Odysseus maketh himself known to Penelope, tells his adventures
briefly, and in the morning goes to Laertes and makes himself known to
him.
Then the ancient woman went up into the upper chamber laughing aloud,
to tell her mistress how her dear lord was within, and her knees moved
fast for joy, and her feet stumbled one over the other; and she stood
above the lady’s head and spake to her, saying:
“Awake, Penelope, dear child, that thou mayest see with thine own eyes
that which thou desirest day by day. Odysseus hath come, and hath got
him to his own house, though late hath he come, and hath slain the
proud wooers that troubled his house, and devoured his substance, and
oppressed his child.”
Then wise Penelope answered her: “Dear nurse, the gods have made thee
distraught, the gods that can make foolish even the wisdom of the wise,
and that stablish the simple in understanding. They it is that have
marred thy reason, though heretofore thou hadst a prudent heart. Why
dost thou mock me, who have a spirit full of sorrow, to speak these
wild words, and rousest me out of sweet slumber, that had bound me and
overshadowed mine eyelids? Never yet have I slept so sound since the
day that Odysseus went forth to see that evil Ilios, never to be named.
Go to now, get thee down and back to the women’s chamber, for if any
other of the maids of my house had come and brought me such tidings,
and wakened me from sleep, straightway would I have sent her back
woefully to return within the women’s chamber; but this time thine old
age shall stand thee in good stead.”
Then the good nurse Eurycleia answered her: “I mock thee not, dear
child, but in very deed Odysseus is here, and hath come home, even as I
tell thee. He is that guest on whom all men wrought such dishonour in
the halls. But long ago Telemachus was ware of him, that he was within
the house, yet in his prudence he hid the counsels of his father, that
he might take vengeance on the violence of the haughty wooers.”
Thus she spake, and then was Penelope glad, and leaping from her bed
she fell on the old woman’s neck, and let fall the tears from her
eyelids, and uttering her voice spake to her winged words: “Come, dear
nurse, I pray thee, tell me all truly—if indeed he hath come home as
thou sayest—how he hath laid his hands on the shameless wooers, he
being but one man, while they abode ever in their companies within the
house.”
Then the good nurse Eurycleia answered her: “I saw not, I wist not,
only I heard the groaning of men slain. And we in an inmost place of
the well-builded chambers sat all amazed, and the close-fitted doors
shut in the room, till thy son called me from the chamber, for his
father sent him out to that end. Then I found Odysseus standing among
the slain, who around him, stretched on the hard floor, lay one upon
the other; it would have comforted thy heart to see him, all stained
like a lion with blood and soil of battle. And now are all the wooers
gathered in an heap by the gates of the court, while he is purifying
his fair house with brimstone, and hath kindled a great fire, and hath
sent me forth to call thee. So come with me, that ye may both enter
into your heart’s delight,[40] for ye have suffered much affliction.
And even now hath this thy long desire been fulfilled; thy lord hath
come alive to his own hearth, and hath found both thee and his son in
the halls; and the wooers that wrought him evil he hath slain, every
man of them in his house.”
[40] Reading σφῶι . . . . ἀμφοτέρω.
Then wise Penelope answered her: “Dear nurse, boast not yet over them
with laughter. Thou knowest how welcome the sight of him would be in
the halls to all, and to me in chief, and to his son that we got
between us. But this is no true tale, as thou declarest it, nay but it
is one of the deathless gods that hath slain the proud wooers, in wrath
at their bitter insolence and evil deeds. For they honoured none of
earthly men, neither the good nor yet the bad, that came among them.
Wherefore they have suffered an evil doom through their own infatuate
deeds. But Odysseus, far away hath lost his homeward path to the
Achaean land, and himself is lost.”
Then the good nurse Eurycleia made answer to her: “My child, what word
hath escaped the door of thy lips, in that thou saidest that thy lord,
who is even now within, and by his own hearthstone, would return no
more? Nay, thy heart is ever hard of belief. Go to now, and I will tell
thee besides a most manifest token, even the scar of the wound that the
boar on a time dealt him with his white tusk. This I spied while
washing his feet, and fain I would have told it even to thee, but he
laid his hand on my mouth, and in the fulness of his wisdom suffered me
not to speak. But come with me and I will stake my life on it; and if I
play thee false, do thou slay me by a death most pitiful.”
Then wise Penelope made answer to her: “Dear nurse, it is hard for
thee, how wise soever, to observe the purposes of the everlasting gods.
None the less let us go to my child, that I may see the wooers dead,
and him that slew them.”
With that word she went down from the upper chamber, and much her heart
debated, whether she should stand apart, and question her dear lord or
draw nigh, and clasp and kiss his head and hands. But when she had come
within and had crossed the threshold of stone, she sat down over
against Odysseus, in the light of the fire, by the further wall. Now he
was sitting by the tall pillar, looking down and waiting to know if
perchance his noble wife would speak to him, when her eyes beheld him.
But she sat long in silence, and amazement came upon her soul, and now
she would look upon him steadfastly with her eyes, and now again she
knew him not, for that he was clad in vile raiment. And Telemachus
rebuked her, and spake and hailed her:
“Mother mine, ill mother, of an ungentle heart, why turnest thou thus
away from my father, and dost not sit by him and question him and ask
him all? No other woman in the world would harden her heart to stand
thus aloof from her lord, who after much travail and sore had come to
her in the twentieth year to his own country. But thy heart is ever
harder than stone.”
Then wise Penelope answered him, saying: “Child, my mind is amazed
within me, and I have no strength to speak, nor to ask him aught, nay
nor to look on him face to face. But if in truth this be Odysseus, and
he hath indeed come home, verily we shall be ware of each other the
more surely, for we have tokens that we twain know, even we, secret
from all others.”
So she spake, and the steadfast goodly Odysseus smiled, and quickly he
spake to Telemachus winged words: “Telemachus, leave now thy mother to
make trial of me within the chambers; so shall she soon come to a
better knowledge than heretofore. But now I go filthy, and am clad in
vile raiment, wherefore she has me in dishonour, and as yet will not
allow that I am he. Let us then advise us how all may be for the very
best. For whoso has slain but one man in a land, even that one leaves
not many behind him to take up the feud for him, turns outlaw and
leaves his kindred and his own country; but we have slain the very stay
of the city, the men who were far the best of all the noble youths in
Ithaca. So this I bid thee consider.”
Then wise Telemachus answered him, saying: “Father, see thou to this,
for they say that thy counsel is far the best among men, nor might any
other of mortal men contend with thee. But right eagerly will we go
with thee now, and I think we shall not lack prowess, so far as might
is ours.”
And Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying: “Yea now, I will
tell on what wise methinks it is best. First, go ye to the bath and
array you in your doublets, and bid the maidens in the chambers to take
to them their garments. Then let the divine minstrel, with his loud
lyre in hand, lead off for us the measure of the mirthful dance. So
shall any man that hears the sound from without, whether a wayfarer or
one of those that dwell around, say that it is a wedding feast. And
thus the slaughter of the wooers shall not be noised abroad through the
town before we go forth to our well-wooded farm-land. Thereafter shall
we consider what gainful counsel the Olympian may vouchsafe us.”
So he spake, and they gave good ear and hearkened to him. So first they
went to the bath, and arrayed them in doublets, and the women were
apparelled, and the divine minstrel took the hollow harp, and aroused
in them the desire of sweet song and of the happy dance. Then the great
hall rang round them with the sound of the feet of dancing men and of
fair-girdled women. And whoso heard it from without would say:
“Surely some one has wedded the queen of many wooers. Hard of heart was
she, nor had she courage to keep the great house of her wedded lord
continually till his coming.”
Even so men spake, and knew not how these things were ordained.
Meanwhile, the house-dame Eurynome had bathed the great-hearted
Odysseus within his house, and anointed him with olive-oil, and cast
about him a goodly mantle and a doublet. Moreover Athene shed great
beauty from his head downwards, and made him greater and more mighty to
behold, and from his head caused deep curling locks to flow, like the
hyacinth flower. And as when some skilful man overlays gold upon
silver, one that Hephaestus and Pallas Athene have taught all manner of
craft, and full of grace is his handiwork, even so did Athene shed
grace about his head and shoulders, and forth from the bath he came, in
form like to the immortals. Then he sat down again on the high seat,
whence he had arisen, over against his wife, and spake to her, saying:
“Strange lady, surely to thee above all womankind the Olympians have
given a heart that cannot be softened. No other woman in the world
would harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her husband, who after
much travail and sore had come to her, in the twentieth year, to his
own country. Nay come, nurse, strew a bed for me to lie all alone, for
assuredly her spirit within her is as iron.”
Then wise Penelope answered him again: “Strange man, I have no proud
thoughts nor do I think scorn of thee, nor am I too greatly astonied,
but I know right well what manner of man thou wert, when thou wentest
forth out of Ithaca, on the long-oared galley. But come, Eurycleia,
spread for him the good bedstead outside the stablished bridal chamber
that he built himself. Thither bring ye forth the good bedstead and
cast bedding thereon, even fleeces and rugs and shining blankets.”
So she spake and made trial of her lord, but Odysseus in sore
displeasure spake to his true wife, saying: “Verily a bitter word is
this, lady, that thou hast spoken. Who has set my bed otherwhere? Hard
it would be for one, how skilled so ever, unless a god were to come
that might easily set it in another place, if so he would. But of men
there is none living, howsoever strong in his youth, that could lightly
upheave it, for a great token is wrought in the fashioning of the bed,
and it was I that made it and none other. There was growing a bush of
olive, long of leaf, and most goodly of growth, within the inner court,
and the stem as large as a pillar. Round about this I built the
chamber, till I had finished it, with stones close set, and I roofed it
over well and added thereto compacted doors fitting well. Next I
sheared off all the light wood of the long-leaved olive, and
rough-hewed the trunk upwards from the root, and smoothed it around
with the adze, well and skilfully, and made straight the line thereto
and so fashioned it into the bedpost, and I bored it all with the
auger. Beginning from this bedpost, I wrought at the bedstead till I
had finished it, and made it fair with inlaid work of gold and of
silver and of ivory. Then I made fast therein a bright purple band of
oxhide. Even so I declare to thee this token, and I know not, lady, if
the bedstead be yet fast in his place, or if some man has cut away the
stem of the olive tree, and set the bedstead otherwhere.”
So he spake, and at once her knees were loosened, and her heart melted
within her, as she knew the sure tokens that Odysseus showed her. Then
she fell a weeping, and ran straight toward him and cast her hands
about his neck, and kissed his head and spake, saying:
“Be not angry with me, Odysseus, for thou wert ever at other times the
wisest of men. It is the gods that gave us sorrow, the gods who
begrudged us that we should abide together and have joy of our youth,
and come to the threshold of old age. So now be not wroth with me
hereat nor full of indignation, because at the first, when I saw thee,
I did not welcome thee straightway. For always my heart within my
breast shuddered, for fear lest some man should come and deceive me
with his words, for many they be that devise gainful schemes and evil.
Nay even Argive Helen, daughter of Zeus, would not have lain with a
stranger, and taken him for a lover, had she known that the warlike
sons of the Achaeans would bring her home again to her own dear
country. Howsoever, it was the god that set her upon this shameful
deed; nor ever, ere that, did she lay up in her heart the thought of
this folly, a bitter folly, whence on us too first came sorrow. But now
that thou hast told all the sure tokens of our bed, which never was
seen by mortal man, save by thee and me and one maiden only, the
daughter of Actor, that my father gave me ere yet I had come hither,
she who kept the doors of our strong bridal chamber, even now dost thou
bend my soul, all ungentle as it is.”
Thus she spake, and in his heart she stirred yet a greater longing to
lament, and he wept as he embraced his beloved wife and true. And even
as when the sight of land is welcome to swimmers, whose well-wrought
ship Poseidon hath smitten on the deep, all driven with the wind and
swelling waves, and but a remnant hath escaped the grey sea-water and
swum to the shore, and their bodies are all crusted with the brine, and
gladly have they set foot on land and escaped an evil end; so welcome
to her was the sight of her lord, and her white arms she would never
quite let go from his neck. And now would the rosy-fingered Dawn have
risen upon their weeping, but the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, had other
thoughts. The night she held long in the utmost West, and on the other
side she stayed the golden-throned Dawn by the stream Oceanus, and
suffered her not to harness the swift-footed steeds that bear light to
men, Lampus and Phaethon, the steeds ever young, that bring the
morning.
Then at the last, Odysseus of many counsels spake to his wife, saying:
“Lady, we have not yet come to the issue of all our labours; but still
there will be toil unmeasured, long and difficult, that I must needs
bring to a full end. Even so the spirit of Teiresias foretold to me, on
that day when I went down into the house of Hades, to inquire after a
returning for myself and my company. Wherefore come, lady, let us to
bed, that forthwith we may take our joy of rest beneath the spell of
sweet sleep.”
Then wise Penelope answered him: “Thy bed verily shall be ready
whensoever thy soul desires it, forasmuch as the gods have indeed
caused thee to come back to thy stablished home and thine own country.
But now that thou hast noted it and the god has put it into thy heart,
come, tell me of this ordeal, for methinks the day will come when I
must learn it, and timely knowledge is no hurt.”
And Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying: “Ah, why now art
thou so instant with me to declare it? Yet I will tell thee all and
hide nought. Howbeit thy heart shall have no joy of it, as even I
myself have no pleasure therein. For Teiresias bade me fare to many
cities of men, carrying a shapen oar in my hands, till I should come to
such men as know not the sea, neither eat meat savoured with salt, nor
have they knowledge of ships of purple cheek nor of shapen oars, which
serve for wings to ships. And he told me this with manifest token,
which I will not hide from thee. In the day when another wayfarer
should meet me and say that I had a winnowing fan on my stout shoulder,
even then he bade me make fast my shapen oar in the earth, and do
goodly sacrifice to the lord Poseidon, even with a ram and a bull and a
boar, the mate of swine, and depart for home, and offer holy hecatombs
to the deathless gods, that keep the wide heaven, to each in order due.
And from the sea shall mine own death come, the gentlest death that may
be, which shall end me, foredone, with smooth old age, and the folk
shall dwell happily around. All this, he said, was to be fulfilled.”
Then wise Penelope answered him saying: “If indeed the gods will bring
about for thee a happier old age at the last, then is there hope that
thou mayest yet have an escape from evil.”
Thus they spake one to the other. Meanwhile, Eurynome and the nurse
spread the bed with soft coverlets, by the light of the torches
burning. But when they had busied them and spread the good bed, the
ancient nurse went back to her chamber to lie down, and Eurynome, the
bower-maiden, guided them on their way to the couch, with torches in
her hands, and when she had led them to the bridal-chamber she
departed. And so they came gladly to the rites of their bed, as of old.
But Telemachus, and the neatherd, and the swineherd stayed their feet
from dancing, and made the women to cease, and themselves gat them to
rest through the shadowy halls.
Now when the twain had taken their fill of sweet love, they had delight
in the tales, which they told one to the other. The fair lady spoke of
all that she had endured in the halls at the sight of the ruinous
throng of wooers, who for her sake slew many cattle, kine and goodly
sheep; and many a cask of wine was broached. And in turn, Odysseus, of
the seed of Zeus, recounted all the griefs he had wrought on men, and
all his own travail and sorrow, and she was delighted with the story,
and sweet sleep fell not upon her eyelids till the tale was ended.
He began by setting forth how he overcame the Cicones, and next arrived
at the rich land of the Lotus-eaters, and all that the Cyclops wrought,
and what a price he got from him for the good companions that he
devoured, and showed no pity. Then how he came to Aeolus, who received
him gladly and sent him on his way; but it was not yet ordained that he
should reach his own country, for the storm-wind seized him again, and
bare him over the teeming seas, making grievous moan. Next how he came
to Telepylus of the Laestrygonians, who brake his ships and slew all
his goodly-greaved companions, and Odysseus only escaped with his black
ship. Then he told all the wiles and many contrivances of Circe, and
how in a benched ship he fared to the dank house of Hades, to seek to
the soul of Theban Teiresias. There he beheld all those that had been
his companions, and his mother who bore him and nurtured him, while yet
he was a little one. Then how he heard the song of the full-voiced
Sirens, and came to the Rocks Wandering, and to terrible Charybdis, and
to Scylla, that never yet have men avoided scatheless. Next he told how
his company slew the kine of Helios, and how Zeus, that thunders on
high, smote the swift ship with the flaming bolt, and the good crew
perished all together, and he alone escaped from evil fates. And how he
came to the isle Ogygia, and to the nymph Calypso, who kept him there
in her hollow caves, longing to have him for her lord, and nurtured him
and said that she would make him never to know death or age all his
days: yet she never won his heart within his breast. Next how with
great toil he came to the Phaeacians, who gave him all worship
heartily, as to a god, and sent him with a ship to his own dear
country, with gifts of bronze, and of gold, and raiment in plenty. This
was the last word of the tale, when sweet sleep came speedily upon him,
sleep that loosens the limbs of men, unknitting the cares of his soul.
Then the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, turned to new thoughts. When she
deemed that Odysseus had taken his fill of love and sleep, straightway
she aroused from out Oceanus the golden-throned Dawn, to bear light to
men. Then Odysseus gat him from his soft bed, and laid this charge on
his wife, saying:
“Lady, already have we had enough of labours, thou and I; thou, in
weeping here, and longing for my troublous return, I, while Zeus and
the other gods bound me fast in pain, despite my yearning after home,
away from mine own country. But now that we both have come to the bed
of our desire, take thou thought for the care of my wealth within the
halls. But as for the sheep that the proud wooers have slain, I myself
will lift many more as spoil, and others the Achaeans will give, till
they fill all my folds. But now, behold, I go to the well-wooded
farm-land, to see my good father, who for love of me has been in sorrow
continually. And this charge I lay on thee, lady, too wise though thou
art to need it. Quickly will the bruit go forth with the rising sun,
the bruit concerning the wooers, whom I slew in the halls. Wherefore
ascend with the women thy handmaids into the upper chamber, and sit
there and look on no man, nor ask any question.”
Therewith he girded on his shoulder his goodly armour, and roused
Telemachus and the neatherd and the swineherd, and bade them all take
weapons of war in their hands. So they were not disobedient to his
word, but clad themselves in mail, and opened the doors and went forth,
and Odysseus led the way. And now there was light over all the earth;
but them Athene hid in night, and quickly conducted out of the town.