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Following her instructions, Perseus made his way to the Libyan mountains. Here, in the depths of a cave, he found the Graeae. These were two hags who had been born with grey hair and had only a single eye and a single tooth between them. Naturally, they quarrelled all the time over these. Perseus acted casual, waited for the right moment. Then, quick as a flash, he snatched the eye as one of the crones was passing it to the other. They went groping round the cave to get at him with their nails, but he avoided them easily. 'Now,' he said, 'enough of this fooling around. If you want your eye back, you'd better tell me what I want to know, otherwise I'll throw it into Lake Tritonis. Don't think I'm joking. I mean what I say.' So they were obliged to tell him where the nymphs were who kept the weapons Athena had spoken of. These were river nymphs; they lived in the waters of the Styx, so Perseus had to make a trip into the Underworld in order to visit them, but they readily gave him the things he asked for.
And what were these? Most people in the audience could have answered this question, but there would have been general outrage at any attempt to take this knowledge for granted and cut the story short. It was familiarity that cast the spell, everything was savoured in advance. The Singer knew this well, knew he couldn't take short cuts any more than Perseus. A pouch to sling over the shoulder; a pair of sandals fitted with wings, which enabled him to fly; the cap of darkness, which rendered him totally invisible as soon as he put it on his head. Then Hermes appeared and gave him the assault weapon, a sickle made of adamant, razor-edged, unbreakable. He kept his own shield, which was of bronze and highly polished. Fitted out from head to foot, he flew off to find the Gorgons.
There in his privileged position, at the source of the words, Poimenos' soul expanded with wonder. Often it was the lesser details that absorbed him, filling his mind long after the Song was over, things that the Singer did not mention or passed over quickly. Those two grey-haired babies, lying side by side, who had been the keeper of the eye and who of the tooth? What was adamant? Why did Hermes give Perseus a sickle rather than a sword? What was the pouch for?
Now, as the Singer observed the customary dramatic pause, striking slow notes on his lyre, Poimenos noted the angle of the head, the set of the shoulders. Slowly, almost stealthily, he adjusted his own body to an exact imitation. And it was in this posture, carefully maintained, that he listened to the rest of the wonderful story. The lair of the Gorgons was set in a strange forest of petrified forms, men and animals turned to stone by the glances of the terrible sisters. Perseus avoided this fate by keeping his eyes on the polished surface of his shield, which reflected the scene like a mirror. No one had told him to do this, it was his own idea. Wearing the cap of darkness, he soon tracked down the hideous sisterhood, with their hands of brass and wings of gold, their huge lolling tongues between swine's tusks, their heads permanently writhing with snakes. He waited till they were asleep, then crept up on Medusa. The other two were immortal, so he didn't bother with them. He had to move fast. Keeping her in view by means of the shield, he severed her head with a single stroke of the sickle, stuffed it into his pouch and took off. The other two rose up, but how could they pursue an enemy they couldn't see? All they could do was return to the corpse and fly screaming round it.
Poimenos sat on, still in the same posture, while the Singer fell silent and the wind raised its voice again, echoing the lamentation of the Gorgons. His mind was flooded by the story. So that was what the pouch was for. And the sickle, perfect for close quarters, it would almost encircle the neck, one sweep, bam. Everything had been thought of. It hadn't been a contest at all, really. She would never have known what hit her. Careful pla
And so, that evening, without fully realizing it, Poimenos joined the addicts, passed for the first time into the true, ungoverned realm of story, where the imagination is paramount, taking us to places not intended, often not foreseen, by the framers of the words and the makers of the music.
8.
Menelaus was already there when the self-appointed delegation arrived. Nestor, accompanied by his two sons, came in soon afterwards. Agamemnon had left his chair of state and was half-reclining on a couch of cushions, an oil lamp with a fretwork guard close beside him on a low stand, as if he wanted to keep near to the source of light. There were no soldiers inside the tent, only two attendants, neither of them armed; a good sign, Odysseus immediately thought: if Agamemnon did not feel in danger of human harm, it must be because he believed himself to be in the hands of Zeus. The attendant brought cushions and the King motioned his visitors to be seated. There followed a brief period of waiting, the silence of respect, while they listened to the rippling detonations made by the canvas, sounds that would swell and fall as the night wind breathed and paused and breathed again. The flame swayed inside the delicate grid of the guard and bolts of light flickered like lizards over the walls.
Chasimenos began. This had been agreed beforehand; he was the one most trusted. He spoke of the danger of mutiny among the troops, the growing popularity of Palamedes, the Carian, son of Nauplius. 'A fellow-countryman of Calchas,' he said, infusing his tone with significance – it never came amiss to hint at conspiracy. 'I have sent people out through the camp. Whatever the fireside, the talk is always the same. Croton's messages are repeated. You are blamed for the wind because of the malpractices of Iphigeneia. They say that if Palamedes were leader, we would be free of the wind.'
They had chosen Palamedes from among several possible contenders because he was generally liked, and known to be ambitious. Also he was clever. In the Songs he was credited with having while still a youth invented the game of dice, which had become very popular of late years. Odysseus detested him because of a malicious story he had put about, one which still found its way into the Songs, that the Ithacan had tried to dodge the war by feigning madness, yoking a horse to an ox and attempting to plough with them. For this slander he had sworn to kill Palamedes one day. For the moment, however, he kept these feelings to himself.
'Palamedes,' Agamemnon said. 'A slack-wristed fellow if ever I saw one.' His insomniac eyes moved slowly from one face to another. 'I could split him down the middle,' he said. 'If the people blame me for this misfortune of the wind, that is only natural, I am the leader, my shoulders are broad enough to bear the blame of a thousand men.' He had become enraged as he spoke. He ground his teeth and his eyes flashed. 'Who says I have not shoulders broad enough to bear the blame of a thousand men?'
'No one would dare to say that, my brother, not about either of us,' Menelaus said. 'We were born to command, we are the eagle kings.' He was shorter than his brother and inclining to fat and sometimes his words came accompanied by a wheezing sound, as if there were some clogging in his lungs. 'Eagle kings,' he said, 'swooping down on Troy on strong pinions, to revenge the rape of my Helen and teach these snotty-nosed Asians a lesson they'll never forget.'
My Lord,' Chasimenos said, greatest of men, excuse me, shoulders are not the issue here. Atlas had broad shoulders and look where it got him. It's not so much a question of enduring the blame as atoning for the guilt. You have incurred pollution through Iphigeneia, whereas Palamedes has respected the altars of Zeus. Moreover, his father was one of that band of heroes who sailed with Jason on the Argo in the quest for the Golden Fleece. That's the sort of thing that is bound to look impressive on a person's CV.' He stopped short at this; but everyone there knew that Atreus, the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus, had a record far from heroic, having murdered the children of his own brother, even though they had taken refuge in the temple of Zeus, and afterwards served them up in a stew to their unsuspecting father.