Troy: The Greek Myths Reimagined (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology #3)

by Stephen Fry

It was Ganymede’s brother Prince Ilus who founded the new city that would be named Troy in Tros’s honor. He won a wrestling match at the Phrygian Games, the prize consisting of fifty youths and fifty maidens, but—more importantly—a cow. A very special cow that an oracle directed Ilus to use for the founding of a city. “Wherever the cow lies down, there shall you build.”

Erichthonius, whose son Tros fathered Ilus the Second, after whom Troy is also called Ilium or Ilion.

Hence the name of Homer’s epic poem, the Iliad.

Myrtilus went to claim what he thought was his just reward—a night with Hippodamia—but she ran complaining to Pelops, who hurled Myrtilus off a cliff into the sea. As the drowning Myrtilus struggled in the water, he cursed Pelops and all his descendants.

If this story, the story of Troy, has a meaning or a moral, it is the old, simple lesson that actions have consequences.

he commissioned two of the Olympian gods, Apollo and Poseidon, to do the work for him. The immortals were not above a little contract labor and the pair threw themselves into the construction project with energy and skill,

They say a fool and his gold are soon parted, but they ought to say too that those who refuse ever to be parted from gold are the greatest fools of all.

The revenge of the cheated gods was swift and merciless. Apollo shot plague arrows over the walls and into the city; within days the sound of wailing and moaning rose up around Troy as at least one member of every family was struck down by deadly disease. At the same time Poseidon sent a huge sea monster to the Hellespont. All shipping east and west was blocked by its ferocious presence

Knowing his friend and the terrifying effects of his jealous rages, he immediately set about gathering stones. He was in the act of building them up, one above the other, when a panting Heracles reached him, club raised. “Sh!” said Telamon. “Not now. I’m busy building an altar.” “An altar? Who to?” “Why, to you, of course. To Heracles. To commemorate your rescue of Hesione, your breaking of the siege of Troy, your mastery of men, monsters, and the mechanics of war.” “Oh.” Heracles lowered his club. “Well, that’s good of you. Very good. I . . . yes, very considerate. Very proper.”

“If I must die, then I do so willingly as a proud prince of Troy,” he said, and then ruined the noble effect with a sneeze. “How many sons did the man have?” said Heracles, raising the sword once more.

Heracles and his forces left Troy a ruin. The ships of the Trojan navy were commandeered and loaded with all the treasure the Greeks could fit into the holds. Hesione, carried aboard by Telamon, looked back toward the city of her birth. Smoke rose up everywhere, the walls were breached in a dozen places. Troy, once so fine and strong, had been reduced to broken stones and smoldering ashes.

from that day on, Podarces led his people and directed the rebuilding of their ruined city. He did not mind that everyone now called him “the One Who Was Bought,” which in the Trojan language was PRIAM. In time that became his name.

Peleus held up his own discus and weighed it in his hands. “I can throw further,” he said. Taking aim, he turned, twisted his body round and released. The discus flew flat and fast through the air and struck Phocus on the back of the head. The boy went down without a sound. The brothers raced to the spot. Phocus was quite dead.

The moment when flowers and fruits are at their fullest and ripest is the moment that precedes their fall, their decay, their rot, their death.

Yet, for all her jaw-dropping beauty, Helen managed to avoid being spoiled or self-regarding. Besides skill at many of the arts in which women were encouraged in those days, she had a bright and lively sense of humor. She loved to play jokes on her family and friends, and was helped in this by a remarkable gift of mimicry. Many were the times she confused her mother by calling to her in her sister Clytemnestra’s voice. Many were the times she confounded her father by calling to him in her mother Leda’s voice. All who encountered Helen foretold a bright and wonderful future for her.

“When the gods play so deep a part in our affairs, we should count ourselves cursed.”

It seemed incredible to him that any mother, divine or human, could undergo the burden and pain of pregnancy and childbirth and then . . . and then do what Thetis had done. Consign her children to the flames.

They asked Peleus if he might take in their son Patroclus, who had accidentally killed a child in a fit of rage, and must now grow up exiled from Opus to atone for his crime. Young Patroclus, that one temper tantrum aside, was a balanced, kindly disposed, and thoughtful youth,

Deiphobus was confident that his innocent opponent would be unprepared for the savage kicking, nose- and ear-biting, eye-gouging and scrotum-twisting that were all permissible.80

“Take him away, away from the city!” she cried. “He is death. He will bring destruction to us all.” If anyone heard her, they paid no attention. The priestess’s name was Cassandra,

Apollo could not take back the gift—it was an adamantine law that no immortal could undo what they or another immortal had done81—so, in his fury, he spat into Cassandra’s mouth just as it was rounding for a repetition of the word “No.” The spit was a curse. It meant that Cassandra’s prophecies would always go unheeded. No matter how accurately she foretold the future, no one would ever believe her. It was her fate to be ignored.

80. In the later, classical, age such scoundrel behavior was forbidden, but in these earlier times few holds were barred.

You’re a good boy, Paris, and I bless the day you were restored to us.” But Paris was not a good boy. He had no intention of sailing to Salamis to negotiate the return of some old aunt for whom he cared nothing. What was Hesione to him, or he to Hesione? Aphrodite had whispered his true destination. Sparta and the promised Helen. No, Paris was not a good boy.

But Aphrodite was not to be put off. “Admit it,” she said. “I have power over you all. Except Athena, Hestia, and Artemis. Those three are immune.” “Ah. Because of their vow of eternal celibacy,” said Zeus. “You are speaking of love, I suppose.” “Look what it makes you do! All of you. Every shred of dignity falls away. In the throes of your desire for the most ordinary and worthless mortals you turn yourselves into pigs, goats, and bulls—in every way. Anything to chase down the objects of your lust. It’s too funny.”

Cassandra burst in to tell them that the presence of Helen would guarantee the destruction of Troy and the death of them all, but they didn’t seem to hear her. “Blood, fire, slaughter, destruction, and death to us all!” she howled. “Here’s to Helen,” said Priam, raising a cup of wine. “To Helen!” cried the court. “To Helen of Troy!”

it was the theft of his baby son Nicostratus and, above all—above everything in the world—the abduction of his beloved Helen, wife and queen, that struck Menelaus like a thunderbolt from Zeus. Agamemnon roared with fury. For him this was not a personal loss but something far worse—a slight, an insult, an act of contemptuous provocation and betrayal

Homer never calls the allied army that Agamemnon convened “Greeks” and only rarely even “Hellenes.” He most commonly refers to them as “the Achaeans,” named for Achaea, a region in the north central Peloponnese that was part of Agamemnon’s combined lands of Corinth, Mycenae, and Argos,92 but which was used to denote the whole peninsula, including city-states of the southern Peloponnese like Sparta and Troezen.

“Haven’t I always said that intelligence can be more of a curse than a blessing? A brain like that, always whirring and churning, scheming and dreaming, plotting and planning—bound to come to grief in the end. Sad thing. Sad thing.”

he called out crisp commands to the straining ox and donkey and steered them away. The churning plowshare missed the basket by a finger’s breadth. Odysseus dropped the plow’s handles, ran round and lifted the baby up. “TELEMACHUS, Telemachus,” he whispered, covering him in kisses. “So,” said Palamedes, approaching. “Not so mad after all, I think.”

a vision only I have seen.” “What vision?” “It has been revealed to me that Achilles has two futures. One is a life of serene happiness, a long life blessed with children, pleasure, and tranquility. But a life lived in obscurity. His name will die with him.” “And the other future?” “The other life is a blaze of glory such as the world has not seen. A life of heroism, valor, and achievement that outshines Heracles, Theseus, Jason, Atalanta, Bellerophon, Perseus . . . every hero that ever lived. Eternal fame and honor. A life sung by poets and bards for eternity. But a short life, Peleus, so short . . .”

“I have, as you know, eleven daughters.101 Achilles can be dressed up as a girl and live amongst them. No one will ever think to look for him in their company.” A most fetching girl Achilles made too;

“Go back to our ship and return with twenty of the fiercest and ugliest of our men,” he said. “Charge in here with them. Storm the place. No warning, swords out. Make to attack the girls. Be terrifying. Yell and beat your shields.” “Seriously?” said Diomedes. “I mean it,” said Odysseus. “And don’t hold back. All will be well. Trust me.”

The princesses screamed and fell back in alarm—all except one of their number, a pretty, redheaded girl, who snatched up the sword at the fountain’s edge and brandished it with a snarl and a roar. Odysseus stepped forward, smiling. “Hello, Achilles, son of Peleus,” he said.

“Let me guess,” he said. “Odysseus, son of Laertes?” Odysseus bowed. “My mother warned me that if anyone were able to find me it would be you.” “Are you willing to join us?” Odysseus asked. “To go back to Phthia, bring your Myrmidons, and win glory for Greece? Our honor is at stake, and your presence will surely guarantee victory. Agamemnon, Menelaus, your cousin Patroclus, and a great navy await you at Aulis.” Achilles smiled. “Sounds like fun.”

mentioned in the Introduction that you so wisely skipped—

Tenes stamped his feet into the ground and gave another roar. But to Achilles the roar was drowned out by an urgent whisper that echoed inside his head. The voice of his mother Thetis. “Achilles, beware! Kill no sons of Apollo, or Apollo will surely kill you.”

those who kill the sons of gods could expect to be killed by those gods.

A feint to the left, a dance to the right, a dart forward, a sharp twist of the wrist, and Tenes’s sword was on the ground without the need for Achilles even to bring out a weapon of his own. One more sharp twist and Tenes’s neck was broken and his life extinguished. His

What this rambling excursion is trying to suggest is that the Hydra venom is woven through the tapestry of Greek myth, from beginning to end, like a serpentine thread. The painful symmetry of its final use to end the Trojan War and bring down the curtain on the Olympian Age—gods, heroes, and all—calls to mind the ouroboros: the serpent that eats its own tail. Typhon was to have his revenge after all.

The soft bar of haze that every day, until this day, has separated the sea from the sky is now a broad black line, stretching left and right as far as the eye can see. As the Trojans watch, the line thickens. It is as if Poseidon is pushing up a new island or a new continent. Soon they realize that the black line is not a great cliff rising from the sea. It is an unimaginably huge fleet of ships approaching line abreast. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of them.

She and her twin Apollo favor the Trojans, and over the coming years they each will do what they can to advance that cause. As will their mother, the ancient Titaness Leto. Aphrodite has naturally been on the Trojan side ever since Paris awarded her the Apple of Discord (and perhaps before, when she coupled with Anchises and bore his child, Aeneas). Ares too, the god of war and Aphrodite’s lover, has aligned himself with Troy.

The Achaeans can look to support from Hera and Athena, who still smart from the insult of being spurned, as they see it, by Paris. Besides this, Athena has always had a special fondness for Diomedes and Odysseus

Poseidon, ruler of the sea, takes the Achaean side, as does Hephaestus, god of fire and forge

Naturally Thetis, for the sake of her son Achilles, will always do what she can to advance the Greek cause.

above all he respected the custom, so profoundly serious for Greeks and Trojans alike, that the dead be given up to be cleansed and burned or buried by their people. For their corpses to be left above ground to rot was the greatest dishonor that could befall them. Such sacrilege shamed both sides.

Troy’s already mighty walls had been reinforced and a network of secret tunnels and inland waterways dug. Seaports and trading stations could be reached by river as well as by tunnel. The city was in no danger of being starved

Within the city walls every household had been given three huge pithoi, or storage jars, each one as high as a man, with the capacity to hold enough grain, oil, and wine to support a small family and its servants and slaves for a year. A spirit of determination and fellowship bonded Trojans of all ranks and classes

Agamemnon would settle for nothing less than a public execution by stoning. Palamedes died protesting his innocence, punished further by his last sight: Odysseus shaking his head and pursing his lips in sorrowful disapproval, before—when he could be sure that no one else could see him—favoring Palamedes with a wide smile and a triumphant wink.

but is kept back by his family in deference to a prophecy which tells that Troy will never fall to the Greeks if Troilus lives long enough to reach the age of twenty.

Athena whispers the substance of this prophecy to Achilles, who ambushes Troilus while he is out riding with his sister Polyxena. They flee for protection to a temple of Apollo. Achilles, who has no time for the niceties of sanctuary, chases them inside, where he cuts off Troilus’s head and, in the frenzy of his bloodlust, butchers the body.