Homer's Daughter

by Robert Graves

  “Have you any private information to offer me in exchange?”

  I frowned. “We are not merchants bargaining,” I said. “We are brother and sister, confronted by formidable odds. Unless we trust each other completely, we are lost. What would have happened at Mycenae—answer me that—had Orestes and his sister Electra made separate, unrelated plans for the destruction of the usurping Aegisthus? If you think me a coward, or a fool, or incapable of keeping a secret, say so at once and I shall know where I stand.”

  Clytoneus apologized. “Of course I trust your discretion,” he cried, “and of course I intended to share my secrets with you. Just now it was important not to let Eurycleia think that I was confiding in you rather than in our mother, whom I dare not tell that I am appealing to Halius at Minoa. Halius might help us; and neither Uncle Mentor nor I can think of anyone else who could.”

  “I had myself considered approaching Halius,” I answered, “but only as a last recourse. To invite foreign soldiers here, especially Sicels, seems a dangerous precedent. Even if successful, it would create the impression that our dynasty governs the Elymans by force of arms, not by force of affection; which would strengthen the Phocaeans in their rebellious plot. Besides, though I long to embrace Halius again, and though he owes loving obedience to our mother, he cannot have forgotten the curse that was laid upon him at his departure. What makes matters worse, in a way, is that he was innocent of the fisherman’s barbarous murder. Ctesippus killed the poor fellow, as I accidentally discovered a month or two ago.”

  “Can that be true? Then why did you not denounce him?”

  “I tried, but as soon as I mentioned Halius’s name our father flared up in such a rage that it was impossible to say another word. I asked myself: ‘Why rub salt into half-healed wounds? Halius, no longer a homeless wanderer, has married the Minoan King’s daughter and become heir presumptive to the throne. He is happy enough, no doubt, and by this time must be thinking and acting as a Sicel, not an Elyman.’ Also, I lacked irrefragable proof that Ctesippus murdered the fisherman. I had only the confession of a dying woman who, it seems, was bribed by Ctesippus to witness against Halius. I told our mother all I knew, and she agrees that nothing can be done to reverse the injustice.”

  “Do you think, then, that I ought not to go?”

  “How soon could you reach Minoa?”

  “Unless the wind changes, in two days, with oars and sails. We have to make some eighty or ninety miles. The return journey will take a good deal longer, if we have to fight a head wind.”

  “Since it is unlikely that Halius will be able to supply a naval squadron at short notice, you had better come back by land. Your reappearance must be a surprise. Halius, whatever else he may do, cannot fail to escort you to the frontier, and if you come back by sea, the crew may accuse you to the Council of treating with the enemy. I shall expect you home in seven days, trusting Athene to continue favourable. Take the inland road, and meet me at Eumaeus’s hog farm. If I am nowhere about, weep: you may be sure that I am either dead or ravished.”

  “What do you want me to bring you from Minoa?”

  “Threats of a Sicel raid unless the suitors leave the Palace without delay and compensate us in full.”

  “But if Halius refuses to offer any such threat?”

  “He will not refuse.”

  “And the ship, if I manage to borrow one, which is by no means certain? What orders shall I give the crew when we reach Minoa?”

  “I leave that to you, but they must keep away from Drepanum until you have been back here at least two or three days.”

  Clytoneus, though tough, is malleable. Having no ideas of his own, but only indignant anger, and finding that my plan agreed with our uncle Mentor’s, he was willing to do as I suggested. The immediate problems—where to borrow a ship and pick up a crew; who could be trusted to exercise Argus and Laelaps in his absence; what gifts to offer Halius, and so forth—engrossed him so thoroughly that he forgot to ask me the secret cause of my confidence, or how I should spend the interval between his return and that of the ship. But I proposed to play fair: Clytoneus would meet Aethon the Cretan soon enough. And until then it seemed pointless to burden his head with schemes which were not yet clearly formulated even in my own.

  Clytoneus had unexpected luck. One young nobleman, a member of our clan, Noemon by name, happened to have a ship available. This long-legged, pale-faced boy had fallen in love with me, and it occurred to him that by lending Clytoneus this vessel, which lay beached in a deserted part of the southern harbour, and hiding the matter from Antinous and Eurymachus, he could show his loyalty to our house, and me, and stand well with us when these troubles were over. Unfortunately, however, he disregarded my warning to avoid the Palace; though telling my uncle Mentor in private that he was prepared to pay for all he ate and drank, and that he came there in the sole hope of catching an occasional glimpse of me at the window. I felt a certain pity, and gratitude, too, for Noemon, who had large, prominent eyes, like a hare’s; but he could never have become my husband. I had sworn a solemn oath by the Infernal Goddess Hecate, whom Zeus himself holds in awe, not to marry any man, whatever the circumstances, who entered our house uninvited and abused our hospitality.

  Very well, then: here we had the needed ship. Eurycleia provisioned her; my uncle Mentor signed on a crew; and the secret was so carefully kept that, a few hours later, while the suitors were rioting in the cloisters, Clytoneus slipped out of the Palace by the garden door, hurried to the harbour, went aboard unmolested, and was soon making good progress with oar and sail to the south-east. Not until too late did our enemies notice his absence; and it caused them some concern. Antinous and Eurymachus had flattered themselves that nobody would dare lend him so much as a four-oarer; or that they could, at any rate, keep her in port by threatening the crew. The last thing they wanted was that the King should learn how things stood at home. What if he enlisted armed help at Sandy Pylus, and sailed back with a large punitive force? They had planned to cut him down as soon as he set foot unsuspectingly on the quay. Now they must modify their plans. Yet they could not openly reproach Noemon without giving themselves away, and for most of the suitors this reckless distraint on our cattle and wine was still a mere joke at the expense of an overthrifty king who had issued a general welcome and forgotten to cancel it at his departure. Thus Noemon remained unaware that he had struck a severe blow against our enemies. They decided to post watchmen all the way down the coast, with instructions to make smoke signals when the King was sighted—he could be recognized by his sea-horse prow and purple-striped sail. Then they would hurry out ships to ambush him off Motya.

  My mother greeted me ironically next morning and, having dismissed the maids, asked: “Who put Clytoneus up to this adventure? Was it you or Mentor? Or was it perhaps both?”

  Never having yet successfully deceived my mother, I said: “My uncle Mentor arranged it and made Clytoneus promise to tell nobody. Not even you or me.”

  “Not even Eurycleia, I suppose?”

  “Eurycleia had to provide the barley and the wine.”

  She sighed. “But he is obviously not going to Sandy Pylus?”

  “Why do you say ‘obviously’?”

  “Would he dare face his father without bringing a message from me? Besides, my enquiries show that the helmsman whom Mentor engaged has only coastal experience; Clytoneus would not risk the Ionian gulf unless with a helmsman who had made the run a dozen times before. And his fear of taking me into his confidence must mean that he does not want to cause trouble by asking my approval of certain actions which your father would forbid. In fact, he has gone to Minoa: am I right?”

  I nodded.

  “Well,” she sighed, “loyalty to your father alone prevents me from praising his courage.”

  She said nothing to my uncle Mentor. He now went about with a bodyguard of two Sicel slaves, who had a strong attachment to him and carried carving knives in their girdles. The suitors were careful not to ins
ult him in the Sicels’ hearing, but a day or two later, egged on by Eurymachus, Agelaus ventured to enter the throne chamber, reach for the royal sceptre and seat himself on the throne. My mother sprang up from her loom and cried sharply: “Boy, out of the King’s throne at once! That is no ordinary chair. If I catch you sitting there again…!”

  She ran at him, boxed his ears and pulled him down by the legs. Having never before seen my calm, queenly, beautiful mother angry, Agelaus was so surprised that when he found himself sprawling on the marble pavement with a bruised spine, he scrambled to his feet and blundered away. Shame kept him from telling his friends of this misadventure; but the throne thereafter seemed no less terrible to him than the fiery chair, wreathed about by serpents, in which Theseus (another arrogant usurper) endures the eternal torment imposed on him by Persephone, the Queen of Hell.

  That was the day of the suitors’ boar hunt. A big tusker had been reported in a mountain thicket some two miles from Drepanum, and the suitors rose early to go after him. I need record no details of the chase except that, Antinous having borrowed Argus and Laelaps for the occasion, poor Laelaps was disembowelled after gallantly seizing the boar by the snout—if only it had been Antinous himself! And because the bunglers had netted the thicket in too great haste, the boar escaped and did considerable damage to crops and vineyards—fortunately not palace land—until our shepherd Philoetius, meeting it by chance in a narrow lane, earned glory with a shrewd javelin cast.

  The suitors’ servants, meanwhile, had been preparing the usual enormous meal in the court of sacrifice. I gathered, from scraps of conversation overheard, that since Eumaeus had lately resisted all demands on him for hogs, the servants had been ordered to take them by force; that this morning it had come to a fight with Philoetius, who refused point-blank to supply further sheep or goats; and that his cousin had been severely wounded about the head. I heard no news of a beggar staying at Eumaeus’s farm, but was certain that Aethon had obeyed my instructions and prudently kept out of the way. For he was a natural fighter, a champion, who could have routed the rabble of servants with a mere faggot, if so inclined. His clear eye and muscular arms… Cautiously examining myself, I decided that I must have well and truly fallen in love, else why should I place such confidence in Aethon’s strength and courage? Having been denied this experience hitherto, I began to feel a little strange: not unsure of myself, but perplexed. Since Aethon’s life and honour had suddenly come to mean as much to me as my own, I possessed (to speak fancifully) both an interior and an exterior soul… So it was good to remember that I had treated him firmly, which I must continue to do; and then, if Athene granted us victory over our enemies, and if I agreed to become his wife, he would never despise me, however un-disguisedly I loved him. Soon we should meet again, all being well, and I could then find out whether I had not been mistaken in my first favourable estimate of his powers…

  My reflections were interrupted by shouts from the court of sacrifice: the hunters streaming in. I took refuge in the Tower to avoid them. Eurymachus had stepped into a muddy pool, which the boar used as a wallow, and now rudely entered our women’s quarters, his legs black with filth, demanding a foot bath. My mother was in the orchard giving directions to Dolius the gardener; my uncle Mentor was down the street looking over a team of mules which had been offered for sale; so that none of the family happened to be at home except Ctimene. I should have sent Eurymachus about his business; but being grateful to him, I suppose, for his intervention on her behalf, she told Eurycleia to fetch hot water and attend to him. Eurycleia knew her place and did not question the order, though obeying it with obvious distaste; she poured a bucketful of cold water into a large copper basin and sent a maid to the kitchen for the same amount of hot. When all was ready, Eurymachus seated himself on a stool and put both feet in the basin.

  “You are very silent, old lady,” he sneered.

  “I have little to say, young nobleman.”

  “And sulky, too.”

  “Do you blame me?” Eurycleia picked up a brush, seized his foot and began to scrub off the filth.

  “Hey!” he cried. “Give over! Do you wish to flay me alive? What brush is that?”

  “The hard brush for cleaning hogskins. Did you expect me to use a lady’s sponge?”

  Suddenly she screamed, let go his foot, grabbed the hem of his undershirt and pointed an accusing finger at a neat darn. Eurymachus’s heel struck the side of the basin, which upset, flooding the room with dirty water.

  He caught her by the throat. “If you dare!” he muttered murderously.

  Ctimene, standing by a window, misunderstood the situation.

  “Upon my word, Eurycleia!” she exclaimed. “Have you gone mad? Is this the way to greet a nobleman? First you scrub his feet until you almost skin him and then you drop one of them and overturn the basin! Be careful or I shall have you whipped, for all your grey hairs.”

  “And unless you keep your toothless mouth shut,” shouted Eurymachus, “you may get worse than a whipping: you may find yourself strung from a rafter!”

  “My lord, I will be very discreet in future,” Eurycleia whimpered, pretending to be scared out of her wits. “I shall be as mute as a stone or a nugget of iron.”

  “You can count on her perfect servility, my lord Eurymachus,” echoed Ctimene. “Fetch more warm water, at once, Eurycleia, and a soft cloth!”

  The fact was that Eurycleia recognized the darn as her own handiwork, and the undershirt as one of the three taken by Laodamas when he disappeared. But how had it come into Eurymachus’s possession? Was it murder?

  A forced promise being no promise, Eurycleia gave me her news without delay, and asked whether my mother and Ctimene ought to hear it too.

  “Ctimene is not to be trusted with a secret,” I said. “And perhaps it would be best to wait until Clytoneus comes home before telling my mother anything. We must soften the blow.”

  “You think then that Laodamas…?”

  I nodded miserably.

  “Only let Eurymachus ask for another bath!” she cried. “I’ll take net and axe and butcher him, as Clytaemnestra butchered Agamemnon. My heart growls in my breast like a bitch with puppies when a stranger approaches.”

  “No, dear Eurycleia, the blood vengeance falls to Clytoneus and me. If we delay, my brother’s ghost will plague us mercilessly; indeed, it must be he who has brought all this recent unhappiness into the Palace. We shall call on you when we need your services.”

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  THE OLD

  WHITE

  SOW

  In summer, as I reminded my uncle Mentor, the best times for slipping unobserved out of the Palace are an hour after midnight, when everyone but the porter is asleep; and an hour after dinner, when everyone is taking a siesta, the porter included. We chose siesta time. I had told my mother where I was going and why. She kissed me fondly but made no comment, except: “Ctimene will have to be persuaded that you are down with a dangerous fever.”

  “If only Halius will help us!” my uncle muttered as we skirted the stables, keeping under cover of the olives. Both of us wore stout shoes and the clothes we kept for rough work: darkish frieze unrelieved by any trimming that shone or sparkled. He took his sword with him and a bag of provisions; I had a dagger concealed beneath my dress.

  We contrived to reach our private jetty unobserved. The dinghy was ready, and in it we rowed across the southern harbour to the farther beach, thus avoiding the town gates. Then we struck inland, and by the grace of Athene did not meet a soul in our walk over the marshes. Presently we had left the city of Eryx on the left hand and were on the slowly rising track leading to Hypereia and the Temple of Aphrodite beyond. The sun shone blisteringly hot, but this was a journey from which we could not turn back, though the sweat broke from my brow and rolled in rivulets down my dusty cheeks.

  “Uncle,” I said at last, “when Clytoneus and I were little children and went on picnics, you used to help us along by te
lling us stories. My favourite was the one about the King who would not die. Tell it me again.”

  “In this heat, and up this hill? Panting like hounds after a chase?”

  “I will carry the bag if you do as I ask. I want to be reminded of the days before I had a care in the world.”

  “Very well, I consent. No, my dear, I can manage the bag as well. Soon we shall be among the sweet-smelling pines, and then I shall not mind so much… Yes, the King was called Ulysses. Ulysses is said to have been the grandson of Autolycus and an ancestor of the Phocaeans.”

  “Like Odysseus.”

  “Like Odysseus,” my uncle agreed, “and some people therefore confuse Odysseus with Ulysses. This is the story as I heard it from the mystagogues of Aegesta, in explanation of the ballet formerly danced there in the height of summer:

  “Autolycus the Phocian was a past master in theft, Hermes having given him the power of transmogrifying whatever beasts he stole from horned to unhorned, or from black to white, and contrariwise. Thus, although Sisyphus, King of Corinth, his neighbour, noticed that his own herds grew steadily smaller, while those of Autolycus increased, he was for months unable to convict him of felony; and therefore, one day, engraved the inside of all his cattle’s hooves with the monogram or, some say, with letters spelling ‘Stolen by Autolycus’. That same night Autolycus helped himself as usual, and at dawn hoofprints along the road gave Sisyphus sufficient evidence to summon witnesses of the theft. He visited Autolycus’s stables, identified his stolen beasts by their marked hooves and, leaving his supporters to remonstrate with the thief, hurried around the house, entered the portal, and while a hot argument raged outside, seduced Autolycus’s daughter Anticleia, wife to Laertes the Argive. She bore him Ulysses; the manner of whose conception accounts for the cunning that he habitually showed, and for his nickname, ‘Hypsipylon’, which means ‘Of the High Portal’.

  “Now, one day Zeus fell in love with Aegina, the daughter of the River God Asopus, and disguised as an Achaean prince, secretly carried her off. Asopus set out in grief to search for Aegina, and first visiting Corinth, asked King Sisyphus if he knew her whereabouts. ‘I do,’ answered Sisyphus, ‘but you must buy the information by furnishing my citadel with a perpetual spring.’ To this Asopus agreed, and made the Spring of Peirene bubble up from behind Aphrodite’s temple. ‘You will find Zeus embracing your daughter in a wood five miles to the westward,’ said Sisyphus, ‘and, by the bye, he has forgotten to bring along his almighty weapons.’