The Hero & The Bow

A beautiful warm day, with fluffy clouds lazily meandering across the brilliant azure sky. The sky held my attention for a while. I have never seen such a color in the heavens. No smog. No pollution. Only the triumvirate of sun, sky, and cloud.

“Have they skies such as these, Woman? You look up as if you had never seen the sky before. Are your lands so strangely different than those of Greece?” I looked to the speaker. A beautiful man, with shoulder length hair and a face full of plump contentment. I realize, while I understood the words he said, he spoke Greek to me. I knew at once, I was dreaming.

A quick glance around the stone wrought edifice we were sitting in, showed no mark of modern machinery. He was dressed in something like a tunic, that ended at his knees. I was dressed in a floor length array of cloth. We were both adorned with gold jewelry.

“Quite different. And yet the same. I suppose it is the delight of being someplace new that has me fascinated so.” I picked words that were true to the feeling, while hiding that I knew I was dreaming. I knew I was a visitor here, and did not want to offend my host.

At my answer, he leaned back in barely concealed smug delight. “Such polite words. I understand. No one wants to speak ill of where they came from. Yet all find such… delight… in the bountiful lands of Greece.” I just smiled and nodded as if I didn’t hear the subtle jab. “Tell me, Woman…” The way he called me “Woman”, was no ill will, nor social enforcement. It was my title, and nothing underhanded was meant by it. “What do you think of our contestants, of those vying for the title of ‘Hero’?”

He waved toward the field not far from us. I looked that way, and saw several men wrestling with each other. All were naked, and oiled, so that their skin glistened under the Mediterranean sun. As I watched, I kept looking for the contestants my host had spoken of. Until I realized, these men were the contestants.

It was all I could do, to keep from giggling in a very unladylike, and derisive manner. Being in Ancient Greece, I expected to see men of a high degree of fitness. If not outright soldiers, then hardy men that were the stock of legends and lore. Such as those men detailed on the multitudes of amphora that are studies in my Waking modern time.

“I see the pride of Greece has affected you, dear Woman. It is okay to admit it, I find them beautiful to myself as well.” His continued smugness didn’t help my mirth, and embarrassment. Instead of the pride of Greek masculinity, I found myself looking at 3 dozen fully naked men of varying degrees of obesity and ineptitude.

It wasn’t the flopping flesh that had me in such state. It was the men trying to suck in their stomachs, and pretend they were the ultimate of fitness that had me giggling. There were a few men, that did not try to pretend they carried several skins of wine about their waist. I found them compelling to watch, because they used their weight to advantage when wrestling. But my host derided them for being over indulgent in food and brash in ego with his words. When I asked why he verbally abused them, even though they of all the men present were trying their hardest, my host said “They have abandoned themselves to their glut. What use are those that have stopped trying?” He confused me.

My host instead lavished great praise on another group of men, that while they were physically around my age, they acted a generation younger. The slightest push and they would scream of broken bones. If any of them fell, they needed assistance to rise from the ground. Their complexion was quite pale, as if they had stayed within the house, hidden away from all sunlight. They did not carry their weight about them, as in the manner of fieldmen or laborers. They were obese to the point of repulsion, yet considered themselves the perfection of the human form.

The more he heaped praise upon them, the more I recognized their modern equivalent. These were the pampered sons of the rich. Trust fund babies that never grew up. My mirth turned to concealed pity. “Surely, Greece has more sons than these. I’ve heard of a great variety of men.”

My host nodded. “Many of our lesser men are serving the polis by reminding the Athenians of their inferiority. These are our greater men, and their sons. See how brilliant they are! One of them will be declared a Hero today.” I smiled, a polite, diplomatic smile. Mentally I noted while several thousand years separated the Dream from the Waking, nothing had really changed.

“So, what will determine which of these men are a Hero?” My host stood up, and held his hand out for me to accompany him. As we walked up to a large edifice, he explained the different physical trials, and mentally puzzling challenges that awaited the contestants. He asked me if my land had Heroes of our own.

“Some consider themselves Heroes, and are vain trumpets. Those that are true Heroes, consider themselves as mere men and women.” I said nothing about the backwards state of my American culture. This was not the time to indulged in pulpit pounding.

“Oh, you found her! Dear Woman, a pleasure to see you walking in the grandeur of our immortal polis! Welcome!” Another man held out his hand for me to take. My host gripped me tightly in response. It was clear, now, I was a flower to be worn as adornment. I removed my arm from my host, and walked past the other man who looked after me oddly.

“And who would judge these… contestants?” The edifice held the aura of a temple. Other men were present, along with a few women. I ignored the stares of them all, and peered into the darkened door. I felt no barrier keeping me out, but a sense that I shouldn’t push my luck too far at the moment.

I yielded to the sense, and turned to face the increasing crowd. “Surely, it takes a Hero to judge a Hero, by the rules you have explained to me thus far? Who is judging?”

“I am.” The vain crowd flinches at the sound of the deep male voice. I feel him exiting the temple more than I hear him. A tall man, with greying hair and a long combed beard steps up behind me. He is dressed in beggar’s robes, but carries an air of kingship about him. The assembled crowd is both awed and angered by his presence. He glares at them in contempt, then focuses his gaze on me with interest and curiosity. “Have you reason to contest this?”

“No, Sir, I don’t. I just wonder who could be of such stature to determine what makes a Hero, and what doesn’t.” His eyes narrow at me, then relaxes as he bursts into laughter.

“Finally! Someone willing to use the spine they are born with! Perhaps the day is not a complete waste after all.” He strode past me and barreled through the crowd as if they were so many swine to kick away. My host came to me and pulled me away from the entrance.

“Are all the women of your land so brazen?” I looked at him, then looked at his hand still gripping my arm. I did not answer but slowly pulled myself clear while staring him in the eyes. Once clear, I nodded and smiled sweetly, then set off in the wake the bearded man had plowed in his passing.

The crowd also followed, until we were back at the field of competition. It was a shameful sight. All the men that were truly competing with both body and soul had been disqualified using questionable means. They sulked off to the side, angry that they were removed from play while the spoiled man-boys continued to advance in the ranks. The bearded man observed all this and said nothing, but the deepening scorn was plainly visible on his face.

On the field, two naked men were wrestling. One seemed afraid of human touch, screaming any time his opponent touched his skin. The other was unable to use the fright to his advantage, lacking the strength to hold on for any length of time. We were informed these two competitors were the final two of the competition. The “Hero” would be one of these two.

“ENOUGH!” The bearded man exploded in rage on the field. At his cry, all stopped their action. “I have seen and heard enough of this mockery!” He stormed onto the field, his presence alone causing one of the “competitors” to fall backwards in fear. “How can you all be so blind? Even the Woman from foreign lands can see plainly. She asks, and you are too full of yourselves and your foulness to hear the question.”

“Her question is valid!” The bearded man turns to me, with eyes filled with sharp wit and waiting daggers. “Tell me, Woman. What makes a Hero, to you?”

All present turned to me. Some with scorn, some with curiosity, some with pleading eyes, some just stiffly nodded. I continued to face the bearded man, and spoke my opinion just as loud. “A Hero is born of adversity, sprung fully grown from the bloodied and bruised cloth of circumstance. A Hero need not be the strongest, nor the fastest, nor the most calculating. A Hero is one that stands up against the Wrongs of the world, when it is easier to allow the Wrongs to continue. A Hero could be anyone, of noble blood, or of the most mixed, of great wealth, or of a pauper. A Hero could be in disguise, yet acting heroically, but because the Hero is disguised, she will be held in contempt by those that know not of her actions.”

My words echoed across the field. Those that caught my intentional feminine pronoun towards the end were enraged at my words, but they said nothing, only ground their teeth. The bearded man tilted his head curiously at me, and smiled a brief flash. He reminded me of a hunter having discovered the trail of his prey.

“Woman, you speak words, that these simple folk will never understand. But I do.” He nods at me. “I do, very, very well.”

He turns to address the crowd. “Her words washed over you like rinse water from a bowl. Yet you are not cleansed. A competition you want, a competition you shall have. Boy! My bow!” A teenager, not quite man, yet still with the blush of youth was standing attentively at the temple entrance. At the bearded man’s command, he nodded and rushed inside, emerging barely a moment later with a large Scythian bow.

He rushed to the bearded man’s side, and as the older man picked up the visibly heavy bow, a memory began to tease at me. I’ve heard of such a Greek legend, of a kingly man disguised as a beggar, with a great bow, but the legend hid from me.

Without thought or effort, he removed the string from the bow. He held aloft the use-worn wood for all to see. “Here, my bow! You know who I am, and what trials I have suffered! Let him who would be Hero, restring my bow!” He tossed the bow and string to the nearest competitor. The weight of it was such, the competitor fell backwards from the bow’s inertia.

I cried to see the bow falling into the dirt. But it was unharmed. While the bow remained there, I was able to see it clearly. There was no great decoration on the bow, just some marks and paints remained from a time when it was glorious. This was the bow of a martial man, one that had seen many battles from the blood soaked dirt.

Another competitor came forward, and picked up the heavy bow and string. Deriding the fallen man, he made no effort to assist him, but began striving to bend the released bow into submission. He wasn’t able to bend the six foot bow even an inch. After some straining, he cried out as something deep within him seized in pain.

Another man came forward and tried to string the thick bow. He tried to use his girth to advantage, leaning heavily on the bow. The bow did bend a few inches from the several hundred pounds of weight, but the man’s grip slipped and it forcibly straightened itself. The top end slammed into the man’s face, breaking his nose and splitting open the skin from chin to receding hairline.

Several others came forward to try and string the bow. Two even tried working in tandem, more determined to complete the bearded man’s challenge and see him eat his words. But none of the official competitors, still in play or earlier disqualified, were able to string the bearded man’s bow.

“Boy!” The teenager ran to the bearded man’s side. “Fetch the bow and string, and deliver them to this Woman.” At the command, most of the crowd looked at me in shock. I, in turn, looked at the bearded man in shock. I know my physical limits, and this oversize Scythian bow would be too much for me in the Waking. Several from the crowd shouted obscenities at him and me, claiming that having a woman try was demeaning to the eager male competitors.

As the boy brought the bow and string to me, I struggled in vain to identify the bearded man. Still his identity was hidden from me. But he looked at me with the steady glare of a knowing teacher. If he thought I could string his bow, then I shall do so.

I hooked the string into one end of the bow, and held tension on it while I placed it between my sandaled feet. Holding the bow upright with one hand, I used the other to tuck the other end of the string between my teeth. I then grasped the upper end of the bow with both hands, and glanced at the bearded man.

He nodded as if approving my form and technique. I banished fear from my mind and focused on one thought. “He would not have me do this, if I could not. Therefore, I can, and I will.” A deep breath, and I bore down on the bow, using arms, chest, abdomen, and leg muscles in one unified movement. Swiftly, the bow bent downward until the upper tip was by my mouth. I felt the bow did not bend out of physical submission, but out of acknowledgement. I did not come to the bow to conquer it, and because of that, it yields.

Swiftly, I move my head and place the upper loop in place. Instead of releasing the bow at once and allowing it to spring back into position, I relaxed my body just enough to slow the bow’s motion into a smooth action. Once the string was at full tension, I released my grip and raised the suddenly light bow.

Now, I heard the cries of the crowd. I had blocked them out before. Many of the competitors were bewailing the “unfairness” of the contest, and the obvious magic used by the bearded man. Many in the crowd were crying for me to be sacrificed to the polis’ god of dedication. Many others were calling for me to be sacrificed to other gods. With so many names flying about, I could not pick out which god this particular polis was dedicated to.

I walked to the bearded man, and with both hands outstretched, presented his bow to him. He picked it up, looked it over, wiped a bit of stuck dirt from one end and tested the integrity of the string. He plucked it, and it sang a beautiful note of deadly swiftness. He looked back at me, his voice softened with approval.

“You are not ready to be a Hero, just yet, Woman. But you have it within you. When that moment comes, approach it just as you approached my bow.” He turned to address the crowd. “Did you learn something? Anything? Take these pigs you call ‘favored sons’ and return to your styes and your feasting. Eat away the sting of being bested by this foreign born Woman, and drown your shame in wine. For every slave you beat tonight to purge yourself of these emotions, twenty more will rise up against you in the morn. I would slay you all myself, but your flesh is not fit for my dog, not even for my dog long dead.”

At the mention of his dog, I knew who the bearded man was. But I did not reveal this. He turned to me and spoke one last time. “They will deny you a place to rest tonight. But your ship does not leave until the morn. Spend the night with me in my house. My wife, Penelope, will be delighted to have a witty Woman for a guest. She tires of these trite gossip-mongers, more interested in scandal than improving yourself. If you are concerned about being a burden, tell us of your world. I will accept a story from you as payment for your lodging. I’m sure you can spin words to weave an interesting tale.”

I smile warily. Odysseus just called me “Weaver”. Very well then. “I accept, King Odysseus. I hope not to be too boring a guest.” As we turned away from the lessening crowd, Odysseus again. “I am king, no more. I will not rule over mere beasts such as these. I’ve seen too much of the barrenness of men. But that is a history, long faded. Tell me, Woman, where did you learn to string the bow? I did not know you could do it. I only asked you to try because the sincerity of your heart spoke loudly against the vanity of the men.”

“You didn’t know… then… ” I let my voice trail off. Suddenly reminded of my own bow in the Dreaming, I wonder if I have just missed an important lesson. As we walk off the field of competition, the dream ends and fades into gentle darkness.

Make of that, what you may.