The Adventures of Ulysses (11 page)

“It is tipped with the beak of a stingray.”

“Why does he raise it against me?”

“To kill you, of course. And so death will come to you from the sea at the hands of your own son. For you angered the god of the sea by wounding his son, and he does not forgive.” She tapped the log and the fire died. “Do you still want to go back to Ithaca?” she said.

“Will my future be different if I stay here?”

“Certainly. If you stay with me, it will be entirely different. You will no longer be a mortal man. I will make you my eternal consort, make you immortal. You will not die or grow old. This will be your home, not only this island, but wherever the Titans rule.”

“Never die, never grow old. It seems impossible.”

“You are a man to whom impossible things happen,” said Calypso. “Haven’t you learned that by now?”

“
‘Never’
…” said Ulysses. “
‘Always’
… These are words I find hard to accept.”

“Do not think you will be bored. I am expert at variety. I deal in transformations, you know. I can change our forms at will. We can love each other as lion and lioness, fox and vixen. Touch high as eagles, twine as serpents, be stallion and mare. We can fly and prowl and swim. You can be a whale once and seek me deeply, or a tomcat, perhaps, weird voice burning the night, crying murder and amour. And then … then … we can return to this bowered island as Calypso and Ulysses, goddess and hero.”

“You are eloquent,” said Ulysses. “And you need no eloquence, for your beauty speaks more than any words. Still, I cannot be immortal, never to die, never to grow old. What use is courage then?”

Calypso smiled at him. “Enough discussion for one night. You have time to decide. Take five or ten years. We are in no hurry, you and I.”

“Five or ten years may seem little to an immortal,” said Ulysses. “But I am still a man. It is a long time for me.”

“That’s just what I said,” said Calypso. “It is better to be immortal. But think it over.”

The next morning, instead of hunting, Ulysses went to the other side of the island and built an altar of rocks and sacrificed to the gods. He poured a libation of unwatered wine, and raised his voice:

“O great gods upon Olympus—thunder-wielding Zeus and wise Athene, earth-shaking Poseidon, whom I have offended, golden Apollo—hear my prayer. For ten years I fought in Troy and for ten more years have wandered the sea, been hounded from island to island, battered by storms, swallowed by tides. My ships have been wrecked, my men killed. But you have granted me life. Now, I pray you, take back the gift. Let me join my men in Tartarus. For if I cannot return home, if I have to be kept here as a prisoner of Calypso while my kingdom is looted, my son slain, and my wife stolen, then I do not wish to live. Allow me to go home, or strike me dead on the spot.”

His prayer was carried to Olympus. Athene heard it. She went to Zeus and asked him to call the gods into council. They met in the huge throne room. As it happened, Poseidon was absent. He had ridden a tidal wave into Africa, where he had never been, and was visiting the Ethiopians.

Athene said, “O father Zeus, O brother gods, I wish to speak on behalf of Ulysses, who of all the mighty warriors we sent to Troy has the most respect for our power and the most belief in our justice. Ten years after leaving the bloody beaches of Troy he has still not reached home. He is penned now on an island by Calypso, daughter of Atlas, who uses all her Titanic enticements to keep him prisoner. This man’s plight challenges our Justice. Let us help him now.”

Zeus said, “I do not care to be called unjust. I am forgetful sometimes, perhaps, but then I have much to think of, many affairs to manage. And remember, please, my daughter, that this man has been traveling the sea, which belongs to my brother Poseidon, whom he has offended. Poseidon holds a heavy grudge, as you know; he does not forgive injuries. Ulysses would have been home years ago if he had not chosen to blind Polyphemus, who happens to be Poseidon’s son.”

“He has paid for that eye over and over again,” cried Athene. “Many times its worth, I vow. And the earth-shaker is not here, as it happens. He is off shaking the earth of Africa, which has been too dry and peaceable for his tastes. Let us take advantage of his absence and allow Ulysses to resume his voyage.”

“Very well,” said Zeus. “It shall be as you advise.”

Thereupon he dispatched Hermes, the messenger god, to Ogygia. Hermes found Calypso on the beach singing a wild sea song, imitating now the voice of the wind, now the lisping, scraping sound of waves on a shallow shore, weaving in the cry of heron and gull and osprey, tide suck and drowned moons. Now, Hermes had invented pipe and lyre, and loved music. When he heard Calypso singing her wild sea song, he stood upon the bright air, ankle wings whirring, entranced. He hovered there, listening to her sing. Dolphins were drawn by her voice. They stood in the surf and danced on their tails.

She finished her song. Hermes landed lightly beside her.

“A beautiful song,” he said.

“A sad song.”

“All beautiful songs are sad.”

“Yes …”

“Why is that?”

“They are love songs. Women love men, and they go away. This is very sad.”

“You know why I have come then?”

“Of course. What else would bring you here? The Olympians have looked down and seen me happy for a little while, and they have decreed that this must not be. They have sent you to take my love away.”

“I am sorry, cousin. But it is fated that he find his way home.”

“Fate … destiny … what are they but fancy words for the brutal decrees of Zeus. He cannot abide that goddesses should mate with mortal men. He is jealous, and that is the whole truth of it. He wants us all for himself. Don’t deny it. When Eos, Goddess of Dawn, chose Orion for her lover, Zeus had his daughter, Artemis, slay him with her arrows. When Demeter, harvest wife, met Jasion in the plowed fields, Zeus himself flung his bolt, crippling him. It is always the same. He allowed Ulysses to be shipwrecked time and again. When I found him he was riding the timbers of his lost ship and was about to drown. So I took him here with me, cherished him, and offered to make him immortal. And now Zeus suddenly remembers, after twenty years, that he must go home immediately, because it is ordained.”

“You can’t fight Zeus,” said Hermes gently. “Why try?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Permit Ulysses to make himself a raft. See that he has provisions. Then let him depart.”

“So be it”

“Do not despair, sweet cousin. You are too beautiful for sorrow. There will be other storms, other shipwrecks, other sailors.”

“Never another like him.”

“Who knows?”

He kissed her on the cheek and flew away.

I
N HER GENEROUS WAY
, Calypso went beyond what the gods had ordered and provided Ulysses not with a raft but with a beautiful tight little vessel, sturdy enough for a long voyage, and small enough for one man to sail.

But he would have done just as well with a raft, for his bad luck held. He was seventeen days out of Ogygia, scudding along happily, when Poseidon, on his way back from Africa, happened to notice the little ship.

The sea god scowled and said:

“Can that be Ulysses? I thought I had drowned him long ago. One of my meddlesome relatives up there must be shielding him, and I have a good notion who. Well, I’ll give my owlish niece a little work to do.”

His scowl deepened, darkening the sun. He shook a storm out of his beard. The winds leaped, the water boiled. Ulysses felt the tiller being torn out of his hand. The boat spun like a chip. The sail ripped, the mast cracked, and Ulysses realized that his old enemy had found him again.

He clung to the splintered mast. Great waves broke over his head, and he swallowed the bitter water. He came up, gasping. The deck broke beneath him.

“Why am I fighting?” he thought “Why don’t I let myself drown?”

But he kept fighting by instinct. He pulled himself up onto a broken plank and clung there. Each boiling whitecap crested over him, and he was breathing more water than air. His arms grew too weak to hold the plank, and he knew that the next wave must surely take him under.

However, there was a Nereid near, named Ino, who hated Poseidon for an injury he had done her long before, and now she resolved to balk his vengeance. She swam to Ulysses’ timber and climbed on.

He was snorting and gasping and coughing. Then he saw that he was sharing his plank with a green-haired woman wearing a green veil.

“Welcome, beautiful Nereid,” he said. “Are you she who serves Poseidon, ushering drowned men to those caverns beneath the sea where the white bones roll?”

“No, unhappy man,” she said. “I am Ino … and I am no servant of the windy widowmaker. I would like to do him an injury by helping you. Take this veil. It cannot sink even in the stormiest sea. Strip off your garments, wrap yourself in the veil, and swim toward those mountains. If you are bold and understand that you cannot drown, then you will be able to swim to the coast where you will be safe. After you land, fling the veil back into the sea, and it will find its way to me.” She unwound the green veil from her body and gave it to him. Then she dived into the sea. “Can I believe her?” thought Ulysses. “Perhaps it’s just a trick to make me leave the pitiful safety of this timber. Oh, well, if I must drown, let me do it boldly.”

He pulled off his wet clothes and wrapped himself in the green veil and plunged into the sea.

It was very strange. When he had been on the raft, the water had seemed death-cold, heavy as iron, but now it seemed warm as a bath, and marvelously buoyant. He had been unable to knot the veil, but it clung closely to his body. When he began to swim he found himself slipping through the water like a fish.

“Forgive my suspicions, fair Ino,” he cried. Thank you … thank you …”

For two days he swam, protected by Ino’s veil, and on the morning of the third day he reached the coast of Phaeacia. But he could not find a place to come ashore. For it was a rocky coast, and the water swirled savagely among jagged boulders. So he was in great trouble again. While the veil could keep him from drowning, it could not prevent him from being broken against the rocks.

The current caught him and swept him in. With a mighty effort he grasped the first rock with both hands and clung there, groaning, as the rushing water tried to sweep him on. But he clung to the rock like a sea polyp, and the wave passed. Then the powerful back-tow caught him and pulled him off the rock and out to sea. He had gained nothing. His arms and chest were bleeding where great patches of skin had been scraped off against the rock.

He realized that the only thing he could do was try to swim along the coast until he found an open beach. So he swam and he swam. The veil held him up, but he was dizzy from loss of blood. Nor had he eaten for two days. Finally, to his great joy, he saw a break in the reef. He swam toward it and saw that it was the mouth of a river. Exerting his last strength, he swam into the river, struggled against the current, swimming past the shore where the river flowed among trees. Then he had no more strength. He was exhausted.

He staggered ashore, unwrapped the veil from his body, and cast it upon the river so that it would be borne back to Ino. When he tried to enter the wood, he could not take another step. He collapsed among the reeds.

I
N THOSE DAYS, GIRLS
did not find their own husbands, especially princesses. Their marriages were arranged by their parents, and it all seemed to work out as well as any other way. But Nausicaa, sixteen-year-old daughter of the King and Queen of Phaeacia, was hard to please, and had been turning down suitors for two years now. Her father, Alcinous, and her mother, Arete, were becoming impatient. There were several hot-tempered kings and princes who had made offers—for Nausicaa was very lovely—and Alcinous knew that if he kept turning them down he might find himself fighting several wars at once. He was a fine warrior and enjoyed leading his great fleet into battle. Still, he preferred his wars one at a time.

He told the queen that Nausicaa would have to be forced to choose.

“I was very difficult to please, too,” said Arete. “But I think you’ll admit I married well. Perhaps she, too, knows in her heart that if she bides her time the gods will send a mighty man to be her husband.”

The king smiled. Arete always knew the right thing to say to him. So the discussion ended for that day. Nevertheless, the queen knew that her husband was right, and that the girl would have to choose.

That night Nausicaa was visited by a dream. It seemed to her that the goddess Athene stood over her bed, tall and gray-eyed, and spoke to her, saying, “How can you have a wedding when all your clothes are dirty? Take them to the river tomorrow and wash them.”

The goddess faded slowly until all that was left was the picture on her shield—a snake-haired girl. And it seemed that the snakes writhed and hissed and tried to crawl off the shield to get at the dreamer. Nausicaa awoke, moaning. But she was a brave girl and went right back to sleep and tried to dream the same dream again, so that she could learn more about the wedding. But the goddess did not return.

The next morning she went to her mother and told her of the dream.

“I don’t understand it,” she said. “What wedding?”

“Yours, perhaps,” said Arete.

“Mine? With whom?”

“The gods speak in riddles. You know that. Especially when they visit us in dreams. So you must do the one clear thing she told you. Take your serving girls to the river and wash your clothes. Perhaps, if you do that, the meaning will show itself.”

Thereupon Nausicaa told her serving girls to gather all the laundry in the castle, and pile it in the mule cart. She also took food, a goatskin bottle of wine, and a golden flask of oil so that they could bathe in the river. Then they set off in the red cart, and the harness bells jingled as the mules trotted down the steep streets toward the river.

It was a sparkling morning. Nausicaa felt very happy as she drove the mules. They drove past the city walls, down the hill, and along a road that ran through a wood until they came to the river.