Christopher Nolan's THE ODYSSEY

[Jeff Bernstein]

The books by this teenager save his life. Equalizer 2 (2018).

[Karim D. Ghantous]

That's a terrific bunch of photos, Jeff. You're making me want to see this movie.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Histoire du théatre françois, depuis son origine jusqu'à présent, avec la vie des plus célébres poëtes dramatiques, un catalogue exact de leurs pièces, & des notes historiques & critiques, Tome quatorziéme, edité par P. G. Le Mercier, Saillant, Paris, 1748.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 9 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

cf. Iliad, 10.23–24.

cf. Odyssey, 4.271–73; 8.491–94.

Laocoön warned his fellow Trojans of Greeks bearing gifts, and Poseidon shut him up permanently with a visit from murderous sea-serpents.

Goddess Athena, who is our hero's guardian angel.

[ 01 Lion's Head Peak : Cape Town, South Africa Photograph Jin-Woo Presena United States 2022 / 02 Lion at Sunset Photograph Yarin Klien United States 2021 / 03 Lion at Sunset Photograph Yarin Klien United States 2019 / 04 Le chien et le ksar Photograph Lionel Le Jeune France 2023 / 05 The Procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy Painting Tiepolo 1773 / 06 Italian Miniaturist Manuscript [Biblioteca Apostolica, Vatican] 1340s / 07 Laocoön Sculpture Baccio Bandinelli 1525 / 08 Lion Marble : Firenze Mattia Paoli Italy 2020 / 09 Lion in Motion Photograph Rory Isserow United Kingdom 2015 / 10 The Fire of Troy Painting Frederik van Valckenborch c.1600 / 11 Battle of Thermopylae Photograph Luca Ortolani Klein Italy 2020 / 12 The Lioness Photograph Jerome Perez France 2019 / 13 Tomb III Lion of Juda Photograph Gj Albers Luxenbourg 2021 / 14 Lion at Sunset Photograph Yarin Klien United States 2022 / 15 Lioness at Sunset Photograph Ozkan Ozmen Turkey 2018 ] 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 11 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Enter Odysseus /  Book V

 

Dawn rose up beside noble Tithonus
and spread her arms, bringing light to all beings :
and the gods were in session : and with them
Zeus the far-sounding thunderer, unsurpassable :
and Athena recounted for all the many sorrows 
of Odysseus (as he had entered her mind) : 
it unsettled Athena to see him perplexed
in the deep cave of the nymph : 

                                                           and she spoke :

“Father Zeus, and all the fortunate who see forever, 
nevermore let there be such a kind and mild 
and gentle man to raise the sceptre as leader, 
nor let this leader’s spirit know right-mindedness,                 
but let him be painful to bear, and act godlessly :
since no one remembers Odysseus the godlike,
who reigned over men as mild as a father!

He broods on an island, suffering terrible troubles 
in Calypso’s cave : her sorcery keeps him there.
He is unable to return to his homeland
because he has no friends by him, nor has he a ship
with oars to carry him over the broad-backed sea.
And now those people purpose to murder his son
as he sails homeward :
for he has gone to Pylos and Lacaedemon
to seek out knowledge of his father’s fate.”

Answer came to her from cloud-assembling Zeus :

“My child!                                     
What a word has winged through your lovely row of teeth!
Is this not all your own design? That Odysseus
shall come bringing vengeance on those shameless men? 
But have it that Telemachus learn your wisdom 
as his own : you can instruct him : and he shall go 
safely to his homeland : and those people shall also
go back.”

Thus spoke Zeus : and then to his faithful messenger,
his beloved son, he spoke next :

“Hermes, tell the tight-braided nymph our settled word :
Odysseus returns home : and he goes without
god’s guidance (such as his son received), nor help
from any mortal man : but atop an artful raft,
and suffering miserably, he may come 
on the twentieth day to fertile Scheria, 
land of the Phaeacians, a race close to the gods :
and as if before a god they shall honour him
with pure hearts : and they shall send him forth in a ship
to his beloved home, with gifts of bronze and gold
and garments in abundance, more than Odysseus
would have otherwise returned with from Troy :
in this way is it fated for him to see his friends, 
and come to his beloved land.”

                                                      Thus spoke father Zeus.
And sight-bringing Hermes, messenger of gods, obeyed.
Swiftly he bound shining sandals to his feet,
a beautiful golden habiliment belonging                     
to the gods which bear him along over water
just as over vast lands as quick as a breath of wind :
and he took the magic wand which charms men to sleep,
or lifts their eyes awake : with this magic in hand
the mighty light-footed Hermes sprung away. 

And speeding to Pieria he dipped beneath 
the clouds and soared like a bird over the waves :
a sea-raven, eyeing the finely pleated sea
and plucking fish shining through, its superb plumage
drenched in sea-spray : in this way Hermes skimmed along
the promiscuous waves. And after a long reach
he saw the island : and from the violet sea
he stepped onto land : and he came to the deep cave
where the tight-braided nymph lived : and found her inside.

A great fire flashed in a fireplace, scenting
the air with juniper and resinous cypress 
as the softwoods blazed. And she sang out with lovely voice 
while pattern-weaving with a golden weaver’s stick
at her loom, levelling warp and weft with fine skill :
and on the cross beam she rolled her lengthening cloth.

A luxuriant forest surrounded her cave,
alder and poplar and the sweet-scented cypress,
wherein broad-winged birds lay enfolded in their nests :
owls and falcons and long-chattering sea-crows : 
all those who pursue their business on the waters. 
And a garden vine grew vigorously over
the hollow cave, bountiful with bunches of grapes.
And four springs of sparkling water circulated
in assorted bends, through meadows of violets
and wild celery and juicy herbs : a soft spot
where a god might stop to look, to cheer the spirit : 
there the light-footed Hermes had stood enchanted. 
And when his heart felt refreshed, he entered into
the deep cave. Calypso, o dazzling goddess,
knew him at once when she looked him in the face 
(for no god is unknown to any other, though one
may live vast distances from the rest). But Hermes
did not find the much-suffering Odysseus there :
for he was off by himself, sitting on the shore,
lost in sighs, in pains, in memories that bring grief :
and while staring into the restless sea, he wept.
But Calypso happily brought Hermes a chair,
that in brilliance resembled solid sunbeams,
and questioned him : 

“Do tell, Hermes, bringer of luck, why you flatter me
with this welcome visit? I don’t often treat you 
to my hospitality. Speak your wish, special one,
and if I can, I shall fulfil it in my way.
But come now! Let me take you further in,
where I shall please you with delights.”

                                                                       So after this
the goddess loaded a table with ambrosia,
and stirred the red nectar : and Hermes the Busy One
sat there and ate and drank, and pleasured his spirit
with her agreeable gifts. 

                                            Then he spoke his word :

“You question me, goddess to god, so I shall speak
my word to the end, as you desire. Zeus sent me
against my will. Who willingly would cross the vast
salt water? The journey here felt endless. 
I passed no city of men where prime victims
are sacrificed to pleasure us. But which god
gets around the will of Zeus? It’s folly to pretend
it doesn’t exist.     

He says a man is here with you, the most miserable
of all the warriors who fought around the city
of Troy for nine years, and in the tenth destroyed it
and went home. But along the way they offended 
Athena : so she battered them with wind and wave
and all his men sank to the sea floor and died.
But those awful winds and lofty waves brought one man
here : and you are now commanded to let him go
at once. His fate is not to die far-off from friends :
he shall return to his high-roofed house and homeland.”

Thus Hermes spoke, and Calypso bristled :
and the dazzling goddess let fly her winged words :

“You gods! You’re cruel, but most of all sick with envy,
and worse in that way than all mortal men and beasts!
You hate seeing me lying openly with men : 
goddesses aren’t allowed to taste their passion in bed!
So when Eos took Orion in her rosy fingers,
you gods, who sit ever at ease, resented her,
til Artemis, that virgin hunter of wild beasts, 
that wholesome prudish virgin showering arrows
in forests, sent her shafts into him, pinning him
to a forever death. And when Demeter 
of the Furrows burned for warrior Lasion,
and lay with him in love in a thrice-ploughed place, 
Zeus soon heard of it, and threw his flaming thunderbolt
and killed the man. Now I am envied! ὢ πόποι ! 
—because a mortal man sleeps with me. I saw him
alone in the sea, floating on ship-timber (a keel)
and I saved him : after Zeus (not Athena) threw 
a thunderbolt and blasted his ship to fragments
on the wine-dark sea : and all his men sank to the
sea floor and died. But wind and wave brought him here,
and I welcomed him, and fed him, and pledged to keep him
in eternal youth beside me here forever : 
as an Immortal. 

But : so it is : no one gets around the will of Zeus. 

Let him go then and flit away homeward over
the restless and breath-stealing waves, if Zeus
is so excited about it, and commands me. 
But how am I to send him anywhere? I have 
no ship, nor oars, nor crew to cross the broad-backed sea.
But I will kindly tell him what you have told me, 
and keep no secrets, so that he may return home
in perfect health.”

                                 And the eyes-blinding messenger spoke :

“So send him on his way, and respect Zeus’ will,
or feel his fury in time to come.” 

Thus spoke mighty Hermes, and stepped away and left :
so the tight-braided nymph went to Odysseus,
after hearing Zeus’ word. 

She found him sitting by the sea with eyes leaking
tears : for his one life was flowing away : 
and he sighed sadly for home. The nymph had saved him 
from the misty sea, but she no longer pleased him. 
Her spells compelled him to sleep beside her at night :
not willingly would he lie with the willing nymph
in her hollow cave : and by day he sat watching
the restless sea from the rocks and sands of the shore,
and he sighed with many heartbreaking groans and griefs,
and through his tears he watched the moving waves. 

So the dazzling goddess came close to him and spoke :

“Bid goodbye to sighs and sorrow and nasty fate :
you’re going home. Love me now? So go! Take an axe 
and cut some long timber and build yourself a raft :
broad-beamed, and with a deck to keep you high and dry
on the waves. And I’ll lay in a plentiful store 
of bread and water and red wine, so you won’t starve :
and I’ll give you garments to wear : and just for you
I’ll send a favourable wind to rush you along,
so you can go safe and sound to your homeland—
if the gods who hold heaven will it. They know best :
and best know how to exercise their will on us.”

So she spoke, and much-suffering Odysseus 
had bristled at her speech : and answered her :

“Before God, you speak some trick and not my sending :
you would have me leap the open throat of the sea
on a raft. Even the fastest ships cross that horror 
only with a struggle, even with fairest winds.
I will not ride any raft : unless, goddess, 
you swear a mighty oath, to send me into no 
evil misery.”

So he spoke, and the dazzling goddess Calypso
smiled, and caressed his hand, and answered him :

“You’re wicked to say such things, you clever man.
But to think that I would plan evil against you!

     Know this, earth and heaven, and river Styx 
     that flows in darkness (the mightiest oath
     of all for gods) : I will not send Odysseus
     into evil misery!

Clever man, I have no such thing in mind for you.
The instruction I give you is what I would do
if I were facing the open throat of the sea. 
My heart beats fairly for you behind these breasts.”

This she said. And Odysseus followed her 
back to the cave : and they entered, goddess and man : 
and he took a seat where Hermes had arisen
from : and Calypso, charming nymph, set a table
of all kinds of food and drink that mortal men eat.
But she herself had ambrosia and nectar prepared :
and she sat down face to face with Odysseus. 
And they reached for the many gifts set before them;
and when they were satisfied with the food and drink,
Calypso was first to speak :

“O Odysseus, son of Laertes the Zeus-born!  
My many-minded Odysseus! You truly
intend to leave me? So soon you will leave me?
Even now, just now, you’re eager to go home
and leave me! O Odysseus : Odysseus : 
farewell. If in your heart you knew of all the woe
fated to fill you before you come to your home,
here on this spot you would stay, and keep house with me.
And you would be immortal. Yet you would leave me
for your wife : your mortal wife whom you desire
all day long : here! Surely my body, this figure
you see, is equal to hers : and I say solemnly
that mortal women resembling gods is unseemly!”

And Odysseus answered her :

“Goddess, do not be angry. You and I well know
that thoughtful Penelope cannot surpass you
in body and figure. She is a mortal woman,
and you are deathless, and undecaying. 
Even so I desire all day long to go home.
And if any god wrecks me on the wine-dark sea
again, I’ll endure it. I’ve become patient 
in suffering. By now I’ve tolerated 
so many troubles and so much misery
from wave and war. So let this go with all that.”

As he spoke, the sun had set and darkness came :
and they moved deeper into the cave to its inmost
part, where they lay together and enjoyed themselves.

When Dawn, the rosy-fingered, delivered first light, 
Odysseus covered himself in tunic and cloak :
while Calypso slipped into a silver-sparkling
robe of linen, which snugly fit her figure 
with twelve golden brooches fastened down one side 
of her body : and on her shoulders lay a shining veil,
and she drew down this fine netting over her head
and face : and she went to assist Odysseus
on his way. She handed him a sharp double-axe,
well-balanced in his grip, its bronze blades well-pinned
to its handle of olive-wood of swirling grain :
and she also gave him a short-handled adze : 
then led the way to a far end of the island 
where tall trees stood : alder and poplar and silver fir
rising sky-high : but dried out long ago : she knew
the well-seasoned timber would float lightly for him.
So she showed him where the tall trees stood, then went home,
the dazzling goddess Calypso, and he began 
cutting beams of wood, and swiftly his work took hold
of him. Twenty trees fell : and he trimmed off their limbs
roughly : then skilfully smoothed them, chipping away 
with the adze, shaping each straight to the line, to fit
the next : and Calypso brought him augers : and he
hand-drilled the beams, and fitted wood-pegs and dowels 
in the holes : then hammered all the parts together.
As wide a span that a skilled carpenter measures 
out for a cargo-ship, just this wide did Odysseus
make the floor of his raft. And he fixed to the floor
uprights to support the level boards of a deck :
then bolted planks crosswise along the craft’s edges,
to fasten the floor securely. And he fitted    
a mast, and a spar : and made a broad-bladed oar, 
to steer with : and he hedged everything round with walls
of plaited osier as a shelter from the waves : 
and shored that up with many bundles of brushwood.
And Calypso brought him robes and cloaks and mantles
to make a sail : and he made that, too : and fastened
the braces, that shift the sail to the wind :
and the halyards, to raise sail, and lower it : 
and the sheets, which use the winds finely.     
Then he dug a trench, and carefully brought the raft
down along rollers into the sparkling sea. 

And that was on the fourth day : and his work was done.
Yet tight-braided Calypso kept Odysseus
for one day more : and so she bathed him : and dressed him
in freshly cleaned clothes : then sent him from the island.
She stowed for him on the raft a skin of dark wine : 
and a larger one of water : and a well-stitched leather sack 
of provisions : and inside she had given him
many agreeable delicacies :
and she gifted him a fresh breeze, gentle and warm.

Joyfully he spread his wings : good Odysseus :
his raft sailed on the breeze : and he sat 
and guided his passage with the steering-oar :
and took no sleep, but kept his eyes ever upon
the Pleiades, on slow-setting Boötes, and on the Bear
(which men also call the Plough), which circles in place
and eyes the hunter Orion, and never sinks 
below the sea : beautiful goddess Calypso 
had counselled him to keep the Bear left of his hand. 
So for seventeen days he sailed the sea : and on
the eighteenth he saw dim mountains in the distance :
the land of the Phaeacians rising before him
as a blessing on the misty deep. 

                                                            But earthshaking
Poseidon, lord of the sea, rising up the sky
from Ethiopia, saw the man from afar,
peering down by the mountains of the Solymi :
the god saw Odysseus sailing on the sea :
and the anger deep in his heart went deeper still :
and he shook his head : and he murmured to himself :

“ ὢ πόποι ! 
So the gods changed their mind about the man
while I was feasting in Ethiopia. 
And now he nears the Phaeacian land,
where fate would have him escape the wide net
of suffering flung round him. But I can 
bring him to his fill of misery on the way.”

So he gathered the clouds : and agitated the sea
with trident in hand : and he roused all kinds 
of whirling storm winds obscuring land and sea : 
and night dropped from heaven. And the East Wind
and the South Wind and the ferocious West Wind
fell on him together : and the North Wind 
rushed down from the heights and pushed up over him
a tremendous wave. 

                                      And Odysseus lost heart,
and crushed in spirit he spoke to his mighty heart :

“Ah, God! So what will it finally be? 
She spoke true of the misery of the sea.
Clouds surround me all the way up to Heaven
and Zeus : and the waves are in confusion
from contrary winds : and towering ruin
comes for me at last. Blest, three times blest, four times blest,
all those who died at Troy : to please the sons of Atreus.
If only fate had taken me the day 
I was showered with the bronze-tipped Trojan spears,
fighting for the body of dead Achilles :
then I would have received funeral rites,
and the Achaeans would have carried my name far :
now the death fated for me comes miserably.”

And a great wave struck him down from above, 
rushing over him with terrible force and whirling
his raft round and round : and he was flung from the raft :
and he let the steering oar slip from his hand :
and the mast snapped in half in the midst of the winds
lashing around him in rage, and sail and spar 
fell into the sea. And the sea held him under
a long time : and he was unable to surface through
the rush of the waves : and the garments he wore,
gifts of Calypso, weighed him down further : 
but at last he broke through, and spat out 
the hateful sea that rippled all around him.
At once he rushed through the waves for his raft 
and took hold of it, and sat down in its midst,
hoping to escape his oncoming fate and death. 
And the winds and crosscurrents tossed him to and fro :
just as in late summer, when the north wind 
lifts feather-light thistles up and above the plain
and crowds the air : just so the wind carried the raft 
here and there along the sea. Here the South Wind
flung the raft to the North Wind to hurry it on :
there the East Wind relented, and the West Wind worked it along. 

And now appeared the shapely ankles of a sea-goddess :
it was the fair-faced Ino : once mortal woman, 
now a nymph of the foamy sea : shining Leucothea :
a daughter of warrior Cadmus, who contrived 
the alphabet. Leucothea saw, and felt a pang
of sorrow for Odysseus, as he wandered 
with his many troubles. Rising over the waves
like a seagull she landed on the well-built raft,
and the harmony of her voice was as a god’s 
as she spoke :

“O unlucky man! How have you brought earthshaking
Poseidon to such a terrible rage? I see 
many horrors growing. You are far from mad,
so do as I tell you. Strip off your garments,
and leave the raft in the hands of the angry winds.
Reach your climbing arms towards the Phaeacian shore, 
and escape this fate. Here : stretch this veil around
your chest and tie it tight, and you shall not be lost :
but when your hands touch land, untie it and cast it
far out in the wine-dark sea : and then turn yourself
away.”

              This the goddess told him. And she gave him
the veil and dived like a sea-bird into the waves,
and the darkness there concealed her. 

                                                                      And the godlike
Odysseus wondered at his unceasing misery,
and crushed in spirit he spoke to his mighty heart :

“What now? Some god telling me to step off the raft.
No : they weave more trickery for me : I’ll stay here. 
I saw land out there—she called it my chance of escape.
Right here will do well, I think. I think this is best. 
As long as the beams hold together I’ll sit here
and wait out the misery : I’ll swim for it—
if I have to : I can think of no better plan.”

While Odysseus pondered in mind and heart,
earthshaker Poseidon roused a towering wave,
hard and horrible: it curled over him from above,
and the god shoved it on him and shattered the raft.
And even as a strong wind shakes a heap of chaff, 
scattering the dry straw, some here, some there : just so 
the wave scattered the long beams of the raft. 
But Odysseus hung on to a plank, then got a leg over
as if mounting a horse : and he put off the garments
that Calypso had given him : and he knotted the veil
around him : and he dived into the sea with arms
extended : and he began to swim. And the lord
of the sea shook his head at all this and murmured :

“Enjoy your suffering as you claw through the sea, 
til you come to those people beloved of Zeus. 
You won’t say you lacked for misery along the way.”

And he lashed his horses and came to stormy Aegae, 
where his shining palace stands. 

                                                              And Athena, 
daughter of Zeus, carried out a plan of her own :
she tied the wind-streams in a knot : and in that way
they lay silent and at rest : then let the North Wind
loose : to smooth the waves before him, so that he might
reach the Phaeacians : godlike Odysseus,
escaping death and the fates!

Then for two nights and two days the waves baffled him :
and floating on the heavy swells he saw his death by water.

But when the bright-haired Dawn birthed the third day,
the wind stopped : and the sea was quiet : and the air
was still : and atop a swelling wave he saw land 
near at hand : so even as children cherish the life
in a father who lies in illness, suffering
long-enduring pains, a long ebbing away, the work
of some cruel god : then to their joy the gods 
cure him of pain : so Odysseus welcomed
the land and the trees; and he swam in a hurry
to put his feet on land. But when he was as far
from shore as a man’s shout can travel, and heard
the roar of the sea rushing at the reefs : the rush
of the massive waves crashing into the headland
with a terrible roar and splash of sea-spray :
he saw no harbours for ships to shelter in,
no safe spot,
only crags and rocks pointing up through the sea-spray.

And Odysseus lost heart, and crushed in spirit 
he spoke to his mighty heart :

“And now? Zeus gave me sight of land to raise my hopes,
and I have cut across this waste somehow, but now
I see no way out of the grey sea. The coast is rocky,
and the waves run into a sheer cliff : I see no way
to get a footing and flee out of this evil. 
If I try to haul myself out, I fear the winds
may snatch me up again and fling me back
onto the horrible sea, and all this effort 
will be pointless. Or some god or other 
will unleash on me a monster from the deep :
and many kinds are bred by glowing Amphitrite :
and I know that glorious Poseidon is angry with me.” 

While he wondered in mind and heart, a great wave
shoved him against the rocky headland. His skin
was ripped away and his bones were shattered—
if not for a thought that the goddess Athena
put into his mind. As he swept along he grabbed
onto a rock with both hands, and with a loud cry 
he clung there until the roaring wave rushed by. 
So he escaped the wave : but redounding
from the headland the great wave smashed into him
and pushed him into the sea. And just as when 
a squid is pulled from its hole and pebbles stick
to its suckers, just so the rocks were stuck with skin
ripped from his strong hands : and the great wave covered him.
And miserable Odysseus would have outfoxed
his appointed fate and died just then : 
but Athena had granted him a quick-moving mind. 
He rose to the surface and swam out and away
from the breaking waves, all the while looking
landward for a sandy beach, or harbours of the sea.
As he swam he came to a bay where a river 
ran into the deep : it appeared to him the best spot
to stop. The land held tall trees, and the water
was smooth. And he hailed the river as a god,
and prayed in his heart :

“Hear me, many-powered one (whoever you are) :
I have sought you in my many prayers :
help me escape from Poseidon’s angry sea.
Holy in the eyes of the Immortals 
is one who comes lost in his way : thus I have come
after much trouble, and wrap my arms round your stream.
I ask for mercy, 
and with righteous plea declare myself your suppliant.”

Thus he spoke, and at once the river-current ceased,
and took him into its calm, and carried him safe
to a grassy bank. And he let his two knees bend 
and his strong hands drop and he fell to earth.
The sea had crushed his spirit. His body was dark
with many bruises, and seawater leaked from his mouth 
and nose. He lay there, breathless and unable to speak, 
in utter exhaustion. But his spirit rallied
in his heart, and he came round, and untied the veil
of the goddess, and let the river take it down
into the sea, where a great wave rose under it,
and Ino received it into her hands. Then dropping
back to earth Odysseus sidled up onto  
soft grass and kissed the benevolent soil. 

And he spoke to his mighty spirit :

“This isn’t good. And now? What’s the kill blow to be?
If I stay here by the river, the frost and dew 
will kill me by morning : I feel too weak to fight.
And the wind off the sea blows cold in the morning.
But what if I get up the hill to those shady trees,
and find a sheltered place and lie down and rest,
and sleep in the hope that the cold and exhaustion
leave me? Maybe then a ravenous beast finds me,
and I become food.” 

So he wondered : and this seemed better to him : 
Odysseus made his way up into the woods 
overlooking the water. Two olive bushes
growing from a single root stood here : and he knew
their fanned-out branches would block the damp winds, 
and also the bright beams of the sun, and the rain :
the two grew together so close and so dense,
their branches were interwoven one with another. 
Odysseus got himself under them and reached out
and gathered fallen leaves together as a bed
to lie on : for very many leaves lay around him,
enough to cover two or three men in winter-time,
and shelter them, though the air be hard and wild. 
And good Odysseus, the much-suffering one, 
covered himself over with leaves and was glad. 
Just as a man, living amid remote fields,
preserves a seed of fire in a heap of embers
(so he need not seek out a light elsewhere) :
so Odysseus had sunk himself into the leaves. 
And Athena poured sleep into his eyes,
so that he might cease, finally, from all
his heavy fatigue, and his eyelids closed.

End of Book V

[Jeff Bernstein]

[ 01 Infinitas Photograph Borbála Földes Hungary 2022 / 02 The Goddess Photograph Roberto Manetta Italy 2013 / 03 Twins, Aichi Prefecture Photograph Francesco Libassi Japan 2024 / 04 North Shore, Maui Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 1978 / 05 Slow Streaming - The Dunes, Colorado Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2008 / 06 Inner Luminence - White Sands, NM Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2006 / 07 Mystical Falls Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2010 / 08 Moonscape Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2014 / 09 Untitled Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2014 /10 Sentry at MagicLite Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2010 /11 San Jose Badlands Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2010 /12 Untitled - Russian River, CA Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 1994 /13 Jeweled Mummy Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2017 /14 Flower Portrait #5 Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2017 /15 Avenging Angel Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2015 / 16 The Sentinel Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2014 /17 Icelandic Horses Photograph Ed Freeman United States 2000 / 18 Rainbow Reflection Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2018 / 19 Breaking Patterns Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2014 / 20 Fire & Frost - Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2010 / 21 Illusionary Glow Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2014 / 22 Three Kings Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2008 / 23 Wooden sticks at lake Biwa, Study I Photograph Francesco Libassi Japan 2024 / 24 Winter Stillness, Punta Marina Photograph Redrumstudio Italy Italy 2024 / 25 Avalon Photograph Julia Lehman United States 2018 / 26 The Sound of One Foot Jogging Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 1984 / 27 Footprint Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2011 / 28 Think about... Photograph Ivan Cheremisin Indonesia 2023 / 29 Old jetty, lake Biwa Photograph Francesco Libassi Japan 2025 / 30 Let It Flow Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2010 / 31 Eternal Struggle Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 1993 / 32 Hydro-Tectonics Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2010 / 33 Storm Clouds of New Mexico - #2 Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2018 / 34 Early Morning Wave Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 1986 / 35 The road within, Aichi Prefecture Photograph Francesco Libassi Japan 2024 / 36 Sea and sky study, Enoshima Photograph Francesco Libassi Japan 2024 / 37 Sunrise Photograph Claudia Costantino Italy 2021 / 38 Sunrise and Film Damage Photograph Damian Seagar Australia 2019 / 39 Vertical Nightmare - The Strip, Las Vegas Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2012 / 40 Ocean Abstract Lines Sculpture Andrea Pallang Slovakia 2022 / 41 Ocean Waves_02 Digital on Paper Jil Guyon United States 2024 / 42 Swimming Mermaid Photograph Roberto Manetta Italy 2011 / 43 Into the Abyss Photograph Julia Lehman United States 2015 / 44 Underwater Dive Photograph Ed Freeman United States 2008 / 45 What's wrong with me Digital, Nft on Paper Federico Bebber Italy 2022 / 46 The Eternal Flame Photograph Bob Witkowski United States 2012 / 47 Étude #1 Digital on Paper Jil Guyon United States 2024 ]

[Jeff Bernstein]

A Universal Odyssey

 

VARIETY. Jim Orr, the studio’s distribution chief, predicted that the film, which is still shooting, will be “a visionary, once-in-a-generation cinematic masterpiece that Homer himself would quite likely be proud of.”

 

SCROOBY. Might audiences receive the above assertion as Hollywood Hyperbole? 

 

VARIETY. He seemed to be serious, but the audience of theater owners (and perhaps a stray classicist or two) laughed at the hyperbole.

 

SCROOBY. I'm not laughing. I would take that bet alongside Universal's distribution chief. An even safer bet is to say that if cinema technology had been available to the ancient Greeks, Sophocles' triple-toned Οἰδίπους Τύραννος, for example, would have been an Oscar™-winning screenplay, and the Acropolis a Globotainment Cineplex.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Sophocles : Odysseus on a Mission

ODYSSEUS.
This is the headland of island Lemnos,
a place without people, a place untouched
by foot of man. It was here I abandoned
Philoctetes the archer on the command
of the two kings at Troy, because his foot
was trickling ooze while being eaten
away by disease. We in the army
campsite could neither pray nor sacrifice
in peace, for the silence was forever
broken by his terrible sounds of cries
and groans. Let's speak no more of that; time's short,
and we don't want him to hear us, nor see me,
for that would ruin the plan I've devised
to take him. Come now, Neoptolemus,
be my ally and follow my orders.
You are to seek out a cave with two mouths.
In the winter it takes in the sunlight
at dawn and dusk; in summer a breeze slips
through the cavernous tunnel. Below it,
just a bit away on the left, you'll see
water rising from a spring, if it still flows.
Go quietly, and give me a signal
if you see him in that place; otherwise,
you'll have to find him elsewhere on this rock.
After that I'll tell you what's left to say,
what the two of us have been tasked to do.
Be careful now. Stay hyper-vigilant.
The mission is vital, and dangerous.

Sophocles, Philoctetes, 1–25.

ἀκτὴ μὲν ἥδε τῆς περιρρύτου χθονὸς
Λήμνου, βροτοῖς ἄστιπτος οὐδ᾽ οἰκουμένη,
ἔνθ᾽, ὦ κρατίστου πατρὸς Ἑλλήνων τραφεὶς
Ἀχιλλέως παῖ Νεοπτόλεμε, τὸν Μηλιᾶ
Ποίαντος υἱὸν ἐξέθηκ᾽ ἐγώ ποτε,
ταχθεὶς τόδ᾽ ἔρδειν τῶν ἀνασσόντων ὕπο,
νόσῳ καταστάζοντα διαβόρῳ πόδα:
ὅτ᾽ οὔτε λοιβῆς ἡμὶν οὔτε θυμάτων
παρῆν ἑκήλοις προσθιγεῖν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀγρίαις
κατεῖχ᾽ ἀεὶ πᾶν στρατόπεδον δυσφημίαις,
βοῶν, στενάζων. ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν τί δεῖ
λέγειν; ἀκμὴ γὰρ οὐ μακρῶν ἡμῖν λόγων,
μὴ καὶ μάθῃ μ᾽ ἥκοντα κἀκχέω τὸ πᾶν
σόφισμα, τῷ νιν αὐτίχ᾽ αἱρήσειν δοκῶ.
ἀλλ᾽ ἔργον ἤδη σὸν τὰ λοίφ᾽ ὑπηρετεῖν
σκοπεῖν θ᾽ ὅπου 'στ᾽ ἐνταῦθα δίστομος πέτρα
τοιάδ᾽, ἵν᾽ ἐν ψύχει μὲν ἡλίου διπλῆ
πάρεστιν ἐνθάκησις, ἐν θέρει δ᾽ ὕπνον
δι᾽ ἀμφιτρῆτος αὐλίου πέμπει πνοή:
βαιὸν δ᾽ ἔνερθεν ἐξ ἀριστερᾶς τάχ᾽ ἂν
ἴδοις ποτὸν κρηναῖον, εἴπερ ἐστὶ σῶν.
ἅ μοι προσελθὼν σῖγα σήμαιν᾽ εἴτ᾽ ἐκεῖ
χῶρον τὸν αὐτὸν τόνδ᾽ ἔτ᾽ εἴτ᾽ ἄλλῃ κυρεῖ,
ὡς τἀπίλοιπα τῶν λόγων σὺ μὲν κλύῃς,
ἐγὼ δὲ φράζω, κοινὰ δ᾽ ἐξ ἀμφοῖν ἴῃ.

[Jeff Bernstein]

     1. ]  Justified punishment can still be sadistic.
     2. ]  Cf. Odysseus in ODYSSEY, bk 22.
     3. ]  This ambiguity of character . . .
     4. ]  inspires Sophocles and his treatment of Odysseus in Philoctetes. Here, during this play, Odysseus is a questionable character (at least for the time being).The audience is unsure how to assimilate his questionable character. Is he a good guy? Is he a bad guy? ¶ In Sophocles, Odysseus is a good guy resorting to bad behaviour to bring about an ultimate good. (Which recalls the later proverb, "The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.") In his play, Sophocles engineers a "clearly defined ambiguity" (of character) that sustains itself throughout the entirety of the narrative. The audience oscillates now and then between fidelity toward Odysseus & suspicion of Odysseus & disdain for Odysseus & so on. Such a structural feat (of character) is the product of a monumentally first-rate author.
     5. ]  That said, Scrooby isn't going any further down this line. Here at cinematography.com, now & then, Scrooby will present large-scale heroic character traits of the pre-Odyssey Odysseus which will later be visible in THE ODYSSEY.

[Jeff Bernstein]

A book that led, one hundred years later, to the Romantic movement throughout Western Europe :

Fénelon, Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699)

[Karim D. Ghantous]

Good to see that Scrooby is still on the case. My French is still not up to Scrooby's level, though. 

[Jeff Bernstein]

Jean-Féry Rebel, Ulysse (1703). An opera.

[Jeff Bernstein]

It little profits that an idle king,
                           By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
                     Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
    Unequal laws unto a savage race,
                                  That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
        I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
 Life to the lees . . .                       

 

      

     The publication pictured above and in the previous post is Ulysse (1703) by Jean-Féry Rebel. His opera was printed in beautiful typographical style by the King's printer, and printed under the imprimatur of the King. The publication of the score & libretto was sponsored by the Academica Royale De Musique. Evidently the reason for this was a concert that was held in January 1703, apparently a significant artistic Situation with respect to King Louis XIV and his establishment. The publication in its elegance seems aimed at the artists, scholars and aficianados that populated the Academica Royale De Musique.

 

     THE ODYSSEY has survived time because its message is colossal : an anguished man refuses to give up and reaches his goal and prevails.

 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life!                     

 

     Rebel's reduction of the story from epic poem to domestic drama is another advance expression of the self-perspective of the Romantic Age (eg, in English : Lyrical Ballads (1798), Keats, Shelley). Odysseus πολύμητις finally enters the opera, snared in Circe's charms, at the outset of Act 3, and the hero is weak, downcast, and dejected for three successive scenes. The pain of missing his wife is colossal; he wants to get home to her.

 

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,    
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.                         

 

     The Romantic Age ended (cf. early deaths of Keats, Shelley, Byron, and so on) and Europe entered the long social sleep of the Victorian Era. But four years before that climacteric established itself, Tennyson wrote "Ulysses", a dramatic monologue in which the man gets itchy feet late in life in Ithaca, and determines to launch out on adventures new. His searching spirit will not be denied. He must follow his blood.

We are not now that strength which in old days        
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,                              
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will          
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.                   

         

[Jeff Bernstein]

[Jeff Bernstein]

Italian opera, 1640.

[Jeff Bernstein]

At the bottom, the old, confused,
shapes that go down
to roots hidden-born,
unseen.

Storm-helmets, hunters' horn,
grey speech,
men in brother-rage,
women as breathy lutes . . .

Stress of branch on branch,
nowhere is free . . .
To be! How steep the rise . . .  

Still they break.
But the highest overhead
bends into a lyre.

[Geffen Avraham]

what is going on with the production design for this film?

the never-released chinese underwater epic "Empires of the Deep", one of the most incompetent big-budget movies of all time, at least built real floating Greek triremes.

Nolan is renting preexisting viking ship replicas that aren't greek at all. I'd expect this from a made-for-TV version - but even Netflix's live action One Piece built custom ships.

The armor looks like it's from Spirit Halloween as well. In any other movie, I'd relax and expect them to augment it with CGI - but not this one.

Nolan seems to be using a new blimped IMAX camera to make this the first feature filmed entirely on 15/70 - but all the IMAX film in the world can't salvage nonexistent production design.

Below, the trireme from Empires of the Deep.

Edited April 14 by Geffen Avraham

[Jeff Bernstein]

Monumental Popularity.

There are so many references to THE ODYSSEY in other works throughout the history of world literature that it would be well-nigh impossible to enumerate them all. When we account for this, and also for the number of manuscripts and translations of Homer that were produced throughout the duration of European history, we theorise somewhat confidently that THE ODYSSEY is the most popular work of Western writing after the Holy Bible.

eg : Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1712), 4.81–2 :

A wond'rous Bag with both her hands she binds,
Like that where once Ulysses held the winds

cf. Odyssey, x.1–77.

 

eg : Thomas Lodge, Rosalynde (1592), ch1 :

Wise he was, . . . and to make his wisdom more gracious, he had that salem ingenii [spice of inwit] and pleasant eloquence that was so highly commended in Ulysses

cf. Odyssey, xiv.508–9 ("Old man, you speak well.")

 

eg :

Coming soon : Seneca on Odysseus.

 

Recalling Odysseus' trip into the Underworld in ODYSSEY.xi, 

here is Rilke's Requiem (1908) condensed by Scrooby :

 

I was shocked to see them so confident,
so quickly at home in their death, so right,—
so unlike its reputation. But you,
you turn back, you graze me, you go around,
you want to knock something so that it sounds
from you, and reveals you. (Oh am I right?)
But you're mistaken if you are at all
stirrèd by anything like homesickness.
¶ Come here, come here into the candlelight;
I am not afraid to look at the dead.
(Which corner are you in? Are you still there?)
        If you can bear it, stay dead with the dead.
        The dead are busy; but help me sometimes.

I drew my sword and dug a pit a cubit square,
then poured around it an offering to the dead :
first, a mixture of milk and honey, then sweet wine,
then water : then I sprinkled white barley over all.
And then I prayed to the miserable dead.

xi.24–29.

 

[Jeff Bernstein]

Character.

Polixene, a tragedy by Antoine de la Fosse, premiered on the French stage on 3 February 1696. The scene is the night of the fall of the city of Troy, and the victorious Greeks are dividing up the spoils of war. The Greek army’s prophet Calchas has read the oracles and relates the news : the young woman Polixene, daughter of defeated Troy's king and queen, is to be sacrificed on the altar as an appreciation to the gods, who are presently sending adverse winds that hinder the Greek fleet from departing the battlefield. Only with her death will the Greek army find plain sailing onward towards home. ¶ A much earlier play that covers this Situation is Seneca, Trojan Women (1st century AD). ¶ De la Fosse’s Polixene is a strong woman, a heroic woman. She taunts her would-be murderer : Tiens, fais une victime, et non pas une esclave. / “Do it; make me a victim, and not a slave.” ¶ In the play Odysseus appears as just as strong a personality. His character in the play exemplifies his reputation throughout the history of Europe as founded in THE ODYSSEY : he is coolly intelligent; a virtuoso of pointed questions; deft in clever strategising; a master of politics, of its sudden changes and subtleties. In the French play Odysseus is exclusively Mind, for there is no physical action in Polixene; much of the dialogic interplay involves kings speaking together in rooms. The mind of Odysseus cuts through to essences, delivering the fruit of painstaking thinking in knowing pronunciamentos. He may speak and act in what he admits are “secret detours” (Je ne viens point, par des détours secrets). Just as in Homer, Odysseus is patriotic and a staunch defender of the State. (L’intérêtdu pays me touche uniquement. / “The interests of my country are my sole concern.”) And just as in Seneca, Odysseus supports the bloody sacrifice of Polixene. “Voulez-vous d’un ami croire l’avis sincere?” he says. “Are you prepared to trust the sincere advice of a friend?”—and he goes on to promote violent reprisal on the enemy. Here, Odysseus, just as in THE ODYSSEY, is warlike, and an unemotional celebrator of vengeance. (Et plus nous grossissons le bruit de ses disgraces; Par là notre vengeance éclate d’autant plus. / “The more we magnify the noise of his disgraces, by this our vengeance shall burst forth all the more.” 

¶ Odysseus the fine public speaker. The play presents Odysseus in his most celebrated light (cf. Ovid and Shakespeare)—Je viens, au nom de tous, m’adresser à vous-même. / “I come, in the name of all, to address myself to you.” The speaker is confident to the point of taunting his audience : C’est peu de mes discours, pour ébranler votre ame. Les effets vous pourront convaincre. / “My words do little to move your soul. [But] The effects will convince you.” ¶ Also (what in other contexts might be heard as grandiose thinking) : D’où dépend ou la perte, ou le salut de tous. / “On this (my speech) depends either the loss of all, or the salvation.” ¶ So clever is Odysseus during his speechifying that he deploys a Henry James Positive-Negative statement : Non, non, trop d’embarras suivroient notre victoire. / “No, no, many embarrassments would follow our victory.” ¶ The sharp-minded Ithacan often speaks in Seneca-like aphorisms : Qu’en protégeant le crime, ils ont part à la peine / “They who would protect a crime [must] share in the punishment”. Also : Pour remplir un devoir qui fait trembler d’effroi, Un coeur n’est point si libre et si maître de soi. / “Fulfilling a duty that fills you with fear means your heart is not so free and master of itself.” ¶ At the end, in Act 5, Odysseus expresses a sentiment close to his heart in all of his iterations from THE ODYSSEY onward : “O courage!” ¶ In his last words of the play, Odysseus πολύμητις is wise enough to see the future, and is prepared to act accordingly—thereby leaping ahead of the audience on his way out : Quel orage , grands Dieux ! quels troubles je prévois! Quoi qu’il en soit, allons, faisons ce que je dois. / “Great Heavens! What a storm! What trouble I foresee! Come what may, let me do what I must.” 

¶ Seneca, as we shall see, goes one better in abject horror. It is not nearly enough for Polyxena to die. Also unsafe must be the King and Queen’s grandchild, the young Astyanax, just a little boy. To please the gods, he is to be tossed off the ruined city’s high tower. The good Odysseus will help make that happen. Odysseus, the good soldier.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Seneca

In Trojan Women 3.1, Odysseus enters the play. He comes to Andromache and deploys against her an onslaught of words. The dialogic interplay continues for 300 lines. (3.1 is equivalent in suspense to Annie and Author in Pre-Op?!) As introduction, Odysseus unfurls an extended speech that exhibits his smarts and rhetorical control :

ODYSSEUS.
As a minister of hard fate I ask this first :
that of the words that come out of my mouth,
do not credit them to me. It is the voice
of the assembly of Greek kings, who hope
to return home finally after all these years,
if not for Hector's son. Let Fate come.

Whoo. That last line arrives like a punctuation point. With the three-word line Odysseus changes rhetorical gears, slyly nonchalant, conveying in gentlest manner a most horrific Situation : Andromache, he says, hand your child over to me for murder. Hanc fata expetunt. In between bright poles of rhetoric, it is an offhand, dark prompt, a gentlest browbeating, a manipulative gambit. Scrooby can imagine the three-word line being whispered like a sweet nothing in a romance. Indeed—Odysseus is appealing to Andromache's heartstrings, seeking sympathy for his sorry task. "Don't blame me," he says. "I'm just following orders." Is this a reasonable request for Odysseus to ask of Andromache? The executioner asks forgiveness of his victim? ¶ Odysseus persists in a confident manner :

The Greeks will be tormented with anxiety,
and will face the future with uncertain trust,
always looking over their shoulders with fear,
and not given leave to put down their arms,
as long as your son gives hope to the defeated
Trojans, Andromache.

All this may be so. At face value his explanation is reasonable. The child must die so the Greeks can stop looking over their shoulders. But why tell her this? ¶ We may theorise that Odysseus is hiding behind the pretence of Reason to carry out his sorry task. ¶ At any rate Andromache is skeptical of her conqueror's posturing :

ANDROMACHE.                 This is what your prophet Calchas sings?

ODYSSEUS. And even if the prophet were silent,
Hector has already spoken on this;
so I fear a child of his. A son
of noble birth rises up strong in what's his.
In this way the ash of an abandoned fire
resumes strength and burns large. True, pain is no
impartial judge of things; but if you think about it,
after ten long summers and ten long winters,
the soldiers, no longer young, want to lie still,
and not be tormented with thoughts of further war,
or troubling thoughts of a future Hector.
Free Greece of fear.

Whoo! Libera Graios metu. Again the deployment of the three-word line, a strategic burst of pithy & manipulative humanness. Odysseus then pulls back from the intimate and restores the official story :

                                          Our naval ships are diverted,
unable to maintain straight course on the waters,
and our whole army lingers here, for this one cause.

He seeks to persuade her by using arguments meant to persuade a Greek. Then, for reasons of his own, he marks his position straight out :

Do not think me cruel because fate appointed me
to come for the child of Hector and take him away.

In all these words thus far, is Odysseus saying he is doing her and everyone a favour by taking away the child to be murdered?

A far-out opening to Act 3. We're twenty lines in.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Long before Viktor und Viktoria (1933) . . .

"And all the while waiting alertly was Odysseus."

. . . THE FIRST CROSS-DRESSING COMEDY IN WORLD LITERATURE?

 

Statius / The Achilleid     

 

In this charming tale from the ancient world, young Achilles, aided and abetted by his sea-goddess mother, conceals himself as a woman in order to flee the responsibilites of the Trojan War. Special guest-star Odysseus, fresh from the battlefield at Troy, arrives at the boy's hiding place, intent on unmasking him. Does this psychedelic slapstick comedy end happily? Get comfortable, kind Reader, and enjoy the show. ¶ YOUR SCROOBY'S TRANSLATION IN FIFTEEN-SYLLABLE LINES EMULATES THE METRICS OF THE ORIGINAL LATIN TEXT. 

 

2. 

Outrunning the military of city Lacedaemon,
Prince Alexandros of Troy, with lovely Helen beside him,
had launched his ships onto river Eurotas, and was threading
toward the sea and safety. Nothing more beautiful had he seen
living or unliving than Helen, so he had won her heart, 
the now-absconded queen of Lacedaemon. She put her hand
in his as he fled his crime—all according to his mother’s
prophecy, dreamed long ago while he had kicked in the womb. 
She had seen herself birth a fire that set her city aflame. 
(But what man doesn’t believe himself able to outwit Fate?)
And so Alexandros made for the sea, and his course for home.

Now Nereid Helle, swimming amid sparkles of sunlight,
unhappy to be in the sea but doomed for eternity
to haunt its waves—so that the Hellespontos itself received
its name from this once-mortal princess—took sight of the many
ships with an interest, then dove down deep into the under.

So soon it was sea-goddess Thetis who rose up through the dark.
(Ah, you parents, you whose predictions are too-often fulfilled!)
She took fright at the oarpaddles frothing in the transparent sea.
The seawaters boiled between the shores of the strait, through which
the Golden Fleece had once come. The fleet’s ferment had disarranged 
its level surface and disrupted its many mistresses;
so Thetis, with all her many sisters, leapt out of the waves.

When they came into the air, first they shook off the salty spray 
from their bodies. Then Thetis spoke : “This fleet seeks to attack me!
They sail toward slaughter, and would put my son in Hades’ place.
I understand these signs. What my father warned me is coming true. 
Bellona, goddess of death, brings Priam a new daughter-in-law.” 

From behind her closed eyes Thetis said : “I see a thousand keels
defiling the Ionian Sea, and the Aegean. 
Greece united with Atreus won’t be satisfaction enough;
they’ll also want my son. Soon they’ll look across land and sea
to find Achilles—and he will voluntarily follow. 

They’ll find him by Pelion Mountain, where Chiron once tutored
Jason, and Heracles, and Theseus—and now my Achilles.
Right now I see him in playbattles with the Centaurs as guides,
and he already regards himself as strong as his father, 
silly thing. Ah, sadness! for a mother to feel such a fear 
for her child! How maddening, that at the first, when the trees
of his homeland were felled and fitted together as seaships 
that came our way, I and all my sisters failed to raise up the sea,
and break their sails, and sink these unholy criminals down 
in a fathomless storm! It’s too late now! The crime has happened!”

So what, sea-goddess Thetis thought to herself, would she do now?

“I will go,” she said, “to Zeus—there is nothing else I can do—
and beg him the best way I can—and I’ll appeal to his love 
for his own mother Rhea, and father—and ask for a storm.” 

3. 

Thus spoke Thetis, who then shot up like lightning into the heavens.
High Zeus, then, infinite in age and sight, came into view. Though
as spacious as all Time and Space, he yet reduces the size
of his dimensions, to taste of the delights of Creation. 
Just now he was returning from the hospitable table
of river Oceanus with a face of sheer contentment :
nectar drawn off from the river-waters had left him relaxed. 
His horses skimmed the sea-surface so lightly, hardly any 
sea-spray dappled the warm evening air. The mermans haunting
the rocks of the sea sang quietly as the god passed them by. 
No storm or wind frustrated his homeward journey. 
God, then, coming into the Tyrrhenian Sea, received salute
from seraphim following above and below him. And he
passed Thetis by as if unawares and returned to Olympus. 

So sea-goddess Thetis appealed next to Poseidon. He came
to her astride his triple horses, who were equine in chest, 
but with fins behind them which wiped out their prints as they galloped
on the deep. And Thetis said : 

“O great father! Monarch of the Under! See what misery
they bring to your seas! Criminals fleeing the land now sail
safely ever since Jason shattered the illustricity
of your waves with his thievery! Now another criminal
flees along your routes, the man who chose recklessly on sacred
Ida! Ah! What impious injury to heaven and earth!
And furthermore—to me! Is this how we enjoy our privilege?
Are those two following the rightful ways of Aphrodite?
Or maybe it’s ingratitude from Aphrodite, child
of the sea? These ships don’t carry the pious, or Theseus!
If any honour is due to you and these waters, drown them!
Or abandon all of your sovereignty over the seas.
What I ask is nothing cruel : allow me to fear for my son.
Prevent a flood of grief from taking me away! Don’t think of me
off on a beach somewhere, alone, with my head bowed to the waves,
and the stones of a tomb raised beside me.”

Thus did Thetis plead to Poseidon. During all this begging 
the goddess had carved up her cheeks with her clawed fingernails. 
Now her dazzling face was etched with beads of immortal blood, 
and she wildly blocked his horses’ way with her bared breasts.

So the Monarch of the Seas pulled up on his reins. Poseidon
invited Thetis sea-goddess into his golden chariot.
Then he began to speak to her in a kind and loving way
while holding her hand, to soothe her. “Those ships will sail by
whether we like it or not, Thetis. I cannot destroy them.
The Fates will have their way and cannot be prevented, even
by gods. We are at their mercy, too.”

Poseidon with one hand cleansed the woe from the goddess’ face;
the other he dropped on her knee. Poseidon then continued :

“Ages ago Europe and Asia were fated for battle
with bloody hands; and Zeus has allowed it, and so it shall be.
That fleet sails unawares into ten long years of slaughter. 
But your son shall gain imperishable glory in the dust
by the Scamander. You shall see sights of his heroism
unmatched by man. He shall leave many Trojan mothers weeping
for their sons. The grandson of Aeacides shall flood the plain
with blood, and the rivers, too—and a terrible fate awaits
Priam’s Hector. Your Achilles will even tear down the walls
I built there!—and the ancient Ilium shall go up in flames.”

Thus he spoke. Thetis then lightly lifted his hand from her knee.
The god saw her face glowing fresh and smooth again, and he said :

“Men all over shall believe your Achilles no son of man,
but of Zeus. And your grief won’t go unanswered. You will use my
waters—I shall let you—to bring that fleet there to the bottom 
of the sea. When the time comes and Cape Caphereus ignites
its lights, the homeward ships will wreck themselves on the rocks, and we 
will pass no little time in terrorizing Odysseus.”

4.

The god had spoken, and the lowered eyes of Thetis goddess 
showed her misfortune at the rejection. She had been hoping
to scuttle the criminal ships threading through the Hellespont, 
but it was not to be. So her thoughts turned to something other.

With three long sad thoughtful strokes she swam across the Aegean 
and came to Haemonia, place of magic. Her naked feet 
stepped up out of the foam and onto the land of ancient Greece.
The Hills of Cynoscephalae raised their heads in happiness
to see her; while many caverns broadened, like a smile,
to invite her in. Delightedly the Sperchios River
hugged her ankles when she stepped in its fresh-water stream. Thetis,
though, took no joy in the place. With her heart and mind in distress,
the goddess, hoping desperation might give her eloquence,
sought out the reverend tutor Chiron. Reaching his dwelling
required an arduous journey up a steep mountainside 
through difficult and unpleasant terrain, to find the one cave
opening that led to his vast dwelling inside, on whose roof
rested the entire summit and tip of Pelion Mountain. 
Part was hollowed out by hand, part cracked wide by decaying age. 
Signa and couches of the gods furnished the interior—
these ornaments distinguished the spots where each Olympian 
had excavated the rock. The Centaur’s home comprised a network
of many airy caves. Unlike his violent brother Centaurs, 
here the many spear-points were clean of human blood, and no shafts
had fractured during drunken warplay. Not one mixing-bowl here
had been flung at a brother during a feast. Here, the quivers
hung neatly on pegs in open spaces softened by many 
animal skins. All these weapons, long retired from service,
memorialized his youth. These days he went around unarmed,
and worked at researching his herbs that gave medicinal care
to spirits hanging in the balance; or he strummed his lyre
and sang of ancient heroes as instruction to his student.

Now the cave went dim, and goddess Thetis turned to see Chrion
standing four-footed at the threshold, the half-horse, half-human 
Centaur, now a looming shadow, blocking the only way out. 
But he stepped forward with a smile, and invited her in
(though she stood inside already), and he took her hand in his, 
courteously. And while overjoyed at the sight of her,
his shoulders sank at the thought of his crude dwelling in her eyes,
and he warned her of the unsteady places of his cavern. 
Then the dignified healer bent to his hearth. He brightened things
with a fire, and began preparing a meal; and Thetis
sea-goddess began to speak, saying : 

“Chiron! Where is my child? And tell me since when does the boy
live apart from you for any length of time? Old friend, tell me this!
Shall a mother ignore the signs in her nightmares, breathed into
her mind from the gods, inspiring many terrors? Sometimes
I see sword-points piercing my womb from the inside out; sometimes
fears overcome me like wild animals tearing my breasts. 
Even under water I wring my hands dry with lamentation.
Worse horror—In my dreams I see myself bearing my own son
down into Hades and drenching him in the waters of the Styx.

Now I have more secrets to tell you. The old man of the sea
instructs me to purify my son in a rite by the shores
of Oceanus, if I am to undo my fears. I’m to stand facing the west
and its unknown waters warmed by the declining stars at dawn.
There we must make terrible sacrifices—gifts to unknown gods.
But to say it all would take ages; and I am forbidden
to speak of it anyway. Just tell me where to find my son.”

Thus spoke Thetis, weaving a fabricated tale for Chiron.
For how could she tell him she planned to dress her son in girls’ clothes?

5. 

“He is yours, good mother” (he said) “he’s yours, and with him my hope 
the gods answer your prayers—for your panic seems unmanageable.
I’d prefer not to add to your fears, but I must tell the truth :
your son is growing colossal, far beyond his thirteen years,
and omens in the air speak of things unimaginable
in preparation. He obeyed me—once. He heard instruction.
Nor would he journey far from the cave. But now all Greece itself
cannot contain his vast spirit. When even Centaurs complain,
his behaviour must be bad. They speak of him cleaning their homes out
and carrying their cattle away while they look on helplessly,
or even chased off—while he laughs!—from their own rivers and fields. 
Now they make threats. They want his blood, and have set up ambushes. 
I’ve seen many heroes in my time—Alcides, Theseus. . . . 
But hush! Words may be sharp as blades, but silence is best of all.”

Then her heart leapt in terror when she saw him enter the cave.
He entered with tranquil eyes, the gaze of Apollo when he
returns from the wild and rejects his arrows for the lyre.
The boy was indeed much bigger than before; in height he was
his mother’s match. Amid sweat and dust he handled his weapons,
but was still sweet to look on. His face radiated the heat
of youth; his Hyacinthian hair shone like gold; and she saw
the mother in the look of the child. By chance he entered
cheerfully (see how happiness increases outward beauty!)
cradling in his powerful arms, and moving avidly, 
a bunch of lion cubs he’d playfully stolen from their beds.
When he saw his mother he let the cubs go, and encouraged
them to scurry back to their own cave and mother, while Achilles 
embraced Thetis. Following close behind was Patroclus,
who looked exhausted, having striven to keep up with his friend.
But he had a long way to go to reach such strength. He, too, was
fated to see majestic Ilium, and to fall with it. 

6. 

Later he ran through the forest, and leapt into the first stream
he came to, refreshing his cheeks and hair by the fountainhead,
the spray rising like smoke curling around him. Venerable
Chiron arranged the boy’s hair with a reverent touch, and washed
his chest clean, and his heavy shoulders. But Thetis watched in pain,
and Chiron implored her to take just a morsel of the feast, 
or a drop of wine, and prepared for her many delicacies.
Then he lifted his lyre, breathing in inspiration; and, testing
its strings with a thumb tip first, he sang songs of consolation. 
He planted seeds in the boy of monumental heroism :
Heracles : and Pollux : and Theseus and the Minotaur :
and the Olympian marriage-night of Peleus and Thetis
(and in her dejection the memory roused a slight smile).
When it was time for bed, the huge Chiron relaxed on bare rock,
and Achilles slept on top of him, as upon a pillow.
Though his mother was there, the boy had done the usual thing. 

7.

Thetis, meanwhile, was awake, and looking out at the sea,
standing in the wave-sounds shimmering around the moonlit rocks.
She pondered the best hiding-place for her son. Which land was best
to conceal Achilles? Her mind went one way, then another.
She thought of Thrace to the northeast; then remembered Ares,
god of war, was its guardian, and rejected the idea.  
Macedonia, a warlike people, was not an option.
Nor was Attica, whose superior weaponry would tempt 
Achilles. Too much ship traffic made Sestos inconvenient,
and the bay of Abydos. She decides to bring him south,
to the Cyclades. And of all the islands there, she chooses
Skyros. (Not long since, while passing its shores, she heard voices
of young girls playing, echoing all the way from the palace 
of their father Lycomedes.) This idea pleased her, and allayed
her fears somewhat. Imagine a pregnant bird stepping with care
among the branches to find a spot to build its nest. She thinks
ahead : this place is open to winds, that place is threatened by
snakes, or men. At last, though still dubious, she decides on a spot
in the shade to place her twigs, and ever after loves the tree. 

One more care remained for the worried goddess to decide on :
should she carry her son in her arms as she moved through the sea?
Should she ask the merman god Triton on the sea floor for help?
Perhaps the wingèd winds might carry her along if she asked?
Would Iris who often walks on the waves answer her summons? 

And then goddess Thetis decided to believe in herself. 

She called into the sea and her dolphins broke through the surface. 
Thetis joined the pair for travel with a bridle of seashells.
Maxima Tethys, Oceanus’ wife, had reared the two,
silvery and sleek, deep under the raging Atlantic waves,
in a calm hollow. Nothing swimming in waters anywhere
showed such dignity of form, such strength to glide, or minds to match
man’s. Their mistress bid them stop before the beach, so that the earth 
might not cut their skins. Then she went and took her son in her arms,
and together they departed the cavern Haemonii 
and descended the rocky mountainside, following a path
blazed by the full moon, to the waterside. The waves were at rest,
for Thetis had commanded the sea to be silent. Chiron
came up behind her on the beach, and begged her to return quick,
but she was already gone. For a long while he stared into
her frothy wake until it disappeared in the liquid deep.

For Achilles the Centaurs and the mountains of Othrys
were sad, for he was never to return. River Sperchios
likewise flowed slower; and the cave was almost wholly silent.
The Fauns miss his childish songs; while the Nymphae cry over
lost marriage dreams. 

8.

At dawn the stars, scattered by light, cascaded out of the sky,
and Helios rose up from beyond the level sea. The sun’s
spinning wheels dripped salty drops down through empty air, as day broke.
The mother had already crossed the waves to Skyros;
and her dolphins, loosened from their reins, had retired to rest.
The child’s sense became infused with day, which shook him awake;
and with eyes wide open he took in the sunshine of the morning.
“What is this place?” (he asked himself) “Which waters are these? Where has
Pelion gone? Everything is changed!” The boy even doubts the sight
of his mother. Thetis took frightened Achilles in her arms 
and caressed him, and spoke to him mildly : “You look upon
your mother, dear child, poor as I am. Think of it! Both Zeus 
and Poseidon wanted me, but I married your father instead.
Right now you and I might be suspended as stars in the sky,
glittering forever, and those gods would be protecting us.
Yet I stand low before the Fates. 

                                                           I fear actual death—yours!
You have a weakness your mother is trying to outrun. Child!
For all your strength, you’re too human. You can die. This I know
is close. You await a terrible end—unless you relax
your scruples, son; just a little bit. Submit to the situation,
mighty Achilles—hide your manliness, and put on my clothes.”

Achilles recoiled from his mother’s arms, and shook his head.

“If Heracles put his strong hand on soft wools for Omphale”
(she continued) “and if it’s all right with Bacchus to conceal 
his body in full-length robes; if even Zeus looked like a woman
once, when he sought the nymph Callisto; and think of Caeneus,
the hunter who switched genders and became invulnerable;—
I beg you to hear me, Achilles! Help rid us of our nightmares!
Soon you’ll be back in your fields running riot with the Centaurs;
but for now I want you to put on girls’ clothes. I beg you, son,
by everything I am, and everything you are, your beauty
and your strength. If once your own mother went down into Hades 
to soak you in the waters of the Styx, all for your own good; 
and if I settled, for your sake, on marriage with a human—
then cover yourself in girls’ clothes for a while, to be safe!
It will do you no injury. Why do you look at me like that? 
What’s hidden behind those beautiful eyes? You think you’ll feel
tame in my dress? You won’t, son. It takes away none of your strength. 
(On my honour, I promise Chiron will hear nothing of this.)”

Thus spoke Thetis, a petrified mother. But her son bristled
at her speech, and recoiled when she showed him women’s garments.
Every inch his father’s son, Achilles stubbonly refused.
Both his inborn virility and his great nature refused.
It was as if she were trying to bridle a wild horse,
one fired with youth’s passion and upset now at her attempt.
All day the horse with honour superb had delighted in the fields
and rivers, and his mouth revolts to wear the bit, and his neck
refuses to be yoked. He denies rule, and wonders at the new. 

9. 

O Muse, tell which god it was who favoured the terrified parent. 
Who occasioned the possibility for an artful fraud? 
What bent unbending Achilles? In fact it was simple chance
that on Scyros that day the people were celebrating a
public holiday for Athena of the Beach. The gentle
sisters of the palace of Lycomedes had left their walls
at daybreak (a rare freedom), and went forth into their homeland
to scatter the flowers of spring as an offering to Pallas.
They decorated her statue, weaving shining foliage
into the austere ringlets, and binding garlands to the spear. 
In beauty each sister was alike extraordinary to see.
Dressed the same in shining linen, each had reached the period
of modesty, their young maturity, of age and ready
for the marriage bed. But as Aphrodite outshines the Nymphs
when she joins them in the sea, and as much as Artemis
looms over the shoulders of the Naiads, so Deidamia
stood out gracefully in the dance with her beautiful sisters.
A red blush incensed the ivory skin of her face, rosier
than the others; her gems shone brighter; her gold showed more lustre. 
The boy had never seen any girl so beautiful (unless
Athena came to drop her breastplate, and remove her helmet).
When the rough boy, whose heart had never been taken, watched them dance,
and watched Deidamia in motion with extended arms
conducting the rest, Achilles went stiff, the very marrow 
of his bones felt aflame. It was a feeling he had no power 
over—something new. It was no secret either, this impulse
of his : the fire from his marrow circulated to his face,
which burned red all over, and sweat roamed all over his body.
Just as the Massagetae mix blood into their cups of milk; 
and just as ivory may get corrupted by purple dye; 
so the boy manifested this new and unexpected fire
in various ways, both paling and blushing (depending 
on the spot). Achilles was ready to leap forward wildly;
heedless of the time, he would have disrupted the joyous dance, 
if not for his native decency, and respect for his mother.
Imagine : the future father and boss cow of the herd, whose horns
have not yet reached full length, beholds a snow-white cow at pasture,
and his soul catches aflame, and his mouth foams over with love,
to the laughter of the herders. 
                                                      
                                                      So now sea-goddess Thetis,
sensitive of her son, seizes the moment, and advances : 
“Why not join the dance? Go lock arms with those playful girls. Pretend! 
How hard is that, child? Have you even seen anything like them
under chilly mountain Ossa, or on the top of Pelion? 
How delightful your marriage will be for me! Your mother will
have a little Achilles to cradle in her arms!” 

                                                                             Not-so-
little Achilles hesitated. He smiled a naughty smile
as he eyed the girls sidelong; and his stiff-arming hand, holding
back the clothing, weakened. The mother saw her chance and attacked.
She slipped shining linen over his head and yanked it down his body.
Straightening the neckline, she had him lower his heavy shoulders 
and loosen his strong arms. Then she went to battle with his hair,
straightening the uncombed as best she could. Thetis then transferred
a necklace from mother to son. The embroidered hem hobbled 
his movements, so mother gave him quick lessons in poise and step,
and how to sound shy in speech. Just as an artist’s thumb puts life
into wax, which accepts the shape from the hand and its fire,
so the goddess changed the look of her son. And when she was done,
it was no struggle for her to believe. His allure enchanted,
it was deceptive to sight; his beauty was tough to pin down. 
Unfixedly his character wavered between the sexes. 

10.

They went forward with Thetis fussing with him, tirelessly
repeating her hints and warnings to Achilles, but gently :
“That’s the way to walk, yes, that’s the way to hold your head, and hands. 
Child, adopt the fashions of your companions, imitate 
them as you can, so no one will suspect you, such as the king,
and our crafty fiction end as fast as it began.” Thus spoke
Thetis, while fretting with his appearance, touching it up,
as they approached Lycomedes and stopped before him. Thetis
appealed to Pallas as witness, then said : “O great king, I give
you my girl, sister of Achilles. See how gentle she looks.
(So unlike her brother!) She has a mind to fit the quiver
to these weak shoulders. Like an Amazonian, with weapons
and iron she would live who knows where, and never get married!
Let her live with you. Let her carry the baskets of holy things.
You will tame her wild spirit, and keep her as a girl.
(Until marriageable and the relaxing of modesty.)
Restrain her from immoderate gymnastics and wrestlings,
nor let her roam the forest groves. Raise her within the palace;
shelter her with girls like herself. And please, I beg you, keep her
far from the beaches and harbour! You see mysterious sails
nowadays. Ships have learned to cross the sea, and they snatch people!”

The king waved them forward, and accepted the goddess’ gift,
taking the grandson of Aeacus disguised by Thetis’ art.
(Who could resist a goddess’ deceits?) Not only does he 
accept Achilles, he kneels before her right hand and thanks her
for thinking of him. The good girls of Scyros, meantime, had fixed
themselves around the new girl, and were reaching out to touch her.
They noted her charming face, how she stood head and hair taller
than the rest, how broad her chest was, and her shoulders. At this time
she joined the society of the pious sisters of Scyros. 
They invited her into the dance, and she entered with joy. 
As with birds flocking in the sky over Ida, having broken 
through soft clouds : when a stranger bird flies their way, the flock wonders,
and trembles; but by and by they start to come closer, and closer,
till she flies in accord with their flapping wings. Finally, then,
the flock brings the new one cheerfully back with them to its nests. 

Leaving, Thetis hesitates at the gate, repeating her hints
and warnings in a furtive murmuring in his ear, her face
averted from the others. Then the sea takes her in. Far off,
she turns her long neck round and speaks a prayer to the island :
“Dearest land” (she said) “to whom I’ve entrusted my much-loved child,
may you all be happy, and I pray you keep my secret.
Great honour will come to you if you safeguard my Achilles,
and not even floating Delos shall outdo your fame. The winds
and waves shall come to you as to a holy place, respectful,
a quiet place among the Cyclades for the Nereids, 
who shall wade in your shallows while the Aegean storms shatter
the rocks in the sea. You shall be the island that answers
sailors’ prayers. Just don’t allow any Greek sails to come
into port, I beg you! ‘This is the place of the dance, with nothing
of use for war here!’—let Rumour speak these words far and wide!
So while the Greeks arm themselves, and Ares interferes
in the war of the worlds (and what he does is no business
of mine), Achilles, meanwhile, shall be the good king’s daughter.”

11.

Meanwhile, a suffering Europe prepares for furious 
war, assembling its arms and armour, seeking sweet revenge
on its enemy. The kings become impatient for conquest, 
as Agamemnon son of Atreus (whose own wife is at home)
makes the rounds, sharpening his argument with every telling. 
‘Helen, child of Heaven, stolen!—without war, without weapons!
Law and order and Heavenly rule have all been violated
in one act of robbery! This is Troy’s idea of treaties?
Is this good commercial business between the two continents?
What should our peoples expect, if their kings are so disrespected?’

So the peoples of all ages flock together against Asia. 
Greece is outraged all the way from Argos to the Hellespont. 
A fiery love of war arouses all the shaken cities. 
Tamassus forges bronze. Doliche roils its shores with shipyards. 
Mycenae's anvils take the hammer and echoes everywhere.
Pisa builds new chariots. Nemea delivers wild beast skins.
Cirrha competes to fill arrow-bearing quivers. Lerna nails
bulls’ hides (many layers deep) as shields. Aetolia and A-
car-na-ni-a provide companies of fierce infantryman.
Argos drives its fleet. Arcadia’s pastures yield up their sheep.
Epiros bridles its horses. The shady spaces of Phocis 
and Aoniae reduce, as ashen spears are produced in bulk. 
Pylos and Messena build engines to catapult missiles.
No region of Greece is unemployed. Swords, age-old heirlooms of
ancestral victories, are taken down from over door-posts,
and melted in the fire as gifts to the gods. (Warring Ares
uses gold for brutal purposes.) Now the ancient forests
are gone : the summits of Othrys and Taygetus stand bare. 
Mountain rock sees sky, for all Greece’s forests now float on the sea. 
Oakwood for planking, the oars weaker timber. Iron is used, 
and in innumerable ways : to nail prows, to tip spears, 
to harness the warhorses, and to make the chain mail, soon
to reek with blood, and take wounds, while striking death with swords
dipped in poison. Whetstones are ground down to sharpen the weapons,
to turn the dull to lethal. Endless is the bending of bows, 
the casting of lead projectiles, the sharpening of stakes,
the raising of plumed helmets. During all this activity
Thessaly alone laments her peace, and weeps over her fate,
for Peleus, king of the Myrmidons, is now an old man,  
and Achilles his son is still too young to fight. 

So Ares has emptied out Greece of its men, madly hurling 
them all onto decks and horses. The harbours boil over 
with ships, and as the fleet advances storm-like whips up the waves.
The sea runs out of room for them, and their sails use all the winds.

So the Danaan ships flock together at Aulis, a port
holy to Artemis. There, a cliff overshadows the deep, 
its high ridge-line looming long over the furious waters
of the Euboean Sea. The mountain-rambling goddess sees
the Greek fleet, and the rocky promontory Caphereus 
lifts its head, and all around the foaming waters begin to bark. 
(Caphereus, meanwhile, knowing that one day many years
to come this very fleet will crash against these rocks, holds its tongue.)

In this place awaited the fate of Troy, in this place a vow
to wage enormous war was made. But the Greeks acted patiently.
First the confusèd assembly of ships gathered as one
organized force under one king. Then they judged the entirety 
of their strength. Completing these two tasks took upwards of a year.

So the circumambient net shuts-in the hidden beasts 
of the forest, and little by little the trap contracts around them.
Their terror of fire flushes them out of the wilderness,
and as they flee their shrinking habitat they find themselves trapped
in a valley surrounded by flames. Here mingle the wild boar 
and the bear and the wolf, and the deer and the lions, and all,
though they hate each other, have been tamed by their predicament. 

So the two sons of Atreus unite the people, and wage
their war. Diomedes and Sthenelus were eager to outdo
their fathers’ fame in combat. Antilochus felt confident
in his youthful vigor. Ajax raised his seven-layered shield,
seven hides of the best of the best, thick as a city wall. 
And all the while waiting alertly was Odysseus.

But a movement was afoot, a common theme of common talk :
“Where is Achilles?” It is Achilles’ name that everyone loves.
Already everybody chooses Achilles to fight for them 
against Hector. Everyone agrees that Achilles must come
if Priam and the Trojans are to be obliterated. 
It was Achilles who grew strong crawling in the sacred snows 
of Thessaly’s valleys. It were his native gifts, his early years
that the wise Centaur shaped from birth. It was Achilles whose mother
brought him down into the Styx to harden his body against
blows of steel. Such was the common talk that rushèd through the ranks.
“Without Achilles,” they said, “I guess we’re ripe for a beating.”

So as the Olympians gathered in the sky over Troy
and the Scamander—(and Achilles now risen by this time
to the height of Ares’ spear)—and Athena potent in breast-
plate of snakes, and Apollo bending his remarkable bow,
and all of Nature standing erect with fear, all eyes looked to Zeus
Thunderer, waiting for him to wield his storms and lightnings.
What will Zeus Punisher demand of the forges of Etna?

12.

While the two sons of Atreus deliberated among
the military ranks on times for sailing and attack, 
Protesilaus angrily challenged the army’s prophet
Calchas in a public argument. For Protesilaus
was eager for war (while unaware he would win glory
as the first to fall in combat). “O Son of Thestor” (he said)
“you forget your powers! When will there be better occasion
for Apollo to possess your mouth and uncover the secrets
of Destiny? Do we not all hear the one word resounding 
from everybody’s mouths?—the one word Achilles? ‘Where is he?’
everyone asks. All of a sudden Diomedes is weak,
and magnificent Ajax second-rate, and Little Ajax
even littler! The only strength we have is Achilles?
Well then let’s find him and put him to the test against Ares 
and Troy! Do we have a choice? The people ignore their leaders,
and pray for him instead, as if he were himself a god of war!
Speak out!—or why this wreath of prophetic office on your head,
and all your honour? Where is he hiding? Tell us where on earth
to go and get him! Rumour has it he no longer lives with Chiron
the Centaur, nor is he back in his homeland with his father.

So then? Storm the Olympian realm and seize the sneaky Fates! 
Inhale your fire in a rarest frenzy! We have left 
your hands empty of the two-edged sword, remember. At no time
have you worn the helmet, and raised the spear, and met ferocious 
combat. Calchas, if you want to keep it that way, and justify
these prophetic honours you wear, and bring fortune to yourself
and to all of our leaders, you will exchange for your freedom
the instruction of where in the world we shall find Achilles.”

So the army prophet Calchas, his face draining of colour,
his eyes rolling this way and that in anxiety, nodded 
to all the people sitting by him, and agreed to enter 
into the mysterium of the gods. He kindled a fire,
then inhaled the incense-bearing smoke. His bloodshot eyes went
inward, not seeing the army or the camp. Instead, he peered
secretly, as through a peephole, at the Olympians in Heaven.
At the same time his gaze deciphered the design of bird-flight,
and came near to seeing (while the Three Sisters wove it) the cruel
web of Fate. All the while black smoke arose from the altar,
obscuring the air around him, and the tip of fire reached out
to him, and his hair went stiff (almost pushing the wreath from his head).
He held his neck in an uncommon manner; and suddenly
the soothsayer looked unsteady on his feet. Then he began
to speak, a low deep mumbling struggling out of his mouth :

“Where” (he asked in madness) “o ingenious sea-goddess Thetis,
is Achilles? Through tricks you have hidden great Chiron’s student
from us! Why have you done this? Produce him at once! Bring him here!
For we do not allow this! Achilles is ours! He is ours. 
Goddess, Apollo gives us strength, too. Say where you hide the man
who shall overthrow Asia. I see you on the move, Thetis—
worried, furtive among the Cyclades, looking for a shore
to hide. Ah, child, we are ruined! The land of Lycomedes
is your accomplice in your crime! Look! His body is covered
in linen! Child, tear it away! Tear it away with your strength!
No more submitting to mother! Ah, sad me, he goes away.
Who is sadder than I? Who is that shameless, impious girl?”

Here the exhausted prophet staggered by the altar and collapsed.

Diomedes bent to Odysseus to say : “You and I
should go, old friend; if you think me capable. For all we know
the kid’s hiding down in some deep cave in the back of nowhere
at the bottom of the sea. However, I would never doubt
your mind. Wherever he is, Odysseus will get him here.
I don’t need any prophet to tell me that one.” Smiling,
Odysseus answered him : “May God Almighty prove you right.
And warrior Athena—everyone knows she protects your father. 
But everything is slippery just now. Things change fast, so now
I’m thinking slowly. Obviously it would be marvellous 
for us to bring Achilles in all his arms and armour into camp.
But, so far, Fate isn’t on our side. Perhaps thinking how shamed
we’d be if we returned without him is thinking ahead wrongly.
It might be as dangerous as you say. She has Olympians on her side.
But so do we—don’t we? What if we’re meant to find him? Then we
won’t waste too much time in imagining our coming glory. 
But something else occurs to me. We'll bring the boy Achilles
back—but only if this seer is worth anything himself.”

So said Odysseus, and shrugged. Both warriors shrugged. But King
Agamemnon urged them on, and at that the meeting ended.
All the soldiers dispersed, happy to be headed to their tents,
as at approach of night the birds fly in with food from pasture,
as bee-goddess Hybla welcomes her swarms back to their caverns,
and their fresh honey. So, with no time to lose, Odysseus
raised sail and hoped for a friendly wind, while the rowers
under his feet sat in amusement at the odd assignment. 

14.

Concealed, meanwhile, beneath the disguise of a young woman,
Achilles deceived everyone, except for Deidamia,
who came to know him as a man—indeed, intimately so. 
Now she herself had to conceal what she knew, too, and her love
besides; and lived in endless agitation of being caught
by her sisters. What happened was, when Achilles stood tall
in the circle of girls after Thetis departed (leaving him
to apply or put by his simulated modesty at will), 
the girl he chose as closest companion was Deidamia,
though all the girls, in fact, eventually pressed their bodies
against his, in that magic circle. With mild words the boy
from the wilds meticulously pursued her, seizing her 
gaze at every chance, inviting her with his seductive eyes. 
Now he stands much too close to her (and she doesn’t avoid him),
now playfully tosses flowers on her, now knocks fruit baskets
over on purpose so they bend together to retrieve them,
now he taps her—suggestively—with a magic Bacchic wand. 
Together they sat and he showed her each slender lyre string, 
producing sweet sounds recalling the songs of Chiron;
then he guided her hand, and coaxed her fingers to pluck a tune
from the resonating instrument. And then he embraced her
and blessed her with a thousand kisses. Other times she listened : 
where is Mount Pelion? Who is Aeacus? Their constant talk
bewitched her. One time Deidamia took up the lyre 
and sang of Achilles to his face. She also counselled him
in demure body posture; and demonstrated to the boy
how best to spin the raw wool, untangling the messes made
with his innocent thumb. Throughout all this the sound of his voice 
always held her spellbound, and the authority of his weight
on hers, and how he smartly stayed away from her friends; also
the light of his eyes, and how he often took deep breaths while 
he spoke with her. Just as he readies to speak out his deceit,
she slips from him and refuses to hear any confession. 
Thus, in this way, Rhea’s son Zeus, sovereign of Olympus,
gave dangerous kisses to his untroubled sister Hera,
who thought of him no more than a brother, until dignity
of family gave way, and the sister feared his altered love. 

15.

At last, frightened Thetis’ deceit will be exposed—just not yet.
There was a forest reaching high up into the open sky.
In its shade went the sisters to celebrate the biannual
festival to Bacchus, bearing dismembered parts of cattle,
tree trunks dug out of the earth—all sorts of offerings to please
the god in his visionary frenzy. By law, men must stay 
away. Old King Lycomedes reiterated the law :
“Off-limits are the woods to all males!” And that wasn’t all.
Standing at each boundary point was a fearsome priestess, there
to catch any man straying unlawfully into the female 
camp. During all this Achilles laughed silently to himself,
while he led the company of maidens in worship, waving
his arms around all wrong (yet so becoming in the girls’ eyes).
All the congregation marvels at him. No longer the most
beautiful of them all is Deidamia. Achilles
now surpasses her as much as she surpasses the others.
So he wears the fawnskin on his well-knit body, and his head
is garlanded with a wreath of purple flowers, and his hand
holds the Bacchic thyrsus wreathed in ivy, and all the sisters
stand before him with eyes devoted to his comely figure.
Forgetting their prayers, all had lifted to him adoring faces. 

16. 

Now the rosy moon was highest in the open-ended night;
and Sleep, at his most passive, had his wings wrapped around the earth.
The dance had left its space, the trumpet’s bronze pulse fallen silent.
Achilles, alone awake among the rest, was lost in thought.
“How much longer must I take this fakery from my mother?
In the purest strength of my youth and I’m flinging around flowers?
I want the arms of Ares in these hands, and hunt terrified beasts!
Haemonia, where are your fields and rivers? Do you miss me,
Sperchius, swimming in your waters? and leaving my cut hair
in your honour? Or does no one care any more for what they
call a deserter? Do people think I’m dead, and brought
down to the shades of Hades? Does Chiron cry over my death?
And my spears, and my bow, and my horses, reared for me—do you
have use of these now, Patroclus? Meanwhile I hold a wand
and I spin thread (how disgusting to hear myself confess this)!
And I don’t even take that girl when I may, but keep my love
secret for much of the time—a prisoner to my silence!
I feel the heat flaming up in my heart! Day and night I burn! 
You shameful fool! Not even in love do you stand as a man!”

Thus he said; then, making use of the dense shade of the forest
silence, lay hard upon his conquest, possessing her with strength,
and from his heart motivated by love wrapped her in many 
active embraces. From on high all the circling stars saw,
and the crescent moon’s tips blushed red. And Deidamia’s cries
filled wood and mountain truly and indeed. And all of this noise
brought the sisters up out of their cloud of sleep, who thought the rites
had begun again. Expecting themselves invited to dance,
they raised a cry that filled the forest entire, and once more
Achilles raised the magic wand and shook it in the sacred
salute to Bacchus, and the sisters moved to and fro before him.

Meanwhile let us hear what he spoke to Deidamia : 

“Why are you shaking? It’s all true. I’m Achilles. My mother’s
a goddess, my father should have been Zeus. I’m the one who crawled
up the snows of Thessaly. That first day there was no way I would
have worn any of this if I hadn’t seen you on the beach. 
I did it to get close to you. I hold wool and shake tambourines 
for you. Why are you crying? You are now related to the sea.
Why this blubbering? You shall conceive remarkable grandsons 
for the sky. Have no fear of your father; your Island Scyros 
will be torn to pieces and consumed in flames if your father 
answers our marriage with a death. My mother chose a peaceful life
for me, but for now on I'm ready to reject all those hopes.”

The princess, stupefied at such a monstrous situation
(observing though at close hand, and trusting, yet long suspecting),
shuddered now as she saw the changes happening in his face.
What should she do now? Tell her father everything, and bring with her
Achilles—who might suffer cruelly for all this? Would she want
to worsen his pain? And the love she felt that had persisted
through all the deception burned still in her heart. And so she 
suffered in silence, concealing the crime they shared between them.  
To one friend only, her Nurse, she confessed her secret, who helped
the young lovers (how could she do otherwise?) and through crafty
ways hid the girl’s growing womb until she was brought through to term
and Lucina, goddess informer, set the secret free. 

17.

Now the ship of Odysseus skulks through the intricacy
of the Aegean. The winds leave many islands behind him.
Paros and Antiparos recede out of sight while 
he brushes past rugged Lemnos. Naxos shrinks as Samos grows
larger. Now Delos darkens the mirrored surface of the sea.
The cups are taken out to pray, and the prayers are answered.
From the island’s high mountain bow-bearing Apollo stimulates
the sailing air, and an easy wind bellies the canvas,
and the ship sails on untroubled, an omen to all doubters—
for in no way would Zeus allow Thetis to overturn the law
of Fate. So the goddess is incensed with many salty tears
that she is forbidden to destroy the man with winds and waves.
For now all she can do to pursue Odysseus with evil eye.

When the sun passed over the zenith and its rays fell gentler,
then, just after noontime, Odysseus saw, rising ahead
of him, the Island Scyros with its navigable harbour, 
and the sight promised rest. So he went to the stern and prepared
the mooring-ropes, and ordered his sea-mates to speed up their oars. 
Island Scyros, then, mild land of Tritonia Athena,
opened its shores. Heroes Odysseus and Diomedes
stepped foot on land, saying a prayer to the kind deity
of the island; then they prepared to move forward cautiously.
Smartly Odysseus ordered most of his crew to stay behind;
for the sudden sight of them all, he said, might incite a fright
(or worse) in the people of the town. So off the two heroes
went, scaling a steep incline to get to high ground, to spy
out the place. They went as on a freezing winter’s night two wolves
unite in search of food. Spurred by hunger, their own and their cubs’,
they step quietly, both heads bowed low to the ground, and sneak by
the watchdogs, whom at any moment might bark, and bring herdsmen
afoot with weapons. In the same way, then, did Odysseus 
and Diomedes enter onto an open plain. They spoke 
together while keeping, best they could, off the beaten track;
and first to speak was spirited Diomedes. 

“How” (Diomedes asked) do you expect to pinpoint the truth?
What you’ve put into my hands is curious indeed, and I
have no sense yet of your plans. You’d have me carry into town
these tambourines and silly wands and Bacchic drums?
And these deerskins decorated with spots of gold? And headbands?
Your idea is to give Achilles destroyer of Troy—these?

Slightly, then, Odysseus’ serious mien relaxed.

“Hear me now” (he said) “All these, I promise, will be of use
to us. Ensure they're in hand when the time is right and you’re
summoned to me in Lycomedes’ palace. This should make
you happy—bring also a shield, a beautiful carven one,
and a spear. That’s not all. Bring the man Agyrtes with you.
Tell him to bring his messenger trumpet with him—but hide it.”

So Odysseus advised friend Diomedes, who nodded his head, mystified.

As they approached the palace gates they saw the king standing there;
so Odysseus held prominent before him a promise
of peace, an olive branch. “Great words, I imagine” (he said)
have come from all over for a long time now, common talk
of war. Good king, it’s all true. Europe and Asia between them
are set to shake the whole earth. If by any chance you have come
to know the names of the commanders moving about at this time,
this here is Diomedes, great-hearted Tydeus’ son. 
I’m Commander Odysseus. Let me tell you why I’m here.
We’re all Greeks, and should share a common purpose of protecting
ourselves. My friend and I have come to investigate the islands
outside Troy, to see what each may be able to provide us.”

Thus Odysseus, to which King Lycomedes answered kindly :
“Oh my friends!” (he said) “May Fortune smile on your enterprise!
For your prosperity I pray to all of the gods that hear me!
Now you two shall be my guests, blessing my pious and loving home.”

And so without delay an array of tables and couches
were set out, as many servants set the palace in order
for a feast. Meantime, while Odysseus was led through the house
his rapid eyes scanned every room, every hallway, for any sign
of the boy. He noted the height of every person he saw,
and the manner of their clothing. While marvelling in awe
at the palace architecture, Odysseus roamed down every colonnade
and wandered into every gallery, just as a hunter, 
approaching confidently the lair of his quarry, stays calm
and cool as he moves with his tiptoeing hound through the branches
and leaves till they come to their enemy laid out on the ground
asleep, and the hound shows its fangs.

And so Rumour blazed quickly through the women’s quarters, and lit
up the faces of all the girls. The island has taken in
some Greek ship, with its crew and its two commanders! The sisters
rose in awe (justly) and dread. Achilles himself could barely
contain his excitement, so eager he was to see these heroes 
and their weaponry. And so then all the girls in a clatter
burst into the Great Hall like Amazons returning triumphant
from a raid over the Getae. Down they relaxed their limbs onto
embroidered gold, all these chaste girls, while their father smiled
on his pious daughters. During all this ferment Odysseus 
admired their faces and figures, and with his eyes took their
measurements, for he was looking for anything curious
among the bunch of red-faced virgins. But by now night had come, 
and lamps were brought in, (conveniently) obscuring the girls.
Yet Odysseus saw one with burning cheeks and eyes riveted
on him, and he turned to Diomedes to point that one out.
What if at that moment Deidamia didn’t throw her arms 
round her couch-mate and press herself hard against him, obscuring
his face and arms and shoulders in the folds of her gown? And she
quickly slipped a new headband on his head and swept his hair back.

Odysseus turned for a second look. He then decided 
to go away and enjoy the feast with King Lycomedes. 

So following the pleasures of the feast (placed twice then three times
before the Achaeans), the king winefully addressed his guests :
“How I envy you” (he said) “your great undertaking, honest
Odysseus! Gods in Heaven! If only I had the strength 
of my youth back, when I crushed the Dolopians as they came
up to the shores of Scyros. I vanquished them in the water.
You may have seen signs of my old triumph on your way into port :
some of their keels are still by the rocks, sticking up in the waves. 
Anyhow, if only I had sons to send with you to war! 
But you can see for yourself the strength of my many children.
When will they give me a squadron of grandsons?” 
                                                                                           So spoke the king.

And clever Odysseus stole softly into the moment :

“Ah!” (he said) “show me a man who wishes to be scorned as weak!
That is to say, what man doesn’t burn to play a part in war?
—with its columns of innumerous soldiers, its noble leaders 
and its splendid kings? All together now the powers of mighty
Europe have joined to lift the two-edged sword against its enemy.
Fields and cities have been emptied of men while the sails
of our ships spread out one colossal shadow over the sea.
Fathers handed their weapons to their sons, and the sons took them,
theirs for all time now. Never before has an army of such 
magnitude been assembled to promise most glorious fame
to all men in battle showing bravery and excellence!”

Odysseus sees them all ears around him, taking in his words
eagerly (though a few girls, trembling in fear, have lowered 
their eyes). Now the clever Ithacan lays it on even thicker :

“Whoever comes from a great family of noble ancestry,
whoever has skill with horse and spear, whoever thinks he has
superior power with the bow—all honour will be his, 
when he stands against the great names in battle! Even little
mothers, even their girls, need restraint from rushing into fight!
Ah!” (he went on) “any man is doomed to many useless years
to come who lets this chance for glory pass him by unanswered.
A man’s weakness and cowardliness are detested by the gods.”

Achilles jumped up from his couch. But just then Deidamia
and sisters enclosed him in a crush of bodies, and held him
fast there, and together they fled in a bustle from the Hall,
leaving Odysseus to watch them with a sparkle in his eye. 

So, then, the clever Ithacan concluded his theme, but for one
last salvo : “Ah!” (continuing) “what paradise this place is!
King, you live enthroned in blessed peace, arranging one marriage
after another for your beloved daughters, whose faces
are equal to the goddesses of the stars. How lucky it was
I came here! The honesty of this palace touches my heart. 
And your daughters—their beauty strikes me with the force of soldiers.”

And the father responded, “What if you saw them praying at midnight
to Bacchus? Or surrounding Athena’s altar? If the weather
holds out, I’ll show you these sights.” In answer Odysseus smiled,
and hope added strength to his silent prayers. All around him
the palace lay still. The night, as it turned out, was a long one
for Odysseus. His avid mind raced while he waited for dawn. 

When rosy dawn arose, Diomedes and the trumpeter
Agyrtes together came to Odysseus, carrying
all the gifts he’d previously specified. While from the women’s 
chambers came the sisters of Scyros, who proceeded to show
their dances to the honoured guests, and show them other sacred
rites. Most prominent of all the dancers was brilliant princess 
Deidamia and her dearest friend, who (most all knew) was Peleus’ son. 
Now their dance steps followed the tones of a flute. Now the cymbals
crashed—a sign for the chorus to turn round; then again—the crash,
and the turn; and as one they raise the magic wands of Bacchus;
and their steps multiply, and complicate; and the sisters show
the style of the Curetes, then the Samothracians,
then perform sophisticated Amazonian movements. 
Meanwhile, Achilles stands obvious. His turns are all wrong,
he links arms awkwardly, he looks more than ever unhappy 
in his girl’s clothing. So as he moves he continuously 
disrupts the precision dancers, and his confusion is clear.

Finally the company ceases to a burst of applause. 
The girls retire to their father’s Hall, where they discover
a large table (set up by Diomedes) in the middle 
of the room, spread over with gifts as an appreciation
from guests to hosts for their charity. Odysseus steps close
and urges the girls to choose, and the good king gives his assent.
(Ah! How the simple king had no suspicion of the trickiness 
of the Ithacan!) The girls, as their innocent nature guides
them, takes up the elegant wands, and tests the drums, 
and binds their hair with the jewelled hairbands. As for the arms,
they think them gifts for their great father, and give them no notice.
But Achilles went wild inside when he came to the shield,
admiring its shining engraving of hand-to-hand fighting
(and seeing the spots of blood on it, signs of glorious war),
and when he took the spear, well, he could hold himself no longer.
He swayed on his feet, moaning through clenched teeth, and his hair stood up
on his head. He forgot every word his mother had told him, 
forgot his secret lover—The one thought in his heart was Troy.

He stared into his shining reflection in the shield, and he
strengthened, and shuddered. Then Odysseus was there by his side.

“I know you” (he said) “you’re the centaur Chiron’s student, the son
of sea and sky. The Greek ships await you. Troy fears your very
steps will make its city walls shake. Come now, Achilles! No more
games! Let’s get out of here. Let Ida, Zeus’ mountain, look on
fearful, let your father celebrate the news, and your mother 
lament her shameful fear! Let’s just get out of here!” By this time
Odysseus was already tearing the feminine clothes 
from the boy’s body. Argytes, on command, blew his trumpet
that echoed through the chambers of the palace, terrifying
everyone. The girls scattered every which way, flinging the gifts
aside and hiding behind their father, who thought the Trojan
War had come to engage on Scyros. Meanwhile the garments
slipped away from Achilles’ body. He raised spear and shield
and suddenly surpassed in powerful size commanders 
Odysseus and Diomedes. The rage of his fire 
inside seemed to heat the whole palace, and all looked on amazed 
at his warlike presence. He stood at the heart of the trembling
house, looking as if already begging to face cruel Hector. 

But in another part of the house Deidamia tore 
her clothes, and beat her breasts, and bewailed the trick discovered.
Achilles heard her lament, and recognized her voice; and his 
shield lowered to his side. His fury cooled at his secret love.
At these developments he stood thunderstruck—he saw himself
naked, with lethal weaponry in hand. Then he looked at King
Lycomedes and spoke out strong : “Esteemed king, father-in-law, 
my dear mother Thetis gave me to you. Dismiss all fears and doubts.
A long time ago this glory awaited you—you shall send
Achilles to Troy, and the world shall hear of it. And if it
is proper to say so, I now love you as I love sweet Chiron,
my kind parent. King, slow your heart awhile and hear my words.
Inside of me is the blood of gods from both sides of my birth.
From among your many innocents I desire one daughter.
Do you permit this? Or do you judge my blood inferior
to yours? Do you seek to refuse the will of the gods? Or will 
you take our hands and seal the alliance, and pardon both child
and guest? Already in silence and secrecy I have known 
Deidamia. How could her great beauty not bewitch me? 
Embraced in my powerful arms how could she resist my strength?
King, father-in-law, why this long face? Why this look of suspicion?
Rather show us the kind face of the granddad.” And Achilles
laid the baby at the king’s feet. And he added : “We’re all Greeks.
We’re all on the same side now.” But as Achilles finished his
speech the king broke out in a hubbub and required restraint
from the arms of the Greek guests. In his one ear Diomedes 
spoke of Zeus’s kindness toward hosts, while in the other, friend 
Odysseus whispered motivating words no one else heard. 

Exercised though the king was at his daughter’s indiscretion,
and the trickery of Thetis’ son, and the trickery
of Thetis herself, whom he had always trusted—still and all
Lycomedes stood in fear of thwarting so many destinies,
and obstructing the Trojan War. And for Deidamia 
Achilles would have tricked his mother, just as he had tricked him.
And after all why wouldn’t the king want to attach himself
to such a distinguished family? Lycomedes accepts.

Deidamia tiptoes out from her hiding-spot, covered
in shame. In her terror she is unable to understand
all has been made well, and she shoves her lover to her father, 
as if seeking approval to love the mighty Achilles. 

18.

Word is sent to Thessaly, to inform father Peleus
of these great doings, and to ask for warriors and seaships.
Meanwhile King Lycomedes donates two ships of his own
for the war, apologizing to the Greeks for his scant strength. 
Then they all enjoyed a day of feasting until nighttime came,
and the two lovers united without fear of being caught.

Glimmering in her eyes were new wars and Xanthus and Ida
and all the Greek ships. She reflected on the waves of the sea
and feared auroral dawn. She clasped an arm round her new husband’s
neck. Then she embraced his body and let all her tears flow free. 

“Look at me, my love” (she said) “Will you ever again rest your 
head on my breasts? Will you ever think me worthy of babies
again? Or will I be forgotten while you ransack homes
of Trojans, and take away their girls as slaves? Will you forget
this bed? I don’t know what to say first, I don’t know what to think
first. How can I find words for you when this is all the time we’ll
have together? This one taste of marriage. This one single night.
The stolen sweets are all gone now. They were given, and taken
away. Go! Who am I to have a say in such monumental things?  
Go! But take care, Achilles : the goddess’ fears may be real.
Go—but promise a happy return. Return to your faithful wife.
My hopes are too huge, aren’t they? I imagine all those Trojan
girls bending their heads for your necklaces of silver and gold,
and forgetting their homeland for your nighttime couch. 
Will you remember me? (Why would you speak of me to those girls?
Unless you tell the story of young Achilles lifting wands
on Island Scyros.) My Achilles! Why not take me with you? 
Why should I not fight beside you? You stood by me spinning wool,
and joined in the dance to Bacchus (none of this Troy will believe)!
Promise me one single thing, my husband for all time : this boy
shall be your only child—our child : Neoptolemus.”

And so on and so forth. He consoles her, vows fidelity,
swears never to touch a female slave, promises treasures
beyond measure from the sumptuous city of Troy, once destroyed. 
And his final loving words are taken away on the wind. 

The End
of 
Statius, The Achilleid.

22 June 2023 – 26 July 2023

[Jeff Bernstein]

Arriving at the tail end of the French Revolution, here is a colossally popular translation of Fénelon—one of the many throughout Europe, and beyond. Robert Southey, for example, a friendly contemporary of the romantic Lyrical Ballads, had just published his patriotic poems, inspired by the French nation; indeed, revolution was in the air. Soon would appear Shelley's "Ode to Liberty" and "Prometheus Unbound" in the 1820s, when revolutions for independence were sweeping through various countries of Europe, including Greece, where Lord Byron joined the fight. "Submission," says Prometheus, "thou dost know I cannot try." (1.395) And the striving of all these Romantic artists to promote the primacy of the individual striving towards-humanness . . . led to what? Fast forward to Rilke and his Sonnets to Orpheus :

 

Nur der Tote trinkt 

aus der hier von uns gehörten Quelle

Only the dead drink

from the source we hear now

 

Uns wird nur das Lärmen angeboten.

We are only given noise.

 

Heidegger would have us overcome the twin misconceptions of history and tourism and breathe the air of the ancients as if back at the first, for this air has never gone away from the earth, but is with us now, fresh and fructifying. We must release ourselves from the rotten, collapsing framework of the Inhuman, and sojourn, as children in Eden, within the open space of freedom, where we take deep breaths of inspiration. (Recalling Yeats' poem "A Coat" : There's more enterprise in walking naked.)

But what is towards-humanness up against? As Heidegger considered the Situation while on a sojourn to Greece in the 1960s : The unstoppable modern technology, together with the scientific industrialisation of the world, is about to obliterate any possibility of a sojourn. Not yet, though. Some artists, even now, even as Odysseus, persist. ¶ TO THE NAME ULYSSES ADD THE LETTER E, & PRODUCE ULYESSES is a word in Old French. ¶ lyesse. Joy, gladness, jubilation. EVEN : personne qui est source de joie.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 18 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Les aventures d'Ulysse
Casterman, 2016.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Odysseus & the Sirens

Greek Vase

Reproduction by Sofia Gkani.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Telemachus

Proteus

Sirens

Scylla and Charybdis

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 22 by Jeff Bernstein