Spivey - Songs on Bronze: The Greek Myths Made Real

Songs on Bronze originated from the desire to fashion a single, organic narrative of as much Greek mythology as most people might want or need to know.

This means a less than comprehensive work. Not every tale of the ancient Greek repertoire has been included here. Some storiessuch as the saga of the Seven Against Thebesare much abbreviated. I wanted this book to be a fluent read, not an unrelenting inventory of names, places, and atrocious events. To select is an authors privilege: for there is, after all, no bible of Greek mythology, nor any canonical version of exactly what happened and where. In antiquity, scholars disputed whether Argos or Mycenae had been Agamemnons home; likewise, whether it was Theseus or Herakles who killed the Minotaur depended on where in the Mediterranean one heard the story told. As for pursuing any historical reality behind the war at Troy, or plotting the precise route taken by the Argonauts, I have gone no further than to weave in some incidental details derived from Bronze Age archaeology.

If myths were bound by time and place, then they would not be myths. Nevertheless, I have tried above all to visualize how legends were formed, to convey the marvelous immediacy of these ancient story lines. The examples of classical authors naturally helped, especially those in Homers moldalways more concerned to relate how something happened that just to tell what happened. Often, too, I drew upon images from the pastpainted vases, archaic temple reliefs, and suchlike. And ultimately there was also a certain amount of sheer Method acting. If anyone did see me on a stretch of Corfus shore, lunging with a stick-spear, muttering to myself, let them know now that this was only the author at work, rehearsing the fury of Ajax.

At the outset I intended to write this book for my young childrenwith due regard for their delicate sensibilities. They, however, grew up more quickly than I wrote. So I accepted the violence and sensuality of the myths, and made little effort to cut or purify them. At the same time, of course, I am no more than sympathetic to the pagan world. If my depiction of the Olympian gods lacks true piety, I claim the honorable company of Homer, Ovid, and others.

A single image explains the tide. Hephaistos, the master craftsman, is crouched over his anvil. Before him is a large, circular shield, embossed with scenes that strike the eye. He has fashioned many figures upon this shield: mountains, cities, forests, strange animals, and more, but most striking of all, the figures of people caught in all the varied postures of their lives. Embraced, or in the throes of war; joining the dance, or hard at work: whatever their actions, these figures proudly occupy the shields concentric rings. Their stories stand out. Tapped and battered, so tested and true; stories tempered to resist.

The master craftsman holds his work up to the light. He breathes upon the shield. The figures mist, then shine again.

The bronze begins to sing.

Nigel Spivey

Cambridge, England, 2004

Eurydice was a girl born to the company of dryads, the spirits of woodlands and fields. So there was nothing she liked better than to hitch up her skirts and run barefoot through open countryside. And Orpheus, who loved her, was inclined to let her go. He was a poet: therefore it delighted him to see her move so free and fast. He doubted he could ever match her easy, flashing strides.

Just once he tried: kicked off his sandals, and followed in her trail. Within moments, he was howling in agony, hopping and clutching his heel. Eurydice dashed back to where he lay collapsed on the ground. She saw straightaway it was not the end of the world. Bending over, she seemed to plant a lingering kiss on the sole of her beloveds foot. With the tip of her tongue she located a thorn. Gently she extracted it, teasing it out with her teeth.

Orpheus swooned with relief. Eurydice held up the source of his pain: a tiny needle from the wild. Orpheus gasped in disbelief. Was that what brought me down?

She nodded.

Ah, he sighed. A lesson to us all.

How so? she wondered.

How Eros does his work, Orpheus went on. We hardly see him, the little lord of Love. Yet sure enough we feel his darts. Each one a spear thrust through the ribs.

He lay back in the grass and closed his eyes. She knelt beside him, stroking his brow.

Was that how it was with me? she asked.

With you oh, yes. With you, young Eros stabbed me very hard. A mortal woundno less.

Her fingers trembled in his hair. This man was a wondrous weaver of words, a ceaseless stitcher of songs: yet every utterance of his was like the stuff of truth. She deeply trusted him.

He sensed the hurt he had caused, and reached out for her hand.

I only meant, he said, that youthat you complete my life.

Orpheus had a certain far-off sense: that one day he would die for the love of his Eurydice. But he did not put it like that. Now she lay down with him, making what they craved: a meadowy hide, a refuge within sweet grass stalks where they were joined and enclosed.