Homer’s Daughter (6 page)

“I repeat the story as it has come down to us from our ancestor, the divine Homer,” said Demodocus shortly.

“Women, of course,” my father persisted, “can cause serious local feuds, especially when they are heiresses, marriage to whom involves a transfer of property; but I cannot believe, either, that Helen's suitors would have committed themselves to an overseas war on behalf of Menelaus, whose choice as a bridegroom seemed a foregone conclusion, or that Paris's father and brothers would have agreed to defend Troy for ten years against them, rather than hand her back.”

“All civil wars are dynastic wars, my lord King; all overseas wars are trade wars,” agreed the portly Hyrian. “And Troy, which had been jointly founded by our Cretan ancestors, certain local Phrygians, and a force of Aeacids from Eastern Greece, was in its time the most important city of Asia.
Troy commanded the Hellespont, and therefore controlled the rich trade of the Black Sea and beyond; gold, silver, iron, cinnabar, ship's timber, linen, hemp, dried fish, oil and Chinese jade. A great annual fair was held on the plain of the Scamander, to which the merchants of the world resorted; they all brought gifts to the King of Troy, who, in return, protected them while the fair was in progress, and supplied food and drinking water. The Trojan kings, however, being of Phrygian stock, would allow neither Greeks nor Cretans to trade directly with the Black Sea nations. A generation previously, Priam's father Laomedon had tried to prevent the Minyan ship
Argo
from sailing to fetch the Golden Fleece laid up in a temple at Colchis, but she slipped through; and the Sons of Homer themselves tell how Hercules, who was a member of her crew, afterwards disembarked in Phrygia and, gathering a few allies, took Troy by storm and punished Laomedon for his greed and obstinacy.”

“Exactly,” cried my father. “The story is as plain as the polished knob on that door! Those Cretans and Greek Aeacids as co-builders of Troy, which was designed to safeguard their trading interests in the Black Sea, found the entrance to the Hellespont barred: King Priam had erected strong forts at Sestus and Abydus to control the narrows. After protesting to him without success, they asked their Achaean allies to help them take sanctions, and promised, if the expedition proved successful, to share the spoils of the city with them. Agamemnon, High King of Mycenae, agreed to lead the expedition and persuaded Odysseus to join it, because Odysseus was King of the Ionian Islands, the home of my ancestor Zacynthus, one of the Cretan founders of Troy. So, at a conference
held in the temple of the Spartan Goddess Helle, they sacrificed a horse to her and took oaths on the jointed pieces. They swore to free the straits honoured with her name—I refer to the Hellespont—for Greek navigation. I cannot think that any man of experience will challenge my argument. Pray now, Demodocus, continue your song, when you have well rinsed your gums and throat.”

Demodocus replied: “King Alpheides, since you despise my tale of Paris's visit to the Spartan court, and his subsequent exploits in Phoenicia, I beg leave to omit this fytte tonight, and pass on to the less vexed account of Odysseus's departure for Troy.”

“No, no! Pray do not omit a line of the cycle,” cried my father, “merely on my account. I hold, of course, that the tale of Paris's behaviour at Sparta is neither particularly instructive nor particularly elevating: how he courted her with loud sighs and amorous glances, frequently setting his lips to that part of the goblet's rim from which she had drunk. Men and women should never dine together except on family occasions, do you not agree? And how he scrawled ‘I love Helen!' in wine spilled on the table top; and how Aphrodite blinded Menelaus's eyes to this shameless performance. What a tale to sing in the hearing of impressionable young women! It is not even as though Paris's crimes were punished. He enjoyed Helen for ten years—until, in fact, her beauty had faded, as it must when a woman reaches the forties—then gained deathless fame by killing Achilles, the greatest champion alive; and, dying gloriously in battle, was buried with heroic honours. No, no! Use your reason, my lords and gentlemen. Let me record my studied opinion that Helen never went to Troy at all.”

My father is a simple-minded, practical man, and my mother has always found it impossible to argue with him in one of his provocative moods. I should have liked to walk into the banqueting court and say: “Father, this is not the time to use the word ‘reason'. Please understand that a Homeric song is sung to the lyre, and therefore intended for entertainment, no more and no less. Moral or historical instruction is quite another matter, given by priests and old councillors to young men who gather around them in the evening after the day's sport. On such occasions the lyre is left unstrung; no religious hush is observed; the young men rationally question and are rationally answered. Surely the Sons of Homer know what is required of them? They have been professional minstrels for a couple of hundred years at least, and few indeed of their stories are unconcerned with the mischief caused by love. That is what their hearers expect: songs of love and songs of battle. A fine entertainment a trade-war epic would make!”

But shame held me back, and in any case my reproach would have fallen on deaf ears. An awkward silence ensued, and after a while Demodocus, somewhat crossly, skipped
about fifteen hundred lines and began to declaim the
Summons of Odysseus
.

This is what he told us:

King Odysseus of Ithaca married Icarius's daughter Penelope, after winning a suitors' race along the Spartan street called Apheta. Icarius had called out: “One, two, three!” and then clapped his hands sharply, instead of shouting “Go!”—at which all the suitors but Odysseus started, and were at once disqualified. For Odysseus, warned beforehand, held his ground until the word “Go!”, whereupon, being the only competitor left, he won the prize without exertion, despite the crookedness of his legs. It is said that Icarius begged Odysseus, in reward for this favour, to stay with him at Sparta and, when he declined, pursued the chariot in which the bridal pair were driving away, entreating them to come back. Odysseus, who had hitherto kept his patience, turned and told Penelope: “Either come to Ithaca of your own free will; or, if you prefer your father, dismount and let me drive on alone!” Penelope's reply was to draw down her veil. Icarius, realizing that Odysseus was within his rights, let her go, and raised an image to Modesty, which is still shown some four miles from the city of Sparta, at the place where this incident happened.

Now, Odysseus had been warned by an oracle: “If you sail to Troy, you will not come home again until the twentieth year, and then alone and destitute.” He therefore exchanged his royal robes for filthy rags, and Agamemnon, Menelaus and Palamedes found him wearing a felt cap shaped like a half egg, ploughing with an ass and an ox yoked together, and flinging salt over his shoulder as he went. When he pretended
not to recognize his distinguished guests, Palamedes snatched the infant Telemachus from Penelope's arms and set him on the ground before the advancing team, which were about to plough the tenth furrow. Odysseus hastily reined them in to avoid killing his only son and, being then reminded of the oath he had sworn on the bloody pieces of the horse, was obliged to join the expedition.

“I hope that this tale pleases you, my lord King,” said Demodocus in peevish tones, when he had been roundly applauded.

“Your voice is delightful,” my father answered, “but I cannot refrain from pointing out that this part of the cycle also carries little conviction. If Odysseus wished to feign madness, as an excuse for breaking his promise, which is the only sense that I can make of your story, why did he not act even more irresponsibly? After all, an ox and an ass are often yoked together by impoverished farmers—indeed, I have myself watched a needy Sican ploughing with an ox yoked to his own wife—and felt caps are a very reasonable wear for ploughmen, when the north-easter blows. Now, had I been Odysseus, I should have chosen a pig and a goat as my team, and dressed myself fantastically in owl feathers, a golden tiara, and snake-skin leggings—ha, ha!”

I trembled for shame to hear the venerable Demodocus addressed in this petulant and condescending style.

“And to plough ten straight furrows is hardly a sign of insanity—why did he not drive the team furiously in an ever-widening spiral? That would have been far more convincing, and would have greatly improved your story, which is not so laughable as one would expect from a Son of Homer.”

“My lord King,” said Demodocus, with a smile that came as close to a sneer as he dared, “have you not taken the wrong pig by the tail? My glorious ancestor, who composed this song, nowhere suggests that Odysseus feigned madness. Odysseus wore the felt hat of a mystagogue to show that he was prophesying, and all his actions were therefore symbolic. Ox and ass stand for Zeus and Cronus, or summer and winter, if you prefer; and each furrow sown with salt for a wasted year. He was demonstrating the futility of the war to which he had been summoned; but Palamedes, having superior prophetic powers, seized the infant Telemachus and halted the plough at the tenth furrow, thus showing that the
decisive battle
, which is the meaning of ‘Telemachus', would be fought in the tenth year; as indeed it was.”

Applause and laughter greeted my father's discomfiture. He blushed red to the ears, and showed his good sense by cutting Demodocus a large piece of roast pork, with plenty of crackling, which a page carried over in his fingers; and promised him a new gold-headed staff of cornel wood, to guide his steps and add to his distinction. But though he accepted the pork, Demodocus would never again play or sing in our Palace; honour forbade it. Some of the townsfolk even attributed our subsequent misfortunes to his ill will, because Apollo has granted all Sons of Homer the power to curse; yet I cannot think that Demodocus would have cursed us after accepting a gift offered in token of apology. We were left with Phemius, Demodocus's assistant, who had come from Delos a few years before and was still perfecting his repertory at the old man's knees; it was he who taught me to read and write in Chalcidian characters. So far Phemius's eyes remain
unclouded; the family affliction overtakes a Son of Homer only when his hair begins to turn grey and when, as they say, the sap has ceased to rise. As for the Hyrian, my father insisted that each of the twelve clans should present him with some object of value—a cauldron, a tripod, a rich robe, or the like; and undertook, when these were collected, to supply a cedarwood chest to stow them in, and a gold goblet to mark his personal gratitude. Being King of the Elymans, he had every right to make these demands from the clan leaders, in payment for the protection he afforded them, and the justice he dispensed; while grudging him his power, they always obeyed, and he encouraged them to recoup their expenses by a general levy on the common people.

The Hyrian sailed away three days later, well content with his visit (though my father somehow forgot the goblet). He had disposed of his vases and Daedalic jewellery in the market place at a substantial profit, and made all the merchants laugh by his farewell speech: “May the Queen of Heaven shower blessings on you, and may you continue to give satisfaction to your wives and daughters!” We never saw him again. My mother and I, it should be said, were the only two people in Drepanum who disbelieved his story, but we said nothing to discourage Ctimene, who soon recovered her appetite and good spirits and went singing about the house. “I wonder how long my necklace will be,” she said to my brother Clytoneus. “As long, do you think, as the one which Eurymachus's mother wears?”

“Honoured Sister-in-law,” Clytoneus answered angrily, “though he finds one three ells long, the grief and anxiety caused by your demand for such a necklace will rob it of all
beauty for me! If I were you, I should vow it to Apollo, who consented to guard the hateful necklace of Eriphyle and keep it from making further mischief among vain women.”

“Nothing of the kind,” cried Ctimene. “Laodamas would think me ungrateful.”

Pondering on Aphrodite's victory, I decided that hers is a blind and mischievous power which makes its victims ridiculous and deprives them of all shame. I composed a story for my own amusement, basing it on a scandalous event in the early married life of Eurymachus's mother: how one day the Goddess told her husband, the Smith God Hephaestus, that she was off to visit her temple at Cyprian Paphos. “Do so, Wife; and I will take advantage of your absence to visit my temple at Lemnos,” replied Hephaestus. But, knowing that she was an inveterate liar, he hurried back that same night and found her in bed with the Thracian War God Ares. Limping to his smithy, he forged two adamantine nets, thinner than gossamer and quite invisible. One of these he fastened underneath the bed, the other he hung from the beam above, afterwards silently gathering and uniting the edges to make an unbreakable cage around the drowsy pair. Then in a loud voice he called his fellow deities to witness this disgraceful act of adultery, and pressed Zeus for a divorce. Aphrodite, though she hid her blushes, was secretly pleased that Hermes and Poseidon had seen how beautiful she looked without even a shift, and how ready she was to deceive her husband. Hera and Athene turned away in disgust on hearing the news, and refused to attend this obscene peep show; but Aphrodite, putting a bold face on the matter, explained that making people fall in love, and doing so herself, was the divine task
which she had been allotted by the Fates—who, then, could blame her? Presently Aphrodite's friends, the Graces, bathed and anointed her with fragrant oil, dressed her in soft, semi-transparent linen robes and set a wreath of roses on her head. She was now so irresistibly charming that not only did Hephaestus forgive her on the spot, but Hermes and Poseidon thereafter came calling on alternate days, whenever he was busy at the forge. Meeting Aphrodite in the corridors of Olympus, Athene called her an idle slut; whereupon Aphrodite flounced away in a temper, sat down at Athene's loom and tried her hand at weaving. Athene caught her in the act and, since weaving was the divine task allotted to her by the Fates, asked in exasperation: “What would you think if I worked on the sly at
your
shameful trade? Very well, then, dear colleague, go on weaving! I shall never do another hand's turn at the loom myself. And I hope that it will bore you to the point of misery!”