1468311794 (N) by John Spurling

Author:John Spurling
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: FIC010000
ISBN: 9781468313277
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Published: 2016-02-01T22:00:00+00:00

12. THE SHIFT

Herakles and Deïaneira were hospitably received in Trachis by its king, Keyx, who willingly performed the purification ceremony required by Herakles’ killing of the boy Eunomos. In fact it suited Keyx very well to have his powerful kinsman at his side. He was on bad terms with Eurytos, the king of the Thessalian city Oechalia. The two cities were some distance apart. Trachis was in the mountains to the west of the pass of Thermopylae, where long afterwards, in the fifth century BC, Leonidas’ 300 Spartans held the vast army of the Persian king Xerxes at bay until a Greek traitor led the Persians over these same mountains to take the Spartans in the rear. Oechalia was in the hills above the Peneios river, sixty miles or so to the north as the crow flies. But both cities laid claim to a fertile stretch of grassland, perfect for breeding fine horses and cattle, which was roughly equidistant between them, and there were frequent clashes as each side tried to drive the other away, with the result that neither got any advantage from the disputed territory.

Herakles himself had an old score to settle with King Eurytos. Immediately after completing his Labours he had travelled to Oechalia to take part in a contest for the hand of the king’s daughter, Iole, intending then as he did later with Deïaneira to embark on a more settled life. Eurytos and his four sons were all expert archers, the king even boasting that he had been taught by Apollo and outclassed his master, and Iole was to be given in marriage to the suitor who could shoot better than any of them. In practice, therefore, as far as Eurytos was concerned, believing himself to be the best archer in the world, that meant nobody. However, after a series of tests of marksmanship – at targets, birds, apples balanced on slaves’ heads, through the shaft holes of twelve axe heads placed in a line – Herakles easily defeated the whole family. But when, having carefully repossessed his arrows (the poisoned one perhaps among them), he walked across the arena to possess his prize, the seductive princess Iole, her father stepped between them.

‘No, you don’t,’ he said. ‘You couldn’t possibly compete or compare with me and my sons if you were not using magic arrows. You gave yourself away when you went to so much trouble to retrieve them. That of course is quite unfair, quite outside the rules and I therefore declare the contest void.’

‘You’re mistaken,’ said Herakles, keeping his temper with difficulty. ‘There’s nothing magic about my arrows and you’re welcome to try using them yourself, or else to let me use your arrows.’

‘You are mistaken,’ said Eurytos, ‘if you imagine that however crafty you are with your bow and arrows, magic or not, that I’d entrust my beloved daughter to a cut-throat like you, murderer of your first wife and children and until now a slave to Eurystheus. Slaves don’t marry princesses, slaves who get above themselves are beaten and driven out of my city.

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