BOOK II.
BOOK III.
BOOK IV.
BOOK V.
BOOK VI.
BOOK VII.
BOOK VIII.
BOOK IX.
BOOK X.
BOOK XI.
BOOK XII.
BOOK XIII.
BOOK XIV.
BOOK XV.
BOOK XVI.
BOOK XVII.
BOOK XVIII.
BOOK XIX.
BOOK XX.
BOOK XXI.
BOOK XXII.
BOOK XXIII.
BOOK XXIV.
As one that for a weary space has lain
Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine
In gardens near the pale of Proserpine,
Where that Ææan isle forgets the main,
And only the low lutes of love complain,
And only shadows of wan lovers pine,
As such an one were glad to know the brine
Salt on his lips, and the large air again,
So gladly, from the songs of modern speech
Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,
And through the music of the languid hours
They hear like Ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.
A. L.
PREFACE.
There would have been less controversy about the proper method of
Homeric translation, if critics had recognised that the question is a
purely relative one, that of Homer there can be no final translation.
The taste and the literary habits of each age demand different
qualities in poetry, and therefore a different sort of rendering of
Homer. To the men of the time of Elizabeth, Homer would have appeared
bald, it seems, and lacking in ingenuity, if he had been presented in
his antique simplicity. For the Elizabethan age, Chapman supplied what
was then necessary, and the mannerisms that were then deemed of the
essence of poetry, namely, daring and luxurious conceits. Thus in
Chapman’s verse Troy must “shed her towers for tears of overthrow,” and
when the winds toss Odysseus about, their sport must be called “the
horrid tennis.”
In the age of Anne, “dignity” and “correctness” had to be given to
Homer, and Pope gave them by aid of his dazzling rhetoric, his
antitheses, his _netteté_, his command of every conventional and
favourite artifice. Without Chapman’s conceits, Homer’s poems would
hardly have been what the Elizabethans took for poetry; without Pope’s
smoothness, and Pope’s points, the Iliad and Odyssey would have seemed
rude, and harsh in the age of Anne. These great translations must
always live as English poems. As transcripts of Homer they are like
pictures drawn from a lost point of view. _Chaque siècle depuis le xvie
a eu de ce côté son belvéder différent_. Again, when Europe woke to a
sense, an almost exaggerated and certainly uncritical sense, of the
value of her songs of the people, of all the ballads that Herder,
Scott, Lonnrot, and the rest collected, it was commonly said that Homer
was a ballad-minstrel, that the translator must imitate the simplicity,
and even adopt the formulae of the ballad. Hence came the renderings of
Maginn, the experiments of Mr. Gladstone, and others. There was some
excuse for the error of critics who asked for a Homer in ballad rhyme.
The Epic poet, the poet of gods and heroes, did indeed inherit some of
the formulae of the earlier _Volks-lied_. Homer, like the author of
_The Song of Roland_, like the singers of the _Kalevala_, uses
constantly recurring epithets, and repeats, word for word, certain
emphatic passages, messages, and so on. That custom is essential in the
ballad, it is an accident not the essence of the epic. The epic is a
poem of complete and elaborate art, but it still bears some birthmarks,
some signs of the early popular chant, out of which it sprung, as the
garden-rose springs from the wild stock, When this is recognised the
demand for ballad-like simplicity and “ballad-slang” ceases to exist,
and then all Homeric translations in the ballad manner cease to
represent our conception of Homer. After the belief in the ballad
manner follows the recognition of the romantic vein in Homer, and, as a
result, came Mr. Worsley’s admirable Odyssey. This masterly translation
does all that can be done for the Odyssey in the romantic style. The
smoothness of the verse, the wonderful closeness to the original,
reproduce all of Homer, in music and in meaning, that can be rendered
in English verse. There still, however, seems an aspect Homeric poems,
and a demand in connection with Homer to be recognised, and to be
satisfied.
Sainte-Beuve says, with reference probably to M. Leconte de Lisle’s
prose version of the epics, that some people treat the epics too much
as if they were sagas. Now the Homeric epics are sagas, but then they
are the sagas of the divine heroic age of Greece, and thus are told
with an art which is not the art of the Northern poets. The epics are
stories about the adventures of men living in most respects like the
men of our own race who dwelt in Iceland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.
The epics are, in a way, and as far as manners and institutions are
concerned, historical documents. Whoever regards them in this way, must
wish to read them exactly as they have reached us, without modern
ornament, with nothing added or omitted. He must recognise, with Mr.
Matthew Arnold, that what he now wants, namely, the simple truth about
the matter of the poem, can only be given in prose, “for in a verse
translation no original work is any longer recognisable.” It is for
this reason that we have attempted to tell once more, in simple prose,
the story of Odysseus. We have tried to transfer, not all the truth
about the poem, but the historical truth, into English. In this process
Homer must lose at least half his charm, his bright and equable speed,
the musical current of that narrative, which, like the river of Egypt,
flows from an indiscoverable source, and mirrors the temples and the
palaces of unforgotten gods and kings. Without this music of verse,
only a half truth about Homer can be told, but then it is that half of
the truth which, at this moment, it seems most necessary to tell. This
is the half of the truth that the translators who use verse cannot
easily tell. They _must_ be adding to Homer, talking with Pope about
“tracing the mazy lev’ret o’er the lawn,” or with Mr. Worsley about the
islands that are “stars of the blue Aegaean,” or with Dr. Hawtrey about
“the earth’s soft arms,” when Homer says nothing at all about the “mazy
lev’ret,” or the “stars of the blue Aegaean,” or the “soft arms” of
earth. It would be impertinent indeed to blame any of these
translations in their place. They give that which the romantic reader
of poetry, or the student of the age of Anne, looks for in verse; and
without tags of this sort, a translation of Homer in verse cannot well
be made to hold together.
There can be then, it appears, no final English translation of Homer.
In each there must be, in addition to what is Greek and eternal, the
element of what is modern, personal, and fleeting. Thus we trust that
there may be room for “the pale and far-off shadow of a prose
translation,” of which the aim is limited and humble. A prose
translation cannot give the movement and the fire of a successful
translation in verse; it only gathers, as it were, the crumbs which
fall from the richer table, only tells the story, without the song. Yet
to a prose translation is permitted, perhaps, that close adherence to
the archaisms of the epic, which in verse become mere oddities. The
double epithets, the recurring epithets of Homer, if rendered into
verse, delay and puzzle the reader, as the Greek does not delay or
puzzle him. In prose he may endure them, or even care to study them as
the survivals of a stage of taste, which is to be found in its prime in
the sagas. These double and recurring epithets of Homer are a softer
form of the quaint Northern periphrases, which make the sea the “swan’s
bath,” gold, the “dragon’s hoard,” men, the “ring-givers,” and so on.
We do not know whether it is necessary to defend our choice of a
somewhat antiquated prose. Homer has no ideas which cannot be expressed
in words that are “old and plain,” and to words that are old and plain,
and, as a rule, to such terms as, being used by the Translators of the
Bible, are still not unfamiliar, we have tried to restrict ourselves.
It may be objected, that the employment of language which does not come
spontaneously to the lips, is an affectation out of place in a version
of the Odyssey. To this we may answer that the Greek Epic dialect, like
the English of our Bible, was a thing of slow growth and composite
nature, that it was never a spoken language, nor, except for certain
poetical purposes, a written language. Thus the Biblical English seems
as nearly analogous to the Epic Greek, as anything that our tongue has
to offer.
The few foot-notes in this book are chiefly intended to make clear some
passages where there is a choice of reading. The notes at the end,
which we would like to have written in the form of essays, and in
company with more complete philological and archaeological studies, are
chiefly meant to elucidate the life of Homer’s men.
We have received much help from many friends, and especially from Mr.
R. W. Raper, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford and Mr. Gerald Balfour,
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who have aided us with many
suggestions while the book was passing through the press.
In the interpretation of B. i. 411, ii. 191, v. 90, and 471, we have
departed from the received view, and followed Mr. Raper, who, however,
has not been able to read through the proof-sheets further than Book
xii.
We have adopted La Roche’s text (Homeri Odyssea, J. La Roche, Leipzig,
1867), except in a few cases where we mention our reading in a
foot-note.
The Arguments prefixed to the Books are taken, with very slight
alterations, from Hobbes’ Translation of the Odyssey.
It is hoped that the Introduction added to the second edition may
illustrate the growth of those national legends on which Homer worked,
and may elucidate the plot of the Odyssey.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
We owe our thanks to the Rev. E. Warre, of Eton College, for certain
corrections on nautical points. In particular, he has convinced us that
the raft of Odysseus in B. v. is a raft strictly so called, and that it
is not, under the poet’s description, elaborated into a ship, as has
been commonly supposed. The translation of the passage (B. v. 246-261)
is accordingly altered.
INTRODUCTION.
COMPOSITION AND PLOT OF THE ODYSSEY.
The _Odyssey_ is generally supposed to be somewhat the later in date of
the two most ancient Greek poems which are concerned with the events
and consequences of the Trojan war. As to the actual history of that
war, it may be said that nothing is known. We may conjecture that some
contest between peoples of more or less kindred stocks, who occupied
the isles and the eastern and western shores of the Aegean, left a
strong impression on the popular fancy. Round the memories of this
contest would gather many older legends, myths, and stories, not
peculiarly Greek or even “Aryan,” which previously floated unattached,
or were connected with heroes whose fame was swallowed up by that of a
newer generation. It would be the work of minstrels, priests, and
poets, as the national spirit grew conscious of itself, to shape all
these materials into a definite body of tradition. This is the rule of
development—first scattered stories, then the union of these into a
_national_ legend. The growth of later national legends, which we are
able to trace, historically, has generally come about in this fashion.
To take the best known example, we are able to compare the real history
of Charlemagne with the old epic poems on his life and exploits. In
these poems we find that facts are strangely exaggerated, and
distorted; that purely fanciful additions are made to the true records,
that the more striking events of earlier history are crowded into the
legend of Charles, that mere fairy tales, current among African as well
as European peoples, are transmuted into false history, and that the
anonymous characters of fairy tales are converted into historical
personages. We can also watch the process by which feigned genealogies
were constructed, which connected the princely houses of France with
the imaginary heroes of the epics. The conclusion is that the poetical
history of Charlemagne has only the faintest relations to the true
history. And we are justified in supposing that, quite as little of the
real history of events can be extracted from the tale of Troy, as from
the _Chansons de Geste_.
By the time the _Odyssey_ was composed, it is certain that a poet had
before him a well-arranged mass of legends and traditions from which he
might select his materials. The author of the _Iliad_ has an extremely
full and curiously consistent knowledge of the local traditions of
Greece, the memories which were cherished by Thebans, Pylians, people
of Mycenae, of Argos, and so on. The _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ assume
this knowledge in the hearers of the poems, and take for granted some
acquaintance with other legends, as with the story of the Argonautic
Expedition. Now that story itself is a tissue of popular tales,—still
current in many distant lands,—but all woven by the Greek genius into
the history of Iason.
The history of the return of Odysseus as told in the _Odyssey_, is in
the same way, a tissue of old _märchen_. These must have existed for an
unknown length of time before they gravitated into the cycle of the
tale of Troy.
The extraordinary artistic skill with which legends and myths,
originally unconnected with each other, are woven into the plot of the
_Odyssey_, so that the marvels of savage and barbaric fancy become
indispensable parts of an artistic whole, is one of the chief proofs of
the unity of authorship of that poem. We now go on to sketch the plot,
which is a marvel of construction.
Odysseus was the King of Ithaca, a small and rugged island on the
western coast of Greece. When he was but lately married to Penelope,
and while his only son Telemachus was still an infant, the Trojan war
began. It is scarcely necessary to say that the object of this war, as
conceived of by the poets, was to win back Helen, the wife of Menelaus,
from Paris, the son of Priam, King of Troy. As Menelaus was the brother
of Agamemnon, the Emperor, so to speak, or recognised chief of the
petty kingdoms of Greece, the whole force of these kingdoms was at his
disposal. No prince came to the leaguer of Troy from a home more remote
than that of Odysseus. When Troy was taken, in the tenth year of the
war, his homeward voyage was the longest and most perilous.
The action of the _Odyssey_ occupies but the last six weeks of the ten
years during which Odysseus was wandering. Two nights in these six
weeks are taken up, however, by his own narrative of his adventures (to
the Phaeacians, p. xx) in the previous ten years. With this explanatory
narrative we must begin, before coming to the regular action of the
poem.
After the fall of Troy, Odysseus touched at Ismarus, the city of a
Thracian people, whom he attacked and plundered, but by whom he was at
last repulsed. The north wind then carried his ships to Malea, the
extreme southern point of Greece. Had he doubled Malea safely, he would
probably have reached Ithaca in a few days, would have found Penelope
unvexed by wooers, and Telemachus a boy of ten years old. But this was
not to be.
The “ruinous winds” drove Odysseus and his ships for ten days, and on
the tenth they touched the land of the Lotus-Eaters, whose flowery food
causes sweet forgetfulness. Lotus-land was possibly in Western Libya,
but it is more probable that ten days’ voyage from the southern point
of Greece, brought Odysseus into an unexplored region of fairy-land.
Egypt, of which Homer had some knowledge, was but five days’ sail from
Crete.
Lotus-land, therefore, being ten days’ sail from Malea, was well over
the limit of the discovered world. From this country Odysseus went on
till he reached the land of the lawless Cyclôpes, a pastoral people of
giants. Later Greece feigned that the Cyclôpes dwelt near Mount Etna,
in Sicily. Homer leaves their place of abode in the vague. Among the
Cyclôpes, Odysseus had the adventure on which his whole fortunes
hinged. He destroyed the eye of the cannibal giant, Polyphemus, a son
of Poseidon, the God of the Sea. To avenge this act, Poseidon drove
Odysseus wandering for ten long years, and only suffered him to land in
Ithaca, “alone, in evil case, to find troubles in his house.” This is a
very remarkable point in the plot. The story of the crafty adventurer
and the blinding of the giant, with the punning device by which the
hero escaped, exists in the shape of a detached _märchen_ or fairy-tale
among races who never heard of Homer. And when we find the story among
Oghuzians, Esthonians, Basques, and Celts, it seems natural to suppose
that these people did not break a fragment out of the _Odyssey_, but
that the author of the _Odyssey_ took possession of a legend out of the
great traditional store of fiction. From the wide distribution of the
tale, there is reason to suppose that it is older than Homer, and that
it was not originally told of Odysseus, but was attached to his legend,
as floating jests of unknown authorship are attributed to eminent wits.
It has been remarked with truth that in this episode Odysseus acts out
of character, that he is foolhardy as well as cunning. Yet the author
of the _Odyssey_, so far from merely dove-tailing this story at random
into his narrative, has made his whole plot turn on the injury to the
Cyclops. Had he not foolishly exposed himself and his companions, by
his visit to the Cyclops, Odysseus would never have been driven
wandering for ten weary years. The prayers of the blinded Cyclops were
heard and fulfilled by Poseidon.
From the land of the Cyclops, Odysseus and his company sailed to the
Isle of Aeolus, the king of the winds. This place too is undefined; we
only learn that, even with the most favourable gale, it was ten days’
sail from Ithaca. In the Isle of Aeolus Odysseus abode for a month, and
then received from the king a bag in which all the winds were bound,
except that which was to waft the hero to his home. This sort of bag
was probably not unfamiliar to superstitious Greek sailors who had
dealings with witches, like the modern wise women of the Lapps. The
companions of the hero opened the bag when Ithaca was in sight, the
winds rushed out, the ships were borne back to the Aeolian Isle, and
thence the hero was roughly dismissed by Aeolus. Seven days’ sail
brought him to Lamos, a city of the cannibal Laestrygonians. Their
country, too, is in No-man’s-land, and nothing can be inferred from the
fact that their fountain was called Artacia, and that there was an
Artacia in Cyzicus. In Lamos a very important adventure befel Odysseus.
The cannibals destroyed all his fleet, save one ship, with which he
made his escape to the Isle of Circé. Here the enchantress turned part
of the crew into swine, but Odysseus, by aid of the god Hermes,
redeemed them, and became the lover of Circé. This adventure, like the
story of the Cyclops, is a fairy tale of great antiquity. Dr. Gerland,
in his _Alt Griechische Märchen in der Odyssee_, has shown that the
story makes part of the collection of Somadeva, a store of Indian
tales, of which 1200 A.D. is the approximate date. Circé appears as a
Yackshini, and is conquered when an adventurer seizes her flute whose
magic music turns men into beasts. The Indian Circé had the habit of
eating the animals into which she transformed men.
We must suppose that the affairs with the Cicones, the Lotus-eaters,
the Cyclops, Aeolus, and the Laestrygonians, occupied most of the first
year after the fall of Troy. A year was then spent in the Isle of
Circé, after which the sailors were eager to make for home. Circé
commanded them to go down to Hades, to learn the homeward way from the
ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias. The descent into hell, for some
similar purpose, is common in the epics of other races, such as the
Finns, and the South-Sea Islanders. The narrative of Odysseus’s visit
to the dead (book xi) is one of the most moving passages in the whole
poem.
From Teiresias Odysseus learned that, if he would bring his companions
home, he must avoid injuring the sacred cattle of the Sun, which
pastured in the Isle of Thrinacia. If these were harmed, he would
arrive in Ithaca alone, or in the words of the Cyclops’s prayer, “in
evil plight, with loss of all his company, on board the ship of
strangers, to find sorrow in his house.” On returning to the Isle
Aeaean, Odysseus was warned by Circé of the dangers he would encounter.
He and his friends set forth, escaped the Sirens (a sort of
mermaidens), evaded the Clashing Rocks, which close on ships (a fable
known to the Aztecs), passed Scylla (the _pieuvre_ of antiquity) with
loss of some of the company, and reached Thrinacia, the Isle of the
Sun. Here the company of Odysseus, constrained by hunger, devoured the
sacred kine of the Sun, for which offence they were punished by a
shipwreck, when all were lost save Odysseus. He floated ten days on a
raft, and then reached the isle of the goddess Calypso, who kept him as
her lover for eight years.
The first two years after the fall of Troy are now accounted for. They
were occupied, as we have seen, by adventures with the Cicones, the
Lotus-eaters, the Cyclops, Aeolus, the Laestrygonians, by a year’s
residence with Circé, by the descent into Hades, the encounters with
the Sirens, and Scylla, and the fatal sojourn in the isle of Thrinacia.
We leave Odysseus alone, for eight years, consuming his own heart, in
the island paradise of Calypso.
In Ithaca, the hero’s home, things seem to have passed smoothly till
about the sixth year after the fall of Troy. Then the men of the
younger generation, the island chiefs, began to woo Penelope, and to
vex her son Telemachus. Laertes, the father of Odysseus, was too old to
help, and Penelope only gained time by her famous device of weaving and
unweaving the web. The wooers began to put compulsion on the Queen,
quartering themselves upon her, devouring her substance, and insulting
her by their relations with her handmaids. Thus Penelope pined at home,
amidst her wasting possessions. Telemachus fretted in vain, and
Odysseus was devoured by grief and home-sickness in the isle of
Calypso. When he had lain there for nigh eight years, the action of the
_Odyssey_ begins, and occupies about six weeks.
DAY 1 (Book i).
The _ordained_ time has now arrived, when by the counsels of the Gods,
Odysseus is to be brought home to free his house, to avenge himself on
the wooers, and recover his kingdom. The chief agent in his restoration
is Pallas Athene; the first book opens with her prayer to Zeus that
Odysseus may be delivered. For this purpose Hermes is to be sent to
Calypso to bid her release Odysseus, while Pallas Athene in the shape
of Mentor, a friend of Odysseus, visits Telemachus in Ithaca. She bids
him call an assembly of the people, dismiss the wooers to their homes,
and his mother to her father’s house, and go in quest of his own
father, in Pylos, the city of Nestor, and Sparta, the home of Menelaus.
Telemachus recognises the Goddess, and the first day closes.
DAY 2 (Book ii).
Telemachus assembles the people, but he has not the heart to carry out
Athene’s advice. He cannot send the wooers away, nor turn his mother
out of her house. He rather weakly appeals to the wooers’ consciences,
and announces his intention of going to seek his father. They answer
with scorn, but are warned of their fate, which is even at the doors,
by Halitherses. His prophecy (first made when Odysseus set out for
Troy) tallies with the prophecy of Teiresias, and the prayer of the
Cyclops. The reader will observe a series of portents, prophecies, and
omens, which grow more numerous and admonishing as their doom draws
nearer to the wooers. Their hearts, however, are hardened, and they
mock at Telemachus, who, after an interview with Athene, borrows a ship
and secretly sets out for Pylos. Athene accompanies him, and his
friends man his galley.
DAY 3 (Book iii).
They reach Pylos, and are kindly received by the aged Nestor, who has
no news about Odysseus. After sacrifice, Athene disappears.
DAY 4 (Book iii).
The fourth day is occupied with sacrifice, and the talk of Nestor. In
the evening Telemachus (leaving his ship and friends at Pylos) drives
his chariot into Pherae, half way to Sparta; Peisistratus, the son of
Nestor, accompanies him.
DAY 5 (Book iv).
Telemachus and Peisistratus arrive at Sparta, where Menelaus and Helen
receive them kindly.
DAY 6 (Book iv).
Menelaus tells how he himself came home in the eighth year after the
fall of Troy. He had heard from Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, that
Odysseus was alive, and a captive on an island of the deep. Menelaus
invites Telemachus to stay with him for eleven days or twelve, which
Telemachus declines to do. It will later appear that he made an even
longer stay at Sparta, though whether he changed his mind, or whether
we have here an inadvertence of the poet’s it is hard to determine.
This blemish has been used as an argument against the unity of
authorship, but writers of all ages have made graver mistakes.
On this same day (the sixth) the wooers in Ithaca learned that
Telemachus had really set out to “cruise after his father.” They sent
some of their number to lie in ambush for him, in a certain strait
which he was likely to pass on his return to Ithaca. Penelope also
heard of her son’s departure, but was consoled by a dream.
DAY 7 (Book v).
The seventh day finds us again in Olympus. Athene again urges the
release of Odysseus; and Hermes is sent to bid Calypso let the hero go.
Zeus prophecies that after twenty days sailing, Odysseus will reach
Scheria, and the hospitable Phaeacians, a people akin to the Gods, who
will convey him to Ithaca. Hermes accomplishes the message to Calypso.
DAYS 8-12-32 (Book v).
These days are occupied by Odysseus in making and launching a raft; on
the twelfth day from the beginning of the action he leaves Calypso’s
isle. He sails for eighteen days, and on the eighteenth day of his
voyage (the twenty-ninth from the beginning of the action), he sees
Scheria. Poseidon raises a storm against him, and it is not till the
thirty-second day from that in which Athene visited Telemachus, that he
lands in Scheria, the country of the Phaeacians. Here he is again in
fairy land. A rough, but perfectly recognisable form of the Phaeacian
myth, is found in an Indian collection of _märchen_ (already referred
to) of the twelfth century A.D. Here the Phaeacians are the
Vidyâdhâris, and their old enemies the Cyclôpes, are the Rakshashas, a
sort of giants. The Indian Odysseus, who seeks the city of gold, passes
by the home of an Indian Aeolus, Satyavrata. His later adventures are
confused, and the Greek version retains only the more graceful fancies
of the _märchen_.
DAY 33 (Book vi).
Odysseus meets Nausicaa, daughter of Alcinous, the Phaeacian King, and
by her aid, and that of Athene, is favourably received at the palace,
and tells how he came from Calypso’s island. His name is still unknown
to his hosts.
DAY 34 (Books vii, viii, ix, x, xi, xii).
The Phaeacians and Odysseus display their skill in sports. Nausicaa
bids Odysseus farewell. Odysseus recounts to Alcinous, and Arete, the
Queen, those adventures in the two years between the fall of Troy and
his captivity in the island of Calypso, which we have already described
(pp. xiii-xvii).
DAY 35 (Book xiii).
Odysseus is conveyed to Ithaca, in the evening, on one of the magical
barques of the Phaeacians.
DAY 36 (Books xiii, xiv, xv).
He wakens in Ithaca, which he does not at first recognise He learns
from Athene, for the first time, that the wooers beset his house. She
disguises him as an old man, and bids him go to the hut of the
swineherd Eumaeus, who is loyal to his absent lord. Athene then goes to
Lacedaemon, to bring back Telemachus, who has now resided there for a
month. Odysseus won the heart of Eumaeus, who of course did not
recognise him, and slept in the swineherd’s hut, while Athene was
waking Telemachus, in Lacedaemon, and bidding him “be mindful of his
return.”
DAY 37 (Book xv).
Is spent by Odysseus in the swineherd’s hut. Telemachus reaches Pherae,
half-way to Pylos.
DAY 38 (Book xv).
Telemachus reaches Pylos, but does not visit Nestor. To save time he
goes at once on board ship, taking with him an unfortunate outlaw,
Theoclymenus, a second-sighted man, or the family of Melampus, in which
the gift of prophecy was hereditary. The ship passed the Elian coast at
night, and evaded the ambush of the wooers. Meanwhile Odysseus was
sitting up almost till dawn, listening to the history of Eumaeus, the
swineherd.
DAY 39 (Books xv, xvi).
Telemachus reaches the Isle of Ithaca, sends his ship to the city, but
himself, by advice of Athene, makes for the hut of Eumaeus, where he
meets, but naturally does not recognise, his disguised father. He sends
Eumaeus to Penelope with news of his arrival, and then Athene reveals
Odysseus to Telemachus. The two plot the death of the wooers. Odysseus
bids Telemachus remove, on a favourable opportunity, the arms which
were disposed as trophies on the walls of the hall at home. (There is a
slight discrepancy between the words of this advice and the manner in
which it is afterwards executed.) During this interview, the ship of
Telemachus, the wooers who had been in ambush, and Eumaeus, all reached
the town of Ithaca. In the evening Eumaeus returned to his hut, where
Athene had again disguised Odysseus.
DAY 40 (Books xvii, xviii, xix, xx).
The story is now hastening to its close, and many events are crowded
into the fortieth day. Telemachus goes from the swineherd’s hut to the
city, and calls his guest, Theoclymenus, to the palace. The
second-sighted man prophesies of the near revenge of Odysseus. In the
afternoon, Odysseus (still disguised) and Eumaeus reach the city, the
dog Argos recognises the hero, and dies. Odysseus goes begging through
his own hall, and is struck by Antinous, the proudest of the wooers.
Late in the day Eumaeus goes home, and Odysseus fights with the
braggart beggar Irus. Still later, Penelope appears among the wooers,
and receives presents from them. When the wooers have withdrawn,
Odysseus and Telemachus remove the weapons from the hall to the
armoury. Afterwards Odysseus has an interview with Penelope (who does
not recognise him), but he is recognised by his old nurse Eurycleia.
Penelope mentions her purpose to wed the man who on the following day,
the feast of the Archer-god Apollo, shall draw the bow of Odysseus, and
send an arrow through the holes in twelve axe-blades, set up in a row.
Thus the poet shows that Odysseus has arrived in Ithaca not a day too
soon. Odysseus is comforted by a vision of Athene, and
DAY 41 (Books xx, xxi, xxii, xxiii).
by the ominous prayer uttered by a weary woman grinding at the mill.
The swineherd and the disloyal Melanthius arrive at the palace. The
wooers defer the plot to kill Telemachus, as the day is holy to Apollo.
Odysseus is led up from his seat near the door to a place beside
Telemachus at the chief’s table. The wooers mock Telemachus, and the
second-sighted Theoclymenus sees the ominous shroud of death covering
their bodies, and the walls dripping with blood. He leaves the doomed
company. In the trial of the bow, none of the wooers can draw it;
meanwhile Odysseus has declared himself to the neatherd and the
swineherd. The former bars and fastens the outer gates of the court,
the latter bids Eurycleia bar the doors of the womens’ chambers which
lead out of the hall. Odysseus now gets the bow into his hands, strings
it, sends the arrow through the axe-blades, and then leaping on the
threshold of stone, deals his shafts among the wooers. Telemachus, the
neatherd, and Eumaeus, aiding him, he slaughters all the crew, despite
the treachery of Melanthius. The paramours of the wooers are hanged,
and Odysseus, after some delay, is recognised by Penelope.
DAY 42 (Books xxiii, xxiv).
This day is occupied with the recognition of Odysseus by his aged
father Laertes, and with the futile attempt of the kinsfolk of the
wooers to avenge them on Odysseus. Athene reconciles the feud, and the
toils of Odysseus are accomplished.
The reader has now before him a chronologically arranged sketch of the
action of the _Odyssey_. It is, perhaps, apparent, even from this bare
outline, that the composition is elaborate and artistic, that the
threads of the plot are skilfully separated and combined. The germ of
the whole epic is probably the popular tale, known all over the world,
of the warrior who, on his return from a long expedition, has great
difficulty in making his prudent wife recognise him. The incident
occurs as a detached story in China, and in most European countries it
is told of a crusader. “We may suppose it to be older than the legend
of Troy, and to have gravitated into the cycle of that legend. The
years of the hero’s absence are then filled up with adventures (the
Cyclops, Circé, the Phaeacians, the Sirens, the descent into hell)
which exist as scattered tales, or are woven into the more elaborate
epics of Gaels, Aztecs, Hindoos, Tartars, South-Sea Islanders, Finns,
Russians, Scandinavians, and Eskimo. The whole is surrounded with the
atmosphere of the kingly age of Greece, and the result is the Odyssey,
with that unity of plot and variety of character which must have been
given by one masterly constructive genius. The date at which the poet
of the Odyssey lived may be approximately determined by his consistent
descriptions of a peculiar and definite condition of society, which had
ceased to exist in the ninth century B.C., and of a stage of art in
which Phoenician and Assyrian influences predominated. (_Die Kunst bei
Homer._ Brunn.) As to the mode of composition, it would not be
difficult to show that at least the _a priori_ Wolfian arguments
against the early use of writing for literary purposes have no longer
the cogency which they were once thought to possess. But this is matter
for a separate investigation.
The Odyssey
BOOK I.
In a Council of the Gods, Poseidon absent, Pallas procureth an order
for the restitution of Odysseus; and appearing to his son Telemachus,
in human shape, adviseth him to complain of the Wooers before the
Council of the people, and then go to Pylos and Sparta to inquire about
his father.
Tell me, Muse, of that man, so ready at need, who wandered far and
wide, after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy, and many were the
men whose towns he saw and whose mind he learnt, yea, and many the woes
he suffered in his heart upon the deep, striving to win his own life
and the return of his company. Nay, but even so he saved not his
company, though he desired it sore. For through the blindness of their
own hearts they perished, fools, who devoured the oxen of Helios
Hyperion: but the god took from them their day of returning. Of these
things, goddess, daughter of Zeus, whencesoever thou hast heard
thereof, declare thou even unto us.
Now all the rest, as many as fled from sheer destruction, were at home,
and had escaped both war and sea, but Odysseus only, craving for his
wife and for his homeward path, the lady nymph Calypso held, that fair
goddess, in her hollow caves, longing to have him for her lord. But
when now the year had come in the courses of the seasons, wherein the
gods had ordained that he should return home to Ithaca, not even there
was he quit of labours, not even among his own; but all the gods had
pity on him save Poseidon, who raged continually against godlike
Odysseus, till he came to his own country. Howbeit Poseidon had now
departed for the distant Ethiopians, the Ethiopians that are sundered
in twain, the uttermost of men, abiding some where Hyperion sinks and
some where he rises. There he looked to receive his hecatomb of bulls
and rams, there he made merry sitting at the feast, but the other gods
were gathered in the halls of Olympian Zeus. Then among them the father
of gods and men began to speak, for he bethought him in his heart of
noble Aegisthus, whom the son of Agamemnon, far-famed Orestes, slew.
Thinking upon him he spake out among the Immortals:
“Lo you now, how vainly mortal men do blame the gods! For of us they
say comes evil, whereas they even of themselves, through the blindness
of their own hearts, have sorrows beyond that which is ordained. Even
as of late Aegisthus, beyond that which was ordained, took to him the
wedded wife of the son of Atreus, and killed her lord on his return,
and that with sheer doom before his eyes, since we had warned him by
the embassy of Hermes the keen-sighted, the slayer of Argos, that he
should neither kill the man, nor woo his wife. For the son of Atreus
shall be avenged at the hand of Orestes, so soon as he shall come to
man’s estate and long for his own country. So spake Hermes, yet he
prevailed not on the heart of Aegisthus, for all his good will; but now
hath he paid one price for all.”
And the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him, saying: “O father, our
father Cronides, throned in the highest; that man assuredly lies in a
death that is his due; so perish likewise all who work such deeds! But
my heart is rent for wise Odysseus, that hapless one, who far from his
friends this long while suffereth affliction in a seagirt isle, where
is the navel of the sea, a woodland isle, and therein a goddess hath
her habitation, the daughter of the wizard Atlas, who knows the depths
of every sea, and himself upholds the tall pillars which keep earth and
sky asunder. His daughter it is that holds the hapless man in sorrow:
and ever with soft and guileful tales she is wooing him to
forgetfulness of Ithaca. But Odysseus yearning to see if it were but
the smoke leap upwards from his own land, hath a desire to die. As for
thee, thine heart regardeth it not at all, Olympian! What! did not
Odysseus by the ships of the Argives make thee free offering of
sacrifice in the wide Trojan land? Wherefore wast thou then so wroth
with him, O Zeus?”
And Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered her, and said, “My child, what
word hath escaped the door of thy lips? Yea, how should I forget divine
Odysseus, who in understanding is beyond mortals and beyond all men
hath done sacrifice to the deathless gods, who keep the wide heaven?
Nay, but it is Poseidon, the girdler of the earth, that hath been wroth
continually with quenchless anger for the Cyclops’ sake whom he blinded
of his eye, even godlike Polyphemus whose power is mightiest amongst
all the Cyclôpes. His mother was the nymph Thoösa, daughter of Phorcys,
lord of the unharvested sea, and in the hollow caves she lay with
Poseidon. From that day forth Poseidon the earth-shaker doth not indeed
slay Odysseus, but driveth him wandering from his own country. But
come, let us here one and all take good counsel as touching his
returning, that he may be got home; so shall Poseidon let go his
displeasure, for he will in no wise be able to strive alone against
all, in despite of all the deathless gods.”
Then the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him, and said: “O father,
our father Cronides, throned in the highest, if indeed this thing is
now well pleasing to the blessed gods, that wise Odysseus should return
to his own home, let us then speed Hermes the Messenger, the slayer of
Argos, to the island of Ogygia. There with all speed let him declare to
the lady of the braided tresses our unerring counsel, even the return
of the patient Odysseus, that so he may come to his home. But as for me
I will go to Ithaca that I may rouse his son yet the more, planting
might in his heart, to call an assembly of the long-haired Achaeans and
speak out to all the wooers who slaughter continually the sheep of his
thronging flocks, and his kine with trailing feet and shambling gait.
And I will guide him to Sparta and to sandy Pylos to seek tidings of
his dear father’s return, if peradventure he may hear thereof and that
so he may be had in good report among men.”
She spake and bound beneath her feet her lovely golden sandals that wax
not old, and bare her alike over the wet sea and over the limitless
land, swift as the breath of the wind. And she seized her doughty
spear, shod with sharp bronze, weighty and huge and strong, wherewith
she quells the ranks of heroes with whomsoever she is wroth, the
daughter of the mighty sire. Then from the heights of Olympus she came
glancing down, and she stood in the land of Ithaca, at the entry of the
gate of Odysseus, on the threshold of the courtyard, holding in her
hand the spear of bronze, in the semblance of a stranger, Mentes the
captain of the Taphians. And there she found the lordly wooers: now
they were taking their pleasure at draughts in front of the doors,
sitting on hides of oxen, which themselves had slain. And of the
henchmen and the ready squires, some were mixing for them wine and
water in bowls, and some again were washing the tables with porous
sponges and were setting them forth, and others were carving flesh in
plenty.
And godlike Telemachus was far the first to descry her, for he was
sitting with a heavy heart among the wooers dreaming on his good
father, if haply he might come somewhence, and make a scattering of the
wooers there throughout the palace, and himself get honour and bear
rule among his own possessions. Thinking thereupon, as he sat among
wooers, he saw Athene—and he went straight to the outer porch, for he
thought it blame in his heart that a stranger should stand long at the
gates: and halting nigh her he clasped her right hand and took from her
the spear of bronze, and uttered his voice and spake unto her winged
words:
“Hail, stranger, with us thou shalt be kindly entreated, and
thereafter, when thou hast tasted meat, thou shalt tell us that whereof
thou hast need.”
Therewith he led the way, and Pallas Athene followed. And when they
were now within the lofty house, he set her spear that he bore against
a tall pillar, within the polished spear-stand, where stood many spears
besides, even those of Odysseus of the hardy heart; and he led the
goddess and seated her on a goodly carven chair, and spread a linen
cloth thereunder, and beneath was a footstool for the feet. For himself
he placed an inlaid seat hard by, apart from the company of the wooers,
lest the stranger should be disquieted by the noise and should have a
loathing for the meal, being come among overweening men, and also that
he might ask him about his father that was gone from his home.
Then a handmaid bare water for the washing of hands in a goodly golden
ewer, and poured it forth over a silver basin to wash withal, and drew
to their side a polished table. And a grave dame bare wheaten bread and
set it by them, and laid on the board many dainties, giving freely of
such things as she had by her. And a carver lifted and placed by them
platters of divers kinds of flesh, and nigh them he set golden bowls,
and a henchman walked to and fro pouring out to them the wine.
Then in came the lordly wooers; and they sat them down in rows on
chairs, and on high seats, and henchmen poured water on their hands,
and maidservants piled wheaten bread by them in baskets, and pages
crowned the bowls with drink; and they stretched forth their hands upon
the good cheer spread before them. Now when the wooers had put from
them the desire of meat and drink, they minded them of other things,
even of the song and dance: for these are the crown of the feast. And a
henchman placed a beauteous lyre in the hands of Phemius, who was
minstrel to the wooers despite his will. Yea and as he touched the lyre
he lifted up his voice in sweet songs.[1]
[1] Or, according to the ordinary interpretation of ἀνεβάλλετο: So he
touched the chords in prelude to his sweet singing.
But Telemachus spake unto grey-eyed Athene, holding his head close to
her that those others might not hear: “Dear stranger, wilt thou of a
truth be wroth at the word that I shall say? Yonder men verily care for
such things as these, the lyre and song, lightly, as they that devour
the livelihood of another without atonement, of that man whose white
bones, it may be, lie wasting in the rain upon the mainland, or the
billow rolls them in the brine. Were but these men to see him returned
to Ithaca, they all would pray rather for greater speed of foot than
for gain of gold and raiment. But now he hath perished, even so, an
evil doom, and for us is no comfort, no, not though any of earthly men
should say that he will come again. Gone is the day of his returning!
But come declare me this, and tell me all plainly: Who art thou of the
sons of men, and whence? Where is thy city, where are they that begat
thee? Say, on what manner of ship didst thou come, and how did sailors
bring thee to Ithaca, and who did they avow themselves to be, for in
nowise do I deem that thou camest hither by land. And herein tell me
true, that I may know for a surety whether thou art a newcomer, or
whether thou art a guest of the house, seeing that many were the
strangers that came to our home, for that _he_ too had voyaged much
among men.”
Then the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him: “Yea now, I will
plainly tell thee all. I avow me to be Mentes, son of wise Anchialus,
and I bear rule among the Taphians, lovers of the oar. And now am I
come to shore, as thou seest, with ship and crew, sailing over the
wine-dark sea, unto men of strange speech, even to Temesa,[2] in quest
of copper, and my cargo is shining iron. And there my ship is lying
toward the upland, away from the city, in the harbour of Rheithron
beneath wooded Neïon: and we declare ourselves to be friends one of the
other, and of houses friendly, from of old. Nay, if thou wouldest be
assured, go ask the old man, the hero Laertes, who they say no more
comes to the city, but far away toward the upland suffers affliction,
with an ancient woman for his handmaid, who sets by him meat and drink,
whensoever weariness takes hold of his limbs, as he creeps along the
knoll of his vineyard plot. And now am I come; for verily they said
that _he_, thy father, was among his people; but lo, the gods withhold
him from his way. For goodly Odysseus hath not yet perished on the
earth; but still, methinks, he lives and is kept on the wide deep in a
seagirt isle, and hard men constrain him, wild folk that hold him, it
may be, sore against his will. But now of a truth will I utter my word
of prophecy, as the Immortals bring it into my heart and as I deem it
will be accomplished, though no soothsayer am I, nor skilled in the
signs of birds. Henceforth indeed for no long while shall he be far
from his own dear country, not though bonds of iron bind him; he will
advise him of a way to return, for he is a man of many devices. But
come, declare me this, and tell me all plainly, whether indeed, so tall
as thou art, thou art sprung from the loins of Odysseus. Thy head
surely and they beauteous eyes are wondrous like to his, since full
many a time have we held converse together ere he embarked for Troy,
whither the others, aye the bravest of the Argives, went in hollow
ships. From that day forth neither have I seen Odysseus, nor he me.”
[2] Tamasia, in the mountainous centre of Cyprus.
Then wise Telemachus answered her, and said: “Yea, sir, now will I
plainly tell thee all. My mother verily saith that I am his; for myself
I know not, for never man yet knew of himself his own descent. O that I
had been the son of some blessed man, whom old age overtook among his
own possessions! But now of him that is the most hapless of mortal men,
his son they say that I am, since thou dost question me hereof.”
Then the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, spake unto him, and said: “Surely
no nameless lineage have the gods ordained for thee in days to come,
since Penelope bore thee so goodly a man. But come, declare me this,
and tell it all plainly. What feast, nay, what rout is this? What hast
thou to do therewith? Is it a clan drinking, or a wedding feast, for
here we have no banquet where each man brings his share? In such wise,
flown with insolence, do they seem to me to revel wantonly through the
house: and well might any man be wroth to see so many deeds of shame,
whatso wise man came among them.”
Then wise Telemachus answered her, and said: “Sir, forasmuch as thou
questionest me of these things and inquirest thereof, our house was
once like to have been rich and honourable, while yet that man was
among his people. But now the gods willed it otherwise, in evil
purpose, who have made him pass utterly out of sight as no man ever
before. Truly I would not even for his death make so great sorrow, had
he fallen among his fellows in the land of the Trojans, or in the arms
of his friends when he had wound up the clew of war. Then would the
whole Achaean host have builded him a barrow, and even for his son
would he have won great glory in the after days. But now the spirits of
the storm have swept him away inglorious. He is gone, lost to sight and
hearsay, but for me hath he left anguish and lamentation; nor
henceforth is it for him alone that I mourn and weep, since the gods
have wrought for me other sore distress. For all the noblest that are
princes in the isles, in Dulichium and Same and wooded Zacynthus, and
as many as lord it in rocky Ithaca, all these woo my mother and waste
my house. But as for her she neither refuseth the hated bridal, nor
hath the heart to make an end: so they devour and minish my house, and
ere long will they make havoc likewise of myself.”
Then in heavy displeasure spake unto him Pallas Athene: “God help thee!
thou art surely sore in need of Odysseus that is afar, to stretch forth
his hands upon the shameless wooers. If he could but come now and stand
at the entering in of the gate, with helmet and shield and lances
twain, as mighty a man as when first I marked him in our house drinking
and making merry what time he came up out of Ephyra from Ilus son of
Mermerus! For even thither had Odysseus gone on his swift ship to seek
a deadly drug, that he might have wherewithal to smear his bronze-shod
arrows: but Ilus would in nowise give it to him, for he had in awe the
everliving gods. But my father gave it him, for he bare him wondrous
love. O that Odysseus might in such strength consort with the wooers:
so should they all have swift fate and bitter wedlock! Howbeit these
things surely lie on the knees of the gods, whether he shall return or
not, and take vengeance in his halls. But I charge thee to take counsel
how thou mayest thrust forth the wooers from the hall. Come now, mark
and take heed unto my words. On the morrow call the Achaean lords to
the assembly, and declare thy saying to all, and take the gods to
witness. As for the wooers bid them scatter them each one to his own,
and for thy mother, if her heart is moved to marriage, let her go back
to the hall of that mighty man her father, and her kinsfolk will
furnish a wedding feast, and array the gifts of wooing exceeding many,
all that should go back with a daughter dearly beloved. And to thyself
I will give a word of wise counsel, if perchance thou wilt hearken. Fit
out a ship, the best thou hast, with twenty oarsmen, and go to inquire
concerning thy father that is long afar, if perchance any man shall
tell thee aught, or if thou mayest hear the voice from Zeus, which
chiefly brings tidings to men. Get thee first to Pylos and inquire of
goodly Nestor, and from thence to Sparta to Menelaus of the fair hair,
for he came home the last of the mail-coated Achaeans. If thou shalt
hear news of the life and the returning of thy father, then verily thou
mayest endure the wasting for yet a year. But if thou shalt hear that
he is dead and gone, return then to thine own dear country and pile his
mound, and over it pay burial rites, full many as is due, and give thy
mother to a husband. But when thou hast done this and made an end,
thereafter take counsel in thy mind and heart, how thou mayest slay the
wooers in thy halls, whether by guile or openly; for thou shouldest not
carry childish thoughts, being no longer of years thereto. Or hast thou
not heard what renown the goodly Orestes gat him among all men in that
he slew the slayer of his father, guileful Aegisthus, who killed his
famous sire? And thou, too, my friend, for I see that thou art very
comely and tall, be valiant, that even men unborn may praise thee. But
I will now go down to the swift ship and to my men, who methinks chafe
much at tarrying for me; and do thou thyself take heed and give ear
unto my words.”
Then wise Telemachus answered her, saying: “Sir, verily thou speakest
these things out of a friendly heart, as a father to his son, and never
will I forget them. But now I pray thee abide here, though eager to be
gone, to the end that after thou hast bathed and had all thy heart’s
desire, thou mayest wend to the ship joyful in spirit, with a costly
gift and very goodly, to be an heirloom of my giving, such as dear
friends give to friends.”
Then the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him: “Hold me now no
longer, that am eager for the way. But whatsoever gift thine heart
shall bid thee give me, when I am on my way back let it be mine to
carry home: bear from thy stores a gift right goodly, and it shall
bring thee the worth thereof in return.”
So spake she and departed, the grey-eyed Athene, and like an eagle of
the sea she flew away, but in his spirit she planted might and courage,
and put him in mind of his father yet more than heretofore. And he
marked the thing and was amazed, for he deemed that it was a god; and
anon he went among the wooers, a godlike man.
Now the renowned minstrel was singing to the wooers, and they sat
listening in silence; and his song was of the pitiful return of the
Achaeans, that Pallas Athene laid on them as they came forth from Troy.
And from her upper chamber the daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope,
caught the glorious strain, and she went down the high stairs from her
chamber, not alone, for two of her handmaids bare her company. Now when
the fair lady had come unto the wooers, she stood by the pillar of the
well-builded roof holding up her glistening tire before her face; and a
faithful maiden stood on either side her. Then she fell a weeping, and
spake unto the divine minstrel:
“Phemius, since thou knowest many other charms for mortals, deeds of
men and gods, which bards rehearse, some one of these do thou sing as
thou sittest by them, and let them drink their wine in silence; but
cease from this pitiful strain, that ever wastes my heart within my
breast, since to me above all women hath come a sorrow comfortless. So
dear a head do I long for in constant memory, namely, that man whose
fame is noised abroad from Hellas to mid Argos.”
Then wise Telemachus answered her, and said: “O my mother, why then
dost thou grudge the sweet minstrel to gladden us as his spirit moves
him? It is not minstrels who are in fault, but Zeus, methinks, is in
fault, who gives to men, that live by bread, to each one as he will. As
for him it is no blame if he sings the ill-faring of the Danaans; for
men always prize that song the most, which rings newest in their ears.
But let thy heart and mind endure to listen, for not Odysseus only lost
in Troy the day of his returning, but many another likewise perished.
Howbeit go to thy chamber and mind thine own housewiferies, the loom
and distaff, and bid thy handmaids ply their tasks. But speech shall be
for men, for all, but for me in chief; for mine is the lordship in the
house.”
Then in amaze she went back to her chamber, for she laid up the wise
saying of her son in her heart. She ascended to her upper chamber with
the women her handmaids, and then was bewailing Odysseus, her dear
lord, till grey-eyed Athene cast sweet sleep upon her eyelids.
Now the wooers clamoured throughout the shadowy halls, and each one
uttered a prayer to be her bedfellow. And wise Telemachus first spake
among them:
“Wooers of my mother, men despiteful out of measure, let us feast now
and make merry and let there be no brawling; for, lo, it is a good
thing to list to a minstrel such as him, like to the gods in voice. But
in the morning let us all go to the assembly and sit us down, that I
may declare my saying outright, to wit that ye leave these halls: and
busy yourselves with other feasts, eating your own substance, going in
turn from house to house. But if ye deem this a likelier and a better
thing, that one man’s goods should perish without atonement, then waste
ye as ye will; and I will call upon the everlasting gods, if haply Zeus
may grant that acts of recompense be made: so should ye hereafter
perish within the halls without atonement.”
So spake he, and all that heard him bit their lips and marvelled at
Telemachus, in that he spake boldly.
Then Antinous, son of Eupeithes, answered him: “Telemachus, in very
truth the gods themselves instruct thee to be proud of speech and
boldly to harangue. Never may Cronion make thee king in seagirt Ithaca,
which thing is of inheritance thy right!”
Then wise Telemachus answered him, and said: “Antinous, wilt thou
indeed be wroth at the word that I shall say? Yea, at the hand of Zeus
would I be fain to take even this thing upon me. Sayest thou that this
is the worst hap that can befal a man? Nay, verily, it is no ill thing
to be a king: the house of such an one quickly waxeth rich and himself
is held in greater honour. Howsoever there are many other kings of the
Achaeans in seagirt Ithaca, kings young and old; someone of them shall
surely have this kingship since goodly Odysseus is dead. But as for me,
I will be lord of our own house and thralls, that goodly Odysseus gat
me with his spear.”
Then Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered him, saying: “Telemachus, on
the knees of the gods it surely lies, what man is to be king over the
Achaeans in seagirt Ithaca. But mayest thou keep thine own possessions
and be lord in thine own house! Never may that man come, who shall
wrest from thee thy substance violently in thine own despite while
Ithaca yet stands. But I would ask thee, friend, concerning the
stranger—whence he is, and of what land he avows him to be? Where are
his kin and his native fields? Doth he bear some tidings of thy father
on his road, or cometh he thus to speed some matter of his own? In such
wise did he start up, and lo, he was gone, nor tarried he that we
should know him;—and yet he seemed no mean man to look upon.”[3]
[3] The γὰρ explains the expression of surprise at the sudden
departure of the stranger.
Then wise Telemachus answered him, and said: “Eurymachus, surely the
day of my father’s returning hath gone by. Therefore no more do I put
faith in tidings, whencesoever they may come, neither have I regard
unto any divination, whereof my mother may inquire at the lips of a
diviner, when she hath bidden him to the hall. But as for that man, he
is a friend of my house from Taphos, and he avows him to be Mentes, son
of wise Anchialus, and he hath lordship among the Taphians, lovers of
the oar.”
So spake Telemachus, but in his heart he knew the deathless goddess.
Now the wooers turned them to the dance and the delightsome song, and
made merry, and waited till evening should come on. And as they made
merry, dusk evening came upon them. Then they went each one to his own
house to lie down to rest.
But Telemachus, where his chamber was builded high up in the fair
court, in a place with wide prospect, thither betook him to his bed,
pondering many thoughts in his mind; and with him went trusty
Eurycleia, and bare for him torches burning. She was the daughter of
Ops, son of Peisenor, and Laertes bought her on a time with his wealth,
while as yet she was in her first youth, and gave for her the worth of
twenty oxen. And he honoured her even as he honoured his dear wife in
the halls, but he never lay with her, for he shunned the wrath of his
lady. She went with Telemachus and bare for him the burning torches:
and of all the women of the household she loved him most, and she had
nursed him when a little one. Then he opened the doors of the
well-builded chamber and sat him on the bed and took off his soft
doublet, and put it in the wise old woman’s hands. So she folded the
doublet and smoothed it, and hung it on a pin by the jointed bedstead,
and went forth on her way from the room, and pulled to the door with
the silver handle, and drew home the bar with the thong. There, all
night through, wrapped in a fleece of wool, he meditated in his heart
upon the journey that Athene had showed him.