The Return From Troy

by Lindsay Clarke

  So the beggar was in the hall, sitting by the embers of the fire, when Melantho passed through, on her way from the kitchen to spend the night with Eurymachus. She couldn’t resist the opportunity to insult him again and was getting a mouthful in return when Penelope came out of her apartment, having heard the entire exchange. Chastising the maid for her shameless manner, she dismissed her from the hall, and asked the other servants to make up the fire and bring rugs so that the beggar might pass a more comfortable night. She was about to turn away when the beggar said, ‘My old friend Odysseus would be proud of his good lady if he could see how she is comporting herself in these trying times.’ And Penelope stopped in her tracks.

  ‘You know Odysseus?’ she asked.

  ‘I know him very well,’ the beggar said, ‘and I have good reason to think it won’t be long before he’s seen in Ithaca again.’

  Though her heart must have quickened at the words, she said, ‘Beggars have come here before hoping to profit from such claims.’

  ‘Believe me,’ the beggar answered, ‘I wouldn’t lie about a man who is as dear to me as my own life.’

  I happened to come back into the hall at that moment. When Penelope saw me enter she asked me to play something soothing on my lyre while she questioned this newcomer more closely about the news he had brought. So I watched the exchanges between them from across the hall, picking up a few words here and there as he told her the story of how he had first met Odysseus many years earlier and the things they had done together. He ended with an account of how he had recently learned at the court of the King of Thesprotia that her husband had survived a shipwreck in which all his men were lost. Odysseus, he claimed, had been washed up on the island of the Phaeacians, from where he intended to make his way home as soon as he had recovered some of his lost wealth.

  After he had finished, Penelope sat in silence for a time, staring into the fire.

  ‘Only the gods know whether your tale is true,’ she said at last, ‘but it has cheered my heart a little. You shall have your reward.’ Turning to her women, she told them that this man was now to be honoured as a guest of her house. She ordered them to make up a proper bed for the beggar, and asked Eurycleia if she would be so kind as to wash his limbs before he slept between clean sheets. Then thanking him for his kindness, she retired to her apartment.

  Many times in the following years I would ask Penelope whether or not she had recognized her husband in the hall that night behind the disguise of his beggar’s rags. Each time she merely smiled at me, lips slightly pursed, and looked away.

  Therefore I think she did; but she hadn’t seen Odysseus for many years, his face had aged, and his disguise was good, so I may be wrong. One thing is certain however: that his identity was discovered not long after Penelope had left.

  Eurycleia brought oil and a basin of water to wash his limbs and was saying what a kindly woman her mistress was and how harsh the fates had been to deprive her of her husband for so long, when she pushed back the ragged skirt of the beggar’s tunic to sponge his legs and gasped to see the white ridge of a scar running along the outside of his thigh. She looked up into his face and was about to cry out when Odysseus lifted a hand to silence her. Startled by the menace in his eyes, she sat back, knocking over the basin of water at her side.

  ‘Say nothing,’ he hissed. ‘All our lives may depend on it.’

  ‘Foolish of me,’ Eurycleia gasped, starting to mop up the water with the sponge. ‘I’ll just get you some fresh water … then everything will be right as rain.’

  When the suitors assembled at the palace the next day, Eumaeus and Philoetius the stockman were in the courtyard, penning the animals that would be sacrificed later in the grove of Apollo. Already the morning heat hung close and heavy on the air. Antinous glowered at the beggar where he sat on the steps in the shade of the portico as if waiting to accost him. ‘What are you hanging about for still?’ he demanded. ‘Haven’t you caused enough trouble?’

  ‘You still owe me a goat’s paunch,’ Odysseus replied.

  ‘Talk to me like that,’ Antinous came back at him, sweating in the sun, ‘and I’ll stuff it down your throat. Now get out of my way.’ He strode through the doorway into the rich smell of roasted heifer already drifting from the palace kitchen, and then stopped in surprise when he saw the line of axes that had been set up along the length of the hall.

  Eurymachus and Ctessipus stood beside him, equally puzzled by the sight.

  ‘What is all this?’ Antinous growled, and stepped back outside to demand an explanation from Eumaeus.

  ‘Don’t ask me what it’s all about,’ the swineherd shrugged. ‘They were here when we arrived.’

  ‘The young master ordered them to be set up,’ Odysseus said. ‘I understand there’s to be some kind of sport today.’

  Antinous scowled at him. ‘There’ll be sport all right if Telemachus tries to play fast and loose with us again. Where is he?’ He went back into the hall, shouting for Telemachus while the others sat down at the tables waiting to be served.

  The maids were already dishing out the food and wine in the din of the crowded hall when Telemachus came through to join them.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he smiled with a surprisingly casual air, ‘I trust you all slept well and that you’ve made your solemn offerings to the god this morning, as I have just been doing.’ Without giving Antinous time to do more than scowl in response he looked across at me. ‘Phemius,’ he called, ‘play something for us. Play something in honour of the Archer God, whose summer feast we celebrate today.’

  His voice recalled me from a memory of the day, years earlier, when Penelope had told Telemachus about his father’s stupendous feat with the bow. Thinking quickly, I tuned my lyre and began to sing the hymn which opens by telling how all the gods tremble when Apollo enters the house of Zeus; but even as I began to sing, it was clear that my efforts would get scant attention, for Antinous was already demanding to know why the axes were standing there.

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ Telemachus replied. ‘All you need to know for now is that my mother has found a way of determining which man here is truly worthy to be her husband.’

  ‘So it will be decided today?’ Amphinomus said.

  Telemachus gave him a disdainful frown. ‘Didn’t you think that she would be as good as her word?’

  ‘I never doubted it,’ Amphinomus answered stiffly.

  Telemachus scowled across the tables where all the suitors were gathered now. ‘Eat your fill, gentlemen,’ he said/The Lady Penelope will join us shortly.’ But his insolent manner, and the uncertainty of the occasion, and the close heat of that summer morning had left them unsettled. Though they ate and drank as usual with no thought for the cost, the mutter of their conversation was subdued and intermittent until, in a coarse attempt to lift their spirits, Ctessipus got to his feet, shouted, ‘Gentlemen, we’re forgetting our duty to feed the poor,’ and hurled the heifer’s heel-bone across the hall at where the beggar sat by the hearth.

  Having guessed that something of the sort was coming, Odysseus merely leaned aside so that the bone fell harmlessly among the ashes.

  Instantly Telemachus leapt to his feet. ‘It’s as well for you that your aim was as bad as your judgement,’ he shouted. ‘If you’d harmed that man I’d have made you answer to my spear.’

  I had already stopped singing. Now the entire hall fell silent. Ctessipus was already elbowing his neighbours aside to get up from his bench when the voice of Penelope came down from the balcony above the hall. ‘Be silent, Telemachus,’ she commanded. ‘This is the sacred Feast Day of Apollo. There will be no violence in this house.’

  Grave and stately, accompanied by Eurycleia and her attendants, she came down into the hall. As always when she joined the suitors in the hall, her face was veiled, but now they saw that she was carrying a bow-case in her hands.

  When she reached the hearth in the centre of the hall, not far from where the beggar sat, she said,
‘You were promised that you would have my decision today and I will try your patience no longer.’ She slipped the bow from its leather and held its sleek length up for all to see. ‘This bow once belonged to Lord Odysseus. No one else has ever strung it. A long time ago, when he was a young man still, he used this bow to shoot an arrow through twelve axes that stood in line,’ with a sweep of her arm she gestured across the hall, ‘like these I have had placed for you here. My decision is that I will give myself to whoever proves himself as worthy as my husband. Here is the bow.’ Turning, she pointed to the quiver held by Eurycleia. ‘Here are the arrows. And there are the axes. The rest, gentlemen, is up to you.’

  Again there was silence. The suitors looked from Penelope to the line of axes that stretched for a distance of some twelve strides with their bronze rings fixed at an awkward height. One of them released a nervous, scoffing laugh. Leodes, the drunken priest of Apollo, shrugged and said, ‘That rules me out. I couldn’t hit a barn door right now.’

  ‘How do we know this feat was ever done?’ Antinous demanded and looked around at his discomfited cronies. ‘Did anyone here see it?’

  ‘I saw it,’ Eurycleia said with a triumphant smirk on her face.

  ‘And who would doubt a lady’s word?’ the beggar put in.

  Antinous scowled at him. ‘You stay out of this.’ Wiping the grease off his hands, he looked across at Penelope. ‘Let me take a look at that bow.’

  ‘Wait!’ Still smarting from the way his mother had rebuked him before the suitors, Telemachus crossed the floor and took the bow from her hands. ‘This will be a test of manhood,’ he said, ‘and I’m sure that none of you wants to be humiliated in my mother’s sight. Go to your apartment, mother, and take these women with you. I’ll be judge of what happens here. You will be called when the thing is done.’

  Astounded by the firmness of his tone, Penelope was about to protest when Eurycleia took her by the arm, saying, ‘Come, my lady, let’s leave these men to their sport.’ Penelope looked back at her son and saw the resolution in his eyes.

  Drawing in her breath, she turned and went back up the stairs.

  As soon as she was gone, Telemachus said, ‘I’ve looked after this bow for years and I don’t believe there’s one of you fit to draw it. So come on, Antinous … if you want to be the first to make a fool of himself.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want anyone to claim that he hadn’t been given a fair chance.’ Antinous looked around at the gathering. ‘What about you, Leodes? Let’s see if you can at least string it for us.’

  Pushed on by the men around him, Leodes got up and took the bow. Seeing that the string was already fastened to the bottom notch, he stood the bow on the ground, applied his weight to it, and tried to pull the loop at the far end of the string towards the top notch. He strained there for a time, puffing his cheeks till the veins were red, but the bow hardly bent under his strength.

  ‘What’s the matter, Leodes?’ Ctessipus guffawed, ‘string too short?’

  ‘You come and try, if you like,’ Leodes gasped. ‘A man could break his heart trying to string this bow.’

  ‘Here, give it to me,’ a Samian called Pellas said impatiently, but he too failed to make much impression on the strength of the yew. Having watched two others try and fail, Eurymachus said, ‘This bow’s been standing about for years. It must need greasing. Let’s get some tallow heated up. Then I’ll show you how it’s done.’

  More drink was served while the tallow was heated. Lavishing his admiration on the bow, Eurymachus gave it a thorough waxing and, when he was satisfied, he too tried to string the bow and failed. ‘It’s this horn that’s spliced into the wood,’ he said. ‘It’s got no give in it. It’ll take three of us to get the bloody thing strung!’

  ‘Take your time, gentlemen,’ Telemachus said, ‘my mother is a patient woman.’ He looked across at me where I sat next to Medon the herald. ‘Play something calming for them, Phemius. It may improve their mood.’

  ‘Odysseus was always a crafty sod,’ Antinous glowered. ‘Let’s think about this. There has to be a knack to it.’

  The suitors gathered round him, examining the bow, arguing heatedly about the best way to string it. They were no more aware than I was that Eumaeus and Philoetius had entered the hall, having locked the doors from outside and brought swords, spears and shields from the armoury.

  Quietly Telemachus walked round the wall, past the great hanging, to stand beside them. At the same moment the beggar got up from the hearth, saying, ‘I had some experience with bows like that one when I was a younger man. Perhaps I could give you gentlemen some advice.’

  ‘You can keep your advice to yourself, clown,’ Antinous snarled.

  But Amphinomus got up from where he had been listening to the arguments in silence. ‘We don’t seem to be making much progress on our own,’ he said dryly. ‘Let the beggar at least have a look at the bow.’

  ‘And what if he strings it?’ Eurymachus retorted. ‘What kind of fools will that make of us?’

  ‘At least you might get the chance to loose an arrow,’ Telemachus put in.

  ‘He’ll never string it,’ Ctessipus jeered. ‘Let him have a go. It should be good for a laugh.’

  Antinous glared across at Telemachus. ‘If it turns out that there’s some trickery to this, I promise you won’t live long enough to laugh over it.’ He turned back to the beggar. ‘Here, let’s see you rupture your guts.’ Handing over the bow, he crossed the floor to the table where the wine jar stood.

  Aware now that something strange was happening, I lowered my lyre and watched the beggar test the strength of the string and caress the length of bow in silence. With his lips slightly pursed, he nodded at it, smiling. ‘It’s a long time since I held such a bow,’ he said, ‘but I seem to remember it’s done like this.’

  Quickly he turned his back on the crowd of suitors so that it was difficult to see quite what he did; but when he turned around again, the bow was strung. Holding its tautened curves out before him, he plucked the string. The air warbled to the note it sang.

  Gasps and oaths must have been uttered around me, but I heard none of them. Like everyone else I watched, stupefied, as the beggar picked up the quiver and walked to the head of the line of axes, near to where Telemachus stood with Eumaeus and Philoetius at his side. Slipping an arrow from the quiver, he nocked it to the bow and aimed its point at the axes. Then he uttered a laugh, lowered the bow and said, ‘No, I’m afraid that’s beyond me these days. But I can still do this.’ He raised the bow again, swung it to his right and released the arrow. A moment later it pierced the throat of Antinous where he stood, mouth agape, with the wine jar in his hand. The jar fell first, shattering against the flags.

  Afterwards, Odysseus swore to Penelope that what happened next was never his intention. Yes, he had meant to kill Antinous. The man was irredeemable; out of that entire unruly rabble, he was the one that most deserved to die, and his death should have been enough. From the moment he fell and Odysseus shouted, ‘Did you never think to see me back, you dogs?’ all the rest understood well enough that their rightful lord had returned to Ithaca. It should have ended there.

  But Odysseus had forgotten that his son was also a casualty of the war. Like Neoptolemus and Orestes before him, he was a warrior’s son. He too believed he had a thing to prove. He too had a hoard of hatred loaded in his heart.

  Even as Odysseus fitted the arrow to his bow, Telemachus gripped the spear that Eumaeus passed to him. Watching the body of Antinous crumple to the floor, he raised his arm to shoulder height. With the fierce sound of his father’s voice shouting at his side, Telemachus released the spear.

  The point plunged into the stomach of Amphinomus with such force that it pushed him backwards. He fell against a table, scattering dishes with his arms. He lay supported there for a few moments with the shaft of the spear sticking upwards from his stomach like a mast. When he tried to lift his head, blood spilled from his mouth. He spluttered on it, blinking in b
ewilderment. Then he too fell to the floor, pulled over by the weight of the spear.

  I heard someone cry out, ‘They mean to kill us all.’

  From Odysseus’s mouth broke an anguished cry of the single word: ‘No.’

  It might have been a simple denial of that accusation or a futile attempt to prevent his son from doing what he had already done. But nobody was listening. The hall was too full of fear. I saw Leodes scrambling for cover. Someone tipped over a table and three or four men crouched behind it. But with a courage that can only have been born of desperation, Eurymachus drew the short sword he always wore at his side and hurled himself towards Odysseus.

  With no other means of defending himself, Odysseus raised the bow again and loosed another arrow. At short range it went straight to his assailant’s heart. Eurymachus sagged at the knees and fell forwards, smashing his forehead against the stones of the hearth. A moment later a spear thrown by Eumaeus brought down the man standing next to him who was about to throw a knife.

  Everything was confusion then. Some of the men tried the door and found it locked against them. Others looked for spears in the racks and found them empty. Panicking, they started to shout. More tables were thrown over. I could hear someone whimpering. Only then did it occur to me that my own life might be in danger. Cowering down behind the silver-studded throne that stood by the rear wall of the hall, I covered my head with my hands.

  With all the leaders dead, Pellas shouted to some of the others to make a rush for the armoury and bring back spears. Odysseus raised his voice, ordering them to do no such thing. If they came out peacefully, he promised, their lives would be spared.

  The men crouched uncertainly across from the entrance to the passage. ‘Don’t believe him,’ Pellas called. ‘It’s another of his tricks. You can’t trust him.’ Still the men hesitated, ‘There’s four of us dead already,’ Pellas called. ‘They won’t stop there.’ Two of the men ran for the armoury then. A third followed,