The Trojan War (5 page)

But Hera and Athena were watching from Olympus. “What’s the matter with Agamemnon,” cried Hera. “Has he gone quite mad? Oh, this is some treachery of Zeus, I’m quite certain.”

“No, this is Agamemnon’s own stupidity,” said Athena. “Some idea of testing the men before battle. And he shouldn’t be having ideas, he’s not equipped.”

“They’re stampeding like cattle,” said Hera. “Look at the miserable cowards. And when I think of the effort we’ve spent on them. Go, dear stepdaughter. Descend to Troy, and stop them.”

“Divine stepmother, I go,” said Athena—and she flew down to Troy.

She did not reveal herself to the multitude, only to her favorite, Ulysses, saying to him: “Don’t just stand there, man. Stop them.”

She snapped her fingers. Agamemnon’s heavy scepter flew from his hand and sailed over the heads of the mob. She caught it in midair and handed it to Ulysses.

“Here is the rod of power. The very staff and scepter of kingly authority, given only by the gods—and to be taken back at will. Grasp the scepter, Ulysses. Use it. Stop the rabble’s flight.”

With great strides Ulysses leaped down to the beach, bearing his scepter. Divinely inspired, his shout of outrage rolled like thunder across the plain.

“Stop!” he roared. “Stop! I command it! And I speak the will of the gods.”

He rushed up and down the strand, guarding the beached ships so that no one could board them. His flailing scepter rose like a golden barrier before the men’s astonished eyes. In truth, with his red hair blazing, and his eyes flashing, and the golden rod flailing, he looked like a god descended.

“Stop!” he shouted. “Back to the assembly-place. Agamemnon means battle, not retreat. You misunderstood his words; they were only a rhetorical device. You fools, you dimwitted dolts. Zeus himself has appeared to the king in his sleep, ordering an attack upon Troy. Do you think this is the moment he would order us to sail home? You have misunderstood. You have listened with your fears instead of your intelligence. No wonder you heard things wrong. Back! Back! Back to the arena. Let the king declare your battle array.”

Listening to Ulysses, seeing him blaze with that special creative rage which comes rarely in a lifetime, and then only to extraordinary men because it is a particle of the gods’ own radiance, hearing Ulysses’ clangorous voice, and seeing him guard the ships, the men felt courage slipping back into their hearts, and began to drift away from the beach.

But a gifted troublemaker arose. Thersites was his name, a little hunched shuffling bald-headed man, very clever, with a voice that brayed like a donkey’s so that you could hear no one whom he wished to drown out. Now he said:

“You stupid sheep, do you allow yourself to be herded this way by a man with a staff? For the first time in his life that lout, Agamemnon, speaks the truth. By accident, I know, but the truth all the same. This war
is
a disaster, and the sooner we get home the better. It’s a bloody miracle there are any of us left to get home after nine years of so-called leadership by greedy, inept, cowardly imitations of kings. So heed not this red-headed madman, my fellow-soldiers, but board the ships. And if any of these brave chieftains come after you and try to drag you back, why then, cut their throats and dump them overboard as a sacrifice to Poseidon, who will ensure us cloudless skies and a following wind.”

It was part of Ulysses’ wisdom always to listen to criticism, hoping to learn something thereby. So he held his hand until Thersites finished his speech. Then, by way of comment, he swung his scepter. The knobbed end hit Thersites in the face, shattering his jaw. Thersites tried to keep talking but the only sound that came out was the crackling of broken bone. He kept trying to speak, then gagged on his own blood, and fell unconscious to the ground.

By this time the other members of the War Council—Ajax the Greater, Ajax the Lesser, Idmoneus, Nestor, Diomedes—had joined Ulysses, and stood between the men and the ships, thrusting the men back, exhorting them. The mutiny crumbled. The men turned and moved sullenly back to the field. Ulysses and the other chieftains followed, herding them. When they were again assembled he mounted Agamemnon’s rock, still holding the golden scepter. Agamemnon himself, seized by bewilderment and rage, had vanished into his tent. Ulysses said:

“Our great king and war-leader, Agamemnon, has been so disgusted by your cowardly performance that he does not wish to address you again today, and has asked me to say a few words. Let me say, men, that, despite appearances, I do not view your recent abrupt withdrawal toward the beach as cowardice. I view it as a gigantic form of the fighting man’s gesture whereby, before he can strike his blow, must draw back his arm. You were not running away; you were coiling for the spring, the spring that will take you in one tigerish leap over the walls and into Troy. I promise you this, men, and I do not speak idly: We will have victory. For know that on the night that has just passed, father Zeus himself condescended to visit Agamemnon in a dream, promising us victory if we attack, attack, attack.”

On the third repetition of the word “attack” he flung up his arm, the scepter flashed, and the men raised a great ferocious joyful shout. Two brown vultures coasting the steeps of air off Mt. Ida, heard this yelling, and planed down a way. For they had heard this sound before and knew that it meant a battle, and a battle meant fine feasting afterward.

T
HE GREEK FORCES ADVANCED
toward Troy, raising an enormous cloud of dust. And the dust was the color of gold mixed with the color of blood. For, at Ulysses’ suggestion, they were advancing on the western wall of Troy that afternoon so that the Trojans would have to fight with the setting sun in their eyes. This was one of the oldest tricks in warfare, but still effective, and Ulysses never overlooked the slightest advantage.

The great bronze gates of the western wall swung open, and the men of Troy came out to meet the attackers. The high gods settled down comfortably on the peaks of Olympus to watch the sport.

Through the dust-cloud Teucer, who had the sharpest eyes among the Greeks, spotted something strange. He reported to Agamemnon, who held up his hand in the sign of halt. The dust subsided, and the attackers saw an amazing spectacle. The Trojan line had stopped moving and was standing fast, weapons glittering in the slanted rays of the sun. And a single man was coming forward to meet them—a tall, supple figure clad in a panther skin and carrying two spears. It was Paris, who raised his voice in challenge:

“Hear me, O Greeks. I propose single combat between the lines to any one of you bold enough to come forward and meet me.”

“Rumor travels fast,” grumbled Ulysses to himself. “It’s clear they’ve already heard about Achilles’ defection. Otherwise that coxcomb would never be offering single combat.”

Menelaus then split the air with his war-cry, and shuffled forward. His shout was echoed by all the Greeks, for it was very fitting that he, the offended husband, should respond to the challenge of the abductor.

“I’ll fight you!” he cried. “And a short fight it will be. I’ll tear out your guts with my bare hands.”

Now Menelaus was no comfortable sight for an opponent. If his brother, Agamemnon, was a bull, he was a bear. Not very tall, but very wide, and bulging with muscle, clothed in a pelt of black hair from neck to ankle. Black-bearded, wearing black armor—helmet, breastplate, and greaves not of bronze like most of the others, but of iron—too heavy for most men to wear; iron pieces smoky and black as if they had just issued from Hephaestus’ forge. He carried an axe in one hand, and a huge iron-bossed bullhide shield in the other. Truly he was a fearsome sight slouching out of the Greek lines like an iron bear.

Paris took one look and darted back into the Trojan lines, crying: “It’s not fair! He has full armor. I am clad only in a panther skin. I’ll fight any man alive, but a metal monster is something else!”

His brother Hector, commander of the Trojan forces, turned on him.

“You miserable cringing coward, you yellow-bellied dog. The oracle was right. You
will
bring disgrace and ruin on us all. Here we are, fighting a war started by you, and when a chance is given for you to strike a blow for yourself—something you should have been praying to the gods for—you skulk away. My father was right in his original impulse. He should have garroted you with your own umbilical cord. Dreadful was my mother’s misjudgment, saving you. Well, you are not free to disgrace yourself. You are a son of Priam, and when you bring shame on yourself, you shame us all. I will not permit this. Sooner will I break your pretty skull, here and now, explain that you have met with an unfortunate accident, and take up your challenge to Menelaus myself.”

Paris, who thought quickly, said: “Peace, brother. It was I who issued the challenge—unprompted by you—and it is I who will fight. Please do not scourge me with that tongue of yours. You are my elder brother—my leader—but you have no right to say such things to me, because I chose to lighten the heavy moment with a jest or two. Truly, the thing I regret most about this war I started is that every day it makes the Trojans more like the Greeks. We are forgetting what laughter is. And that is a terrible casualty.”

“I do not follow you,” said Hector. “Speak plainly. Are you going to fight or not?”

“Certainly, I’m going to fight. I didn’t come to battle to exchange platitudes with you. But that man is clad in ugly armor from woolly pate to tufted toe. I, too, must armor myself.”

“Brothers, lend him some pieces of armor,” said Hector. “I’ll start. Take my shield.”

“Nay, brother,” said Paris. “It is too heavy for me. Troilus here will give me what I need. We are the same size.”

And from Troilus, the brother next youngest to himself, also a very beautiful lad, he borrowed helmet, chestplate, and greaves. From Lyncaeus, an elder brother, he took a bronze-bossed oxhide shield.

While Paris was armoring himself, Hector stepped out between the two armies and held up his arms for silence.

“Worthy foes,” he said. “You have known me for nine long years and know that I do not shrink from a fight. So you will not take my proposal in the wrong spirit. But I think there is a kind of inspired justice about the idea of Paris and Menelaus meeting each other in single combat. Now I suggest this: If Paris wins, we keep Helen, and you depart, taking with you only the price of Helen’s bride-gift, which we will repay to Menelaus, or to his brother if Menelaus does not survive the fight. If, on the other hand, Menelaus leaves Paris in the dust, then he must take back his wife, plus an indemnity to be reckoned by joint council between us. Then, your cause having been won, you depart on your black ships in honor and in peace.”

There was a great clamor of joyful shouting on both sides. It was clear that Hector’s proposal met with general favor from Trojan and Greek alike. Ulysses saw Agamemnon frown, and knew that the hasty general was about to refuse Hector’s offer, and order a charge. Ulysses went swiftly to Agamemnon, and whispered: “Agree … agree … We’ll have general mutiny if you refuse. And the end will be the same. The oracle has decreed that Troy must fall, and fall she must, for the voice of the oracle is the promise of the gods. But for now, agree to the truce. There is nothing else to do.”

Therefore, Agamemnon answered, saying: “Well spoken, Hector. Let our brothers fight.”

Hector stepped out between the armies, holding his helmet in his hand. In the helmet were two pebbles, a rough one for Menelaus, a smooth one for Paris. He shook his helmet; one pebble jumped out—the smooth one. A groan went up from the Greek lines because this meant that Paris would cast the first spear. The Trojans cheered wildly.

Paris danced out into the space between the armies. Menelaus shuffled forward to meet him, covering himself with his bullhide shield. Paris came, all glittering bronze, poising two bronze-headed spears. He stopped about twenty paces from his enemy and hurled his spear. Its point hit the iron boss of Menelaus’ shield and fell to earth. Now the Trojans groaned and the Greeks cheered. Menelaus immediately hurled his spear with tremendous force. It hummed venomously through the air, and sheared through the Trojan’s shield. Paris ducked aside and the spearhead only nicked his shoulder. Before he could recover, Menelaus was upon him hacking away with his axe. Paris tried to back away but Menelaus allowed him no time to recover. Menelaus raised his axe high and smote the Trojan’s horse-plume helmet. Paris staggered but the axe-head shattered into three pieces.

“Cruel Zeus!” cried Menelaus. “First you raise my hopes by allowing me to close with the falsehearted homebreaker. Then when he is in my grasp you save him from my spear; you break my axe—leave me weaponless. But I have weapons still—these two good hands you gave me before you gave me sword and spear—and they are enough to do the beautiful murder I have dreamed of for nine long years.”

He grasped Paris by the crest of his helmet, swung him off his feet, and began to drag him back toward the Greek lines. Paris struggled helplessly; his legs were dragging, the chinstrap of his helmet dug into his throat, strangling him.

But Aphrodite could not bear to see her favorite being manhandled. Making herself invisible she flew down from Olympus, broke the chinstrap of his helmet and snatched him away, leaving the raging Menelaus with an empty helmet in his hands.

Paris felt himself translated into paradise. Instead of strangling beneath his enemy’s hands he was lying snug as a babe in Aphrodite’s arms, cuddled against her breast. The goddess kept herself invisible as the wind but he recognized her by her intoxicating scent—which was honey and baking bread. Aphrodite flew over the Trojan wall, past the painted wooden houses and the marble temple, to Priam’s castle. She flew through a casement and deposited Paris in his own bed. Then, still invisible, she kissed him into a healing sleep.

Down on the battlefield the disappearance of Paris had ignited angry confusion. Trojan and Greek began a shifting and muttering but no one was quite sure what had happened. Agamemnon then stepped between the lines, raising his arms for silence.