But I had not been attempting to catch men like flies: on the contrary, I’d merely been trying to avoid entanglement myself.

XVI.  Bad Dreams

Now began the worst period of my ordeal. I cried so much I thought I would turn into a river or a fountain, as in the old tales. No matter how much I prayed and offered up sacrifices and watched for omens, my husband still didn’t return. To add to my misery, Telemachus was now of an age to start ordering me around. I’d run the palace affairs almost single-handedly for twenty years, but now he wanted to assert his authority as the son of Odysseus and take over the reins. He started making scenes in the hall, standing up to the Suitors in a rash way that I was certain was going to get him killed. He was bound to embark on some foolhardy adventure or other, as young men will.

Sure enough, he snuck off in a ship to go chasing around looking for news of his father, without even so much as consulting me. It was a terrible insult, but I couldn’t dwell on that part of it, because my favourite maids brought me the news that the Suitors, having learned of my son’s daring escapade, were sending a ship of their own to lie in wait for him and ambush him and kill him on his return voyage.

It’s true that the herald Medon revealed this plot to me as well, just as the songs relate. But I

already knew about it from the maids. I had to appear to be surprised, however, because otherwise

Medon who was neither on one side nor the other would have known I had my own sources of information.

Well, naturally, I staggered around and fell onto the threshold and cried and wailed, and all of my maids my twelve favourites, and the rest of them—joined in my lamentations. I reproached them all for not having told me of my son’s departure, and for not stopping him, until that interfering old biddy

Eurycleia confessed that she alone had aided and abetted him. The only reason the two of them hadn’t told me, she said, was that they hadn’t wanted me to fret. But all would come out fine in the end, she added, because the gods were just.

I refrained from saying I’d seen scant evidence of that so far.

When things get too dismal, and after I’ve done as much weeping as possible without turning myself into a pond, I have always—fortunately been able to go to sleep. And when I sleep, I dream. I had a whole run of dreams that night, dreams that have not been recorded, for I never told them to a living soul. In one, Odysseus was having his head bashed in and his brains eaten by the Cyclops; in another, he was leaping into the water from his ship and swimming towards the Sirens, who were singing with ravishing sweetness, just like my maids, but were already stretching out their birds’ claws to tear him apart; in yet another, he was making love with a beautiful goddess, and enjoying it very much.

Then the goddess turned into Helen; she was looking at me over the bare shoulder of my husband with a malicious little smirk. This last was such a nightmare that it woke me up, and I prayed that it was a false dream sent from the cave of Morpheus through the gate of ivory, not a true one sent through the gate of horn.

I went back to sleep, and at last managed a comforting dream. This one I did relate; perhaps you have heard of it. My sister Iphthime who was so much older than I was that I hardly knew her, and who had married and moved far away came into my room and stood by my bed, and told me she had been sent by Athene herself, because the gods didn’t want me to suffer. Her message was that

Telemachus would return safely.

But when I questioned her about Odysseus was he alive or dead? she refused to answer, and slipped away.

So much for the gods not wanting me to suffer.

They all tease. I might as well have been a stray dog, pelted with stones or with its tail set alight for their amusement. Not the fat and bones of animals, but our suffering, is what they love to savour.

XVII. The Chorus Line: Dreamboats, A Ballad

Sleep is the only rest we get;

It’s then we are at peace:

We do not have to mop the floor

And wipe away the grease.

We are not chased around the hall

And tumbled in the dirt

By every dimwit nobleman

Who wants a slice of skirt.

And when we sleep we like to dream

We dream we are at sea,

We sail the waves in golden boats,

So happy, clean and free.

In dreams we all are beautiful

In glossy crimson dresses;

We sleep with every man we the

We shower them with kisses.

They fill our days with feasting,

We fill their nights with song,

We take them in our golden boats

And drift the whole year long.

And all is mirth and kindness,

There are no tears of pain;

For our decrees are merciful

Throughout our golden reign.

But then the morning wakes us up:

Once more we toil and slave, ‘

And hoist our skirts at their command

For every prick and knave.

XVIII. News of Helen

Telemachus avoided the ambush set for him, more by good luck than good planning, and reached home in safety. I welcomed him with tears of joy, and so did all the maids. I am sorry to say that my only son and I then had a big fight.

‘You have the brains of a newt!’ I raged. ‘How dare you take one of the boats and go off like that, without even asking permission? You’re barely more than a child! You have no experience at commanding a ship! You could have been killed fifty times over, and then what would your father have to say when he gets home? Of course it would be all my fault for not keeping a better eye on you!’ and so on.

It was not the right line to take. Telemachus got up on his high horse. He denied that he was a child any longer, and proclaimed his manhood he’d come back, hadn’t he, which was proof enough that he’d known what he was doing. Then he defied my parental authority by saying he didn’t need anyone’s permission to take a boat that was more or less part of his own inheritance, but it was no thanks to me that he .had” any inheritance left, since I hadn’t defended it and now it was all being eaten up by the Suitors. He then said that he’d made the decision he’d had to make he’d gone in search of his father, since no one else seemed prepared to lift a finger in that direction. He claimed his father would have been proud of him for showing some backbone and getting out from under the thumbs of the women, who as usual were being overemotional and showing no reasonableness and judgment.

By ‘the women’, he meant me. How could he refer to his own mother as ‘the women’?

What could I do but burst into tears?

I then made the Is-this-all-the-thanks-I-get, You have no idea what I’ve been through for your sake., no-woman-should-have-to-put-up-with-this-sort of-suffering, I-might-as-well-kill-myself speech. But I’m afraid he’d heard it before, and showed by his folded arms and rolled-up eyes that he was irritated by it, and was waiting for me to finish.

That done, we settled down. Telemachus had a nice bath drawn for him by the maids. They gave him a good scrubbing, and some fresh clothes, and then they brought in a lovely dinner for him and for some friends he’d invited over Piraeus and Theoclymenus were their names. Piraeus was an Ithaca, and had been in cahoots with my son on his secret voyage. I resolved to have a word with him later, and speak to his parents about letting him run so wild. Theoclymenus was a stranger. He seemed nice enough, but I made a mental note to find out what I could about his ancestry, because boys the age of Telemachus can so easily get into the wrong company.