Free Homer’s Daughter by Robert Graves Page A

Almost the whole town sped him on his way, offering generous sacrifices to all the deities who rule the sea or protect travellers. Clytoneus and I climbed halfway up Mount Eryx to watch his sail, bellied out by a stiff westerly breeze, disappear behind the island of Motya, some eight miles to the south. When we regained the Palace, my mother drew me aside, and said: “Child, your father has told me what Athene put into your mouth: namely that we must mourn Laodamas as dead. Nor was it a lying oracle. I myself saw him in a dream three nights ago: he came, dripping blood and sea water, a dagger between his shoulders, and stood piteously before me. Then he pointed to the banqueting court, and cried: ‘Let them avenge me, Mother! Let them avenge me with the bow of Philoctetes!’ ‘How shall I know that you are truly my son Laodamas?’ I asked him. He answered: ‘Dear Mother, when you wake tomorrow, I shall fly in by one window and out by the other, taking the shape of a white dove.’ And so he did. Tell nobody of this, even my brother Mentor, even my son Clytoneus. But be resolute to find his murderers, and let us take exemplary vengeance. You alone of my children have a better head than heart.”
    â€œIf you really believed in your vision, Mother,” I said, not altogether pleased by this reflection on my capacity fortender feelings, “why did you let my father sail for Sandy Pylus on a useless errand?”
    She grew grave. “He is a self-willed man, and though, since I first married him, he has come to learn that I always tell the truth, he hates to admit that I can possibly be better informed than himself. Besides, he has never visited the mainland of Greece and this may be his last chance: for he is already past his prime. I told him of my vision, but because you had come to much the same conclusion independently, and because he had not seen the dove with his own eyes, he accused me of plotting to keep him at home. ‘Go, then,’ I said, ‘and the sooner you return, my lord, the longer we shall all live.’ Daughter, this is the threshold of danger. I can trust you to do nothing foolish; meanwhile, let Ctimene warm herself at what embers of hope she still can rake together.”
    Three days passed, and I became aware of a subtle but pervasive change in the local atmosphere. Not among the common people, nor among my few real friends, such as Captain Dymas’s daughter Procne and my cousins from Hiera; nor among our faithful maids headed by Eurycleia, who was once my dry nurse and now acts as housekeeper. I can best describe it as a disdainful reserve noticeable in the greetings that certain daughters of the nobility gave me, and an overheartiness in the manner of their brothers and fathers, as if they knew something that was being kept from me. Every summer, Elyman children play a hide-and-seek game on the hills called the Bull’s Treasure, which consists in their all going out to search for a boy, called the Bull, who has hidden himself in some cleft or cave. Whoever finds him, stays behind to collect the secret treasure, not proclaiming the discoveryto his companions; but presently first one, then another, also stumbles on the Bull’s hiding place, until at last all are in the secret, except for one unfortunate, who goes wandering disconsolately over the deserted hillside, lonely and perplexed. That was how I felt now.
    When I am in a bad temper, it amuses me to visit our linen factory, where the sight of women quietly plying the shuttle on the tall looms has a soothing effect on my mind; yet here, too, I found an unfamiliar spirit abroad. Several of the women had left their work and were gathered in a knot near the door, talking in excited whispers, but scurried off to their looms as soon as they saw me rounding the corner, and pretended to be weaving busily. Their shuttles flew backwards and forwards like the fluttering of aspen leaves in the