"The World's Desire"
Unusually this tale was co-written by Haggard's long-term mentor and friend Andrew Lang. The effect of this collaboration upon the novel I will leave until the end.
The story begins with the arrival of a lone vessel off a Greek island. It is Odysseus, son of Laaertes - whom some call Ulysses - returned to his home isle of Ithaca after his second wandering. But he finds the isle deserted, weeds growing in the fields, the herdsmen's huts ruinous. No lights shine from the houses. Coming to his home - for here Odyysseus was king - he finds his home empty. The cause of the catastrophy is all too clear. The remains of a funeral pyre for many men and women still stands in his great hall. The residents have perished of a plague and the survivors - if any - have fled. A bone is dislodged from the aweful pile, and rattles to the floor. It is wearing a half-burned bracelet - it is all that remains of Odysseus' wife Penelope. The fate of his son Telegonus is unknown, but Odysseus fears the worst.
Alone on the isle, Odysseus swoons by the remains of his household. He revives and leaves the house, carrying with him the black bow of Euryalus, which no mortal but Odysseus had ever drawn, Euryalus's gift, a bronze blade with a silver hilt and a sheath of ivory, and wearing the golden armour of Paris, son of Priam, the gift of Menelaus of Sparta.
The isle is all deserted, yet he saw a light from a small shrine on the seashore, the temple Aphrodite. As he drew nigh he saw that it was lit by no common light, but by the light which showed that an immortal approached. Entering the shrine Odysseus saw, or dreamed he saw, a vision of Aphrodite, Goddess of Love.Although Odysseus was not a devotee of Aphrodite, and had seen gods and goddesses before, yet he paid especial attention to the Goddesses' tale. She told him to await a ship, and to sail to a strange land, where he would find the love of his life, Helen of Troy, the Argive Helen, Helen of Illios, the daughter of King Tyndareus. Odysseus once saw Helen as a young girl, and although their destinies kept them apart, they loved each other from afar. Now that Odysseus' hair is beginning to grey he will once again find and win Helen. But he must beware rivals, and a rival love, and will know Helen by the Blood Stone on her breast - a gem which drips blood onto Helen's white robe, though it leaves no stain.
Odysseus leaves the shrine, and rests by the sea. Sidonians traders, fierce men of no morals, spot him from afar by the glint of his golden armour. They decide to kidnap him to sell as a slave - he should fetch a good price in Egypt (Khem) and the armour would be a nice gilding on the cake. As the Sidonians weren't fighters them overcame Odysseus with ropes as he slept. He is carried away in their ship, towards the south, just as the goddess has predicted.
Odysseus is no easy man to keep chained up. The Sidonians taunt him, but he escapes, and kills them all except for the captain whom he fastens with fetters. The vessel, full of trade goods of great price, and the bodies of the slain Sidonians, sails into the mouth of the Nile. But all in not well, for the sky is uncannily dark and the river appears to be of blood. This soon passes however, andOdysseus takes on board a pilot to help him anchor at Tanis.
Because of his strange arrival on a treasure ship with a crew of corpses - no one minded the captain - and his own king-like manner and gold armour, Odysseus attracks considerable attention. The priest Rei, chief architect of Pharaoh, commander of the legion of Amen, and chief of the treasury of Amen, is sent to welcome him. Because Odysseus, the greatest warrior in classical times, had many enemies, Odysseus assumed the name of Eperitus, and disguised his origins. Rei and he soon became good friends.
The Wanderer, as Eperitus (or Odysseus) is more usually known, soon is introduced to the Queen, Meriamun, and the Pharaoh, Meneptah. The Pharaoh is weak and unimpressive, but the Queen - his sister - is a different matter. Odysseus soon begins to fear her, though he never feared gods or men before. He has good reason to fear her, for Meriamun is power-crazed, hates her brother (whom she married for reasons of policy) and wishes to marry Odysseus, whom she believes she is fated to love.
The prophets of the Apura (or Jews) have been busy. They had called on the various plagues, and now visited the Kingdom of Khem with the death of the first-born (including Meneptah and Mariamun's only son). The people blame the Pharaoh, since he won't let the Apura go - at the insistence of Mariamun, who blames the curse on the False Hathor. The latter is a goddess or immortal who has resided in the temple of Hathor at Tanis for some years, driving men mad with love. All those who try to approach her are killed by invisible swordsmen at the entrance to her sanctuary. The goddess herself is seen, however, every few days when she sings on a pylon of her temple. Then she appears differently to individual men, but is the very embodiment of Beauty.
Though Rei warns him of the danger of gazing upon the Hathor, Odysseus approaches the temple. He sees the baths of bronze where the latest victims of the Hathor's fatal beauty are being bathed in naptha ready for embalment. But he sees the goddess from afar and recognises her as Helen - though all men see their first love, or she whom they would love, in the changeful visage of the goddess. But for Odysseus alone, if Aphrodite told truly, this was a true vision.
Odysseus returned to the shrine, and watched while a number of men sacrificed themselves futily attempting to force the enchanted gates. They all die. Odysseus takes his turn, and meets invisible adversaries in swordfight. But Odysseus, the most skilled in war, beat the unseen wardens and passed unharmed. They appear to him as the ghosts of dead heroes, whom Odysseus had known in his younger days. They bid him pass on to Helen.
Helen, sitting at her loom, thinks Paris has come back from the dead to retake her to a life of shame and misery. Odysseus, rather unfairly, falls into her error, and pretends to be Paris, until Helen admits that Odysseus alone she loves and would see - though he is now dead. Odysseus reveals himself, and although they fear that the gods may yet have ill-fate in store for them, they agree that they will meet outside the shrine on the next night and would flee.
But Mariamun, using the spirit of the priest Rei as a spy, has seen and heard all. In her jealousy she knows that she cannot harm the immortal Helen, but can have Odysseus for herself - for she has his secret. Helen sees the invisible spirit of Rei, but says nothing to Odysseus.
On the next night as Odysseus awaits the time to depart for the shrine, he despatches Rei to arrange a ship to carry them away in secret. Rei moves in to the shrine to await Odysseus. But he doesn't come.
The Wanderer is still in the palace when he sees Helen herself come to him. He is surprised, but the figure, voice and manner is indeed his beloved Helen. She leads him to a bedchamber - that of the Queen - where they consumnate their love. But first Helen has Odysseus swear to be loyal to her, whatever name or appearance she bears. He swears this on the snake which is about Helen's waist (and not on the blood stone, which is missing)
Odysseus awakes next morning in Queen Mariamun's bed, and with none other than the Queen herself beside him. She has bewitched him through her magic, and assumed the appearance of Helen. The snake is an ancient animate evil, brought to life by Mariamum, but now as much master as counsellor to her. Odysseus is shamed at his unwitting deed, knowing that he has been dishonoured in the eyes of gods and men. He has also lost Helen, at least for this lifetime. He takes some consolation from a prophecy that he would soon die, of a death out of the sea.
The Queen offered to make Odysseus Pharaoh, but he scornfully rejects her. She ran screaming from her room, pretending that Odysseus has attacked her. He is taken, after the Sidonian Kurri, now a palace slave, cut his bow string. He is cast into the torture chamber, and made to lie on the bed of torment while his doom is decided.
Pharaoh arrives from having led his army against the Apura. His tale is dismal, the whole host having been destroyed in the sea of weeds. He is outraged at the Wanderers' behaviour, and is happy to condemn him. But Mariamun relents somewhat, and causes Pharaoh to dream that only the Wanderer can lead the army against the barbarians who are now advancing on Khem. The Queen now poisons the Pharaoh so that she can engineer Odysseus' enthronement. Little does she know him - or the forces with which she contends.
While Odysseus musters the army, the Queen drives the women of Tanis to a frenzy, to get them to burn the shrine of Hathor. This is not difficult, since all are mad with grief at the various plagues, and now the loss of the army, and the death of the Pharaoh. But Helen, surrounded by a wall of fire, walks out of the destroyed shrine, and is driven away by Rei in the Queen's own chariot, though the priests of the temple have all been torn to pieces by the maddened women. Rei himself is now outcast, having been thrown out of his offices by the Queen, who had begun to mistrust him. This was not unreasonable, since he grieved at the way in which his foster-daughter had gone to the bad.
Odysseus lead the army of Pharaoh - they didn't know of his death - against the Nine-Bow Barbarians and their Achaean allies. The host was heavily outnumbered, but Odysseus, old in war, was undaunted. Victory was assured by the arrival of Beauty in her chariot. The Greeks fled after an old captain recognised Helen - long since dead - and whom he took for Paris - also dead - leading the Egyptian army. But Odysseus is struck by an arrow loosed at him by a tall warrior of fine appearance, who calls out that it is in revenge for the death of Odysseus, his father. Odysseus has been mortally wounded by his own son, Telegonus. Helen comforts the dying but happy Odysseus, and Telegonus is restrained by his fellows from drowning himself, and sails away.
The Queen arrives and sees the ruin of her plot. At the orders of Helen Rei makes a large pyre of the loot from the Barbarian horde. Odysseus is burnt, in his armour, along with his bow. Mariamun casts the snake into the fire, which Rei tells her she shouldn't have done, since where it went she would go also. She walks into the fire, as though compelled. Helen walks off into the desert, to await the passing of another era, and the coming of Odysseus in another form. Interestingly, there is a hint that she may already be dead. After all, she wasn't a goddess herself, so how did she acquire her - unsought by her - powers?
There are a number of interesting elements in this story. The storyteller is Rei himself, though the narrative is not in the first person. There is also a suggestion that he may be none other than Horace Holly, or Noot, the companion and counsellor to She, and friend and companion to Leo Vincy, or Kallikrates, in latter lives. Further there is a hint, faint as gossamer, that Helen may be none other than Ayesha, and Queen Mariamun would be the Princess Amenartes or the Khania of Kooloon. Odysseus himself must then be none other than Kallikrates. All three major characters in this tale certainly belived that their livesdid not end with death, and Mariamun was told in a vision that the three would contend for age after age until their destiny was worked out and they became two again - as they had been in the beginnig. Perhaps this is the account that She was about to recount when she married Leo, only to pause when she discovered his death.
The writing style is a little more formal or florid than we are accustomed to with most Haggard. No doubt this is a consequence of the partnership with Lang. The start of the story is especially noticeable, rather like a Greek drama - no doubt deliberately. But it soon becomes familiar, with communing with evil spirits, true prophets, genuine and potent magic, and fierce battles. Indeed, Odysseus' final stand, though not as dramatic as the holding of the stairs by Umslopogaas, as recounted in "Allan Quatermain", is on a massive scale and truly heroic.
Characterisation in this novel is not particularly strong. Odysseus, though a Greek hero, is remarkably dull. The divine Helen, of whom well read too little, is innocent and harmless - surprising for a woman whose face had launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Illium. Admittedly, as Helen herself said more than once, she was an instrument of fate, or of the gods. Rei is human and sympathetic, but doesn't really seem to have the fire or cunning one would have thought would have been needed to become chief architect - almost equal to the vizier in power in the land. As usual for Haggard, it is the women who are the strong characters - Mariamun being a real battleaxe (or perhaps harpy would be the better mataphor?).