Troy was still burning.

A huge storm of fire raged. Blazing shafts plunged from the heavens with a deafening roar. The shades of fallen warriors still screamed their outrage amidst the smoke and flames; restless, anguished souls, teeming now at the gates of Hades. Troy would burn for days and nights, until she had turned to ash.

The glare of the fires guided us back.

Two men from each ship swam to shore, struggling against the strong current. They anchored the vessels to land by tying them to the solid oak stakes they drove into the ground. I ordered them all to wait aboard as I set off towards the city; no one was to go ashore for any reason. I still wonder why I didn’t stay with my men that night, why I went back to the scene of deceit and slaughter. I don’t have an answer.

I could see, from on high, the ships of Agamemnon and the other kings who had chosen to remain. They were anchored at the sterns, their prows facing seaward — so they were on their way as well. Perhaps they’d understood that there were no sacrifices or hecatombs that could make amends for the horrors we’d committed. All that innocent blood spilled.

I found the road that led to the city, passed between the scorched jambs of the Skaian Gate that we’d believed to be impregnable, walked up towards the citadel. I arrived just in time to witness the unimaginable: the horse I myself had built was collapsing, at that very instant, devoured by the fire. It had taken the flames this long to envelope the horse, so tall it had once towered over the city and the palace. It crashed to the earth in a vortex of sparks and white smoke. Its head was last to dissolve in the blaze.

I heard, or thought I heard, the echoing shrieks of those the fire had consumed. They were gone, but their dried blood still clogged the cracks in the road. I continued to ascend, until I reached the vast porticoed courtyard where the sanctuary of my goddess still rose. The roof had caved in, and the blackened pillars now stood alone like silent guards.

I went in.

The sanctuary was empty. The pedestal where the glittering statue of Pallas Athena had stood was empty. The powerful idol had vanished. Who had taken it? Who would have dared to do such a thing?

The Achaians, perhaps?

I, myself?

Had my mind erased this completely? Is this what had dragged me back inside the walls of sacred Troy? Questions without meaning and without answers that could not stop me from wandering like a spectre among the charred ruins. The rain sizzled and hissed as it met the flames that still burned with accursed energy. In the end, exhausted, I made my way back down to the battlefield. There was a strange, unreal light in the air, a luminescent vapour that transformed the objects around me, making everything unrecognizable. I found myself suddenly at the wild fig tree, without realizing how I’d got there. The familiar grey trunk, the green leaves, the bark so often wounded. I leaned against it and felt the scars of the immortal tree at my back, the only living thing remaining in the devastated field. I slumped, bone-weary, and fell asleep.

It was the moon that woke me. It led me back to the promontory, lighting my path and then the high yards and sleek flanks of my ships. At dawn, a strong land wind scattered the clouds and carried the smoke out to sea, clearing the sky above us and leaving it luminous. We cast off the moorings then, pushed the ships out and raised the sails. The wind steered us towards the coast of Thrace.

I knew those lands well. I’d gone there often during the long war to buy the wine that had so often consoled us during our many sufferings and gladdened our banquets. A strong, sweet wine that we diluted with water so it would last longer. It certainly wasn’t a job that required a king. Any of the merchants who had pitched their tents outside our camp could have seen to it, but it was a job that I liked. It made me feel alive again. I would walk through the fields, watch as the wine was poured out, have a taste, haggle over the price. Sometimes I would be invited to lunch, and I could linger at the table with the vine-dressers. It felt like I was home again, in a way.

Now we were at sea, finally, and we were never going to turn back.

How did I feel. . tears fell from my eyes. I looked back and remembered my comrades, the friends I had lost, all those who would not be returning with us. And I looked forward, counting the days that separated us from our island home. It didn’t seem real. I was starting to think again like a man who inhabits his own house, grows his own crops, tends his own flocks. I let myself imagine joyful events: embracing my parents, the little son who had never known me. . Penelope, who I had so keenly desired on all those long sleepless nights. . We would lie together in the bed I had built and after we’d made love I would gaze at the beams over my head, breathe in the scent of the olive trunk, the scent of my wife. We would have so many things to tell each other, under the covers that my mother had embroidered. . And Argus? Was Argus still alive?

I thought of painful things as well: facing the families of my fallen comrades, listening to their inconsolable weeping, offering them the share of the booty that was their right in exchange for a son’s life. The news of our endeavour would have travelled from mouth to mouth, from village to village, from island to island and I would be making my return as the absolute victor, the destroyer of cities, the man with the mind who had plotted unimaginable stratagems. The trophies of my victory would be hung from the walls of my palace: embossed shields, bronze panoplies, baldrics of silver mail with gold and amber buckles that would astonish my father and all the visitors who came to call. . But I couldn’t think any further than that. So many years of ruin and grief had taught me that you can’t make plans. The future is inscrutable; the gods are often envious of our happiness and enjoy watching us suffer. Only my goddess loved me, of this I was certain, but not even she could bend destiny.

Then we sighted land and in no time I was thinking like a warrior and predator again. It was like a disease, lurking deep inside me; after all, I’d done nothing else for ten years. I found myself pondering the thought that all the booty I carried with me was surely not a sufficient token of my great glory. My people would be expecting much more of me.

From the sea we could see a city up on a hill and its inhabitants could probably see us. It was defended by a wooden palisade and had gates of stone.

‘Let’s seize it!’ shouted my men.

They were like me. They knew they would be putting themselves in danger but they didn’t care. Perhaps they were already craving carnage, terror, violence. After all, this was the land of the Ciconians; they were Thracians and allies of Priam. It was only right for us to attack them. I ordered my comrades to take up arms and we put ashore. The men of the city must have been far off, in the fields or at pasture with their flocks. No warriors came out to challenge us. It wasn’t until we had crashed through the main gate using the mast from one of our ships that we saw a single living soul. A hasty assembly of about a hundred men stood against us. We easily overcame them and poured into the city.

Before long, the city of Ismarus was put to plunder and its most beautiful women were rounded up and dragged off. I walked into one of the richest houses and found a man who appeared to be terrified. He fell to his knees and begged me not to kill him. He wore the headdress of a priest and I spared him. In exchange he gave me a big skin full of wine, the best he had. The same fine wine that I had brought back to the battlefield so often for the banquets of the princes and kings.

We loaded up the booty and I ordered the men to set sail immediately, but many of them had gathered on the beach and had started drinking while others had slaughtered and quartered a few sheep and had lit a fire. The strong wine and the women had gone to their heads. They simply would not listen to me; they were no longer the obedient, disciplined warriors I was accustomed to, I realized bitterly. I feared that it wouldn’t be long before they reaped their punishment. I went back to my ship alone, ate a cup of barley toasted on the brazier at the stern, and drank some water.

Eurylochus approached me. ‘They’ve suffered for ten years,’ he said, ‘and they’ve always obeyed you, fought with great courage. They’ve lost more than two hundred of their comrades. Don’t begrudge them a little celebrating. Haven’t they earned it?’

‘No one deserves to enjoy what he can’t afford. They’re acting like fools and they’ll pay for it with their lives. Is any amount of revelry worth such a risk? Listen, don’t you hear anything at all? And those lights, up there on the hill, can’t you see them?’

Eurylochus strained his ears and scanned the darkness. A distant roll of drums. . fires up on the heights. News of the fall of Ismarus was flying from hill to hill, from village to village.

We would soon be attacked and, in the meantime, my brave fighters and daring sailors were turning into a bunch of drunks, incapable of standing up straight. Fog fell over land and sea and I remained wakeful all that night, a solitary sentry.

The grey, cold dawn roused me from a brief, fitful slumber and what I saw unfortunately confirmed my fears: thousands of Ciconian warriors were streaming down the hills, heading our way. I shouted out an alarm and I kicked my men awake. As they came to, they began to understand what was happening. They stumbled to their feet and into their armour but had no time to eat. I drew them up in front of the ships in close ranks as I had so many times in Troy. The enemy were just a couple of hundred paces away from us when they lunged forward at a run and pounded our formation like waves of the sea against cliffs. Hard as it was for me to believe, my men resisted the attack; they were holding their own, shield to shield, shoulder to shoulder. I tried several times to lead a counter-attack from the centre, in the hopes of frightening the enemy and routing them, but to no avail. As long as our strength held up, I knew we could manage to maintain our position but by afternoon, exhausted and hungry as we were, we started to lose ground. We had nothing but our ships and the sea at our backs. Where could we go? How could we hope to save ourselves?

I ordered one crew at a time to push their vessel out into the water, climb aboard and take up oars, while all the others protected them on land. Once on board, they would be able to cover their comrades still on foot with a fast, steady rain of arrows until all the men could get back onto the ships. My battle plan worked, the men resisting until the last ship had gained the open sea. But by then more than forty of our own had been lost to the enemy.

The sun had set. Eurylochus approached me and asked if we could give the final salute to the dead who had been abandoned unburied. It was traditional to shout out each man’s name ten times. I replied: ‘Thrice will be enough. They don’t deserve such an honour from us. They died as fools.’ It was my way of not crying.

What were the men on the other ships thinking? That I’d made a mistake? That the king of Ithaca didn’t know how to get them home?

My heart was burning in my chest like a firebrand. I would talk to them when the moment came, after we had landed. The position of the sun soon told me that we were heading south, fast. I had never navigated in those waters before and I had no idea what to expect, but the wind raged on, swelling the sails, ripping them to shreds at times. We had to change them time and time again. Black clouds galloped through the sky and pelted us with heavy rain. No one would have been able to change course, not even by striking the sails and manning the oars. The sea rushed tumultuously in a single direction, her high, grey waves boiling with foam.

‘Land!’ shouted Perimedes. ‘To starboard!’

‘Cythera,’ said Eurylochus. ‘I’ve seen it many times. The wind is pushing us further away.’

And so it was, unhappily. No force could have challenged the wind and the waves. We sailed in this way for nine days and nine nights of tempest, without ever stopping. My comrades could not fish as they had become accustomed to doing, by throwing out nets or casting out lines with barley kernels soaked in water as bait. We had very little food left. I was eating my heart out with pain, rage and despair.

On the tenth day, the wind dropped all of a sudden and the sea calmed until it became a shiny bronze plate. Slivers of light slipped around the ships, their dark profiles beaded in the deep blue.

I hoisted the signal for assembly and the ships gathered together, all within reach of my voice.

‘Have you lost any men?’ I shouted.

‘No, wanax!’ replied the commander of the second ship.

‘No, wanax!’ replied the commanders of the other five, one after another.

‘Neither have we!’ I said. ‘We’re all still here and this is good luck indeed after such a storm. Now put your backs into the oars and we’ll forge on. Land is surely close by. There are birds in the sky and you can smell it in the air.’ An odour of unfamiliar herbs. But we could see nothing. A thick mist had risen in front of us and we were surrounded by water on every side. I signalled to the helmsman to head into the mist that hovered above the sea. The others followed us.

Never before and never again have I felt the way I did at that moment. Alone, afraid, cold and my heart was empty, as if my blood and every other humour had been drained from my body.The way a man feels when he collapses to the ground pierced by a spear or the sharp tip of an arrow, as his life escapes, streaming, out of the wound. How often I’d seen it! I seemed to be caught in a dream, of the kind that fills you with anguish. One knows that the visions of the night are false imaginings, insubstantial, and yet the suffering they inflict on your heart could kill you. I called out to my comrades: ‘Eurylochus! Antiphus!’ Why couldn’t I see anyone? Could I be alone on my ship? Who was at the oars, driving it on? I could see the prow slip forward, cleaving the water which fell to either side without making a sound. I could see myself running back and forth in the mist and yet I knew full well that I was standing still at the bow, scanning the impenetrable fog. What was that disc of pale light fluttering in the mist? The moon? The sun? Shrieks. Birds scattering, terrified. Splashing. Who, what, had fallen into the still water? Was this a portal into some other place? Was I alone? The other ships, where were they? Elpenor! Antilochus! Euribates, where are you all? Answer me, it’s your king who’s calling! I could see someone passing by. . a shadow nearby, slipping away, walking. Who are you? He didn’t turn. I turned. He disappeared. Athena, where are you, where are you? You’re hiding! Why won’t you come out?

How much time passed? I don’t remember. Hours, days. . Waves lapping, water whispering. Suddenly a shock to my heart, like the blow of a dagger. I shouted so loudly that my throat bled and then. . I was out!

Land before me, sea behind me and the wall of fog, thick and smoky. The waves then, finally, the lapping at the shore, the scent of earth, tongues of sea lengthening onto the glittering golden sand. Now I could see my comrades rowing, striking the sail. Hadn’t they heard me shout out? Couldn’t they see my mouth bleeding? I washed it out with seawater. My throat burned.

‘We’ll moor aft!’ I ordered. ‘Drive the stakes into the ground, drop anchor forward! Antilochus, on me!’

He ran over: ‘Wanax, look!’

One of our ships was emerging from the fog at a certain distance. It looked like it was coming from Hades: half was in the light, the other half invisible. The men looked like ghosts.

Another, further east. Both spotted us and joined us. Then no more. We waited and hoped for a long, long time.

‘Where are the other ships?’ I asked Eurylochus.

He looked bewildered.

‘Where are they?’ I insisted. ‘They were so close. We all made it through the storm, all the ships had assembled, I spoke to the crews. You all heard me.’

‘We heard you, king.’

‘Then how could we have lost four ships with all their men?’

Eurylochus shook his head: ‘You know as well as I do. We were in a dark place.’

We disembarked. What land was this? Who lived here? What language did they speak? There was a wide sweep of tall grass and patches of sand here and there. Towering palm trees swayed in the morning breeze. In the distance, a grove of tamarisks. And creatures we had never seen before. They looked like little hairy men, with tails. Shiny eyes, piercing and unsettling. They squawked, they screamed, they jumped from one branch to another.

‘Monkeys,’ said Eurylochus. ‘Among all animals, the ones that resemble us most. Disagreeable things. Clever, bold and rude. I sailed as far as Crete once to buy some terebinth oil and an old beggar had one.’

‘Send out men to look for water and food,’ I ordered. ‘A party to the east and one to the west. Tell them to come back as soon as they’ve found what we need. The others will drop the nets and try to fish. In the meantime, start a fire. Everyone will keep his arms at the ready.’

They all fanned out and I stayed close to the ship. As I looked around, I realized that nothing looked familiar: the air was different from the air I’d always breathed, the rays of light appeared to be shed by a different sun. The atmosphere was close, suffocating and time seemed to stretch out immensely. The thought of the ships and comrades I’d lost was unbearable.

A shout startled me and I saw Elpenor making wide gestures from up on a sandy rise at the end of the long beach, to the west. I ran towards him.

‘Wanax, look!’ he said when I was close enough to hear. I turned around. In the distance, perhaps a thousand paces from us, were the rest of our ships. Beached stern to, all four of them.

‘Follow me,’ I ordered. ‘But don your armour first.’ Elpenor and the group of men with him set off with me on foot. I sent one of them back to warn the others not to move. They were to wait for us where they were until we returned.

When we reached the ships we found no one inside. We searched them one at a time without finding any signs of violence or disorder. The oars were in their rowlocks, the sails had been taken in, the steering oars tied to the rails. The trunks full of Trojan plunder at the prows were undisturbed. The only sound to be heard was the sea pounding untiringly against the keels and the wind whipping the shrouds. The rest was silence.

‘But. . where are they? Not hunting or looking for water, they would have left someone on guard. They haven’t fallen into the sea because the ships have been left in perfect order and secured with their anchors forward just as they should be.’

I saw terror in the men’s eyes. They could face any kind of danger, but the unknown or unexplainable filled them with fear. Had our comrades been kidnapped, carried off? By harpies, by fog demons?

‘Listen to me,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing like what you’re imagining. Here the ground is rocky, but if we go inland it’s grassy. We’ll search for traces of their footprints and follow them until we’ve found our mates. Keep your weapons at hand. We don’t know what land this is or who lives here.’

As I was speaking, the man I’d sent off to the ships came running back. I told him about what we’d found and that we would soon be setting off to search for the missing men. He was to go back and tell his comrades to put out to sea, bring the three ships around to the stretch of beach where the empty ships were at anchor, and moor them there. A single set of guards would suffice for all of them.

The man, a fellow from Zacynthus who had always fought bravely under the walls of Troy, replied: ‘I will do as you say, wanax, but if there’s someone else who can carry out your order I’d prefer to come with you.’

‘No,’ I replied, ‘but I appreciate your courage and your loyalty. Next time you’ll be at my side, but go now and do as I’ve asked.’

As he ran off again, we started up the path leading inland. On our left stood a hill topped by a high plain. Its slope was crossed by a stream of clear water that flowed through a luxuriant green field on which animals with pointed, doubly curved horns were grazing peacefully. The coats on the beasts’ backs had black stripes. The other creatures I could see lumbering in the distance looked gigantic, truly frightening in size.

I’d never seen anything like them, and never would again for the rest of my life. I was beginning to understand why I’d had to cross that mist. I felt that I had crossed an invisible threshold and entered a hidden, secret land where everything would be different, where anything could happen. Although my heart was heavy with thoughts of our missing comrades and our failed return, my eyes were wide with astonishment upon seeing these wondrous creatures. I understood how big and how marvellous the world was, and I was sure that my adventure and that of my companions would be no less exciting than the voyage my father King Laertes had undertaken with his comrades on the Argo.

We marched all day, following footsteps that were evidently those of our men, who wore boots. The other footsteps had been left by bare feet.

‘They’ve been taken prisoner by savages!’ mused Antiphus.

It was difficult to believe that. If they were walking alongside men who were barefoot, perhaps these were people unfamiliar with the arts of cultivating the soil and melting metals, who lived on what nature gave them. How could such people capture men who fought clad in bronze, armed with spears and swords? What’s more, our men were numerous. From the footsteps, more numerous than the others.

‘There’s only one explanation,’ I replied, ‘our men followed these people out of their own free will. Look: the prints of the boots are everywhere, they’re mixed in with the others. If they were prisoners they would be in a column at the centre, with those who had captured them at the sides, in much greater number.’

‘Are you saying they simply abandoned the ships with all that plunder aboard? How is that possible? The spoils which justify ten years of war and the loss of over two hundred of our comrades? I just can’t believe that,’ replied Antiphus. ‘What reason could they have had to do such a thing?’

‘A reason worth leaving everything: the ships, the treasure, their weapons. And perhaps even. .’

‘What? What else?’

I could not answer. Too bitter would have been my reply. Sorrow choked off my voice, the word on my lips raced back to stab my heart.

We made our way in silence, warily. Late that afternoon we found traces of a bivouac, ten or so campfires already extinguished, with the remains of a meal that many men had consumed: animal bones and enormous eggshells. Eurylochus picked one up and turned it in his hands. ‘The Phoenicians paint these and sell them on the islands and. . look, down there, see, they’re laid by those gigantic birds. See them? The Cretans call them camel-birds.’

We followed his pointed finger and saw a dozen whitish-brown feathered females and a large male with magnificent black plumage. Our eyes could scarcely take in all they beheld. In that land of wonders, time had stopped at the golden age. Vast herds of animals grazed near and far, thousands and thousands of them. They belonged to no one and hence to everyone. And the trees were laden with fruit of every sort. In the distance, storm clouds rose and lightning bolts streaked from the sky to the earth as columns of rain poured down to quench it. A boundless land. . How small our own world was, compared with this! The sinking sun was an enormous globe, much bigger than ours, much redder, setting the entire horizon ablaze from one end to the other. We pushed on until late that night, when we had to stop and rest. I left four men on guard; they were relieved halfway through the night by four others. In the darkness we heard the roaring of lions, the shrieking of unfamiliar birds and other noises we could not identify. . sometimes close, sometimes distant.

The dawn was not hindered by any obstacle: no mountains, no cliffs. The light rose like a powerful breath: uninterrupted, diffuse, the colour of water. Then that infinite land awoke: flocks of thousands of birds flew into the breaching sun, the galloping of vast herds made the ground tremble beneath our feet. Even our gods felt very small and far away.

On their tracks again, we continued our long march until we came upon a line of low, rolling hills. Once we reached the top, we realized that we had arrived.

Below us a wide green valley with a small lake at its centre was surrounded by thousands of palm trees. At the valley’s edges were vast fields of crops and plots of land densely planted with flowers as red and fleshy as fruits. In the distance were hills of sand that looked like mounds of gold dust. Houses stood here and there, shacks covered with bundles of dried grasses. Ropes made of braided grass were rolled into coils at the edges of the fields. Children swam in the lake and splendid dark-skinned women walked by completely naked, with high hips and slender legs.

Almost all of the men were assembled at a vast space at the side of the village, grouped around a red stone monolith. They were playing instruments, flutes and drums, and singing.

And there were our comrades.

‘What shall we do?’ asked Eurylochus, who never left my side. ‘I say we attack. We’re slightly outnumbered but we’re well armed and they’re not. If they have weapons, they’ll be inside their houses. We’ll free our men and return to the ships.’

‘No. There’s no need for arms,’ I replied. ‘We’ll leave our shields hanging on our backs, as they are now, our swords in their sheaths and the spears pointed downward. The most difficult thing will be to convince, or force, our men to leave.’

Eurylochus nodded and we made our way down the hill. We were noticed almost immediately because there were so many of us, a small army, but no one seemed frightened. They only stopped singing. We were careful to show no signs that we intended to use force against them.

I smiled and bowed towards them, turning to seek out the one who might be their chief. Then I greeted my own: ‘Hail, men.’

‘Hail, Odysseus,’ they replied. They were calling me by name as if I were one of them, an equal.

‘We found your ships empty and abandoned. We imagined that you were carried off by force and we came searching for you, but I can see that’s not what happened.’

‘No,’ one of them admitted. ‘We weren’t dragged off by force. They convinced us.’

‘They don’t seem to speak our language,’ I observed.

‘We had no problems understanding them,’ said another.

‘How?’

He took one of those red flowers from a basket: ‘Taste this and you’ll understand.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m glad that no ill has befallen you. We’ll go back to the ships now and return home.’

‘Have you taken a look around, king of Ithaca? Have you seen the grasslands, the animals and birds, the sunsets and dawns? Have you noticed that no one carries weapons? Do you know why? Because there’s nothing to steal or plunder. Food is abundant — there’s enough for everyone. The women are beautiful and skilled in the arts of love and the children belong to everybody; they swim and play in the lake, run happily in the fields. The men sing and dance and tell stories every night. Stories which we’ll learn to understand in time. . That’s another thing there’s an abundance of here. See? Everyone has time here. It’s never too early and never too late. You can sleep by day and stay up all night with one of these radiant beauties, the colour of burnished bronze.’

‘What about your wives? The girls who’ve been waiting for you all these years? Your children, who were still babbling when you left them. Why aren’t you thinking of them?’

‘We’re dead for them, Odysseus. Dead, understand? The girls we were betrothed to will have found other husbands, our children were too young then to remember us now; it’s as if we never existed for them. . For ten years we’ve gone into combat almost every day. We’ve done nothing but kill, wound, slaughter. Our hands are soaked with blood and the screams of the dying never leave our ears. .

‘Is it easy for you to sleep at night, brave, cunning Odysseus? Well, it wasn’t for me. I couldn’t sleep. I was surrounded by ghosts, shrieking spirits. They bit away at my heart.’

He held out the flower to me again. ‘With this you forget everything, understand? Everything.’

‘Even our homeland?’ I challenged him. ‘Her fragrance? Her forests and sea?’

‘Certainly! That as well. Do you really think that after having lived as we did for as long as we did, we can return home as if nothing had ever happened? Hoping to find that nothing has changed? Return to what? To our women, who will have gone off with someone else? To our parents who’ve grown old waiting for us? To our children, who won’t recognize us? Do you think that the blood and carnage of our nightmares won’t find us there?

‘Our land is here, Odysseus, where we’ve found peace and oblivion. Oblivion, king of Ithaca, understand? Oblivion. .’

‘Burn the ships,’ said another, ‘and join us here. We’ll be happy together, and together we can forget.’

I drew my most trusted men aside. ‘They’re under the effects of a powerful drug,’ I said. ‘How else could they forget their homes, their parents, their children and their wives? We have to get them away from here at any cost, as quickly as we can. The others, back at the ships, will already be worried about us.’

‘It won’t be easy,’ said Antiphus. ‘There are so many of them and they seem set on staying.’

‘I’ve seen many coils of rope made with dry grasses. We’ll use it to tie them up, one by one, and we’ll drag them back if we have to. As soon as the effect of the drug contained in those cursed flowers wears off, they’ll go back to being themselves again, you’ll see.’

We waited until night fell, when everyone had lain down to rest. Our comrades, who had no homes to go to, were stretched out on mats near the fire, and this made our task much easier.

‘Let’s wait a little longer,’ I said. ‘They’ve eaten many of those flowers. If we wait for them to take effect, the men will be deeply asleep.’

When their breathing became heavy and they all seemed to have fallen into a dead slumber, I signalled to my men and we began, swift and quiet as ghosts, to tie their hands behind their backs, ring the rope around their necks and then fetter them one to another.

One of them awoke and cried out: ‘What are you doing? No! No! We don’t want to go. Leave us here!’ He tried to rouse the others: ‘Wake up! Wake up! They’re taking us away!’ But by this time they were all tied up and we began to drag them away from the clearing. We’d done a good job, but nonetheless I had twenty armed warriors draw up on either side of the column. Those posted at the front drove them forward and others made sure that no one escaped at the rear.

As we began to climb the hill, we saw the dark-skinned inhabitants of that land leave their shacks to watch what was happening. The moon shed a bright glow and we were all clearly visible to them, and they to us. They did not try to come closer. Our bronze armour glittered in the light of the moon. They stayed where they were but they began to sing. A long, sad lament with two different tones: the subtle, clear voices of the women and the deeper, more intense ones of the men. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. Perhaps that was their way of saying goodbye to the men to whom they’d offered hospitality in such a magic and marvellous way, in their boundless, timeless land. They watched them being dragged away like animals snared in nooses and they wept for them. Their song became shriller and more penetrating, like a funeral wail for people who were going to their deaths. That’s what I heard, and so did my comrades, walking silently with their spears in hand and their shields on their arms. The others, stumbling along with their wrists and necks bound, seemed to understand the meaning of those voices and when any of them raised their faces to look at me I saw them streaked with tears.

We walked all night without ever stopping and all the next day, resting only to regain our strength and drink. We never said a word to our unhappy comrades nor did they ever speak to us, but I could see that they were beginning to look reality in the face again and that they were bitterly bemoaning what they had lost.

I had to lash the men we’d saved to the oars and to the rowing benches, and I put my most loyal comrades in command of the ships we had found abandoned: Eurylochus, Euribates, Antiphus and a few others, all armed to the teeth. Then I gave the signal to set sail.

I didn’t want to linger a moment longer in that place. The fascination of that mysterious and magnificent land had wormed into my own heart and I wanted to stop any of the other men from becoming ensnared in the tantalizing world of the flower-eaters. My desire to return home was what was keeping me alive. I would not give up trying for any reason in the world, nor would I allow my men to give up. I was the one responsible for their lives and their futures. I was duty-bound to bring them back to their parents, who were surely wasting away as they tried to keep alive the feeble hope of seeing their sons again. I had taken these men to war and I had already lost too many of them on the bloody fields of Troy; I could not lose any more on our return journey.

I often asked myself whether news of the fall of Troy had reached the land of Achaia. Some of the warriors had certainly made their return. Had the news flown from Pylos to the shores of Ithaca and the rooms of my palace, raising the hopes of Penelope and my son Telemachus? Were they waiting, watching? Wait for me, I beg of you, wait for me! I’ll come back, as I swore I would when I left, to you, my bride, and to you, my son.

The wind was driving us elsewhere. Where, I couldn’t say. The sun seemed to perch at the centre of the sky for an endless time, only to dive like a flaming meteor into the horizon. The night stars seldom sparkled, often hiding behind the clouds, and it seemed more difficult every day to get our bearings.

I tried to inspire the confidence of my comrades. I wanted them to believe that I knew which direction we were sailing in, but the sea just became wider and more deserted day after day. I realized that since the storm had driven us away from Cape Malea, we hadn’t ever encountered another ship, not even a fisherman’s boat. The world had changed. I couldn’t recognize the sky and the sea and they didn’t recognize me. My goddess wasn’t speaking to me, never appeared to me. Perhaps her gaze hadn’t been able to penetrate the wall of fog that separated our world from the one we’d found: a world so unlike our own, peopled by pure, innocent, unarmed men.

We sailed all that day and the next. After the sun had set, we prudently hauled up the sail halfway, as the lookouts at the bow searched for a landing place while scanning the darkness for possible hazards or traps. We didn’t want to spend the night at sea. The moon, which had been guiding us, hid behind the clouds and a thick fog enveloped us. There was no light anywhere. We lit some torches, using the braziers, and tried to lighten the choppy surface of the sea. I ordered my men to haul the sails in completely and to proceed with the oars. We called out to one another, from one ship to the next, so we could stay in touch and not lose heart. Then, all at once, the sea flattened in front of us.

‘Look! We’ve entered a sheltered place,’ I said to Eurylochus. ‘Behind us you can hear the sound of the waves breaking, but it’s smooth as oil in front.’

‘A natural harbour of some sort. Can you see anything?’

‘No.’

The torch I was holding went out, but we continued on slowly in the thick fog and absolute darkness until the ship’s keel grazed the low, sandy ground of a beach. A god had guided us there: there was no other explanation.

‘Come forward,’ I shouted to the other ships following ours. ‘We’ve found land!’

One after another, the ships were brought ashore, bows scraping the beach. The men laid their cloaks out on the sand and fell asleep. The air had changed; it was warmer now, and not so humid. The clouds had thinned out and the dim light of the sky revealed low, dark hills. The place seemed uninhabited. I untied the comrades who we’d rescued from the land of the flower-eaters.

I spoke to them. ‘I had to do what I did because you weren’t yourselves any more. You seemed to have lost your minds. I am responsible for your lives. We’ve lost too many comrades already. I could not find it in my heart to tell your parents that you had refused to return, uncaring of their pain.’ There was no answer from them. Their dark silence made my heart ache. They were acting as if they’d lost the only good thing remaining in their lives. But everything was strange that night: the fog, the darkness, the sounds. . Later we heard distant cries, hoarse growling, like hungry lions roaming in the blackest night, but different in some way, almost human. None of us had ever heard anything like it before.

We awoke when Aurora rose to illuminate sea and land. I looked around: my comrades were getting up, one after another, gathering together, speaking to each other. There were still a great many of us; we were still an army. With the light everything looked different, more natural, and I realized that we were beached on a low island, fertile, but not cultivated. There were a great number of wild goats and the vegetation was abundant.

I walked all the way around the coast and saw that the mainland was close. It was vast, covered with luxuriant bushes and trees. I ordered my comrades to take their bows and arrows and to hunt goats on the island. I would go to the mainland with the crew of my ship.

The men tried to dissuade me. They asked me to wait until we had feasted on meat roasted over the embers, and the strong red wine that still filled our jars. But my desire to explore the vast, unknown land before us was greater than any hunger. I wondered who inhabited it: were they men who respected the law and feared the gods, or violent, ferocious savages who only obeyed those stronger than they were? Even if we were to meet up with the latter, I was not worried about any danger. The night before I’d fallen asleep thinking of Penelope, of my parents and my son, trying to imagine what he might look like now. I had not been at all frightened by the dark, moonless night, the unfamiliar, fog-covered land. Every sound, every smell, every stone on that island roused my curiosity. It made me realize how great the world was, how much the gods of the origins had created and how little we knew. How much I could have learned in ten years, if I hadn’t spent them fighting under the walls of Troy, breathing in nothing but dust and the stench of blood in that thin strip between city and sea!

I set sail in the afternoon with my crew after we had prepared and loaded the ship. I left Eurylochus in command of the others, who would wait on the island for our return. I brought some of the men who had been among the flower-eaters with me, hoping that activity, and perhaps a bit of adventure, would shake them out of their lethargy. We pushed off and crossed the strait that separated us from the mainland. As we approached, we could see that the land was rich with vegetation but there were no traces of villages or even houses. The only feature of note was a cave, half hidden by trees and bushes, near a promontory.

We went ashore at a small bay that lay beneath a high cliff, nearly a mountain. We took a skin of wine with us to offer to the inhabitants of that land, if there were any to be found, in order to win their favour. The buzzing of the cicadas was the only noise to be heard. We found no other boats, no nets. There were no leafy shelters to protect us from the summer sun, the winter rain or wild animals. Sometimes I still ask myself whether I really lived that adventure; whether I felt what I felt and saw what I saw. . We spotted some grapevines, but they were wild as well, with clusters of big, hard, sour grapes. One of the men who had scouted forward reported that he had found a dirt path. We followed him. This is the way that the story returns to my mind every time. It is thus that the images infest my dreams, forcing me to wake up soaked in cold sweat.

We arrived at the entrance to the cave that we’d seen from the sea. And here we finally saw signs of human life: the space inside was divided into pens which held lambs and goats. Everywhere there were big wheels of cheese resting on drying racks to age. But all the objects were enormous in size: the jars full of curdled milk and whey, the axes for chopping down trees. . Who could be living in such a place? No sooner had my comrades taken a look around than they became spooked and insisted that we grab anything that was worth taking and run back to the ship. But it was too late.

We heard the bleating of a big flock and a footstep so heavy it made the earth quake. A pile of long tree trunks was dumped through the opening to the cave as if it were a bundle of sticks. Wood for the fire. I could see the panic on my comrades’ faces. At the door to the cave stood a hulking black shape without features or expression. A giant.

We dashed to the deep recesses of the cave, looking for a place to hide, but it wasn’t long before the lord of that dreadful place decided to light a fire. The flames blazed up, illuminating the entire space, and it was impossible to stay hidden. But even more impossible to stay still. The monster noticed some of us moving, and with a sort of roar (was that the bellowing voice we’d heard the night before on the island?) asked us: ‘Who are you, foreigners? Sailors or pirates? Where is your ship?’ I was in a peculiar state, of understanding with different ears and seeing with different eyes, in which one of a myriad of possible realities becomes the only one in a mere instant and excludes all the others. Terror gripped me because the light had made his face visible now as well. He had a single eye beneath his brow which glowed like an ember but stared fixedly in a vacuous way. His hair was long, bristly and uncombed, his chest was enormous and his arms shaggy, his bare feet were caked with the dung of sheep and goats. He let off an intolerable stench.

Without coming too far into the open, I replied that we were the survivors of a shipwreck and that we’d entered to ask for help and hospitality in the name of the gods. Athena. . why wouldn’t you speak to me? He burst out laughing, a thunderous laugh that ended in the hoarse snarl of a vicious beast. When I understood it was too late. He grabbed two of my comrades, one in each hand. He crushed the first in his fist. The crunch of bones breaking rent my heart. He flung the other one against the stone wall so hard that the man’s brain spattered our faces. He devoured them both. The sound of their raw flesh being chewed up in his open maw makes my blood boil even now that I’m so cold. . We watched in horror as his beard became soaked with blood.

I alone, I believe, had realized which of us were gone — who the monster had seized to grind between his teeth. It was two of the men who had tasted the red blossoms. They had gone stone still at the sight of the giant and it had been easy for him to snatch them. They hadn’t even tried to bolt away or to slip into one of the cracks in the cavern walls. And this thought brought tears to my eyes. They had experienced a different way of existing, free of anguish and troubles, and my tearing them from this sweet oblivion had killed them.

I’d wanted them with me, thinking they would help me explore a new land, meet peoples and animals unknown to them, face danger if necessary. . and that this would suffice to pull them out of their stupor and indifference. I was wrong. And yet, even as the cavern echoed with the belching of the monster who had stretched out to sleep, I wasn’t sorry I’d done it. I was certain that a man worthy of his name would not give up his memories, forget the faces of his wife and children, reject the land where he was born. Only a coward could leave all that behind in exchange for a life without purpose or meaning. But I was tormented by the ignominious end they’d come to, by the thought that their remains would be digested and expelled by that fetid creature. Deprived of funeral honours, the flames of a pyre and the final rites. Horror gnawed at my heart.

That was the worst night, so atrocious that sometimes I think it was a nightmare, one of those that can kill you because it’s more real than reality is. In those unfamiliar lands, different beyond any imagining, I’d become accustomed to the thought that what I had once considered reality no longer existed; it had been replaced by a turmoil of feelings and passions without beginning or end, without place or time. Possible and impossible became one and the same thing, and time became like the route of a ship that, having lost its bearings, sails in a wide circle while the helmsman believes he’s following a straight course because there is no land in sight and the stars aren’t shining and everything is shrouded in fog.

We spent the night there. My comrades clung to one another in fright and dread and I was certain they were cursing me, in their hearts.

I, alone, gripped my sword. I wanted to slip up on the monster and stick it into his neck all the way to the hilt and then twist it to cut off his airways and make his blood flow and fill his gullet, but I knew that if we killed him we would perish as well. That’s why the cyclops could fall asleep without worrying about us. Once we ran out of food, our last day would soon follow, because there was no way out of the cave. The entrance was sealed off with an enormous boulder that not even the strength of one hundred men would be able to budge. The only other opening was a hole at the top of the cavern that the smoke rose out of, but it was too high up. Unreachable. It was then that my mind came to my aid, or perhaps it was the goddess Athena who inspired me, without letting herself be seen or heard. The one thing I could be sure of was that my thinking was much more wide-ranging and complex than the monster’s and that I could find a way to render him incapable of harming us but not deprive him of his strength: without it, we would never again see the light of day or breathe in the open air.

I crept near my comrades then and said: ‘Don’t lose hope. I’ll save you all.’

‘How’s that?’ said one of those who had eaten the red flower. ‘There’s no way to escape.’

‘Yes, there is. He can only look in a single direction. We have to split up so that while he is looking one way, the others can flee. All we have to do is survive until tomorrow night.’

I managed to convince them to get a little rest. I watched over them as a father watches over his own children. In my heart I was plotting the ruin of the cruel monster who had scoffed at the laws of hospitality and scorned Zeus himself, the protector of all guests. I prayed in the deep silence of the night: ‘Great Zeus, you who keeps wayfarers and guests from harm, allow me to avenge the horrible deaths of my comrades! They escaped the perils of war in the bloody fields of Troy only to die an abominable death in this savage land.’

My prayers said, I slumped against the stone wall of the cavern, in the shelter of a crag, and tried to get some rest, without abandoning myself to sleep.

I was jolted wide awake by the voice of the cyclops, muttering as he tumbled from his bed, and the pounding of his footsteps as he neared the back of the cave. The ground shook under his feet. I saw my comrades’ eyes fill with terror again, but they acted as I had urged them to, separating into two groups. At first, things went as I had predicted. The cyclops was forced to turn his head from one side to the other constantly and he could not seize any one of the men, but then he became enraged by the situation and turned his entire attention to one group alone, driving them into a corner.

Their eyes wildly sought me out, but at that moment I was as helpless as they were. The giant snatched up two of them and ripped off their limbs one by one as they screamed in horror, and then he devoured their mangled trunks. These two had eaten of the flowers as well, and the effects somehow still lingered in them. They had remained isolated from the others, frozen with fear. I could not hold back my tears. They ran down my cheeks as the heart in my chest howled like a rabid dog.

Once he’d finished his meal, the wild man, his round eye staring, separated the lambs from the sheep and then removed the enormous boulder and stood at the opening so none of us could get out. Only the sheep were allowed through, led by a large ram. When they had all scampered out, on their way to grassy pastures, he followed, wedging the big boulder behind him. We were plunged into darkness again, save for the ray of light streaming in through the opening in the ceiling.

I gathered my companions and said: ‘Listen to me. We’re all sickened by what we’ve seen, but I promised that I would save you and I will keep my word. You must promise to obey me, to do what I order you to do. We’re still an army of Achaians and we can win against a miserable beast that feeds on human flesh.’ That is what I said, but my mind was empty. I could not devise any strategy for escape from the horrible fate that seemed to await us all.

I cast my eyes about, desperate for a solution, and made out, leaning on the wall of the cavern, part of the trunk of a young olive tree, a side shoot that had grown as straight as a spike and had been chopped off so that a tool could be made out of it, or a walking stick. I hadn’t noticed it before, although it must have been there. An olive tree. . sacred to you, goddess of the green eyes, daughter of Zeus, Tritonia. There, in the darkness before me, I felt I could see the helmet covering your head, the cuirass and aegis on your chest. It was you who gave me the suggestion, who inspired me. The olive tree is yours, your gift to all of humanity and to me. I who love and venerate you.

‘Take that tree trunk!’ I ordered. ‘I want it stripped of its bark and scraped smooth as the handle of an oar. I’ll take care of the tip.’ Thus work began: the men cut off the smaller branches and removed the bark, working swiftly. Waiting idly for death to take them had made them feel like sheep, not men, while a task that needed doing gave them hope. I unsheathed my sword and set about sharpening one end, with great care. I shaved off small chips first, like a carpenter with his plane, then used my knife and a pumice after that to make the surface perfectly smooth, capable of piercing deeply without the least friction. The longer and sharper I saw the tip becoming, the more intensely my heart savoured the thought of revenge.

When we’d finished, we put the sharp-tipped stake back in its place and covered it with the dung of the sheep and goats.

‘Now all we have to do is wait,’ I said.

‘Wait for what?’ exclaimed one of my comrades, another one of the flower-eaters. ‘For him to devour another one of us?’

I drew close. I knew his parents, who lived on Same but had land on Ithaca as well. His name was Trasimachus.

‘I know what you’re thinking, my friend. You’re thinking that I’m exposing those of you who ate the red flowers to danger in order to get rid of you, but you’re wrong. I saved you from the void. I brought you back to the ships so you could return to your parents who are still waiting for you. You, just like everyone else. I’ve lost too many of you already. It’s you who desires death, even if you don’t know that. The cyclops can sense it. Do you know why he has a single eye? Because his mind isn’t big enough to command two. But he can smell weakness like an animal. And he strikes, without mercy. Now listen well to what I’m saying. Do you see this stake? We’re going to drive it into the monster’s eye and make him blind. Then we’ll take advantage of his strength to open our way to freedom.’

‘That’s not possible! He can even hear us breathing. How can we get close without him jumping to his feet and slaughtering us all?’

‘I’ll worry about that, but I’ll need your help. You are the man who will decide all of our fates. I’ll take aim but you’ll be right behind me. You’ll be the only one able to see the direction of the stake and you’ll direct the men standing behind you, helping me to thrust the sharpened trunk.’

He took a step back. I could see the bewilderment in his eyes.

‘Why me? I’m not capable of it,’ he protested. ‘I’ll make a mistake and ruin everything.’

‘Because you’re the one who has the strongest reason to do it. You have to avenge the companions who sought oblivion with you, and prove to yourself that you can gain command of your life again.’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I can’t. Take someone else.’

‘As you like,’ I said.

The other comrades were gathered around me and listening attentively. I could see hope and rage in their eyes, and I thought that we would succeed. All that day we practised every move, every step, every gesture. I explained when they would have to hold their breath, when they would have to let it out all at once.

‘Think of when you draw your bow,’ I told them, ‘and then of when the enemy you’ve pierced with your spear crashes to the ground in front of you and you yell out in victory.’

It was dusk when we heard bleating and a heavy step approaching the cave door. It filled us with dread. The boulder rolled inwards and the cyclops let his flocks in. The big ram came first, then the sheep and the lambs behind him. Their hulking shepherd opened the pen where the suckling lambs were kept and each one ran to seek out its own mother. When all the animals were back in their folds, the cyclops turned to us. I had no hopes that he’d be feeding on cheese or mutton. He would finish off all of us first.

He grabbed another two of my comrades, the first he could get his hands on. He killed them by dashing them against the walls of the cave, smearing the stone surface with their blood. Then he dismembered them both and ate them greedily. The time had come for me to act. I took the big wooden tub the cyclops used to curdle milk and filled it with the wine we’d brought from the ship inside a sack made of oxhide. It was the wine we’d carried off from Ismarus, sweet and strong. I held it out to him.

‘Now that you’ve eaten human flesh, drink!’ I said. ‘You’ll like this. It’s called wine!’ I exclaimed.

The monster approached and I saw his eye, as big as my own head, observing me. I did not tremble. I knew the life of my companions depended on me. Really, it felt no worse than when we were hidden in the belly of the horse and I heard the voice of Laocoon, the priest of Apollo, calling for the Trojans to set fire to it. The giant stretched out his enormous, hairy hand and seized the bowl, bringing it to his mouth. I watched as he gulped down the foaming red wine and my heart laughed inside my chest, because he was acting like a fool and he would fall into my trap. The monster let his voice be heard: ‘Give me more, it’s good!’ He banged the empty bowl down on the ground.

I gestured for my comrades to fill it again. Then we withdrew to the back of the cave, divided into two groups. The cyclops bent down, picked up the bowl and drained all the wine out of it without spilling a drop.

He belched loudly and then turned to me. ‘I’ve never tasted anything so good in my whole life. I’ve had my fill of sheep’s milk and goat’s milk but this drink is worthy of the gods. You haven’t told me your name yet. Tell me what you are called so I can repay you for your gift!’

I looked at the back of the cave, at its centre, at the empty space between the separate groups of my comrades, and I saw a shadow, on the wall, of an erect figure with spear in hand: Athena! You were back with me again, wanaxa, and all my fears dissolved. How had you found the way to slip into that godless and lawless land?

‘Beware!’ echoed a voice inside my heart. ‘Where there is the sea, there is Poseidon, who embraces all there is.’

I had to answer, and the goddess inspired me, I’m certain of it. ‘You wish to know my name? I’ll tell you my name. My name is No One. Everyone calls me No One.’

‘All right, No One, then I will eat you last. Let that be my guest-gift to you.’ He burst into thunderous laughter.

‘And you?’ I asked then. ‘What is your name?’

‘Polyphemus,’ he replied. ‘Because my fame is, and always will be, great. My father is Poseidon who surrounds all lands. He conceived me with a mountain nymph, Thoosa.’

Those were his last words for the night. He lay down on his bed of sheepskins and for some time he seemed to be staring at one of the two groups of my men, the one on the left. I signalled them to move about so they would attract his attention while I beckoned the other group to join me.

‘Do we have any more wine?’ I asked them.

‘Another tub full,’ they answered, ‘if he should wake up.’

‘He won’t wake up,’ said Trasimachus, the man who had refused to help me drive the stake into the monster’s eye.

I turned to look at the cyclops. He would belch now and then, and a reddish stream dribbled from the side of his mouth, a mixture of wine and blood that made me sick. When his breath had deepened and his body relaxed into unconsciousness, I gathered all my men around the fire, adding branches to stir up the flames.

‘This is the most auspicious moment to act,’ I said. ‘Bring the stake here — we’ll harden the tip in the fire.’

‘Maybe it’s better to wait,’ said Trasimachus, the flower-eater.

‘He’s deep asleep now. Things could change later.’

‘Nothing will change,’ he replied. ‘I added the essence of the red flowers to the wine. We have all the time we want.’

‘So you never stopped.’

He bowed his head and did not answer.

‘Do you mean to help me now?’

‘I have helped you, and now I will grind that stake into his eye. I will avenge my companions.’

‘Let’s go then. After we’ve struck, we’ll all have to run for shelter. The pain will drive him mad.’

The tip of the spike was red and the rod hard and compact as the best olive wood. We seized it and approached the monster, climbing up on an outcropping that rose over his bed. I had taken a brand from the fire to light our way. When we were directly above the cyclops I signalled to my men and we lowered the burning stake until it was hovering directly above his eye. I glanced at Trasimachus and he nodded back. He was ready.

The cyclops turned in his sleep, then lay on his back again. The red tip was coated with a thin layer of ash. I gave a signal and the stake was lowered. Now the point was just a hand’s span from his eye. I laid the firebrand on the ground. I raised one hand and kept the other solidly on the stake.

‘Now!’ I shouted. All my comrades moved as one and the tip descended at the same moment in which the eye opened. There was no expression in it; it was blank and staring, as yellow as the eye of a cetacean from the ocean depths. The red-hot tip sank into his eyeball and, with the help of Trasimachus and the others, I ground it in. His lashes caught fire and blood gushed forth in streams, sizzling in the flames.

‘Go!’ I yelled again, and we scattered in every direction, seeking shelter in the hiding places each one of us had already chosen. I’ll never forget that blank, astonished expression: the eye of a fish. I realized then that what he told me must have been true. That he was the son of the blue god, the lord of the depths.

Polyphemus lurched to his feet with a piercing scream. He pulled the spike out of his eye socket, which looked like a black hole, and flung it away, yelling so loudly that the walls of the cavern shook. He was calling for help. Then he started making grabs for us, fumbling all around, knocking everything over, destroying the pens of the animals who scattered everywhere, terrified. But the tremendous pain overwhelmed him in the end and sapped away his energy. He fell to his knees and moved his hands from his head to his brow, moaning.

Time passed. Voices could be heard outside.

‘What’s happening, Polyphemus?’

‘Has someone attacked you? Thieves? Have you been robbed?’

‘Who has hurt you?’

Other cyclopes, similar to him in size and savagery.

‘No One has hurt me!’ he shouted. ‘No One has attacked me! Help me!’ he roared like a wounded beast.

Long moments of silence. We kept completely still and held our breath.

‘If no one has hurt you, then there’s nothing we can do for you! It’s a plague that only the gods can cure. Pray to your divine father for help. Try to rest. Tomorrow you’ll feel better.’

Their footsteps faded into the distance and my heart laughed in my chest. I savoured the taste of revenge.

The flesh-eating monster wept and wept, all night long, but I thought of my comrades buried in his stinking bowels and I could not rest. I still wanted to hurt him any way I could, more than I already had. But I repressed the seething rage in my heart because my work wasn’t over. For a long time he slumbered, seeming nearly dead, but then he would wave his arms and legs around wildly hoping to snare us in case we’d moved close to get a better look. But I made sure that the men stayed as far away as possible and let no one approach him.

Dawn finally showed her face and a ray of light poured through the ceiling to illuminate the cavern. The cyclops stumbled slowly to his feet, groaning, so that his bulk completely blocked out the light streaming in from above. His dark shadow covered us all. The sheep and goats had begun to bleat more and more loudly, because they were hungry and thirsty. They were used to going out to graze when the sun rose.

Moved to compassion for his flock, the monstrous shepherd groped around until he found the boulder that sealed the entrance to the cave and he moved it. Light flooded into our prison, the tomb of all our hopes. It was I who had opened the cavern door, my mind that commanded the arms of the colossus.

As the sheep began to move out, the cyclops lowered his hands to make sure that we were not trying to slip out among them. He patted each animal, recognizing it by its fleece.

I had assembled my men and told them the plan I’d devised for their escape. We took the ropes made of palm fibres that were lying about the cave and with the help of Trasimachus I trussed the sheep together three at a time and then slung a man under the belly of each middle one. I bound Trasimachus as well, and then watched them all slip out from between the giant’s legs as he let his flock through.

I was last to leave, hidden under the belly of the big ram, clutching his wool. I realized that this was the fulfilment of the prophecy my mother had made when I’d returned from my first hunting party with grandfather Autolykos; I felt sure I could follow my companions out. But this was instantly cast into doubt when the cyclops recognized the ram and began stroking him gently: ‘How is it that you are last to leave, dear old friend? You would always run out first to lead the sheep to pasture and today you are the last. Are you sad for your master, who can no longer see the light of the sun?’ His hands lingered on the deep fleece and more than once his immense fingers brushed my own. My heart trembled thinking of the fate that would befall me if he caught me. I would not even have the time to grasp my sword and slay myself; he would make sure that I suffered all the agony that a man can suffer at the hands of the most cruel of torturers. This time my anguish was even more acute than when, from a crack in the hollow belly of the horse built by Epeius, I spied the fiery torch held by Laocoon, priest of Troy.

But he allowed the ram to pass and I finally let myself drop to the ground. I got up and hastened to join my companions who were waiting for me. We ran down the path that led back to our ship. When we reached the seashore we embraced one another in tears. For me they were like brothers or sons for whose lives I had long feared. The joy in my heart was great because I had not failed them; I had snatched them from an atrocious death. I’d returned them to the light of the sky, the scents of the earth, the colours of the sea. The last to embrace me was Trasimachus, the man who had eaten the red flowers.

‘You’ve given me back my life, wanax Odysseus. And now, my king, take us home!’ he said. I grasped him tightly and could not hold back my tears. One after another we all boarded the ship, myself last, and we cast off the moorings. My crew were bent hard over the oars, so anxious were they to leave that accursed land. At the prow, I was keeping a watchful eye on our course when I spotted the cyclops at the top of a cliff, leaning on a tree trunk the way a shepherd leans on a staff when guiding his sheep. My shipmates had seen him as well and were rowing with all their might to distance the ship as quickly as possible from the shore.

But I could not hold back, at the sight of the monster who had held us in his thrall. I yelled: ‘Cyclops!’

My voice echoed like thunder on the sea.

He heard me and wheeled around to try to understand where my voice was coming from. My comrades implored me to keep silent, in vain.

‘Cyclops!’ I shouted again. ‘You disrespected the sacred laws that protect guests by devouring my comrades and you’ve paid the price for your savagery. If someone one day asks you who blinded you, tell him that it was Odysseus, son of Laertes, king of Ithaca, destroyer of cities. It is I who took the light from you!’

My words infuriated him. With brute force, he ripped off the peak of the mountain he stood on and hurled it into the sea. The huge rock fell just in front of our prow, raising a huge wave that pushed us back towards land. The men were terrified that the threat we had just escaped would engulf us again. They set to their oars with renewed vigour, but Polyphemus flung out another and even heavier boulder which just missed the ship, landing in the wake of our stern. The billow it created pushed us out on the open sea and towards the island.

I could hear the giant’s voice in the distance. He was imploring his implacable father, Poseidon, to avenge him, but his words could not touch me, not yet, so great was my joy at that moment for having freed my friends and delivered them from a horrible death, and so deep was my grief at seeing the still oars and empty benches on my ship. The taste of the vengeance I had just inflicted was strong and bitter. Not even the blue god who the giant claimed as his father could heal him.

I let out the triple cry of the kings of Ithaca, shrill as the scream of an eagle.

The echo of Polyphemus’ ranting rang in my ears for the whole stretch of sea that separated us from the low island and stuck in my heart like a freezing blade.

When we went ashore on the island, we learned that our comrades had been struck by foreboding when we failed to return. Eurylochus had readied a strong combat unit with archers and heavily armed warriors to set off for the mainland in search of us. But the great exultation that greeted us soon faded when it became clear that a number of the men who had set out with me were no longer with us. In so many years of war the bonds between the men had become very deep. They’d always protected one another on the battlefield and every fallen comrade represented a wound in their hearts that wouldn’t be healed. It was like they were all members of the same family.

The men had not whiled away their time in our absence — they’d hunted, and captured a good number of wild goats. They were divided up, and we included the sheep we’d managed to carry off from the cyclops’ flock. In all, the crew of each ship were allotted ten animals, with eleven for me, out of respect.

The cyclops’ curse still sounded in my heart. I dragged a fat sheep to the seashore, skinned it and burned the thighs and the best parts in sacrifice to Zeus, in the hopes that this might ward off the ill omen that chased me over the waters as I escaped from that cursed, lawless land peopled by creatures without respect for gods or men. I thought of Calchas, of what he’d said to me that day long ago under the wild fig tree of Troy. I wished he were present, so he could tell me whether the god was pleased with my offering, or disdained it. I could not tell on my own. I sacrificed the animal for nothing, I know that now, but then I still nourished hope.

When I returned to our camp, the men had butchered other sheep and goats, opened jars of wine and lit fires to roast the meat. We ate and drank until sunset on the sand still warm from the rays of the sun. Everyone was quiet. Those who had encountered the cyclops wanted to forget and the comrades who had stayed on the island sensed that something awful had taken place but didn’t have the courage to ask. Little by little, as time passed, as I breathed in the scents of land and sea, watched the stars glittering in a clear sky, listened to the bleating of the kids tagging along after their mothers as they wandered the fields, I could almost forget what had happened. I even had a brief, fleeting sensation that nothing had happened, nothing at all. That I’d dreamed it all up. Perhaps I could even believe that; I’d understood by then that things were true if we believed them. My thoughts went back to my adolescence. .

‘Atta, when I was at grandfather’s house, I saw the goddess Athena.’

‘Sleep, my son.’

What would King Laertes my father have said to me at that moment had he been present? If I told him: ‘Atta, a giant with a single eye in the middle of his forehead, as tall as a pine tree on Mount Neritus, devoured six of my comrades’?

‘Sleep, my son.’

Yes, sleep, heart of mine, sleep if you can.

‘What happened to the men who are missing?’

The voice was Eurylochus’.

‘Ask the others. I’m tired. Too tired, understand? Tomorrow we’ll leave here — we have a long voyage ahead of us. We have to get home, and do you know why? Because even on this side of the wall of fog we crossed — When had that happened? — the sun rises in front of us and sets behind us. When we reach Ithaca and we enter the great port, when we have mourned our dead and embraced our loved ones, all of this will vanish. For always, like a nightmare at the rising of the sun.’

Eurylochus said no more and walked away. I stretched out on the sand and covered myself with my cloak. Distant in the night, on the mainland, I heard a groaning like that of a dying animal. A long suffocated wail. A shrill wind whistled back from the sea.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: my fleet, at such a short distance from the destination we had so long desired, was being pushed away by the violence of the wind and sea. I shouted to be heard over the din of the storm: ‘What happened? Where are we? Why didn’t you wake me?’

Only the howl of the wind answered me. The men were racing back and forth on the ship. Elpenor was clutching the handle of the steering oar at the stern but could barely hold it steady, so great was the force of the breaking waves. Massive amounts of water were pouring into the hull and the men at the oars were struggling to steady the ship, so she would not tip sideways into the waves. The sail had been partially, but not completely, taken in, a sign that the crew had been surprised by the storm. My eyes fixed upon the big sack, no longer stowed in the hold at the stern and secured with strong ropes, but flapping from one side of the boat to the other. The silver chain that closed its mouth was gone. Desperation seized me, but what was happening left me no time to speak with my men. I had to save the fleet and guide it back to calm waters; the rest I would take care of when the time came.

We sailed for many days and nights. I never moved my eyes from the long slanting line of fires that signalled the presence of the other ships. Then, just like the first time, the winds stopped blowing almost all at once, a thin mist hovered over the flat sea, and the air was filled with silence.

Little by little, above the mist, the peaks of an island appeared and then a plume of dark smoke rising towards the sky. Walls and houses of bronze were next, and then a palace encircled by bastions made of a greyer, more opaque metal. It advanced slowly towards us, cleaving the fog, and the waters opened into two waves tipped with white foam. The gods had helped me! The wind had carried me back to the floating island of Aeolus, tamer of storms. We had become friends: he would help me again.

As I made ready to go ashore, signalling to the rest of the fleet to remain at a distance, a voice thundered from above: ‘How is it you’re back, king of Ithaca? Hadn’t I closed up all the contrary winds in the skin and left Zephyr alone free?’

His voice had changed. The charming sovereign of the island, who had hosted me for a month of banqueting with his children, the sons and daughters who were married to one another, now spoke with an incredibly powerful and rather threatening tone. The air trembled, the sky rumbled.

I replied: ‘Noble lord, hear my words! I manned the steering oar for eight days and eight nights without ever closing an eye, for fear of being surprised by the unexpected. On the ninth day, when I was finally in sight of my island, I fell prey to sleep. When I awoke, the storm was raging against us and the winds brought me back here. The skin that you had given me was open. I beg of you, in the name of hospitality: help me once again, close up all the foul winds in the sack and allow Zephyr to carry me home again!’

Silence fell again, heavily. The voice of the tamer of winds tore through the still air: ‘Leave now, and don’t ever dare to come back! If you did not succeed in reaching your island with everything that I did for you, this means you are an abominable being, hated by the gods. I will not help you and thus turn the gods against myself. Get out of here, I said, forever!’

At that moment I understood, as if lightning had struck me, the meaning of my name. I was not he who hated, but he who aroused hatred. I had never before fully felt the curse inherent in my name. The inextinguishable hate of a god pursued me.

The words of Polyphemus, which I had tried to drown at the bottom of my heart, surged back then, clear and strong: ‘. . may he return late, a broken man! All his companions lost. .’ Until that moment, I’d forced the words he’d used to petition his father out of my mind, pretended to myself that I hadn’t understood them.

I gave orders to bring the ships about because we had no choice — the wind was blowing in that direction. I would act as if the worst had not happened, I would not surrender. I would fight with everything I had to get my mates and my ships back to Ithaca as soon as the wind changed direction. Then I sank to the aft deck, covered my head and my face with my cloak, and wept.

I left the island with a heavy heart. I couldn’t help but ask myself what had happened when I was sleeping in that slumber that resembled death. Perhaps my shipmates had loosed the chain that closed the neck of the large skin, imagining it contained sparkling treasure and precious gifts. I thought of Aeolus, the tamer of winds: did he truly have the power to trap them all in a sack? Or was it a way to make me believe that he did? I remembered the words I heard once from a sailor who had brought my father back to Ithaca from Iolcus after the expedition of the Argonauts. He told me: ‘There’s a point, very far west from here, where all the winds cancel each other out, resulting in a perfect calm. The problem is that it doesn’t last very long. The way it ends is that one of those winds, but only one, starts to blow again. If it blows east, you’ll find your home and your family. If it blows in the opposite direction, you’ll find yourself lost in unknown places that very few have ever made return from.’

Then the weather cleared up. The sun shone in a cloudless sky and a warm wind began to prevail, pushing us north and west, but my comrades seemed rueful and tormented. For two more days, we never spoke about what had happened. In the end it was me who brought it up, with Eurylochus, Elpenor, Euribates and all the others: ‘I found the sack open. I don’t want to know what happened when I fell asleep, because my anger won’t change things. Whatever it is you did, there’s no remedy for it now. All we can do is remain together and use all the resources of our minds and bodies to fight off ill fortune. What I want to tell you is this: the winds starting blowing against us because that is what winds do; we all know that winds change. And that’s all. Nature acts in every moment of every day and every year of our existence on this earth, while the gods act only now and then, and always remain hidden. We conquered Ismarus, we overcame the temptations of the red flowers, we defeated the cyclops, that bloody monster, and we were about to reach the homeland we have been longing for. Destiny decided differently, but we must not lose heart. I’m asking you to believe in me, because my only aim is to get you back home. I promise that I will share the spoils of war with you. You will not return to Ithaca empty-handed after so many long years. But only after we’ve entered the great port of Ithaca.’

I believe my words rallied them; at least, they went back to work with renewed vigour. After four more days and four more nights of sailing we came within view of a craggy, lush land, covered with red, yellow and blue flowers and deep-green foliage. The sea bottom beneath our boats was strikingly visible as the waters took on a light blue and then an intense green colour. It reminded us greatly of certain parts of Achaia and this touched our hearts. On our left was a small island connected to the mainland by a narrow sandy strip, which led to a wide arching beach so white that its sands sparkled like silver. There was also a larger island, shaped like the head of an arrow, joined to the mainland by a slightly wider stretch of sand mostly covered by shrubs. Dolphins leapt out of the sea, accompanying our ships. On either side of us, schools of iridescent silvery fish slid through the water like a festive procession leading the fleet ashore. The seven vessels sailed in a straight line at a short distance from the coast. There was no danger: the water was transparent as air, and the sea bottom was perfectly visible. When we had passed the second peninsula a wide channel opened to our right, leading inland.

‘What shall we do, wanax?’ asked Eurylochus.

‘We’ll enter the channel. It will probably take us to a safe, sheltered harbour. We need water and food. Perhaps we’ll be able to hunt here, and pick wild fruit. I don’t see any inhabitants along the coast or any other signs of danger. But keep your weapons ready — the bows foremost, then the spears and javelins. When we land, a few of us will venture out unarmed, knowing that the rest of you are behind us, ready to defend us with the same rage and swiftness you showed under the walls of Troy.’

They obeyed and relayed the alarm status to the rest of the fleet. Each ship responded by flashing shields. I watched with pride as they attached quivers full of arrows to the rails. As I kept watching, they drew their bows and hooked the bull-tendon strings. Their chests were fitted with shining bronze cuirasses and their legs with greaves.

Their shields hung from the rails: the sun reflected by the water lit them up, one after another. My ships. . I can still see them gliding over the shining waters. Slim, perfect, powerful cetaceans.

Each of them had a lookout posted at the top of the mast. They scanned the slopes of the high, rocky banks of the channel. We made our way forward in complete silence until a point where the channel seemed to end but, as I approached, I saw that there was another narrower passage that led to a second basin: a marvellous, perfect haven. A spring gurgled nearby, and flowed into the harbour.

I signalled for the others to follow and they did so, one after another, slipping into the well-sheltered pool.

There were no ships moored there, but many large boats filled with fishing gear. On the heights above us, tall, solid stone towers were scattered here and there, with parapets at their tops. My fleet was arranged in a semicircle facing the coast. I chose three of my men, Cephalonians all, as scouts; they lowered themselves into the water, which was shallow enough to allow them to walk ashore.

‘Go and see if there is a city nearby,’ I told one of them, our herald, ‘and if possible find out who governs it. Perhaps they will be able to tell us where we find ourselves, and the route we must follow to return home. We’re travelling through a remote region that none of us knows.’

I watched as they reached the shore and approached the spring. A girl soon walked up to them. She was very beautiful and wore a bright gown of multicoloured wool, with golden necklaces and glittering pendants on her ears. She was carrying a jar on her head and had come to the spring to draw water. The men seemed to be conversing with her. It was only then, when I saw them next to her, that I realized how tall she was. Gigantic.

The girl raised her finger, pointing to something behind the hill. The men waved and signalled to us that they were going to follow her.

Eurylochus came up to me: ‘I don’t like this place. It seems deserted and yet it feels like someone is watching us from those towers up there.’

‘If they are, they’ll see that we have no hostile intentions. We’ve made no show of arms. We’ve just sent out a few men, who’ve asked a girl for directions. We’ll wait for them to come back. Don’t worry — they’ll return soon.’

We waited all afternoon for our comrades to come back. Euribates and Elpenor put out fish-traps and nets. The sea bottom was crawling with shrimps and crabs bigger than any I’d ever seen before. I sent a few more men to shore to collect reserves of fresh water. They filled jars at the spring and passed them from hand to hand in the low water until the last man of the chain hoisted them aboard ship. Standing in the water had the odd effect of distorting their proportions, so that the part of their bodies outside the water seemed long and their legs short and stubby. prepare for spending the night. It would have made sense to go ashore, light fires and cook a meal and then stretch out on the sand to sleep comfortably, but something told me that Eurylochus was right.

‘We’d better stay on the ships until our men return. It will be safer.’

I had just said this when I heard shouts coming from the area where the spring was. Two of our men were scrambling down the slope that led to the sea as fast as their legs could carry them.

‘We have to get away from here!’ they were yelling. ‘Fast! Fast!’

They dived into the sea and swam swiftly to the ship of Perimedes, the chief of the Cephalonians, who quickly pulled them on board. I drew up with my own ship so that it was nearly touching theirs. ‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘Laestrygonians! Fierce, gigantic savages!’ replied the herald in a ragged voice. ‘They got our shipmate, cut him to pieces and devoured him. It’s a miracle we got away.’ Their eyes were filled with terror. Gasping to catch a breath, they were sobbing like children. And these were my tough, seasoned Cephalonian warriors. I didn’t wait an instant, and shouted out: ‘Let’s go! Head east! We’re getting out of this trap! Row, row, row as fast as you can, set to it!’

These words were not out of my mouth when an incredibly loud noise rent the late afternoon silence. I saw an enormous boulder rolling downhill along one of the gullies carved out by rainwater. It was picking up speed at a tremendous rate as it fell. A short rise at the bottom of the long slope gave it the lift it needed to go sailing through the air. It fell square on one of our ships, breaking it in two. Screams of pain and despair echoed behind us but I shouted for my men to keep rowing. There was no time to stop or try to save the crew flailing in the frothing waves.

Another boulder appeared at the rim of the crater that crowned the high cliffs encircling the harbour and, as if pushed by invisible hands, started rolling down towards us. Then another, and another, and yet another: it was a frightful sight and the din was terrifying. One after another, the ships were struck, broken, smashed, reduced to shapeless wrecks. The sea was covered with splintered planks and ruined gear. The beautiful, agile ships that had braved so many a violent storm had been destroyed and the clear, calm mirror of our hidden haven was thick with blood and dust, strewn with corpses, wounded sailors and survivors who were desperately trying to swim to shore. That was when we learned what the boats were for. Giant brutes boarded them clutching harpoons, and steered them through the water, spearing anyone who was still alive as if they were fish. They pulled the bodies on board and took them to shore. It wasn’t difficult to understand what they were going to do with them, given the reports of the men who had already met up with them.

I found myself alone, with my ship and my crew, outside the port. I had lost the entire fleet that had followed me to Troy, which had departed from the port of Ithaca so many years earlier amid blaring bugles and fluttering standards. Unhappy companions of so many battles, of so many adventures! I wept bitterly. My shipmates wept for them, an endless stream of tears. I couldn’t stop thinking about those who I had forced, against their will, to leave the land of the flower-eaters, the land of oblivion. They would still be alive, enjoying seductive pleasures, free of any worries. If not happy, at least untroubled. Now they were only dead meat, butchered for the meal of ferocious savages.

We waited until late afternoon, but nothing happened. They did not come back. When evening drew close and we still didn’t see them, I reasoned that they’d been invited to stay for dinner and a cup of good wine. Nothing bad could come of it. They had already suffered such unspeakable pain, what else could possibly happen?

We waited the next day as well, but when I saw they weren’t returning I decided to go and look for them. They knew we would be worried. I’d made them promise to return as soon as they could. In any event, even if he had decided to enjoy the hospitality offered, Eurylochus would have surely sent one of the others back to tell me, given that it was such a short distance.

‘Wait for me,’ I told the others. ‘Do not move from here, I’m going alone. If by nightfall I haven’t returned, leave. Weigh the anchor and get away from here. Imagine that I have embraced each one of you, like brothers, before you set sail.’

Elpenor regarded me with an odd smile. The light skipped across his eyes, causing them to glitter with golden specks. ‘Come back soon, wanax. I don’t think we’re going anywhere without you. We’ve been together too long.’

I smiled back and then set off with a long stride. I crossed a thicket of low bushes first and then a stretch of sand that must have been carried there by the wind that blew between two high cliffs. I then entered a forest of centuries-old oaks, advancing cautiously, with my hand on the hilt of my sword. The wood was strangely quiet. The trees were still full of leaves, but I could hear no birdsong or the fluttering of wings. Not even a cricket chirped to disturb that deepening silence.

All at once, I became aware of a sensation I knew well: a sort of tremor under my skin, a sudden chill in my heart and the certainty that someone was near. Just then, a voice made me jump. My sword sprang into my hand.

‘You won’t need that here.’

A beautiful youth, with the sun in his hair, was sitting on a boulder a few steps away from me. He was holding a flower.

‘Do you live on this island? Is that your house with the hearth smoking?’

‘Not really. I come and go. It’s a tranquil place, this. Hardly anyone ever passes by but the few who do never leave.’

I drew closer. ‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked.

‘Just what I said. Why, does that seem strange to you?’

‘No, if it weren’t for the fact that I mean to stay for a short time and leave again as soon as possible.’

‘Why such haste?’

‘I want to know where my men are. I sent them to search for that house and they never came back. Do you know anything about that?’

He smiled.

‘And there’s something else I find strange about this place,’ I added. ‘It’s warm here, and yet there’s always a wisp of smoke rising from that house.’

‘They must be cooking something. Perhaps they’re expecting guests. Perhaps they have guests.’

Cold terror seized me. My mind filled with monstrous, ferocious creatures who feed on human flesh. But a voice sounded in my heart: ‘That’s not the danger.’

‘Who are you? Can you tell me your name?’ I insisted.

‘I’d better not. But there is something I can do for you.’

He pointed at a plant not far from us. It wasn’t too big and it had tough, leathery leaves: ‘Take it.’

I grabbed hold of it and yanked with all my strength but it wouldn’t pull free. I unsheathed my sword.

‘No, you have to pull out the whole thing.’

‘I can’t.’

‘It’s easy, look.’

He reached out a hand, closed it around the tuft and uprooted it easily. He shook the dirt off, letting it fall on the ground, and held it out to me. ‘This plant is special,’ he said. ‘It’s called moly. Have you ever heard of it?’

I shook my head.

‘You have to eat the whole root before you go to that house. It will protect you.’

‘It isn’t poisonous, is it?’ I asked.

‘On the contrary. Go now, follow the smoke.’

‘Thank you. I’ll do as you say. Farewell.’

I set off.

The voice sounded again, behind me: ‘Don’t ever part from your sword.’

‘I never do,’ I replied, turning.

There was no one behind me.

I cut the root into pieces and ate it. It tasted like bitter almonds, and dripped a sour juice. I went forward, following the swirl of smoke that I could see above the tops of the trees. I’d gone a good distance; it seemed as though I must have crossed the entire island, from one side to another. I finally reached a clearing and then suddenly heard the distant, suffocated roar of a lion. I knew it was a lion because I’d heard them in the land of the flower-eaters and I’d spotted one prowling outside the village. A lion! I drew my sword. But other voices were joining the roar now: howls, snorts, growls, hisses, as if a slew of wild animals were roaming the island. Birds of prey, enormous reptiles. I felt my skin crawling and my heart froze in my chest. What was this place? Where had my world disappeared to? Had I lost it forever?

Just a day ago, as I was climbing up the promontory with my men, it almost seemed as if we could have been on Ithaca and now, instead, it felt like each step I took was distancing me from reality, from the things that had a familiar meaning, from the shapes and sounds I’d learned to recognize on my island since I was a child. I thought of the years of war, of all that blood. I had endured privations, wounds, horrible losses, but I recognized the places I found myself in, the voices around me. I laughed and I cried. But since I had passed the wall of fog and reached the land of the flower-eaters I had lost my mind, and my heart was prey to wild imaginings. Events seemed to hang between doubt and unreality. As I crossed the clearing, I felt those same strange sensations again, but I was beginning to understand (or was it vain hope instead?) that my journey had a destination, albeit an unfamiliar one, and that it was about to be revealed to me.

After I’d crossed another stretch of forest, I found myself at last in front of the house with the smoke rising from its roof. It was close to sunset, the hour in which the sun enflames the sea. There were the animals whose cries I’d heard, locked up in big cages made of thick reeds or bronze bars. I saw the lion, pacing back and forth, incessantly roaring, an enormous grey-green lizard with a pointed tongue, a snake I’d never seen before, as thick as a man’s neck and all coiled up on itself. I could also hear the grunting of pigs and the deep bellow of a wild bull.

How could I go forward? How could I find my companions? I suddenly heard the voice of one of them in my ear, like a breath: ‘Wanax. .’

‘Where are you?’ I cried out. ‘Speak up, where are you?’

I shouted, more loudly: ‘Where are you all?’

The animals calmed, fell silent. The snake pulled in its pointed tongue and laid its head down on the bottom of its cage.

A woman’s voice startled me, coming from behind me: ‘Who are you looking for, foreigner?’ I spun around.

It was difficult to believe what I was seeing: her hair was violet and her eyes shone with a changing light whenever she shifted her head. The eyes of a dragon, of a quivering deer, of a greedy hawk. . Her gown hung luminous from her shoulders in a myriad of tiny pleats, whispering of the wind, of the foam of the sea. From her stomach down, it divided into infinite filaments and with every step slipped between her perfect thighs, revealing smooth, ivory skin.

I replied: ‘Who are you who speak my language?’

‘We all speak the same language, haven’t you noticed?’

‘I’m looking for my men. Have you seen them?’

She moved in front of me. ‘Men? No. I’ve seen no one. But come, there’s a shady garden inside the house, the sun won’t burn us there. Many flowers grow within, and their scent is inebriating. You must be hungry, foreigner, you look like you’ve been walking a long time.’

She turned and I followed her towards the house. We entered. Her feet seemed to barely skim the floor made of marble as blue as the waves of the sea, with black and gold streaks. Ceiling beams of cedar wood rested on top of tall columns. From each hung a wicker cage with intensely coloured songbirds inside. Their eyes were bright, curious. ‘Foreigner foreigner foreigner,’ they sighed.

A garden opened in the middle of the house, a fountain gurgling softly at its centre. Plants bowed over the water, flowers, flowers everywhere, of every marvellous colour, releasing a sublime scent made up of infinite fragrances.

She offered me a chair and sat down opposite me. Sitting on the lush green grass was a large bowl of embossed gold, with a thin alabaster cover. She opened it and, using a silver ladle, filled a smaller cup for me. ‘Take this,’ she said. ‘With this you’ll eat, with this you’ll drink. I prepare it only for my most honoured guests.’

‘There’s no reason to honour me.’

‘For me there is, foreigner of the smiling eyes.’

My gaze was unwavering. I brought the cup to my lips and drank slowly, in small sips, without ever hiding my eyes behind the rim of the cup.

‘What is your name?’ I asked her. She regarded me as if I were an alien creature, who eluded her understanding. She took a stick and tapped it on my shoulder.

‘Won’t you tell me?’ I insisted.

She touched me again and now I saw incredulity on her face.

‘Nothing is going to happen,’ I said firmly.

She seemed dismayed, but then instantly gave me an enchanting smile. ‘Now that you’ve had some nourishment, won’t you come upstairs with me? That’s where my bedroom is.’

I smiled back, as I swiftly drew my sword from the sheath at my side and pointed it at her throat. ‘No more smiles, lovely wanaxa?’

‘You don’t know what you’re missing. You would slay a body that could give you infinite pleasures never experienced by any man on this earth?’

‘Without a moment’s hesitation.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want my men back. That’s why I came. What have you done with them?’

‘They entered my house. They surrounded me and looked at me greedily, like pigs, full of obscene lust, ready to lay their hands on me. Now they’re out with the pigs. Didn’t you hear them grunting out there?’

I pushed the blade against her throat. A tiny pressure and her blood would spurt out to stain her white breasts and beautiful gown. I gave the golden cup a kick, and the liquid inside spilled out onto the ground. ‘My men!’ I shouted.

She understood that she had no choice. ‘Follow me,’ she said, and walked towards the door. We reached a pig enclosure. There were my men, naked, in the mud and excrement, snorting and rolling around with the swine. Tear filled my eyes, so great was the compassion I felt for them.

‘Free them,’ I said, and then the tone of my voice changed: ‘I beg you.’

She listened to me. She took her stick and touched their filth-smeared backs, one by one. One after another they got up, realized what had happened, what they had become and, overcome with shame, they wept.

‘Go to the stream and wash,’ I ordered. ‘You’re repugnant. Look for your clothes and run to the ship. Tell Elpenor that you’ve seen me and that I’m in no danger.’

The lady of the island approached me and said gently: ‘My name is Circe. I’ve always lived in this place, so distant from any other. Who are you? What is your name? I don’t know you, and yet I’ve always known that a man immune to my spell would come here one day.’

‘I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, and I reign over the island of Ithaca. As we were returning from war, a howling gale drove us far off our route and dragged us into a world unknown to us. I could not have imagined that such a world existed. But now, wanaxa, know that I come in peace and that I respect your house and your person. The stick you hold did not turn me into an animal because I’ve always been a man, at every hour of the day and night, before other men and before women. You see, I trust in my mind and in the thoughts, versatile and complex, which the gods have graced me with.’

‘Tell your men they can all come here. There will be abundant food for them, pure water and wine. You can all stay as long as you like.’

I followed her and a big dog with long fangs lay down at her feet and licked them.

‘Was he a man as well?’ I asked her.

‘Yes, as faithful as a dog. Too much so. You’re seeing him now as I see him, but he’s still a man, look closer.’

The dog had disappeared. The dark-skinned man standing in front of me had downcast eyes and his arms crossed over his chest.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Here nothing is what it seems. But even Odysseus needed help in order to face me.’

‘I just needed to believe in myself. A youth in the woods gave me the roots of a plant to eat, as a defence against your spells. But I was sure, from the moment I set off, that nothing would be able to bend me. It was that belief, not the plant, that made me resistant.’

‘You have the gift, Odysseus. Like me. . and very few others.’

I thought of Calchas. He too had used the very same words under the wild fig tree. I still remembered him whispering into my ear and what I, at the same moment, told him.

It was quite dark when the men I’d sent to the ship returned, including Eurylochus. They wouldn’t come close to the house; they hung back, at the edge of the clearing, watchful and uneasy. The animals’ cries and the memory of what they’d just gone through were still too fresh in their minds. I went out to them and tried to convince them to come in with me, but they insisted on staying where they were, at least for the night, and I didn’t want to force them. I stayed with them for some time and even had food brought to them, which they didn’t touch.

‘You needn’t worry,’ I said to them. ‘No ill will befall you now. You can post armed sentries all night, sleep with your swords at your sides, and tomorrow, when the sun rises, you’ll see that I was right. I’ll come back here unharmed and perhaps then you’ll follow me to the house of Circe, the lady of this place.’ Some of them looked away, confused, but not Eurylochus. I embraced him and whispered into his ear: ‘Yours is the command. Make any decision you feel necessary, but do not fear. Tomorrow you’ll see me back here at first light.’

He exchanged my embrace, vigorously, and stood watching me from the edge of the clearing until I turned and raised my hand when I reached the house of Circe.

When I entered it was lit by lanterns, but empty. Only the scent of unfamiliar flowers wafted between the columned hall and the secret inner garden. I heard a sound coming from the upstairs chamber, a song as light as a morning breeze. I went up the stairs, following the voice, until I found myself at the door to a room: the space inside seemed infinitely big and the melody hung in the air like the scent I was breathing. Circe lay on a purple bed, which rested on a tree that came up from the garden below. There was no floor. The branches were decked with big red leaves and dozens and dozens of fleshy white flowers that gave off the gentle scent I’d smelled. Circe was naked: only her long hair veiled her breasts.

‘Isn’t this the bed you’ve been desiring for so long?’ she asked me.

‘This tree didn’t exist when I entered the garden.’

‘True. It grew while you were talking to your men.’

I nodded. ‘I see. Nothing on this island is what it seems. Not even you, I imagine.’

‘Not even me,’ she replied, ‘but what does it matter?’ She held out her arms to me. ‘Come, son of Laertes. I’ve been waiting for you for such a long time. I knew that you would come, and that my spell would not break you. Don’t be afraid. Walk on the branches of the tree; any one of them leads to my bed. Choose any one you like.’

I hesitated. The flowers made me wary and so did Circe; I couldn’t believe that she had given up. But I was tired. I’d suffered too much pain, too much loss and I longed to abandon myself to a woman’s caress. High-waisted Circe with her proud breasts and long hair that swayed around her body. I pulled off the baldric that held my sword and hung it from one of the branches. Her arms drew me in. Her love was like pure wine. I lost myself in the dark magic of her eyes.

When I awoke, she was sleeping next to me on a bed of carved wood with sheets of white linen. My sheathed sword lay on a floor made of a semi-precious, ochre-coloured stone. I looked at her: a young maiden, immersed in serene sleep. Dawn was lightening the horizon and I went to seek my comrades. They greeted me with joy. The sentries were toasting bread over a fire, topped with cheese they’d cut with their swords.

‘Eat with us, wanax,’ they said, smiling. I took my place next to them as the others began to awaken. The birds saluted the rising sun with their song, the sea curled lazily along the long golden beach; the island woke up with us and everything seemed familiar to our eyes.

‘See, Eurylochus? Nothing happened. We’re all well and we’ve found a marvellous place to rest in.’

Circe welcomed them graciously and accepted them all as her guests. The place was as beautiful as any we had ever seen and as one day turned into the next, we felt at ease, at home, almost. Time passed without any of us really noticing. My men fished, hunted, inspected the hull of the ship, replaced the parts harmed by the storms and the lashing waves, mended the sail. But I felt uncomfortable with them, because I was the only one among them enjoying something they could only dream about: the graces of a woman of stupendous beauty. . if she was a woman at all.

One day, near the end of autumn, I was stretched out in the shade of a palm tree when she came up and sat on the sand next to me. ‘Time has flown. It seems like yesterday that you arrived.’

‘Nothing is what it seems on this island. That’s what you told me, remember?’

‘That’s right,’ she replied, and she ran her fingers through my hair, slowly. ‘You’ll leave, won’t you?’

‘Yes. I have to take my men home, as I promised them when we left for Troy so many years ago. They yearn for their homeland and they are sad at heart.’

I realized for all that time I’d been able to forget the words of Polyphemus, and that I was able to remember fondly the men I’d lost to the Laestrygonians; no longer were they bloody, restless spirits in my mind.

‘I imagined as much. I’ve always feared this day. I’ll remain here alone. I’ll walk the beach endlessly by day or toss sleeplessly in my bed at night. .’

‘Perhaps other ships will arrive, attracted by the plume of smoke that always rises into the sky from this island. .’ I said. ‘But why must you stay in this house?’

Her eyes were shaded with melancholy when she answered: ‘Each one of us has a debt to pay. Even you. .’

‘Even me,’ I replied, ‘and I can’t wait to see the end of it.’

‘I know. . Can’t you forget?’

‘How can I? I’m responsible for my men. I’ve already lost too many of them. But you, my divine friend, you who have a greater gift than anyone I have ever met, can’t you tell me what you see in my future? Will I ever get back? Will I see my island again and my family, will I take my men home with me?’

Circe touched my lips with her fingers. ‘Is knowing the future what you really want? Isn’t it better not to know what awaits us?’

‘No, I have to know. I’m tired of living in doubt, in uncertainty.’

‘What you want to know is a secret guarded by the Moirai. They are cruel, vindictive divinities, and I can’t help you. There’s only one man who could, but he’s not among the living.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Tiresias, the seer. He could tell you, but he is imprisoned in implacable Hades, and if you want to consult him you’ll have to go to where he is. You’ll have to call up the shades of the dead.’ She looked away from me, as if trying to hide the feelings in her heart.

‘Can’t you teach me how?’

‘Oh, king of Ithaca, what terrible things you ask of me on this luminous afternoon! But if you really want me to, I will teach you.’

‘I do. And if you do this for me, you’ll always have a place in my heart.’

She sighed. ‘Push your agile ship into the sea and sail due west until you reach the shore of the deep Ocean. You will see a cliff as white as silver with a cave beneath it, and there you will go ashore. Use your sword to dig a ditch one cubit wide by one cubit long. Cut the throats of black-coated victims, and collect their blood in the ditch. Scatter handfuls of flour, the best, and honey, to attract the idle ghosts. . and then you may invoke the pale-headed dead. Call them again and again, and they will come to you. . in great number.’

The sun was hot and radiant in the centre of the sky and I felt cold chills. Lovable Circe, her long hair like waves of the sea, continued: ‘Hold them off with your sword. They’ll still be afraid of it, even if they can’t die twice, and allow only Tiresias to drink the black blood of the victims. Then he will speak to you, and tell you the whole truth.’ She fell still and her head dropped as if succumbing to a mysterious weariness.

‘Thank you,’ I replied, ‘for not being deaf to my pleas. I will always hold your memory dear in my heart.’

‘Remember,’ she said, ‘it is a terrible thing to meet the shadows of the dead.’

‘I know.’

‘Can’t you stay a little longer? The autumn is almost over. The force of the wind will build, and churn up foamy waves on the sea.’

I lowered my head without answering.

‘You cannot. I see. Then, if thus it must be, if I will have to mourn forever, alone, the days and nights I have spent with you, make me never forget this last night that we’ll be together. I’ll pray for the sun to remain as long as he can in the land of the Ethiopians and keep the night darker and longer for us so we can have our fill of love.’ Her eyes shone, damp, the colour of deep water.

The men exulted when I announced that we would return to the sea. The life we’d been living was a great relief after what we had seen and suffered on our last voyage, but they were already bored with it and were ready to set off. I, instead, was thinking of how I would tell them about the change in our destination and how they would react to my words.

They started to work vigorously on preparing the ship. The lady of the island was very generous with us: she gave us food in great quantity, wheat and barley as well, jars filled with strong, heady wine, smoked meat and baked breads. We drew pure water from the stream, filling more jars and loading them on the ship.

They were all happy, but my eyes were on the beautiful wanaxa of this strange, mysterious island who had been feeding us for almost a year. I watched her, a silent shadow, as she walked down the low hill that rose over the port. She observed us as we bustled around the robust hull that had faced so many adventures and would perhaps face many more. She was suffering, I think, imagining the solitude that awaited her for long days or months or years.

She disappeared as suddenly as if she’d vanished into the air, and in her place stood a ram black as night and next to him a sheep, black-fleeced as well. I understood. The victims to be sacrificed to the Lady of Darkness at the mouth of Hades. It was time to depart. I loaded the animals onto the ship as my mates took their places on the rowing benches, ready to pound the sea with their oars, eager to start the voyage that would take us home. The ship pulled away from the coast, the prow turned towards the open sea.

But soon a cry rang out from the shore: ‘Wait! Wait for me!’

Polites! So great had been my comrades’ haste to set off that we hadn’t counted ourselves.

‘Fast, jump in!’ I shouted. ‘We can’t stop. The current is pushing us away.’ Polites dived in and swam with great vigour as we raised the oars out of the sea, using only the steering oar to keep on course. We hoisted him onboard, dripping wet.

‘Elpenor!’ he said. ‘You forgot about him as well. He’s dead.’

I grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘What are you saying? Where is Elpenor?’

‘There!’ he shouted. ‘There, where the house is. He’s dead, he’s dead! We have to go back and bury him!’

Eurylochus caught my eye as he awaited orders. I replied: ‘We can’t. The current is too strong. It would be too complicated to turn back. The crossing that awaits us is already difficult enough. Turn around, look at the island. See how far it is already?’

Polites bowed his head in resignation, but there were tears in his eyes.

‘How did it happen?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know how it happened and I don’t know who did it,’ said Polites, still panting. ‘I was gathering up my clothing and my arms to come down to the port, since I could see from the house that the ship was ready, and I yelled out to tell him it was time to leave. He called back to let me know he’d heard me, and so I started walking. When a few minutes had gone by and he hadn’t joined me, I turned back, calling his name, but he didn’t answer. Then I found him. He was lying on the ground, dead, with his neck broken. I knelt down next to him. His face was still rosy coloured, his skin still soft, there was still a bit of warmth left in his limbs. It looked as if he were sleeping.’

‘Why?’ cried out my heart. ‘Why, just a moment before we went out to sea?’ Elpenor was the youngest of us all, and he’d never stood out for his courage or daring on the battlefield. A modest lad, but reliable, and dutiful. Why hadn’t I noticed his absence? The news of his death wounded me deeply. Another part of us had disappeared. The gods and destiny were hacking away at us, a little at a time.

I shouted out: ‘Was it you?’

Was I thinking of Athena, or of Circe? I had no answer because there was no answer, as there had not been for any of the comrades I’d lost first on the fields of Troy and then on the serpent-shaped back of the unsleeping sea. Simply, his fate had caught up with him.

‘I closed his eyes, but could do nothing else,’ Polites said. ‘We owe him funeral rites, so that he can enter the house of Hades. I beg you, wanax, let’s turn back. He was my friend.’ All at once I heard the cries, the growls, the roars of the animals living around Circe’s house.

‘We can’t,’ I replied. ‘I won’t risk the lives of the living for the funeral of a dead man.’ Polites dropped his head and hid his face between his hands.

We continued on our route and, as my shipmates raised the sail, I watched from the stern as the island slowly disappeared. In the end all I could see was the plume of smoke rising from the house. Circe, sensuous and loving. I couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing her again.

The wind was blowing from the east and the crew was sick at heart over the loss of their friend. He had escaped years of war, the bloodthirsty cyclops, the savage Laestrygonians. . to lose his life on a calm morning in a tranquil place on a remote island, far away from other men like us who live on bread. I feared that their despair might overwhelm them, and I realized I must speak to them before that could happen. I had never needed them as much as I did then.

‘Comrades,’ I said, ‘before we left, Circe taught me how to call up the shadow of wise Tiresias from the kingdom of the dead. She has urged me to go to where he is, to consult him, and I cannot disregard her words if we hope to know what future awaits us.’ I looked them straight in the eyes as I went on. ‘Look, men, the wind is blowing from the east, as if to manifest the will of the gods. That’s why we shall sail west until we reach the Ocean. There we’ll find the white cliff that marks the entrance to Hades.’

My shipmates were staring at me in green, unreasoning terror.

‘I’ll make my way there alone — you’ll wait for me on the ship until I come back,’ I continued. ‘And that will be the start of our return. I promise you. Men, prepare your hearts to be strong and patient. A grim place awaits us, covered with shadows by day and by night, in the summer as in the winter. A cold wind blows constantly — the earth and sky resound with sighs and groans. But you must not despair: you will have accomplished a deed that only the greatest heroes can boast of. Few are permitted to explore the extreme confines between life and death.’

I’m sure they were thinking that I’d completely lost my mind. They were weeping as if I’d condemned them all to death. I tried to light the spark of courage in them, I swore by the earth and the sky that I would bring them back to the land of the living. And in the end I convinced them to accompany me on that endeavour, the most arduous and exhausting that I would ever face in my lifetime.

We sailed west for days and days, crossing the entire sea, until we reached the current of the river Ocean that surrounds all lands. From there we pushed on, following the coast as we drew nearer and nearer to the kingdom of darkness. The passage of time lost all meaning, for the days were ever shorter and the nights longer and darker, until daytime was nothing more than a dim, leaden prelude to dusk. The stars hid from our sight and only the dark line of the shore continued to guide me towards the realm of the dead.

We finally spotted a tower, high up on a cliff surrounded by jagged pinnacles. Dismembered wrecks were lodged on the algae-green rocks below. We’d reached the land of the Cimmerians, as Circe had predicted. They were the guardians of nothing. Their city was built of black stone on a desolate, craggy mountain surrounded by gusts of billowing fog. We sailed past the cliff and the menacing tower and once again we found ourselves manoeuvring amid rocks as sharp as keenly edged bronze while the sea churned around us. We thwarted many a fatal crash by using our oars to push free of looming rock ledges. Finally, after a long struggle, from the top of the mast one of my men signalled that he had sighted the tall white cliff. Soon we could see it as well: steep, rugged, plunging into the sea. A ghost in the fog. I had my men strike the sail and we rowed in towards the coast. Our path was still strewn with reefs and cutting rocks, grey as iron, but our line of approach finally became wider and the swelling of the waves diminished until it had vanished completely. I led the rowing then with a slow rhythm, so the keel would not fracture if we struck a rock. We finally touched ground and the prow glided into heavy black sand. I jumped onto the shore. I had my cloak and my sword and nothing else. My men handed over the victims to be sacrificed, lowering them alongside the ship: the black-pelted ram, a huge animal with great curving horns, and the black-fleeced sheep, both destined to be offered to the divinities of Hades.

I walked along a muddy path. Fetid vapours rose all around me, the dank breath of Erebus. I reached the top of a rise and, before descending the other side, I took a look back at my ship: all I could see was the mast, swaying in silence. The sea was quiet as well, and very still. Before me opened a dark, barren, flat, desolate valley. Then, as if out of nowhere, the path filled with footprints, hundreds, thousands, a myriad of children’s, women’s, men’s tracks left by an infinite army, all of them defeated by the Chaera of death. I had found my way.

I followed it for. . I don’t know how long. I was cold, getting colder and colder, my thoughts condensed into small gasping puffs. All at once, an enormous cavern welled open before me: it descended into the bowels of the earth. I had reached my destination.

I knelt, and used my sword to dig a hole one cubit wide and one cubit long. I seized the ram by its horns and cut its throat, and then did the same with the sheep. I let their black, steaming blood flow into the hole. The moment had come. I called up, with a long song, the pale heads of the dead. And they came to me: mothers who held in their arms the babes who killed them in the struggle of being born, old men with vacant eyes, young men in bloody armour, dead before their time, done in by a sword or a spear or a bitter arrow. The sadness in their eyes was infinite. I was gripped by icy terror. Although I had prepared myself to meet with the dead, what I saw was unbearable: the purest, sharpest despair.

I recognized a youth: a purple mark crossed his forehead.

‘Elpenor! You! You’ve already arrived in the house of the dead? How swiftly you came. You got here faster on foot than I in my ship! What sorrow to see you here among the shadows of the dead!’

I wept as I beheld him, for I could clearly see his features, the look in his eyes. I gasped as I understood that what seemed real to me was but a shadow.

‘How did it happen?’ I cried. ‘You so often avoided death at the hands of the enemy in battle. How did you meet with such a senseless end?’

‘Any death at my age is senseless,’ he replied, and dropped his head as if trying to conceal his forehead. He was ashamed.

‘I was drinking. I was drunk. I’d gone up to the terrace of the house where the sea breeze was cool. A grapevine had sent its shoots to cover a wide space with its shade. I fell asleep, deeply so. When my friend called out to me, I woke suddenly, my mind in a muddle. I didn’t know where I was and I put my foot forward to start walking. I fell headlong and my neck snapped.’ He was weeping as well, tears of air and cold vapour. ‘I beg of you, when you return, search for what is left of me and put it on the pyre, and when you have gathered my ashes and buried them, raise a mound on the seashore with my name and sacrifice victims to me so that the lady of this black place will allow me a little peace!’

Drunk. He died drunk. Why? Didn’t he have abundant meat and bread, a beautiful, hospitable house on a marvellous island laden with every kind of game? It wasn’t enough, I knew that. His nightmares had never stopped tormenting him. He had tried to banish them with wine, like his lost comrades had with the red flower of oblivion. There was no escaping the nightmares of war.

‘I will, Elpenor. I will immolate the best animals in my herds, and I’ll burn the thigh meat as well, to appease the lady of the Underworld.’

He fled, sighing.

Many other sorrowful spirits were thronging around the hole where the victims I’d sacrificed were still dripping blood, but I held them all back with my sword, shouting: ‘Keep away! Keep away!’ The sword frightened them. They knew well they could not die a second time, but they remembered its power to take life.

And it was then that I saw, among the others, the sacred prophet: spent-eyed Tiresias, the famed seer of Thebes who had revealed that his city had been suffering the scourge of the gods because its king, Oedipus, had killed his father and married his own mother.

He neared me, sensing the smell of blood, the blood that gives life.

‘Pull back your sharp sword,’ he said to me, ‘and let me drink if you want to know your destiny.’

I stepped back and thrust my sword back into its sheath. Tiresias bent down and drank deeply of the blood. Life surged into him, colouring his empty shade.

He said: ‘You seek a smooth return, Odysseus, but the god of the abyss will render that return most difficult, for you blinded his son and humiliated him pitilessly. You will return, late, a broken man, alone on a foreign ship, having lost all of your shipmates, and you will find your home invaded by arrogant men who squander your wealth and court your wife. All of them you must extinguish, either openly, with your slashing bronze, or stealthily, with deceit. And not even then will you be able to enjoy your sweet wife and your dear son.

‘You will depart again with an oar on your shoulder,’ he continued, ‘and you will journey over the continent, travelling so far that you will meet up with men who do not use salt to season their food. They know nothing of the sea, nor have they ever seen crimson-cheeked ships or the oars that make them fly. This is the sign. You can’t mistake it: when a wayfarer asks you if the oar you carry on your shoulder is a fan used for winnowing grain. You will plant the oar into the ground and offer sacrifice to great Poseidon: a bull, a boar and a ram. Only then will you be able to reign in blessed peace over happy peoples. Death will come to seek you only when you are exhausted by serene old age. She will come for you softly, from the sea.’

Tears streamed from my eyes. I wanted to scream, to vent my rage against the god who punished me solely for having defended myself. Why did Poseidon insist on persecuting me? Because my mind had found the way to prevail against a bloodthirsty monster, because I sought revenge for my comrades who had been slain and devoured? But I knew the truth: a mortal is never allowed to challenge a god. I implored Tiresias then: ‘I beg you, prophet, foretell another destiny for me, a better one, because this one breaks my heart and pains me beyond any comprehension. Give my comrades, at least, a means for escaping this fate!’

The prophet, moved to compassion — if a ghost can have feelings, although he no longer has a heart — pronounced other words: ‘You will sail east after leaving this dark place and you will not find shore until you reach the island of Trinacria, where the herds of the Sun who sees all from above have their grazing ground. If, despite your great hunger and suffering, you do not touch them, you and your men will reach your destination. If, instead, you lay a hand on the calves, then I predict ruin for your ship and your shipmates. Even if you yourself are spared, you will arrive late at your homeland, a broken man. More I cannot say.’ He melted away like the fog.

Tiresias had vanished from my sight, and yet I could not return to the ship and my men. I felt a force that kept me rooted there, a presence that infused my heart with thoughts and emotions that I’d long forgotten.

‘Mother!’ I called out suddenly. ‘Mother, are you here?’ Echo, in that moment of pain, repeated my words endlessly.

‘Yes, my son,’ sounded a voice in my heart. ‘What are you doing here, beneath the dark shadow? It is terrible for a living man to enter the kingdom of the dead.’ And then there she was, standing in front of me.

‘Mother!’ I cried, weeping. ‘What brought you to the thick gloom of Hades? Was it Artemis, who struck you with one of her arrows? Or did a disease slowly consume you?’

‘No, son, it was neither Artemis, nor a slow, fatal illness, but the longing for you, my beloved son. The terrible desire to see you once again took my life.’

‘And my father?’ I asked. ‘Is he living, still? Does he still enjoy his privileges as king? And Telemachus? Do our people respect him?’

‘Yes, son, your father is still alive, but he has retired to the countryside and lives alone with an old servant who cares for him. In the winter he stretches out on the ashes still tepid from the hearth, and in the summer he lies down on a bed of leaves wherever darkness catches him. There he sighs, his heart aching for you. Of Telemachus you can be proud: he is a handsome young man and well respected by his people. They all call upon him to administer justice.’

‘And my bride? Is her heart still faithful to me? Or has she found another man and married him?’

‘She is faithful, my son, but she does nothing but weep, day and night, for she suffers great humiliation in your house, as she pines for your return, and you. . you never return.’

I drew close, so great was my desire to clasp her to me, but my hands returned empty to my chest. ‘Let me hold you,’ I implored, ‘Mother, let me hold you.’

I thought I saw a tired smile on her bloodless lips. ‘You cannot, child, there is nothing here you can embrace. A pyre burns flesh and tendons, dissolves bones; the soul flies away like a light puff of air. It is only your desire that makes me visible to your eyes. Leave this desolate place, I beg of you, escape while you still have time.’ These were her last words to me before she dissipated into the dark aura, taking her place again among the multitude of ghosts of men and women mowed down by the Chaera of death.

I fell to my knees and wept. I sobbed like a little boy at the thought of the anguish that had killed my mother. So many memories flooded my mind, from the happy days of my childhood when I would ask her to tell me about my father. As I had just now, but for very different reasons. In my mind’s eye she was garbed in precious gowns, the daughter of Autolykos. She was like a goddess when she had sat on the throne of Ithaca. Now she was nothing but a fleeting shadow, dissolving in the darkness of Hades. . and my father, the hero Laertes: I saw him lying on a lowly bed of ashes like a beggar, and my heart split in my chest. I finally raised my head again and then, in that multitude of dead souls, my eyes, full of tears as they were, discerned other spirits, but only those that my heart desired.

The first to appear was Agamemnon, the great Atreides, a dark frown on his face and a horrendous gash across his neck. I was incredulous; I could not believe he was dead. ‘Oh glorious Atreides!’ I said. ‘What brought you to this place of tears? Were you shipwrecked as you returned from Troy? Or killed in some hostile land where you were seeking rich plunder or women?’ He recognized me and came close. He moved to embrace me but his arms, once so strong when they swung the heavy sword and bore the great shield, had lost all their force. I could not feel them at all on my body. He was surrounded by a host of bloody ghosts: the comrades who had always guarded him, shielded him in battle; those who never left his side under even the most relentless attack. The tremendous truth began to worm its way into my mind.

‘No,’ he replied, ‘wise Odysseus, valiant companion of so many battles, it was no storm that took my life, nor savage warriors protecting their land and their women. It was murder. It was my own wife who armed the hand of her lover Aegisthus.’

I could not help but recall his terrible, cruel sacrifice of Iphigenia, his own daughter — an innocent victim offered so that the greatest fleet of all time could set sail, so that our endeavour could commence. Perhaps he no longer thought of it, or perhaps he had buried the memory in the darkest depths of his soul. All he could remember was the wrongs he had suffered, the plot and the massacre, his wife’s betrayal.

‘As we made our return to Mycenae,’ he started again, and his voice sounded as dark and deep as bronze sounds when it is pounded, ‘fires carried the news from hill to hill, from mountain to mountain, all the way to the palace. The lookouts posted up on the tower of the chasm saw the flames and announced our arrival. When we entered the gate of the two lions, it creaked on its hinges and our chariots thundered down empty streets, past the silent tombs of the ancient Perseid heroes. The whole sky was dark, for the new moon shed no light, but the palace was not: it was bright with torches burning to celebrate our victory. Surely enough, the news of the fall of Troy and kingdom of Priam had already reached them. My wife had prepared a banquet. And it was there, like a bull at the trough, that I was slain by the axe of Aegisthus. But that was only the start of the carnage! My comrades were slaughtered as well, one by one, like swine. The floor smoked with their blood. Our bodies lay sprawled among the overturned tables and all around the great bowl brimming with wine. .’

Terror gnawed at me but wanax Agamemnon, shepherd of heroes, hadn’t finished: ‘Odysseus, you’ve often seen warriors come to a bloody end, whether in the fury of the brawl or in fighting hand-to-hand, but even you, inured to the horrors of war as you are, even you would have shuddered. Your heart would have wept at such butchery. As I lay dying, with nothing to push back the bronze axe but my bare hands, I finally spied my wife, proud daughter of Tyndareus, Clytaemnestra. She turned her back to me and left the room. That bitch lacked the heart to close my eyes as I descended, groaning, to Hades, or even to close my mouth with her hands. If she could commit such a monstrous crime, against her legitimate husband, who among us can ever trust his woman again?

‘You who have yet to make your return, trust nobody! Say one thing but hide the rest. Keep your intentions hidden until you are sure that your wife is not plotting against you. But surely you, Odysseus, need not fear, because your wife is Penelope, daughter of Icarius, a wise woman who will have remained faithful to you. When we left, she had a child at her breast who now has certainly taken his place among the warriors. You will have the immense joy of seeing him a grown man. You will feast your eyes on him, clasp him to your chest. .’

He sobbed, Agamemnon, wanax of heroes, and sighed. ‘I will never be able to embrace my own son. I never saw my boy grow up. I don’t even know what has happened to him. He must still be alive. I haven’t seen him here among the dead. Perhaps he’s been taken in by one of the other kings, my brother Menelaus in Sparta or Nestor on Pylos. .’

We wept, facing each other in that still, dark air, in that world of regret and heartbreak. And it was then that I saw rise before me a sudden, appalling sight: the shadow of Achilles!

He hailed me. ‘Odysseus, glorious son of Laertes! My brave, reckless friend: can nothing stop you? How will you ever be able to think up something more foolhardy than this endeavour? You’ve dared to enter Hades, the kingdom of the deceased.’

I trembled. He was a frightful vision indeed, dressed in the armour he had been wearing when he killed big-hearted Hector. But it wasn’t real: there was no gleaming metal there, only its likeness. This was how he imagined himself, and it was thus that his spirit formed his image. But as I looked closer I could see the bronze was turning green, from being long abandoned, and I thought of that brilliant sunny day I’d gone with Nestor to Phthia of the Myrmidons to plead with Achilles to join in the war with all the other princes of Achaia. I had succeeded in convincing him and was so pleased with myself for having accomplished the task. And now, what was this thing in front of me? Who was this grey ghost speaking inside my heart? Why had such a bitter destiny been created for humankind? So deep was the sadness in his eyes that I thought I might find words to ease his melancholy; that I might speak to him as I did that day we walked in the woods, followed by his wondrous, unharnessed horses, Xanthus the blond and Balius the dappled. What a fool I was.

‘Achilles, most glorious of us all, most valiant, I’ve come here to learn my destiny, to question the prophet Tiresias and learn from him how I can get back to Ithaca. I have suffered greatly since we left the shores of the Troad. As I tried to make my return, I was swept up in a storm and dragged off course for many days and night. When the wind quit, we found ourselves abandoned in an unfamiliar world populated by monsters and by fierce, savage peoples. I have lost all my ships. I have seen my comrades massacred, slain like beasts at the slaughter. I have not yet reached my homeland. The gods have not yet had their fill — they sport with me and amuse themselves by inflicting every sort of suffering on me.

‘Do not grieve that you are dead, Achilles. I myself have desired to be so many times. When you died, we raised a gigantic pyre. Three hundred heavy-footed warriors escorted you there! Your glorious armour shone bright on your body. The flames rose high enough to scorch the vault of the heavens. We all filed before the blazing fire and one by one we tossed in locks of our hair, our belts, our silver-studded baldrics, our bracelets, even our rings with the seals that preserve our names. Then we raised a gigantic mound over your ashes and we sacrificed to your wrathful shade: an infinite number of victims, bulls and rams and men, prisoners bound by chains. Still now, a fire burns there day and night. Any sailor who passes along the coast of Asia sees those inextinguishable flames and says: “That is the tomb of Achilles, that magnanimous, valiant man whose shout alone was so powerful that entire armies would flee upon hearing it.”

‘What do I have to look forward to but suffering and despair? When my time comes, my body will lie forgotten on some deserted beach. You, instead, will always have power as you do, even here, over the pale heads of the dead.’

I fell silent and the hissing of Erebus, that deep, infinite lament, was the only voice in the darkness, until Achilles spoke: ‘Do not praise death, Odysseus, my shining friend. I would rather be a slave for the poorest and most miserable of men on the luminous earth than reign over the dead. Life is the only gift, the only treasure, the only magnificent adventure. I lost it for a mere moment of dazzling light, and I will spend eternity mourning it.’

Around him thronged many thousands of other ghosts, fallen warriors, and their faint voices sounded like birds chirping in the dark or bats squeaking. Only one of them, huge, majestic, stood apart and stared at me mutely with eyes of fire. I recognized him instantly and felt my heart wither in my chest: Ajax! Invincible Ajax, bulwark of the Achaians. It all came back to me, the shame and dishonour, the despair of the humiliated giant, the cruel, inevitable death that was his destiny.

I called out to him: ‘Ajax! Not even dead have you given up your anger over that cursed suit of arms! It was taken from you unjustly and given back to you too late. What a terrible misfortune for us! Because of that armour, the Achaians lost our greatest tower of strength. The way you left us was the font of immense suffering for me, for all of us. I beseech you, believe me: I would have given my life to bring you back. But your fate had already been decreed by the gods and I could not undo what had been done. Please, join us, speak to me, let us console each other, set aside our woes. Forget your grudge, I beg of you.’

I implored him, but he gave no answer. He turned his back on me and melted away into the multitude of weeping ghosts, dissolving into the fog.

Then, in an instant, it all disappeared. All that was left was the mouth of the cavern, spouting forth dense vapours with an acidic stench. The faces of my lost comrades, their words, their regrets: had I dreamed it all? And yet the cold I felt was real, and real was the grey, icy rain that penetrated into my bones. Most real were the words of Tiresias, the Theban prophet. I remembered them then as I do now: they pierced my heart, my mind, like needles. The offspring of other words which I’d heard from the cyclops, from Calchas, from the mistress of wild beasts on that remote island: late and broken, late and broken, late and broken! But I was still alive, wasn’t I? Still putting one foot in front of the other on a muddy path under rain-swollen clouds. Distant thunder greeted my return to the world of the living.

Not a blade of grass, not a flower, not a ray of sunlight, not a living being around me. Or rather, nothing but a toad, a misshapen creature, that I saw scuttling down the path that had led me to the kingdom of the dead, croaking his hoarse protest against the wickedness of nature. When I got to the point where the footprints of the dead began, or ended, I looked to my left and there I saw the city of the Cimmerians on the black cliff, glowing like burnished metal in the flashes of lightning. I thought of my cry, the triple war cry of the kings of Ithaca. I’d raised it from my ship as I was leaving my island, I’d hurled it at the phalanges of warriors brawling under the walls of Troy. And now I howled it into the storm. It was louder than the thunder, than my fear, than my bitter melancholy.

I thought: ‘Why didn’t I see the shades of Hector, or Priam, or little Astyanax? Perhaps the lady of the Underworld wanted to spare me the sight of a decapitated trunk holding his own head in his hands, or a man stripped of his skin, stripped of his face, unrecognizable. . or a rock-battered, mangled infant.’ I could no longer even call up an image of the enemy we’d defeated. We’d wiped out their bodies and their souls.

Then I started humming the lullaby that my nurse would sing to me as a child to put me to sleep. The song was a balm to my aching heart, and as I pushed forward it gave me strength. I got to the top of a hill and from there I could see my ship. My mates had stretched the sail from one end to the other, bound it fore and aft, and like chicks under the wings of their mother hen they were sheltering from the storm, keeping each other warm by staying close. Around them the white-rimmed waves lashed out at the jagged cliffs.

One of them saw me and yelled out: ‘Wanax!’ And the others started shouting as well, their voices joining in one by one. By the time I reached the shore, they had thrown out a line. I grabbed on to it and entered the water, advancing one arm’s length after the other, walking through the grey, gelid sea until I found the flank of my ship. My comrades hoisted me on board, carried me to shelter under the sail, rubbed me dry with a cloth and covered me with a cloak. I was livid with cold, and trembling.

When I looked at them, I saw my own face reflected in their faces, like in a mirror of bronze. I saw stupor, fright, incredulity. Although the rain was crashing down over our heads, an overturned shield stopped the fire of the brazier from going out, and the warmth it gave off slowly started the blood flowing through my veins again. I threw the cloak over my shoulders, went to the bow and saw that the wind was blowing in the opposite direction to the one we had sailed in on. I ordered my men to run up the sail, to take their places at the oars and to turn the prow seaward. I unsheathed my glorious bronze sword and sliced the hawser in two with a single blow. Perimedes and Eurylochus moved to man the steering oar. My ship left the shelter of the rocky shore and took to the open sea, advancing swiftly under a billowing sail.

We travelled all night, riding the foaming current of the great river Ocean, the next day as well and then the night after that. As time passed, the air became milder, the waves relaxed into long curved lines, light filtered through the clouds and finally the sun appeared, dazzling us with blinding reflections and heat that finally banished death from my clenched limbs.

‘What did you see?’ Eurylochus asked me. ‘Did you really meet the shadows of the dead?’

‘I saw what I went to see. I met the unhappy souls of our fallen comrades. My mother is dead.’ I could feel the tears running down my cheeks.

He didn’t dare ask me anything else, seeing the pain I was in. Until evening fell. Then he started up again from where he had left off: ‘Was our future revealed to you? Will we return home? Will we see our wives and children?’

His hand was clamped down hard on my arm.

‘Yes, but only if you all obey me, if you do everything I order you to do. If I’m not obeyed, it will mean the ruin of the ship and of all of us. We must act as one. If only one of us were to survive, he would no longer be a man; his life would no longer have any purpose, would it? Terrible trials await us still, without a doubt. But what can rouse fear in men who have sailed the livid Ocean through the lands of eternal night, in men who have dared to question the pale heads of the dead?’

Eurylochus asked no more, but raised his eyes to the stars, to the bear that guides the way north — she was behind us. He seemed deeply discouraged. He had certainly expected a blow-by-blow telling of what had happened after I’d been swallowed into the Underworld.

I simply couldn’t give him what he wanted. It was too painful for me to dwell on what I’d experienced — I could not bring myself to relive that world of death. All I told him was to steer straight until we reached the inlet to the inner sea. From there we would begin our journey home.

My days and my nights were filled with the trials that awaited us. I dreaded the thought of arriving at the island of Trinacria, finding the pastures of the Sun who sees all from above. Would we be able to resist our hunger? Would I be able to bend destiny? ‘Late and broken’ were the words that sounded continuously in my heart.

We sailed east for many days and I continued to hope that we would reach a point where the world of the impossible would give way to familiar places, recognizable lands. I longed to find my goddess again. Would I hear her voice anew, would she guide and protect me?

I still hadn’t understood how vast that world was.

It was quite early one morning, while I still slept at the stern under my cloak, when Perimedes’ hand roused me from slumber: ‘Wanax, there’s something strange going on. I can’t understand it. Look!’

I got up and walked to the ship’s rail. ‘I don’t understand,’ I replied. ‘What is it?’

‘Look at what’s happening,’ he said. ‘There’s no starboard wind, none at all. The sea is calm. And yet the ship is being dragged in the opposite direction. Even if I hold the steering oar fully to the left, it doesn’t matter. I cannot oppose whatever’s pulling at us.’

It was true. An unyielding force, as if a strong crosswind were at work.

I was determined to thwart it and stay on course. I gave my men orders to drop all oars into the water on the right side of the ship and row with all they had on the left side. A futile effort: it was impossible to change course.

‘Look!’ said Perimedes again. ‘Smoke!’

I felt a sense of growing presentiment. Could the smoke be coming from Circe’s house? We were soon to find out that it was. The outline of an island we knew well appeared distinctly at a short distance from the promontory where we’d first landed. That mysterious force was dragging us all the way to the port where we had once moored the ship and, as we drew closer and closer, I saw her.

She was standing on the height overlooking the port and was holding out her arms. It looked like she was calling us in. We manoeuvred stern-first into port, the way we chose to approach the shore whenever possible so we’d be ready to head back out to the open sea at a moment’s notice.

I jumped onto dry land and at that same instant Circe turned her back to me and started walking towards her house. I gave my shipmates a look. None of them seemed eager to join me.

I said: ‘Men, I’m going to follow Circe. The mistress of this place has certainly called us back to her island for an important reason and I must discover what it is. In the meantime, stock the ship with water and go hunting. Cook the meat and smoke it so that it will last longer. The rest of you will check the ship plank by plank to make sure no damage was suffered during our journey to the mouth of Hades. When all your work has been completed, search for Elpenor’s body and place it on the pyre. Raise a large mound over his ashes, plunge his oar into it deeply, as he asked me to do, and make ritual offerings to his spirit.’

The men all set to work as I started down the same path I’d followed the first time we’d landed there, the path that led to the home of the lady of the island. Circe ran out to greet me and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me close.

‘Did you call up the shadows of the dead as I bid you?’ she whispered. ‘Did you meet the spirit of the Theban prophet?’

‘I did,’ I replied.

She released me and looked into my eyes, satisfied that I had told her the truth. ‘I never thought that you would succeed. Or that you would return,’ she said.

‘And yet you urged me to go. .’

‘I thought that if there was a single man in the world capable of succeeding, it would be you. I don’t want to know what Tiresias told you.’

‘Then why drag my ship back to your island? We had already said our farewells, and I never thought I’d see you again.’

‘Because there is a thought that obsesses you, a thought that won’t give you peace. And I know that I alone can help you understand why.’

I wasn’t expecting such words. My mind was confused. I suddenly feared, no, I was certain, that I’d dreamed up everything; that I’d never left her island, or perhaps never even left Ithaca. But then I looked around: there were trees, there was a house, there were clouds in the sky and butterflies on the flowers, and food on the table, and wine. And a woman of resplendent beauty standing in front of me.

She took me by the hand and led me to her bed. It was no longer perched on the branches of a tree with big white flowers, nor did it stand on a floor of red stone. There were soft carpets everywhere and the big bed lay upon them. It had neither feet nor a frame, but was soft, woollen, covered with linen and big pillows.

‘Make love to me,’ she said as she stepped out of her gown.

I was no longer in control of myself. And she hadn’t even touched me with her stick! She embraced me, lay on top of me, she pulled me into a whirlwind, plunged me into an abyss, held me in her thrall amid the clouds of the sky. We went on making love until evening fell. I fell asleep in her arms and when I opened my eyes again it was night.

‘Eat,’ she said. And there before me was a table heaped with bread, honey, fruit. Time went by. ‘Are you tired?’ she asked me.

‘No.’

‘Good. Now that you’ve eaten, prepare yourself to take a journey. With me.’

I was lost again in her look, her smell, her hands, so long and slender. ‘A journey? Where?’

‘You’ll see. Get up.’

The wind rose, the leaves rustled on the trees and then the wood, the meadows, the stream, everything disappeared. We were on the battlefield. Behind us the camp and the ships, before us the city, the walls, the towers. The Skaian Gate! Chills and acute pain were what I felt.

‘Where are you?’ I whispered.

‘With you. Remember? That night you entered the walls of Troy for a second time, looking in every way like a Trojan warrior, but with a long rope coiled up, hidden in the inside of your shield. A clever scheme. .’

‘It’s not true.’

‘No? Come. I’ll show you.’ The wind that had carried off Circe’s house, the entire island with its woods and stream, was now blowing even harder, pushing clouds of dust down the deserted streets of Troy.

‘Can’t you see your footprints in the dust? Only you walk that way.’

‘It’s not me.’

‘You know very well it is. You just wanted to forget and you’ve succeeded. There you are, in front of the ramp. That’s where you agreed to meet Diomedes. He entered from a side gate on the northern wall. There he is, dressed as a Trojan as well. We’re almost at the highest point of the citadel. Down there is Priam’s palace. The sanctuary is this way. Can you see it? That’s you, dropping from the roof on a rope. You climbed up on the side where the colonnade is, where the guards couldn’t see you.’

I was split in two. I was the warrior lowering himself into the sanctuary and I was the vagabond observing the scene alongside Circe. She started to speak again and her voice was strange, distorted, because, I realized, I was hearing her from far away and long ago.

‘Look, you’re coming out on the rooftop. . And now you’re using the rope to lower something to the ground. . Diomedes is grabbing it. You know what it is, don’t you?’

I did not answer.

‘You do know, Odysseus, you know very well. It is the Palladion, the statue of Athena that makes the city that possesses her invincible. You are carrying her off so that Troy can be defeated and destroyed.’

I turned towards Circe and the metallic light in her eyes froze me. Her look was like a slashing sword. It was she who was having visions, now I am certain, those rapacious eyes were seeking out what I was not capable of seeing.

‘I wanted to go home,’ I said in a low voice.

‘And they wanted to survive.’

‘The strongest wins. That’s the law.’

‘Or is it the most crafty? Now you know why Athena won’t speak to you any more.’ Her words pierced me like a dagger of ice. ‘You committed a sacrilege against her by profaning her image.’

I shook my head incredulously. Part of me did not want to believe what the other part of me was affirming: ‘The night of the massacre I saw with my own eyes that Diomedes was running from the sanctuary. I remember it well — he was carrying something close to his chest.’

‘And from that moment on, you talked yourself into believing that it was he who had profaned the sanctuary, ignoring what you knew you had done. Forgetting, you became oblivious to your sacrilege.’

A thunderbolt exploded over our heads and we were back on the island, standing in front of each other in the middle of the night, listening to the silence.

Circe stared into my eyes again with tremendous power. No one could resist her.

‘Now you know. Don’t forget what has been revealed to you. Tomorrow you will set off again on your voyage. More trials await you. Any of them can destroy you. You will reach the rocks of the Sirens. Their song is gentle and very sweet, but it carries death.’

‘I’m not afraid of any rocks. I’ve come back from the mouth of Hades.’

‘It’s not the rocks that can destroy a man like you.’

‘What, then?’

‘The truth.’

‘Which truth?’

‘The one that can kill you.’

In the bottomless silence that surrounded me, I heard the shrieks of a griffin: the sun was about to rise.

Circe spoke again: ‘Then your ship, the last one remaining to you, will have to pass through the narrows. On one side and on the other deadly perils await you. You will have to decide. Whatever choice you make will mean death for your companions.’

The tears which I had been barely holding back welled up and poured, hot, from my eyes. How much more would I have to go through? How much pain, how much anguish? I had crossed the threshold of the gates of Erebus — what could be worse? Or had my daring to walk among the dead provoked even greater ire from the dark powers?

‘I have nothing more to tell you.’ The light in her eyes went out like a flash of lightning vanishes from the night sky, but as the glow of dawn spilled into the house, colour and life and feeling flowed back into her gaze.

‘This is truly the last time, son of Laertes. When you have crossed the threshold of this house, I will never see you again, but you will remain forever in my eyes and my heart. Of all those who the sea has cast up onto these shores, of all those who audaciously landed their ships here, you are the only one I will remember in the long silence of midday in the summer, on springtime nights laden with mystery, on those sad autumn evenings when the cranes abandon their nests and fly off to distant lands, in the whistle of the winter wind that raises white foam on the waves. Only the sound of your name will live in my heart, Odysseus of the myriad thoughts, patient and fearless, small, indomitable mortal.’

She looked at me with infinite tenderness — mistress of wild beasts, enchantress, most beauteous among the women of the earth and the goddesses of the heavens. And she wept.

‘Whatever choice you make will mean death for your companions.’ These were the first words that surfaced in my mind when my men untied the ropes that kept me lashed to the ship’s mast. Circe, announcing the narrows that I would have to navigate, with equally deadly danger on both sides. Where were they? When would we meet with them? Many a narrows had I passed in my day: between fear and duty, love and honour, friendship and gain, the world of the living and the world of the dead. I’d passed between jagged cliffs, unassailable walls. . but those awaiting me would be the most terrible. I could feel it.

The sun shone high in a clear sky. A seagull was perched on top of the mast and the wind ruffled his feathers. There were no signs left of what we’d been through. The men had taken the wax from their ears and their eyes darted out over the glittering blue waves as the wind urged the ship south. Only I felt a tremendous weight, a welling sadness that wasn’t coming from nowhere. It was coming from the voices ringing inside my heart. I hadn’t dreamt them; they were real.

We sailed all that day and the whole night as well, keeping the brazier alight at the stern and all eyes alert at the prow. The moon rose from the horizon as the second watch was beginning and it lit our way for a while with the wake of silver it cast on the water, before being veiled by thin clouds. It was the middle of the night when I thought I heard a slight whisper of oars and I saw, or perhaps thought I saw, a ship much larger than mine passing silently in the other direction, no more distant from us than the flight of an arrow. A dark but perfectly clear shadow, the ghost of a torn sail fluttering in the air, the white foam curling at the prow as it sliced through the waves. Then the ship was swallowed by the darkness. Who was passing in the night?

On our entire journey, we’d never crossed paths with another ship. We’d seen only wrecks, ships foundered and crashed against reefs. We had always felt alone and abandoned, as if we were navigating the sea of a strange and unreal world. Never, after crossing the wall of fog, had we found a city inhabited by men who eat bread, with a port, a market square and a sacred enclosure dedicated to the gods. Never had we seen a single emporium crowded with merchants of many races intent on selling and exchanging their wares. And I had never again felt the presence of my blue-green-eyed goddess. . now, after what Circe had told me, I despaired of ever finding her on my path again. I mourned her and tortured myself for having lost her.

We sailed on for many a day and night without ever encountering anyone or anything. Only once, in the dark, did I see a mountain looming, edged at its top with a sinister red light. A low rumble seemed to come from deep within it and it flashed streaks of fire. My world seemed further and further away, while anguish seeped into every corner of my heart. One day, before dawn, Eurylochus turned the helm over to Euribates, one of my strong Cephalonians, and came over to me.

‘You were the only one among us to hear the song of the sirens. Is it something you can tell me about?’ my friend asked.

‘No. I can’t. Don’t ask me to summon up its memory. I’m trying to banish it from my mind because it stops me from thinking, from deciding, from hoping. All I can tell you is that their song was very sweet. Sweet enough to drive you mad with the cruelty of its words. A contradiction that was, that is, insufferable. Heart-breaking. The only hope I still hold is that it wasn’t true. . or that it wasn’t the only truth.

‘Listen to me, comrade. I believe that once we reach familiar waters, everything will change. We will win back the power to bend fate, to ward off bad omens with the force of our minds and our arms. Here, in this strange world we’ve stumbled into, everything is difficult, harsh, hostile. I’m afraid that terrible trials may still lie before us, but you must help me. If, when it comes time for the final test, you support me and convince the others to obey me, perhaps we can still save ourselves. We’ll finally be able to point the prow east, towards home, and stay on course. The ship will obey the helm and the oars, distances will let themselves be measured and we’ll be able to count the days that separate us from land. From our land.’

Eurylochus regarded me with an imperceptible scowl, but he didn’t say a word. Maybe he thought I’d gone mad. Perhaps not even my faithful friend believed in me any more. This thought wounded me but I never stopped seeking out his help. Days went by. Often we would sit talking, exchanging memories. Stories of when we were children and free to roam through the forests and swim in the sea. ‘Do you remember our first voyage to the mainland?’ I asked him.

He did. We recollected the days and the hours, our songs, our words, our dreams. It helped to remind us that we were alive and real, that we could think of the future, that we would win in the end and that, at the end of our long journey, we would return to our world. We would go back to the life we’d had before we left for war.

Eurylochus’ voice interrupted my thoughts: ‘Look! Land!’

I looked at the sea instead because I’d realized that our speed was increasing although the wind was not getting stronger. My heart jumped in my chest. Danger!

The voice of Sinon rained down on us from the top of the mast: ‘Whirlpool on the right! Reefs on the left!’

‘It’s happening,’ I thought. What Circe had predicted. Unavoidable. Whatever decision I made I would lose my companions. How many of them? This I did not know. I ran to the bow and shouted: ‘Haul in the sail! Man the oars!’

Then I trained my eyes forward: the crashing sea was wedging itself, as impetuously as a river in flood, between the two horns of the strait. Any attempt to override the current I felt tugging at the ship was unthinkable. The whirlpool to the right was created by an enormous flow of water smashing into a promontory. The crags on the left jutted out around a cave whose curved vault we could see emerging from the sea.

‘Give orders for the prow to hold to the centre!’ said Eurylochus.

‘No,’ I answered. ‘If we stay in the middle we’ll be sucked into the whirlpool and the ship will be swallowed up with everything in it. We’ll bear as far left as possible without grazing the reefs. That won’t be easy but if we try to stay in the centre it’ll be the end of us all.’

‘Helm right! Left oars dead in the water, right oars at full force!’ I shouted to make myself heard over the roar of the whirlpool and of the waves pounding at the reef, seething with foam. The men all pitched in to execute the manoeuvre. Sinon scrambled down from the mast and went to his shipmates’ aid at his oar. The ship began to heel left under the thrust of the oars and the helm as my comrades on the right side bent their backs, rowing with all their might, but then the turbulent current drew us in towards the reefs and the cave. The mouth of the cave was hidden behind a curtain of spray and mist and we couldn’t easily make it out, but we stayed on course because the roaring vortex on our right terrified us even more.

We were enveloped all at once by a dense cloud: the water was everywhere, blinding us. I suddenly heard blood-curdling screams as enormous tentacles lashed at the ship’s deck and snapped several of the oars in two. I saw my shrieking comrades writhing and twisting, tossed high above our heads, before they disappeared. Their shouts were louder than the crashing of the breakers, their desperate pleas for help were swallowed by the mouth of the cavern, bristling with points as jagged and sharp as the teeth of any monster. Then the force of the current prevailed over the surge and, roaring, it dragged us away and out of the straits. When the thick wall of foam and spray had dispersed, the ship finally slowed its course and we found ourselves in the open sea. The bucking waves calmed as we drew away from the straits. Towards sunset we stopped in the middle of nowhere.

Eurylochus’ voice shook me out of my dazed state: ‘We lost six men.’

‘What was it?’ I asked as if I was just waking from a nightmare. I didn’t recognize my own voice.

‘A. . monster,’ replied Eurylochus. ‘It was a monster with seven heads.’

I said nothing. I walked down my ship, counting the empty places: Sinon. . Polites. . Eurynomus. . Leucippus. . Kresilas. . Anticlus. I was shattered, but I would not let it show. They were watching me, my men: panting, crushed by exhaustion, terror, grief. My tears mixed with the salty drops of sea on my face.

‘Men!’ I shouted. ‘We have overcome a dreadful trial! We have survived the invincible current, the ravenous vortex, the massacring monster! We have lost six brave companions, but they will live on in our hearts. We will weep for them when we touch land and when we return home we will raise mounds in their honour, one for each man on his island of origin. Their memory will never be lost. Poets and singers will tell of their adventures and their sacrifice. Their faces, their smiles, their voices will be forever with us. Once again, men, we have not allowed the forces of these terrible places to take the upper hand.

‘I was forced to make a decision that broke my heart. A choice between risking the lives of our men or losing the whole ship with everyone on it. Their sacrifice has allowed us to live! And now there is one thing we can be sure of — only one final test awaits us. Then, men, we will return home. We will embrace our wives and our children, we will see the land where we were born, we’ll watch as smoke rises from the rooftops of our homes.

‘Now, establish a new order on the rowing benches, space yourselves out. Replace the broken and damaged oars. We’ll make new ones when we find land and trees. We will carve them with the bronze of our swords.

‘Only this I still ask of you — obey me, no matter what I order you to do or prohibit you from doing. Obey me and I will take you home! I swear it on the head of the son I haven’t seen since he was an infant, and on everything I hold most dear and precious. Your endeavours will be glorified for centuries to come, and all those who see you or, many long years from now, come upon your tombs, will pause, and say: “This was one of the comrades of Odysseus, son of Laertes, the destroyer of cities. He survived monsters and tempests, the savage cyclops, unimaginable ordeals. He made it all the way to the threshold of implacable Hades, alive, and he never forgot his homeland.”

‘And now, loose the sail!’

I let out the triple war cry of the kings of Ithaca and the ship, thrust by the wind, moved out, solid and quick, her bow ploughing the blue swell of the sea that never sleeps.

I do not know how long I spent at the mercy of the waves and the wind, how many blinding bolts struck the sea around me. I was enveloped in terror and burning anguish, knowing that I had lost all my comrades. I had watched as my perfect ship, in splinters, sank into the abyss. There was nothing around me but darkness. My salt-scorched eyes could no longer distinguish anything but masses of water surging over me, one after another, with roaring crashes. Water was everywhere outside and inside me: it penetrated into my mouth and nostrils, it cut off my breath. I was sure at every moment that I was drowning and that, sucked into the sea’s deep gyres, I was on my way to joining my shipmates in the abyss.

All at once, I saw a piece of the ship’s keel beam surfacing near me and I tied it to the mast with one of the leather stays still attached to it. Then I hoisted myself up onto that unexpected refuge and hung on to it with all my strength. I would not give up, would not surrender to the cruel blue god, my ruthless enemy. He’d have to come out of the sea himself to get me.

Perhaps the god heard my challenge because I soon realized that the current was heading towards the narrows where I had lost six of my men and this time it was dragging me into the whirlpool. This certainly meant the end for me. The fast current caught the mast and the beam that I still rode, clinging to them for dear life, and began spinning me faster and faster, closer and closer to the centre of the vortex. The water pulled at me with such force and speed that I could see all the way down to the black sand of the sea bottom. At any moment I would be dashed into the maelstrom and would become, after all my struggles, food for the fish.

And yet, as I was about to close my eyes and prepare for the end, I spotted a branch, belonging to an age-old fig tree, that was stretching out over the whirlpool. Just as the abyss was about to suck me into its depths, I rose to my feet on the keel beam and made a leap. I managed to catch the branch. It cracked. I grabbed the one next to it, obstinate in my unwillingness to leave this life. From there I tried to heave myself up onto a bigger branch but my muscles were cramping and my strength was going. I looked beneath me to see that the whirlpool had closed up. The water reversed its current and the keel beam of my ship was spat to the surface. I let myself drop and swam with desperate force until I could grab the mast and the stay of entwined leather. I pulled myself up until I was sitting astride it and seized the broken fig-tree branch that had fallen with me, using it as an oar, following the current that now, since its direction had reversed, was pushing me into the open sea.

Every time the sea let me catch my breath I cried out for help. I shouted to men, to gods, to monsters. I don’t know why but I still hoped that my goddess could make out my voice in the din of the tempest; that she would hear me and that the heart in her chest would be moved to help me.

Finally, after days and nights, a ray of sun broke through the clouds.

All around me the sea extended all the way to the horizon. Infinite, smooth. I saw nothing but water, and the wind, once again, was driving me away from my home. I don’t know how I managed to keep on top of the mast. I was cold, hungry, thirsty, there was not a muscle in my body that wasn’t hurting, but I was sitting on a piece of the ship which had faced so many dangers with me, soaked with the sweat of my comrades. I would die before I left her.

The current and the wind took over and pushed me on day after day. I was caked with salt and I couldn’t even keep my eyes open any more. The sun burned my back and my shoulders and covered them with blisters. I was skin and bones. I was sure that my time had come. I was about to die. The blue god had spared me only so he could inflict a slower and more painful death. I began to let myself go.

I did not go in. I didn’t want to disturb an encounter whose very nature excluded me. I went to sit on my reef in the middle of the sea. The tide was low enough for me to walk out with the water at my waist. I sat there watching my shadow, which the sun kept lengthening over the sea as it descended towards the horizon. How could it disappear in the west only to reappear in the east after the night had ended? And why did its path become longer and longer, only to become shorter and shorter? Perhaps because the steeds that drew the sun’s chariot ran more swiftly or more slowly on their fiery charge? Only divine horses could measure their power so perfectly that light and shadow always expanded and retracted in such a constant manner.

I’d never asked anyone about that, neither Circe nor Calypso. Perhaps not even they had the answer. I turned just once towards the cavern as the sky was blazing with the colours of the setting sun. I saw a seagull flying out. She was still there, alone. The youth with the sun in his hair was gone.

Calypso came and sat next to me. Her shadow stretched out on the water next to mine.

‘How often will I come here to watch the sea, how often will I call your name, Odysseus!’

‘Why are you saying such things?’ I asked as she came closer. I could feel the heat and the scent of her body.

‘A messenger of the gods came to visit. The great father Zeus has ordered me to let you go.’

‘What does that mean? I could have left whenever I wanted to. I could have built myself a raft.’

‘You would never have succeeded unless I let you. Didn’t you know that? But now the time has come. I had so hoped that the gods had forgotten this island and me living on it. Someone surely interceded on your behalf. These things never happen by chance.’

‘My goddess!’ I thought in my heart, but no word came out of my mouth.

‘Yes, her. She’s jealous,’ replied Calypso without making a sound. And then she made her voice heard: ‘But come now, come with me. The tide is very high.’

She embraced me and rose in flight. She held her arm around my waist and we ascended together, turning as if we were dancing. We crossed the sea and flew over the island. I could see it all: the coves, the spiky rocks climbing towards the sky, the flower-filled valleys, the torrent that ran down the mountainside in a cascade of white foam and a mist of colours, as if the rainbow gaze of Iris the messenger were crossing it.

‘Was it she, colourful Iris, who brought you the message?’ I asked Calypso.

‘No, it was another messenger,’ and saying thus, she began to spin and our dance became closer, faster, more inebriating. I saw beneath me infinite flocks of birds seeking shelter for the night. I heard their calls as we passed through the red clouds of twilight. We cut through their swirling paths like a kite diving after its prey. I could never even have imagined such a thing. Then she let me fall. I plunged downward, the current of the air so strong it felt as though it was tearing out my hair, and then Calypso appeared close to me again. She looked into my tear-filled eyes and we rose up together. Our lips sought each other and our bodies did as well, with infinite, ardent force. We were enveloped by the ambrosial sweetly scented night. The rays of the stars wounded me like swords. And the creature I was embracing was miraculous. She let me fall again. It took my breath away, the wind whipped my tunic against my back so hard that it hurt. Then Calypso carried me up again. We soared through the leaves of the trees like the wind, the scent of the air redolent of soil and sky.

We fell again, and she let go of me. I couldn’t feel her any more, couldn’t touch her. She would not hit the ground. Nothing was impossible for a god. I would die.

I was awakened by a sudden, shrill scream. I sprang to a sitting position and then to my feet. My hand moved instinctively to the sword I no longer had. Where had I ended up this time? In a savage land? Were more difficulties in store for me, more grief? Almost instantly, the cry repeated itself, but I realized it was many voices, all together, girls’ voices, silvery. I walked towards the sound, which had the light-hearted, carefree tone of youth. And I saw a group of girls playing with a ball. The ball had fallen into the river and that’s what their cries were about. One of them had waded into the current to fetch it. She tossed it back to the others and they gleefully resumed their play. Anyone who dropped it was out.

At a short distance, hanging from a line stretched between two wild olive-tree trunks, were some linens drying in the sun. Just a bit further away, two mules yoked to a little cart were tranquilly browsing on wild fennel and chicory. Behind them I could glimpse cultivated fields, vineyards arranged in orderly rows on the slopes of mild hills, olive groves glittering in the clear, sharp morning light. The air was fresh and cool and colours shone brightly in the wake of the storm.

Tears came to my eyes. How long had it been since I’d viewed such a scene? Surely not since my boyhood on Ithaca, with her secret little bays, the coloured gravel at the shore, the torrents that carried the island’s waters off to the sea. My heart swelled with emotion.

I had been washed ashore in a prosperous, orderly land, governed by fair laws and wise rulers, a land in which the young could play carefree.

The girls soon tired of running and shouting and went to sit in the shade. One of them began singing a song and the others joined in. The melody was delightful, but there was a melancholic undercurrent to the harmony that reminded me of watching the colours of the sun sinking into the sea. Then they started chatting and telling each other stories.

They spoke a language similar to mine and I realized I could understand it; it was rich and sonorous with an odd, almost musical cadence. A language that seemed very ancient, making me think that the land where I’d been washed up was remote and isolated. The girls’ clothing was also different, and quite unusual. I’d never seen such fabrics before. One of them, the lovely, luminous girl who had been singing, was sitting on a boulder and telling her friends about a dream she’d had: ‘A girl came to wake me. She resembled a friend of mine who had just got married; it was her voice and it looked like her, but there was something different and strange about her. She said: “What are you still doing lazing in bed? It’s time you found a husband for yourself! Your clothing, and that of your brothers and your father the king, have been gathering dust. You know how much those boys like to dance, and how your father prides himself on wearing fresh garments to the council of elders. Why don’t you go to the river to wash them? It’s a lovely, sunny day. They’ll dry in a moment and the breeze will refresh them with the scent of flowers.”’

‘Really?’ one of her companions broke in. ‘You mean we’re here because a friend of yours appeared to you in a dream?’

‘Well, yes, but it was her and it wasn’t her. I felt a chill and a strong sensation. . as if I were in the presence of royalty.’

My heart started at hearing those words, as I watched the face and eyes of the girl telling the story. I knew exactly what she meant: I’d felt the same thing myself, many times, when my goddess, Athena of the blue-green eyes, touched me. It was she who had sent those girls there to the shore, to help me!

The girl who’d spoken was different from all the rest: her gown was striking and made of precious material; she wore golden earrings and bracelets and rich purple sandals. She truly had the bearing of a princess. The girls playing with her must be high-born as well, judging from their mannerisms and the confidence they had with the pretty one who had spoken. Another group of girls, dressed more humbly, were sitting together at a short distance; handmaids, young slaves in the service of the others. Every now and then one of them would get up to check whether the clothing hanging on the line was dry.

I was about to leave the forest, to go and speak to them, but then I remembered that I was completely naked. They would be frightened and start screaming, they’d run straight off to tell their parents who would hunt me down and beat me bloody. I couldn’t approach them as I was, but I felt as though I could collapse at any moment. I was starving, exhausted and needed help. I had no choice, I would have to leave my hiding place and ask them for something to cover myself with, at least. I looked around, broke off a laurel branch to cover my loins, and came forward. I must have been a horrible sight: encrusted with salt and seaweed, my hair tangled, my eyes red and lips cracked.

It went exactly as I had imagined. As soon as they saw me, the girls started screaming, terrified, and scattered in a panic. Some of them, perhaps, had run off to seek help.

But not all of them: one alone, the most beautiful one, was left standing, unafraid. She regarded me more with curiosity than with anxiety. I was ashamed of my revolting appearance. I didn’t know what to do. Should I embrace her knees, like a supplicant? No, she would take offence at the touch of such a vile-looking stranger. Better to speak to her at a distance.

‘I beseech you, hear my words, wanaxa, whoever you may be, whether a mortal woman or a goddess who inhabits the heavens. You are so beautiful that only Artemis, the goddess who runs in the forest, could resemble you. .’ I saw the hint of a smile and took a step towards her. One only. ‘Do not disdain me for my miserable appearance. I have been at the mercy of sea and storm and fought hard against them. My craft capsized and broke into pieces and I floundered in the waves until last night, when the sea pitched me onto this beach. I lost everything, even the clothing on my back. .’ I bent my head. ‘Give me a rag to cover myself, one of the cloths you use to cover the drying linens. That’s all I need. I was a powerful man once, the chief of many warriors. Many ships followed mine. Now I have nothing.’ The tears falling from my eyes as I spoke were real ones. Hot and bitter, I could feel them at the sides of my mouth. I could not say another word. I stood there, unmoving, a leafy branch my only defence from abjection.

The other girls had begun to creep closer. Perhaps they were ashamed at leaving their mistress on her own, or perhaps they were merely curious to see the foreigner that the sea had thrown up onto the sand.

‘Come closer,’ she said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

I took a few steps forward. From that distance I could not hide my bristly hair and shrivelled skin. I must have looked like an old man.

‘I’ll have my maidservants wash you. You can put this on.’ She took from the line a magnificent white robe of fine linen, and a cloak to cover my shoulders. She added a little jar of clear oil.

‘No, wanaxa, it’s best that girls who do not yet have husbands do not see the nudity of a grown man. I’ll wash myself.’ I stretched my hand out and took the garment and the oil. Then I drew back until my back bumped against a sandy hard surface, a rock jutting up on the beach. The river curled around it, creating a little pool, before flowing out into the sea. There, sheltered from all eyes by the rock, I washed myself. I held my face under water for a long time so my beard and hair would soften and I sank my fingers into the sand again and again until my nails came out white and clean. There was a lavender bush growing on the side of the rock in the bright sun and I rubbed a spike of it on my chest and my limbs. Then I spread the oil on my skin, which became softer, looking more like a young man’s.

I left the pond and leaned against the rock face to dry off, and then I put on the white robe. At that moment I felt a chill, a sensation of cold and then of heat, and I heard the fast beating of wings. I turned just as a coot took flight from the river’s surface and disappeared into the forest.

I walked back towards the lovely princess. She was intent on watching a duck swimming down the river with her ducklings and she raised her eyes upon seeing my shadow. An expression of surprise crossed her face. She was looking at a man, not a derelict. She ordered a stool to be brought for me and had me sit at a big flat stone where abundant food and a jug of water were waiting for me. I was famished and I could feel the strength flowing back into my limbs as I ate the bread, roast meat and fruit she’d offered. When I had finished this meal, I asked her:

‘What land is this, wanaxa? Who lives here? Is there a city I can reach on foot, where I can ask for help? As soon as I can I will give you back these rich garments, which were not meant for a man reduced so low.’

She drew close, close enough to smell the lavender, I think. She’d understood that I wasn’t a common man, could see that I venerated her beauty and respected her rank.

‘Who are you?’ she asked me. She seemed to be struck by the change I’d undergone. Had my goddess, perhaps, enhanced my looks so she would be fascinated by me?

‘My name is. . I don’t think my name would tell you anything. I’m nothing more than a castaway who has been sorely stricken by bad fortune. Please, tell me where I find myself.’

‘This is an island, foreigner. It’s called Scheria and my people are known as the Phaeacians. We are the best and the boldest sailors in the world. There’s no land that we haven’t reached and none unknown to us. Our island is so distant from any other inhabited land that we’ve never fought a war since we’ve been here, but our men are formidable warriors, ready to die for our homeland if necessary.

‘The city I come from is close by. It’s from there we travelled this morning on the cart you see there, drawn by those mules. It is ruled by my father Alcinous and my mother Arete. I am their daughter, Nausicaa, and I have five brothers, two of whom are married. I’ll gladly take you to our palace — you’ll see wondrous things there. But listen well: as soon as we enter, throw yourself at the feet of my mother, not of my father. If you convince her, you’ll have convinced him as well, and the twelve elders of the council. Tell her the truth.’

I nodded. The girls had finished gathering the dried garments from the line and wrapped them in large cloths, which they loaded onto the cart. Then they all got onto the cart along with the princess. I followed on foot.

We crossed rich pastures with herds of cows and flocks of sheep, vineyards and olive groves, orchards full of trees laden with fruit. Tufts of spiralling leaves rose from tall, luxuriant palm trees, bursting with fruit as well. A couple of wooden bridges allowed us to cross rushing streams like the one that had greeted me at the seashore the night before. Slowly the city began to appear: it encircled a harbour and was surrounded by mighty walls. A citadel stood in a commanding position above the city. Several ships had been pulled aground alongside the road and shipwrights were busy at work planing down oarblades and shaping curved planks for the hulls.

Nausicaa turned to me: ‘Don’t follow me too closely, I don’t want people to talk. They’ll say: “Who is that good-looking stranger the princess has in tow? Where did she find him? Where is she taking him? She must have picked him as her husband. She’s too haughty to accept a nice boy from her own city.” There’s nothing they like better than gossip, you know?’ In the meantime she was pointing at a wood of oaks, cypresses and olive trees at a short distance: ‘See that grove of trees over there? You can wait there for a while. You’ll find shade under the trees, and fresh water. I’ll go to the palace first. Let some time go by before you follow. I’ll come to welcome you at the gate.’

My heart laughed, because that was Nausicaa’s way of telling me that she thought I was a handsome man. Before we parted, she said: ‘As you make your way to the palace, don’t stop to talk to anyone. It’s rare for anyone to come here. As I told you, we’re far away from any other land and people here don’t tend to like strangers.’

I slowed my pace to put more distance between us so I wouldn’t excite the curiosity of the inhabitants and I stopped when I got to the wood that she’d pointed out. I waited there long enough for the princess to reach the palace, counting her steps and measuring her words in my heart. Then, when I was sure sufficient time had passed, I started on my way again. The clothes I wore made me look like one of them and, since I spoke to no one and held my head low as if I were absorbed in thought, no one found me odd enough to stop me.

As I walked up towards the citadel I wondered at the view of the harbour that opened itself up to my eyes: there were hundreds of vessels of every size there, cargo ships and war galleys with curved rostra, bristling with oars. The machines that towered at the end of the wharf were so huge that only Hephaestus, the god of blacksmiths, could have built something so wondrous. I imagined that they had been posted there to defend the port against any outside aggression. I’d never seen such things.

When I was high enough, I noted with surprise something that had remained hidden to my sight until then: a tall mountain rose behind the city and at its peak was a boulder of enormous dimensions, seemingly as big as the city itself. From the road I was on, which led up to the citadel, I could clearly see that it was perched quite precariously; just a small part of its base was touching the mountain. The back of the boulder was completely detached, and it would appear that any tremor, any vibration of the ground, could have jolted it and sent it tumbling down onto the city. None of the passers-by seemed even slightly alarmed, however. I had to think that the immense boulder had, perhaps, always been there. The city’s inhabitants had been born under its looming threat, and perhaps their fathers and their fathers’ fathers before them. They were not at all frightened by it.

I reached the citadel and found myself standing in front of the palace. I’d never seen anything remotely resembling it. Wide steps led up to an imposing colonnade. The shafts of the columns were ivory in colour and the capitals were painted red and gold. Behind them, in their shadows, stood the entry gate framed by finely sculpted carvings. The same motifs decorated the windows under another colonnaded balcony directly above the entrance, and a magnificent painting graced the walls between them, seeming to portray an entire people migrating from one land to another. A scene of one hundred ships crossing the wide sea. Blue dolphins leapt from the water alongside the long ships with sails bellying in the wind, as though to escort or guide them. In the background was the land the ships were leaving: it was red, with tall swaying palm trees and lions hunting down other long-horned animals.

At the base of the steps were two silver statues, so finely crafted that it seemed Hephaestus himself could have cast and fashioned them using his incomparable skills. I was enchanted: they represented two gigantic Molossian hounds with eyes of flaming jasper and tails curved forward over their backs. I walked towards the steps with the idea of reaching the entrance gate. I had no sooner placed my foot on the first step than the dogs, one after another, turned their heads towards me, opened their mouths full of ivory fangs and let out a terrifying noise, like a bark. Then they began to move their paws and approach me. I stopped in shock, afraid to take my eyes off them, when I heard the ringing of laughter: it was Nausicaa.

I turned towards her as she descended the steps.

I said, still trembling: ‘These statues are marvellous. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.’

Nausicaa smiled: ‘They’re not statues, as you’ve just seen. They are automata.’

I shook my head without understanding.

Nausicaa struck a kettledrum hanging from a pillar and the dog closed their gaping jaws and returned to their guard posts.

‘Now we can enter,’ she said with a smile. ‘Follow me.’

I walked behind her: ‘What does the painting of the ships on the porch above us represent?’

‘The history of the Phaeacians, my people. We have not always lived here on Scheria, this island. We once lived in the land of Hypereia, near the cyclopes. . we call the balcony above us the “porch of morning”. It tells of our exodus.’

I could not help but grimace at the mention of the cyclopes. The memory of the monster who had slaughtered my comrades was still too fresh and too painful.

Nausicaa noticed: ‘What’s wrong, foreigner?’

‘Nothing. I’ve heard say that the cyclopes are horrible, ferocious creatures.’

‘That they are. They were the reason why King Nausithous decided to abandon our ancestral home and to sail here. We are far away from everything else here but we live well, in peace, and we lack nothing. This island is blessed by the gods.’

Perhaps she read uncertainty in my eyes.

‘Why, don’t you think that’s so? You’ve seen crowded markets, the port teeming with ships, our cultivated fields, the fertile pastures and fat livestock.’

‘This is the loveliest place on earth, without a doubt.’

One of her handmaids, in the meantime, had entered the palace, perhaps to announce our arrival. Nausicaa beckoned for me to follow. We crossed an entrance hall guarded by two tall warriors, armed with weapons I’d never seen before and wearing tunics and cloaks matching in colour.

‘Our colours distinguish us from anyone else on the battlefield, should we ever be attacked,’ explained the princess.

We continued down a wide corridor with a floor made of artfully cut stones of different colours. Every now and then there was an inset dolphin carved from blue stone, the same animal I’d seen in the large painting on the facade. I realized they must represent the sea creatures that had guided the Phaeacians in their migration from Hypereia to Scheria. Any population that migrates always has an animal leading them: an eagle, a wolf, a bear. It must be sad to leave your homeland forever.

Just a few more steps and I would be entering the throne room where I would find the king and queen. They would surely be more like gods than mortals. The door was open, guarded by two more sentries. They were very young. I wondered whether they had ever seen combat. Perhaps their fathers had, or their ancestors, when their people had been living near the land of the cyclopes, but surely not these youths. The island was so far from the rest of the world, they would scarcely have seen many foreigners, let alone fought them. When I entered, preceded by the princess, everyone turned to stare at me. They followed me with their eyes as if to observe every minimal detail of my mannerisms: the way I walked and the way I moved my hands. They were surely surprised at the clothing I was wearing, which they must have recognized.

Before me were the king and queen, garbed in simple yet precious robes which they wore with grace and majesty. The queen had brown hair and light, amber-coloured eyes with long, black lashes and fine eyebrows. Her slim, harmonious figure was accented by her gown. The king had black hair with a few white threads here and there, a well-groomed beard and dark, deep eyes. He seemed much older than his wife. I was later to learn from Nausicaa that he was her mother’s uncle, and that he had married Arete after his brother’s death.

I threw myself at the queen’s feet and embraced her knees: ‘Divine wanaxa,’ I said, ‘I am here to beseech your indulgence. I have suffered great misfortune. My raft was wrecked in a storm and I lost everything. The sea tossed me up onto the beach as darkness was falling, after I had spent a day and a night in the throes of the gale clinging on to a log. .’

I could sense that the queen was looking at my skinned, wounded hands and then at the robes I wore.

‘Not a single thing was left to me, not even a rag. From a distance, covering myself as best I could, I appealed to your lovely daughter who was washing linens at the river with her maidservants. I was truly a horrible sight, and all of the girls ran off except for her. She definitely has the courage of a great race in her heart, the sacred strength of her father and the grace and beauty of her mother.

‘It was she who showed me the road leading to the high palace. I beg you to grant me your protection. Have mercy on me.’

Only then did I raise my eyes and I saw that my words had moved the queen. She motioned for me to stand and turned her gaze towards her husband.

I turned to him then: ‘Great king, wanax Alcinous, I implore you to grant me your help and hospitality because I come in need of everything.’

The king nodded. All of his gestures were slow and measured. This was how I imagined the immortal, celestial gods must move as they sat on their thrones in assembly. ‘You’ve already obtained your wish, for whatever my wife desires I desire as well. And because it is our custom to welcome the poor and derelict. Please join us this evening for dinner. When dusk draws near, we shall take our places at well-set tables and cheer our hearts with fine red wine as we listen to the song of our poet, who tells marvellous stories. Nausicaa will meanwhile show you your rooms and give you more garments, sandals and a belt, and finely crafted clasps for your cloak so it will not slip from your shoulders.’

‘My heart is full of gratitude, wanax,’ I replied. ‘From the moment when I began the long voyage of my endless return, I have never been welcomed thus, nor have I ever seen a land more blessed. At first glance, I mistook your daughter for a goddess.’

I bowed deeply, kissed the hand of the king and that of the queen and followed the girl who had taken pity on me out towards the colonnaded porch. The view from the balcony took my breath away, so wondrous were the sights before my eyes. The sun was descending towards the sea and its vermilion light streaked through the passing clouds, scarlet sails flitting above the still, shiny waters of the port.

‘Do you like our island? And our city?’ asked Nausicaa as the declining sun set her cheeks and hair aglow.

‘More than any other place I’ve ever seen in all my life. . But there is one thing that burdens my heart.’

‘What’s that?’

I reached out my hand and pointed to the mountaintop rising beyond the citadel and the palace. ‘There, that enormous mass overhanging the city and the port. From below it looks like part of the mountain, but from here it seems that only a miracle is holding it in place on that rocky cliff. It would take nothing to make it fall.’

I was about to say that Poseidon, the blue god, the shaker of land, could make the island tremble with his trident and cause the boulder to come tumbling down, but these words did not leave my lips. If such a disaster were to happen, the blame could only be mine. I couldn’t bear the thought of bringing harm to such a beautiful and prosperous land, and to the sweet princess who had welcomed, nourished and dressed me and who was now accompanying me to my rooms inside the palace of her father the king.

Nausicaa’s eyes, always so serene, were clouded by fleeting sadness. ‘We don’t think about it, foreign guest. That boulder has rested there since the beginning of time. Why should it fall now?’

‘Forgive me,’ I said. ‘I should not have spoken. I’ve upset you over nothing.’

Nausicaa didn’t answer, but gestured for me to follow her to my quarters and I did so.

When we reached them, she opened the door for me and bid me enter. Her perfect face seemed serene once again. ‘You’re wrong,’ she said. ‘It will never fall. We Phaeacians descend from Poseidon, the blue god, who fathered our first ancestor with a descendant of the Tribe of the Giants, Periboea. Why would he ever cause our land to quake?’

I knew why, but I didn’t have the courage to say it.

The day following my arrival, the king and queen announced their intention to give a reception in my honour. I was already a respected guest; I had already slept in the palace. They could have asked me at that point who I was, but they did not do so. The king asked me only how I had reached the palace. I replied: ‘As I’ve already told you, wanax, your daughter allowed me to speak to her and she helped me. My raft had shattered to pieces and I had to swim far and long to avoid being crushed against the reefs. I came ashore at the mouth of your river, miserable and stripped of all my belongings.’

‘But it was not she,’ said Alcinous, ‘who offered you protection. It was you who asked for it.’

Nausicaa clearly kept no secrets from her parents. Alcinous had asked me a question that he already knew the answer to, to show me that nothing happened in his kingdom without him knowing it.

‘That’s true,’ I replied. ‘What else could I have done?’

‘And the garments you were wearing,’ asked the queen, ‘where did you get them?’ She was perfectly informed about this as well, but she wanted me to know that nothing escaped her.

I bowed my head. ‘Your daughter gave them to me, splendid wanaxa. I had no choice but to ask her. I had nothing left, not even a rag to wrap around my loins. She showed me where I could wash and she gave me fine oil to rub on my tortured body and the robe that I still wear now.’

The queen smiled with her eyes, for I had told her the truth, and the king spoke again: ‘You are welcome under our roof. You have the looks of a strong, courageous, noble man. It is our custom to help those in need and you have shown that you deserve the help you have requested.’

And thus I stayed on at the palace of King Alcinous, Nausicaa’s father. There was truly something godlike in that man and in his wife Arete, a woman majestic in her beauty. They reigned over an industrious — and one would say happy — people in a land distant from all others, blessed by nature and by the gods. The inhabitants were long-lived, and for the entire time that I remained on the island, I never saw anyone who was crippled or deformed, no one hunched or limping. They seemed like a race born perfect, or perhaps it was the absence of war and conflict that saved them from ever being injured or maimed.

All five sons lived in the palace and emanated the same tranquil strength as their parents. At times I sensed that Nausicaa’s brothers were a bit diffident towards me, but that was natural since they couldn’t help but notice how she looked at me and hung on my words. For them I was still a stranger without a name or a homeland.

The sovereign was assisted in his governing duties by twelve elders, the wisest and most venerable in the entire kingdom; each one of them carried a sceptre and was called king. They were the first to be invited to the reception, summoned by the king’s herald along with other distinguished guests. Alcinous had also sent for the city’s — and indeed the island’s — most famous singer: Demodocus, who was blind but gifted with a divine voice and the art of storytelling, accompanying his words with a lyre. He was the only person I ever met on Scheria who had been struck by infirmity, but in this case the gods had been just because he had been compensated by the harmony of his voice and his song. The gods always demand a high price for their gifts. This had been the case with wanax Admetus in Pherai and with Cassandra in Troy, and it was thus with Demodocus.

The banquet was rich: bread and meat were served, with exquisite wine from the palace vineyards. The guests nonetheless showed moderation in eating and drinking and preferred conversation to filling their stomachs. They spoke about their families, the teachers they’d chosen to educate their children, about their dreams and about their adventures in youth. They were unable to count back many generations of ancestors, although they knew that their people had always lived close to the primitive, savage races that Mother Earth and Nature had generated in their attempt to create beings who were more knowing and conscious of their own destiny. The Phaeacians had fled cyclopes and giants and had persevered on their own path to perfection. They spoke of the gods as though they were very familiar with them; they would often notice them participating in sacrifices or catch glimpses of them in the hours when the light of day was most uncertain, in the early morning or at twilight, in the fields or on the sea or along deserted beaches.

When the tables were cleared a servant brought a cup of red wine and placed it next to the poet. He took a sip and then began his song. Seeing him brought to mind the lonely minstrel who had offered to sing for me that sad evening when I had failed in my mission in Troy with Menelaus, and I was contemplating my melancholy return. My heart had had a premonition, and rightly so, anticipating the terrible, unending sorrows I would have to bear in the bloody fields below the sacred walls of Troy.

Thoughts of Troy returned, as we listened to Demodocus’ song, with words and a melody so strong and intense that they have remained with me all these long years.

I could barely remember that happening, but the poet brought it back to life for me. I recalled that argument, in wanax Agamemnon’s tent: Achilles believed that only the force of the spear and the sword could win the day. I had told him then: ‘You speak that way because you are so strong; you are invincible. For you the war is a source of everlasting glory, for our companions it is nothing but bitter suffering and obscure death. If my mind can find the way to end this interminable war by bringing down Troy, I will make her fall!’

Thus the poet recalled that day long ago and my heart melted in my chest. As he went on with his melodious verses I felt hot tears rise to my eyes and I covered my face with my cloak. I wept without restraint. Those memories were too painful. It was painful too to realize how much time had passed since then if such events had reached the very ends of the earth where they inspired the songs of poets. When the tears on my face had dried I lowered my cloak and I saw that Alcinous had been observing me. He was perhaps trying to understand who I might be, if such a tale had brought me to tears. And perhaps even the poet had noticed, blind though he was. Those who are deprived of the light of day reinforce other senses; they can smell pain like a lion scents fear. I didn’t take my leave until much later, although I yearned to retire to my room. I was suffering greatly, but couldn’t be disrespectful to the singer and the illustrious wanax of that supernal home. I wept again when I was alone, wetting the pillow with my tears.

The few days that separated me from departure filled my heart with melancholy. I should have been serene, even happy. I was finally returning home at the head of an expert crew made up of the best sailors in the entire world, under the auspices of a king who descended from Poseidon himself. But every time I saw the look of dismay in Nausicaa’s eyes, my heart plummeted in my chest. I knew that look. I’d seen it in Penelope’s eyes every time I’d been about to leave; her counting every instant until we’d finally part. A sense of inconsolable desolation, of dread.

We would walk along the bank of the river for hours, even for days at a time, stopping every now and then in the shade of a palm or willow tree. Plants and trees of every type shared that wondrous land; those from warm climes and cold. We talked together about a great number of things, like the adventures I’d experienced and the wild lands I’d visited. Other times, instead, long silences fell between us, filled only by the remote, mysterious messages whispered in the sigh of the sea.

In the evenings I continued to tell my story at the palace: how I’d met up with the red-flower eaters and then the cyclops, how I had blinded him and then mocked him with ill-conceived words. I was uncertain whether to tell them about the curse he’d hurled at me, how he had called upon his father Poseidon, lord of the sea and the Ocean, to revenge him. I feared that the king might regret giving hospitality to a man who had earned the rancour of a god who was their ancestor. It had already happened once, with Aeolus, the tamer of the winds. He had thrown me out and refused to help me after he’d understood that a powerful god was enraged with me. But the king and his people had been generous and they deserved my sincerity, and so I decided not to hide the terrible words that had come out of the monster’s mouth after I had forever deprived him of the light of day.

I watched as Alcinous’ face darkened. The Phaeacians knew many things about the cyclopes, since they had once inhabited the land of Hypereia, which bordered the giants’ territory. They had often had to defend themselves from that despicable race. But instead of fighting them off as enemies, they had chosen to set off for a new homeland, and thus had remained dear to the blue god, who often manifested himself to them openly, not covered by the clouds which always hide the gods from mortal men.

And I told, barely managing to hold back tears, of how the savage Laestrygonians, eaters of human flesh, had massacred my men, and how they had smashed and sunk all our ships by pitching huge boulders at them. All of them except one.

I was unable to tell them what the Sirens’ song had revealed. So greatly had it wounded my heart that I still suffer now. Not a day or a night passes without me trying to unravel that enigmatic revelation.

The men who would be accompanying me by ship to Ithaca were among my listeners. They heard me out with fixed expressions, never asking or objecting. Perhaps they didn’t understand. I couldn’t help but wonder at times: they had sailed all the seas in the world, why hadn’t they seen the things that I’d seen? Was their silence due to amazement or disbelief? Where had they been? Which seas had they navigated, which waves? On which lands had they set ashore? I wanted to ask whether they had ever passed the wall of fog. . did that gloomy barrier truly separate reality from dream or nightmare? I didn’t dare. It was better not to lift the veils of that mystery when I was so close to returning to my own world. Even if I found that my world had changed greatly, I would still recognize it, surely. The circle would close. At least until I received the sign that would force me to leave again.

The night I told the story of Circe there was a new moon. The sky was covered with black clouds and a sighing wind was drifting in from distant lands. I told of how she had urged me to seek out the gateway of Hades, to summon up the shade of Tiresias and to ask him what my destiny held in store for me. A profound silence fell over the hall from my very first words: ‘I crossed the sea and entered the deep, boundless Ocean. I set ashore where a white cliff of smooth rock rose as high as the sky, piercing the clouds. The coast was bristling with jagged rocks above the surface and treacherous reefs below and the waves were boiling with white foam.’

I saw the sailors who would be on my ship murmuring something to one another. Had they seen it, perhaps? Had they boldly navigated as well beyond the extreme limits of the land and sea? I did not interrupt my story, I asked them nothing. There would be plenty of time during the long voyage that awaited us to talk about those places. I told the assembly about the fallen comrades I found there, mere shadows of what they had once been. I spoke of their desolation and the infinite sadness that enveloped them. And finally of Tiresias’ prophecy: that I would return late, a broken man, that I would find my home violated and invaded. That I would restore order and justice, but not for always. Another long, endless journey awaited me, no longer over the sea, but through mud, snow, ice; a journey of silence and screams.

Even the wind fell still and my words reverberated off the shocked walls. The twelve elders watched me, their faces placid and smooth as wax. A blade of cold air froze my breath. I saw it condense as I can see it now.

Reliving these adventures, my misfortunes and my grief, were like opening up wounds that had never scarred over. The loss of my comrades, their bodies mangled, buried in the stinking bowels of cruel savages, unworthy exequies, unworthy burial! I felt it all.

I told my whole story dry-eyed. I didn’t want to sadden the king and the assembly. It is thus that a guest reciprocates the kindness of his hosts, who have taken him in and fed him at their table. I ended my story with the night I was washed ashore on their island and it felt like I was still a prisoner of the swells that had flung me against the reefs and sharp rocks. I held up my hands, which still hadn’t healed. And, looking Nausicaa in the eyes, I told of our encounter, the scattering of her friends and handmaids as soon as they saw me, the help that she offered without asking for anything in return.

One still afternoon, some time after I had finished telling my story, Nausicaa led me to the sanctuary. Deep in the most secret penetralia of that sacred place was a large painting that represented the gulf, the city and the huge boulder that loomed over it. At the centre of the bay a ship was setting out to sea. Underneath the painting were painted marks, all of the same colour, that stood for words. They looked much like the ones I’d seen long ago on the rim of the shield wielded by wanax Idomeneus, king of Crete and Knossos: a perfect weapon that had belonged to King Minos, Lord of the Labyrinth, before him.

‘Do you want to know what the marks say?’ Nausicaa asked me.

‘Yes, I do,’ I replied.

‘They say that one day a man will show up on the beach and ask for our help to return to his homeland. A man hated by Poseidon, our god and protector. If the Phaeacians decide to take him to his destination, they may do so, but upon their return, their ship will be turned into a rock at the entry to the port, blocking all access, and the boulder will fall from the mountain and crush the city under its enormous weight, destroying its houses and killing its inhabitants.’

Tears streamed from my eyes. ‘So there’s no escape for me. I’m that man. And this curse has been lying in wait here for me from time immemorial. As has this atrocious dilemma: I can either accept your help and condemn you to annihilation, or forever give up my island, my family, my people.’

My heart rejected this cruel sentence. I even hoped that Nausicaa had invented it all to convince me to stay and forget about returning. But she saw the expression on my face, the tears streaming down my face, and perhaps she took pity on me. She said: ‘There’s one last phrase. It says: “If the god so wishes.” So it may not happen.’

‘Your father knows of this prophecy, doesn’t he?’

‘Certainly, as do my mother, my brothers and the elders.’

‘Why would they do this for me?’

‘Wouldn’t you do the same thing? We are a great people, with a great heart.’

‘I would do the same.’

‘So you can surely understand the choice of the valiant Phaeacians, uncontested masters of the sea.’

My eyes ran over the painting, poring over every detail, every corner, and then stopping in the middle. ‘That ship. .’

‘What about that ship?’

‘It has no means for steering.’

‘You saw ships like this one down at the port, didn’t you?’

‘I thought the oars had been stowed away.’

‘No. None of our ships have steering oars. They always know the route. The sailors will ask you where your island is and the ship will know how to take you there.’

I was dumbfounded. I realized that mortals could become like the gods and perhaps even better, if we could live according to fair laws and were led by the highest minds. But my heart ached at the thought that by accepting such a generous gift, I would be exposing those people that I had learned to love — that wondrously wise king and queen, and golden Nausicaa herself — to mortal danger. To the possible extermination of their whole people.

How could I accept? Alcinous, who was aware of the threatening prophecy, had offered me his daughter, certainly his most precious treasure, in the hope of binding me to this land. So that I would stay, forget about returning. After all my stories, he was surer than ever that I was the fatal man, he who gives rise to hatred, and he was just as sure that I had nothing to go back to. He knew that my world didn’t exist any more, or was dying. We had been away too long. Many kings had died or had gone missing. Others, like me, had been given up for dead. Too many young men in the bloom of their years had left their lives on the fields of Troy.

But I could not give up Ithaca and I already knew in my heart what I would say. I asked Nausicaa if her mother and father would receive me. Nothing penetrated from outside, neither sounds nor voices. Only the light of midday poured in from above like molten bronze, along with the twittering of sparrows.

‘They will hear you today,’ she replied. That was all I needed to know.

The next day, at dawn, Eumeus came back into the hut. I could hear him stamping his feet on the ground to warm them, and rubbing his hands.

‘The mountain peaks on the mainland are covered with snow,’ he said. ‘That’s why it was so cold last night.’

Then he blew on the embers and added a small bundle of dry sticks, and the flames were rekindled. At this point he threw a big piece of olive wood onto the fire; it was slow-burning and would last much longer than a softer wood. I got up and walked towards him. ‘If your master could only see this, he’d certainly be happy with you. You care for his property and his pigs as if they were your own.’

‘I do it because it’s my duty. It’s the property of Telemachus and the queen I’m preserving,’ he answered. ‘Who knows where my boy is now?’ he added with a sigh. ‘It’s terrible not to be able to warn someone who’s in danger. But what can I do? Send out a ship? Where to? Will he choose to sail along the coast or between the islands? Anyway, if I were to leave from the port on a ship, everyone would know about it in no time. A swineherd fancying himself a sailor wouldn’t go unnoticed, I’d wager.’

A flute echoed in the distance. I strained to hear: ‘Did you hear that?’ I asked Eumeus.

‘Hear what?’

‘A flute?’

‘No, I don’t hear anything. You’re imagining it.’

But I could hear it quite clearly. A single note at first, followed by others, lower and deeper, and then by more highly pitched ones, and finally the single, tense note again: like a signal. My goddess was close and wanted me to know it. I needn’t worry. No one would touch my boy.

‘What’s he like?’

‘What’s who like?’

‘The prince. Telemachus. What does he look like? Is he a good sort of lad?’

Eumeus peered into my eyes as if trying to make out the thoughts that flitted through my heart.

‘He’s a handsome boy indeed. You should see him. He’s a little taller than his father was and well built with a thin waist and broad shoulders. His eyes are dark and deep like his mother’s, and he gets irritated like she does if you rub him the wrong way. I know him well and I can see right away if he’s feeling moody. If it’s one of those days, I take him over to see Philoetius, if he’s got a newborn calf, or we go hunting wood pigeons with a bow and arrow, or he’ll help me plant an olive tree. He likes to watch me while I’m working. He’s got a generous heart. He thinks of me as. . I don’t know, an uncle. Someone he cares about. Every now and then he’ll bring a gift for me, carry it over himself. When he comes to dinner, once or twice a month, he never arrives empty-handed. He has an amphora of special wine from Same or Corinth sent over, or a wheel of goat cheese. The cloak I lent you last night? He gave it to me.’

‘So his father would be proud of him.’

‘You can say that again, more than proud. That boy is a treasure. What vexes him most, besides what he sees going on in his house, is never having known his father. You can tell he misses him awfully, especially now that he has these arrogant bastards invading the palace. A boy shouldn’t have to watch his mother cry without having the means to defend her.’

I turned to poke at the fire so he wouldn’t see my face. A cloud of sparks rose towards the opening in the middle of the roof.

‘He’s never felt so alone as he does now,’ he continued. ‘The company of a swineherd is certainly not the best you could wish on a prince and a boy his age. His grandfather, King Laertes, left the palace long ago to live on his farm in the country. All told, it’s better he did. If he had remained, blood would be spilling.’

‘Doesn’t he remember anything about his father?’

‘He was too young when his father left for the war.’

‘Does he ever ask you about him?’

‘Oh, sure. What were Odysseus’ eyes like, what was his hair like, was he good with a spear and a sword, was he as clever as everyone says, what did he like to eat, did he like hunting wood pigeons. .’ Eumeus went to the door. ‘It’s better that I go and put the piglets under the sows. I don’t trust the farm hands. They get distracted so easily. I don’t want any of the sucklings to be crushed.’ He went out.

I spent the next few days with him, and every evening we’d stay up late talking and drinking wine for as long as the fire lasted. He recounted the complicated tale of how he’d ended up on Ithaca, one I’d heard ever since I was a child. How he’d been kidnapped by Phoenician merchants as a small boy. The son, back then, of a powerful and respected man, he was betrayed by his nurse, who had taken a bribe from the foreign sailors. I pretended to listen with great curiosity, and urged him on with my exclamations. We were good companions. It was a true novelty for him after the sole company of the stable boys who worked for him.

Then one day at dawn, as soon as we’d got up, I told him that I could stay no longer, that I’d become as bad as the pretenders to the throne, living off his master’s bounty.

‘I thought I’d go to the palace and make myself useful there. I can serve at table. I know how to mix wine and carve meats. .’

‘Are you crazy, old man? Don’t even think about it. Do you want to know what their servants are like? Boys from good families who they’ve brought along with them: educated, well-dressed, sweetly scented. They’d kick the life out of you, ragged as you are and reeking of the pigsty. Anyone who stays here longer than a day ends up smelling like a pig.’

‘All I know is that I’ve been here for days eating your bread and drinking your wine without being of any real help. I’m not so good at tending pigs. It’s like I told you: I was once a wealthy man, with servants and women and a magnificent house. But I want to thank you. I’ll never forget your hospitality. You took me in without even knowing who I was, you fed me and sheltered me from the biting cold. I may stink now but that’s easily taken care of. I’ll just stop at the spring near crow’s rock and wash.’

Eumeus was about to answer when he abruptly held his finger to his lips. The dogs outside were signalling someone’s arrival.

‘Who could it be?’ I asked.

‘Listen, they’re not barking like they did with you. They’re yelping, it’s someone they recognize. There’s only one person they’d be so happy to see: the master’s son. It’s Telemachus! He’s made it back safely! May the gods be praised. .’

He ran outside. I heard shouts of joy, voices raised in greeting. . the voice of a young man, strong and deep. It was the first time I’d heard the true voice of my son!

They entered straight away and my heart leapt in my chest. I swiftly rose to my feet but Telemachus said: ‘Don’t get up, foreigner, Eumeus will find me another stool.’ I couldn’t believe that my son was talking to me. My son! I started trembling as I never had before and when Eumeus entered with a bundle of sticks and a sheep’s skin he looked at me and asked: ‘Are you all right, my friend?’

I mumbled an excuse and left them. I couldn’t bear for my son to see me in that state. I went out of the small back door, rounded the stables and hurried to crow’s rock. There was a stream flowing from the spring where the flocks came to drink. I washed myself and my hair, combing through it with my fingers. As I was about to go back, I spied a long white tunic and a lovely cloak hanging on the branch of an olive tree. Who could they belong to? I put them on and returned to Eumeus’ house. My heart was pounding hard enough to suffocate me, even harder than when, biting my lip, I would wait unflinching for the order to attack the enemy army on the fields of Troy.

As I retraced my steps I caught a glimpse of the shepherd boy, among the trunks of the centuries-old olive trees, taking his goats to pasture. It was my goddess, restoring the look and the vigour of a king in me, so I could face my son after twenty years gone.

I entered through the main door so I wouldn’t have to bend in two. Eumeus, who was carrying a basket of bread, turned to stone at the sight of me. He regarded me without saying a word. Perhaps he couldn’t understand or perhaps he understood too well. But my eyes were for the boy. I needed to fill my heart with the image that I’d so often tried to dream up on those solitary nights in distant lands, in anguished exile, on the vast, insurmountable sea.

‘Who are you, foreigner?’ he asked me, seemingly amazed at my appearance.

I prayed that my heart not fail me and took a step towards him. I’d been asked that question so many times and had answered in so many ways — a wanderer who has no country and no shelter is everyone and no one. But I — who had always had so many tales ready to tell — could not find a word to break the silence. The boy continued to look at me, curious and perplexed.

I opened my mouth finally and said: ‘I am-’

‘He’s your father,’ said Eumeus. ‘He could never hide his emotion when he spoke of you — tears glittered in his eyes as they do now that you stand before him. And just before you came in, he mentioned a place that no foreigner new to this island could possibly know: crow’s rock. Now that he looks like a king or a god of the heavens, I recognize him without any doubt. He is your father, Telemachus. Your father has returned after twenty years!’

I suddenly found my words: ‘It’s me, son. I know that you aren’t ready to accept me yet, to recognize me. I’m simply a foreigner to you, a stranger. How often I’ve tried to imagine what you were like. With every year that passed I tried to let you grow inside me, in my heart, in my eyes. And now that I see you I feel that I’ve never been separated from you. I never wanted to leave you, son, I did everything I could not to leave you. When from my ship I watched the shore becoming more and more distant, your mother holding you in her arms becoming smaller and smaller, my heart broke. I can’t believe I’m standing here in front of you.’

I opened my arms and, after a moment’s hesitation, he embraced me tightly. We stood there, unmoving, without saying a word. Everything was silent, I could see nothing and no one. Even Eumeus had disappeared. We wept, father and son, in each other’s arms.

We went on talking until late. Telemachus had a lot to tell me and I had so much to say to him, but I didn’t tell him everything. Not all I’d told the Phaeacians and their king. I just couldn’t go back.

There was one thing that I hadn’t been able to cast from my thoughts since I’d landed on my island: the prophecy that Nausicaa had announced to me, the annihilation that threatened the city and its people if they helped a man who came from the sea to return to his homeland. I continued to hope that the blue god would choose not to fulfil the prophecy. It was in his power and those people were his own descendants. But who can probe the mind of a god? In the past, whenever I’d had a narrow escape or one of my adventures was over, I would manage to tuck away my suffering in a hidden corner of my heart and find the strength to go on. Not any more.

Telemachus picked up from where he’d left off.

‘After that, with every day that passed, the hope of seeing you became more remote. But I had never seen you, so it was different for me. It was much harder on Grandfather and on Mother. Grandmother Anticlea sank into a state of such hopelessness that she wouldn’t speak. She never left her room, and many times if I went to visit she wouldn’t even open the door. If I found it open and went in, I’d see her sitting at the window and watching the sea with her clear, liquid eyes.’ Telemachus’ voice was trembling. ‘I’d ask her if she felt like talking, tell her that I’d been hunting that day. ‘Tomorrow I’m taking a boat over to Same. What can I bring you back that you’d like?’ I’d say. Never an answer. When the first fruits ripened, I’d bring her something: a fig, some berries, whatever I’d find. But she’d just look at me without saying anything. Sometimes she’d smile like little children do, when they laugh or cry for no reason at all.’

I lowered my head so as not to cry myself. How much pain I’d left behind me, how many disappointed hopes, how many tears. .

Telemachus stared at the flames crackling in the hearth. ‘When she died, Grandfather had a solemn funeral prepared for her. He dressed her in her most beautiful gown. Weepers came from the continent to mourn the queen mother and the flute players sounded their lament. Her handmaids cut off locks of their hair to toss onto the pyre and Mother threw a precious amber necklace that had been part of her dowry into the flames. King Autolykos her father appeared suddenly out of nowhere, his white hair gathered at his neck with a leather tie. He wore a black floor-length cloak with a silver-studded belt and the crowd parted to let him pass. There was utter silence. The flute players and the weepers hushed and the thunder that had been rumbling in the distance hushed as well. Autolykos threw an object of little value onto the fire, a doll or something that looked like one. Later he was seen boarding his ship at the port and sailing west. We never heard from him again.

‘The years passed and everyone began to say that you had died. Many of the warriors who had brought down Troy had come back, thousands of them, but none from Ithaca or Same or Dulichium or even Zacynthus. I made sure of this as I travelled among the islands. Perhaps, I thought, my father the hero Odysseus stopped on his return voyage with his men to sack some city, to carry off their wealth and their women. And maybe the inhabitants gathered in great number, filled with rage, and killed them all or took them prisoner or sold them off into slavery. So those men would never see their homes again. What else could have possibly happened?

‘I wasn’t the only son mourning his lost father. Many other youths on this island were thinking the same things I was.

‘The only person who never gave up was Queen Penelope, my mother. She refused to raise a mound on the seashore and celebrate your funeral rites. She said that you had promised her you would return and that you always kept your promises. From that moment on, she became known far and wide as the unyielding protectress of your house and your bed, and her hope in your return became legendary. A great number of vagabonds and vagrants, freeloaders all, took advantage of her over the years. All they needed to do was hint that they’d seen the king of Ithaca or heard that he was alive and they’d be guaranteed hospitality, abundant food and a comfortable place to sleep under the palace portico. They told my mother what she wanted to hear. And even if her hopes were always shattered, she never gave up. She wouldn’t miss an opportunity to keep her dreams alive. She has suffered greatly.’

‘But now everything has changed, I hear.’

‘That’s right, for the worse. It was two years ago when the princes came: from Ithaca, all the islands around us and even from the continent. They bore wedding gifts in great quantity. They demanded that my mother declare publicly that she was a widow and that she choose a husband from among them. That was when King Laertes left the palace. He couldn’t vanquish them and he couldn’t stand them. He left for his farm in the country where he grows olives and grapes. He lives like the poorest of men. In the winter he sleeps in the house next to the hearth but in the summer he sleeps in the fields, wherever he happens to find himself, on a heap of dry leaves. I’ve seen him myself. Anything is more bearable than living in shame in your own house.’

I watched my son and listened to him, the heart in my chest snarling in rage at what I was hearing.

‘Eumeus told me they were planning to ambush me at sea, behind the island of Asteria. They wanted to sink my ship, to see me die with all my men. Well here I am, fine as ever, and so are my comrades.’

With every passing instant, the image and the voice of my son entered my eyes and flowed into my heart, so that I felt that I loved him as though we had never lived a moment apart.

‘Tell me more about your mother. How has she managed to put off the suitors?’

‘She’s the worthy wife of Odysseus, the man of the multicoloured mind. Did you know that the minstrels call you that? Since they were becoming more and more insistent, she came up with a stratagem. She said she would not make her choice until she had finished weaving a funeral shroud for the hero Laertes. No one would dare to oppose such a request. My mother wove the cloth by day and unravelled it by night.. ’

I smiled at her cunning and I remembered the girl with the deep, bright eyes that I’d fallen in love with so many years ago in Sparta.

‘. . but one of the handmaids, who has become the lover of Antinous, their leader, discovered the trick and she told the suitors, who broke into the women’s quarters at night, brazenly violating their seclusion.’

My blood boiled in my veins at hearing those words. ‘They’ll pay for this. I’ll slaughter them all, from the first to the last,’ I muttered.

But Telemachus had not finished. ‘At that point she could feign no longer. I tried to appeal to the assembly, but the princes are powerful, and they’re well armed. No one dares to take a stand against them, and I’m not strong enough to do it on my own… Forgive me, Father,’ he said, bowing his head.

‘You have nothing to be ashamed of. You did what you could.’

‘Some of them have even importuned Grandfather Icarius in Sparta, offering even richer wedding gifts to convince him to intervene and declare that his daughter is a widow. If you hadn’t returned, I don’t think she would have been able to hold them off any longer.’

‘It’s true. She wouldn’t have been able to put off a decision. But why did you return from your voyage so soon? You told me that King Nestor and King Menelaus were willing to extend their hospitality for as long as you wanted.’

‘I heard a voice calling me home, and Theoclymenus, the seer, swore to me that you were on the island. The heart in my chest was dancing with joy. Do you believe me?’

‘I do, pai, and I myself can’t wait to see King Laertes my father again, to console him for so many bitter years. But first. . first the suitors will have to pay. And you will help me.’

‘You and I alone? Atta, there are fifty of them, sometimes even more; strong, young, armed men. Many of my mother’s handmaids are their concubines. They know all there is to know about the palace. Mai hates them because they don’t respect her.’

‘I destroyed Troy. Do you think fifty young men should worry me?’

Eumeus entered. His hair was tousled by the wind and he held two baskets in his hands, with bread, cheese and spits of roasted meat.

‘Eumeus,’ I asked him, ‘would you be willing to do battle?’

‘Even now, wanax,’ he replied, setting down the baskets and laying his two big fists on the table.

‘Who else can we count on?’

‘Philoetius, the cowherd. He’s strong as an ox and with an axe in his hand he’s a fury. He’d throw himself into the fire for you.’

‘No one else?’

‘Maybe. . but it’s better not to take risks. Unless you want to call on your father King Laertes. He may not be as strong as he once was, but I’ll wager that he’s raring to put on his armour.’

‘No, better not. He’ll know that I’ve returned when it’s time. Now listen to me, both of you: the plan is clear in my mind. You, Telemachus, will leave tomorrow at dawn. Go to see your mother as soon as you can. She must be going mad with anguish and worry. Let her see that you’re alive and that no one has harmed you. Eumeus, you and I will leave later, and go to the palace. I’ll remain, to beg for something to eat from the princes. You’ll head back after you’ve paid your respects to the queen. I want to get to know them one by one, watch what they do, how they act, what they’re scheming.

‘Even if the two of you see them insult me or humiliate me, don’t make a move. Don’t open your mouths, don’t interfere. I’ll know what to do.’

‘What about my mother?’ asked Telemachus.

‘Your mother must know nothing until the time is right.’ Trust no one, not even your wife, say one thing and think another. . ‘My decision may seem harsh to you, but it’s necessary. No one in my house can know that I’ve returned. You’ll tell your mother that you went ashore at the secret port and that you spent the night at Eumeus’. She won’t ask about anything else. She’ll be filled with joy at just seeing you.’

Telemachus regarded me with a bewildered look for a moment, but then instantly regained control over his heart. He nodded to let me know that he’d do as I asked him.

‘I love your mother, pai. I love her more than I love my own life and I’ve never stopped thinking about her all these years, every day, every night. But we can’t tell her anything yet. Trust me. She could give herself away without meaning to, and that would give me away. A look is all it would take, a gesture. . We can’t make a single mistake or we’re lost.’

My words seemed to reassure him. Eumeus passed the roasted meat and the bread, first to me and then to Telemachus. He poured us wine as well, serving himself last. We were all three as tense as a bowstring before the arrow is let fly, but in my heart I felt stronger than ever before because I knew I’d crossed the wall of fog in my sleep as the Phaeacians brought me home in their helmless ship. It had followed a mysterious course of its own making on the pathless, limitless sea, ploughing the waves swiftly, covering an infinite distance in a single night. And it had delivered me here, to the world I knew, governed by human and divine forces. Here there were no inscrutable, hidden forces, no monstrous presences which, real or not real, had been capable of murder, annihilation, devastation in that world. This was my world, where I could count the swords and the spears and the sharp, merciless arrows.

Our hearts were light as we ate and spoke of times past, long ago for Eumeus and I, not so long ago for Telemachus. He seemed so young, so unseasoned in my eyes. Perhaps living alone with his mother for all these years had made him that way.

‘Who trained you for combat?’ I asked him.

‘King Laertes my grandfather. Your father.’

‘My father?’

‘He was a great teacher.’

‘Have you ever been in combat?’

‘No. This will be the first time.’

A cold shiver ran under my skin. What if things went badly? Where was the flute I’d heard playing in the night? My goddess had already disappeared from my life once. Could it happen again?

‘Aren’t you afraid?’

‘A little. There are only four of us.’

‘Five,’ I replied.

‘Five? Who have I forgotten?’

‘My goddess. Athena will be with us. It was she who called me back here from a remote, unreachable land. I wouldn’t have been able to return otherwise. She alone is worth hundreds, thousands of warriors. Perhaps we won’t see her, but she will give me the strength I need.’

Telemachus and I finally lay down to get some rest next to the hearth, close to one another, still talking in the dark.

‘Mentor. Do you know who he is?’

‘Certainly, atta. He was the advisor who was your friend while you were in Ithaca, before you left for the war.’

‘So he’s not here any more? Tell me, how long has it been since you’ve seen him?’

‘It’s strange, I don’t remember. But he has a seat in the assembly. Sometimes he’s there, sometimes he’s not.’

A long silence. I could hear the sound of my son’s breathing, light and serene. The breath that brings on sleep. Many were the things I still wanted to tell him, ask him, but it was better that he rest. For now.

I wondered whether it was right to lead him into combat, to make him spill blood, but it was too late to turn back now. I remembered what it had been like for me to kill a man for the first time. It was on the fields of Troy. I ran him through from side to side, my bronze tearing into his bowels. I’d never done it before and it felt like I had run myself through. A sense of bewilderment and incredulity. Then pain, and fear, and the sense that I had crossed a limit beyond which the land of horror lay. But I was at the head of many men and twelve ships, and everyone had to see what I was worth, especially those of my companions who had already accomplished great deeds, like Diomedes who had avenged his father at Thebes of the Seven Gates.

In the end, I was alone in the dark, turning over a thousand thoughts in my heart. How would I present myself at the palace the next day? How would my heart bear up at the sight of my wife? How I would surprise the arrogant suitors and kill them all without anyone in the city hearing their cries of agony?

I went outside for a while to look at the sky and to listen to the sounds of the woodland at night. I heard the soft chirping of birds who had come home to their nests and their chicks, the rustling of leaves, and then, a song. It was so soft that it seemed to be drifting in on the wings of the wind from a very faraway place. There were fragments of words, of sounds, and I couldn’t make sense of it. The voice of a young boy. . or of a woman? Yes, a woman, perhaps. . when the wind picked up I felt it was becoming easier to understand, or was it the opposite? Then, when for a few instants the wind blew in from a different direction, so that the leaves stopped rustling, I could hear it clearly, I could make out the words:

‘. . sting of nostalgia. . bring him home. .’

My eyes filled with tears. Was it she? She who still remembered me, hadn’t lost hope. . was that possible? Or was I just bent on believing that, with all my heart? When had I last heard that song? Could I still call it up in my mind? Go back in time? Suffer the pangs of separation again with such intense longing, feel that same passion. . Could I still feel such passion? The wind dropped and left a sky dotted with a myriad of stars, as bright as the eyes of nymphs in the darkness, like fireflies in the woods on a night in May. I couldn’t understand what was going through my heart, how I felt under that starry sky. I knew I was with my son whom I’d left barely talking and who now slept and thought and dreamt close by. It was too much, even for someone who had suffered, seen, experienced as much as I had. I needed to lie down in the dark in a little round hut next to my sleeping son, and there await Dawn.

That’s what I did. I passed Eumeus, who was slumbering in the shelter of the rock, crossed the courtyard and went back in. The embers were almost completely covered with ash, and it was sweet to stretch out on the sheepskin, under a cover of woven wool. Sleep descended on my eyelids as well, finally, and the voice of the wind started to sing again, faintly. It lulled me like mai’s singing had, when I was just a little boy.

I thought, as i entered the hall, that Telemachus must have already arrived and had probably already spoken with his mother. Penelope would surely be in her rooms upstairs, with the other women and with my nurse. The thought of being so close to her took my breath away. My heart, long resigned to the immense distances that had kept us apart, was pounding hard. The bad luck and misadventures that had schemed for so long to push me to the ends of the earth had been vanquished at last.

And there I was, crossing the threshold. There was the door of solid ash. Without letting anyone see I brushed my lips against the fragrant cypress jamb. The house was beautiful and solidly built by the generations of kings that had reigned over Ithaca and extended their rule over all the islands. There was no opulence, no lavish display of wealth, but it showed strength, dignity and simplicity, the virtues that I had learned from my father.

At the end of the great hall was a door in solid oak, bolted shut: the Hall of the Argonauts! It was there that we had received wanax Menelaus, lord of Sparta, who had come to decry Helen’s abduction. The walls celebrated the glory of my father, Argonaut and hero, and all of his comrades in arms. Penelope had been wise to make it inaccessible, or Telemachus, if it had been he who made the decision.

But when I’d finally made my way in and looked around me, I wanted badly to close my eyes. Scores of men of different ages, richly garbed, were seated on carved wooden thrones draped with bright woollen cloth and sheepskins. Tables were set in front of them, crowded with trays and cups of bronze and silver, or even gold, and the hearth at the centre of the room crackled under spits laden with big chunks of beef and pork. There was a terrible din. The guests were speaking loudly, boasting, quarrelling, drinking. They must have been armed when they entered, but all their weapons were lined up against the wall at the entrance. Another sign of Penelope’s or Telemachus’ authority. These were the suitors of the queen of Ithaca, my bride, those who wanted to take my place next to her in our wedding bed!

In a corner, sitting on a bench, I recognized Phemius. He had changed greatly. His hair was thinning and going white at the temples and his beard was turning white as well. He was dressed modestly and his head was bowed as if he were slumbering. Between his knees was the same lyre that he’d had when I’d left for Troy.

He didn’t see me then, but Telemachus did, as he descended the stairs from the women’s quarters. We exchanged a look and he gave me an imperceptible nod. Then I went to sit at the threshold of the main door while a carver took the spits from the fire and passed among the princes of Ithaca and the islands so they could choose the pieces they liked best. He was followed by a steward who was filling their cups with wine. They were hungry and there were so many of them! So this was what went on every day, this invasion of my home and the devouring of my herds.

Telemachus walked towards me. He called out to Eumeus: ‘Give our guest a piece of bread, and give him permission to ask for alms in this house.’

Eumeus obeyed. As he handed me the bread, he asked me softly if I’d heard and then, in a loud voice that could be heard by all, said: ‘Telemachus, son of glorious Odysseus and head of this house, gives you permission to ask the princes for something to eat with the bread of hospitality he offers you. Don’t be ashamed to ask. When a man is forced to beg, he has to put his pride aside.’

‘I thank your generous master, good man, and the gods who protect him,’ I replied.

‘Who is this scrounger? What hole did he crawl out of?’ shouted one of the suitors. They were all wolfing down my meat and guzzling my best wine, but I had to take this, and suppress the rage in my heart.

‘I know,’ spoke up Melanthius. ‘He was brought in by the swineherd, Eumeus, the one who just gave him the bread. I saw them coming up this way.’

‘You see?’ said another, the finest-looking among them. ‘We don’t have enough ragged beggars around here. Even the swineherd brings along his own!’

I didn’t say a word, but Eumeus walked up to him and spoke without fear: ‘Does it surprise you, noble Antinous, that I’ve invited a mendicant here? Everyone is eager to host great lords, singers or artists, as long as it’s not some poor wretch, someone who destiny has reduced to penury. No one wants them. And yet they’re the ones who are most needy. What trouble is he causing you anyway? What’s more, I don’t have to account to you for my actions. Only the queen and Prince Telemachus can tell me what I can or can’t do. You’re no one to me.’

Antinous. . so he was the one at their head. He obviously thought he could act the master in my house. There was Telemachus, trying to patch up the quarrel between them; he didn’t want it to degenerate into something worse. I understood him, my boy. He was alone, without the support of anyone but his two herdsmen. So this is what the son of Odysseus — famous the world over for the feats he’d achieved! — was reduced to. My heart swelled with bitterness, but I couldn’t let anything out. I addressed Antinous, the chief suitor, the one who was sure he had the vigour and the means to win over the reluctance of my Penelope.

‘You truly seem better to me than any of the other men here, more noble and handsome by far. Set an example to the others, then, I pray you: give me the best morsel! Be as benevolent as your kingly appearance would suggest and let me taste for once what a king enjoys. I’ll tell everyone how generous and magnanimous you are. Look at me. I may be penniless, but I can teach you a precious lesson. One day, not so long ago, I was like you. I lived in a palace, I had servants and women, but that wasn’t enough for me, I wanted more. And in the end I lost everything, even myself. I was sold as a slave to the lord of Cyprus. I escaped and since then I’ve been drifting from land to land, from village to village, until my wanderings brought me here to you. All I’m begging for is a meal fit for a man and not for a dog.

‘You know something, great prince? You are like I once was and one day you could end up like I am now. Or even worse. . By doing good to me, you do good to yourself. Can’t you understand that?’

I stared into his eyes and he could feel that I was the stronger. I, the beggar, the derelict, was the hunter and he was the prey. I could smell his fear, sense it coursing under his skin.

He rankled at my words, and couldn’t bear up under my gaze. ‘Get out of my sight, you lousy tramp, there are plenty of others here to beg from. See if they’ll feed you. You disgust me!’

All at once silence settled over the hall like a black cloud. ‘So be it,’ I answered him. ‘That’s your kind, the kind that won’t part with a crumb, won’t give up a grain of salt. You’ve refused to give me even a piece of the bread that isn’t yours and that you haven’t earned. With all the abundance spilling here before you!’ I turned my back to him and went off to carry on my begging somewhere else.

‘How dare you!’ he shouted. He grabbed a stool and hurled it at me. It hit me hard on the back just under my neck. Pain shot through me but I didn’t move, not a hair’s breadth. The young braggart must have realized that it wasn’t a decrepit old man he’d hit, but a rock.

When the stool had fallen to the ground, I turned and looked straight into his eyes. ‘You are nothing but a coward, noble prince. If a man is struck down while he’s trying to rob livestock or precious objects from another’s home, he can well expect it, but you hit me because I’m hungry. If among the gods there is one who protects the poor and needful, you will pay dearly for what you have done.’

I said nothing else, but went over to sit down at the threshold.

I looked up at Telemachus. He was overwhelmed at what he had seen: his father smitten and humiliated on the day of his return. But he didn’t say a word. All he did was shake his head in disapproval. He was waiting, too. Waiting for the day of vengeance.

I stayed at my place at the threshold and watched everything that was going on, including Eumeus and his movements. Every now and then I’d turn to look out at the still body of my poor Argus. He’d finished his suffering! How I longed to pick up his sad remains and give them a proper burial in the woods, under an oak tree. . but I couldn’t let anyone see me doing such a thing, it would have aroused suspicion. Instead I ate the bread my son had given me, the bread that Eumeus had brought to court in his basket. Melanthius, the goatherd who had cast a stone at me while I walked up the trail, passed very close to me on his way out and it was all I could do not to jump to my feet and tear him to shreds. I repressed the ire in my heart. . the time would come. His time would come.

I watched the princes. They were arrogant, noisy, disrespectful and reckless. There were a lot of them and they were all quite vigorous. I looked at their weapons lined up against the wall at the entrance: swords, spears, polished shields. I was almost certain that they were ornamental, a mark of prestige rather than truly offensive arms. I didn’t think they’d ever been used in battle. It was the killing, running a man through from side to side, that made you different, forever. The ferociousness of that act never left your gaze, your heart.

My Telemachus had never killed a man, either. I knew that he would soon take part in the bloody fray to be fought here, in the palace, and I feared for him. It’s too easy for a man who has never known combat to die.

I watched Phemius, our court poet. He ate alone, without speaking to the princes; there was no mingling with them. What songs would they bid him to sing? The sad story of the kings’ return from the war? I wondered if he still remembered me. Did he remember how he would tell me stories when I was a little boy tucked into my bed, or outdoors, in the fruit orchard, sitting under a tree? Had he agreed to submit to this travesty? Did he still remember how my father had treated him? Did he ever go to visit him? Did he ever rise up to defend the queen’s honour? I thought not. Singers have other talents, but rarely the gift of courage.

I’d lost Eumeus from sight. Where had he gone?

I still hadn’t seen mai, my nurse. Nor Penelope. . did she ever come down to the great hall? Knowing that she was so close and not being able to see her created a huge sense of anxiety in me. At the same time, I never would have wanted her to see me in the state I was in.

I had never asked myself so many questions in so short a time. I was afraid of confusing the dreams I’d had over twenty years of separation with a reality that I no longer knew anything about.

Eumeus appeared as suddenly as he had disappeared. He walked through the hall towards me. The princes were no longer interested in us.

He crouched at my side. ‘I’ve seen the queen.’

‘How is she?’

‘Much better, since Telemachus has returned. I haven’t seen her so light-hearted in a very long time. She even ate one of the figs I brought her.’

‘That hasn’t changed. She’s always liked figs.’

‘I told her there was a newcomer to the palace. .’

‘And?’ I asked in alarm.

‘She wanted to know where you come from, if you had news that might interest her. I told her yes, our guest brings news of Odysseus your husband. He has heard that Odysseus has landed in Thesprotia and that he travels with great riches.’

‘Well? What did she say to that?’ I asked at once, agitated as a young boy hoping to meet a girl for the first time.

‘She answered: “Tell the guest I’d like to talk with him.” And she promised that if you told her the truth about what you know and have seen, she will give you a new tunic and a cloak so you can walk among other people without feeling ashamed. I’d mentioned how badly off you were. What shall I tell her?’

I was confused, suddenly struck by doubts and fears. I replied: ‘After sunset, as soon as it starts to get dark.’

‘You may have to wait much longer than that. She can’t receive you in the women’s quarters. She has to wait until the suitors go home and the house is empty.’

‘I have nothing else to do. I can wait.’

‘Good. I’ll tell the queen. You’ll see her come down as soon as the hall is empty and quiet. She’ll sit next to the fire. At that point you can approach her and she’ll speak to you. Wanax, I must ask you something. If you can, don’t hurt her. She has suffered so much.’

I nodded.

‘Good. I have to return to my pigs, to make sure everything is as it should be. You can never depend on the stable boys, not unless you keep a close eye on them. I’ll let Telemachus know I’m going. I’ll come back tomorrow morning as soon as I can. I can see you are controlling your actions and your words, wanax, so I leave with an easy mind.’

‘Don’t use that word — what if someone heard you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He gave me a slight nod and left.

I watched as he approached Telemachus, who had appeared at the other end of the hall. He moved his lips to the boy’s ear and whispered something. He went out of the rear door and I hunkered down at the threshold. The suitors were still feasting and the clamour was only increasing. They had no worries. But I was the king of Ithaca and I’d already passed sentence on them. They were laughing but soon they would be crying and begging. They were shouting but soon they would be silenced forever. I turned towards the atrium and noticed the figure of a tall, thin man who was gripping a stick as though it were a spear. Behind him a black shadow fluttered in the air.

A voice sounded in my heart: ‘Theoclymenus!’

The fugitive who Telemachus had offered to protect, a man who had the gift, like Calchas before him. What was hidden to others was clear to him; the future was present. But I didn’t want to know anything more than I already knew. I trained my gaze on the hall again, on what was going on there.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that at first I barely heard the voice that was screeching something at me. A foot planted in my back caused me to turn. The man who had kicked me was fat, with light, watery eyes. The rolls on his stomach swelled and rippled with every move he made. His arms were as thickset and pink as the haunches of a pig, his hair greasy and yellow.

‘Who are you? What are you doing here, you revolting beggar?’ he cawed. ‘Don’t you know that I’m the only one here who can ask for alms? Any leftovers belong to me! Get out of here now before I lose my temper.’

I don’t know why I remember this episode so well, maybe because of all the things that ever happened to me, nothing was so humiliating or shameful. I, the king of Ithaca and the surrounding islands, destroyer of the greatest city in the world, I who had measured myself against the mightiest champions under the walls of Troy and at the head of my army. . I accepted to fight a buffoon, a blood-sucking parasite.

I thought it was necessary. I thought that before I could rise out of the utter abjection that I had embraced, I had to touch bottom. I had to make a spectacle of my wretchedness. Only then would the arrogant suitors be convinced that I was nothing to them, certainly not the son of Laertes who, having destroyed sacred Troy, had returned after all these long years. They had to feel sure of themselves, so numerous and well armed, sure that no one would dare stand against them.

At first I tried to beseech my adversary to forgo a quarrel. We were companions in misfortune, after all, and there was surely enough to go around for both of us. But my sorry appearance must have made him cocky and sure that he would get the better of me. The suitors had noticed and they began goading me into taking him on, obviously looking forward to a lively little diversion. They’d begun to come out into the courtyard, one by one, to urge us on. They promised a prize to the winner: a nice chunk of goat-blood sausage already roasting on the embers. They didn’t realize that the mud they were throwing was landing on themselves and their families.

I saw clearly how a glorious race had degenerated in just three generations: the Argonauts had journeyed to the ends of the sea and to the rocky walls of the remotest mountains, to extreme limits for mortal men. I and my men had destroyed and plundered the greatest and most powerful city of the world. Our sons had conquered only the stores and the kitchens of an undefended house where they ate and drank themselves silly, taking advantage of an empty throne, of a woman and a boy. I could also see how these were the consequences of the war: these spoiled young men had never learned respect or humility, for they had grown up without their fathers. But then I thought that my own son had grown up without a father but he was judicious and courageous, and had remained devoted to a memory whose face and voice he could not recall. I couldn’t feel sorry for the rest of them. After all, they had plotted and attempted to kill him. Each one of them sought to rest on my bed, the one I’d built in the arms of an olive tree, next to my blameless wife. To make love to her. They had to die.

For now all they wanted was a little fun watching two poor unfortunates shoving each other around. Instead, I made sure they didn’t enjoy what they saw. I took off my rags and fought bare-chested against my fat, flaccid adversary. I slaughtered him. I broke his jaw with my first punch and made him spit out his teeth; the second one smashed his nose. He was bleeding like a stuck pig. I grabbed him by the foot and dragged him out of the courtyard, propped him up against the boundary wall and gave him a cane to ward off stray dogs or pigs. I put my rags on again and returned to my place at the threshold, my back to the door jamb. The princes’ jeering had been cut short. They wandered back into the hall. I’d ruined their fun.

I was waiting for the sun to set. Waiting for them to sate themselves on wine and food and to leave. I saw Telemachus arguing with them more than once. My boy knew that I was watching and listening and he wanted to prove to his father what he was worth.

The shouting and swearing of my violent guests went on and on, inflamed by the wine. The midday meal became dinner. No one was paying me any mind any more, but nothing of what they did escaped me. I saw the looks and the lascivious caresses they exchanged with the maidservants. There was one in particular, who Antinous shamelessly called Mélantho, referring, I was sure, to the dark flower between her legs. She was the object of his ardent desire.

I saw which girls responded with laughs, kisses and immodest gestures and those who obstinately turned away, loyal to their queen and to their master.

I chose one of these, and addressed her with humility: ‘Pardon me, dear. It would be a great privilege for me to gaze upon the queen. Her fame is widespread through every nation, and if tomorrow I find myself in another house on the continent I would like to give praise where it is due. I hear she is wise and beautiful and. . faithful. Does she never come down into the hall? Has she nothing to say to these insolent princes?’

She looked at me curiously, with a note of doubt. Perhaps she’d seen me laying into the beggar who’d been insulting me and dragging him out of the courtyard half-dead. Perhaps she had a question for me. But she abruptly turned instead and pointed to the stair that descended from the women’s quarters. She said: ‘Take a look, then. There is the queen of Ithaca!’

My heart jumped in my chest; it was beating so hard I thought it would suffocate me. There was my bride descending the steps. Her bearing was proud, and she was beautiful, dressed in a gown the colour of ripe wheat that hugged her waist and her full breasts. It seemed that time had not passed for her. But as she entered the hall and drew closer, I could see that the light she’d always had in her eyes, the light that had once illuminated my life, was dimmed by a veil of sadness.

I looked down at my worn, ragged clothing, the greasy bag slung on my shoulder, my dusty feet and dry, cracked hands and I was deeply ashamed. Tears sprang to my eyes. It was certainly not how I wanted to appear to my wife after such a long time, but this was what my goddess had decided and this was how it had to be. At least I had the sun at my back, so she wouldn’t be able to make out my features. I must have looked like nothing more than a dark heap of smelly rags.

The commotion in the room ceased entirely when she appeared, as if a goddess had descended from the sky and suddenly entered the hall. A hush fell over the room, and everyone’s eyes were on her. My queen spoke then, in a full, melodious voice. It was the same voice she’d had as a girl and it touched my heart and made me tremble.

‘Proud suitors, imperious princes! You’ve long occupied this house, taking advantage of a woman alone and a youth who doesn’t have the power to oust you. You know well that if Odysseus, glorious king of this island, were to suddenly appear on that threshold. .’

A shiver ran down my spine. The queen had unwittingly revealed a truth she couldn’t know. I admired the fire in her gaze.

‘. . I believe that your arrogance would instantly be replaced with fear and dismay. And this means that you are violating all our laws and our traditions. It’s not enough for you to consume the chattels of a man who is absent and cannot defend himself, you have gone so far as to insult the guest that Telemachus himself has brought to this house. Nothing has escaped me; none of your insults, your blows.

‘You have no right! You should be ashamed of your behaviour! Since when has it become customary to devour the wealth of the bride you hope to win over, instead of offering her gifts?’

She was still trying to gain time for herself; she didn’t want to give in to their demands. She wanted to shame them into changing their ways. Antinous did not respond. On the contrary, he took the queen’s admonishment as a sign that she had had a change of heart and might entertain the idea of marrying again. Each of the men hastily sent a herald to his house to fetch gifts for the queen. But when they returned, Penelope had retired once again to her rooms.

The handmaids began to prepare supper. I turned towards the hearth, adding wood to the flames and turning the spits. It was a way to earn my keep but also to overhear what my wife’s suitors were saying. There was nothing they said or did that slipped my attention. I watched Antinous’ hands stealing under Mélantho’s gown, up her thighs, seeking her black flower. The slut! She might have sensed me watching her, for she turned and rudely snapped at me: ‘Piss off, you filthy beggar! The princes don’t need you, they have us and their own pages as well. Go back to your corner and don’t come near us again. You stink like a pig!’

Eurymachus, second in standing only to Antinous, saw his opportunity. ‘Don’t you see?’ he cried out. ‘He managed to beat up some poor sod out in the courtyard and now it’s gone to his head. He thinks he’s some kind of athlete, or maybe even a hero, the sort that wins battles. What you are, instead,’ he continued, turning to me, ‘is a good-for-nothing old man! It’s an easy life lolling here by the fire and filling your stomach with the scraps of meat you steal, isn’t it? If you wanted to work, you’d be out in the fields cutting hay or harvesting the wheat, or at least taking the sheep to pasture, now that’s not a hard job, is it? That’s all we needed here, this louse. . Telemachus is always complaining as it is that there are too many mouths to feed in the palace! Let’s start by throwing out this dirt ball.’

Following his example, more of his fellow suitors started insulting me, poking and pushing at me.

How little had Penelope’s words counted! I continued to suffer offence. I bit my lip so as not to lash out and repeated to myself: ‘Resist, heart of mine! The time has not yet come. .’

And thus I managed to endure their taunts the whole evening. Every now and then my gaze would meet Phemius’ and I could see a glimmer of torturous doubt in the poet’s eyes. Then he would lower his head again as if absorbed in thought, unmoving and hunched over, waiting for someone to bid him to sing. But no one did. They were all too busy eating and making fun of me. I could feel Telemachus suffering in silence, but he would not leave the hall, wouldn’t leave me alone. I had to signal for him to go — it was better that way.

Antinous finally proposed the last libation before going to bed and the others all followed his counsel. As if he were the master of the house, he had the stewards pour a cup of red wine for each of the princes. They drank to the gods, and then left, picking up the weapons they’d left outside leaning against the wall. They headed off down the road that led to the city. Phemius was the last to go. He was a permanent guest at the palace, as he had been in my time, and the entrance to his room was off the main courtyard. I was sitting on a stool next to the door and he had to pass directly in front of me to go out. He held his lyre in one hand and a night lamp in the other. He stopped before me for a moment and lifted the lamp to get a better look at me. Strange that he should do so now, when I’d been in the hall all day.

He said: ‘I see everything, I hear everything and I forget nothing.’

‘I believe it,’ I replied, altering the natural tone of my voice so he wouldn’t recognize it, ‘you’re a poet.’

He walked away and I watched as his lamp crossed the courtyard. I could still hear the voices of the princes as they trailed off across the countryside. When I could hear nothing I went back in.

Silence reigned over my house.

The lamps dangling from the columns and pillars were lit, and the opaque, reddish light they cast danced on the weapons hanging on the walls. They were all still there: the spears, shields, helmets, greaves, in precisely the same place I’d left them, although their gleam had long been dimmed by dust and smoke. My fingers brushed the wooden swords that Damastes had wielded when he was teaching me the art of combat. . Every object, every scratch on the wall, every beam on the ceiling reminded me of the past I had never forgotten. Now, in that silence and that solitude, the pieces seemed to come alive, hailing from a remote place in my heart, recalling the nights and days, months and years of a time that had been happy for me. I hadn’t noticed them before, assaulted by the uproar, the jeers, the insults and the bullying. Now the memories surged over me like the waves of a troubled sea.

I suddenly saw Telemachus appear at the end of the great hall, now deserted. Some maidservants came through another door with buckets and sponges, and began to clean up and to gather the leftovers. Mélantho was with them but she merely watched the others as they worked, smug in her position of privilege. She noticed me of course and began to insult me again: ‘What? Still here, you leech? What are you still doing in the palace at this time of night? Weren’t you listening when I told you to get lost?’

I swelled with rage and stared back at her. ‘You wouldn’t treat me with such impudence if your master were here. Beware! Things may change, and much sooner than you think!’ For a moment she seemed flustered by my words. She gave me a startled look, as if an unsettling thought had just crossed her mind. How could there still be someone, after twenty years, who so confidently spoke of the king who had surely died in some distant land? Could that beggar really know something?

She left in a huff and the other servants presently left the hall as well. Perhaps they knew that the queen would soon be descending from her room to meet with the wandering guest to whom her son had given permission to ask for alms from the tables of the princes. Telemachus drew close. ‘Father,’ he whispered, ‘my mother the queen is about to come downstairs. Mai has given instructions to put the seat she favours for receiving guests near the hearth. It’s the best one in the house, inset with silver and ivory.’

‘This will be the most difficult test for me,’ I replied. ‘But listen, you must do as I say. Tonight, take down all the weapons hanging from the walls of the hall and close them up in the armoury. Nothing must remain.’

‘But don’t you think that will arouse the princes’ suspicions? They’ve always been accustomed to seeing them where they are.’

‘You’ll say you had to turn them over to the armourer for inspection and a cleaning. They’ve all turned black from the smoke of the hearth. Do you own a suit of armour?’

‘I do, Father. Of course I do, it’s in the armoury. King Laertes your father gave it to me for my twentieth birthday. I’ll do as you ask.’

‘This will be your first blood, won’t it, pai?’

He bowed his head: ‘Yes.’

‘You’ll get used to it, as I did in my time. It’s a sad necessity. This is what distinguishes a king from a murderer: he kills only when all the other paths have been precluded. Here comes your mother. I must go to her.’

Penelope had taken her seat and had put her feet up on a stool inset with the same precious decorations. I got a knot in my throat at the sight of her and my heart started beating faster with every step I took. Would I be able to take this? Would I be able to hold back my tears, would the expression on my face betray me?

I was close to her now, but I stopped at the line of shadow, where the reflection of the flames from the hearth gave way to the darkness of night. Her voice rang out in the dark. A girl’s voice. If I had closed my eyes, I would have seen her in an olive garden gathering flowers in faraway Sparta. What I wanted to say was: ‘Sing, sing for me, my love, like when we were young!’ But instead I had to remain completely impassive, hiding my feelings and my desires.

‘Come closer, foreign guest. You are welcome here.’ Now she spoke as a queen, accustomed to being obeyed.

‘I thank you, wanaxa, but I’m in no condition to introduce myself to your presence. I’m dirty and tattered.’

‘I don’t judge a man by his clothing,’ she replied. ‘I know well that every mortal is subject to the whims of destiny. Come closer. I want to talk to you.’

‘I beg of you, my queen, I am ashamed of the way I look and I would not feel at ease in front of such radiant beauty.’

Penelope sighed and bent her head: ‘My face has not been radiant for a long time, foreign guest. Too many tears have poured from these eyes.’

For me her beauty was unchanged. The veil of melancholy made it even more intense and heartbreaking. I watched as the light from the fire caressed her cheeks and shone in her black, black eyes.

I wanted to tell her that from the moment I’d left Ithaca I had always thought of her intensely every time I saw the moon rising from the sea, because I was certain that she would be doing the same thing, at the same time, and that our souls would touch. But I had to hide my thoughts and my face. ‘I know the reason for your tears, my queen. Your fame is well known in every land. You suffer because your husband, the glorious son of Laertes, has never returned from the war, but I can tell you that your troubles are ending. Odysseus will return, and soon. If he’s not already here.’

Penelope scrutinized my face in the darkness. ‘What are you saying, foreign guest? You don’t even know my Odysseus. Are you one of the scores of wayfarers who hope to earn my hospitality by telling me lies?’

‘No. I’m telling you the truth. I have seen Odysseus. If I saw him again I would recognize him.’

‘You’ve seen him, or so you say. How did you recognize him?’ Her eyes sought mine in the darkness.

‘I know him because I first saw him in Crete as he was going to war. The wind had swept him off his course as he was doubling Cape Malea.’

‘What did he look like then?’ she insisted.

A hoarse wind blew outside and a dog whimpered in the courtyard and scratched his nails against the door. Argus? Where are you, Argus? A chill coursed under my worn cloak. The flames flickered in the hearth.

‘That was a very long time ago, it’s not easy to remember. A well-built man, I would say, with bright eyes that lit up when he smiled.’ Penelope paled. A light sweat broke out on her cheeks. ‘Wait, now I remember, he was wearing a red cloak with a beautiful gold clasp. It was in the shape of a hunting dog with a deer in its clutches. It was so finely crafted that you could see the deer was trying to get away. A jewel truly fit for a king.’

Penelope’s expression had changed. I could see that my words had deeply shaken her, confused her. ‘I wove that cloak for him,’ she said, ‘and the pin was a gift from me as well.’ I remembered that moment so vividly it felt as though I was there again. My heart bursting with the pain of leaving her, little Telemachus babbling in her arms. Only Argus could understand him! The ship pulling away from the shore, pulling away from everything I loved. . the ship that would never make its way back.

‘But how can you possibly remember such a tiny thing? Who are you?’ she demanded.

She had drawn closer and for a moment I was close to breaking down. I breathed in her fragrance, saw the tears glittering in her eyes. I felt the air vibrate with the beat of her heart. Had she recognized me?

‘I am Aithon of Crete,’ I said. ‘I am the brother of wanax Idomeneus, the lord of Knossos and the Labyrinth. Ill luck has reduced me to this state.’

She seemed to accept this, but tears still ran down her cheeks. Her fingers of ivory curled around the armrests on her chair. She didn’t move for long instants, her head low, and I could barely hold back my own tears. I ached with desire for her, I longed to take her into my arms, but I had to resist, could not give in, had to stifle the swell of emotion rising in my heart. The time had not yet come. Not yet. . not yet. .

Penelope dried her tears and looked up at me again. ‘I’ll have your feet washed, and a bed set up for you in the atrium. . Euriclea!’

That name, her name, waves of memories, mai.. how much time had passed. . how many tears, how much homesickness. .

The voice of my queen again: ‘Euriclea, wash the guest’s feet and have a bed put in the atrium for him, so he may rest. He was a prince once, in Crete, the brother of mighty Idomeneus. Perhaps your master himself is in just as sorry a state. . a beggar, covered with rags, the brunt of derision and scorn, forced by hunger to humiliate himself. What you do for this man may be what someone else is doing for your lord.’

She stood up, shot me a last sorrowful glance and walked straight-backed up the stairs that led to her quarters. I bit my lip hard so I wouldn’t cry.

Euriclea. . stooped and white-haired, but still her. . with that sweet gaze and the rough voice that hid the tenderness of her heart. Mai. .

She filled a washbasin with hot water from an urn and put it on the ground in front of me. She was muttering under her breath: ‘Another trickster come to repeat idle tales to my sad little girl. . good-for-nothings, sluggards, all of you. .’

I was silent. I didn’t say a word in my defence. Her tongue was as sharp as her hands were gentle. They dissolved the weariness in my tormented feet and relaxed my strained muscles. The hot, steaming water reminded me again of my childhood. She was going on and on, and I watched her white head bobbing left and right to accompany her grumbling. My soul swelled with tenderness and it was all I could do not to smile, despite her scolding. Even though her gruff temperament prevented her from using kind words with me, I knew that she was thinking of her master, alone and forsaken, reduced to begging in some far-off land, and that she hoped that others would repay her labour by caring for him, as her mistress had suggested. She spilled out the dirty water and added some more from the urn to wash my legs as well. Then her hand came to a stop just above my knee, on the scar that the sharp tusk of a boar had left so many years ago. She dropped my foot abruptly. Water splashed everywhere and the basin overturned.

‘My child! My child, it’s you! It’s you, you’re back!’ she whispered in a tremulous voice, as big tears coursed down her wrinkled cheeks. I covered her mouth with my hand, nearly stopping her from breathing. I looked around to make sure that no one had seen.

‘Not a word, mai, or I’ll strangle you!’

My threat made her gasp. She could never have expected such words from me. But when I saw her dismay, I added softer words under my breath: ‘Mai, I love you as I love my own mother, and I am as happy to see you as you are to see me, but I’m here to wreak vengeance upon these arrogant suitors and I must stay hidden. I haven’t even revealed myself to Penelope, my beloved bride. You can’t imagine how hard that was for me. .’

Euriclea began scrubbing my feet and legs again to waylay suspicion. She knew well that many of the maidservants were conspiring with the suitors.

‘A great many men frequent this palace and they are well armed,’ I continued. ‘If they have the merest inkling of who I am in reality, they would not hesitate to murder me, and Telemachus as well. You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?’

‘I do, my child, my lord and my king. Not a word will leave my mouth, not even if someone were to torture me. Can I bring you something to eat? There’s everything you could want in the kitchens.’

‘No, mai, I can’t eat, my stomach is tied in knots. But I’ll take a glass of wine if you’ll pour it for me.’

Euriclea hurried to get a clay cup, even though, I am sure, she would have preferred a silver one.

‘Let me prepare your bed for you now. In your own house, finally.’

‘No, mai, I don’t want you to do that. It might look odd. They’ll wonder: “Why is the queen treating this beggar so well? What’s wrong with a little straw under the portico?” No, just give me a blanket, that will be enough for me.’

‘I’ll do as you say, my son. Rest if you can.’ She raised her eyes to mine for a moment, and they were shiny with tears. ‘You can’t imagine how badly I want to hug you, child. I’ve thought of you every day, every day! I never doubted that you would return.’

She dried her tears with the sleeve of her tunic and walked away with her basin, only to return a short time later with an oxhide and a thick, warm sheepskin cover.

I went outside and laid them out one on top of the other in a sheltered corner of the portico facing the courtyard. The west wind carried a chill and the clear sky was teeming with stars. They throbbed in the great quiet vault and for a moment I felt like I was still on my ship, searching for the Herdsman or the Great Bear. The earth seemed to move in waves beneath me as if my vessel were rocking on the sleepless sea. I had spent such a long time on the water. I thought of distant Nausicaa. Perhaps her eyes were seeking out the stars, the same ones I was seeing. I thought of the helmless ship that had brought me home: was it back in its well-sheltered harbour or had the wrath of Poseidon turned it into a rock at the entrance to the port?

The moon rose over Mount Neritus and cast a pale glow over the courtyard. I saw Argus’ dead body: it had been thrown on the dungheap. I found a shovel, stuck it in my belt and slipped closer, after I’d made sure that there was no one looking my way. I gathered him up into my arms, left the courtyard and walked for a spell down the road that led into the city, until I came across a big holm oak that used to shelter flocks of sheep in its shade during the summers of my boyhood. There I dug a hole big enough to hold my friend, gave him one last pat and laid him inside. I filled in the hole and covered it first with stones, and then with leaves and dried grass so it wouldn’t be discovered.

‘I couldn’t give you the honour of a pyre, my friend,’ I whispered inside my heart. ‘I can’t be found out. But I’ve given you a worthy burial place. So when my time comes, I hope you’ll be waiting for me at the threshold of that foggy world. Farewell.’

I returned to my house and washed my arms and chest at the fountain and then stretched out on the oxhide and sheepskin, hoping to fall asleep. But the eyes of the night see many things that conspire to remain hidden. Two or three of the suitors, one after another, stole inside the palace to take their pleasure with the maidservants, who’d come to open the door for them. The sluts!

I tried to sleep nonetheless. ‘Be still, my heart,’ I said, ‘you’ve put up with much worse!’ But my heart was snarling in my chest like a rabid dog at the sight of such an insult. Later I watched them leave. The palace dogs didn’t bark either when they arrived or when they left; they were used to their comings and goings.

Silence finally fell over the palace, very late at night, but not for long. The wall on the far side of the portico was the one I myself had added twenty years earlier to build my wedding chambers. From the window came the soft but unmistakable sound of Penelope crying, and it cut me to the quick. I imagined her stretched out on the bed I had made for her, sobbing. What I had meant to be a haven of rest, dreams and enchantment for her was a place of torture instead.

I couldn’t bear the idea and I kept tossing and turning; I could not find peace. That was not the only thought that tormented me. I knew that in the final count it was me alone against scores of strong adversaries in the bloom of youth. Even if I managed to kill them all, how would I manage to escape the fury of their relatives and friends? I was struck with immense sadness to think that I’d already led all the youths who had followed me to Troy to their deaths. Their parents had entrusted them to me and I hadn’t brought a single one back. And here I was preparing to exterminate another generation, if I succeeded in my intent.

A chill.

Was it the wind or a mysterious presence? The voice of my goddess sounded in my heart: how could I doubt victory if I fought with a god at my side? Not even an entire army should worry me. In reality still today I ask myself whether I really had the right to slaughter them. I knew, surely, that all that blood spilled would come round to me. But I don’t think I ever had a choice. My goddess drove me to do it, but it was also my prerogative as a king, a husband, a father. I had slain so many men over so many years on the fields of Troy. Now I would do it again. I had conquered the greatest city in the world. Now, once again, I had entered in disguise and I would take my own house by force.

Weariness finally overcame me and sleep weighed down my eyelids. I rested until the Aurora roused me. The first thing I noticed was that someone, in the middle of the night, had thrown a cloak over me. I got up, folded the skins I had lain on, entered and set the bundle down on a stool near the entrance.

A new day was beginning with a flurry of activity and light chatter, while the day of vengeance was approaching. The women who worked the millstones were arriving to take over from those who had just finished their stint. But there was one who had not yet reached her measure of wheat and she struggled on. She could not be replaced until her work was done. This was a rule I had established myself before I’d left for the war. I didn’t want a person who had done too little to enjoy the same rest as one who had laboured with great diligence. But after so many years of strain, misfortune and grief of my own, I reasoned that perhaps that woman had failed to produce her measure of wheat not because she was lazy but because she was frail or unwell. ‘Suffering,’ I thought, ‘is the mother of wisdom.’

A crash of thunder sounded in the clear sky and that thin, frail woman, who was dripping with sweat, cried out: ‘Oh Zeus, you who send a thunderbolt out of the blue — a signal for whom I do not know — make this the last day that the suitors feast without pause, obliging me to make so much flour for all the bread they eat, else this toil will be the death of me! May this be the last bread they ever eat!’

I took her words as an omen — my endeavour would be accomplished. Even Zeus, the protector of kings, was on my side.

I saw Telemachus walking towards me. He was dressed and armed and I watched him with pleasure: I would never tire of looking at my boy. I heard him speak to Euriclea: ‘Mai, have you taken care of our guest?’

‘Certainly. Your mother ordered me to prepare a bed for him but he refused. He insisted on sleeping outside, under the portico. .’

A man loses the habit of sleeping in a bed when he’s ten years at war, besieging a city, or at sea, at the mercy of storms.

‘I insisted, believe me, but there was no convincing him,’ she went on. ‘He’s an odd duck, your guest. I offered him dinner but he would only take a cup of wine. I gave him an oxhide and a sheepskin but he laid them one on top of the other and slept uncovered. I waited until he’d fallen asleep and then I covered him with a cloak.’

She was good at feigning, my dear old nurse, and so was Telemachus. Like father, like son. My heart laughed thinking that neither of the two was aware of what the other knew. Telemachus walked by and nodded at me in passing. He was heading to the city, with a spear in his hand and a couple of dogs at his heels. Beautiful animals. I wondered what breed my Argus had been.

In no time, the whole palace was buzzing with activity, all revolving around the arrival of its customary guests: my wife’s suitors. The maidservants were drawing water from the walled fountain outside, to the right of the main gate. Others were sweeping, washing the floors, sponging down the tables, rinsing out the cooking vessels.

And the food that was arriving! Eumeus showed up with three pigs and Melanthius brought two goats. He burst in with loud abuse for me: ‘Still here, you miserable beggar? Are you on your way out, you cur, or do you need me to beat you into deciding? My hands are already itching!’

My hands were itching as well, but Eumeus warned me off with a stern look. It was no time for a fistfight. The food was still coming. Philoetius came in with a cow and two or three more goats. He was still wearing the tab at his neck that had bought him passage on the ferry from Same with his livestock. I recognized him despite the fact that he’d changed so much. When I’d left he was little more than a boy and now he was a full-grown man, with a strong, sturdy build. He had a wrestler’s arms, a bull’s neck and legs that looked like pillars. ‘Just what I need,’ I thought, ‘a single man with the force of three.’

He noticed me but did not recognize me. ‘Hail there, old boy,’ he said with a tone of affection. ‘How’s it going? Not too well, from the looks of it.’

Eumeus stepped in: ‘Philoetius, leave him alone. This friend of ours has been through more than you can begin to imagine.’

But the cowherd continued undeterred. There must have been something about me that wouldn’t let him move on.

‘You know, as soon as I saw you, I thought, “He doesn’t seem like the poor wretch he seems to be.” You may be dressed in rags, but your eyes are sharp and your back is straight, like one of those men who never bend, no matter what. It makes me want to cry to see a man like you in such a sorry state.’

I drew closer and looked straight into his eyes. I wondered whether in some part of his heart or his mind, he wasn’t remembering the gaze of his master who had set off for distant lands so long ago, never to return. .

‘I’m telling you,’ he continued, ‘I got the chills when I saw you. I thought, “Maybe my master is like that poor devil who has to put up with insults and humiliation and beg for a piece of bread.” If he’s still alive, that is, if he hasn’t ended up dead and buried. I still think about him a lot. He made me the keeper of his herds, and here I am slaughtering his animals to feed these arrogant gluttons.’

It was as I’d thought. Without even realizing it, he’d recognized me, and he was moved to think that I might be alive. His loyalty deserved to be rewarded, like Euriclea’s, Eumeus’ and even Argus’. I looked around to make sure that no one could hear me, and replied: ‘You’re an honest and faithful man, so now listen carefully to what I have to say. Your master will return while you are here today, in this house, and if you like you’ll see him kill those gluttons with his own hands. I swear it by Zeus, in the name of the master who is still in your heart.’

Philoetius’ eyes lit up and he flexed his muscles, growling. ‘May Zeus will your words to be true, guest. Then you’ll see what these are worth,’ he said, holding up his huge fists, hard as stone. Eumeus had been nodding as I’d spoken but did not speak himself, waiting for me to reveal myself.

We started hearing the usual commotion that everyone had become accustomed to. The suitors were arriving, like they did every day, and there were many of them. They seemed to be in greater number than the day before.

‘Count them,’ I said in a low voice to Eumeus, and Philoetius shot me a surprised look.

He hadn’t understood entirely yet but he was excited, keen-eyed, looking for a fight. Ire that had lain in wait too long, rage swallowed in silence, had made him impatient. He could feel that the time for settling scores was coming, and soon. I laid a hand on both men’s shoulders. ‘You’ll still need patience,’ I told them, ‘but not for much longer. He’s coming.’

The shriek of an eagle sounded above our heads and we raised our eyes to the sky. The majestic bird of prey was soaring in wide circles over my house, and every time he crossed in front of the sun his black shadow traversed the spans of the portico and the jambs of the great gate like a dark omen of carnage.

Eumeus and Philoetius went to the rear of the palace, where the slaughterhouse and the kitchens were. Melanthius seemed to be keeping clear of us; perhaps he’d understood that the wind was changing. I remained under the portico, observing the suitors’ comings and goings, who was doing what and how. I listened to their bluster and bluff until Telemachus returned from the city with the dogs and his spear in hand. I could already see a difference in him, in such a short time. He was growing before my eyes, becoming a man in his prime. He looked strong and resolute.

He turned to me and said: ‘Guest, I neglected to hail you this morning. My mind was on other things. Matters I needed to see to in the city and with the assembly. It was not my intent to slight you. I hope that no one troubled you and that you slept peacefully last night.’

‘No one has mistreated me, prince, and I rested sufficiently. Some good soul threw a cloak over my shoulders as I was sleeping, and only the Aurora awoke me. I folded the skins I’d been given and put them back in their place.’

‘Good. Then you may enter for the banquet. I know there is no love lost between you and the princes. I’ve had a table set for you apart from the others, but I’ve told the servants to bring you a cup from the royal service.’ He gave me a barely visible wink and continued: ‘It’s the cup that my father, King Odysseus, would use here at the palace when he took his place next to my mother the queen. It’s made of embossed gold, crafted by a skilled artisan on the continent.’

He spoke loudly so as to be heard inside and outside the hall. I replied in tone: ‘I’m not worthy of such a precious object, prince, and I’m no longer accustomed to using such finery. A simple clay cup is more suitable to my humble condition.’

‘No. I want the princes to see how a guest is respected properly in this house — they should be ashamed of their behaviour.’

I nodded, accepting his decision, and followed him over the threshold. On the far side of the hall were a stool and a dark wooden table. The gleaming cup contrasted greatly with the worn surface. I noticed that the table had been positioned so that the sun’s light struck the gold, setting it afire.

Others had not failed to notice the same thing.

In particular, one of the princes who came from the continent. He had no particular merits beyond his wealth, and it was said that he had sent Icarius, my father-in-law, lavish gifts, even more precious than those he’d brought for the queen. He observed with great vexation that Telemachus was having me served first: a plate brimming over with lamb, pork and beef, with chopped rosemary and salt on the side to season the meat. Eumeus poured the wine and Philoetius smiled and nodded at me as if to say: ‘Now you look like a king!’

But the rich, fat prince wasn’t smiling and he spoke out rudely: ‘Friends! Look at how Telemachus has honoured his guest and served him such abundant portions. Can we do any less? I want to give him something myself!’ He grabbed a cow’s hoof from a basket and flung it at me. I ducked and it barely missed me, hitting the wall behind and falling to the ground. As I twisted to the side, I met Phemius’ eyes for a moment, and saw a flash of recognition.

I bit down hard on my lip so as not to react to the provocation, but Telemachus reacted for me. He stood squarely in front of the prince who was as loutish as he was fat. ‘Thank your god,’ he said, ‘that you didn’t hit him; that he was faster than you are. Otherwise I would have run you through on my sword like a pig on a spit, and instead of a wedding you would have had a nice funeral!’

My son could use humour to his advantage, I noted with satisfaction; the bite in his sarcasm had hit its mark. My heart laughed bitterly in my chest. While I hadn’t let go of the insult, it had already sunk to the bottom of my soul where it added fuel to my mounting fury. I would need it all when the moment came: my rage would tear through the hall like wildfire.

One of the princes asked the others for silence so he could make a proposal.

‘Telemachus is right,’ he began. ‘We cannot disrespect his guests, because this is his house, but it’s also true that things cannot go on the way they have been. Odysseus, as we all know, is not coming back. He’s surely dead. Twenty years have gone by. What’s the use of being so obstinate? Take my advice, Telemachus: give up. Since your father won’t be coming back, choose one of us and accept his wedding gifts. Consider them as reparation for what we’ve consumed in all the time we’ve been waiting for your mother’s decision. You can remain here and enjoy the palace. Your mother will simply take a husband and move into his household. Doesn’t that seem like a good solution?’

I was astonished by his words. How could he not be demanding the throne? If he were chosen, would he marry Penelope solely out of love? Or had he and the others hatched some wicked plot to murder Telemachus once a wedding had taken place?

Telemachus replied: ‘Surely, the way you tell it, this seems like the most sensible of solutions and there’s no reason in the world why I should object to such a thing, but there’s one thing you’ve forgotten. My mother doesn’t want to follow any of you out of this house, and I cannot and do not want to force her. Is that clear? I will not ever throw my mother out of this house!’

I’ll never forget what happened after my boy finished speaking. I had expected them to reflect on his words, thought that they might be reminded of their dignity as princes and even show an inkling of respect, but no.

They burst out laughing.

Unrestrained, compulsive, insane laughter. They just couldn’t stop and to me that hilarity was like the barking of dogs, or the shrill screeching of frightened birds. They laughed and laughed as they stuffed their mouths with bloody meat.

There is a fine line between laughter and tears. How often in my life I’d experienced that myself! In Troy, after the battle, in the shelter of our tents, I’d seen the faces of my friends, glorious heroes, befuddled by the fumes of wine, go from laughing to crying or back again, without rhyme or reason.

Those wretches had eyes filled with tears but they couldn’t have stopped laughing even if they had wanted to.

Right at that moment, the guest to whom my son had given shelter appeared in the hall, almost like an apparition: Theoclymenus, the murdering prophet who had climbed aboard Telemachus’ ship at Pylos to escape the rage of the dead man’s relatives. His face was pale and his dilated eyes were wells of darkness.

‘You scoundrels!’ he shouted. ‘Your doom is sealed!

‘I see your heads wrapped in darkness, the hall rings with your groaning, blood is spattered everywhere on the walls and is pooling, steaming, on the floors. I see scores of shadows crowding the palace and the courtyard, shades of dead men running, shrieking like bats, towards the gates of Hades. The sun has disappeared from the sky, deep night descends on this house. Go, leave now if you can, while there’s still time!’

‘The bloke’s raving mad,’ one of the suitors shouted out. ‘He says it’s dark outside! What kind of guests does Telemachus ask in, anyway? That one,’ he went on, pointing at me, ‘a worthless beggar who won’t even let us eat in peace, a leech, that’s what he is! And now this other one wanders in, completely demented!’

They carried on devouring their meat half raw and swilling wine. I watched them, passing among them without letting myself be seen. Nothing escaped me. I observed their movements, their looks, identified their weak spots. No one would elude his destiny. Their lunching went on and on, there was so much to eat, so much meat and so much wine. But the dinner. . well, I’d be preparing that for them, and they wouldn’t find anything to laugh about.

Once again, I met the gaze of Phemius, the poet, and I was certain, from his expression, that he’d read what was in my eyes and that he realized what was coming. Tears coursed down his bristly cheeks. How many stories he’d sung to me as a child, in the dark, in the silent palace, trying to lull me into sleep. Now, in silence, he was pleading for mercy.

I stripped off my rags and showed them that I was clad in bronze as well. I was no longer an old man, nor a beggar. I was the king of Ithaca and the beast that had grown inside me on the fields of Troy had been awakened.

Antinous was just bringing a cup full of wine to his mouth. I seized the quiver and dumped its contents onto the ground. Tens of bitter shafts bounced on the floor. I nocked one of them to my bowstring and let fly. It struck him at the base of his neck. He collapsed to the ground, blood spouting from his mouth and nose. He gave the table a kick and all the food rolled off on top of him, soaking up his blood.

The others were struck dumb. They turned to me incredulously, believing I’d made some kind of mistake. ‘What have you done, you villain?’ one cried out, and then another. ‘You’ve killed the strongest young hero in Ithaca. That’s your last try with the bow!’ ‘You’re dead, foreigner,’ came another voice. ‘We’ll chop you to pieces and feed you to the dogs and vultures!’

‘No!’ I cried out. ‘You’re wrong. The contest is over and now we’re going to start another game: shooting at live targets!’

They had still not recognized me. They were too young when I had left.

‘I’m your king!’ I shouted. ‘You thought I’d never return from the war. You’ve devoured all my wealth, you’ve plotted to murder my son, you’ve gone to bed with my slaves, you’ve threatened my wife. Dogs! You’re dead! All of you! I won’t stop until I’ve slaughtered every last one of you.’

Instinct drove them to the walls where the arms had always hung, but they found only the shadows of weapons. Green terror gripped them.

Eurymachus, the most fast-thinking among them, turned to me, drawing closer: there he was, on my arrow’s path. What should I hit? His neck, his breastbone, his liver?

‘Stop! Wait! If you are truly Odysseus, listen to my words. We didn’t think it possible for you to return after twenty years. No one could have imagined it.’ His hands were open, held out in front of him as if to protect himself. He wanted to make me take the time to reflect. ‘We insulted you, humiliated you, I can’t deny it, but we didn’t know it was you! You looked like another. We would never have acted thus had we known, you must believe me. .’

The bastard was clever — he could talk.

‘It was Antinous who thought all this up, who convinced the rest of us. We’ll pay you back, we’ll make reparation for everything we’ve consumed and much, much more. Our fathers are rich, powerful men. You know some of them, don’t you?’

He was coming closer and closer.

‘Antinous is dead. Forgive your people. We beg you, great king!’

But the arrow had already taken flight. I couldn’t have called it back had I wanted to. It went through him from front to back. He went down screaming. A man with an arrow stuck in him can suffer for hours. Philoetius put an end to his pain.

I might have stopped, then, because I’d killed the two most insolent, but I saw that the others were reacting, or at least trying to. They had only their daggers, but they must have thought they could outnumber us, and were already grabbing the tables to use as shields. Some of them were trying to drive me away from the threshold. I knew that if they were to get out the door, they would run for the city and come back in force with their fathers, brothers, relatives in tow.

No one could be allowed to escape.

Telemachus brought one of them down with his spear. Eumeus and Philoetius were used to slaughter, the wild splattering of blood. They seemed perfectly at ease.

‘Pardon your people, great king!’

Whose voice was that now? Was it Mentor’s? Athena’s? My own, perhaps? Only my own? I watched as they fell, thrashing in pools of their own blood. They looked paler to me, and much younger than they were in reality.

That image makes me suffer. I can hear their shrieks, still now, after I’ve fallen asleep. But my goddess had certainly willed it to happen, otherwise how could four men have prevailed over thirty or fifty or. . how many were there?

Telemachus ran to the armoury and swiftly returned with more spears and shields for the cowherd and the swineherd and even for me. We joined in a tight formation, one alongside the other, and we counter-attacked. The clash raged on and on, for how long I do not know.

Suddenly, as if by magic, we saw that some of them were wielding heavy weapons.

‘Where did they get those?’ I shouted. ‘If they manage to find arms, we’re all dead.’

Telemachus pounded his fist against his thigh. ‘Forgive me, father!’ he cried out. ‘In my haste I may have left the armoury door open! Someone must have got in.’

‘Eumeus, Philoetius, go there, immediately,’ I ordered. ‘If you find anyone, capture him.’

They rushed to the armoury while Telemachus and I continued to drive back the suitors from the front door. I thought of Penelope. Where was she? Could she hear the cries of agony and massacre?

I’d run out of arrows, but Eumeus and Philoetius were returning, carrying weapons they’d found in a corridor that had not been used for many years.

‘It was Melanthius,’ said Philoetius, panting under the weight of the arms he carried and his haste. ‘We’ve strung him up by the legs. He’s hanging under the ceiling beams. You’ll decide what his punishment will be when this is over.’

We threw ourselves back into the fray. I was relentless, unstoppable, striking down one after another. The princes fought recklessly, with a strength born of desperation, but none of them knew what it meant to measure himself against the fury of a real warrior in the thick of battle. None of them had ever seen combat. They must have known they had no hope. It was only a question of time. Although they still greatly outnumbered us, they had lost their cohesion and were like crazed animals in a slaughterhouse. One of them tried to jump up towards a loophole that promised to get him outside, but Eumeus nailed him to the wall with a blow of his axe. He sank to the floor with a thud.

More screams. Cries of utter agony. They were trying to make themselves heard so that someone outside, anyone, would run to the city and sound the alarm.

A groan.

Eurymachus. . could he still be alive? Hadn’t Philoetius finished him off?

Ghosts, shadows, were already flitting amongst us. Mentor. . was that Mentor? Had Athena transported his semblance all the way here, to my house? What remained of my old counsellor? He vanished, just as a swallow swooped between us (was it him, her, a swallow?) in frenetic, syncopated flight, showing first the white of its belly, then the black of its back. It went to perch on the main beam supporting the ceiling. From there it let out shrill cries. I could see it gasping with its beak open.

The princes tried time and again to unite, using their improvised shields to wall themselves off, shouting to brace themselves: ‘All men to the front! We have to push them out the door. If we can get out we can run for help! We’re dead if we don’t. Move it! Get on with it!’

But their companions continued to fall around them, pierced by spears, hacked by axes, run through by swords. The whole floor was steaming with blood. I’d already seen that scene. I knew it from my nightmares. When I had called up Agamemnon’s shade from Hades, this was how he described his shipmates, massacred in his own palace. Was I avenging them as well?

Telemachus was mercilessly wreaking vengeance on the suitors for every humiliation suffered, every jeer, offence, insult. My eyes fell upon Phemius, the singer. His hands plucked away at the lyre strings as though they were moved by their own energy. Each finger was a creature acting on its own, while his gaze was lost in the mists of terror.

I found before me Leodes, the soft-hearted suitor, least odious among them all. I had heard him invoke death for not having attained the goal of his life, the winning of Penelope, but now that the Chaera was looming over him and darkness was about to descend, he scrabbled to escape. He let his weapons fall to the ground and threw himself at my feet. He implored me to spare his life, trembling, declaring that he had never disrespected the queen, that he had always tried to convince his fellow suitors to follow his example, but I didn’t let him finish: with a blow of my sword I took off his head. His moaning had not touched me.

We continued in our work until every last one of them lay lifeless on the floor.

I had reconquered my home, avenged my honour and that of my family, taught future generations a terrible lesson.

Phemius was still alive: was it his turn? He had, after all, gladdened the arrogant suitors during their banquets. He had never rebelled. There he was, shaking, leaning against one of the pillars that stood around the hearth and supported the ceiling. He heard my footsteps drawing closer and he came out into the open. He threw himself at my feet and embraced my knees. ‘Have pity,’ he said, ‘my king!’ And he burst into tears.

How distant were the days of my childhood, the days in which the cool water of the fountain was enough to wash my innocent hands, and the adventurous stories that Phemius told me were enough to set me dreaming. He was trembling like a leaf and weeping. A long sigh pulled the last of my fury out of my mouth, the last poisonous exhalation from my chest. We stared at one another in the red light of dusk and tears glistened in my eyes and his. In his gaze I saw the days and nights of times past, peaceful images of my island and my family, celebrations and feasts. I don’t know what he saw in my eyes, but a voice rang out in my heart: ‘No one can raise his hand against the poet. He is sacred, because his song brings relief for all mortal anguish.’

Phemius walked away from me. His head bowed and his shoulders curved, he made his way across the bloody floor. The house turned dark, blackness descending all at once on my house, on the atrium and the courtyard, over the whole island, just as Theoclymenus, the murdering prophet, had foretold.

I called Euriclea, and she came down from the women’s quarters with a lantern in hand. When her eyes took in the massacre, the bodies strewn all over the floor, she gave a whoop of joy. She took to dancing, with her lantern in hand, as if prey to delirium.

‘Stop that!’ I shouted. ‘You cannot dance on the dead! These youths do not deserve to be derided. They have paid for their offences with their lives. Respect them.’

Euriclea stopped and her head dropped in shame.

‘I need you, mai. Call the maidservants and order them to carry out the corpses. Have them laid side by side outside under the courtyard portico.’

Euriclea called the women, who had been upstairs closed up in their rooms. At the sight of the massacre they burst into tears. Sobbing, they dragged the bodies out, and when they saw the black sun sinking towards the horizon, that unreal darkness, they cried even harder. It must have felt like they were taking the dead straight to Hades.

I looked out and my own heart trembled in my chest to see that darkness so long before nightfall, and so different from the night. It was as if a black veil had fallen upon the sun. It obscured the light but did not put it out entirely. The moon was still visible, as were the most luminous of the stars. No one was laughing about Theoclymenus’ black vision any more. And there was still so much to do. ‘Mai,’ I ordered, ‘have them take up the broken plates and wash the floor down, first with brushes and then with sponges, until it is perfectly clean. They’ll do the same with the tables. When they have finished, you will pick out those who sided with the suitors, betraying their queen, and separate them from the others. Have them stand in a row outside, in the courtyard.’

The maidservants trembled upon hearing those words, imagining what was to come.

When they had finished their work, Euriclea had all of them line up outside in the courtyard. The sun was back, once again illuminating the island, but its light was dull, dense, bloody. They were wailing their hearts out and shaking in terror as Euriclea raised her finger against them: ‘You, you. .’ They knew that that brief word meant a death sentence.

The red sun of twilight had been stripped of its veil, but there was little left of its downward course towards the surface of the Ocean. I turned to Eumeus and Philoetius then, and told them to stretch a sturdy ship’s rope from a column of the portico to the pillar at the courtyard’s entrance gate, high above the ground, and to tie a number of knots along its length. One for each of the unfaithful, traitorous handmaids: there they would hang, with their hands tied behind their backs. The line was high enough so that none of their feet could touch the ground. When they were finally abandoned to their destiny, dangling from the rope that stretched from one side of the courtyard to the other, they kicked up their heels as their toes strove instinctively to touch ground, but not for long. They soon stopped moving and swung lifelessly from their nooses. All their energies had fled from their bodies and their shades had already descended to Hades, chasing after those of the suitors who had preceded them. I could almost hear their sighs.

‘It’s Melanthius’ turn!’ exclaimed Eumeus. ‘Let’s go and get him.’ He ran off, followed by Philoetius. When they returned they were dragging the goatherd with his hands and feet bound. He screamed with pain at every yank. His arm bones had popped out of his shoulder joints as he hung from the ceiling beam and his face was already a mask of pain, but the worst was yet to come. The punishment for a man who betrays his king, in the full consciousness of what he is doing, was well known. Eumeus and Philoetius cut off his nose, his ears and his genitals and tossed them to the dogs. Then they threw him onto the dungheap, where he would bleed to death.

I called Euriclea again and asked her to bring me fire and sulphur so their fumes could cleanse the hall and courtyard of the stink of death, purge the clotted blood. My house must bear no trace of the desecration.

Euriclea called out all the surviving handmaids and the servants who had remained closed up in their rooms during the massacre. She invited them to recognize me and render homage. I was moved by their words and gestures. They surrounded me, kissing my hands and my head, they knelt at my feet and embraced me, many of them weeping with emotion at seeing me again or perhaps with relief at having escaped death themselves.

I could not believe that I had restored the law in my home and had reconquered the throne. But the bottom of my heart was filled with profound bitterness, because I had never before had to wield arms against my own people. My own blood. The victory I had so longed for had turned into poison. My homecoming had brought nothing but great, unending grief. Not a single one of the companions who followed me to war had I brought back to their families, to the heartsick fathers and mothers who had yearned for their return, scanning the sea day after day for a sign of them. And now there was fresh grief to be borne. Yet, a goddess had chosen to fight beside me, the gasping swallow on the ceiling’s main beam: reason was on my side and legitimized everything I had done. Justice had been served, and this was a king’s most sacred duty. This I had accomplished. Now I could think of my feelings.

Penelope.

Draped in majestic purple, covered with soft linen woven by expert hands, redolent of olive, our bed waited to take us into its folds. I recognized every stroke of my axe and my plane, every surface smoothed by my pumice. My queen had preserved it like a sanctuary, without ever losing hope in my return.

Penelope’s love. . what was it like, after so many years? Her mouth, her fiery womb, her breasts? And her black, black, black eyes? Beyond any enchantment I could have imagined in the long nights of my exile. The intimacy we had so desired enflamed our looks, our breath. I breathed in her mouth, she in mine. The light of the lantern cast a bronze reflection on her skin. She was no more than thirty-seven now, and her beauty was dazzling.

This was the privilege of a queen: she had never exposed her skin to the merciless sun, never ruined her hands pulling weeds in a field of wheat or barley. Food and pure water were always abundant on her ivory table and in her silver cup. Baths and scented oils had kept her skin soft. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, just as her gaze was locked on me. We were both incredulous at being together again and in each other’s arms.

When I pulled her close to me, the sounds of the dancing and strident singing in the hall ceased and silence fell over the house, enveloped by the night. Perhaps Telemachus or Euriclea had ordered Phemius to give up the absurd pretence. After all, who would ever be passing along the path at such a late hour? Eumeus and Philoetius had their work cut out for them. They would be at it all night, but tomorrow there would be no trace of what had happened. Not a single stain nor hint of the dense, sweet stench of death.

The frenzy of slaughter had not yet been extinguished in me; its force had not ebbed, but it flowed in a different direction. The fire was still burning, with a different energy but with the same intensity, like a river that had changed course. Only exhaustion stopped us, when the sky was just beginning to pale. We fell asleep and we forgot. The warmth of the bed and Penelope’s nude body filled me with life after the cold shadow of death had frozen my heart. Time expanded, infinitely. A wave of memories washed over me and it felt for a moment as if nothing had changed. As if I’d never left, as if our love could continue on its natural course, erasing the chasm of the years.

I felt Athena’s veil on us, protecting us. She was not jealous of Penelope, perhaps she loved her as she loved me. But would the ire of Poseidon be appeased? Or was the blue god, from the depths of the sea, meditating on more calamity for me?

When would I have to leave again? After a day, a month, a year? How would I ever find the courage to tell Penelope?

Or should I ignore the prophecy as if I’d never heard it?

How could I be certain that I’d summoned up the ghost of Tiresias from Hades, and that I’d heard those words from him? Might I have been dreaming? Might all of it have been a dream?

In that bed, next to the bride I’d desired so fervently, the woman I’d feared would become grey, worn, lifeless, wrinkled, everything seemed possible and impossible. Her breathing, soft and regular in sleep, was a music that I’d never forgotten. That breathing, along with the merest thought from me, was enough to make me forget everything, to let me believe that none of it had really happened. A dream, like so many that had visited me in my sleep over the years. But the squeaking of wheels drifted in from the courtyard. Carts being pulled over stone. Limbs hanging over the sides, the arms and legs of young men slaughtered.

By me, my son, the cowherd and the swineherd. It was all horribly real, there was no room for illusion. I begged my goddess to give me a few more hours of serenity. Then I would be able to face a thousand adventures, clashes, duels with men and gods, monsters, nightmares, dreams.

I had fallen, after our lovemaking, into a torpor, neither awake nor asleep. I would open my eyes and find Penelope’s, staring deeply.

‘I heard you crying,’ she said.

I didn’t know how to answer.

‘I understand. This is not how you imagined your return. Perhaps you thought your people would welcome you with festivities, the noblemen accompanying you to the palace where I would be waiting for you, dressed in my most beautiful gown and precious jewels. I’m sorry that didn’t happen and I’m sorry you felt you couldn’t trust me.’

‘I was wrong and I ask you to forgive me, my love. But my crying wasn’t for what I did, and not even for the bitterness I made you suffer. .’

‘I’ve already forgotten that. I made love to you like a girl, I slept in your arms, I felt your heat after so many years. You can’t imagine how that made me feel. . Why were you crying, then?’

‘Because I’ll have to leave again.’

She looked as if she’d turned to stone.

I couldn’t stop. I had started talking. I had to say it all.

‘What I’m about to tell you is unbelievable, I know, but in my ship I crossed the wall of fog that separates our world from a place where anything is possible. I reached the ends of the earth, I ventured into the waves of the river Ocean. I went beyond the jagged cliffs and the rocky towers that are the sentinels of the world of the dead. I sacrificed to the infernal gods and called up the shadows of Hades. Thousands of them came to me.

‘The Theban prophet Tiresias was among them. He drank of the blood of the animals I’d sacrificed and he spoke to me. It was a dreadful sight to see, but worse was to hear what he had to tell me. He predicted that I would return, here, to Ithaca, late, a broken man, on a foreign ship without a single comrade. He said that I would find my house invaded by pretenders plaguing my wife and that I would have to kill them all. He said that when I had done this, I would have to leave again, to journey in a single direction away from the sea, carrying an oar on my shoulder. I would have to continue on until I found myself among people who do not know the sea, who do not season their food with salt, who have never seen a ship. Until one day I would find a man who would ask me whether the oar on my shoulder was a fan for winnowing grain.

‘“This is the sign,” Tiresias told me. ‘“You can’t mistake it. You will plant the oar into the ground and offer a bull, a boar and a ram in sacrifice to Poseidon: only then will you be able to return and reign among happy peoples. Death will come to seek you only when you are exhausted by serene old age. She will come for you softly, from the sea.”’

My wife’s tears gleamed like pearls on her cheeks. The night was never-ending, beyond any limit that I had ever known. Perhaps the spirits of the dark wanted to allow me a little more time for my night of love and sorrow.

‘He said nothing of me?’

‘You are always in my heart. But the prophecy must be fulfilled. I challenged a god and have paid dearly for it already. This is the last thing that remains to be done: to end the impossible contest of a mortal against an invincible god. Once and for all.

‘The first part of the prophecy has come true in every way, why shouldn’t the second as well? When Tiresias named the three animals I would have to sacrifice, I remembered something that happened when I was just a boy. The first time I ever went to the continent was to visit my grandfather, Autolykos, for a hunting party. My mother gave me a message for him, and when he’d seen it he asked me to name three animals, but to be very careful with my answer, because those three animals would mark my future.

‘I said without hesitation: “The bull, the boar and the ram.” The same as Tiresias. I cannot escape my destiny. It was all foretold. I know that I’ll make you suffer by leaving again, but I have no choice. If I don’t bring this conflict to an end, I’ll never have a hope of living the last part of my life in serenity, with my family, on my island.’

Penelope held me tightly, curled into my arms. I caressed her face, her body, sought out her black eyes in the darkness. I was thinking, perhaps, that her love could keep the restless shades of the murdered suitors away from me.

‘The gods are deceitful, they play with our lives pitilessly,’ she cried. ‘You are their toy. A little man armed only with an oar who must take on first a bull and then a boar with frightful tusks and then a curved-horned ram, in some remote, solitary place. As they sit on their shining thrones, enjoying the spectacle from the sky.’

‘I don’t believe that. Tiresias was telling the truth. No one tells lies in the kingdom of the dead.’

She turned away, sobbing softly. I felt like crying as well. And yet, wretched as we were, we made love again and again, locked in a fierce embrace, weeping, each of us breathing in the other’s pain. In the heat and the bitter taste of tears, from that total intimacy of soul and body rose a challenge to the sky, more defiant and powerful than any that could be fought with a sword or spear: the call of two mortal creatures who loved each other desperately, enmeshed in a moment of extreme emotion and suffering, beyond anything they had ever experienced. A heartbroken passion whose infinite power no god, no demon, could remotely imagine.

When the funeral banquet was over, the fathers and brothers of the fallen suitors left, heading down the path to their own homes. Eumeus and Philoetius returned to the palace to deliver the corpses which had not yet been claimed to the ships moored at the harbour, waiting to carry them back to their families on the islands.

A profound sadness flooded my heart, because revenge is always a poison that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. Fury burns itself out, frenzy melts away and your soul remains ice cold, aching with loss and sorrow. What anguished me the most were the days still to come. Who would I be able to talk to? How would I govern my land, how would I administer justice? How could I ever find joy in the company of my son when I knew that I’d deprived so many of my countrymen of the same joy? How would I find consolation in my wife’s arms, knowing how many women of Ithaca were tormented by grief? How would I be able to walk down the paths of my island, knowing that there could very well be an ambush lying in wait behind every bush or tree?

I watched Phemius as he advanced towards us and I realized that the days that inspired the poets were over. What awaited me was nothing but the slow wasting of my soul and long nights with my eyes wide open.

Phemius sat under the oak and watched as the mules were yoked to the cart that would carry the lifeless body of Eupites to his last resting place. My father had killed him and I had killed his son. I approached the poet and said: ‘Phemius, my heart is heavy but I had no choice. You saw everything that happened. Could I have forgiven them instead?’

‘Don’t you remember? Not much time has passed!’ Phemius cried out. ‘That’s exactly what Eurymachus asked you to do: “Forgive your people!” Why didn’t you? Is it not a king’s duty to be magnanimous? You’d already killed Antinous. How much blood did you need to sate your thirst for revenge? They had offered to pay you back for everything they had consumed in your house, and more. They would have done anything to placate your anger. It’s always better to look towards the future when you’re contemplating revenge and bloodshed. Think about it. Had you pardoned them, wouldn’t you be feeling better now? Wouldn’t you be walking down the streets of your island light-hearted, surrounded by the gratitude and admiration of your subjects? Wouldn’t everyone’s lives be better? Yours, theirs, even mine? And instead, look what’s facing us: grief, dismay, bitter cold and emptiness.’ He dropped his head and let the tears fall freely onto his bristly cheeks.

‘Have you forgotten the days of our youth, my king?’ he went on. ‘Have you forgotten those happy days? No fury, no blood, no infinite mourning. Hope, that’s what we embraced then, dreams, singing and joy. The sun, the sea, the clouds and the flowered meadows, the sunsets over a purple sea, the sails returning home, amazement and wonder at the adventure of the life that was waiting for us. That’s what you should have returned to, even if these long years had taxed you so sorely.’

He fell silent again. His chin dropped to his chest, the sea breeze ruffling his thinning hair and drying the tears on his cheeks.

I sighed. A strong urge to cry swept over me as well.

‘Do you expect an answer, Phemius? I only wish that an answer existed! But there isn’t any. Do you want to know why I didn’t forgive? Why I couldn’t be satisfied with a single victim? Because for ten long years that’s all I did: slaughtered, murdered, gutted whoever challenged me. Could I have gone into hiding instead? Fled? Shirked my destiny?

‘If I had been able to come back home after leaving Troy in ruins, none of this would have happened. I would reign now as Nestor does, beloved by his people, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.

‘It was not my fault, Phemius. Do you know how ardently I hoped? How I wept, searched, implored? But forces much greater than my own, immense, frightful forces, drove me away, further and further away, to the extreme limits of earth and sea, beyond the boundaries that men are held to by the gods. The longing to return never left me, believe me, but my life on the sea was to be no different than the years under the walls of Troy. I had to keep fighting. Monsters, savage man-eating creatures. I had to keep watching my comrades die, one after another, atrocious deaths. Cut down, strung up like fish, mangled in the jaws of horrendous beasts. .’ Phemius’ blue eyes considered mine for the first time; his chin was trembling. ‘I had to harden my heart, I would have been defeated had I not nursed hatred and vengeance. I wanted to survive. Should I have let myself drown, sink into the abyss?

‘When I finally got here, when I kissed my island, could finally smell it, recognize its clouds, I thought that everything could go back to the way it was.’ Phemius’ blue tears accompanied my words, dripping onto the dry sandy soil. ‘I went to Eumeus’ sty and met Telemachus there. He had just narrowly escaped death at the hands of his mother’s suitors. I held my son and we wept together. That embrace made me feel that I could reclaim all those lost years, that I could love again, think of the future, of my home, of my wife, of my father, the hero Laertes who had so suffered my absence. But then I was told that my house had been invaded, taken over by insolent pretenders to my throne who were menacing my wife and plotting yet another ambush to kill my son. I knew I had to act in secret. I disguised myself as a beggar and prepared to suffer insult and injury. You saw me yourself, didn’t you, Phemius? You recognized me under those rags.

‘It was what Tiresias, the Theban seer whose spirit I’d summoned up from Hades, had prophesied. “You will kill them all,” he told me, “either openly, with your slashing bronze, or stealthily, with deceit.” My goddess exhorted me to do the same.

‘And yet neither the prophecy of Theban Tiresias nor the goddess of the green-blue eyes would have led me to massacre them had I not wanted it. What drove me to it was feeling myself surrounded by enemies, feeling the shock of their blows. The ancient fury sleeping at the bottom of my heart awoke all at once and it blazed so bright it burnt my soul. Nothing could have stopped me. There was no mercy to be had. Black night had descended upon my home. The glorious palace of Laertes had become the very mouth of Hades. The sun itself was blacked out. Could I have avoided it? Answer me: could I have avoided it?’

It was only then that I realized my father had been listening to my words. He said: ‘You have nothing to blame yourself for, son. Nothing could be more craven than taking undue advantage of the home and honour of a man who is far away and cannot defend himself. You exacted justice and you acted like a sovereign. You pronounced your sentence and you carried it out. No one will ever dare to follow the example of those wretches again.’

Phemius rose to his feet. He said: ‘Come, my king. Let’s return home.’

I reached the palace as darkness was falling and the maidservants came out to receive me, to wash my hands and feet. Mai asked me to taste the roast to see if it was well cooked. Telemachus was outside, standing on the grass near the fountain, intent on planting a young ash tree (was it the season to be planting trees?). I was told that the queen was waiting for me in the hall for dinner.

Had I ever really been away? Had I ever left my island? Just then it seemed to me that I had never gone to sea. The sky was the same, the clouds as thin and wispy as they had ever been, the head of the pack looked like Argus (was it him?), the house in perfect order. I felt calm and I was enjoying that moment of peace. The sense of time never passing gave me the bittersweet sensation of an everlasting sunset, a lazy twilight that fluttered between evening and night.

Penelope was already sitting in her chair. Her eyes were edged with Egyptian bistre, her lips tinged red; she wore amber earrings and necklace. Her white gown was chequered and gave off golden reflections when she shifted. The neckline was opened in a wide rectangle at the front and back. It made me think of the gown with the ducklings that she was wearing when we first met and my heart was touched.

From the moment when I’d come ashore, I knew that reality would be different from my dreams. I knew that, as Calypso had told me, Penelope’s body would be different from the one that filled my imagination, but the light of the setting sun was flooding her with red gold and lighting up her eyes. She got up and came towards me. She kissed me, encircling my neck with her arms, pressing her hips against mine. What I wanted to do was take her up to our bed, nestled in the branches of the olive tree.

Euriclea removed my work tunic, passed her soft sponge over my skin and dried me gently. She dressed me again with a fresh tunic that skimmed my feet; it was purple, with a wide hem of white linen interwoven with golden threads. She wanted me to be happy as only a king can be: in his palace, surrounded by love and veneration, beloved by the gods. She almost made me feel like I was that happy king. Yet I wasn’t accustomed to such privileges any more.

I could hear the dogs yelping excitedly outside. Telemachus?

‘I’ve invited King Laertes your father,’ said Penelope. ‘I thought you’d be glad to see him.’

‘Of course, my darling. Is that him?’

She nodded. ‘I think it must be him. The dogs are noisier when Telemachus comes home. He always has a treat for them.’

The dogs, my father, my son, the setting sun, my royal tunic, my bride. Mai running the household. Every thing, every person, had its own colours, shone with its own light. Could my heart heal its wounds?

‘Go to receive the king,’ Penelope ordered the maidservants and they scurried to do her bidding.

Outside was Philoetius’ voice as he halted the oxen who were pulling the cart. Then my father’s voice.

‘Atta!’

‘I couldn’t refuse an invitation from the king and queen,’ he said, entering.

The maids approached him with a silver basin and two linen towels. I watched as they washed my father’s hands and feet. My steward offered him a golden cup and filled it with our best wine.

‘I’d forgotten how good the wine is in this palace,’ he said, winking. ‘I see it hasn’t changed. And I’d forgotten what it means to be treated like a king.’

‘Why don’t you move back here with us?’ asked Telemachus, coming in. ‘You would be treated with great respect. We’ll send someone to work the land on your farm and you can go back whenever you like, on the mule or by cart.’

‘I have to think about it,’ replied my father. ‘Old men have their habits and mine have become quite stubborn indeed, I’m afraid.’

I thought about what my mother’s spirit had told me when she appeared to me in Hades. I could see all the marks of that harsh, lonely life in my father’s body and on his face. Not much remained of the man I remembered, but I loved him all the more for that. It was my absence that had broken his heart.

We took our places around the table, and after the wine had begun to lighten our hearts and chase away ugly thoughts, it felt as if we’d returned to the old days, when King Laertes would invite the island’s noblemen to dinner and Mentor entertained us with his stories late into the night.

Penelope retired, ascending the stairs that led to the upper floor, and I stayed to talk with my father and my son. There was a powerful bond between us: the blood of the kings of Ithaca flowed in our veins. I felt that the moment had come to loosen the knot that had been choking my heart and my throat.

‘I’ve reflected long and hard these past days,’ I began, ‘and I’ve spoken to Phemius. He’s a wise man and he says what he thinks.’

‘And what does he think?’ asked my father.

‘That I should speak to the people. They haven’t seen me since I’ve returned. Phemius says I should have had mercy on the suitors after I had killed Antinous. I would feel better today, he tells me, everyone on the island and in the kingdom would feel better. Instead, nearly every single house is in mourning. Some of them weep because they know they’ll never again see the sons who left for the war with me. Others weep because in returning from that war, I have killed a great many others.’

They fell silent for a while, my father and my son.

King Laertes was the first to speak: ‘Phemius is a singer. You are the king. You are the one who brought about the fall of Troy after ten years of siege. We all know that men die in war and on the sea. That’s no fault of yours. As for the others, you already know what I think about them. Are you sorry that you killed the men who were humiliating your father, plotting to kill your son, seeking to climb into bed with your wife?’

I had an answer to his words but I bit my tongue. Instead, I said: ‘Father, I remember when you would return from one of your journeys. How your people would celebrate! We’d rush down to the port to see you disembark and you would ascend to the palace between two wings of people cheering and clapping. Since my return I’ve had to avoid meeting up with anyone, and if I do all I see is terror in their eyes.’

Telemachus hadn’t said a word. Perhaps the presence of a father he still wasn’t used to and a grandfather he had always considered the foremost authority on the island induced him to listen rather than speak his mind.

But then he asked me: ‘So what are you thinking, then? What do you want to do?’

‘I want to call the people to assembly, affirm my rights as their king and then ask for true reconciliation, offering a sign of reparation that will forever extinguish any ill will.’

I was thinking of the way Euthymides, Antinous’ young brother, had looked at me.

‘What kind of a sign?’

‘You’ll see when the time comes. But I want you to know that to do this, I’ll need you both: you, Father, and you, my son. The Ithacans will see the dynasty of Arcesius in its full might and authority. We’ll enter the assembly dressed in our brightest armour. You, Father, will be at my right, and you, son, at my left. I’ll speak to my people and after I’ve finished, each of you will be able to address them, if you so wish. The assembly will be dissolved at dusk. I will summon the noblemen separately after nightfall.’

‘But what can you propose that will be stronger than a sworn pact, like the one you pronounced at the gates of my house?’ asked my father.

‘You’ll see, atta. Well?’

‘As you wish,’ replied the hero Laertes, my father.

‘As you wish,’ replied Telemachus my son, as handsome as a god.

‘Tonight I will sleep in peace for the first time since my return to my homeland, and it will be thanks to you. Your rooms are ready. For the first time since I left my land so long ago, all three of us will be sleeping under the same roof.’

We bid each other goodnight and I went up to the bedchamber where Penelope was waiting for me, awake. Her big black eyes open in the darkness gleamed ever so slightly in the light of the moon.

More time passed and strangely I felt no desire to leave Ithaca. I was reminded of my father’s words when I was an adolescent: after a long journey, I would no longer be at ease on my little island. Ithaca would seem too small to me, much like a prison. That wasn’t so now. Perhaps because I had desired her so keenly, my homeland, in all those years spent at war and at sea and now I wanted to enjoy what I had. I crossed the forests, took long walks on the seashore, climbed up the cliffs. Looking at her coves and inlets from up above was almost like admiring and caressing Penelope’s body.

One day Telemachus joined me at the secret port. Perhaps he’d spotted me from above, from crow’s rock, and he felt like spending some time in my company.

‘Atta,’ he said, ‘why don’t you and I go to the continent together? We could visit King Nestor in Pylos and King Menelaus in Sparta. I know they’d greatly enjoy banqueting with you, talking and joking, maybe even having a good cry. It would be good for you and for them too. I’ve sent out messages with the news of your return. They know that you’ve exacted justice in your home and made peace with your people. But I realized from their responses that many things were already known to them and they were ardently hoping you would make the journey to see them in person. You went through so much together during the war. You fought to save each other’s lives, didn’t you? Don’t you think that seeing them again would be a good thing? It would be like the trip you took with your father when you were young.’

‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘perhaps we should go. There’s still so much that needs saying, and it would strengthen the ties of friendship that join us. I’ll think about it and I’ll set a date for our departure, but not too soon, I don’t want to leave your mother alone just yet. She was alone for much too long. I want to wait for all the old wounds to heal. Then we can go.’

Telemachus tipped his head towards me thoughtfully.

‘What about my grandfather Autolykos?’ I asked him. ‘Whatever happened to him? I didn’t meet him among the shades of the dead that I summoned up from Hades.’

‘He died when I was still very little. Or maybe he just disappeared. No one knows for sure.’

‘But I saw my mother’s shadow. I spoke to her and she to me. She told me the truth. Why didn’t she say anything about him? Why didn’t I see him?’

‘Maybe he didn’t want to make himself seen. You always said he was an irascible, capricious old man. Maybe dying didn’t make him any better.’

He smiled and so did I, but that night, resting alongside my wife, I dreamt something different. I thought that my grandfather might still be alive, in some particular, mysterious form. One day, perhaps, I’d go to the continent and pay a visit to his fortress on Parnassus, as sullen and stony as he had always been.

At times my thoughts turned to what I had gone through, what I had seen. At night I dreamt of the storms, the battles, the distant, diverse worlds I had seen. I woke up covered with sweat or shouting. Penelope would hold me and promise in a low voice: ‘It’s all right now. It’s all gone. You can rest easy now, sleep, my darling.’ But then I would go for several nights without dreaming at all, and the days that followed seemed empty and monotonous. The images of the past seemed to be fading and, somehow, I mourned for them.

It would happen, every now and then, that sailors landing at the great port would ask if it were true that wanax Odysseus had returned. Had he truly wiped out all the queen’s suitors? Did he reign unopposed over the island? Sometimes they would ask to meet me, but I would rarely make myself available.

I would often go to the spot where the Phaeacians had left me sleeping on the shore and where I’d met my goddess when I awoke. I dearly hoped I would chance upon the shepherd boy who’d spoken to me then: my goddess, who had disguised herself as the gods are wont to do if they show themselves to a mortal. I missed her greatly and feared she would never appear to me again. Without the sense of her presence I felt very alone.

Then one day, without warning, something happened. .

It was evening, just after dusk. I was walking along the shore, not far from the secret port. The moon was full and the sky was cold and clear. From the cabins scattered over the mountain slope came the barking of dogs and bleating of sheep, and from the sea the sound of waves lapping. The pebbles at the shoreline shone like precious gems in the light of the moon.

All at once I noticed something coming in slowly on the waves. I waded in up to my knees and pulled the object out of the water: an oar, it was, large and solid, made of ash. Not from a fishing boat, but from a ship!

I felt my heart leap in my chest and my breath stopped short. What wrecked ship had cast off an oar that had made its way to the shores of my island, to my very feet? I ran my hand down the shaft and then up again, to the handle, and my fingers curled around a figure carved into the wood. The light of the full moon was bright enough for me to make it out. I recognized it: a butterfly.

Polites’ oar!

Tears sprang to my eyes. How far had that oar travelled? What god had pushed it all the way to where I stood, on a night of full moon, on the shores of the secret port, on my own island? That oar was the last remnant of one of my ships swallowed up by the sea. It had been searching for me for years and it had finally found me, bringing me a mute but unmistakable message.

The time had come to resume my journey. The last, the one that would take me to a desolate place at the ends of the earth where I would make a sacrifice to Poseidon, recognizing his victory and my defeat. Only thus would I be able to achieve peace.

I heaved the oar on my shoulder and walked towards home. It was time. Time to leave. Time to tell Penelope, to listen to her inconsolable weeping, to repeat that I’d be returning soon and that we would finally reign over a happy people.

She knew, she said, that it would happen. A lifetime of disappointments had tempered her and she showed great strength of spirit.

‘I’ll miss you,’ she said with quiet sadness.

‘I will miss you too,’ I told her. ‘These are the pains I must suffer to placate the wrath of an unjust god. Once we’ve made love again, you can start counting the days. Not many. You won’t see me leave, nor will I watch you as my ship draws away and you get smaller and smaller and further away from me. I couldn’t bear it.’

The second to know was my father.

‘When?’ he asked me.

‘Soon. The sooner the better. There’s no reason to put it off. I don’t know how long this journey will take, when or where I’ll find the man who will give me the signal that I’ve reached the end of the road. But I’m sure it will be arduous. It won’t be so easy to end my quarrel with the god that shakes the earth.’

‘Do you know what I think?’

‘No, atta, I don’t, but the look in your eyes tells me it isn’t pleasant.’

‘It’s neither good nor bad. It’s only a sensation, or a vision, perhaps.’

‘Speak, then.’

‘I’m remembering the dream you had at the Sanctuary of the Wolf King in Arcadia. I feel that it has something to do with this last adventure of yours.’

‘I will nurse that dream in my heart.’

‘If I’m right, I think it’s reasonable to believe I won’t see you again.’

‘Why are you saying such a thing?’

‘A presentiment.’

I lowered my eyes without being able to say another word.

It was he who spoke: ‘Let us say goodbye now, then.’

His eyes were shining. The hero Laertes, my father. Those marvellous blue eyes. We clasped each other tightly, and wept.

‘Farewell, atta,’ I said. ‘It is an honour to have been born of a father like you. The best I could possibly desire. It was worth coming into the world, just to know you.’

‘Farewell, pai. I want you to know that your return was the greatest joy of my life. I couldn’t have died without seeing you again. My only regret is that you didn’t come to me first, allow me to fight at your side and perhaps even to die the way I lived: as a king and a warrior. But I understand. You are the most famous of all mortals, you are the conqueror of Troy and you certainly have a plan now, as you did that day. My presence might have compromised it. I’m no longer the man I was.’

‘Don’t say that, atta! It’s not true!’

‘Now you are departing for your last journey. You’ll choose the day and the time. It’s better that I don’t know, and that I don’t see you go. I don’t think my old heart could stand it. Follow your fate and the will of the gods. There’s no other possible way. My last thought will be for you. My spirit will be at your side forever.’

I left with a swollen heart, but that was the way it had to be.

I walked among the silvery olive trees, along the path we’d travelled so often together.

All at once I heard a scream behind me: the old Siculian servant who took care of him! My heart froze and I ran back as fast as I could. I could see him from a distance: on the ground, unmoving. His old servant was wailing in despair, leaning over him. She was letting out loud, shrill laments, in the way of her people.

My father’s voice rang in my heart: ‘Best that I don’t know and that I don’t see: my old heart wouldn’t be able to bear it.’

How long did that impenetrable night and that abysmal silence last? Was that my final punishment, a deadly trap that the hostile god had lured me into? To lie immobile for all eternity, alive and conscious, my heart never allowed to sleep? I, who had navigated all the seas, fought against heroes, monsters and storms, against lightning, wind and the screaming sea? Doomed to pass the years, the millennia, counting the beats of my heart? And yet a thread of hope, like a flickering flame, rose from the depths. I was on the continent. Here the blue god, as implacable as he might be, was not so powerful, not more powerful than my goddess. She would hear my heartbeat and she would find me. She would give me back light and strength. Or perhaps she’d send me someone.

I hoped so, intensely. My spirit navigated the night in every direction, searching for a landing place. It expanded like a light mist over an infinite space.

Until the howling of a wolf penetrated into my tomb. It ripped through the silence. Stopped. Growled. Stopped again.

A creaking of hinges.

A footstep descending the stairs.

‘Who are you?’ screamed my heart, but not a sound came out.

The footstep halted.

‘Calchas,’ a voice answered. The footsteps resumed their descent and came to a halt again, next to me. ‘We had a pact.’

Something loosened in my chest, the knot that was holding my voice back lessened its grip.

‘How did you find me?’ I was shaken with sobbing, as though I’d been freed all at once from heavy chains.

‘I was roaming through these mountains and I suddenly felt the beat of your heart vibrating under my feet, from the bowels of the mountain.’

‘My goddess sent you. Only she could bring about such a prodigy.’

I opened my eyes and saw a ray of light penetrating from a slit somewhere above me, glancing off steps cut into the solid rock. The light wounded me like a sword.

‘The time has come for each of us to tell the other when he will face the extreme moment. We both have the gift.’

‘Is that why I can open my eyes and speak?’

‘Yes. . and no. You were hit. Something happened inside you. They gave you up for dead. Still and cold, you were the only one who could hear the beating of your heart. No one else.’

‘I thought I was being put on the pyre alive. .’

‘The goddess inspired other thoughts in Telemachus, and others still in me.’

His face was in the shadows and the light was behind him. But his voice was the same one, deep and dark, that had uttered prophecies in the assembly of the Achaeans when the glorious Atreides had bid him to do so.

‘Get up,’ he said to me.

I tried to get up but my body would not obey me. It had been too long since my muscles had flexed my limbs. Every small movement caused me great pain.

‘How long have I been in this place?’

‘Only the heart counting its beats could tell you. Months. . perhaps. Over this time, something has happened to you.’

‘Is my grandfather Autolykos buried here?’

‘Something has happened to him too.’

When I awoke, I saw that the ground all around the oak trunk was marked by signs of a wild fight, as if not a pack of animals but a horde of demons had been at each others’ throats. I got up, slung the bow over my shoulder and fastened the quiver at my side, adjusted the oar on my other shoulder and carried on my way. I decided that from that morning on, I would count the days, and observe the stars and the rising and setting of the sun and moon in order to keep track of what direction I was moving in.

My solitude became greater day by day and melancholy took root within me. I would have given anything, anything at all, for an hour in the company of my son or my wife, yet I avoided contact with any other human being, although I understood that if I continued thus, the prophecy would never come true. I would never meet the man who would ask me the fatal question. But I reasoned that this would force my destiny into revealing itself unmistakably. I knew that in any case the man would turn up when I least expected it, in the middle of a vast plain or on a mountain path or along the banks of a river. This is the sign. You can’t mistake it. .

I hunted with my bow, I set traps, I gathered roots, nuts and wild fruits. I carried a small clay jar with holes in its cover to hold the last embers from the night’s fire to keep a spark alive for the next day, so I would have light when darkness fell again. So many times, casting my gaze in all directions around me, I saw no light save my own. A solitary flicker on the dark, sleepy earth.

As the days progressed, my body changed. Gone were the days when I’d enjoyed the favours of a goddess, food, wine and precious garments on an island at the ends of the earth. The days of feasting and the long sleepless nights of storytelling in the palace of Alcinous, the divine sovereign of the Phaeacians, those were gone too. My thin skin seemed moulded to my muscles, my sight had become much sharper, I was lighter, more agile and faster, but less powerful. More a hunter and a runner than a warrior. I’d got used to sleeping with one eye open; I would rest without slipping into unconsciousness. I’d learned that abandoning myself to sleep could have very bitter results.

When I hunted and would have to leave my oar behind I took care to hide it well despite the fact that I was always alone. It was, after all, the last memento of my ship and my only hope of making peace with the gods.

I often thought of Mentor — I’d lost every trace of him. Was it my goddess who had taken him, used up his body? Had she snatched his spirit as well? I long invoked her, in vain. I would have given anything to see her as I had that day in Ithaca, the day of my return, when she’d taken on the semblance of a shepherd boy and had touched my face. . it was the only time I’d ever felt her touch.

I forged on for more than three months, always heading east. I saw hordes of centaurs passing in the distance in clouds of dust, sighted villages with huts made of flayed animal hides. I’d even seen battle chariots that were somewhat like the ones we used. I asked myself how anyone could want to wage war on such desolate stretches of land, where there was nothing beautiful or desirable to be conquered. Only on very rare occasions did I approach small groups of men who were camped on the plains, and I was always welcomed as a guest among them, but these brief encounters only served to confirm my convictions. They were sustained by food that savages, not bread-eating people, ate; they used no fragrant herbs, they had no olives nor the shining oil that gives light in the darkness and nourishment for the body and is a balm for weary limbs. They had no cheeses, no foaming wine that cheers the heart. They ate animal fat and drank milk.

Their women smelled like the animal skins they wore; they had no looms or spindles. Their hair was tangled and dry as straw and they didn’t bathe in waters scented with rare and precious essences. I imagined that the only time they got wet was when it rained.

In a particularly poor village, they offered me one as a sign of their hospitality, but her nauseating smell repelled me. I accepted to take her away with me so they would not be offended, but I simply delivered her to the next village, allowing them to believe that I’d found her by chance along my way.

Only once was I forced to fight for my life. I was venturing into a large village when I saw human skulls nailed onto a pole in the middle of a clearing and over the doors of the surrounding huts. The inhabitants must have seen me, and had perhaps interpreted the oar on my shoulder as a weapon, for although I tried to retrace my steps, their centaurs quickly caught up with me and dragged me back to the village.

They subjected me to what must have been a sacrificial rite: I was forced to face off against a gigantic warrior. Although he was surely their champion, he used his sword like a club and not like a weapon with a cutting edge. It wasn’t difficult, on my second lunge, to run him through from front to back. The crowd who had been loudly cheering him on were struck dumb. They sent out four more men against me and I took their lives, one after another, with the sword I’d been given, an excellent bronze blade, and I wondered where it had been forged. A moment before sinking it into the chest of the fifth man, I felt a shiver under my skin and was filled with joy. Was Athena back at my side? I thanked her in my heart with such a surge of emotion that my eyes filled with tears. The astonished onlookers allowed me to go then, and I walked off with my oar on my shoulder.

That same night, I found shelter in a small depression in the ground. I lay down wrapped in my cloak on a pile of leaves and fell asleep. Now and then my sleep was torn by emotions very familiar to me in the aftermath of a battle. My hand jerked to my side, searching for the hilt of a weapon. I twisted away, as if to avoid a blow. In this drowsy state I could feel sharp gusts of the north wind chilling my limbs. The wind didn’t wake me, but it wouldn’t let me sleep.

I don’t remember when it happened, whether near dawn or in the middle of the night, but I heard Mentor’s voice, calling me. Waking me. I jolted awake and got to my feet. He was standing in front of me, looking at me with that intense expression I knew so well. It surprised me that I could see him so clearly in the dark, as if a fire or a hidden lamp was illuminating him. There was no moon in the sky and everything was dark above and below me.

‘Mentor!’ I cried out. ‘How did you find me in this desolation? Or are you my goddess, posing as my boyhood tutor? She’s done that before. I felt her presence today in combat, that cold shiver that tells me she’s near.’

He replied: ‘I am not your goddess. I am the message that she sends you. Look!’ He pointed at my bed of leaves. I did look and saw myself sleeping soundly. ‘Now come with me.’ Was I moving inside a dream?

I followed him and I realized that we were moving swiftly and covering much ground. Before us was a chain of very high mountains, their peaks capped with snow and ice.

We stopped on one of these majestic crests. ‘This is Mount Haemos. The freezing winds that bring snow and cold over all the earth are born here.’

‘What will happen to my oar? I left it next to where I was resting!’

‘No one will touch it,’ he replied. ‘You’ll find it upon your return. You’ll need it.’

‘When?’

‘Soon, perhaps. I can only tell you that something will happen next spring. But first you will have to cross the winter, from one side to the other: the freezing cold, the screaming wind. No one has ever survived. You passed the wall of fog: you will have to pass the wall of ice. You will be pierced by one thousand gelid swords. The cold will split your heart. Finally you will cross the last frontier.’

‘I want to return to Penelope, to Telemachus! I’m tired, understand?. . immensely tired. .’

‘You will see them.’

‘When?’

‘When the moment comes. When you have offered sacrifice, as the Theban prophet you called up from Hades predicted.’ As he pronounced these words, the moon appeared between the wind-tattered clouds and lit up three animals on the snowy plain: they were enormous, and they were galloping across that vast expanse, raising clouds of snow, clouds of silver. A great bull with pointed horns snorted clouds of hot steam from flaring nostrils. At his side a tusked swine as huge as the boar of Calydon. On the other side, a gigantic ram, an albino with curved horns. Were they rushing towards the fatal encounter?

Mentor’s eyes glowed bright in the dark like those of an owl that see better at night than during the day.

‘Calchas has just died. Can you feel him passing in the wind? Just as you had predicted, whispering into his ear. You also have the gift, remember?’

‘A snake bite?’

‘Yes, just as you had predicted. And Calchas? What did he tell you at that same instant?’

‘I can’t tell you. It’s too hard for me, and it wouldn’t be easy for you to hear.’

‘What if I showed you where Mentor is?’

‘Then maybe I’d tell you.’

‘Come, follow me.’

He moved along the mountain ridge without leaving tracks in the blanket of snow at his feet. I left no tracks either. My body was elsewhere. We found ourselves in front of a cave.

The ghost that guided me let off a dim light, enough for me to make out the cavern walls. I followed him through an enormous room, a petrified forest of pale pinnacles that rose from the floor and hung from the vault above, sweating tears. Some of them looked almost human, or like fabulous beasts, their jaws bristling with stony fangs. Others were joined at the middle to form columns. I’d never seen such a thing in all my life. We entered a tunnel and walked on at length. I felt fear and apprehension. My heartbeat was becoming stronger and faster with each step I took, although my heart was far away in a body sleeping in a hollow in the ground.

The tunnel branched off several times into smaller passageways. Was the Labyrinth of Crete that imprisoned the man-bull like this? The narrow passage finally began to widen until we found ourselves in a bigger chamber with a square boulder at its centre. On this stone lay my friend Mentor, stiff and unmoving. The body that my goddess had worn to appear to me or my son, the precious friend who had always been so free with his advice and his chiding, with his help and support. A man of priceless wisdom, so generous that he could not refuse his body, his very person, to the god who loved me and had saved me time and time again.

‘In the end,’ said the spectre, ‘the presence of the green-eyed goddess consumed the fragile husk, and she placed him here in this majestic dwelling, an empty chrysalis, untainted and untaintable, forever.’

I threw myself, weeping, upon that cold body, caressed his face and kissed his hands. On his chest was a small stone flower — one of those that take shape from the tears of the mountain. ‘Allow me, my friend, to wear this on my own chest in your memory. It will protect me as an amulet for as long as I live,’ I whispered. But then I shouted out: ‘If this is the cost of keeping me alive, it would have been better to share the fate of my comrades! A thousand times better to die pierced by an arrow under the walls of Troy or to sink into the abyss with my ship. My death would have quenched the blue god’s thirst for revenge and ended his loathing.’

‘Don’t speak thus!’ said the spirit who was guiding me. ‘You must not question the gifts and the love of a goddess!’

‘I am grateful for her gifts and I miss her terribly. I wish that she were here to give me hope, to tell me the place and time that I will again be able to embrace those I love.’

‘This may indeed happen, perhaps, when the time is right. But you and I had a pact. I’ve showed you Mentor, now you must tell me what Calchas whispered into your ear.’

‘I can tell you, but I’m not sure myself of what I heard.’

‘Tell me anyway.’

I couldn’t understand why my guide insisted on hearing something he should have already known, but I tried to repeat what Calchas had told me, as best I could remember it: ‘“When you have gathered your victims on the site of the agile oar, you will then have to make a choice: whether to sacrifice them and return to the sea where you will resume your reign and finally meet your death, or whether to take up your journey once again. Forever.” How I’ve struggled to interpret those words! Can you help me?’

I had no reply save a gust of the screaming wind that brings snow and ice over the endless expanse.

It took me many more months to cover the last stretch of cruel winter. Every moment of every day was filled with remembering. It barely seems possible that I could relive every instant of my life so intensely, so vividly. It was as though my mind had diffused and expanded my experience to fill that void, so that nothing could exist outside my body. Nothing but myself occupied the limitless space that surrounded me.

I navigated alone, without a single comrade, with only an oar to remind me that I had once crossed the sea, that I had fought impossible monsters and creatures. Nothing on this journey had reawakened the forces that in the past had enabled me to carry out my endeavours; there had been neither glory nor meaning in the only combat I’d been forced to engage in.

I felt like I’d become another person, in another place and in another world, and this pained and alarmed me. I felt my roots being yanked from the earth I knew by a force that I could not defend myself against. Every yank wounded me, spilling blood, not shining sap. My past life seemed alien to me; something that had evaporated with my passing. Changeable creatures, unfamiliar divinities confined to remote, unreachable places. . places of magical beauty, blissful islands ruled by divine sovereigns, storms of wind and lightning, raging mountains of water: all this faded away in those twilights when the sun never set, in those delusive, tremulous lights that fluttered in the night sky. I was the only thinking animal that could live in that desert of white.

Then this morning, when I opened my eyes and stretched my numb, aching limbs, I found myself immersed in fog. I was lost in a milky fluid that barely let me discern a globe above me that looked much more like a pale moon than the sun that brings light to mortal men. I couldn’t even distinguish the features of the ground that surrounded me, nor remember what it looked like before I fell asleep. But then the sun rose high over the horizon, and soon the fog began to dissolve, revealing a tall sparkling rampart beaded with pearls of pure light, and I thought: can this be the wall of ice that Calchas spoke of?

Is what I face truly the last obstacle? Will I overcome this one too? Can I manage to break through this barrier? Suddenly, I’m not sure why, I know that I can.

The wall is in front of me now: blinding glare that stings my eyes. I have to defend them with strips of cloth, ripping the merest slits in them so I can still see. I’ve had to tie the oar to my belt with shreds of leather and drag it after me. The climb is ever more arduous. The sharp ice lacerates my hands, the trail I leave is of scarlet stains on the immaculate white. How and when will I find the victims to sacrifice to the god of the abyss? When and how will I meet the man who will ask the question that will finally free me of my curse? I look behind me every now and then. My breath is ragged, the prayers I murmur to my goddess a cry of pain and hope. I gaze back at the horizon I crossed so long ago and then move forward again, towards the icy crest.

Slowly, gritting my teeth, I climb up and up. As I near the summit, I’m certain that a revelation awaits me on the other side and I try to imagine what I will see.

I’m just a few steps away from the peak. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe. I’m reminded of the snowy mountaintops we glimpsed in Arcadia so long ago, when as a boy I followed the hero Laertes my father towards the sanctuary of the Wolf King.

I’m at the top! I drag the oar towards me and I plunge it into the deep snow so it casts a long shadow. The plain opens wide below, furrowed by raging torrents, blazing in the rays of the sun. I shout with all the voice I have in me, with all my strength, I shout to the men and the gods, to the wind and the peaks I see in the distance. I shout so that someone may hear me and show himself. I can no longer bear this solitude.

But my voice is lost in the silence.

I take up the oar with the butterfly carved into its handle, moulded to the hand of the fallen comrade who drowned long ago in a distant sea. And so I descend the wall of ice, heading towards the plain. The wind starts to blow again, impetuous.

All of a sudden, a roar. The snow in front of me seems to melt and a towering column of water erupts from the ground, rising higher and higher. Behind the transparent column appears a figure wrapped in a vortex. A deafening laugh resounds over all the earth, his eyes inscrutable, locks blue-green like the deepest maelstrom, body liquid as the swirling sea. .

‘Did you really believe that you’d arrived?’ Voice of thunder tapering off into a long gurgle, a distant roaring sea monster.

‘Did you really believe that you’d reached the end of your long journey? Where is the man, then, who looks at your oar and demands an answer? Where are the victims to be sacrificed to my spirit? Run! Run, glorious Odysseus, crafty and resourceful son of Laertes, run for as long as your breath and your life hold out, run, if you can!’

The earth swallowed him instantly and I can no longer say what I am seeing or not seeing, hearing or not hearing. All that remains is darkest despair. The wind has picked up, ever keener, and a shiver raises my skin under my tattered clothing. Is it the cold that is chilling me to the bone or is it the trembling inside me that I’ve yearned for so long, the quiver that tells me that my goddess is near?

‘Athena!’ I shout in my heart. ‘Athena!’ I’m surrounded by an infinite white expanse. The horizon is deserted in every direction — even the wall of ice has disappeared. The sky is empty, the light unflickering. Perhaps it is morning, perhaps evening. It makes no difference. But there it is, a black speck, far away in the distance. .

Where have I already seen this? When?

It advances towards me, swiftly, becoming bigger and bigger! I’m certain I’ve already seen this. Or did I dream it?

I don’t know how much time passes before, finally, he reaches me. Him. The Wolf King, on a swift, wheel-less chariot drawn by wolves that seems to fly over the snow. .

My dream at the sanctuary of Arcadia: this was what I dreamed!

‘Oh my goddess who touches me with a shiver, I beg you, reveal the meaning of this vision: is it he who will ask me the question? A hero racing swiftly on a chariot drawn by wolves?’ It stops, all at once and a voice in my heart says to me, ‘Draw closer!’ There he is, he has stepped out of the chariot and is standing beside it. He is staring at me and my heart leaps in my chest.

His hair is run through with silver threads, like mine, his beard is like the one that frames my face, on his chest hangs a ribbon of cloth with a little stone rose. . only his clothing is different: the bracelet he wears at his wrist and the boots he wears on his feet. The mystery opens before my eyes like a black cloud rent by the wind after a storm! The cloak on his shoulders is fastened by a golden pin, shaped like a deer in the clutches of a hound. My Penelope! The desire to weep is huge, I feel the tears leaving my eyes but I see them falling down his cheeks. .

‘Draw closer,’ says the voice in my heart, and I draw closer, so close that I am him and he is me and I am no longer. There’s only one man on that snowy expanse.

Here come other chariots, drawn by more wolves. They stop next to mine, next to his. Voices shout: ‘Commander!’ They are the voices of Antiphus, Sinon, Polites, Elpenor, Eurylochus, Euribates!

This is what I’ve found beyond the wall of ice: another time, another place, another where, another why, and another adventure with other comrades who I know but who don’t recognize me. What does it matter? I tie the oar to the chariot as the others laugh: ‘What will you need that for, commander? There’s not a boat to be found in these parts!’

‘What does that matter?’ I answer. ‘Onward!’ And I set my wolves off at a gallop, shouting other words in a language that is different yet similar. Mine, regardless.

What does it matter? I am what I am: a small king of a kingdom I no longer have. . son of a little island, son of a bitter fate. I, who have faced monsters and invincible heroes without trembling, I, who have been overcome by fear and fled, I, who have shouted the names of my fallen comrades and I who did not hesitate to cast them into deadly danger. . why? Curiosity, the invincible desire to push on, beyond the last limit and beyond the last horizon. I, who have wept, laughed, rejoiced, suffered, I who have loved and hated. I, who believe in my goddess, in my bride, in my land, and who flee from them all. I who am and who will be until one day, who knows where, who knows when, I’ll meet a man who asks me whether what I carry on my shining shoulder is a winnowing blade to separate the wheat from the chaff. On that day I will re-embrace my Penelope for all time, and my son, clad in blinding bronze. And I will reign over happy peoples. I, who am everyone and anyone.

I who am No One.

ODYSSEUS AND HIS FAMILY