Free Homer’s Daughter by Robert Graves Page B

wind.
    â€œGood day, industrious linen workers,” I sang out ironically. “I suppose that you have been discussing the man-headed fish drawn up in the mullet nets this morning? I saw the prodigy myself: it had arms instead of fins, and talked Phoenician—at any rate, everyone thought it must be Phoenician because none of us, not even I, could understand a word. There it lay: jabbering and gesturing, gesturing and jabbering until at last it turned blue in the face; so I threatened it with the strap, shouting that I expect both Phoenician fish and Elyman linen workers to keep their mouths shut when I come on the scene. The monster had the sense to obey.”
    A dead silence followed. All our women are afraid of me, believing that I am often under the influence of some deity or other; a fear, perhaps well grounded, which I exploit by talking this sort of nonsense at them. They are a good-natured set of girls, but the least thing will disturb them, and thentheir work suffers alike in quality and in quantity; as with the milk supply, when a fox runs through a flock of milch ewes, or a dog breaks loose and chases them.
    â€œWhere is Eurymedusa?” I asked. Eurymedusa, the handsome young manageress, dealt out the flax, saw to the comfort of the weavers, was responsible for the condition of the looms, and kept a close eye on the pattern of the web. We always set the looms working together on a single stock pattern—one or other of those in constant demand among the Libyans and Italians—so that Eurymedusa may find it easier to notice mistakes and encourage the laggards. On this occasion she had set up a simple check, with five purple and two scarlet threads occurring after every hundredth white one. My mother nicknames her Eurymedusa of Apeira, meaning the “Incompetent”, but though she has been slow to learn her duties she is popular in the factory.
    No, there was nothing strange in Eurymedusa’s absence: she had merely gone to draw a pitcherful of drinking water, the day being sultry. “Mix it with a little wine, Eurymedusa,” I said when she returned, “and dole out a gill to each of these tongue-tied women. Then get Gorgo the gooseherd to tell them one of her old-fashioned Sican stories, and keep their minds off the man-headed Phoenician fish which caused such a fright this morning.”
    Eurymedusa fetched a wineskin, and did as I ordered. They all drank my health politely, and smiled, but I could see that their eyes were still troubled.
    When white-haired Gorgo hobbled in, I sat on a stool and listened. Her tale was about our ancestor Aegestus and his arrival in Sicily from Troy. Having landed near Mount Etnato water his fleet, he ventured into a dark cave, where he was seized by Polyphemus the Cyclops, one of the immortal smiths who live thereabouts, and carried down to the bowels of the burning mountain. It seems that Polyphemus and his clan needed human blood to temper a thunderbolt which they were forging for Zeus. Cunning Aegestus, however, intoxicated them with Pramnian wine, and having removed their shoes (every Cyclops has notoriously tender feet) hammered them full of nails. Then he escaped, and when the smiths pulled on their shoes and tried to give chase, pain forced them to desist. So Aegestus regained his ships in safety, and continued westward until he reached Rheithrum. The howling of the Cyclops was music in his ears.
    Gorgo, small, thin, and active as a bird, told the story with such skill—lowering her voice at moments of suspense, raising it to a shout when the crisis came, and mimicking the characters—that the delighted weaving women called for another like it. She looked doubtful, but when I nodded my assent, began a tale about her ancestor Sicanus and his experiences in the cave of one-eyed Conturanus—a giant tall enough to knock a hole in the sky with his staff. With his belly resting on the summit of Eryx and his immense legs thrust