Heroes

by Stephen Fry

  ‘Who calls?’

  Perseus started. Unquestionably a voice. Calm, soft, female, but strong and deeply authoritative.

  ‘Here to help.’

  Another voice! This one seemed to contain a hint of scorn.

  ‘My name is Perseus. I have come …’

  ‘Oh, we know who you are,’ said a young man stepping forward from the shadows.

  He was young, startlingly handsome and most unusually dressed. Aside from the loincloth around his waist, a narrow-brimmed hat that circled his brow and winged sandals at his ankles, he was quite naked.fn10 Perseus noticed that two live snakes writhed about the staff that he was carrying.

  A woman holding a shield emerged behind him. She was tall, grave and beautiful. When she raised her shining grey eyes to his, Perseus felt an extraordinary surge of something he could not quite define. He decided the quality was majesty and bowed his head accordingly.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, Perseus,’ she said. ‘Your father has sent us to help you.’

  ‘My father?’

  ‘He’s our father too,’ said the young man. ‘The Cloud Gatherer and Bringer of Storms.’

  ‘The Sky Father and King of Heaven,’ said the shining woman.

  ‘Z-Z-Zeus?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘You mean it’s really true, then? Zeus is my father?’

  Perseus had never believed his mother’s wild story about Zeus coming to her as a shower of golden rain. He had taken it for granted that his real father was some itinerant musician or tinker whose name she had never discovered.

  ‘Quite true, brother Perseus,’ said the tall woman.

  ‘Brother?’

  ‘I am Athena, daughter of Zeus and Metis.’

  ‘Hermes, son of Zeus and Maia,’ said the young man, bowing.

  It was a lot for a youth of sheltered upbringing to take in. The two Olympians now told him that Zeus had been keeping an eye on him since his birth. He had guided the wooden chest into the net of Dictys. He had watched Perseus grow up into young manhood. He had seen him rise to Polydectes’ challenge. He admired his boldness and had sent his two favourite children to assist their half-brother in his quest for the head of Medusa.

  ‘You’re going to help me?’ said Perseus. This was so much more than he could have hoped for.

  ‘We can’t slay the Gorgon for you,’ said Hermes, ‘but we can help tilt the odds a little in your favour. You might find these useful.’ He looked down and addressed the sandals at his feet. ‘To my brother Perseus,’ he commanded. The sandals unwrapped themselves from the god’s ankles and flew to Perseus. ‘Take your own off, first.’

  Perseus did so and at once the sandals attached themselves to his feet.

  ‘You’ll have plenty of time to get used to them,’ said Athena, watching in some amusement as Perseus leapt in the air like a dancer.

  ‘You’re confusing them,’ said Hermes. ‘You don’t have to flap your feet to fly. Just think.’

  Perseus closed his eyes and strained.

  ‘Not like you’re taking a crap. Just picture yourself in the air. That’s it! You’ve got it now.’

  Perseus opened his eyes to discover that he had risen up into the air. He dropped down again with a jarring bump.

  ‘Practice. That’s the key. Now here is a hood from our uncle hades. Wear this and no one will be able to see you.’

  Perseus took the hood in his hands.

  ‘I have something for you too,’ said Athena.

  ‘Oh,’ said Perseus, putting the hood down and taking the object she was offering to him. ‘A satchel?’

  ‘You might find it useful.’

  After flying sandals and a cap of invisibility, a plain brown leather satchel seemed something of a disappointment, but Perseus tried not to show it. ‘That’s very kind of you, I’m sure it will come in useful.’

  ‘It will,’ said Athena, ‘but I have more for you. Take this …’

  She passed him a short-bladed weapon, curved like a scythe.

  ‘Be very careful, the blade is very sharp.’

  ‘You’re not wrong!’ said Perseus, sucking blood from his thumb.

  ‘It is called a harpe and can cut through anything.’

  ‘It is forged from adamantine,’ Hermes added. ‘A perfect replica of the great sickle Gaia made for Kronos.’

  ‘And this shield is like no other,’ said Athena. ‘Its name is AEGIS. You must make sure its surface is always kept to a mirror shine like this.’

  Perseus shaded his eyes from the flashing light of the rising sun that was reflecting from the polished bronze.

  ‘Is the idea to dazzle Medusa with its glare?’

  ‘You must work out for yourself how best to use it, but believe me, without this shield you will surely fail.’

  ‘And die,’ said Hermes. ‘Which would be a pity.’

  Perseus could hardly contain his excitement. The wings at his heels fluttered and he found himself rising up. He made some swishes with the harpe.

  ‘This is all just amazing. So what do I do next?’

  ‘There are limits to how much we can help. If you’re to be a hero you must make your own moves and take your own –’

  ‘I’m a hero?’

  ‘You can be.’

  Hermes and Athena were so fine. They shone. Everything they did was performed without any seeming effort. They made Perseus feel hot and clumsy.

  As if reading his mind, Athena said, ‘You will get used to Aegis, to the scythe, the sandals, the hood and the satchel. They are outwards things. If your mind and spirit are directed to your task, everything else will follow. Relax.’

  ‘But focus,’ said Hermes. ‘Relaxation without focus leads to failure.’

  ‘Focus without relaxation leads to failure just as surely,’ said Athena.

  ‘So concentrate …’ said Perseus.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘… but calmly?’

  ‘Concentrate calmly. You have it.’

  Perseus stood for a while inhaling and exhaling in a manner that he hoped was relaxed, yet focussed, concentrated, yet calm.

  Hermes nodded. ‘I think this young man has an excellent chance of success.’

  ‘But the one thing these – wonderful – gifts can’t help me with is finding the Gorgons. I have asked all over but no one seems to agree where they live. On an island somewhere, far out to sea, that’s all I have been told. Which island? Which sea?’

  ‘We cannot tell you that,’ said Hermes, ‘but have you heard of the PHORCIDES?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘They are sometimes called the GRAEAE, or Grey Ones,’ said Athena. ‘Like their sisters, the Gorgons Stheno and Euryale, they are daughters of Phorcys and Ceto.’

  ‘They’re old,’ said Hermes. ‘So old they have only one eye and one tooth between them.’

  ‘Seek them out,’ said Athena. ‘They know everything but tell nothing.’

  ‘If they don’t say anything,’ said Perseus, ‘what use are they? Do I threaten them with the sickle?’

  ‘Oh no, you’ll have to think of something subtler than that.’

  ‘Something much craftier,’ said Hermes.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll come to you. They can be found in a cave on the wild shores of Kisthene, that much is common knowledge.’

  ‘We wish you good fortune, brother Perseus,’ said Athena.

  ‘Relaxed but focussed, that’s the key,’ said Hermes.

  ‘Goodbye …’

  ‘Good luck …’

  ‘Wait, wait!’ cried Perseus, but the figures and forms of the gods had already begun to fade into the bright morning light and soon they had vanished entirely. Perseus stood alone in the grove of sacred oaks.

  ‘This sickle is real at least,’ said Perseus, looking at the cut on his thumb. ‘This satchel is real, these sandals are real. Aegis is real …’

  ‘Are you trying to blind me?’

  Perseus swung round.

&nbs
p; ‘Just watch how you flash that shield about,’ came an irritated voice.

  It seemed to be coming from the very heart of the oak tree closest to him.

  ‘So you trees can talk after all,’ said Perseus.

  ‘Of course we can talk.’

  ‘We usually choose not to.’

  ‘There’s so little worth saying.’

  Voices came now from all parts of the wood.

  ‘I understand,’ said Perseus. ‘But perhaps you wouldn’t mind pointing me in the direction of Kisthene?’

  ‘Kisthene? That’s Aeolia.’

  ‘More Phrygia, really,’ another voice put in.

  ‘I’d call it Lydia.’

  ‘Well, it’s certainly east.’

  ‘North of Ionia but south of the Propontis.’

  ‘Ignore them, young man,’ boomed an older oak, rustling his leaves. ‘They don’t know what they’re talking about. Fly over the isle of Lesbos and then up along the coast of Mysia. You can’t miss the cave of the Grey Sisters. It’s under a rock shaped like a weasel.’

  ‘Like a stoat, you mean,’ squeaked a young sapling.

  ‘An otter, surely?’

  ‘I’d’ve said a pine marten.’

  ‘The rock resembles a polecat and nothing else.’

  ‘I said weasel and I meant weasel,’ said the old one, quivering all over so that his leaves shook.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Perseus. ‘I really must be going.’

  Throwing his satchel over his shoulder, attaching the scythe to his belt and settling the shield firmly in his grip, Perseus frowned in on himself to awaken the sandals and with a great shout of triumph shot up into the blue of the sky.

  ‘Good luck,’ cried the oaks.

  ‘Look out for a rock in the shape of a marmoset …’

  THE GRAEAE

  By the time Perseus landed neatly, toes down, on the Mysian shore, outside a cave whose outer formation resembled, to his eyes at least, a squashed rat, the day was all but spent. Looking westwards he could see that HELIOS’s sun-chariot was turning from copper to red as it neared the land of the HESPERIDES and the end of its daily round.

  As Perseus approached the mouth of the cave he slipped on the cap that Hermes had given him, the Hood of Hades. The moment it was on his head, the long shadow that had been striding along the sand beside him disappeared. Everything was darker and a little misty with the hood over his eyes, but he could see well enough.

  ‘I won’t be needing these,’ he said to himself, leaving the scythe, satchel and shield on the sand outside the cave.

  He followed the murmur of voices and a glimmer of light through a long, winding passageway. The light grew brighter and the voices louder.

  ‘It’s my turn to have the tooth!’

  ‘I’ve only just put it in.’

  ‘Then PEMPHREDO should let me have the eye at least.’

  ‘Oh, stop moaning, ENYO …’

  As Perseus entered the chamber he saw, held in the flickering light of a lamp that hung over them, three fantastically old women. Their ragged clothes, straggling hair and sagging flesh were as grey as the stones of the cave. In the bare lower gum of one of the sisters jutted up a single yellow tooth. In the eye socket of another sister a solitary eyeball darted back and forth and up and down in the most alarming manner. It was just as Hermes had said, one eye and one tooth between them.

  A pile of bones lay heaped on the floor. The sister with the tooth was gnawing the side of one, stripping it of its rotten flesh. The sister with the eye had picked up another bone and was inspecting it closely and lovingly. The third sister, with no eye and no tooth, raised her head with a jerk and sniffed the air sharply.

  ‘I smell a mortal,’ she shrieked, stabbing a finger in the direction of Perseus. ‘Look, Pemphredo. Use the eye!’

  Pemphredo, the sister with the eye, cast wild glances in all directions. ‘There’s nothing there, Enyo.’

  ‘I tell you there is. A mortal. I smell it!’ cried Enyo. ‘Bite it, DINO.fn11 Use your tooth. Bite! Bite it to death!’

  Perseus stole silently closer, taking great care not to step on any cast-off bones.

  ‘Give me the eye, Pemphredo! I swear to you I smell mortal flesh.’

  ‘Here, take it.’ Pemphredo took the eye from her socket and the one called Enyo stretched out her hand greedily to receive it. Stepping forward Perseus snatched up the eye himself.

  ‘What was that? Who? What?’

  Perseus had brushed Dino, the sister with the tooth. Taking advantage of her open-mouthed astonishment he plucked the tooth from her mouth and stepped back with a loud laugh.

  ‘Good evening, ladies.’

  ‘The tooth! The tooth, someone has taken the tooth!’

  ‘Where is the eye? Who has the eye?’

  ‘I have your tooth, sisters, and I have your eye too.’

  ‘Give them back!’

  ‘You have no right.’

  ‘All in good time,’ said Perseus. ‘I could return this cloudy old eye and this rotten old tooth. I’ve no use for them. Of course, I could just as easily throw them into the sea …’

  ‘No! No! We beg of you!’

  ‘Beg …’

  ‘It all depends on you,’ said Perseus, walking round and round them. As he passed they shot out their bony arms to try and grab him, but he was always too quick.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Information. You are old. You know things.’

  ‘What would you have us tell you?’

  ‘How to find your sisters, the Gorgons.’

  ‘What do you want with them?’

  ‘I’d like to take Medusa home with me. Part of her at least.’

  ‘Ha! You’re a fool. She will petrify you.’

  ‘That’s turn you to stone.’

  ‘I’m not ignorant. I know what “petrify” means,’ said Perseus. ‘You let me worry about all that, just tell me where to find the island where they live.’

  ‘You mean our lovely sisters harm.’

  ‘Tell me or I throw first the eye and then the tooth into the sea.’

  ‘Libya!’ cried the one called Enyo. ‘The island is off the coast of Libya.’

  ‘Are you satisfied?’

  ‘They’ll kill you and feast on your flesh and we shall hear of it and cheer,’ screeched Dino.

  ‘Now, give us our eye and our tooth.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Perseus. These hags might be old, he told himself, but they have sharp claws and they are fierce and vengeful. I had better buy myself some time. ‘Tell you what, let’s make a game of it,’ he said. ‘Close your eyes and count to a hundred … Oh. Of course. No need to close your eyes. Just count to a hundred while I hide the tooth and eye. They’ll be somewhere in this cave, I promise. No cheating. One, two, three, four …’

  ‘Damn you, child of Prometheus!’

  ‘May your flesh rot from your bones!’

  Perseus moved swiftly round their chamber, counting with them. ‘You should be thanking me … nineteen, twenty … not cursing me,’ he said as they hurled fouler and filthier obscenities at him. ‘Forty-five, forty-six … surely this is the most exciting thing to have happened to you for centuries … sixty-eight, sixty-nine … you will be talking about this day for ages and ages to come. Don’t start looking till you reach a hundred, no cheating, now!’

  As Perseus returned along the passageway towards the mouth of the cave and the open beach he heard the voices of the Graeae behind him squabbling, screaming and spitting.

  ‘Out of the way, out of the way!’

  ‘I have it, I have it!’

  ‘That’s just a chip of bone, you old fool.’

  ‘The eye! I have the eye!’

  ‘Let go of my tongue!’

  GORGON ISLAND

  Perseus smiled to himself as he buckled on the scythe and shield. He had hidden the tooth and eyeball well. The Grey Ones would be scrabbling for them for days. He felt sure that they would not think to break off their search
to summon some bird or sea creature to warn their sisters of his approach. Even if they did, he had his marvellous armoury. The shield, Aegis, though … Why had Athena laid such stress on his keeping its surface polished to a high shine?

  He rose above the surface of the sea and pointed himself in the direction of the Libyan coast.

  The moon-chariot of SELENE was high in the sky as Perseus skimmed the sea searching for the Gorgon’s home. He came upon it soon enough, more of a series of rocky outcrops than an island and entirely shrouded in fog. He descended low enough to pierce the mist. Scant moonlight penetrated here. He realised as he hovered over the island that what he had taken for rock formations were in fact lifelike statues: seals, seabirds – and men. Even some women and children. How extraordinary to find a sculpture garden in so remote and sombre a place.

  Now he could see the Gorgons. The three lay in a circle fast asleep, arms clasped around each other in a tender sisterly embrace. It was not quite as his mother had described to him. All three had tusks for teeth and claws of bronze, just as she had said, but only one had living, writhing serpents for hair. This must be Medusa. She was smaller than the others. In the moonlight her face was smooth. The other two had scaly skin that drooped in pouches. Medusa’s eyes were shut while she slept and Perseus could not resist looking at the closed lids, knowing that they only had to open for a second for his life to be ended. One single glance and –

  Oh, fool that he was! The statues standing all around were not art, they were not the work of some gifted sculptor, they were the petrified forms of those who had met Medusa’s gaze.

  The sandals silently beat the air as he hovered. He unsheathed the curved blade of the harpe and held out the shield before him. What should he do next? Suddenly he understood why Athena had charged him to keep it polished. He could not look directly into the eyes of Medusa, but her reflection … that was another thing.

  He held the shield out and tilted it down so that he could see the sleeping group reflected quite clearly in the surface of the shining bronze.

  Anyone who has ever tried to snip a recalcitrant eyebrow in the bathroom mirror will know how difficult it is to perform so delicate a task accurately in the backwards world of reflection without stabbing oneself. Left is right and right is left, near is far and far is near. Perseus adjusted the mirror so that he could see himself swinging the scythe backwards and forwards.