THE FOURTH EPISODE
How Ulysses lost his Merry Men and came A Waif to Calypso with the Shining Hair
The crew sat round a fire of driftwood.
There was shelter where they sat, in a natural alcove of rock, but outside the great winds thundered and the wrack flew before the storm and a mighty unceasing roar filled the air.
The faces of all the sailors wore a sullen look. Hunger had begun to suck the colour from their cheeks, their eyes were prominent and strained, their movements without energy or vigour.
A rude shelter of sailcloth and various débris that was scattered about seemed to show that for some time, at least, they had made their home in this place where the winds did not come.
Ulysses was not among them. They were talking in low, discontented tones among themselves.
“A whole month,” said Eurylochus, “a whole month have we been sea bound in this accursed island. I am sick of islands!”
“Never have we put to shore without some evil thing befalling,” said another. “Oh, for Ithaca!”
“I doubt we shall ever see Ithaca again,” said a third. “We will be wanderers till we die; that is what I think. And this place is like to be the grave of all of us. I never knew a wind so furious to blow so long. We should sink in an hour did we but put out.”
“There is only food for one day more, and that sparse,” said Eurylochus. “For my part, my limbs are heavy as brass and the strength is all gone from me. I could not move an oar now. Man needs meat and wine or the fires of hunger burn the sinews and dry the blood. Brown meat and red wine! I could fill my belly till the skin cracked!”
“The rich brown meat, mate! Dost mind the soft kids on Circe’s island? By Zeus, I can taste them now!”
“Ay and the fat cows, roast till the blood ran out of them like liquid life.”
“I can even smell the smell of the roasting meat now. A welcome smell to a hungry man.”
“Would that we had never left Circe. ’Twas a kind queen, meet for our master! but her girls were kindly in love also.”
“To Hades with the girls!” said Eurylochus. “Thy talk of meat makes me heave with desire.”
He looked round cautiously before he continued.
“Friends,” he said in a low, rapid whisper, “tell me, are ye purposing to starve in the midst of plenty? Saw ye ever such fat oxen and cows as graze in the pastures above?”
“Never did I see such cattle,” answered another hungry wight. “Gods! they would make a feast for kings.”
“And yet pain and sickness is all over us, and we lust for food till we know not what we do!”
“Captain’s orders!”
“Ulysses has lost his cunning for sure, and hunger has turned his brain. He is no more the brave leader of old. He goes wandering alone among the rocks and sleeps all day. And his eye is clouded and courage has left his voice. Friends, shall we die thus? No man of ye loveth Ulysses better than I love him. Is he not my kinsman indeed? He brought us from the Cyclops’ cave and dared the perils of Hell. All this I know and say before you now. But the king is distraught and moody. He does not know what he is doing. He would be the first to join us with the merry and grateful word were he to come back and find the good red beef roasting on the fire and smell the savoury smoke.”
“Ay, captain was never one set against a feast! He loves good cheer, as becomes a proper fighting man.”
“My mind doubts me, comrades,” said another. “Should we not rather trust the king even unto this last thing? Have we ever found him wanting yet? Did he not make us promise? Zeus knows if the thought of hot meat does not tickle my belly as well as thine—more, friend, for thou hast a paunch yet and none have I—but I for one trust in the captain. He knows.”
Then Eurylochus took up his spear as if he had decided and the discussion was over.
“Listen, men,” he said. “In all shapes death is a terrible thing. But I would rather die quickly at Scylla’s hands than fade into Hades through famine. Hunger is the worst death of all. Come with me and bring your spears. We will choose the best of the herd and sacrifice to the gods. When we reach home again, can we not build a great temple to Helios, and fill it with rich gifts? The Sun-God, who gives light to all the world, will not grudge us a cow or two. Not he. ’Tis a more genial god than that. Ay, and though we indeed anger the god and he wreck us in the deep! I put ye this question—Would ye not rather swallow the cold salt water for a moment and so die, than die for days among the rocks?”
His pale face worked with the force of his words. His eyes glistened with a terrible eagerness. As he spoke in a high, quivering nervous tenor, shaking his spear at them, the eagerness crept into their eyes also.
Famine strangely transforms the human face. They became men with brute’s eyes.
Eurylochus marched away out of the shelter towards the pasture lands, and the others followed him. New strength seemed to come to them as they walked towards the herd, which could be seen, a red brown mass, grazing on a plain some half-mile away.
The full force of the wind struck and retarded them as they emerged into the open, but it brought the lowing of the cattle to their ears and they pressed on.
Ulysses lay sleeping about a quarter of a mile from the cove.
He had wandered away from his companions in great despondency. For four long weeks the gale had roared past the island away to the north. The rain had fallen like spears, the thunder stammered its awful message, the green and white lightning snapped like whips of light. In all this the king saw the finger of evil. He knew that the mighty Poseidon still watched his fortunes with cruel, angry eyes. For this storm was no chance warring of the elements, but came, he knew, directed against him and his fated crew.
Food had got lower and lower, the men began to grumble, and black looks of reproach met his eyes on every side.
And all the time the fat cattle of Apollo cropped the tender shoots of the grass, the full udder dropped with creamy milk, and the shining flanks of the great beasts sent an alluring message to the starving men.
Often Ulysses withdrew into some lonely place and prayed to Athene, but she seemed asleep or weary of his woes, for there came no answering sign.
On this day hope seemed to have utterly departed from him. There was no break in the leaden clouds of the future.
He had wandered away along the seashore, and fallen asleep from languor and grief, lulled by the great singing of the gale overhead.
In his sleep he dreamed vividly. He saw the interior of the island. Suddenly, from among a clump of trees, a bright beam of golden light shot up heavenwards. He knew that one of the shepherd nymphs of Apollo went with some message for the god, and he shivered and moaned in his slumber.
Then it seemed that he was in a great place of cloud, an immense formless world of mist. And through the mist came a terrible voice which turned him to stone. It was the voice of Apollo crying in anger.
“Oh, Father Zeus, and all ye gods who dwell upon the hill above the thunder! punish the comrades of Ulysses for their crime. They have speared my beautiful cows that were my joy and of which I had great pleasure. Whenever I turned my face and shone upon the world I watched them feeding in my island. And now these whelps have slain the finest of all my herd. Vengeance! Bitter vengeance, or will I go far down into Hell and leave the world in gloom and shine no more upon it. I will make Hades a place of warmth and laughter, and the world all grey and full of death.”
In the midst Ulysses awoke with that angry cry still ringing in his ears. With a sick apprehension he hurried along the slippery boulders to the shelter place where he had left the crew.
Within a hundred yards of the place he knew the worst. The wind blew a savoury smoke towards him, and his stomach yearned while his brain trembled in fear.
The men were in high glee when he came round the corner of rock among them, great joints turned upon rough spits, skins and horns encumbered the ground, and the rich fat dropped hissing into the fire.
A sudden silence fell upon their merriment as the captain came. He spread out his hands with a gesture of despair.
“Comrades,” he said sorrowfully, “ye have chosen to do this thing against my advice, and now it is done we must abide by the deed. I cannot reproach you. Still, I know that we must pay heavily for this sin against the Sun-God. Farewell, Ithaca! And now it is over let us eat of our unhallowed spoil. It may be that this is our last meal together, comrades.”
As he had finished speaking a strange and ominous thing happened. The blood-stained skins began to creep about like live things upon the ground.
The red meat over the fire withered and moaned as if in pain. The air was filled with a lowing as of cows.
Then in mad fear and riotous despair they fell upon the horrid meal with eager, tremulous hands. Ulysses was taken with the madness like the rest, and until sundown they gorged the dripping meat till they could eat no more, and their faces were bloated and their eyes were strained.
As the sun sank into the sea with a red and angry face the wind dropped and ceased. A great calm spread over the waters. When the moon rose the ocean was like a sheet of still silver.
Very hurriedly, whispering among themselves, as though they were afraid of their own voices, they launched the ship and rowed out into the moonlight, racing away from the accursed isle.
And now the last scene of all came very quickly.
Ulysses was wont to say that of all the things he had witnessed in his life this was the saddest and most terrible.
A sudden crackle of thunder pealed over the sky. A fantastic network of lightning played round the ship like lace.
A dark cloud formed itself directly over the boat, not two mast’s lengths above, and all the waves below became like ink in the shadow. For a time it hung there motionless, and then suddenly a mighty wind swooped down on them like a hawk drops out of the sky. The mast snapped like a pipe-stem and crashed upon the deck, braining the helmsman in its fall. A smooth green wave, just slightly bubbling with froth on the crest, but like a hill of oil, rose and swept over the ship.
Ulysses clung to a stanchion with all his mighty strength, and was just able to battle against the flood. When it passed over him he saw that every man of the crew was in the water. For a few moments they floated round him with sad cries of farewell, and then one by one they were swept into the Ultimate.
The timbers of the ship broke away and she fell to pieces. With a loud cry to Athene, Ulysses launched himself on the waves clinging to a great log which had formed part of the keel. A swift current urged him along far away from the scene of the wreck.
The purpose of the god was accomplished, and the waves fell, and the moonlight shone out clear and still once more.
On all the waste of waters no sail, no cape nor headland broke the silver monotone.
Loneliness descended upon the hero like a cloak; an utter abandonment such as he had never known before in life.
The water began to grow very cold.
An awful silence lay over the sea. The terrible jubilant silence of a god revenged!
“And so all those well-known, long-tried voices were still! Never again would Eurylochus drain the full tankard in a kindly health.”
Ulysses bowed his head, and bitter tears welled up into his eyes.
“Never again would grey old Diphilos stand at the helm of the good ship, sending his keen eyes out over the sounding wastes. How the last mournful cry of Jamenos had echoed through the storm. Young, straight Jamenos who had approached the Cyclops with him, beautiful young Jamenos, with the bold eyes and curling hair! And there was old Perdix too, old Perdix with his grin and chuckle and his tales. Never would Perdix sit by the fire and make merry yarns any more. The little twinkling rat-like eyes were stark and glazed now. Perdix stood beside the livid river among the rushing spirits. He would have no jests now.”
He saw them all together, in peril, storm, and quiet weather. His trusty men! His dear comrades!
And now he alone was left, alone, alone, alone.
Perhaps Athene herself was still with him and had not even yet forgotten her wanderer. As the thought struck along his brain a faint blush of hope began to flush his pallid cheek.
He floated on and on. Dawn came, waxed strong, waned. Tremulous evening came like a shy novice about to take the veil of night. Night blazed in moonlit splendour once more.
And at the hour when night stands still and dawn is not yet, the waves, kindlier than before, carried him to the island of Ogygia, where he heard the sea nymphs on the shore singing him a fairy welcome.
Soft hands drew him from the deep, soft voices welcomed him; it seemed as if one queenly presence, a tall woman with golden hair which shone, towered among the rest, and he fell into a gentle swoon, a soft surrender to sleep.
Soft and low the sea-maidens sang while Ulysses lay sleeping—even as they had sung nine long years ago when the sea cast him up on the shores of Calypso’s kingdom.
It was bright sunlight, a great fire of cedar wood burnt on an altar before the cave of the goddess who loved the hero, and the smoke scented all the island.
Among the grove of stately trees which bordered the smooth pneumatic lawn in front of the cave Ulysses lay sleeping on a bed of fresh-born violets. A purple mantle shot with gold, woven by Calypso, was spread over him.
The poplars and fragrant cypresses were full of sweet-voiced birds.
Over the mouth of the cave grew a great vine, and the black grapes drooped and fell from it in their abundance.
From the centre of the short emerald grass four springs of clear water came up in thin whips and flowed away in flashing rivulets.
This was the home and kingdom of the Goddess Calypso, and was so beautiful a place that the fame of it had even reached Olympus, and the gods knew of the island.
And nine long years had passed! It was nine years ago that the pale gaunt waif of the sea—a sad jetsam!—had swooned upon the yellow sand, while the bright-haired lady of Ogygia had gazed in wonder upon him.
Circe had enthralled Ulysses for a year in her palace of wine and sorcery and lust. That was a time of fierce sinful pleasures, of wild deliriums.
The fire had blazed, burnt, and died away in that still marble house in the wood.
But how different these nine dreamy years! The mild-eyed, loving goddess lay in the hero’s arms each night in tender love and sleep. She was no Circe, but a lady of quieter delights. Her spell was upon him, he was chained to her kind side by a magic influence, but she loved him, and was no Circe.
Nine long years!
Those old valiant mariners from the plains of Troyland were only white bones now, part of the sea-bed. They were far-off, remote, sweet sad memories.
Calypso was the slow and gracious music to which his life moved now. Often he doubted all the past. They were phantoms all those old half-forgotten people.
So he lay sleeping among the violets. The scented wind gave a myriad whispers to the poplars. The four springs sang a thin jocund song as they burst from the dark rich earth into the sunshine, and within her cave the goddess threw the golden shuttle and made a low crooning music as she thought of her stately warrior hard by, and sent him dreams of her white neck and wealth of golden hair.
She knew he would never leave her now. Her spells were too strong. Her love too great.
During the first years he had been wont to wander away to a lonely part of the shore. He would sit gazing with haunted eyes out over the sea, and his thoughts went to Penelope, and he shed a tear for old King Laertes and whispered to little Telemachus.
But that also was over for him now. Ithaca was but a misty cloud, and the dear ones there but dreams in this island of dreams.
The face of Ulysses was changed. The hard lines of endeavour, the brown painting of the wind, had gone from it. Noble and beautiful still, but even in sleep it could be seen to have lost its force.
Suddenly, in the dim recesses of the grove, there was a silence. The birds stopped singing, and the murmur of the insects droned, swelled louder, and died away.
Nothing was heard for a moment but the trickle of the streams, and then this also faded from sound.
By the side of the sleeping hero stood the tall white figure of Athene. At her feet yellow flowers broke out like little flames, and her deep, grave eyes were bent full upon Ulysses.
Perhaps he felt that unearthly majesty above him, for he turned and moaned in his sleep.
The goddess, like a statue of white marble, stood looking down at him for several moments. Then with a little sigh she stooped and touched his forehead with her long slender fingers.
The birds began a full-throated ecstasy of song, which filled the wood with a sound as of a myriad tiny flutes. The furry bees went swinging through the sunlit grove with deep organ music, the shrill tinkle of the streams sent its cool message once more into the hot swooning air.
Where the goddess had stood there was nothing but a clump of yellow crocus and some violets more vivid than the rest.
Ulysses awoke with sudden stammerings like a frightened child. He looked round him with strange troubled eyes.
Then slowly he rose up and walked through the wood towards the cave of Calypso.
Forgotten fingers were upon the latch of his brain, old scenes began to move through it in swift familiar panorama, he was as a man who wakened from a sleep of years.
One word burst from his lips—“Penelope!” His face cleared as though a mist had suddenly dispersed before it, and his walk quickened into a firm, long stride as he came out on to the lawn.
He stopped short as he saw the mouth of the cave. Calypso was pacing up and down with her sinuous graceful step, and at her side walked a tall young man with a golden wand in his hand and winged sandals upon his feet.
And Ulysses knew him for the God Hermes who had given him the sacred herb in Circe’s island and who had led him down the gloomy ways of Hades.
They turned and came towards him.
“He will never wish to go, Hermes,” he heard Calypso say as they drew near.
“King,” said the god, “I am come to you with a message from Father Zeus. He hath seen you lying in this island with the goddess, and bids me tell you of Ithaca and home once more, that your heart may beat strong within you and you may adventure forth and find your wife Penelope in your ancestral house. And the father promises you divine protection. Your long wanderings shall be at an end, and you shall come safely to the land of your heart’s desire. Is it your will to go and leave the lady?”
The goddess laughed a little musical laugh of certain triumph.
“Go!” she cried. “Ah, he will not go, Hermes. Could he not have left me any time these nine long years of love? Go! No, my mariner loves too well the soft couches of Ogygia, and these weak arms can yet hold his wisdom captive. How will you answer, my heart’s love?”
“To Ithaca?” said Ulysses.
“Yes, to Penelope thy wife, who sorroweth for thee and is in peril,” answered the god.
A bright light flashed into Ulysses’ eyes and his cheek was flushed with hope.
“Now have I tarried too long in this place,” he cried. “I know not why, but never before has my heart burned within me as now. Yes, to Ithaca! back to my father and my wife and the old hills of home! Zeus be praised, for I who was asleep waken this day, and manhood is mine once more.”
Then Calypso drooped her lovely head like a tired flower as the God Hermes flashed up into the sky like a beam of light.
“I see something of which I know not has come over you, lord of my heart,” she said sadly. “I have no more power, save only the power of my deep love for you which you have forgotten. Who am I that I can combat the will of Zeus or the hardness of your heart? I have loved you well and cherished you, and shall I love you less now? No, I am no cruel goddess. Go, and my heart be with you; and what power is mine to aid you that shall you have. I doubt,” she said, with a sudden burst of anger, “I doubt you have some greater goddess than I at your side, some lovelier lady, else how could my spell be broken? But now come within and make a farewell feast with me. My heart is sick and I would die. But one thing I can give you if you will not go. Would you be immortal? Stay with your lover and that gift is yours. Never shall death touch you or age. I am a goddess and can never die. Am I less beautiful than Penelope, or less kind?”
Ulysses answered her pleadings slowly and painfully.
“My queen and goddess, I know indeed that Penelope can never compare with such immortal loveliness as yours. Yes, she will grow old and wrinkled, and must die. Yet night and day all my heart must go out to her, and I would endure a thousand storms and sorrows to see home once more.”
“Because of my great love for you, go, and may all the gods shower blessings on you and protect you,” she said in a low voice, and her eyes were all blind with tears.
On a red evening Calypso stood alone on a rock that jutted out into the sea.
A black speck against the setting sun showed clear and far away.
Then the night fell, and she wandered weeping through her scented avenues.
But her heart was away on the moaning sea, away with Ulysses the departed.