The Odyssey

by Geraldine McCaughrean

  ‘Where’s Elpenor?’ asked Palmides. ‘He’s not here, captain. Should we turn back for him?’

  But there was to be no turning back. The keel of the red-prowed ship had already been seized by the River Ocean – a current which lay beneath the orange path of the setting sun. Though the rowers shipped their oars, their ship picked up more and more speed. Water raced under the bow with a whispering hiss, and the men’s delight at heading home changed to a nervous uneasiness. ‘Where are we going, captain?’ said Eurylochus. ‘Where has that witch directed us to go?’

  ‘To Hell,’ said Odysseus. ‘To a place no living man has seen before. To the Underworld. To the Kingdom of Hades, God of the Dead. To the spirit world. To Hell.’

  The shell of the night sky shrank suddenly to the size of a black cave, and all the stars went out. The current sucked the ship deep into the cave, and the men’s sobbing echoed back off unseen walls. When they stretched out their hands, soft, slimy plants or creatures recoiled from their touch. Mouths sucked at their fingers. Every man crawled under his bench and cowered there, moaning and complaining that his life had been cut short.

  Then the keel jolted aground, and white hands curled over the prow and pulled the ship on to some shallow, unseen beach. Faces floated like jellyfish through the dark, cold air, and brushed against them as they set foot at last in the Kingdom of the Dead.

  ‘Elpenor!’

  It was the first face they saw with any plainness – a shred of a face, with sad eyes and an ‘O’ for a mouth. ‘How did you get here ahead of us?’ But as his friend Palmides rushed forward to embrace Elpenor, he clasped only a wedge of clammy air. ‘Elpenor! What’s happened to you?’

  ‘My body lies unburied on the island of Circe,’ wailed Elpenor (though his voice was almost too small to hear). ‘If you had turned back … if only you had cared enough to turn back and look for me and give me decent burial! But I came here nameless and the spirits won’t speak to me, because I had no proper funeral. Oh, comrades! Stay here with me. Don’t leave, will you, or I shall be alone and unknown for ever!’

  ‘We shall go back and give your body decent burial,’ called Odysseus as the face was blown, by subterranean draughts, away along a corridor of darkness.

  They walked on, their sandals making no sound on the spongy slime underfoot. Each few moments one of them would give a startled cry as he recognized a relation or friend long since dead. Many heroes who had died in the Trojan Wars hailed them from out of the shadows.

  Worse was in store for Odysseus. He glimpsed his own mother, like a streak of moonlight, in a black garden of colourless flowers. So she would not be waiting to welcome him beneath the shady vines of Pelicata Palace. He had stayed away too long to meet her again in the land of the living. She greeted him mournfully. ‘My son. Did you die in the wars or were you drowned on the voyage home? Have you only just arrived? I hope your friends gave you decent burial.’

  ‘But, Mother, I’m not dead,’ protested Odysseus. ‘I’m here because my travels have brought me here. My time hasn’t come yet to die and live here with you.’

  ‘What travels, son? You mean to say you haven’t been home yet to Pelicata Palace? The dead warriors say that the war finished long ago. Why so slow? How will your poor Penelope fend off the suitors?’

  ‘Suitors? What suitors?’ demanded Odysseus.

  ‘A rich and beautiful widow will attract many men to woo her, my dear son. Even when I died, a year ago, the shores of Ithaca were bright with coloured boats. Soon Penelope will be forced to choose a new husband and a new King of Ithaca. She must surely have given you up for dead.’

  ‘But she’s not a widow! I’m not dead! I’m alive! This is terrible! Where’s Teiresias? Where’s the Oracle? I must get home instantly!’

  ‘You came here to see me, and yet you delay even now making idle conversation with your friends and relations.’ The heavy darkness was prised back by a single beam of light – a golden staff clasped in the invisible fist of an elderly ghost. For Teiresias the Oracle, Hades was a brighter place than Earth, for he had been blind in the sunlight. Now his grey, cloudy eyes stared piercingly at Odysseus and answered his questions before he asked them. ‘Yes, I can tell you what is past and what is to come and what is true. Yes, it is true that there are princes pestering your wife to marry. But she is patient and goes on believing you will return one day. Yes, I can tell you the path you must steer to reach Ithaca. You must sail past the Siren Singers, beside the Clashing Rocks, beneath the lair of the horrible Scylla and past Charybdis, the bottomless whirlpool. Aha! I hear your heart thump even inside the bony cage of your chest. But if you have wisdom enough, you will overcome all these dangers and put in at the Island of the Sun.’

  The golden wand of light flickered like a torch flame and Odysseus lost sight of the Oracle’s grey face. ‘And then? Shall we reach home safely from there? Which way should I steer from the Island of the Sun? Tell me – must any more of my men die? Is Poseidon still angry with me?’

  ‘Angry? He hates you with a hatred deep as the ocean itself. The Scylla will take her fill of men, but their death is appointed for that hour. Do not struggle to save them. Row quickly by. If no one kills or eats the Sun God’s cattle which graze on the Island of the Sun, all may be well. All may still be well …’ The voice faded to a sigh, and the light to a flicker, and the grey face to a wisp of smoke.

  Odysseus sprang forward to stop the Oracle leaving, but he slipped on the slime and fell, and a circle of white and doleful faces closed in on him, and invisible fingers felt at his face. The spirits of Hades had forgotten the feel of skin and hair.

  Like a swimmer in this shoal of jellyfish, Odysseus flailed his way back to the shore where he had left his fast, black ship. If it had not been for the anxious cluck-clucking of his cockerel, he and his men might never have found its solid hull amongst the softness of the Underworld.

  No time for farewells to the dead they knew. No time for questions about life after death. Only a long, sweating pull on the oars, against the current of River Ocean. At last the keel was gripped by a favourable current and emerged into the path of the rising sun. They were swept, without aid of oars, out on to the sunlit sea, and saw Circe’s island, a speck on the horizon.

  ‘Magic, merest magic,’ thought Odysseus to himself, snuffing up the perfumes of Circe’s magic gardens, blown offshore by the sorceress’s sighs.

  6

  Beauties and Beasts

  Circe was overjoyed to see them. She helped them find Elpenor’s body and give it burial. His friends planted the rower’s oar in his grave mound and called his name three times across the ocean. Elpenor’s soul was set to rest for ever.

  This done, Odysseus repeated the directions he had been given in Hades, carefully omitting certain details in case his men refused to go on. Circe listened and bit her lip and nodded unhappily. ‘If you must go, you must. But since your course lies past the hideous Siren Singers, take beeswax from my hives and stop up your ears before ever you get close to the sound. Once a man has heard the song of the Sirens, his wits fly overboard and nothing can save his soul from shipwreck. Believe me, Odysseus, not even your wisdom could save you.’

  Odysseus took the wax. He also promised himself, in his heart of hearts, to hear the Siren song. So when they had put to sea and ploughed a white furrow to the very brink of the horizon, he plugged each man’s ears with beeswax and stood beside the mast.

  ‘Polites! Tie me to the mast with rope. And if I ask you to set me free, tie me tighter still.’

  ‘Pardon?’ said Polites.

  So Odysseus took the wax out of Polites’ ears and repeated his instructions. Polites bound him to the mast with a coil of strong hemp, resealed his own ears, and bent over his oar once more.

  Across the water came a chirruping like birdsong – an intriguing but not a very beautiful sound. Odysseus strained his ears to hear more. There was no need: the ship passed close by the bald and barnacled rocks where the Sirens sat sin
ging. As it came closer, the singing grew more distinct. It was a song written in an unnameable key and sung in notes which never climbed the rungs of a musical stave:

  ‘Odysseus, see what flowers we have bound

  Into a crown for you upon this mound.

  A flask of wine and pomegranate sweet

  Are waiting here for you to drink and eat.’

  It was true. He could see them. Three women glistening from head to foot with oily balm were beckoning him to come ashore. Their unplaited hair reached as far as the water where it spread out in a fringe of gold around the flowery islet.

  ‘Quick, Polites! Circe was lying. She was jealous, that’s all. Just look at those sweet faces. How could they do a man any harm? Put in, Polites! The orders are changed. Put in!’

  But Polites did not lift his eyes from the deck, and although he cast a quick glance over the rail, his face showed nothing but disgust.

  ‘Polites! I forbid you to row past! Unplug your ears, you fool!’ The boat was drawing level now with the island.

  ‘Look, look, my sisters! See his twining curls –

  A snare to snare the hearts of us poor girls.

  Oh pity us who love you, glorious man!

  Put in now! Swim now! Jump now! Come! You can!’

  ‘Polites, cut me free, you fool!’ Odysseus writhed until he worked one hand free and could scrabble at the knot binding him. In an instant, Polites and Palmides leapt up from their oars and bound him round, from heels to throat, with a second length of rope. He was all but choking, but he used what breath he had to curse them, to offer them bribes, to threaten them with direst punishments unless they did as he ordered.

  The red-prowed boat swept on past the island. Its smell of flowers made Odysseus’ head reel. His crew too put their hands to their noses as if the smell was making them dizzy. The sweet song of the Sirens became indistinct and sobbing. ‘Ah, let me go, for sweet pity’s sake!’ groaned Odysseus, straining against the ropes. ‘Those poor ladies will be heartbroken if I leave them now!’ As the sea fell silent, he slumped exhausted in the cords.

  One by one, the rowers unplugged their ears and turned to one another, pulling faces.

  ‘The stench!’

  ‘Those vile creatures!’

  ‘All those bones!’

  ‘All those good men lost.’

  ‘The gods bless Circe for saving us.’

  Muttering a thousand apologies, Polites unbound his captain, who was dazed and tearful. ‘What do they mean, friend? What stench? What creatures? What bones?’

  ‘Forgive me, my lord Odysseus, but I don’t believe you saw those three screeching, scrawny vultures pecking on the bones of a thousand dead and dying sailors. Ah, those poor men – all stretched out like worshippers at a shrine. What a fearful way to die!’

  Odysseus nodded, but said nothing. A sprinkling of spray wetted his face, and a noise like distant thunder set the surface of the sea shivering.

  Except that it was not thunder at all. It was the Clashing Rocks.

  To the port side of the ship, two ridges of rock, razor sharp at the peak, ground together their granite faces like cymbals clashing. The cliff-faces gouged and clawed from each other great gouts of spewing fire, boulders and shards which hurtled into the sea below. The sight and sound was so alarming that the rowers dropped their oars and leapt off their benches to say prayers in the bottom of the boat.

  It was all Odysseus could do to remind them, ‘You are soldiers and heroes of the Trojan Wars! Pull yourselves together! Besides, if you don’t row,’ he said calmly, buckling on his sword and setting his brass helmet on his head, ‘we may well drift in under those cliffs. Do show some backbone now, or I shall be ashamed to call you men of Ithaca.’

  Shame-faced and sheepish, they clambered back to their oars and rowed on. The water bubbled and boiled with the heat of the lava bleeding from the Clashing Rocks. But though it buckled and bleached the boards of the ship, they were not engulfed by any of the tumbling rockslides as they raced by, muscles straining and eyes fixed on the plume of Odysseus’ shining helmet.

  He was proud of them – proud till his heart beat fast in his chest. (But he was still careful not to mention what lay beyond the Clashing Rocks.)

  The broad ocean was narrowing, narrowing into straits bounded on both sides now by cliffs. To the starboard side a sheer, beetling wall, smooth as alabaster, rose as tall as one of the pillars which hold up Heaven. High up in it, as high as the highest window in King Lamus’ palace, a single dark cave overlooked the straits. No path led to it, no Cyclops could come and go with his herd of sheep, the cliff face was so sheer and smooth.

  Of all the men aboard, only Odysseus kept his eyes fixed on that cave. Teiresias’ words were branded on his brain: ‘Do not struggle, but row quickly by.’ All the rest were looking to the other side where, gaping as wide as a harbour and spinning as fast as a chariot wheel, a circle of water whirled in a welter of mist and spray. At the rim, the water heaped itself up, and at the centre it dipped into a spiral, glassy funnel.

  Caught up in the maelstrom were the bits and bones of broken boats which had been sucked into the whirlpool, spun to its base, and cracked like eggs against the rocky seabed. The noise was like a long, open-mouthed scream, as if all the hurts done to the ocean were being felt in one place.

  Twice each day the whirlpool spun to the left; twice each day it spun to the right. Between times, the shining ocean levelled and the whirlpool Charybdis was no more than a clutter of wreckage spinning on the surface. But as the tide ebbed or flowed, the monstrous Charybdis screwed itself, twisted and knotted itself, into a skein of spinning destruction, and sucked in everything that floated on the sea’s surface for seven miles around.

  As they watched, the whirlpool slowed, slowed and grew shallow. The laughing men shouted their thanks up to Heaven, for surely there would be time to row safely by before Charybdis again breathed in.

  Suddenly Odysseus cried: ‘Lean on your oars, men! Let me hear your sinews crack! Bend your foreheads to your knees and pull with all your might! And pray, men! Pray as though this were your last day on Earth! Let each man call his name loud enough to be heard in the Underworld!’

  Instantly obedient, his men began to call:

  ‘Palmides!’

  ‘Polybus!’

  ‘Eurylochus!’

  ‘Polites!’

  ‘Icmali- ahh! Oh save us, Odysseus!’

  No sooner had they called their names, than Icmalius, Eurybates and four more besides were snatched from their benches by the hinged jaws of six serpents.

  No, not six serpents but one serpent with six heads – a lizard-backed and scaly beast whose haunches squirmed in its high, cavernous den, while its clawed feet scrabbled down the cliff face and its six heads weaved over the speeding ship. Scylla the monster fed rarely, but well, from the ships which slipped hard by her cliff-top cave intent on avoiding the whirlpool. Sometimes, when two ships or more were sailing in single file, those following would try to turn back, pushing with all their might against the oars, wrenching aside the tiller. But the pull of Charybdis would still drag them forwards, draw them beneath Scylla’s cave, so that she could come a second time and gorge on men or store away future meals in her bone-littered den.

  Odysseus knew that only by braving the Scylla’s den could those who survived reach home and family: that was why he did not warn the rowers of what was to come. But now he saw hatred in their eyes, because he had steered them close to the monster’s cave. Scylla withdrew into her den, and with her went the terrible screams of their six comrades. The rowers had no breath to curse their captain: they were racing against time.

  As the six-headed lizard stowed her food, the red-prowed ship leapt forwards – painfully slowly it seemed to claw and wallow its way past the cliff. In panicky fear, the rhythm of the oars was lost and they clattered together and flailed at the air. Scylla re-emerged – each mouth empty, each of her twelve eyes fixed on the little ship. Charybdis, to
o, began to coil and roar and suck.

  With his clenched fist, Odysseus beat out on the prow a rhythm to row by: ‘Pull … and pull … and pull!’ The sweat ran down; the groans flew up. The Scylla’s forepaws scrabbled down the cliff. Her teeth snapped shut – her jaws snatched – and the tillerman felt the breath from two of her twelve nostrils hot on his neck. But they were past her – and past Charybdis, too, though the monstrous whirl of water was gaping wider and wider with every beat of Odysseus’ fist on the prow.

  7

  Mutiny and Murder

  Exhausted, they slumped across their oars. Odysseus raised a sail, and a favourable breeze carried them on into the great round O of the central ocean and away from its dangerous, magical margins. The rising moon wounded the sea with a spear of silver, and the old familiar constellations showed themselves one by one like signposts marking the way home.

  ‘Not far now, men. If this wind holds we shall see home within the week. Over yonder, where the sun went down, is the Island of the Sun, but we shan’t be putting ashore there.’

  And foolishly that was all he said.

  Just then, the wind rattled the sail angrily against the mast and the sea shivered into a thousand cats-paws. Big warm raindrops hit their weary shoulders as though the gods were spitting on them with contempt. Eurylochus set the boat rocking as he heaved himself to his feet.

  ‘Well, I say we do pull in to the Island of the Sun. And I say we light ourselves a fire and find ourselves some shelter and, most of all, I say we get some sleep. I don’t know about you, comrades, but my arms have been half out of their sockets and my heart has been half out of my chest with terror. And frankly I don’t give a spit for the wishes of a captain who fed six of my friends to the Scylla and never even warned them of the death they had in store!’