Telesphora heard a rustling—a different kind of breathing. She tried to stand up. Too late! She felt a pair of claws fasten on her throat. Her eyes widened in horror as she saw the hag sitting up in bed. The limp cloak had become wings, spread like a falcon’s, and the eyes, the pouched old eyes were pools of yellow fire.
These blazing eyes were the last sight the girl saw; the last sound she heard was a screech of triumph as the Harpy finished strangling her.
9
The Singing Head
Telesphora slipped out of the vaporous file of shades that were being led toward Hades’ judgment seat. She watched them vanish into the mist, then struck off in a different direction across a great hushed plain. She groped through the thick mist, which was not quite fog but a brownish murk, smelling of sulphur.
She kicked something that cried out in pain. She bent to see. It was a head standing on a stump of neck. It was not a skull. Parchment skin stuck to whittled bones. The pale face was framed by a fall of thick, shining white hair. Eyes and mouth were holes, but the eyeholes streamed light, and the voice that issued from the mouth hole was pure radiant power—like sunlight made into sound. Telesphora felt herself fill with a rapture she had never expected to feel again.
“Who are you?” she cried, “whose voice is of such wondrous beauty?”
“I am Orpheus,” said the head. “Or, rather, what is left of him.”
“Orpheus? And do I hear your voice? Truly, hell has its privileges.”
“But who are you?” said the head. “What are you? Are you sure you’re quite dead?”
“Why do you doubt it?”
“You give off a strange glow—like phosphorus on the night tide. You shed a fragrant warmth that ghosts do not.”
“They think I’m dead,” said Telesphora. “They tried their best to make me so. But it’s your story I want to hear, minstrel. How did you get to be the way you are? Where’s the rest of you?”
“Well, I’ll tell you my tale, and you’ll tell me yours.”
“Oh, yes! Yes!” cried Telesphora.
“One moonlit night,” said the head, “I was singing to a party of young women, revelers, you know, who followed Dionysius as he trod the Thracian slopes, fattening the vines. I was singing to them, and they were dancing, when Artemis, acting for the Council of the Gods, poisoned her moon rays, sending the women mad. They fell on me and tore me to pieces. They didn’t realize how they were being used, poor creatures; they thought they were applauding my performance. And one of them, a very young one, ran off with my head; she intended to keep it among her dolls. But she was struck by lightning, and my head was taken to this place—and here I’ve been ever since.”
“But why?” whispered Telesphora. “Why were the gods so cruel to you?”
“I had offended them,” said the head. “My gifts were my undoing. I was born to sing, and I sang tales of the gods and goddesses, their deeds, their passions, their pets, their victims. My songs pleased men and women and children—oh, they pleased the children—but the gods were not pleased.”
“Why not? Why not?”
“My praise was not absolute, you see. I told their cruelty as I celebrated their power. I sang triumphs and crimes. For truth to me is always in motion, aquiver with opposing elements, like everything alive. And the truth I sang was a celebration of total nature, which contains both good and evil. I believed that this huge, rich pageant, human and divine, was a metaphor for something above and beyond, or, perhaps, below and beyond our comprehension—all-embracing, mysteriously inclusive, sublimely total. Unknowable, perhaps, but not immune to questions. Thus my song. Thus I offended the gods who like their hosannas loud and simple.”
“Why then have they preserved your head, which, it would seem, must continue to offend?”
“Those wildly wasteful gods can be thrifty when it suits them. Disliking me though they did, they found a terrible use for my talent. It started while I was yet alive. And it had to do with their idea of justice—which is a prolongation of punishment.”
His voice faded.
“Tell! Tell!” cried Telesphora.
“I haven’t spoken so much in decades. I grow weak.”
Swiftly, Telesphora stuck her finger in her mouth and bit it sharply. It did not bleed. She grasped the finger with her other hand and squeezed. A drop of blood appeared. The head tilted back. She held her hand so that the blood dripped into the mouth hole.
“Thank you,” whispered the voice. “Now I know I’m right about you. Ghosts have no blood.”
The girl bit her finger again and squeezed out more blood. The head sipped again, then said “Thank you” in a voice grown strong, and so beautiful, so resonant with tales untold, that Telesphora understood why fish had risen from the depths to listen, why animals had come out of the forest, and trees had hobbled after him on twisted roots.
“Tell on, I pray,” whispered Telesphora.
“Where was I?”
“You were saying how the gods found a terrible use for your talents while you were yet alive.”
“Oh, yes,” spoke the head. “You see, ghosts can die too. They die when they are forgotten. At the precise moment that they vanish from memory, they vanish also from Tartarus. Now, this is intolerable for the gods who have prescribed eternal torment for the dead. Therefore did Hades decree that a minstrel was to be provided. He was to be taken alive, brought down here to witness the ordeal of the damned, and then sent back to the upper world to sing of what he had seen—thus, keeping memory green, and keeping the tortured ghosts conscious of pain.”
“And you were the minstrel they chose?”
“I was. They killed my wife, Eurydice, and tempted me down here while I was yet alive, implanting me with the hope that I might bring her out of this place. I came down and saw what was to be seen, and was tricked out of my wife and returned to the upper world to bear witness—precisely as they wished me to. So that now, preserved in my song, Sisyphus still rolls his stone, and starving Tantalus snaps at fruit that sways away from his mouth.”
“And that is why they want your head here now—to keep bearing witness?”
“That is why,” said Orpheus. “My voice has outlived my body, and this head is its vault—which Hecate has preserved against decay so that it can roll about among the racks, the wheels, the dungeons, and the fire pits. My testimony, drifting up from these chasms, enters the wind and whispers among the treetops, making the river reeds shudder with its tale. Fishermen hear it, men drinking, girls bathing. They tell it to others. It grows with repetition, so that every generation is taught anew of man’s duty and the gods’ vengeance. But you weep, you weep, beautiful, warm, fragrant, undead girl—you weep!”
His voice was fading again. Because she had no more blood to give him, she scooped up the head and held it to hers. Orpheus drank her tears, and his voice grew strong again. She stood there in the vast murky plain, cradling the head. Holding him like that, she told him about her life on earth. About the great doctor, Asclepius, and the way he saved people from death, and how she had helped him. She told Orpheus how she had taught herself to drain her strong body of its strength and let the vital energy soak into the dying so that they might revive—and how she would renew herself in the morning. Finally she told him how she had been surprised by an old woman who had pretended to be ill, had claimed her last bit of energy—and then, when she was too weak to defend herself, had strangled her.
“It’s as I thought,” said Orpheus. “You’re not quite dead. You must have a god or goddess in your lineage somewhere, and have inherited a freakish spark of immortality. That is why that false hag—who sounds much like Hecate, incidentally—could not quite kill you.”
“Well, alive or dead, I’m here,” said Telesphora. “And must make the most of it.”
“No, my girl,” said Orpheus. “What you must do is try to escape. The torments here are bad enough for those dulled by death; for the living they would be unbearable.”
“I
am here,” said Telesphora. “And where there is so much suffering I shall find occupation. But this place is so vast, so dark … I’ll find my way about, though.”
“You must have struck off on your own right after crossing the Styx,” said Orpheus. “You cannot have visited Lethe’s fountain, or you wouldn’t be remembering your life on earth.”
“What is this fountain?”
“A gushing spring tended by a nymph named Lethe. The newly dead are taken there first and are served a cupful of oblivion.”
“I don’t understand.”
“In Lethe’s fountain run the waters of forgetfulness. One drink and the shade forgets his life on earth, forgets those he loved and who loved him—and is able to enter upon his new ordeal without rancor or regret. It is the only kindness he will know in this place.”
“I’ll go there now,” said Telesphora.
“To drink the waters?”
“No, I shan’t drink. I want to remember, not forget. But I also want to see everything that happens down here.”
“You are absolutely resolved upon this?”
“I am.”
“Then I shall be your guide,” said the head. “I know every corner of this damned realm. I’ll roll before you as you go.”
“Won’t you be punished for helping me?”
For the first time, Orpheus smiled. “What can they do to me that has not yet been done?” he asked.
The head pivoted on its neck and rolled away. Telesphora followed.
10
The Rebel Shade
Telesphora, somehow, provided herself with a huge water skin, the kind that caravaning merchants used when making a long journey across a dry place. She took the water skin to Lethe’s fountain and began to fill it. Lethe saw what the strange shade was doing; she was about to protest, but forgot the matter before she could say anything. For she drank from her own fountain, and was very forgetful.
Then, Telesphora found the ghost of a horse so faithful that when its master was killed in battle it had leaped off a cliff, ending its own life so that it might follow him to Tartarus. But the warrior ghosts had forgotten their feuds and fought no battles, and the war-horse had little now to do and was glad to be pressed into service by Telesphora.
She draped the water skin over the horse’s withers and, guided by the head of Orpheus, set off to visit the tormented. Orpheus understood the dreadful risk she was running, but also knew that he would not be able to dissuade her. So he led her to where the torments were worst.
She visited Tantalus, who had been denied food and drink until he was wild with hunger and parched with thirst. He stood in a stream of crystal water under apple trees whose boughs, laden with delicious fruit, bent invitingly toward him. But when he tried to reach for an apple, the boughs swayed gently away, keeping their fruit just out of reach, and he could never eat. But worst of all was thirst. When he bent to the crystal pool, the waters shrank away from his lips, and he could not drink a drop. There he stood, waist-deep in sparkling water under the apple trees, eternally reaching for the fruit, eternally stooping to drink, and eternally denied. Was denied again, but forgot again, and hoped again.
Telesphora wet her hand with Lethe’s water and flicked her fingers at Tantalus. A drop fell on his parched lips, and he immediately forgot all the times he had been refused food and drink. Now, when he reached for an apple or stooped for the water, he did so with fresh hope.
“Take me somewhere else!” cried Telesphora.
“Have you really helped him?” asked Orpheus.
“He’ll still suffer,” said the girl, “but perhaps a little less. And where suffering is concerned, my doctor teaches, a little less is more than it seems.”
The head rolled on and led Telesphora to a hill, which was the site of a unique punishment. Here, a man named Sisyphus, hated by the gods, had been condemned to roll a huge stone up the hill. But each time, just as the summit was reached, the rock rolled back, and he had to resume his task at the bottom of the slope and so on through eternity.
When Telesphora approached, she saw him just as he was reaching the summit. His back was bowed, his mighty arms braced, his legs pushing. The rock stopped. The man’s legs were working so hard his feet dug into the slope. The rock began to roll backward. The man could not stop it. It gathered speed. It would have rolled over him had he not flung himself hurriedly out of the way.
Telesphora came closer. She saw the man walking slowly downhill after the rock that had now reached the bottom—saw hopeless pain on his face. She dipped out a cupful of Lethe’s water. Sisyphus looked at her blankly. Gently, she made him drink it. His face lighted up. Eagerly, he approached the rock and began to push it uphill, as if for the first time.
Orpheus and the girl and the horse watched as Sisyphus rolled the rock up again. They watched the rock slow down, come to a halt. The man struggled with the rock. They watched him follow the rock as it rolled down. But now he wore no look of agony. He looked determined and slightly eager, like one about to attempt a task for the first time.
“You see, this is what the doctor told me,” said the girl to the head as they left the hill. “The essence of torment is hopelessness—endless performance of the same action without result. But forgetting restores hope and eases pain. Whom do we visit next?”
Orpheus didn’t have time to answer. He heard the sound he had been fearing most: brass wings clattering, brass claws chiming, and the savage shriek of Harpies hunting. The horse reared up and galloped away.
Two hags dived upon Telesphora. They lifted her into the air and flew away with her.
She was taken to the Judgement Seat. Hades sat on his ebony throne, listening silently as Hecate charged the girl with the most serious crime that can be committed in hell: Dispensing Forbidden mercies. And the assembled demons howled with glee as Hades declared her guilty and pronounced sentence.
The Harpies, led by Hecate, immediately took her to the deepest part of Tartarus and chained her to a shaft of rock. She was shackled in such a way that she could not move her head. Nor could she close her eyes, for they were propped open with splinters.
And so, Telesphora was punished in the cruelest way possible—through her compassion. She was forced to watch someone being tormented in an unspeakable manner. She became witness to ceaseless agony, and could not look away.
11
The Descent
Although he had known her only a short time, Orpheus had learned to love the vibrant spirit that was Telesphora. And he could not bear what was happening to her.
“If Asclepius is really a son of Apollo,” he thought, “perhaps he can get his father to help.”
So Orpheus tried to send a message to the doctor in the only way he knew—through song. His voice entered the waters of the Phlegethon, was carried by underground streams into the river that flowed through the hospital grounds of Asclepius, and invaded the doctor’s dreams.
A head floated into his sleep, and he heard a voice of such power and beauty that he felt his bones melting.
“Telesphora needs you!” called the voice. “A spark of life still burns in your murdered girl. But pain will quench it unless you can pluck her out of the bowels of hell.”
Not knowing whether he was awake or asleep, but knowing that it didn’t matter, Asclepius arose from his pallet and went out into the summer night. The head had vanished, but he could still hear the voice singing, and he followed the lingering sound. Through forest and field he followed the voice as it wound its way among birdcall. Nor did he lose it in the pounding of the surf as it led him along the shore, nor in the howling of the wind as he struck inland and began to climb a mountain.
Up one mountain, down another, through a valley, up the next mountain to the dry bed of a lake, and across that stony lake bed to the mouth of a yawning chasm, which he didn’t know was Avernus. But he realized it must be the secret entrance to Hades’ realm, known only to Orpheus.
The doctor hadn’t eaten or slept since leaving h
is bed in Thessaly. The thought of Telesphora filled him with a bitter energy, and he did not allow himself to grow weary. Into the chasm he descended. The deeper he went the darker it grew, until he was groping in total darkness. He heard a thin twittering. Heard leathery wings flapping close to his head. Felt claws skimming his hair. He picked up two stones and clapped them together as he walked. For the keen-eared bats, he knew, disliked loud noises.
All this time, he was following the thread of Orpheus’ song, winding up to him from far below.
Finally, the path seemed to level off; blackness grew brown. A brown fog swirled about him. He came out of the cave and was in the open now. A wind blew, laden with mist, tinged with the smell of sulphur. It blew the fog into tatters, but Asclepius still had difficulty seeing where he was going. Something gleamed near his feet. He stooped and saw that it was a pair of eyes, and that the eyes were in a head that stood on a stalk of neck, the same head that had floated into his dreams.
And the same melodious voice said, “Welcome, doctor.”
“Greetings, Orpheus. Thank you for leading me here. But how cold this mist is. It chills me to my marrow. I thought hell was hot.”
“A common delusion. Hell is cold—not specifically, but indifferently. Only our roasting pits are hot.”
“Do I see lights far off?” asked Asclepius.
“That is the pearl and crystal roof of our lord’s palace, in Erebus. In the great throne room sit Hades and Persephone. Huge, black-robed, and terrible is Hades, receiving the twittering petitions of the drifting dead—which he always ignores.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
“It’s a splendid sight, but I do not recommend it. You are an intruder here. If discovered, you will be horribly punished. There is a pleasant sound of bells in the dusk of those palace grounds, but that chiming is made by the brass wings of Harpies, whose queen is Hecate. Should they sniff a living mortal—and with all due respect, your spoor is strong, brother, carnally strong—if they should sniff you out, they would swoop upon you, seize you in their brass claws, and scourge the flesh from your bones with their stingray whips. However, I know a way to bypass the palace.”
Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One Page 49
