John Powys - Atlantis

And it was extraordinarily exciting to the peculiar temperament of this insatiable adventurer to think of reaching some unknown archipelago of islands, on the Western side, that is to say the further side, of a sunk continent.

Such were the old wanderer’s thoughts as the three women gave him his bath in the upper chamber. While he was eating his breakfast, however, not only the three women to whom he was accustomed were called for consultation, but the little new-comer Eione was also brought in. It became indeed, before it ended, this breakfast of Odysseus on the morning of his encounter with Zeuks, what might be called a Council of State, for our young friend Nisos, now past his seventeenth birthday, stood proudly and demurely at the foot of the table from whose silver plates and flagons and salvers the well-browned, savoury-smelling hogsflesh and the barley-bread and the creamy milk and the fragrant red wine were soon, it was clear to all, putting the old hero into an especially good mood.

Among the women it was Leipephile who, for all her simplicity, watched the king of Ithaca with the most anxious expression. She could not quite understand her own feelings in the matter, but she had learnt enough from the teasing replies of Nisos and from certain rough and casual words dropped here and there by Tis to make her feel that the expedition which was now being planned had something at the back of it that was inimical to Agelaos her betrothed, something that not only her own mother Nosodea but Agelaos’ mother Pandea would most certainly regard with serious concern and alarm.

As for the Trojan girl, or rather the Trojan woman, her bewildered resentment bred from years of captivity and always seething in her veins was now assuming, as it had never done before, a definite personal apprehension. They were discussing what particular treasure had better be brought up from the subterranean vaults beneath the palace and it naturally entered the Trojan prisoner’s head that some golden object from the world-famous arms of Achilles that by the secret aid of Athene had been awarded to Odysseus instead of to the more daring, more fool-hardy, and far more powerful Ajax, might occur to the crafty old king as a more tempting exchange for the winged Gorgonian steed and the black-maned abortion of the great Mother than any vase or goblet or jug or cup among the rare gifts brought by Odysseus from the palace of Alcinous, the father of that young Nausikaa who had fixed upon the wanderer the first-love of a romantic maiden.

This armour of Achilles, as the Trojan captive well knew, had been brought to Ithaca in one of the ships of Menelaos long before the winner of it had himself got home: and what if it now occurred to Eurycleia his aged nurse, if not to the old king himself, to descend to that secretest chamber of all in the caves beneath the palace only to find it empty? Arsinöe had never been greatly worried at the thought of anybody finding her graven image of Hector, now so glittering in the armour of his slayer, within the haunted purlieus of Arima, since she knew that where abode those two terrible Phantasms, Eurybia the sister of the monstrous Keto, and Echidna, Keto’s daughter, and where Odysseus himself never dared to go, it was unlikely that anyone, even if they risked it, would reveal to a soul where they had been or what they had seen there.

But to descend to that lowest of all the treasure-caves beneath the palace with the idea of finding something wherewith to bargain with this crazy Zeuks, that was quite a possible move. But even if the old man or this handsome boy-pet of Eurycleia’s did find that chamber empty, was it likely that anyone would accuse her? Who would guess she had learnt the art of carving? Who would suppose she had ever lived closely enough to Hector to recall his features so well as to be able to carve them?

The aged Eurycleia was the only one during that quaintly palatial and yet so wholly domestic council of war to guess the meaning of the gloomy prognostication lowering in the frowning brow of Agelaos’ simple betrothed, or to puzzle over the furtive glances now at the king, now at Nisos, now at Tis, by which were revealed the nervous apprehensions of Arsinöe. The final issue of the discussion had probably been foreseen all along by the shrewd old nurse, who was, though she would have vigorously denied it, quite as “polumetis”, or full of the wisdom that wrestles with life’s realities, as was Odysseus himself.

It was in fact decided that Nisos should carry over his shoulder in a capacious sack, as he followed closely behind Odysseus, three precious objects, a golden Tripod, a golden Mixing-Bowl, and a golden Flagon. The two first of these came from the Phaeacian palace; while the third had been brought to Ithaca by Anticleia, the mother of Odysseus; and it was a marriage-gift to her from her own father Autolycos who all his days had been a great collector of such treasures. Wherever he went he found them; and whenever he found them he saw to it that they were not left behind when he moved on.

And now that these royal domestic female advisers had concluded their deliberations, while their chief was still devouring his meat and drinking his wine, it can easily be imagined in what high spirits our young friend Nisos was when he set off, brimfull of every kind of ambition to follow his aged hero and king on the first really official adventure, as you might put it, of his life.

Odysseus explained at the start to his excited follower that he had decided to avoid both the Temple and the City in approaching the homestead of Zeuks; so that their progress was less rapid than it would have been had they followed the various main thoroughfares.

Odysseus carried no weapon except our old acquaintance the club of Herakles, while Nisos, walking with a rhythmic swing of his whole body, balanced on his shoulders an enormous sack, to which, first on the right hand and then on the left, he kept lifting a hand, or, sometimes it might be, only a few fingers, to steady the thing’s weight under the shocks of the way.

The first thing they both realized when they crossed the border of Zeuks’ farm was the fact that for all the precautions they had taken to reach the place un-heralded there was already quite a gathering of Zeuks’ neighbours, small farmers with their wives and children, clearly collected there to get the thrill of an immensely grotesque and wildly comic, if not a shockingly startling, encounter.

Odysseus quickly understood that the half had not been told him of the fantastic personality he was now to meet for the first time. Into his mind, and indeed into the mind of his youthful attendant too, as they now both looked round at the faces about them, there entered the suspicion that this little crowd of men, women, and children, gathered on this level expanse of rough grass with lichen-covered rocks and a sprinkling of spring flowers, was anticipating an extremely dramatic scene, but was prepared to feel no particular sympathy for either side.

Evidently something beyond all ordinary events was going to happen, for the children kept whispering to one another, while the younger among them lifted puzzled and rather frightened eyes to the faces of their mothers; and indeed it was plain that what everybody expected was that their old, weak, deserted, and poverty-stricken king was now going to be completely outmatched, out-witted, and rendered helpless if not ridiculous, by this famous country-side clown whom none of their richest farmers could tame. “They are all thinking,” Nisos told himself, “that the old man must be in his dotage if he fancies he can cope with such a crazy rebel against all established authority as this weird creature Zeuks.

“And everybody here must feel,” the boy’s thoughts ran on, “that the moment the king really sinks into the helpless silliness of old age, the House of Naubolides will assert its claim to rule; and to rule not only Ithaca but all the neighbouring islands as well.”