Heroes

by Stephen Fry

  Oeneus, the King of Calydon – in his excessive worship of Dionysusfn6 over the other Olympians – had been the one most directly responsible for Artemis’s wrath, and so he took it upon himself to be the one to devise the means to rid the land of the rampaging boar. He sent out word out to all Greece and Asia Minor.

  ‘The Calydonian Hunt will gather in one month. Let only the bravest and best hunters come forward. The reward for whosoever makes the killing thrust will be the right to keep the trophies of the chase: the beast’s tusks and pelt. But, more importantly, eternal glory and honour in the annals of history will be theirs as the conqueror of the Calydonian Boar and as the greatest hero of the age.’

  Many of those who answered Oeneus’s call were former Argonauts – including Jason himselffn7 – bored by the return to the placid dullness of domestic life after the camaraderie and excitement of the quest for the Golden Fleece. The band of hunters would be led by Oeneus’s son Prince Meleager, himself a distinguished member of the Argo’s crew.

  Though he did not know it, Meleager lived under a strange curse, and it is worth going back to the time of his birth to hear about it. I have said that Meleager was the son of Oeneus, but it seems likely that Ares, the god of war, had some part in his paternity too. As we have already heard, this is a feature of the heroes of the age. It is certain, though, that his mother was Oeneus’s queen ALTHAEA, who came from a most distinguished royal line herself, sometimes known, on account of its patriarch THESTIOS, as the THESTIADES. She had four brothers, an obscure sister called HYPERMNESTRA, whose name surely is due for a revival,fn8 and another called Leda, whose experience with Zeus in the form of a swan was to inspire many artists in ages yet unborn. Her story is for another time. Our attention for now is on Althaea, who lay with Oeneus (or possibly Ares) and nine months later gave birth to a boy, Meleager.

  It was a difficult labour and the effort sent Althaea into a deep sleep. The baby lay babbling in its cot before the fire. The mother slept on.

  Into this peaceful scene crept the three Fates, the Moirai. This baby, who could well be a son of Ares, might have an important future and it was for the Fates to tell it in their usual manner.

  Clotho spun the thread of Meleager’s life and declared the boy would be noble. Lachesis measured it by drawing it out from Clotho’s spindle. She foretold that Meleager would be accounted brave by all who knew him. Atropos snipped the length of the yarn and announced that for all her sisters’ prognostications she knew that the child would only live as long as the central log in the fireplace remained unconsumed by fire.

  ‘What can you mean?’ asked Lachesis and Clotho.

  ‘When that log burns up and is no more,’ said Atropos, ‘so will Meleager, son of Ares, Oeneus and Althaea, be no more!’

  All three gave a cackle of delight and vanished into the night air chanting:

  Meleager’s life will end in a flash

  When his log of fate is turned to ash

  Althaea opened her eyes wide. Could she really have heard that right, or was it some mad dream? She got out of bed and went to the fire. There was indeed a great log in the centre of the hearth. Flames were flickering around it, but it had not yet fully caught light. In her fevered imagination it resembled, in size and form, a newborn baby. Her own infant Meleager! She pulled the log out and dropped it hastily into a copper vat of water that stood warming by the fire. The flames went out with a sizzle. The baby gurgled happily in its cradle.

  What should she do now? She wrapped the log in a swaddling blanket and hurried down to one of the unvisited and unused basement rooms in the palace, a room with an earthen floor where she could bury the log deep. Her son might have died in five minutes if she had done nothing. Now he might live for eternity!

  So we have a picture of the Calydonian palace of King Oeneus and Queen Althaea, outside the walls of which rampages a marauding boar. Their heir, the tall, strong, noble and brave Prince Meleager – now fully grown – lives with them, of course, as do his six sisters – GORGE, MELANIPPE, EURYMEDE, Deianirafn9, MOTHONE and PERIMEDE – and his uncles, Althaea’s four brothers, the Thestiades – TOXEUS, EVIPPUS, PLEXIPPUS and EURYPYLUS. The Thestiades are fine huntsmen, but fully aware that in order to corner and catch a prey as huge and monstrous as the Calydonian Boar they will need every member of the great hunting party that has answered Oeneus’s summons.

  But – what can this be? – the uncles burst out laughing when a tall woman, dressed in animal skins, a hunting bow over her shoulder and hounds at her feet, enters the palace and hurls a spear into the wall to stake her claim to join the hunting party.

  Meleager has taken one look at this slim, fierce, tanned, toned and beautiful girl and fallen instantly in love.fn10

  ‘If she wants to join us, I have no objection.’

  Meleager’s uncles hoot with derision.

  ‘Girls can’t throw,’ jeers Toxeus.

  ‘Girls can’t run in a straight line without bumping into trees or tripping over,’ snorts Evippus.

  ‘Girls can’t shoot arrows without the bowstring snapping back and stinging them in the face,’ smirks Plexippus.

  ‘Girls don’t have the stomach to kill,’ sneers Eurypylus.

  ‘Let us see,’ says Atalanta, and at the sound of her dark, throbbing, yet commanding voice Meleager falls even more deeply in love.

  She has gone to the window. ‘Those three trees. Which of us can put an arrow in each trunk first?’

  The uncles join her at the window and follow her gaze to a distant line of three aspens, shaking in the breeze.

  ‘You may give the signal,’ Atalanta tells Meleager.

  Meleager raises an arm and drops it. ‘Fire at will!’ he cries.

  The Thestiades scramble to pluck arrows from their quivers and draw back their bows but –

  ‘Wheep, wheep, wheep!’

  Three arrows fly in an instant from Atalanta’s bow and now she is standing with her back to the window, her arms folded and a mocking smile playing on her face. Meleager and the uncles look over her shoulder and towards the trees. In each of the aspen trunks is embedded an arrow, perfectly centred.

  In his hectic rush to draw at speed, Plexippus has fumbled his bow, which falls with a clatter to the floor. He does not take kindly to being made to look like a clumsy child.

  ‘Ah, but strength,’ he growls. ‘I’ll grant you may have a reasonable eye and quick hands, but this boar is fierce and strong. A mere woman could never hope –’

  No one will ever discover what he is going to say next. Speech and breath are robbed of him as he finds himself quite unexpectedly lifted off his feet. Atalanta has picked him up and raised him above her head as if he were no heavier than a kitten.

  ‘Where shall I throw him?’ she enquires of the others. ‘Out of the window or into the fire?’

  Hastily they concede her right to join them in the hunt. But there is now disgruntlement in the ranks of the hunting party. The proud brothers cannot know, as we do, that Artemis not only sent the boar to Calydon, but also sent her most fanatical votary, Atalanta, to represent her in the hunt. Artemis intends, through Atalanta, to sow as much mischief in the ranks of the hunters as she can. How much Atalanta is a knowing proxy for the goddess and how much an unconscious vessel for her will has never quite been decided.

  The smitten Meleager got nowhere with this wonderful girl who was, in the words of Edith Hamilton, ‘too boyish to be a maiden, too maidenly to be a boy.’ As a devoted follower of Artemis, Atalanta had, as a matter of course, turned her back on men and on love. Nonetheless, she welcomed Meleager as a companion, and for a young man so deeply in love, the thrilling propinquity of the beautiful huntress was better than nothing.

  The classical sources name at least fifty members of the hunting party that gathers around Meleager and the four Thestiades. As with the manifest of the Argo there is much confusion and inconsistency in the sources and perhaps a deal of wishful thinking on the part of later grand Greek families who wante
d to claim descent from these heroes.

  Aside from Jason, the throng of former Argonauts present at the hunt includes Meleager’s cousins, the heavenly twins Castor and Pollux; bold Pirithous, King of the Lapiths; wise Nestor of Pylos and the indefatigable brothers Peleus and Telamon; hospitable Admetus, the friend of Heracles and sometime lover of Apollo; and Asclepius, unrivalled master of the medical arts. Even the great Theseus is there, drawn as much by his bond with Pirithous as by the addiction to extreme peril that unites them all. Such a muster of heroes will not be seen in the world again until the Trojan War.

  They are all men, save for Atalanta.

  THE CALYDONIAN HUNT

  Oeneus held nine nights of feasting and revelry to welcome and thank the brave heroes, huntsmen and warriors who had answered his call. On the morning of the tenth day they gathered outside the palace, hounds streaming at their feet, pages buckling armour, grooms tightening girths, stewards offering up cups of hot wine. The cheers of the citizens safe within the walls of Calydon grew to a great roar of gratitude, encouragement, admiration and pride as the party made its way out through the main gate. Carts loaded with spare javelins, axes, maces and arrows brought up the rear of the train as it headed into the deserted and despoiled countryside.

  No boar this gigantic had ever been seen or even rumoured of, let alone tracked down and killed. As the hunting party proceeded they witnessed ever fouler scenes of horror. Every field of corn was trampled, every vineyard uprooted, every chicken, cat, dog, calf, goat and sheep lay with its throat torn open and innards exposed to the sun – whether the poor creatures had been massacred for food or fun, the shocked huntsmen did not know. A hundred wild boars of natural size could never have created such destruction.

  Meleager and his uncles had formed a plan. Some miles to the north there stood a ruined barn. If the party were to spread themselves into a line, shouting, stamping their feet and shaking burning torches, they could slowly funnel the boar in that direction and use nets, fire and clamour finally to trap it in the angle of the two remaining walls of the barn. That would be their killing ground.

  ‘It will be like a stage and the pig will be our doomed hero,’ said Meleager.

  The uncles and senior huntsmen nodded their assent.

  It took all morning and much of the afternoon to encircle the boar and flush it from cover. They made as much noise as they could – a great hullaballoo and smashing of spears onto shields – but no one there felt that the boar, forced though it was in the direction of the barn, was in any way frightened. From time to time it would turn, break cover and charge at one part of the line, scaring everyone in it half to death, and then canter back towards the barn, tusks down, squealing out what seemed like a laugh of triumph and derision.

  ‘Whenever it does that, it is vital that the line holds!’ commanded Oeneus.

  ‘Simple for him to say, up on a horse and well behind the line,’ Atalanta said to herself. She watched with disdain as the king swigged from a horn of wine. Meleager, by her side, seemed to guess what she was thinking.

  ‘The old man is no warrior, but he is a fine administrator,’ he said. ‘He has brought this region peace and prosperity.’

  ‘Until he forgot the great goddess Artemis,’ said Atalanta.

  ‘Well, yes … Look, up ahead! It’s working, the plan is working!’

  Sure enough, the boar seemed to be edging in fits and starts slowly backwards towards the ruined barn. They could hear its trotters scrape and slide as they met the stone flags of its floor. The front row of hounds, growing in confidence, thrust their snarling heads at it, teeth bared and slavering. It was a sound and sight to put the fear of Hades into anyone, but in the boar it seemed merely to awaken it to its situation. With sudden and unimagined speed it rushed forward with its head down. It jerked up under the jaw of the lead hound and its left tusk went straight through the throat and out of the dog’s skull.

  Down went the boar’s head again. And up, ripping open the sides of the second hound.

  The third, fourth and all the other hounds in the pack needed no further invitation to set up a great howl of fright and flee in panic to hide, quivering, between the legs of their masters.

  The hunters now braced themselves to face the boar. Flesh and fur hung from the points of the boar’s tusks and blood soaked its bristles. Its eyes, everyone swore afterwards, burned like bright coals. The fierce orange and red light of them was trained in turn on every man, and the one woman, who crowded in on it.

  ‘Now, now is the time!’ cried Meleager, throwing a hunting net over the boar.

  It was half enmeshed but angered enough to roll over and thrash its feet and jerk its head to free itself. This was the first time it had shown any vulnerability and the sight pricked the courage of the hunters. With great whoops and hollers, one hero after another hurled himself with axe, sword, spear and dagger at the enraged beast. Its instinct was to gore at groin and belly. Gonads and guts were torn open to the air. Blood was everywhere. Piteous were the screams of the brave heroes who threw themselves to their deaths.

  None were more fearless than PELAGON, HYLEUS, HIPPASUS and ENAESIMUS, the first to engage and be instantly ripped to pieces for their troubles. Peleus flung a javelin from his cover in a thicket only for it to find and fatally wound EURYTON, King of Phthia, one of the most loyal of the Argonauts.

  It was, in both the literal as well as the more common sense, a shambles.

  Already disheartened by the sight of so many good men killed, the huntsmen saw the accidental death of Euryton as an ill omen and began to think of turning tail. The boar, sensing victory, raised its head, sniffed the air and charged at Nestor, King of Pylos, who even in his middle age was reputed to be the wisest man in the known world. Certainly he was wise enough to know that wailing and screaming would achieve nothing and so he stood still and raised his eyes to the heavens.

  Atalanta stepped forward from behind him and called out, ‘Drop down, Nestor! Down – now!’

  Nestor threw himself to the ground at the same time as an arrow flew from Atalanta’s bow, passed through the place where Nestor’s heart had been but a moment earlier, and pierced the throat of the charging boar.

  ALCON, a hot-headed son of both King Hippocoön of Amykles and Ares, the god of war, rose to his feet and waved his spear. Facing his comrades he yelled, ‘For shame, brothers. This is no work for a woman. Let’s show the world what a man can do!’ He turned back in time to see the boar, Atalanta’s arrow dangling from its neck, lowering its head for a charge. By the time Alcon had set his spear, the beast was on him. Both tusks entered his stomach. Now the boar raised its head and performed a kind of gruesome dance, pulling Alcon round and round, the tusks tearing open more and more of his guts until all the poor young man’s bowels and innards had fallen out to make a red and slimy circle on the stone floor of the barn.

  Only Meleager stood firm as the monstrous animal tossed Alcon’s corpse from its tusks and scraped at the ground ready for another charge. As the boar hurtled forward, Meleager slid down onto his left side; lying back, he took aim with his right arm. The boar saw the movement and gave a roar of fury. Meleager launched his javelin sideways and upwards – straight into the boar’s open mouth. The tip of the spear pierced the upper skull, bursting its way out again coated in gore and brain matter. The great beast shuddered and fell dead to the ground, slipping and skidding on the blood and entrails of its victims.

  Oeneus clambered down half drunk from his horse and embraced his son.

  ‘Meleager, my boy. What honour you have done our house! Yours is the kill, yours the trophy. Come, skin the creature, take its tusks, then bring it back to the palace and we will feast and toast your triumph in wine!’

  Meleager turned to face the surviving huntsmen who even now were cupping and drinking the blood that gushed from the boar’s wounds. ‘The hide and tusks are to go to Atalanta!’ he declared. ‘It was she who struck the first blow. Without her true aim the monster would sti
ll be at large and we would be carrion for the crows and foxes. The trophies are hers.’

  Meleager’s uncles came forward. The Thestiades had not been conspicuously in the forefront of the hunt, but their sense of family honour and male pride now spurred them on.

  ‘That witch is an outsider,’ said Toxeus.

  ‘A deranged virgin who took one lucky shot,’ said Eurypylus.

  ‘The honour of the kill must go to the house of Thestios,’ said Evippus.

  ‘A woman’s place is the hearth, harem or home, not the hunt,’ said Plexippus.

  ‘I tell you, the prize is Atalanta’s,’ said Meleager. ‘It is my decision to make, not yours.’

  Plexippus approached the body of the boar. He took out a knife and began to gouge his way to the root of the tusk.

  ‘Leave it!’ shouted Meleager.

  Toxeus raised his bow.fn11 ‘Stand aside, nephew. If you do not present the trophy to the family, the family will take the trophy.’

  With a roar of anger Meleager flicked a knife from his belt. It flew straight into Toxeus’s eye.

  Before Toxeus was dead on the ground, Meleager had thrust a sword into the side of Plexippus and slit the throat of Eurypylus. Only Evippus was now left alive.

  At the sight of the blood-maddened fire in Meleager’s eyes, Evippus dropped the sword he had been struggling to draw. ‘Spare me, dear nephew!’ he pleaded. ‘Think of your mother. My sister. You cannot deprive her of four –’

  Meleager, crazed by his love for Atalanta and crazed by the killing, had no time for mercy. He brought up his knee into the older man’s groin. Evippus doubled up in pain, as Meleager took his head and twisted it once, twice, three times before the sound of the neck cracking assured him that the last of his uncles was dead.