Peleus’ mildness, his smile-lined face. But forthe sea-nymph Thetis nothing could ever eclipse the stain of his dirty,mortal mediocrity

Then he seized her, holding ondespite her violent struggles, squeezing until they were both exhausted,breathless and sand-scraped. The blood from the wounds she had given himmixed with the smears of lost maidenhead on her thighs. Her resistancemattered no longer: a deflowering was as binding as marriage vows.

sea-nymph for a wife. It was consideredtheir highest honor. After all, what mortal would not want to bed a goddessand sire a son from her?

I would be exiled, andfostered in another man’s kingdom

Our land was one of grass andwheat. Tumbles should not hurt.I am making excuses. It was also a land of rocks.His head thudded dully against stone, and I saw the surprised pop of hiseyes. The ground around him began to bleed.

“You’re too late, Teucer.” Odysseus spoke over the noise. “She’spromised to me.”

He gestured to the tallest woman, asthough she might stand. She did not move. Perhaps she had not heard.

“Menelaus.” She spoke without hesitation, startling us all. We hadexpected suspense, indecision

he would not be allowed to escape hisown noose.

and to defend her husbandagainst all who would take her from him.”

“Ihave brought no gift and do not seek to woo Helen. I am a king, as has beensaid, of rocks and goats. In return for my solution, I seek from you the prizethat I have already named.”

“I would like to know how you are going to stopthe losers from declaring war on you. Or on Helen’s lucky new husband. Isee half a dozen men here ready to leap at each other’s throats.”

Ajax, son of Telamon, this giant named himself.

. “I am Patroclus, son of Menoitius.”

One of the veiledfigures had stirred.“What does he mean?” My father was frowning. “If he is not here forHelen, then for what? Let him go back to his rocks and his goats.”

e had a jagged scar on one leg,

Zeus appearing from the streaming sunlight, the startled princess, theircoupling.“My daughter and I are grateful that you have brought us such a worthygift, though paltry to you.” A murmur, from the kings. There washumiliation here that my father did not seem to understand.

. “I am sorry to hear of the death of your wife.”

I thought I saw a stray dark curl peek from beneath thebottom of her veil. Helen is light haired, I remembered. So that one was notHelen.

And then Menelaus, son of Atreus, seated beside his hulking, bearlikebrother Agamemnon. Menelaus’ hair was a startling red, the color of fire-forged bronze. His body was strong, stocky with muscles, vital.

princess Danae. Zeus had wooed her in a shower of golden light, and shehad borne him Perseus, Gorgon-slayer, second only to Heracles among ourheroes.

that I was nine,

Clytemnestra and Castor, children of her mortal husband; Helen andPolydeuces, the shining cygnets of the god

yndareus was king of Sparta and held huge tracts ofthe ripest southern lands, the kind my father coveted. I had heard of hisdaughter too, rumored to be the fairest woman in our countries.

a cunning toy horse I loved

My eye catches on a lighthead among dozens of dark, tousled crowns. I lean forward to see. Hair litlike honey in the sun, and within it, glints of gold—the circlet of a prince.He is shorter than the others, and still plump with childhood in a waythey are not. His hair is long and tied back with leather; it burns against thedark, bare skin of his back. His face, when he turns, is serious as a man’s.When the priest strikes the ground, he slips past the thickened bodies ofthe older boys. He moves easily, his heels flashing pink as licking tongues.He wins

Thatis how they knew she was quite stupid. Brides did not smile.When I was delivered, a boy, he plucked me from her arms and handedme to a nurse. In pity, the midwife gave my mother a pillow to hold insteadof me. My mother hugged it. She did not seem to notice a change had beenmade.

The Maids sprout feathers, and fly away as owls.

Yoo hoo, Mr Thoughtfulness, Mr Goodness, Mr Godlike, Mr Judge! Lookover your shoulder! Here we are, walking behind you, close, close by, close asa kiss, close as your own skin.We’re the serving girls, we’re here to serve you. We’re here to serve youright. We’ll never leave you, we’ll stick to you like your shadow, soft andrelentless as glue. Pretty maids, all in a row.

He’s been a French general, he’s been a Mongolian invader, he’s been atycoon in America, he’s been a headhunter in Borneo. He’s been a film star,

just when I’mstarting to relax, when I’m feeling that I can forgive him for everything he putme through and accept him with all his faults, when I’m starting to believethat this time he really means it, off he goes again, making a beeline for theRiver Lethe to be born again.

I’ll hear his news of Telemachus– he’s a Member of Parliament now

Who is this ‘Marilyn’ everyone is so keen on? Who is this‘Adolf’?

Judge: What’s going on? Order! Order! This is a twenty-first-centurycourt of justice! You there, get down from the ceiling! Stop thatbarking and hissing! Madam, cover up your chest and put down yourspear! What’s this cloud doing in here? Where are the police? Where’sthe defendant? Where has everyone gone?

I call on grey-eyed Pallas Athene,

Judge: Neither did your client, evidently. (Chuckles.) However, yourclient’s times were not our times. Standards of behaviour weredifferent then. It would be unfortunate if this regrettable but minorincident were allowed to stand as a blot on an otherwise exceedinglydistinguished career. Also I do not wish to be guilty of ananachronism. Therefore I must dismiss the case.

It’s that they were raped without permission.Judge (chuckles): Excuse me, Madam, but isn’t that what rape is? Withoutpermission?Attorney for the Defence: Without permission of their master, YourHonour.

I wasn’t there, Your Honour. All of this tookplace some three or four thousand years before my time.

far too much sex and violence, in my opinion

(leafing through book: The Odyssey):

Your Honour, permit me to speak to theinnocence of my client, Odysseus,

Attorney for the Defence:

The two of us were – by our own admission – proficient and shamelessliars of long standing. It’s a wonder either one of us believed a word the othersaid.But we did.Or so we told each other.

You don’t have to think of us asreal girls, real flesh and blood, real pain, real injustice. That might be tooupsetting. Just discard the sordid part. Consider us pure symbol. We’re nomore real than money.

patriarchalpenis

We would then have willingly sacrificed ourselves, as wasnecessary, re-enacting the dark-of-the-moon phase, in order that the wholecycle might begin again and the silvery new-moon-goddess rise once more.

My eyes and ears among the Suitors, I did not add. My helpers during thelong nights of the shroud. My snow-white geese. My thrushes, my doves.

Odysseus summoned her, and ordered her to point out the maids who hadbeen, as he called it, ‘disloyal’.

‘My wittiness, or your bare-naked tits-and-ass bath treat for the dead?’ Isaid

Point out those maids as feckless and disloyal,Snatched by the Suitors as unlawful spoil,

goddess Rumour

But the real reason was that he was afraid Iwould cry tears of joy and thus give him away. Similarly, he had me locked inthe women’s quarters with the rest of the women when he was slaughteringthe Suitors, and he relied on Eurycleia’s help, not on mine. But he knew mewell – my tender heart, my habit of dissolving in tears and falling down onthresholds. He simply didn’t want to expose me to dangers and disagreeablesights. Surely that is the obvious explanation for his behaviour.

In reality I’d turned myback on the two of them to hide my silent laughter at the success of my littlesurprise.

He said nothing about the crooked beak of the eagle, or my love forthe geese and my anguish at their deaths.

it would be a foolish wife who wouldclaim to recognise him: it’s always an imprudence to step between a man and

baldnes

Odysseus himself shambled into the courtyard.The shambling was part of a disguise, naturally.

I knew he was lying, but was touched that he was lying for my sake. Notfor nothing was he the great-grandson of Autolycus, friend of Hermes thearch-cheat, and the son of wily Odysseus of the soothing voice, fruitful infalse invention, persuader of men and deluder of women. Maybe he had somebrains after all. ‘Thank you for all you have told me, my son,’ I said. ‘I’mgrateful for it. I will now go and sacrifice a basket of wheat, and pray for yourfather’s safe return.’And that is what I did.

‘Oh, well, yeah,’ said my son. And now that bond which is supposed toexist between mothers and fatherless sons finally asserted itself. Telemachuslooked into my face and read its expression. ‘Actually, she did look quite old,’he said. ‘Way older than you. Sort of worn out. All wrinkly,’ he added. ‘Likean old mushroom. And her teeth are yellow. Actually, some of them havefallen out. It was only after we’d had a lot to drink that she still lookedbeautiful.’

Heclaimed his father would have been proud of him for showing some backboneand getting out from under the thumbs of the women, who as usual werebeing overemotional and showing no reasonableness and judgment.By ‘the women’, he meant me. How could he refer to his own mother as‘the women’?

My sister Iphthime – who was somuch older than I was that I hardly knew her, and who had married andmoved far away – came into my room and stood by my bed, and told me shehad been sent by Athene herself, because the gods didn’t want me to suffer.Her message was that Telemachus would return safely

Then the goddess turned into Helen; she was lookingat me over the bare shoulder of my husband with a malicious little smirk

‘Penelope’s web,’ it wascalled; people used to say that of any task that remained mysteriouslyunfinished. I did not appreciate the term web. If the shroud was a web, then Iwas the spider. But I had not been attempting to catch men like flies: on thecontrary, I’d merely been trying to avoid entanglement myself.

Melantho of the Pretty Cheeks

They shun me as if I had done them a terrible injury. But I never wouldhave hurt them, not of my own accord.

I chose twelve of my maidservants

my foul cousin Clytemnestra

Really, the best solution for him would have been a graceful death on mypart, one for which he was in no way to blame. For if he did as Orestes haddone – but with no cause, unlike Orestes – and murdered his mother, hewould attract the Erinyes – the dreaded Furies, snake-haired, dog-headed, bat-winged – and they would pursue him with their barking and hissing and theirwhips and scourges until they had driven him insane. And since he wouldhave killed me in cold blood, and for the basest of motives – the acquisitionof wealth – it would be impossible for him to obtain purification at any shrine,and he would be polluted with my blood until he died a horrible death in astate of raving madness.

But I was the daughter of a Naiad; I remembered my mother’sadvice to me. Behave like water, I told myself. Don’t try to oppose them.When they try to grasp you, slip through their fingers. Flow around them.

She was always Odysseus’s biggest fan

Sometimes I wondered whether the maids were making some of this up, outof high spirits or just to tease me.

We’re all in this together,do or die.

I feel a surge of joyevery time I see it sticking through your lying, gluttonous neck.’

I’d said I preferred straightforward answers, but of course nobody does,not when the answers are so unflattering.

‘We wanted the treasure trove, naturally,’ he said. ‘Not to mention thekingdom.’ This time he had the impudence to laugh outright. ‘What youngman wouldn’t want to marry a rich and famous widow? Widows are supposedto be consumed with lust, especially if their husbands have been missing ordead for such a long time, as yours was. You weren’t exactly a Helen, but wecould have dealt with that. The darkness conceals much! All the better thatyou were twenty years older than us – you’d die first, perhaps with a littlehelp, and then, furnished with your wealth, we could have had our pick of anyyoung and beautiful princess we wanted.

I was thirty-five years old by the end of it, wornout with care and weeping, and as we both know I was getting quite fataround the middle. You Suitors weren’t born when Odysseus set out for Troy,or else you were mere babies like my son, Telemachus, or you were childrenat the very most, so for all practical purposes I was old enough to be yourmother. You babbled on about how I made your knees melt and how youlonged to have me share your bed and bear your children, yet you knewperfectly well that I was all but past child-bearing age.’

‘It is the arrow of my love, Penelope of the divine form, fairest and mostsagacious of all women,’ he replied. ‘Although it came from the renownedbow of Odysseus, in reality the cruel archer was Cupid himself. I wear it inremembrance of the great passion I bore for you, and carried to my grave.’

Till fair Nausicaa’s maids that the laundry did do,Found him bare on the beach – he did drip so!

Butafter several more years the rumours stopped coming altogether: Odysseusseemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.

Sometimes I thought people weremaking things up just to alarm me, and to watch my eyes fill with tears. Thereis a certain zest to be had in tormenting the vulnerable

He’d made his men put wax in their ears, said one, while sailing pastthe alluring Sirens – half-bird, half-woman – who enticed men to their islandand then ate them, though he’d tied himself to the mast so he could listen totheir irresistible singing without jumping overboard.

Odysseus had been to the Land of the Dead to consult the spirits, saidsome.

Odysseus returning, and me – with womanly modesty – revealing tohim how well I had done at what was usually considered a man’s business. Onhis behalf, of course. Always for him. How his face would shine withpleasure! How pleased he would be with me! ‘You’re worth a thousandHelens,’ he would say. Wouldn’t he? And then he’d clasp me tenderly in hisarms.

But if a prettychild was born of these couplings, I would often keep it and rear it myself,teaching it to be a refined and pleasant servant. Perhaps I indulged some ofthese children too much. Eurycleia often said so.Melantho of the Pretty Cheeks was one of these

One fish, twofish, three fish,

A spider’s work. Leave it to Arachne,’

this was my fault, not Helen’s: if only I hadn’t carried the baby to theploughing ground!

The only reason he hadn’tcome back home was that a god – the sea-god Poseidon, according to some –was against him, because a Cyclops crippled by Odysseus was his son. Orseveral gods were against him. Or the Fates. Or something. For surely – theminstrels implied, by way of praising me – only a strong divine power couldkeep my husband from rushing back as quickly as possible into my loving –and lovely – wifely arms.

Odysseuswas the guest of a goddess on an enchanted isle, said some; she’d turned hismen into pigs – not a hard job in my view – but had turned them back intomen because she’d fallen in love with him and was feeding him unheard-ofdelicacies prepared by her own immortal hands, and the two of them madelove deliriously every night;

Some of the men had been eaten bycannibals,

it was only a one-eyed tavern keeper, said another, and thefight was over non-payment of the bill.

Odysseus had been in a fight with a giant one-eyed Cyclops,said some;

no, saidothers, they’d eaten a magic plant that had caused them to lose theirmemories

Troy hadfallen. There were reports of a great slaughtering and looting in the city. Thestreets ran red with blood, the sky above the palace turned to fire; innocentboy children were thrown off a cliff, and the Trojan women were parcelledout as plunder, King Priam’s daughters among them

Odysseus was pleased with me. Of course he was. ‘Helen hasn’t borne ason yet,’ he said, which ought to have made me glad. And it did. But on theother hand, why was he still – and possibly always – thinking about Helen?

It was Palamedes who found Odysseus out

He’d spread thestory around that he’d gone mad, and to back it up he’d put on a ridiculouspeasant’s hat and was ploughing with an ox and a donkey and sowing thefurrows with salt

‘In fact, the oath was my idea. It wouldbe difficult for me to get out of it now.’

hey’d waged asuccessful war against Athens to get her back.

and how the renowned Theseus and his pal Peirithous hadabducted my cousin Helen when she was less than twelve years old andhidden her away, with the intent of casting lots to see which one of themwould marry her when she was old enough.

If the word got around about his post, saidOdysseus in a mock-sinister manner, he would know I’d been sleeping withsome other man, and then – he said, frowning at me in what was supposed tobe a playful way – he would be very cross indeed, and he would have to chopme into little pieces with his sword or hang me from the roof beam.

That he was foredoomed to swell to our cold-eyed teenaged killer.If we had known that, would we have drowned him back then?Young children are ruthless and selfish: everyone wants to live.Twelve against one, he wouldn’t have stood a chance.Would we? In only a minute, when nobody else was looking?Pushed his still-innocent child’s head under the waterWith our own still-innocent childish nursemaid hands,And blamed it on waves.

Sailed as well, in the dark frail boats of ourselvesThrough the turbulent seas of our swollen and sore-footed mothersWho were not royal queens, but a motley and piebald collection,Bought, traded, captured, kidnapped from serfs and strangers.

Nine months he sailed the wine-red seas of his mother’s blood

and it unsettled me to think of my barrel-chested and deep-voicedOdysseus, so skilled in persuasion, so articulate, so dignified, as an infantlying in her arms and having this gurgling discourse addressed to him

a nonsense language – ‘Uzzy woo,’ she wouldcroon to Telemachus when drying him after his bath

‘so you can have a nice big son for Odysseus!

had to be treated, for hadn’t she nursed him at her own breast and tended himwhen he was an infant and brought him up as a youth? Nobody but she mustgive him his baths, oil his shoulders, prepare his breakfasts, lock up hisvaluables, lay out his robes for him, and so on and so forth.

and so highly had he valued her that he hadn’t evenslept with her.

His father, Laertes, and his mother, Anticleia, were still in the palace atthat time; his mother had not yet died, worn out by watching and waiting forOdysseus to return and, I suspect, by her own bilious digestive system, andhis father had not yet quitted the palace in despair at his son’s absence to livein a hovel and penalise himself by farming. All of that would happen onceOdysseus had been gone for years, but there was no foreshadowing of it yet.

his manner was that of an older person to a child.

she did not last long. Herdeath left me all alone in Ithaca, a stranger among strange people.

I’d gained a great opinion of Odysseus since our wedding day, andadmired him immensely, and had an inflated notion of his capabilities –remember, I was fifteen – so I had the highest confidence in him, andconsidered him to be a sea captain who could not fail

Possibly I had an aversion to the ocean due to mychildhood experience, or possibly the sea-god Poseidon was still annoyed byhis failure to devour me

But no hero comes to me, early or late –Hard work is my destiny, death is my fate

words my desire for my husband, and that a statue was later erected of me intribute to the virtue of Modesty.There’s some truth to this story. But I pulled down my veil to hide the factthat I was laughing. You have to admit there was something humorous about afather who’d once tossed his own child into the sea capering down the roadafter that very child and calling, ‘Stay with me!’

Odysseus and I were indeed friends, asOdysseus had promised we would be. Or let me put it another way: I myselfhad developed friendly feelings towards him – more than that, loving andpassionate ones – and he behaved as if he reciprocated them. Which is notquite the same thing.

In return for his story about the scar, I told Odysseus my own story aboutalmost drowning and being rescued by ducks. He was interested in it, andasked me questions about it, and was sympathetic – everything you wouldwish a listener to be. ‘My poor duckling,’ he said, stroking me. ‘Don’t worry.I would never throw such a precious girl into the ocean.’ At which point I didsome more weeping, and was comforted in ways that were suitable for awedding night.

Why had the boar savaged Odysseus, but not theothers? Had they known where the boar was hiding out, had they led him intoa trap? Was Odysseus meant to die so that Autolycus the cheat wouldn’t haveto hand over the gifts he owed? Perhaps

Sisyphus

Odysseus took me by the hand and sat medown on the bed. ‘Forget everything you’ve been told,’ he whispered. ‘I’mnot going to hurt you, or not very much. But it would help us both if youcould pretend. I’ve been told you’re a clever girl. Do you think you couldmanage a few screams? That will satisfy them – they’re listening at the door –and then they’ll leave us in peace and we can take our time to becomefriends.’

The gatekeeper had been posted to keep the bride from rushing out in horror,and to stop her friends from breaking down the door and rescuing her whenthey heard her scream. All of this was play-acting: the fiction was that thebride had been stolen, and the consummation of a marriage was supposed tobe a sanctioned rape. It was supposed to be a conquest, a trampling of a foe, amock killing. There was supposed to be blood

But he wasn’t looking at me, and neither was anyone else. They were allstaring at Helen

I kept my eyes downcast, soall I could see of Odysseus was the lower part of his body. Short legs, I keptthinking, even at the most solemn moments. This was not an appropriatethought – it was trivial and silly, and it made me want to giggle – but in myown defence I must point out that I was only fifteen.

and is stillpractised in the world of the living when it comes to athletic contests

I started to cry, as I would do sooften in the future

red-haired

I had not thought my legs were quitethat short, and I certainly hadn’t thought Helen would notice them.

‘I think Odysseus would make a very suitable husband for our littleduckie,’ she said. ‘She likes the quiet life, and she’ll certainly have that if hetakes her to Ithaca, as he’s boasting of doing.

‘Who’s the barrel-chested one?’ I asked.‘Oh, that’s only Odysseus,’ said one of the maids. He was not considered– by the maids at least – to be a serious candidate for my hand. His father’spalace was on Ithaca, a goat-strewn rock; his clothes were rustic; he had themanners of a small-town big shot, and had already expressed severalcomplicated ideas the others considered peculiar. He was clever though, theysaid. In fact he was too clever for his own good. The other young men madejokes about him – ‘Don’t gamble with Odysseus, the friend of Hermes,’ theysaid. ‘You’ll never win.’ This was like saying he was a cheat and a thief. Hisgrandfather Autolycus was well known for these very qualities, and wasreputed never to have won anything fairly in his life.‘I wonder how fast he can run,’ I said. In some kingdoms the contest forbrides was a wrestling match, in others a chariot race, but with us it was justrunning.‘Not very fast, on those short legs of his,’ said one maid unkindly. Andindeed the legs of Odysseus were quite short in relation to his body. It was allright when he was sitting down, you didn’t notice, but standing up he lookedtop-heavy.

No man willever kill himself for love of me.

The more I think about this version of events, the more I like it.

Perhaps that is why myfather had become so attached to me after having failed to drown me in thesea: where I was, there would be the treasure.(Why did he throw me in? That question still haunts me. Although I’m notaltogether satisfied with the shroud-weaving explanation, I’ve never been ableto find the right answer, even down here. Every time I see my father in thedistance, wading through the asphodel, and try to catch up with him, hehurries away as if he doesn’t want to face me

I can say trash because I know where most of it ended up. It moulderedaway in the ground or it sank to the bottom of the sea, or it got broken ormelted down. Some of it made its way to enormous palaces that have –strangely – no kings or queens in them. Endless processions of people ingraceless clothing file through these palaces, staring at the gold cups and thesilver bowls, which are not even used any more. Then they go to a sort ofmarket inside the palace and buy pictures of these things, or miniatureversions of them that are not real silver and gold. That is why I say trash

f you had an enemy it was best to kill his sons, even if those sons werebabies. Otherwise they would grow up and hunt you down.

Children were vehicles for passing thingsalong. These things could be kingdoms, rich wedding gifts, stories, grudges,blood feuds. Through children, alliances were forged; through children,wrongs were avenged. To have a child was to set loose a force in the world.

In your world, you don’tget visitations from the gods the way people used to unless you’re on drugs

Helen was never punished, not one bit. Why not, I’d like to know? Otherpeople got strangled by sea serpents and drowned in storms and turned intospiders and shot with arrows for much smaller crimes. Eating the wrongcows. Boasting. That sort of thing. You’d think Helen might have got a goodwhipping at the very least, after all the harm and suffering she caused tocountless other people. But she didn’t.

If you were a magician, messing around in the dark arts and risking yoursoul, would you want to conjure up a plain but smart wife who’d been good atweaving and had never transgressed, instead of a woman who’d drivenhundreds of men mad with lust and had caused a great city to go up inflames?Neither would I

I never got summoned much by the magicians. I was famous, yes – askanyone – but for some reason they didn’t want to see me

More recently, some of us havebeen able to infiltrate the new ethereal-wave system that now encircles theglobe, and to travel around that way, looking out at the world through the flat,illuminated surfaces that serve as domestic shrines.

I was veryinterested in the invention of the light bulb, for instance, and in the matter-into-energy theories of the twentieth century.

and our own abode wasupstaged by a much more spectacular establishment down the road – fierypits, wailing and gnashing of teeth, gnawing worms, demons with pitchforks– a great many special effects.

Though we never get spring here, or any other seasons. You dohave to wonder who designed the place

I could hardly count on family support

If my father hadn’thad me thrown into the sea she might have dropped me in herself, in a fit ofabsent-mindedness or irritation

dimples

There Iwould be, strolling hand in hand with my apparently fond male parent along acliff edge or a river bank or a parapet, and the thought would occur to me thathe might suddenly decide to shove me over or bash me to death with a rock.Preserving a calm façade under these circumstances was a challenge. Aftersuch excursions I would retire to my room and dissolve in floods of tears.(Excessive weeping, I might as well tell you now, is a handicap of the Naiad-born. I spent at least a quarter of my earthly life crying my eyes out.Fortunately in my time there were veils. They were a practical help fordisguising red, puffy eyes.)

duck was my new nickname.No doubt he felt guilty about what he’d almost done: he became, if anything,rather too affectionate towards me

me, do I remember the breath leaving my lungs and the sound of bells peoplesay the drowning hear? Not in the least. But I was told the story: there isalways some servant or slave or old nurse or busybody ready to regale a childwith the awful things done to it by its parents when it was too young toremember. Hearing this discouraging anecdote did not improve my relationswith my father. It is to this episode – or rather, to my knowledge of it – that Iattribute my reserve, as well as my mistrust of other people’s intentions

Inever knew exactly why, during my lifetime, but now I suspect he’d been toldby an oracle that I would weave his shroud. Possibly he thought that if hekilled me first, his shroud would never be woven and he would live forever.

while you staredat our bare feet

I can’tmake myself understood, not in your world, the world of bodies, of tonguesand fingers; and most of the time I have no listeners, not on your side of theriver. Those of you who may catch the odd whisper, the odd squeak, so easilymistake my words for breezes rustling the dry reeds, for bats at twilight, forbad dreams.But I’ve always been of a determined nature. Patient, they used to call me.I like to see a thing through to the end.

I knew he was tricky and a liar, I just didn’t think he would play histricks and try out his lies on me. Hadn’t I been faithful? Hadn’t I waited, andwaited, and waited, despite the temptation – almost the compulsion – to dootherwise? And what did I amount to, once the official version gainedground? An edifying legend. A stick used to beat other women with. Whycouldn’t they be as considerate, as trustworthy, as all-suffering as I had been?That was the line they took, the singers, the yarn-spinners. Don’t follow myexample, I want to scream in your ears – yes, yours! But when I try to scream,I sound like an owl.

his versionof events was the true one, give or take a few murders, a few beautifulseductresses, a few one-eyed monsters

What a fool he made of me, somesay. It was a specialty of his: making fools. He got away with everything,which was another of his specialties: getting away.

like the sacks used to keep thewinds in

I’ve always been haunted by the hanged maids

ousin ofthe beautiful Helen of Troy

o is sometimes too clever for his own good

Helios had spied for him

glorious cripple now

Kythereia

hey playedat love together

Disguised now as a Phaiákian, Athenastaked it and called out:

You now, for instance, with your fine physique—a god’s, indeed—you have an empty noddle.I find my heart inside my ribs arousedby your impertinence.

I find my heart inside my ribs arousedby your impertinence.

“That was uncalled for, friend, you talk like a fool.

ook at his leg muscles and his forearms.Neck like a bollard; strong as a bull, he seems;and not old, though he may have gone stale underthe rough times he had. Nothing like the seafor wearing out the toughest man alive.”

Sparwood gave the discus the mightiest fling,and Prince Laódamas outboxed them al

Tipmast, Tiderace, Sparwood,Hullman, Sternman, Beacher and Pullerman,Bluewater, Shearwater, Runningwake, Boardalee,Seabelt, son of Grandfleet Shipwrightson;Seareach stepped up, son of the Launching Maste

gay amateurs of the great games

then in his cloak Odysseus wept again.His tears flowed in the mantle unperceived;only Alkínoös, at his elbow, saw them,and caught the low groan in the man’s breathing.

Muse brought to the minstrel’s mind a songof heroes whose great fame rang under heaven:the clash between Odysseus and Akhilleus,how one time they contended at the godfeastraging, and the marshal, Agamemnon,felt inward joy over his captains’ quarrel;for such had been foretold him by Apollo

seamen

I can assure you

but in my heart I never gave consentthough seven years detained

nine full days

Phaiákiain ship handling at sea, so were these womenskilled at the loom, having this lovely craftand artistry as talents from Athena.

his only child a daughter, Arete.When she grew up, Alkinoos married herand holds her dear

the awesome one in pigtails

“Little one,

thou so aloofwhile the Earthshaker wrecked and battered me

Go past him, cast yourself before my mother,embrace her knees—and you may wake up soonat home rejoicing, though your home be far.On Mother’s feeling much depends; if shelooks on you kindly, you shall see your friendsunder your own roof in your father’s country.”

Athena lent a hand, making him seemtaller, and massive too, with crisping hairin curls like petals of wild hyacinth,but all red-golden. Think of gold infusedon silver by a craftsman, whose fine artHephaistos taught him, or Athena: onewhose work moves to delight: just so she lavishedbeauty over Odysseus’ head and shoulders

never will be,as to bring war or pillage to this coast,for we are dear to the immortal gods

you are the first soul I have see

Delos near the altar of Apollo—I had troops under me when I was there

blest your father, and your gentle mother,blest all your kin. I know what happinessmust send the warm tears to their eyes, each timethey see their wondrous child go to the dancing

you are most near to Artemis

It happened

with nymphs of the wild places flanking her;and Leto’s heart delights to see them running,for, taller by a head than nymphs can be,the goddess shows more stately, all being beautiful.So one could tell the princess from the maids

Artemis

they ran and passed a ball to a rhythmic beat

Here, where the gay gods live their days of pleasure

s the shipman Dymas’ daughter,a girl the princess’ age, and her dear friend.

so finein mould and feature that she seemed a goddess—the daughter of Alkínoös, Nausikaa

and Heaven gave him wisdom,so on this night the goddess, grey-eyed Athena,entered the palace of Alkínoösto make sure of Odysseus’ voyage home.

while over him Athena showered sleep

Odysseus’ heart laughed when he saw his leaf-bed,and down he lay, heaping more leaves above him.