Homer’s Daughter (14 page)

Phemius's account of the slaughter was brief and uncircumstantial. I should have preferred to hear how Odysseus managed to shoot down fifty swordsmen one after the other. To draw a bow and let loose an aimed arrow takes time. Though he might perhaps have killed four or five of his enemies, in the meantime what were their comrades doing? If brave men, they would have surrounded and overwhelmed him by sheer numbers, even though unarmed; if cowards, at least thirty or forty would have made good their escape. It is not enough to say that Odysseus was the wiliest of men and the best of archers; such praise needs detailed proof.

That evening I discussed the question of Odysseus's bow with Clytoneus, and our conclusions gave me an idea which I was feverishly anxious to see translated into action. We also had a famous bow in the Palace. I have purposely not mentioned it hitherto; but the fact is that while the Phocaeans were building Aegesta, as described at the beginning of this story, a group of their kinsmen arrived from Italian Crimissa. They possessed the very bow which Hercules had bequeathed their ancestor Philoctetes when he died on Mount Oeta; and with which Paris was mortally wounded, just before the Fall of Troy. For Philoctetes, having been driven from his own city of Meliboea in Thessaly, I suppose by his wife's lover—all
these tales follow the same pattern, but why did he not shoot him at sight?—sailed to Southern Italy and founded Petelia and Crimissa. The Crimissans brought the bow to Aegesta and presented it to my ancestor, the King of Hypereia, as a token of allegiance. It had hung in our storeroom ever since.

The banquet ended at nightfall, and my suitors went staggering away, gorged, befuddled, and splashed with erratic cottabus throws. In the court of sacrifice I plucked at Antinous's sleeve. He mistook this for an endearment, but I soon undeceived him, saying: “My lord Antinous, I address you as ringleader of these drunken young noblemen, and originator of an insolent plot against our royal house. If, as they tell me, it is your intention to come here every day to gluttonize in our courts, I must try to make two things clear, though in your present condition you may find it hard to follow the simplest Greek sentence. The first is that we are carefully counting the fat beasts you eat, and the gallons of wine you drink, and that Elyman law requires a thief
to restore his theft fourfold—I repeat: not once, but fourfold. The second is that the palace servants have been ordered to refuse you the least assistance, and that your own servants are therefore expected to clean up your sordid messes. Pray instruct them accordingly, before they help you home to bed.”

He belched in my face. I spat in his; but my eyes shone with such fury that he dared not lay violent hands on me. Trying to belch again, he vomited half a pint of wine and some gobbets of undigested meat. “And what of this?” I asked, pointing in disgust at the befouled threshold.

“You may keep that,” he hiccuped. “Write it off the account.”

Back I went to the throne chamber, where my mother sat at the loom with her usual imperturbability. “Nausicaa, my dear,” she said, “I wish you would go up to comfort Ctimene. She was at her window listening to Phemius's song, and when he described how Odysseus sat, chin on knees, in his desolate island, staring at the unbroken horizon, she broke down and began to tear her hair and scratch her cheeks. Now she is convinced that a similar fate has overtaken Laodamas, and talks of commissioning a ship to visit all the known desert islands, from Troy to Tartessus, in the hope of finding him.”

“Tell me, Mother, do you think that something serious can have happened to Uncle Mentor?”

“Why, no! Obviously he has been held up on the Aegesta road to prevent him from provoking a quarrel between the two town councils. He is now perhaps a prisoner in Eurymachus's house—not fettered, nor exposed to indignities, merely detained—for fear that he may lose his temper and rouse the loyalists to armed resistance. Your uncle Mentor is
a patient man, but everyone knows that when he sees himself unable to consult the elders of Aegesta, his anger will break out as fiercely and twice as murderously as that of an impatient man like your dear father. Yes, Daughter, I realize the awkwardness of the situation, yet our enemies seem in no hurry to bring matters to a head. They propose to bleed and humiliate us first. By the way, though I see no reason why you, as the excuse for their presence here, should treat them otherwise than as thieves and interlopers, I have advised Clytoneus not to draw his sword against any of them nor insult them directly. It is difficult, I know, for a boy of spirit to keep his hand from the pommel, but once he draws, he is lost: they will claim to have killed him in self-defence. Be patient: the Gods are protecting us. Now, please, go to Ctimene.”

I did what I could for my wretched sister-in-law, saying that when Laodamas returned, he would be disappointed to find her so thin and pale, with torn cheeks and black-rimmed eyes. “It will look like a confession that you were in the wrong that night,” I suggested cunningly. “Whereas, if he finds you plump, merry, and dry-eyed, he will respect you for it and avoid provoking you again. For I cannot think that his adventures away from home have been altogether pleasant.”

Delighted by this new point of view, she embraced me convulsively. “So you have changed your opinion and agree that he put himself in the wrong?” she asked.

“I decline to take sides in a dispute between husband and wife, the more so when they are members of my immediate family,” I answered. “But it is quite clear that he did not understand you, even after so many months of marriage.”

This contented her, and I refrained from adding that I understood Ctimene all too well myself. I knew her to be lazy, small-minded, and hysterical; and had just been telling Clytoneus that her only use in this world would have been to breed children—and then make them over to my mother for bringing up properly—had she been capable of conception, which it seemed she was not. I heartily wished her back on Bucinna, even for a brief visit; we had trouble enough on our hands without her perpetual whining.

Clytoneus told me that the Drepanan Council had consented to meet—a good sign in a way, though he could scarcely hope them to give him any satisfaction—the venue being, as usual, the Temple of Poseidon, a large, whitewashed wooden building with carved columns. The benches of the Council Hall are polished stone, and frescoes on the walls depict the principal scenes of our national history: from the birth of Aegestus to the foundation of Drepanum. In a smoky inner shrine stands Poseidon's figwood statue: his face painted cinnabar red, his body first lacquered and then sprinkled with the blue dust of powdered lapis lazuli, his hands gilded. He holds a double axe and wears a long grey wig. Outside are the Courts of Justice, where my father spends a great deal of his day settling litigious cases, and generally comes late home for dinner, cross and tired.

Some forty councillors of all ages had gathered, when Clytoneus, in the ragged clothes of a suppliant and displaying an olive branch, entered and sat down on the bench nearest the door. The president of the Council was Aegyptius the Phocaean, a man more than eighty years old. As a child he had witnessed the building of this temple, and we thought him
a good friend of our house, though one of his three grandsons was among my suitors. He welcomed Clytoneus with a vague smile. “Why, my boy,” he said, “this must be the only time in our annals that so young a prince has convened the Council; but the action is perfectly in order, and I salute your civic spirit. Perhaps you bring us good news of your venturesome brother Laodamas? Or has our glorious King cut short his voyage and turned his helm about, as an eagle returns to his eyrie after a daring flight into the eye of the sun? No? There is little joy in your face, I fear, and you are dressed as a suppliant. Well, then, you must intend to raise some other matter of public concern. Whatever it may be, my dear Prince, I pray that the Gods will grant your heart's desire.”

Clytoneus left his seat and strode into the middle of the Council. Peisenor, the town herald, who claimed descent from the God Hermes, handed him a white rod as a token that he might plead without interruption; whereupon Clytoneus bowed his respects to the Elders and began speaking in a loud, shrill voice.

“Venerable lord Aegyptius, tried ally of our royal house,” he said, “I shall not waste your time with what poor eloquence I may possess. My business is a public one only if you consent to make it so, which is my plea, and explains these ragged clothes and this olive branch. A double affliction has fallen upon us, and of the first, at least, you have shown yourself sympathetically aware. My father, the King, has sailed to Sandy Pylus in the hope of establishing the whereabouts of my brother Laodamas, who vanished mysteriously a year ago. As though this were not anxiety enough, a gang of idle young men have taken advantage of the King's absence to pester my
sister Nausicaa with unwelcome attentions, and to insult the Regent, Lord Mentor. They arrived yesterday in a great jostling mob, and refusing to take no for an answer, or to accept the simple fare hospitably set before them as unexpected visitors, slaughtered our bullocks, hogs and wethers, helped themselves to our wine, spent a riotous afternoon in our banqueting court, and blundered away at nightfall without even clearing up their spilt wine and vomit. Now my uncle Mentor has also disappeared while driving to Aegesta; where he proposed to consult the city fathers on a legal point arising from the decision reached by this honourable Council two days ago. It is my view that he has been detained against his will by a member, or members, of this very Council.”

“My dear boy, can you prove any of these wild allegations?” asked Aegyptius. “Are you seriously suggesting that your uncle Mentor has been abducted and kept in confinement by one of us? What I have heard of last night's banquet is altogether different. My valued colleagues Antinous and Eurymachus—for both of whom you should entertain the highest respect, since the King himself accepted them as your sister's suitors, and conferred unusual privileges upon them—have explained the whole circumstances to me. They declare that your royal father wept tears of sorrow when he said good-bye, kissing them repeatedly and begging them to make free of his table while he was away. ‘According to ancient Aegadean custom,' he said, ‘I am leaving my dear brother-in-law Mentor to arrange for Princess Nausicaa's marriage. Nor will I hamper his liberty of choice by favouring any one suitor above the rest, even you two distinguished noblemen. So let the eligible bachelors of Drepanum, Eryx, Aegesta,
Halicyae, and of all lesser settlements in my domain, come courting at the Palace; there to eat and drink of the best until one of them is chosen, I hope speedily. Whatever Mentor decides, I approve in advance.'”

“My lord Aegyptius,” Clytoneus protested, “if my father indeed addressed those words to the persons you mention, he certainly spoke in a very different sense to my revered mother, my chaste sister, my noble uncle Mentor, and my unworthy self. He advised us to be frugal in his absence, to entertain no more than decency required, and to postpone all important decisions.”

“Ah, but where a man leaves conflicting orders, it is the last of these that counts in law! And here we have two witnesses ready to swear that he changed his mind before the ship weighed anchor.”

Clytoneus felt like a young boar trapped in a net, while the hounds bay about him and the huntsmen close in with their shining boar spears. Yet he lost neither his courtesy nor his courage. “May I suggest, my lord Aegyptius,” he said, “that these men have failed to honour your venerable grey hairs and deceived you shamelessly? My uncle Mentor, for whose disappearance you offer no explanation, my revered mother, my sister and my sister-in-law were all present when the King sailed. None of us saw him take my lords Antinous and Eurymachus aside to kiss them and whisper in their ears. Nor can anyone else have done so, since both noblemen absented themselves conspicuously from the weeping throng on the quay. Oh, that my father were with us once more! This is an intolerable outrage to the dignity of the Crown, which you, my lords, should resent not only as reflecting upon yourselves,
his trusted councillors, but as being nothing short of a universal scandal. Have you no fear of divine vengeance when this case comes to the notice of the Olympians? I hereby adjure you in the name of Almighty Zeus and his aunt, the Goddess Themis, who assembles and dissolves councils throughout the civilized world, to intervene in this affair and take cognizance of the truth! If this Council as a body were responsible for the depredations, as it has been for denying my uncle Mentor the regency, I should feel far more at ease. The case would demand a public settlement; nor would you fail in the end to pay compensation, because we should appeal to the Elyman Assembly, and itemize every loss and damage. As it is, we are subject to private marauders, who appear in irresistible force and, though the ringleaders happen to be members of this honourable Council, belong to no organization which we can sue. Forgive my natural bitterness!”

He burst into tears, and the white rod rattled to the floor.

Most of the Council were plainly touched, and a murmur of condolence arose, but no one ventured to speak until Antinous strode forward and picked up the rod.

“Clytoneus, my congratulations!” said he. “You are a born rhetorician, and it is a pity that your cause is bad and based on mere spite; your pretended grief has deceived some of my tenderhearted colleagues. Is ours the blame if your sister obstinately refuses to disclose her preference for one or other of us suitors? She cannot even dare complain that too small a choice has been offered her. Lord Mentor himself, sick of the whole business, and unable to imbue her with a sense of duty, has sailed to his own island of Hiera, swearing to stay there until she makes the decision expected of her. Tell me the
truth, Clytoneus: did the Princess Nausicaa not promise your revered mother to choose a husband as soon as she had completed that purple wedding robe? And is it not a fact that for every three pictures which she embroidered, at the slowest possible rate, she unpicked two; and presently ceased work altogether?”