Valerio Manfredi: Odysseus: The Return

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.’