Homer’s Daughter by Robert Graves Page B

and marshalling my thoughts. So Melantho was having a secret affair with Eurymachus, was she? It must have been going on for some months, if Eurymachus had bribed her to tell that story of the Sidonian ship, as obviously he had. But why? What would he gain by the lie? And why should his mother have supported him? I already guessed the answer. The immediate problem was how to face a dangerous and intolerable situation. Once more I prayed silently to the Goddess, rose encouraged, and roused the women.
    We ran to the beach again, scratched a labyrinth pattern on the smooth white sand, and began our famous Trojan ball dance, in which we perform complicated movements, singing as we wind in and out of a maze, and throwing the ball from one girl to the other, at each change of the tune. All was going perfectly, when I tossed the ball to awkward Glauce, who jumped too high, knocked it with her thumb, and sent it flying into the water.
    Rheithrum has a current caused partly by the stream which feeds it, and partly by the lunar tide; the difference between ebb and flow may be as much as a yard in depth. Wewatched the ball drifting into deep water, and the girls shouted for dismay, because none of them could swim.
    I swim pretty well and was on the point of stripping off my tunic to retrieve the ball (made of white leather stitched over cork and painted with red rings) when the shouts suddenly rose to a general scream and the women stampeded. Only Glauce remained, clinging to me in terror. I turned, and saw to my amazement a naked young man staggering towards me down the bank; one hand modestly concealing his private parts with a branch of oleaster; the other spread out, palm upward, in a suppliant gesture. He must have been lurking in the thicket close to where we had dined.
    A momentary silence followed, broken by Glauce’s giggle and her quavering cry: “Oh, mistress, here comes your baby! The boy that Eurycleia foretold you would bring back from the thicket by the seashore.”
    I could have strangled the fool.
    The young man seemed exhausted and, in any case, we had little to fear; ten sturdy women armed with cudgels are not to be underrated as a fighting force. So I stood still and let him approach, wriggling prostrate across the sand to clasp my knees in the well-known style of suppliants. But he halted a decent distance away and, propping his head on both elbows, gazed steadfastly at me.
    â€œNow, whom in the world has Athene sent me?” I wondered.

CHAPTER
SIX
THE NAKED
CRETAN
    Nothing could have been more correct than the naked young man’s approach.
    â€œMadam,” he said, in an unfamiliar but musical Greek accent, “forgive me! My eyes being dimmed alike with exhaustion and salt water, I cannot trust them to inform me whether you are a goddess or a mortal. If a goddess, you can only be Artemis the Huntress: your body is so slim, so strong, so regal. But if a mortal, how I envy the parents of such a paragon! From my thicket I watched you dancing, and each movement, each gesture, was perfection—you outshone your companions as the moon outshines the stars. Yet infinitely more enviable than your parents will be the man who succeeds in persuading them, with lavish gifts, to accept him asa son-in-law! The mere thought of such good fortune deepens the misery of my present plight. Look: I am poorer than an infant of one day old; he, at least, has a cradle of his own and a warm swaddling band upon which loving kinswomen have embroidered his clan mark. I have not even a loincloth to hide my nakedness; the greedy sea has stripped me of everything but courage and these two strong hands.”
    He paused to observe the effect that these words had on me; I granted him a half-smile, since both his language and manners showed that he came of distinguished family. Besides, though his body was bruised, swollen, cut and salt-encrusted, he had an athlete’s shoulders and thighs, and curly yellow hair, tinged