Mirror, Mirror of My Heart - Diane Kim (MMI Preparatory School, 11th Grade)

Odysseus awoke with a start.

His body jumped up from the ground instinctively, before his mind could even fully gain consciousness. His eyes scanned the surrounding area for threats. With a pounding heart, he saw that there were no monsters, crewmates, or gods that might try to kill him. He sank back down to the ground, his body aching and exhausted. Where am I? he thought. Where are my crewmates?

Suddenly, it all came back to him: the Cattle of the Sun, Zeus’s raging storm, his crewmates crying out in the dark water…

Tears filled Odysseus’s eyes. But these weren’t sad and mournful tears – they were tears of rage. Their deaths were their own faults, Odysseus thought. If they had listened to me, and not Eurylochus, that foolish brute, they would all still be alive. I told them not to eat the Cattle of the Sun, and they ignored me. Maybe now, in the Underworld, they’ll understand some obedience.

Odysseus shrugged off the memory of his crewmates dying. He had a mission: Get home to Ithaca. That was all that mattered.

 Once again, Odysseus picked himself up off the ground and looked around. Something told him that he had been transported to a new island by a god after Zeus’s attempt to kill his crew. He seemed to be underground, in a dark cave. It was dimly lit by two twin torches in front of a door that the following sentences engraved on it in Greek: Choose your next steps wisely, my friend. They will either save you and lead you closer to home, or they will destroy you. The choice is yours. 

Chills ran through Odysseus’s bones. For ten years, he had been desperately fighting to stay alive and reach his home. This message offered a slight bit of encouragement by telling him he was close to his destination. However, it also sent a warning – if he didn’t choose wisely, this would lead to his end, and he would never see Penelope or Telemachus again. The choice was his, and Odysseus decided that he was going to make the right one. 

As he opened the inscribed door, Odysseus saw a hallway of mirrors that seemed to be infinite. In each mirror was an image of Odysseus and snapshots of great moments in his life. Odysseus walked along, brushing his fingertips along each glass pane. There was a picture of the time he single-handedly slaughtered 200 men in the Trojan War. An image of his triumph against the cyclops Polyphemus and his cunningness in tricking Circe also made appearances. Pride blossomed in Odysseus’s chest like a lotus flower. He was just too powerful.

As he continued to view memories of his grandest feats, Odysseus halted. In front of his eyes stood an image, unlike all the others. This one shows Odysseus’s crew’s narrow escape from Polyphemus; the mirror played a flashback of the men trying to sail away as Odysseus taunted the cyclops. Polyphemus threw boulders at the ship, and yet Odysseus proceeded to boast about himself and mock him. Behind Odysseus sat his crewmates, looking at their captain with shocked and worried faces. “Why is he mocking the cyclops?” one of the crewmates said to another. “He’s putting us in more danger.”

Odysseus pursed his lips and tried to ignore this particular mirror. It was one time when he made a small mistake. The barbaric monster deserved to be insulted, and no one got hurt at the moment.

But because of your small mistake, a voice inside his head said, Poseidon later punished your crew and many perished.

Odysseus blocked out the conviction in his mind and moved on to the next mirror. 

The image showed Eurylochus and Odysseus, surrounded by the rest of the crewmates. Odysseus commanded his men to storm Circe’s house and rescue the trapped crewmates, but Eurylochus rebelled. He told the men that it was too risky. Eurylochus reminded the men of Polyphemus’s cave and said that they had already lost too many lives due to their captain’s poor leadership. He advised the crewmates not to follow Odysseus’s command, but to save themselves and leave the imprisoned crewmates in Circe’s hands.

In the mirror, Odysseus’s face turned a ghastly shade of purple. Without even thinking, his hand flung to his sword at his waist, ferocity consuming his heart. He wanted to murder Eurylochus, and would have right there, had the men around him not stopped him.

The flashback in the mirror paused after this moment and then started to replay. Odysseus walked briskly to the next mirror. He didn’t need to watch it again.

What had appeared to be an endless corridor had finally come to an end. One last mirror stood in front of Odysseus. Before playing the final image, the words that had previously been on the entrance were displayed on the mirror. Odysseus wondered to himself what these words meant. So far, there had been no choices for him to make, and the mirrors didn’t prove to be dangerous. They certainly couldn’t destroy him.

At last, the final mirror played. But unlike the others, this image was not a past occurrence that Odysseus could remember.

Instead, the mirror showed Odysseus in Ithaca, standing on the balcony of the royal castle with gray streaks in his beard. Penelope stood at his side, looking beautiful in a ruby-red gown. Telemachus looked to be in his thirties, a strong young man. Below the royals stood every citizen of Ithaca.

Not a single person, man or woman, child or elder, was smiling. 

King Odysseus started to speak, his voice booming throughout the royal courtyard with authority, but also malice. As he spoke about going to war against an enemy nation of Ithaca, people in the crowd winced. Everyone stood like a statue, eyes cast downward until the king completed his speech.

The mirror flashed forward to a new scene. Thousands of bodies lay scattered on a bloodied field of grass. The flag of Ithaca’s enemy stood in the center, and there kneeled Odysseus, his face blanched white. “What have I done?” he cried out, beating his chest in agony. “What have I done to my people?”

The mirror ended there. 

Odysseus couldn’t breathe. This event had not happened in his life, but he had a strange feeling that it could in the future. But what was the meaning of this image? What was the meaning of all the mirrors, this island, and the writing on the door?

Odysseus thought back to the first set of mirrors. All of them had made him feel good about himself. They had glorified him and made him feel proud. The next two mirrors displayed events when Odysseus made mistakes that eventually cost his crewmates their lives. 

The final mirror was the most disturbing. Odysseus was filled with a dreadful weight in his chest, the realization that the mirror was predicting his future. He had become such a prideful ruler, that he had become arrogant. He had not even cared about his crewmates when they died, even though it was his fault. They had followed him loyally for ten years, helping him reach home, but he had repaid them with death.

Just like in the last mirror, Odysseus fell to his knees and howled, pounding the ground with his fist. It was all his fault, not anyone else’s. He was the foolish brute, not Eurylochus. He was the barbaric monster, not Polyphemus. He was the enemy of Ithaca, not the other nation. It was all him.

The mirrors weren’t just a gallery of Odysseus’ life, he realized. They were reflections of his heart. One by one, they stripped Odysseus’s arrogance and ignorance. Just as the images in the mirrors were ugly and horrifying, so was his heart. It had slowly molded from confident, like in the first mirrors, to putrid and shameful in the last images. There was nothing worthy or honorable about him. He was a monster, and the blood of innocent men was on his hands.

I’m not worthy of leading anyone anymore, Odysseus thought. I don’t even think I can return to Ithaca if what is on the last mirror will happen in the future. It’s better for me to just die here than to cause more destruction to the blameless.

Just kill me now.

As Odysseus sobbed with his forehead on the ground, a blinding light flashed all around him. Odysseus tried to look up, but he could not. Something was holding his head down. Soon, every fiber in his body tingled. Someone was here, and they were too powerful for him to see.

“Odysseus,” the person in front of Odysseus boomed. “Son of Laertes, what are you doing?”

“I am ashamed,” Odysseus replied, his voice cracking with pain. “I am not worthy of my status as king or leader. I was prideful and arrogant. In my selfishness, I lashed out at others and caused harm. I don’t want to be like this anymore, but I think I will be unable to control myself in the future. Please, just send me to the Underworld now, where I belong. I do not wish to harm anyone else.”

The voice replied, “Yes, you have shed innocent blood, and yes, you should be guilty. You, who once cared so deeply for your crewmate brothers, led them to death through your misjudgment and pridefulness.”

Odysseus nodded, preparing to die.

“However, I, Athena, daughter of Zeus, have sent you here, to this cavernous island, to have you see for yourself what kind of a person you have become. I told you that the choice was yours and that it either would lead you closer to home, or break you. In this case, I have seen that it has done both. It has destroyed you and broken your heart. But I also have faith that you can rebuild yourself from the ashes. I believe in you, son of Laertes. I think that you have gained valuable wisdom from these mirrors and that you will not make the same mistakes again. I will spare you if you promise to no longer be prideful and selfish in the future. Instead, become a great leader who cares for his people. If you swear to do this, I will let you continue on your journey home. But if not, you, just as you said, will be cast into the Underworld.”

Odysseus paused. He had gained so much insight from this hall of mirrors. He had seen in them, the true reflection of his heart and how horrible he had become. He didn’t have full confidence that he would be perfect in the future, but, as the goddess had said, he would try. He would become a great leader and make up for his wrongdoings.

“I will, daughter of Zeus,” Odysseus said, feeling the weight of his promise on his chest. “I swear on my heart.”

“So be it,” the goddess said, and with one last flash of blinding light, she vanished, and so did the hall of mirrors.

Odysseus was transported to the island of Calypso, his last obstacle, from the maze of mirrors. From there, he continued home to Ithaca, and until the day he died, the reflection of his heart on the desert island never left him.