A Thousand Ships(63)

Themis did not let her irritation show. She barely acknowledged it to herself. But really, Zeus had been rather quicker than this once, she was sure. ‘Bribe her,’ she said. ‘That always works.’

Zeus nodded again. ‘Yes, a bribe. What does she like?’

‘Baubles and trinkets and the desperate prayers of mortals,’ Themis replied.

‘Do you have anything which might do?’ he asked. ‘It’s just, I don’t get much time alone on Olympus . . .’

Themis thought for a moment. ‘I know exactly what to give her,’ she said. ‘I found it the other day when I was looking for something else at the back of my temple. I think if she comes across it in the right way, you won’t need to ask her for her help.’

Zeus was confused. ‘Then how will she help me?’

‘She will begin the conflict of her own accord,’ Themis replied. ‘She won’t even realize she is doing your bidding.’

‘So I won’t owe her a favour?’ This was better than he had hoped.

Themis shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’ll owe me one.’





33


Penelope


Odysseus,

It seems almost superfluous to mention that my patience is stretched like the thinnest thread, held above a fluttering candle. It can only be a short time before the flame burns through and my anger snaps in two. Because now another full year has passed since you left the island of Aeaea (and the sorceress who had entertained you so lavishly) for your completely unnecessary trip to Hades. One more year after the twelve which have already passed since you first left Ithaca. It probably doesn’t seem like much to you. What’s one more year, I’m sure you would say. Look at the adventures I have to tell you about: that’s worth a year of my time, surely. A year of your time, perhaps. But I grow no younger, Odysseus, and your palace grows no safer.

You left the Underworld, I hear, and sailed straight back to Circe – her loyal hound. Of course, all admired your sense of duty, sailing across a whole ocean to bury your late comrade, Elpenor. You remember him, Odysseus, the one who got drunk and fell from Circe’s roof. The one you didn’t notice was missing. The one none of you noticed was missing. That one. Still, he was obviously more important to you than your wife and – do you know, I was about to say ‘infant son’? But Telemachus is an infant no longer. He hasn’t been for quite a while.

I mention this, because it seems to me that somewhere along the way, you have lost the ability to measure time. Perhaps you have sailed so far that the days run backwards instead of forward? Perhaps you are in some god-inspired place where time does not pass at all. How else to explain, Odysseus, the impossible number of days you have been away?

To my enduring surprise, you left Circe’s island again quite quickly. Well, I suppose you’d seen it all before, hadn’t you? And why would you remain when you could instead sail past the Sirens? Always one for an adventure, of course. An adventure which brings you no closer to Ithaca. But you could never resist a challenge, and this one was special. No man has heard the song of the Sirens and lived to tell of it. So of course you had to. You obeyed Circe’s instructions (good dog) and sliced a chunk of beeswax into small pieces. You kneaded each piece until it was soft and you gave them to your men with orders to stuff their ears tight. Their lives depended upon it.

But there was no beeswax for you, was there? Not for brave Odysseus, who had to seize the opportunity to become that man, the only man ever to hear the Sirens’ song and survive. You had ordered your men to lash you to the ship’s mast and bind you there. You warned them that you would struggle and beg to be freed, but that they must ignore you and keep rowing. And – good men that they are, or were – they did.

So you and you alone heard the Sirens raise their deadly song. The version I hear (from a bard whose singing is also pretty deadly in my opinion) is that the Sirens begged you to sail closer to hear their song. Begged you, as a Greek of great renown.

They say the Sirens know the way to a man’s heart, and that is how they wreck his ship so unerringly. Well, they certainly knew the way to yours. Did they sing of your beautiful homeland, your growing boy, your devoted wife? All these things would have broken any other man, any other hero. But when the Sirens saw it was you, they changed their tune: ‘Come closer, Odysseus, a Greek of great renown.’ You are wedded to fame, more than you were ever wedded to me. And certainly, your relationship with your own glory has been unceasing. Laodamia, who died for love of her Protesilaus (you probably don’t remember him, Odysseus, but he was the first of the Greeks to die at Troy, all those years ago), could not have been more devoted to the object of her affections than you are to yours. In a way, it’s really quite moving.

What do the Sirens look like, Odysseus? The way the song goes, they are the size of mortal women, but with bodies of birds: clawed talons, plumed wings and long feathery tails. But they have the heads of women. And their voices, could you describe them? The bard says they make the most beautiful sound anyone has ever heard – man or beast. He says to imagine the most perfect woman’s voice, mingled with the sound of the nightingale. Ithaca is craggy and perhaps you know where the beautiful-voiced birds might nest, but I know only the squawking of seabirds, which is hardly the same. But still, it plays on my mind: what does the most beautiful song a man has ever heard sound like? Perhaps one day, if you ever come home, you will tell me.