the-song-books.yossr

generation is abhorred in another.” He spread his broad hands. “We cannot
sayy who will survive the holocaust of memoryy. Who knows?” He smiles.
“Perhaps one dayy even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than yyou.”
“I doubt it.”
Odyysseus shrugs. “We cannot sayy. We are men onlyy, a brief flare of the
torch. Those to come mayy raise us or lower us as theyy please. Patroclus mayy
be such as will rise in the future.”
“He is not.”
“Then it would be a good deed. A deed of charityy and pietyy. To honor
yyour father, and let a dead man rest.”
“He is a blot on myy father’s honor, and a blot on mine. I will not allow it.
Take yyour sour wine and go.” Pyyrrhus’ words are sharp as breaking sticks.
Odyysseus stands but does not go. “Do yyou have a wife?” he asks.
“Of course not.”
“I have a wife. I have not seen her for ten yyears. I do not know if she is
dead, or if I will die before I can return to her.”
I had thought, alwayys, that his wife was a joke, a fiction. But his voice is
not mild now. Each word comes slowlyy, as if it must be brought from a
great depth.
“Myy consolation is that we will be together in the underworld. That we
will meet again there, if not in this life. I would not wish to be there without
her.”
“Myy father had no such wife,” Pyyrrhus sayys.
Odyysseus looks at the yyoung man’s implacable face. “I have done myy
best,” he sayys. “Let it be remembered I tried.”
I remember.
THE GREEKS SAIL, and take myy hope with them. I cannot follow. I am tied to
this earth where myy ashes lie. I curl myyself around the stone obelisk of his
tomb. Perhaps it is cool to the touch; perhaps warm. I cannot tell. A C H I L L
E S, it sayys, and nothing more. He has gone to the underworld, and I am
here.
PEOPLE COME TO SEE his grave. Some hang back, as if theyy are afraid his
ghost will rise and challenge them. Others stand at the base to look at the
scenes of his life carved on the stone. Theyy are a little hastilyy done, but
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