by Glyn Iliffe
‘How long’ve you been out here?’ said another voice.
‘Don’t crowd him,’ said the first.
‘What ship is this?’ Eperitus asked, sitting up.
‘A Phaeacian trader. Don’t worry, you’re safe; we won’t harm you. My name’s Proreus.’
‘You said you’d got somebody else on board. Another survivor?’
‘You tell us,’ Proreus replied. ‘We fished him off another piece of flotsam this morning, but he can’t remember anything at all. He must be a shipmate of yours, though.’
‘Where is he?’
Proreus took his arm and helped him to his feet.
‘Over here. Do you know him?’
The ship was big and well made with a crew of perhaps two dozen. The Phaeacians were all large, muscular men browned by long years at sea. They watched him from the rowing benches or as they leaned casually against the bow rails on either side. Proreus took him to a figure sitting on sacks of grain with a blanket around his shoulders. It was Omeros. As Eperitus’s shadow fell over the boy he looked up. It took a few moments for Eperitus to realise he was blind.
‘Yes. He was a passenger on our ship.’
‘Was he blind before you were wrecked?’
‘No.’
‘I thought as much. There’s a deep cut on the back of his head, so whatever struck him has robbed him of his sight. It took his memory, too, poor wretch. Can’t even remember who he is. But if you speak to him – tell him his name – perhaps something’ll come back.’
Eperitus shook his head. ‘I don’t recall his name. Like I said, he wasn’t one of the crew.’
‘And your name?’ Proreus said.
‘My name doesn’t matter.’
‘Doesn’t matter? A man’s name is who he is.’
‘I don’t want to be anybody.’
‘Well, stranger, I can see you’re a man who’s seen hard times and perhaps you’re in no mood for talking. You can tell me your name when we reach Phaeacia. For now, I’ll find you a blanket and something to eat.’
Eperitus nodded and sat down on one of the grain sacks. He looked at Omeros’s unseeing eyes and the blank face that remembered nothing, and he envied him. If the gods had been merciful they would have left Omeros his memory and taken Eperitus’s instead. But perhaps that was part of the joke: take the past from a young man who had nothing to regret, while leaving an old man with the ghosts of everything he had lost. He would not let them have their joke, though. He had let down those whom he cared for the most: Iphigenia; Arceisius; Astynome; Odysseus. His life had been a failure. But he had to move on. He had seen the Underworld and knew the eternity of misery that awaited him. He would not let that start now. Astynome would not want him to, nor would Odysseus. For his own sake he had to leave his past behind, deny it and move on. Odysseus had once believed that the decrees of the gods could be reversed. He had to believe the same.
Reluctantly, Odysseus opened his eyes. He had been dreaming he was back home on Ithaca, hosting a feast in the great hall. Penelope and Telemachus were on either side of him and the other tables were filled with the kings and heroes he had fought beside in the war: Agamemnon, Menelaus, Diomedes, Achilles and even Great Ajax. Eperitus was there, as were Antiphus, Polites, Eurybates and many others who had since descended to Hades’s Halls. But in his dream they were happy. Their faces were free from suffering, free from any memory of the trials they had faced. And he had wanted to remain with his family and friends. But some instinct had disturbed his contentment, nagging at him until he was forced to follow it into consciousness and the knowledge that what he had been enjoying was a fantasy. As he felt the rise and fall of the raft and the bite of the leather straps that lashed him to it, he remembered that he was alone and without help in a world that hated him.
He lay there a moment with his cheek pressed against the rough wood, wondering what had pulled him from his sleep. Then he knew. The smell of land. The sound of waves crashing against rocks. And he realised he was in mortal peril.
He unslipped his wrists from their bonds and knelt. Dark hills were rising out of the sea ahead of him, silhouetted by thousands of stars. Explosions of silver spray marked the island’s jagged teeth, and knowing he would be dashed against them in moments, Odysseus leapt into the water and began swimming. He had seen a line of breakers from the raft and headed in their direction, hoping they marked a beach. He prayed the gods would give him the strength to reach the narrow spot before he was pulled to his death on the rocks. The gods heard him. Just as he thought his limbs would take him no further, a wave picked him up and threw him onto soft sand. He dragged himself up the beach on his elbows until he felt long grass between his fingers, then collapsed.
He did not dream, but when he awoke it was to a parched throat and the gnawing of hunger. He had been on the raft for nine days, the last five of which had been without any food and the last two without water. Rising to his feet, he saw by the early morning sunlight that he had found his way into a cove between two rocky headlands. A small misjudgement in direction or weakening in his stroke last night would have seen him swept to his death. Perhaps the gods had not finished with him after all. Brushing the sand from his tattered clothes, he entered a line of trees at the top of the beach and immediately found himself on a well-trodden path. Not so long ago he might have followed it with caution, but he no longer cared. He was starving and unarmed, and if the path’s makers were hostile then he could do nothing about it. But something told him there was no danger here. Not mortal danger, at least. Instead there was a strange familiarity about the place. As he followed the path deeper into the trees he heard the sound of trickling water. Strengthened by his thirst, he stumbled on until the path was intersected by a small stream, where he threw himself into the cool water and drank deeply. When he had finished he waded to the opposite bank and sat on the lush grass. It was there that he saw the small white flower.
It was not a particularly beautiful flower. Indeed, it was quite plain. But it had a strong fragrance that he had not smelled for many years, and then only in one other place. Slowly and carefully he parted the grass on either side and scratched at the earth that nurtured it. Its fragrance and the shape of its petals were not enough, but as it yielded to his touch he saw the turtle-shaped root and knew it was a chelonion. A chelonion! The native flower of his homeland, found only in the soil of Ithaca and Kefalonia. He stared at it in disbelief as tears rolled down his cheeks.
‘Who are you?’
Startled, he looked up and saw a young woman standing before him. She wore a long white dress that left only her milky white arms and neck exposed. Her hair fell in long blonde curls about her shoulders, framing a fine face with lips that were still slightly parted with surprise. Her pale blue eyes wore an expression that was both cautious and yet intrigued. Odysseus became acutely aware of his ragged tunic and – conscious of the irony that he might be the girl’s king – felt compelled to bow his head before her.
‘Forgive my appearance, my lady. I’m a mere sailor brought to this land by the misfortune of storm and shipwreck. Though I don’t know which land this is.’
‘You’re no mere sailor,’ she answered in a light voice. ‘It takes more than brine and a few rags to hide a man’s nobility. As for this place, you have arrived on the island of Ogygia.’
‘Ogygia?’ Odysseus replied, his voice failing. ‘Are… are you sure?’
‘Of course I am. This is my home and I’ve lived here alone for many years. In all that time I’ve only ever been visited by the gods, and yet here you are, brought to me by the sea.’
‘But I thought this was Ithaca or… or maybe Kefalonia,’ Odysseus protested. He held up the flower in his fingertips as proof. ‘This plant only grows there –’
She took the chelonion and examined it briefly before tossing it aside. Then she knelt before him and folded his hands in hers.
‘I’ve never heard of either of those places, and as for your little flower, it grows all ove
r this island. But you are weary. Come with me to my home and be my guest. I will bathe and clothe you and then we will eat together.’
‘But my lady –’
‘Calypso. My name is Calypso.’
Her earlier surprise had disappeared and now she looked at him with kinder eyes. But the kindness came from hunger, the same hungry longing he had seen in Circe. It was a longing he felt himself – a longing that was born out of loneliness – and which only one woman could satisfy. But it seemed he was destined never to see Penelope again, and without her he knew he would always be incomplete.
As black despair settled in his heart, Odysseus allowed Calypso to take him by the hand and lead him into the woods.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Odyssey has enthralled and perplexed readers for around three thousand years. Of its twenty-four chapters, twenty are focussed on Odysseus’s return to Ithaca and his fight to save his family and home from the ambitions of a host of would-be usurpers. The other four chapters relate the story of his fantastic ten-year voyage from Troy to the shores of Phaeacia, where he tells King Alcinous of his encounters with the Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens and other mythical beings. It is these four chapters, and the handful of events that precede them, that form the basis for The Voyage of Odysseus.
Scholars, both ancient and modern, have tried to impose Odysseus’s wanderings over a map of the Mediterranean and come up with solutions to the many mysteries in Homer’s poem, such as who were the lotus eaters, where was the entrance to the Underworld, and what was Charybdis. For the most part they have sought natural solutions to supernatural conundrums, an exercise which has to be futile. I’ve opted to accept Homer at his word and take up a different challenge: to fill the gaps in Odysseus’s account of his voyage, and to relate the story to the events that took place after the fall of Troy.
As with the previous books in this series, I have attempted to remain true to the original myths while also taking a few liberties to help the stories fit together into a single coherent narrative. Calchas, the renegade Trojan seer, did not die at Troy, but in Asia Minor, where he expired from shame or grief after meeting a prophet greater than himself; or alternatively after a fit of laughter that caused him to choke to death. Odysseus did not find Little Ajax’s body floating in the waters off Euboea, though it is generally said his fleet was wrecked there by Athena, as a punishment for his rape of Cassandra in the goddess’s temple. Neither were the lotus eaters stirred to violence when Odysseus hauled his drugged countrymen back to the safety of their ship.
Homer does not suggest that Circe drugged the wine to keep Odysseus and his comrades from thinking of Ithaca – this is my way of excusing him for lingering so long when he should have been hurrying home to Penelope. Nor was Elpenor anything more than a poor fool in The Odyssey, who fell off Circe’s roof after drinking too much wine. His role as an assassin is entirely my invention, while his fellow assassin, Selagos, does not appear in the original myths at all.
The same is true of Eperitus, a product of my imagination who provides an element of the unknown in a popular and familiar tale. Indeed, this story is as much Eperitus’s as it is Odysseus’s, and so we must wait until the sixth and final book of the series to see what the Fates have in store for them both.
