Odysseus and Achilles
My friends, as you may know, an oracle told Odysseus that if he went to war against Troy, he would not return home until his newborn son Telemachus had grown into manhood. So when Menelaus summoned him to war, Odysseus first feigned madness, plowing his field with ass and ox and sowing it with salt. But Palamedes placed the infant Telemachus in the field, so that Odysseus swerved and revealed his sanity. Thus he went to Menelaus, and tried to dissuade him from waging war.
"Noble cousin, wronged by Paris, hear not Ares's call, but rather seek redress by Hermes's staff...look, you're a king, I'm a king, let's leave the flowery words for the poets and let's just talk normally. Look, Troy is a walled city on the coast, and if we land on the beaches, our men will die by the shipful. I have a better idea: Let's have a great tournament, like funeral games but without the funeral. We'll have wrestling, and archery, set up a few lists. And afterwards, everyone says 'This was great fun; let's drink too much and sing bawdy songs!'. Everybody goes home happy and alive, and the Trojans say `If those Greeks fight half as well in real battle as they did at the tournament, we'd best never go to war.' Then Priam will say to his boy 'Is your head empty? Give the lady back!' "
Menelaus considered this, for it was indeed true that Pelops, his father's father, had never had proper funeral rites. But then Menelaus's brother Agamemnon, king of all the Argives, spoke.
"Royal brother, this affront by Priam's House can but on field of war be met. Slick with blood shall run the sands of Troy, and those who die shall live forever in song and legend."
"Yes, yes, the poets will sing how they died full of glory, full of honor, but mostly full of somebody else's sword. And that's if we win. If we lose, the poets will say we charged uphill, against a fortified city, and died heroically, but uselessly."
"Doubt you the might of the host here assembled? Herakles sword-brother, Aias of Telamon; Great Diomedes, the conqueror of Thebes; Protesilaus, the first to the fray and commander of forty proud warships. The gods themselves show favor to our cause, foretelling that the fall of Troy will by Achilles's eyes be seen."
"Oh, good. Achilles, did you hear that, you're going to see the fall of Troy. Achilles? Achilles? Ah...hate to break this to you, but Achilles isn't here. It seems to me that if Troy won't fall until Achilles sees it, we might want to have Achilles with us at the start. Where is he?"
"His sea nymph mother would his destiny deny, by hiding him in women's skirts at Skyros' court. But Zeus himself may not the Fates defy; and Thetis soon shall see her plan in ruins."
"Let me get this straight. You can't take Troy without Achilles, but you can't find him because his mother dressed him like a girl? I'm beginning to see why it's going to take me twenty years to get home---"
"Odysseus, enough! King of Ithaca you may be, but your words belie your base descent. Son of Sisyphus, grandson of thieves, you swore to save my brother's marriage bed, but called to serve, you first feign madness, then dare question our assay! If our cause needs Prince Achilles, fulfill your oath and bring him forth, or ever be known as dishonorable word-breaker!"
"Very well; I will find him. He's hiding among a group of women, but he has one thing no Greek princess possess...an overwhelming desire to die in battle."
So Odysseus set sail for the island of Skyros. When he arrived, he appeared before the King of Skyros with a great cart, filled with gifts for the ladies of the court. "Noble king, I bring gifts from the Greeks for the ladies of the court. I would not presume to know their minds, so each should choose that which she most desires." There were gowns of fine silk, pearl pendants, jeweled coronets, fine perfumes. But one chitoned redhead reached for that which Odysseus had concealed on the bottom: a spear and shield. Odysseus reached out and grabbed the hand that held the spear.
"Achilles! Hear my plea. My oath demands I bring your arms to Agamemnon's side, to sail to war on distant Troy. But Ares and Athena both beat drums of war. Athena's call for home, and hearth, and kin, while Ares's sound to salve a wounded pride or seek return of that we never had. Hear this call of Ares, seize the spear, and go to Troy, there to die but live forever in song and legend. Or cast aside this spear of ash, take a wife and live to see your son to manhood grown, and let your children's voices be the songs that sing your praise. Choose, then, and as you choose, so will others."
We all know the choice made by Achilles. And Odysseus, unable to prevent war, would see his men die one by one, and not return home for many years. But his conceit of a great tournament to display martial prowess and dissuade those who would wage war would eventually come to pass, and his children's children's children would distinguish themselves in the first of the Olympiads.
Notes
This was tough to write for a number of reasons. The main one is getting the character of Odysseus just right. As I see it, Odysseus isn't likeable, but he's the person you want on your side (at least in part because you don't want him against you...in retaliation for dragging him into the Trojan War, Odysseus has Palamedes put to death for treason, based on planted evidence). Odysseus doesn't play "fair;" he plays to win.
So how do you make Odysseus likeable to a modern audience, while keeping his fundamental character? One of the first problems is going to war in the first place: Odysseus doesn't want to, even though he's sworn an oath to help Menelaus. What's interesting is that Homer has Odysseus try to break his oath by feigning madness. Why? It makes Odysseus look selfish. But remember, Odysseus is also a king, which means that it's not just him going to war; it's him and all his men. Maybe he didn't want to go to war because he didn't want to get all his men killed. That makes Odysseus look better; the "I just want to stay home" reason is poetic shorthand.
From this, it extends logically that Odysseus would try to dissuade Menelaus from going to war, so he brings up the tournament idea. This is my own invention, but it's meant to tie in with the tournament/war culture of the SCA, and is my attempt to resolve one of the cognitive dissonances of medieval reenactment: the culture of chivalry. As a modern, I'm inclined to think that war, in general, is a bad thing for everyone involved. So how do we reconcile this with the mock combat of the SCA? It's easy, provided you remember one thing: almost all sports emphasize skills that double as martial arts. Look at the Olympics: the javelin, pole vault, hammer toss, equestrian events...the marathon even commemorates a battle. It's about preparing for war...but in some sense, it's showing that you are prepared for war, so that anybody who wants to start a war might think twice. Many of the medieval tournaments had the same duality: the Field of the Cloth of Gold was a great tournament, true, but it was also meant to showcase the military prowess of France and England, as if to say "If you're going to fight, these are the guys you'll be fighting, and see how good they are..."
As it turns out, the addition of the Olympic games to this particular bit of mythology is somewhat canonical. (The secret to research is figuring out what you want to do, then finding the evidence that supports it...) A few connections:
Iphitos, King of Elis, was told by the Oracle of Delphi to revive the Olympic games to bring peace to Greece. Meanwhile Iphitos, King of Oechalia, was a friend of Odysseus. No one really knows where Oechalia was, so we can fudge a bit and claim the two Iphitoses are one and the same. However, this is a rather contrived connection. There's a better one:
At least one myth relates the Olympics to Pelops, the son of Tantalus; apparently the Olympic games were actually derided by a Christian writer (Clement of Alexandria, 2nd century AD) as the funeral sacrifices of Pelops. Pelops was famous for being served up as a stew to the gods. He got better, and was the father of Atreus, who was the father of (wait for it...) Menelaus.
This is made easier by the fact (which is often forgotten) that the Greeks had two gods of war: Ares and Athena. Ares represents the blood and killing aspect of war, while Athena represented the more "intellectual aspects," like strategy and tactics. Athena and Odysseus have a lot of interactions in the Iliad, so it makes sense (to me, at least) to have Odysseus differentiate between the two when it comes to war.
What about Odysseus's language? There are conflicting stories about how Odysseus spoke. On the one hand, he was considered a great orator (even winning Achilles armor, according to some interpretations, on the basis of his oratory rather than his achievements). On the other hand, there is some indication that when he began speaking, he was halting and sounded stupid, but at length brought everyone around with his deep voice and cogent arguments. I get a picture of someone who can, if necessary, pull out the stops and put on a great performance, but who also recognizes that there is something suspicious about someone who seems too polished. This is one of the reasons there is such a great contrast between the measured speech of Agamamenon (speaking in iambs, in case you didn't notice, except where he lists the heroes, where he switches to dactyls...) and those of Odysseus.