Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume Two (46 page)

Ulysses was, by all accounts, the ablest captain ever to command a vessel on the Middle Sea. He was also the wiliest of the Greek battle-chiefs. He possessed absolute courage and extraordinary physical strength. All in all, he was perhaps the most resourceful hero of the ancient world. Yet, sailing home, victorious, from the Trojan War, he lost all the ships of his fleet and every man of their crews. And though he himself finally reached the shore of Ithaca, it was as a naked bleeding castaway, unrecognized, friendless, a beggar in his own kingdom.

Why did it take him ten years to make the two-month trip from Troy to Ithaca? Why so disastrous a voyage? Why so many storms, shipwrecks, fatal landfalls?

It is said that he attracted the hostility of several very vengeful gods and goddesses who spun sorceries about him and hurled monsters in his path. But why? How did this island king, reasonably pious, and worshipful of the power of the gods if not their goodness, manage to draw upon himself such a variety of divine disfavor?

The reasons are instructive, though frightening.

Some said that Ulysses had angered Poseidon by blinding his favorite Cyclopes, who had wrought gorgeous troughs for the sea-god's string of green-maned stallions. But Poseidon, although quick to wrath, was not really vengeful. He sometimes feuded with his fellow gods, but thought humans too insignificant for his full displeasure.

Rather, it was Amphitrite, the sea-god's wife, who sought to punish Ulysses, and her grudge was rooted in the way Poseidon had courted her. This joyous daughter of Oceanus had loved to frisk among the blue waves and come out at low tide to dance on the shore. Poseidon glimpsed her dancing on Naxos and fell violently in love with her. But she feared his stormy wooing and fled him to the depths of the sea. Whereupon he tried to woo her with gifts. Of coral and pearl and the bullion from sunken treasure ships he wrought her marvelous ornaments, but she spurned them all. Finally he created something entirely new for her, a talking, dancing fish. He dubbed the creature
dolphin
and sent it to Amphitrite. The dolphin pleaded Poseidon's cause with such wit and eloquence that Amphitrite yielded. She reigned as queen of the sea for many centuries, but the dolphin remained always her favorite of all creatures of the deep and she employed a string of them to pull her crystal chariot.

Now, as is told, Ulysses was the finest archer since Hercules, and kept his skill polished by practicing with his bow whenever possible. Often, during the voyage, he would try to shoot seabirds and flying fish. This kind of archery was a special challenge to him because he had to gauge the wind exactly, but he rarely missed. One day, though, while aiming at a shark, a gust of wind made his arrow swerve and pierce a dolphin—which tried one last leap and sank in a bloody froth.

Amphitrite learned about this and never forgave Ulysses. As queen of the sea she was able to strew disaster along his route—whirlpools, riptides, hidden reefs, wandering rocks. And he never learned which god was tormenting him.

But his archery was to earn him another enemy, one even more dangerous. And this mischance too was rooted in events that happened long before Ulysses was born.

Alcyone was a daughter of the wind-god, Aeolus. She married Ceyx, son of the Morning Star. They were so happy they aroused the envy of the unhappily married Hera, who sent a storm to wreck the ship on which Ceyx was voyaging. When Alcyone learned of this she drowned herself to keep him company. But Zeus pitied them and turned them into a pair of kingfishers. Each winter thereafter Aeolus forbade his winds to blow for a space of seven days so that his daughter, now a beautiful white kingfisher, could lay her eggs in a nest which floated in the sea. It is from this episode that we derive the word
halcyon
, meaning a period of calm and golden days.

But one fair morning, Ulysses detected a speck in the sky. He couldn't tell what bird it was and it seemed far out of bowshot. But he wanted to test his prowess to the utmost. He bent his bow almost double and loosed his shaft. It flew up, up, out of sight. When it fell, it carried a white kingfisher with it. The beautiful bird sank and Ulysses' heart sank with it. Although he didn't know why, he sensed that it was unlucky to kill this creature, and that somehow he would be made to suffer for what he had done.

Fortunately for him, however, he could not possibly guess how much suffering he was to do—he and his men also. For the wind-god now loathed him totally, and his power for mischief among mariners was matchless. He sent strong head winds when Ulysses tried to sail out of port, sent savage following winds when Ulysses approached a lee shore. And, finally, cruelest trick of all, when Ulysses' ship was approaching Ithaca, coming so close the men could see the brown hills of home, Aeolus sent a gale that blew the ship hundreds of miles off its course. And it took Ulysses three years to get that close again.

And now Aeolus decided to destroy Ulysses and his crew altogether. He sent a strong east wind that drove the ship westward toward the coast of Sicily, which was called Thrinacia at that time. Now Ulysses, master seaman that he was, always knew the location of his ship even in the grip of a storm and in darkest night. So he knew that he was approaching the Strait of Messina. Although he did not know specifically about Scylla and Charybdis, he had heard that the strait was a graveyard for ships. The wind was driving him too fast, he would be entering the strait before he had made a plan. He shouted to his crew, bidding them drop sail, turn the bow into the wind, and cast out the anchor.

The bare-masted ship rode the chop uneasily, but the anchor held. Ulysses paced the deck, thinking hard. A bird coasted in and landed on the deck. Not a gull, but a hawk, a huge one, with a single golden plume among the black feathers of its head.

“Hail, Ulysses,” cried the hawk.

“Hail to you, whoever you are.”

“I am one who has come to counsel you about your passage through the Strait of Messina.”

“Indeed? I welcome any advice.”

“Hearken then. Where the strait narrows, two huge rocks sit facing each other. Under each of them lurks a monster.”

“Then the tales are true!” cried Ulysses. “I should have known that on this accursed voyage the worst is always true.”

“Long ago,” said the hawk, “in another incarnation, one of those monsters was my wife. Many years have passed since we were young and beautiful and celebrating our love in raptures of flight—many years, many murders, and many foul enchantments. I am as you see me—a hawk. And she is a sea monster, half nymph, half wolf pack, and wholly lethal. Her name is Scylla …”

The hawk paused. Tears dripped from his amber eyes. Ulysses stared; he had never seen a hawk weep.

“Good hawk,” cried Ulysses, “tell on! I must know about these monsters.”

“And I have come to instruct you, Captain. I have watched your career and learned to admire you. Also to pity you. For you, like me, have been pursued by vengeful gods and your life altered by their hatred. To resume, Scylla dwells under the right-hand rock. If you pass too close to her, six wolf-heads will sweep your deck, devouring at least six of your crew.”

“Then I must steer away from Scylla—toward the other rock.”

“But under the other rock lurks a thirsty monster named Charybdis who drinks the tide at one gulp, making a whirlpool that sucks down any ship within its swirl.”

“Monster to the right, monster to the left! How do I sail through?”

“Keep to the middle way,” said the hawk. “Exactly to the middle way, for it is not much wider than your ship. Indeed, it will be almost impossible to do unless you are sailing before a gentle wind, directly astern. If you must swerve, do it toward the right-hand rock and favor my former wife. For she will take only six or eight of your crew, but thirsty Charybdis will suck down your entire ship, drowning everyone on board.”

“Thank you,” said Ulysses.

Before he could finish saying it, however, the hawk had flown away.

The wind changed suddenly, and Ulysses was delighted. For it was a gentle wind now, one that would take him into the strait and push him through with sufficient leeway so that he could steer his course, keeping exactly to the middle way, avoiding both monsters.

He shouted commands. The crew leapt to their places, shipped anchor, raised the sail, and turned the bow westward toward Thrinacia.

“My thanks to you, great Aeolus,” said Ulysses to the sky. “I've encountered so many contrary winds on this voyage that I was afraid I had displeased you in some way. But now I know that I enjoy your favor.”

But the wind-god deserved no gratitude. The gentle wind he had sent was a piece of treachery on his part. For he wanted Ulysses to enter the strait and be destroyed that very day. Had he sent a head wind or a crosswind, Ulysses, he knew, would have sheered off and tried another time.

Ulysses suspected nothing as the ship scudded easily toward the mouth of the strait. He took the helm himself, trusting no one else to steer with the precision that was needed. The roaring of the waters grew louder and louder; he saw spray flying as Charybdis swallowed the tide and spat it back, caught a shuddering glimpse of dry seabed and gasping fish—then the tide roared back, beating itself to a white foam. He looked at the other rock. Scylla was not in sight, but she was lurking underneath, he knew, ready to spring.

The gentle wind blew. Ulysses steered his course, keeping exactly to the middle way, and they were passing through, out of reach of both monsters.

He squinted, measuring distance, then heard an appalling sound—the sails flapping. He felt the ship shudder beneath him, and yaw slightly, and knew that the wind had fallen. What he did not know was that this was Aeolus's plan: to call off the gentle east wind just when the ship was between the rocks, so that it must fall prey to one monster or the other.

“Drop sail! Start rowing,” shouted Ulysses. He turned over the helm to one of the men, instructing him that if he could not keep the middle way he must veer to the right rather than to the left. Then he drew his sword and stood at the starboard rail.

The long oars poked out of the row-holes, projecting beyond the width of the hull. And Scylla, lying in wait just beneath the surface, seized two of the oars and dragged the ship toward her. Ulysses saw the polished shafts suddenly snap like twigs. The deck tilted violently. He was thrown against the rail and almost fell overboard. He picked up his sword and climbed to his feet, and saw enormous fanged heads arching over him.

He leapt toward a wolf-head and slashed at it with his sword. Its head-bones were strong as iron; he could not cut through. He reversed his sword and hammered at its teeth with his hilt. Useless. But his attack had slowed the wolves; some men were able to scurry away, but four of them were caught. He heard them screaming as they were eaten alive. Ulysses himself suffered a mangled forearm.

By then the ship had passed beyond the monster's reach. Four torn, bleeding bodies lay on deck. “Do not throw them into the sea,” said Ulysses to his crew. “Mop the blood off the decks and wash the bodies of your comrades. When we make landfall we shall build them funeral pyres and dispatch their ghosts in honorable fashion.”

So ended Ulysses' encounter with Scylla and Charybdis, nor when the voyage was over did he count this his worst disaster, for he had lost but four men. But the memory of the monster who was half beautiful sea nymph, half wolf pack, held a singular horror for him. He could never forget the sight of the Nereid turning gracefully in the water and becoming six pairs of savage jaws.

As for Nisus, he had suffered too much as a human ever to resume his original form. He remained a hawk and served Thoth in his ceaseless struggle against the beast-gods of Egypt.

THE SIRENS

The goddess Athena promised a tiny

fishing village that it would become

the most famous city in the world if

it took her name. And, as a sign of

her pledge, she planted a wonderful tree.

Thousands of years later, a little girl

took the name of this tree as her own.

It is to her, my granddaughter, Olivia,

that I dedicate this book, which she will

read in time to come.

Characters

Monsters

Gods