John Barth - Lost in the Funhouse

“ ‘Twenty?’ ‘Counting two before the war. Call it nineteen.’

“ ‘ “Wait,” she bade me. “First tell me what Proteus said, and how you followed his advice.”

“ ‘Our oars went down; we strained the sail with sighs; my tears thinned the wine-dark sea. But there was nothing for it, I did as bid:

4

“ ‘ “Nothing for it but to do as Eidothea’d bid me,” ’ ” I say to myself I told Telemachus I sighed to Helen.

“ ‘ “Eidothea?”

“ ‘ “Old Man of the Sea’s young daughter, so she said,” said I. “With three of my crew I dug in on the beach at sunrise; she wrapped us in seal-calfskins. ‘Hold tight to these,’ she told us. ‘Who can hug a stinking sea-beast?’ I inquired. She said, ‘Father. Try ambrosia; he won’t get here till noon.’ She put it under our noses and dived off as usual; we were high in no time; ‘These seals,’ my men agreed: ‘the longer you’re out here the whiter they get.’ They snuggled in and lost themselves in dreams; I would’ve too, but grateful as I was, when she passed the ambrosia I smelled a trick. Hang around Odysseus long enough, you trust nobody. I’d take a sniff and put the stuff away till the seal stink got to me, then sniff again. Even so I nearly lost my grip. Was I back in the horse? Was I dreaming of Helen on my bachelor throne?”

“ ‘ “Hold on,” said deckèd Helen; I came to myself, saw I was blubbering; “I came to myself, saw I was beached at Pharos. Come shadeless noon, unless I dreamed it, the sea-cow harem flipped from the deep to snooze on the foreshore, give me a woman anytime. Old Proteus came after, no accounting for tastes, counted them over, counting us in, old age is hard on the eyes too; then he outstretched in the cavemouth, one snore and I jumped him.

“ ‘ “ ‘Got you!’ I cried” I cried’ I cried” I cry. “ ‘ “My companions, when I hollered, grabbed hold too: one snatched his beard, one his hands, one his long white hair; I tackled his legs and held fast. First he changed into a lion, ate the beard-man, what a mess; then snake, bit the hair-chap, who’d nothing to hold onto.” ’

“ ‘Neither did the hand-man,’ observed Peisistratus, sleepless critic, to whom I explained for Telemachus’s sake as well that while the erstwhile hand-man, latterly paw-man, had admittedly been vulnerably under both lion and snake, and the hair- then mane-man relatively safely on top, the former had escaped the former by reason of the quondam beard-man’s fortunate, for the quondam paw-man, interposition; the latter fallen prey to the latter by reason of the latter’s unfortunate, for the quondam mane-man, proclivity to strike whatever was before him — which would have been to say, before, the hand-paw-man, but was to say, now, which is to say, then, the beard-mane-man, thanks so to speak to the serpent’s windings upon itself.

“ ‘Ah.’

“ ‘ “To clutch the leopard Proteus turned into then, then, were only myself and the unhandled hand-man, paw- once more but shielded now by neither beard- nor mane- and so promptly chomped, what a mess. I’d have got mine too, leopards are flexible, but by the time he’d made lunch of my companions he’d become a boar …”

“ ‘ “Ah.”

“ ‘ “Which bristle as he might couldn’t tusk his own tail, whereto I clung.”

“ ‘ “Not his hindpaws? I thought you were the foot-paw—” ’

“ ‘Just what I was about to—’

“ ‘ “Proteus to lion, feet into hindpaws,” I answered,’ I answered. ‘ “Lion to snake, paws into tail. Snake to leopard, tail into tail and hindpaws both; my good luck I went tail to tail.”

“ ‘ “Leopard to boar?”

“ ‘ “Long tail to short, too short to tusk. Then the trouble started.”(’)

“I replied to them: ‘ “A beast’s a beast,” I replied to her. “If you’ve got the right handle all you do’s hang on …” ’ ”

“ ‘ “It was when the Old Man of the Sea turned into salt water I began to sweat. Try holding an armful of ocean! I did my best, hugged a puddle on the beach, but plenty soaked in, plenty more ran seaward, where I saw you bathing, worst possible moment, not that you knew …” ’

“ ‘It’s Helen I’m telling, northing in our love-clutch on the poop. “I needed a bath,” she said; “I a drink,” said I; “for all I knew you might be Proteus all over, dirty Old Man of the Sea. Even when my puddle turned into a bigbole leafy tree I wasn’t easy; who said he couldn’t be two things at once? There I lay, philodendron, hour after hour, while up in the limbs a cuckoo sang …” ’ ”

My problem was, I’d too much imagination to be a hero. “ ‘ “My problem was, I’d leisure to think. My time was mortal, Proteus’s im-; what if he merely treed it a season or two till I let go? What was it anyhow I held? If Proteus once was Old Man of the Sea and now Proteus was a tree, then Proteus was neither, only Proteus; what I held were dreams. But if a real Old Man of the Sea had really been succeeded by real water and the rest, then the dream was Proteus. And Menelaus! For I changed too as the long day passed: changed my mind, replaced myself, grew older. How hold on until the ‘old’ (which is to say the young) Menelaus rebecame himself? Eidothea forgot to say! How could I anyhow know that that sea-nymph wasn’t Proteus in yet another guise, her counsel a ruse to bind me forever while he sported with Helen?” ’

“ ‘What was her counsel, exactly?’

“ ‘Peisistratus, is it? Helen’s question, exactly: “What was her counsel, exactly?” And “How’d you persuade her to trick her own dad?” “Everything in its place,” I said,’ I said. ‘ “Your question was Proteus’s, exactly; as I answered when he asked, I’ll answer when he asks.”

“ ‘ “Hard tale to hold onto, this,” declared my poopèd spouse.’ Odysseus’- or Nestor’s-son agreed.” I agree. But what out-wandering hero ever journeyed a short straight line, arrived at his beginning till the end? “ ‘ “Harder yet to hold onto Proteus. I must have dozed as I mused and fretted, thought myself yet again enhorsed or bridal-chambered, same old dream, woke up clutching nothing. It was late. I was rooted with fatigue. I held on.”(’ ‘) “To?”(’ ‘) “Nothing. You were back on deck, the afternoon sank, I heard sailors guffawing, shore-birds cackled, the sun set grinning in the winish sea, still I held on, saying of and to me: ‘Menelaus is a fool, mortal hugging immortality. Men laugh, the gods mock, he’s chimaera, a hornèd gull. What is it he clutches? Why can’t he let go? What trick have you played him, Eidothea, a stranger in your country?’ I might’ve quit, but my cursèd fancy whispered: ‘Proteus has turned into the air. Or else …’ ” ’ ”

Hold onto yourself, Menelaus.

“ ‘ “Long time my shingled arms made omicron. Tides lapped in and kelped me; fishlets kissed my heels; terns dunged me white; spatted and musseled, beflied, befleaed, I might have been what now in the last light I saw me to be holding, a marine old man, same’s I’d seized only dimmer.

“ ‘ “ ‘You’ve got me, son of Atreus,’ he said, unless I said it myself.”

“ (‘ ((“Me too.” ))’ )

“ ‘ “ ‘And I’ll keep you,’ I said, ‘till I have what I want.’ He asked me what that was,” as did Helen,’ and Telemachus. ‘ “ ‘You know without my telling you,’ ” ’ I told them. ‘ “Then he offered to tell all if I’d let him go, I to let him go when he’d told me all. ‘Foolish mortal!’ he said, they speak that way, ‘What gives you to think you’re Menelaus holding the Old Man of the Sea? Why shouldn’t Proteus turn into Menelaus, and into Menelaus holding Proteus? But let that go …’ ” ’ ” Never. “ ‘ “ ‘We seers see fore and aft, but not amidships. I know what you’ve been and will be; how is it you’re here? What god teaches men to godsnatch?’