but sent for him late that night, and then insisted that they be left alone. His head was still aching as though he had been struck there by a hand-axe, but he gritted his teeth to speak civilly to the Libyan who was discomfited from having been disturbed in his sleep.

  ‘I was thinking of what you said of Divine Athena,’ he said. ‘I see now that I have neglected to make my offerings to her. I need to do her proper honour.’

  ‘I’m sure that would be wise,’ Hanno answered, ‘but what has it to do with me?’

  ‘I seem to recall you saying that she has a shrine somewhere near here at Lake Tritonis — the place where she first sprang from her father’s head?’

  Hanno pulled down the corners of his mouth. Had he been woken just for this? The hour was late and he was in no mood for listening to this foreigner’s ravings.

  ‘That is not the story of her birth as they tell it at the shrine,’ he said, ‘nor do they call her by that name.’

  ‘Then what name does she go by and what story do they tell?’

  ‘Her sacred name is Neith. It was so long before you Argives claimed her for the daughter of Zeus.’

  ‘Then why did you call her Athena?’

  ‘Because it was the name by which Jason called her when he dedicated a tripod at the shrine.’

  ‘So Athena and this Neith - they are one and the same?’

  Hanno stirred uncomfortably. ‘There is only one Goddess, though she has many aspects. And there is none greater than she who bore the aegis long before Zeus claimed it for himself.’

  Odysseus frowned impatiently. ‘I’m not about to argue theology with you. Just tell me straight - is the shrine sacred to Athena or not?’

  ‘If you insist on calling her so, then yes.’

  ‘Then I will go there.’

  Hanno opened his hands. ‘I wish you well of your journey.’ He got up as if to leave but Odysseus reached out a hand to stop him.

  ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I need to know more. Can I get to the shrine by ship?’

  The Libyan’s shrug expressed no great interest. ‘Perhaps. I am no sailor. All I know is that Jason’s ship got landlocked there.’

  ‘Why?’ Odysseus demanded. ‘How did that happen?’

  Hanno shrugged. ‘Sometimes there are movements in the salt that covers the land in those parts. Jason was stranded when the river leading to the lake became thick with salt behind him. That was why he made his offerings to the goddess - that she might free his vessel from the grip of her lake.’

  Struggling against the pain pounding in his head, Odysseus said, ‘But there must be an overland route from here?’

  ‘Of course. But it has dangers.’

  ‘What dangers?’

  ‘As you come close to the lake the land is covered with a crust of salt. In places the crust is thin and the mud lies deep beneath it. It is said that whole caravans have been swallowed up without trace because they did not know the safe way.’

  ‘Then we shall take a guide who knows that way.’

  Hanno gave a little laugh. ‘First you must find one. The lake is more than a hundred miles away across the plain. As you have seen, the people here are lazy. Why should they stir themselves for a foreigner in trouble with the gods?’

  Odysseus glowered at the complacent face across from him. ‘Didn’t you say that your own people live somewhere near the lake?’

  Hanno stood up, looking away as he wrapped the folds of his robe around his shoulders against the chill of the night outside. But Odysseus saw that he had remembered aright. Quietly he said, ‘You will be my guide, Hanno.’

  ‘Me?’ Again the Libyan gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Why should I trouble myself to go with you?’

  Dismayed to find the Libyan unresponsive to his needs, Odysseus drew on the cold spring of ruthlessness that had sustained him through the thick of many battles. ‘Because,’ he replied, and his voice was deadly serious, ‘either I or one of my men will kill you if you do not.’

  High on the western horizon soared the snow-draped crests of mountains that changed colour subtly with each hour of the day, but their route lay across a lowlying basin of flat scrubland where every few miles a mud-brick hamlet, shaded by date-palms and olive-trees, huddled like a beggar above its spring.

  With his head in pain and his sense of actuality still unhinged, Odysseus rode the swaying hump of his camel, shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun like a man at the mercy of a delirious dream. Wrapped in linen robes against the dust that rose in sharp flurries around his mouth and eyes, Eurylochus rode ahead of him, grumbling at his mount. Behind Odysseus came the various servants and carriers who had been conscripted for the journey, leading pack-laden camels and mules. A small boy in a dirty smock drove along a few scrawny goats with a switch. Hanno headed the procession, closely accompanied by young Elpenor who was under strict instructions to keep watch over their guide and make sure that he did not abandon them in the night.

  The rest of the men had remained behind at Zarzis under the command of their captains Glaucus and Demonax. Already unsettled by the encounter with Guneus and the unaccountable behaviour of Odysseus, they watched their leader ride off into the hazy shimmer of light over the scrub, wondering whether they would ever see him again. After what they had learned of the changes in Argos and Ithaca, some of them - mostly from the crew of the Nereid — were wondering whether it might not have been wiser to throw in their lot with Guneus and make a fresh start along the coast in Libya. It was they who decided to set to work on repairing the ships at last. Others were too far gone in their taste for the lotus to care either way.

  Meanwhile, with each day that passed, Odysseus felt himself growing ever more lost in an alien region where the phantasms still haunting his mind were sometimes exceeded in strangeness by the shifting phenomena of light in this unstable world. The green fronds of palm-groves beckoned him on across the dusty plain only to vanish as the air quivered and erased them before his eyes. When the caravan rested at one hill-crest town larger than others along the way, the Ithacans were amazed by the sight waiting for them there. A ring of excited men were jumping and shouting to a clattering of drums and rattles as they watched two bull-camels wrestling together. White froth sputtered from the nostrils of the great beasts as they butted at one another with powerful necks. Uttering doleful groans, each animal strove to lock a knobbly foreleg round that of his opponent and push him off balance — a spectacle which seemed as improbable to Odysseus as it was grotesque. Yet his own warrior heart stirred with recognition both of victory and defeat when one of the camels — a shaggy, boastful beast with fearsome yellow teeth - leaned its full weight on the other and forced it to the ground. Then the shouting men were pulling the beasts apart.

  The noises of the journey too fell strangely on Odysseus’ ears. In the expanses of the night, the barks and yelps of unidentifiable creatures echoed among the rocks; and as the c
amels picked their delicate way through the scrub by day, one of the drivers sang for much of the time — a tuneless, droning dirge that began to drive Odysseus to distraction. He frightened the fellow into silence for a while, but not long afterwards the chanting was resumed.

  Late one day, they were passing through a patch of scrub relieved only by pink oleanders, when the small boy spotted a horned viper slithering away at their approach. If he had not cried out a warning, Eurylochus, who had been easing himself among the rocks, might have stepped onto the snake.

  The episode prompted Hanno to recall the story of how one of Jason’s followers, a man called Mopsus, had taken a bite from the fangs of such a snake. Mopsus had apparently died for a time, only to rise again and discover that he was now possessed of mantic powers. An oracle had been dedicated to him near the shrine of Neith. With a wry smile, Hanno suggested that the oracle might furnish Odysseus with an answer to the questions troubling his mind. Eurylochus declared that he, for one, was glad enough to remain unbitten, just as he was, and proceeded to strike up a lively friendship with the Libyan boy.

  After they had been travelling for five days, Hanno pointed ahead to where the land shone with a fierce white sheen as if snow had fallen and frozen to an ice-sheet across the land. As they came closer the glare became so intense that Odysseus could not bear to fix his eyes on it. He wrapped a scarf about his face and rocked back and forth blindly to the sway of his mount, listening to the dry crunch of salt beneath the camel’s feet.

  Late one afternoon, feeling the heat go out of the day, Odysseus peered out from his scarf and saw how the light off the salt was softening to an ochreous golden-brown as the sun declined. Moments later, the weight of a laden beast broke through the salt-crust into the ooze beneath. The camel fell to its knees and the crust splintered again in a splash of mud. Yelping and shouting, the drivers tugged at the harness of the fallen animal, pushing at its haunches till its hooves staggered free of the mud and it was chivvied with a switch back onto firmer ground. The next day, after another chilly night beneath the stars, the sky was full of birds, and they were travelling round the marshy, reed-fringed edge of Lake Tritonis.

  That evening Hanno chose to pitch camp in a place where they could wash the dust from their skins and bathe their aching bodies in the soothing bubbles of a hot spring near the margin of the lake. Tranquil flocks of stilt-legged fowl waded among the reeds under a blue-mauve sky. A huge moon was already gathering radiance as, for the first time in many weeks, Odysseus let himself relax in the sulphurous smell of tepid water. He felt his mind dispersing into peace. He had done the right thing in making this pilgrimage into Libya. Triton-born Athena was waiting for him here. She would offer guidance to his soul.

  But the brawny body of Eurylochus leapt into the spring at that moment, splashing the water over his head, cleansing the dust from his hair and beard. ‘The god be thanked that blessed this patch of land with springs,’ he whooped. ‘I was beginning to think I’d crumble into salt before this trek was over.’ He grinned at Odysseus, sliced his hand into the water and sent a warm wave splashing across his companion’s face. ‘What stories we’ll have to tell when we get back to Ithaca,’ he shouted. ‘What stories we’ll have to tell!’

  Odysseus nodded, trying to smile; but the moment’s peace had passed. He thought of his wife crying out with pleasure in the arms of a younger man. He thought of how he would be a stranger to his son when he returned to the island. Both thoughts intensified his pain. Lacking all confidence that he would ever see the shores of Ithaca again, he felt his heart turn hard inside him.

  The temple, when they came to it, was like no important shrine he had ever seen. During the arduous haul across the hot Libyan plain, he had allowed himself to dream of something stupendous and graceful like Athena’s sanctuary on the Parthenon rock at Athens, or the even grander colonnades of the Palladian temple in the citadel at Troy, which was no more than ash and rubble now. Athena was accustomed to such state. So how could the Libyans imagine that she would be content with a thatched hut of mustard-coloured brick on which nothing more decorous than geometrical patterns had been inscribed? And the reed-hurdles marking off the boundary of the sacred precinct might have kept a herd of goats from straying into corn, but such crude handiwork inspired no awe.

  Odysseus turned in a misery of disappointment to Hanno, demanding to know whether this mud-built hovel was the best the Libyans could offer to the Daughter of Zeus.

  Hanno, who had been standing before the entrance to the precinct with a clenched fist held to his forehead and his head bowed low, studied him for a long moment before speaking. ‘This temple was old before Troy was built,’ he answered quietly. ‘The Goddess has dwelt among these springs beside this lake since the sun first rose and the moon first crossed the sky. The Pharaohs of Egypt acknowledged the sanctity of this place long before Minos ruled in Crete. Great Kings of Ethiopia have come to make obeisance here. Others have travelled from the forests of the south. You would do well to remember that your Argive hero Jason was once forced to bow before its power. And if you are wise, my friend, you will not speak of the Triple Goddess as the daughter of Zeus when you stand before the temple-maidens. Now come, you must be washed clean of the blood you bring with you from all the killing you have done. And you must try to empty your heart of all vainglorious pride. Only then will you be fit to discover whether your offerings will be found acceptable at the sacred shrine of Neith.’

  The rites to which Odysseus submitted in the sanctuary at Lake Tritonis lasted a day and a night and then another day; and he was left with plenty of time to think about them as he made the long journey back to his ships at Zarzis. Not that he found it possible to think clearly even then, for all of the rites except one had been conducted in a language he did not understand. They were performed by dark-skinned temple-maidens, wearing goatskin garments fringed with thongs, who smelled of sweat and curd and the medicinal herbs they burned about his head. While some of them chastised his flesh with scourges, others danced to the beat of drums and gongs and cymbals, singing songs of invocation. Step by step, hour by hour in the heat of the day, he was brought closer to the inner sanctum of the shrine, and as each stage of the rite was completed, they raised their voices in ululating shrieks of triumph such as he had once heard the Amazon warriors utter on the battlefield at Troy.

  But Odysseus had eaten nothing since cock-crow on the previous day, and he was given only a strong, milky-coloured wine to drink, so his head was swimming in a trance-like condition by the time Hanno, who had been called upon to act as his interpreter throughout, informed him that it was time to make his offering.

  Less was required of him than he expected. Apart from the initial payment of fees to the temple-guardians, all that the goddess asked was that he sacrifice a black ram and offer up its fleece to her. In his time Odysseus had killed more sheep than he could recall. He had grown up on Ithaca knowing the knack of it; so he was surprised and irritated when the fat ram he had purchased from the temple stockyard would not quietly bend to his strength. The animal wrestled in his grip, trying to butt away the hand that held the knife. Only with difficulty did he wrench it over on to its haunches and pull back its head. As he drew the blade across its throat, the animal was staring up at him through the slots of its eyes, still bleating refusal. Even then, with the life passing out of it, the beast struggled between his knees.

  Odysseus was trembling and sweating as he sheared the fleece from its back. When he looked up to make the offering, he saw a figure standing over him at the threshold of the shrine. She too wore goatskins, but where the robes of the maidens had been fringed with thongs, this tall priestess was draped in a heavy leather aegis fringed with vipers’ heads. Two snakes were entwined around the buckle at her belly. The face gazing down at him was a black gorgon mask with ram’s horns curling into serpents in its hair. Its bulging eyes were pierced by narrow slits. Cowry shells shone like teeth in the hideous gaping mouth.

  Fr
om out of the mask came an incomprehensible screech that Odysseus recognized as a demand. He looked round for Hanno but the Libyan had vanished. Only the temple-maidens stood about him with expressions of dismay. The screech came again. Uncertain what else to do, Odysseus lifted the fleece from the ram’s carcass and offered it with a lowered head. Two of the maidens stepped towards him, took the fleece from his grasp and gave it into the hands of the priestess, who raised her masked face and held up the fleece as if showing it in evidence to the moon. Uttering a few words in her archaic tongue, she turned with the snakeheads swinging at her skirts, and entered into the darkness of the shrine.

  To Odysseus it seemed that he was kept standing for a very long time. A wicker hurdle stood immediately inside the entrance to the hut, so he could see nothing in the gloom. All he could hear was a prolonged low chanting, almost like the drone of bees. The event had begun to feel meaningless and primitive. His head was throbbing. He was swaying where he stood. He told himself that any trepidation he felt before that rudimentary shrine was only the fear of old night that lurks in all men’s hearts and is easily stirred by superstitious practices. What seemed certain was that Divine Athena, Daughter of Sky-Father Zeus, in all her graceful, athletic radiance, was not to be found among these Libyan savages. He should never have come.

  But having offered himself up before this Neith, this goddess of the Libyans, it would be unlucky to disrupt the ritual. So Odysseus of Ithaca stood and waited, weeping at what he had become. The dark fell round him. He was hungry and weary and drunk, and the fierce moonlight crashed like a gong inside his head. When he closed his eyes he saw Polyxena staring at him with her bloody throat.

  He was all but ready to faint by the time he became aware of two temple-maidens standing at his side. One of them took him by the arm and led him across the dusty ground of the precinct and through a grove of palm trees to where a round hovel built of wattle and daub stood beside a spring. The other maiden had followed them, carrying the fleece which she now spread out on the dirt floor in there. Then she pointed to a gourd filled with water from the spring. Otherwise the hut was quite empty.