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.
FOOTNOTES:
AL PROFESSORE
CAV. BIAGIO INGROIA,
PREZIOSO ALLEATO
L’AUTORE RICONOSCENTE.
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION
This translation is intended to supplement a work entitled “The
Authoress of the Odyssey”, which I published in 1897. I could not give
the whole “Odyssey” in that book without making it unwieldy, I
therefore epitomised my translation, which was already completed and
which I now publish in full.
I shall not here argue the two main points dealt with in the work just
mentioned; I have nothing either to add to, or to withdraw from, what I
have there written. The points in question are:
(1) that the “Odyssey” was written entirely at, and drawn entirely
from, the place now called Trapani on the West Coast of Sicily, alike
as regards the Phaeacian and the Ithaca scenes; while the voyages of
Ulysses, when once he is within easy reach of Sicily, solve themselves
into a periplus of the island, practically from Trapani back to
Trapani, via the Lipari islands, the Straits of Messina, and the island
of Pantellaria.
(2) That the poem was entirely written by a very young woman, who lived
at the place now called Trapani, and introduced herself into her work
under the name of Nausicaa.
The main arguments on which I base the first of these somewhat
startling contentions, have been prominently and repeatedly before the
English and Italian public ever since they appeared (without rejoinder)
in the “Athenaeum” for January 30 and February 20, 1892. Both
contentions were urged (also without rejoinder) in the Johnian “Eagle”
for the Lent and October terms of the same year. Nothing to which I
should reply has reached me from any quarter, and knowing how anxiously
I have endeavoured to learn the existence of any flaws in my argument,
I begin to feel some confidence that, did such flaws exist, I should
have heard, at any rate about some of them, before now. Without,
therefore, for a moment pretending to think that scholars generally
acquiesce in my conclusions, I shall act as thinking them little likely
so to gainsay me as that it will be incumbent upon me to reply, and
shall confine myself to translating the “Odyssey” for English readers,
with such notes as I think will be found useful. Among these I would
especially call attention to one on xxii. 465-473 which Lord Grimthorpe
has kindly allowed me to make public.
I have repeated several of the illustrations used in “The Authoress of
the Odyssey”, and have added two which I hope may bring the outer court
of Ulysses’ house more vividly before the reader. I should like to
explain that the presence of a man and a dog in one illustration is
accidental, and was not observed by me till I developed the negative.
In an appendix I have also reprinted the paragraphs explanatory of the
plan of Ulysses’ house, together with the plan itself. The reader is
recommended to study this plan with some attention.
In the preface to my translation of the “Iliad” I have given my views
as to the main principles by which a translator should be guided, and
need not repeat them here, beyond pointing out that the initial liberty
of translating poetry into prose involves the continual taking of more
or less liberty throughout the translation; for much that is right in
poetry is wrong in prose, and the exigencies of readable prose are the
first things to be considered in a prose translation. That the reader,
however, may see how far I have departed from strict construe, I will
print here Messrs. Butcher and Lang’s translation of the sixty lines or
so of the “Odyssey.” Their translation runs:
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 on 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 men and gods 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, the hapless
one, who far from his friends this long while suffereth affliction
in a sea-girt 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?’
The “Odyssey” (as every one knows) abounds in passages borrowed from
the “Iliad”; I had wished to print these in a slightly different type,
with marginal references to the “Iliad,” and had marked them to this
end in my MS. I found, however, that the translation would be thus
hopelessly scholasticised, and abandoned my intention. I would
nevertheless urge on those who have the management of our University
presses, that they would render a great service to students if they
would publish a Greek text of the “Odyssey” with the Iliadic passages
printed in a different type, and with marginal references. I have given
the British Museum a copy of the “Odyssey” with the Iliadic passages
underlined and referred to in MS.; I have also given an “Iliad” marked
with all the Odyssean passages, and their references; but copies of
both the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” so marked ought to be within easy reach
of all students.
Any one who at the present day discusses the questions that have arisen
round the “Iliad” since Wolf’s time, without keeping it well before his
reader’s mind that the “Odyssey” was demonstrably written from one
single neighbourhood, and hence (even though nothing else pointed to
this conclusion) presumably by one person only—that it was written
certainly before 750, and in all probability before 1000 B.C.—that the
writer of this very early poem was demonstrably familiar with the
“Iliad” as we now have it, borrowing as freely from those books whose
genuineness has been most impugned, as from those which are admitted to
be by Homer—any one who fails to keep these points before his readers,
is hardly dealing equitably by them. Any one on the other hand, who
will mark his “Iliad” and his “Odyssey” from the copies in the British
Museum above referred to, and who will draw the only inference that
common sense can draw from the presence of so many identical passages
in both poems, will, I believe, find no difficulty in assigning their
proper value to a large number of books here and on the Continent that
at present enjoy considerable reputations. Furthermore, and this
perhaps is an advantage better worth securing, he will find that many
puzzles of the “Odyssey” cease to puzzle him on the discovery that they
arise from over-saturation with the “Iliad.”
Other difficulties will also disappear as soon as the development of
the poem in the writer’s mind is understood. I have dealt with this at
some length in pp. 251-261 of “The Authoress of the Odyssey”. Briefly,
the “Odyssey” consists of two distinct poems: (1) The Return of
Ulysses, which alone the Muse is asked to sing in the opening lines of
the poem. This poem includes the Phaeacian episode, and the account of
Ulysses’ adventures as told by himself in Books ix.-xii. It consists of
lines 1-79 (roughly) of Book i., of line 28 of Book v., and thence
without intermission to the middle of line 187 of Book xiii., at which
point the original scheme was abandoned.
(2) The story of Penelope and the suitors, with the episode of
Telemachus’ voyage to Pylos. This poem begins with line 80 (roughly) of
Book i., is continued to the end of Book iv., and not resumed till
Ulysses wakes in the middle of line 187, Book xiii., from whence it
continues to the end of Book xxiv.
In “The Authoress of the Odyssey”, I wrote:
the introduction of lines xi., 115-137 and of line ix., 535, with the
writing a new council of the gods at the beginning of Book v., to take
the place of the one that was removed to Book i., 1-79, were the only
things that were done to give even a semblance of unity to the old
scheme and the new, and to conceal the fact that the Muse, after being
asked to sing of one subject, spend two-thirds of her time in singing a
very different one, with a climax for which no-one has asked her. For
roughly the Return occupies eight Books, and Penelope and the Suitors
sixteen.
I believe this to be substantially correct.
Lastly, to deal with a very unimportant point, I observe that the
Leipsic Teubner edition of 894 makes Books ii. and iii. end with a
comma. Stops are things of such far more recent date than the
“Odyssey,” that there does not seem much use in adhering to the text in
so small a matter; still, from a spirit of mere conservatism, I have
preferred to do so. Why [Greek] at the beginnings of Books ii. and
viii., and [Greek], at the beginning of Book vii. should have initial
capitals in an edition far too careful to admit a supposition of
inadvertence, when [Greek] at the beginning of Books vi. and xiii., and
[Greek] at the beginning of Book xvii. have no initial capitals, I
cannot determine. No other Books of the “Odyssey” have initial capitals
except the three mentioned unless the first word of the Book is a
proper name.
S. BUTLER.
_July_ 25, 1900.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
Butler’s Translation of the “Odyssey” appeared originally in 1900, and
The Authoress of the Odyssey in 1897. In the preface to the new edition
of “The Authoress”, which is published simultaneously with this new
edition of the Translation, I have given some account of the genesis of
the two books.
The size of the original page has been reduced so as to make both books
uniform with Butler’s other works; and, fortunately, it has been
possible, by using a smaller type, to get the same number of words into
each page, so that the references remain good, and, with the exception
of a few minor alterations and rearrangements now to be enumerated so
far as they affect the Translation, the new editions are faithful
reprints of the original editions, with misprints and obvious errors
corrected—no attempt having been made to edit them or to bring them up
to date.
(a) The Index has been revised.
(b) Owing to the reduction in the size of the page it has been
necessary to shorten some of the headlines, and here advantage has been
taken of various corrections of and additions to the headlines and
shoulder-notes made by Butler in his own copies of the two books.
(c) For the most part each of the illustrations now occupies a page,
whereas in the original editions they generally appeared two on the
page. It has been necessary to reduce the plan of the House of Ulysses.
On page 153 of “The Authoress” Butler says: “No great poet would
compare his hero to a paunch full of blood and fat, cooking before the
fire (xx, 24-28).” This passage is not given in the abridged Story of
the “Odyssey” at the beginning of the book, but in the Translation it
occurs in these words:
“Thus he chided with his heart, and checked it into endurance, but he
tossed about as one who turns a paunch full of blood and fat in front
of a hot fire, doing it first on one side then on the other, that he
may get it cooked as soon as possible; even so did he turn himself
about from side to side, thinking all the time how, single-handed as he
was, he should contrive to kill so large a body of men as the wicked
suitors.”
It looks as though in the interval between the publication of “The
Authoress” (1897) and of the Translation (1900) Butler had changed his
mind; for in the first case the comparison is between Ulysses and a
paunch full, etc., and in the second it is between Ulysses and a man
who turns a paunch full, etc. The second comparison is perhaps one
which a great poet might make.
In seeing the works through the press I have had the invaluable
assistance of Mr. A. T. Bartholomew of the University Library,
Cambridge, and of Mr. Donald S. Robertson, Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge. To both these friends I give my most cordial thanks for the
care and skill exercised by them. Mr. Robertson has found time for the
labour of checking and correcting all the quotations from and
references to the “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” and I believe that it could
not have been better performed. It was, I know, a pleasure for him; and
it would have been a pleasure also for Butler if he could have known
that his work was being shepherded by the son of his old friend, Mr. H.
R. Robertson, who more than half a century ago was a fellow-student
with him at Cary’s School of Art in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury.
HENRY FESTING JONES.
120 MAIDA VALE, W.9.
4th _December_, 1921.
THE ODYSSEY
BOOK I
THE GODS IN COUNCIL—MINERVA’S VISIT TO ITHACA—THE CHALLENGE FROM
TELEMACHUS TO THE SUITORS.
Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide
after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit,
and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was
acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his
own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could
not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in
eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them
from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, oh
daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them.
So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely
home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his
wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him
into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by, there
came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to Ithaca;
even then, however, when he was among his own people, his troubles were
not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him
except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not
let him get home.
Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world’s end,
and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East.1 He had
gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was enjoying
himself at his festival; but the other gods met in the house of
Olympian Jove, and the sire of gods and men spoke first. At that moment
he was thinking of Aegisthus, who had been killed by Agamemnon’s son
Orestes; so he said to the other gods:
“See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing
but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs make love to
Agamemnon’s wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon, though he knew
it would be the death of him; for I sent Mercury to warn him not to do
either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his
revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home. Mercury told him
this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has paid for
everything in full.”
Then Minerva said, “Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, it served
Aegisthus right, and so it would any one else who does as he did; but
Aegisthus is neither here nor there; it is for Ulysses that my heart
bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt island,
far away, poor man, from all his friends. It is an island covered with
forest, in the very middle of the sea, and a goddess lives there,
daughter of the magician Atlas, who looks after the bottom of the
ocean, and carries the great columns that keep heaven and earth
asunder. This daughter of Atlas has got hold of poor unhappy Ulysses,
and keeps trying by every kind of blandishment to make him forget his
home, so that he is tired of life, and thinks of nothing but how he may
once more see the smoke of his own chimneys. You, sir, take no heed of
this, and yet when Ulysses was before Troy did he not propitiate you
with many a burnt sacrifice? Why then should you keep on being so angry
with him?”
And Jove said, “My child, what are you talking about? How can I forget
Ulysses than whom there is no more capable man on earth, nor more
liberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in heaven? Bear
in mind, however, that Neptune is still furious with Ulysses for having
blinded an eye of Polyphemus king of the Cyclopes. Polyphemus is son to
Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter to the sea-king Phorcys;
therefore though he will not kill Ulysses outright, he torments him by
preventing him from getting home. Still, let us lay our heads together
and see how we can help him to return; Neptune will then be pacified,
for if we are all of a mind he can hardly stand out against us.”
And Minerva said, “Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, if, then, the
gods now mean that Ulysses should get home, we should first send
Mercury to the Ogygian island to tell Calypso that we have made up our
minds and that he is to return. In the meantime I will go to Ithaca, to
put heart into Ulysses’ son Telemachus; I will embolden him to call the
Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother
Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I
will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear
anything about the return of his dear father—for this will make people
speak well of him.”
So saying she bound on her glittering golden sandals, imperishable,
with which she can fly like the wind over land or sea; she grasped the
redoubtable bronze-shod spear, so stout and sturdy and strong,
wherewith she quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased her, and
down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus, whereon forthwith
she was in Ithaca, at the gateway of Ulysses’ house, disguised as a
visitor, Mentes, chief of the Taphians, and she held a bronze spear in
her hand. There she found the lordly suitors seated on hides of the
oxen which they had killed and eaten, and playing draughts in front of
the house. Men-servants and pages were bustling about to wait upon
them, some mixing wine with water in the mixing-bowls, some cleaning
down the tables with wet sponges and laying them out again, and some
cutting up great quantities of meat.
Telemachus saw her long before any one else did. He was sitting moodily
among the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how he would
send them flying out of the house, if he were to come to his own again
and be honoured as in days gone by. Thus brooding as he sat among them,
he caught sight of Minerva and went straight to the gate, for he was
vexed that a stranger should be kept waiting for admittance. He took
her right hand in his own, and bade her give him her spear. “Welcome,”
said he, “to our house, and when you have partaken of food you shall
tell us what you have come for.”
He led the way as he spoke, and Minerva followed him. When they were
within he took her spear and set it in the spear-stand against a strong
bearing-post along with the many other spears of his unhappy father,
and he conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he threw a
cloth of damask. There was a footstool also for her feet,2 and he set
another seat near her for himself, away from the suitors, that she
might not be annoyed while eating by their noise and insolence, and
that he might ask her more freely about his father.
A maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer and
poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands, and she
drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them bread,
and offered them many good things of what there was in the house, the
carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and set cups of gold
by their side, and a manservant brought them wine and poured it out for
them.
Then the suitors came in and took their places on the benches and
seats.3 Forthwith men servants poured water over their hands, maids
went round with the bread-baskets, pages filled the mixing-bowls with
wine and water, and they laid their hands upon the good things that
were before them. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink they
wanted music and dancing, which are the crowning embellishments of a
banquet, so a servant brought a lyre to Phemius, whom they compelled
perforce to sing to them. As soon as he touched his lyre and began to
sing Telemachus spoke low to Minerva, with his head close to hers that
no man might hear.
“I hope, sir,” said he, “that you will not be offended with what I am
going to say. Singing comes cheap to those who do not pay for it, and
all this is done at the cost of one whose bones lie rotting in some
wilderness or grinding to powder in the surf. If these men were to see
my father come back to Ithaca they would pray for longer legs rather
than a longer purse, for money would not serve them; but he, alas, has
fallen on an ill fate, and even when people do sometimes say that he is
coming, we no longer heed them; we shall never see him again. And now,
sir, tell me and tell me true, who you are and where you come from.
Tell me of your town and parents, what manner of ship you came in, how
your crew brought you to Ithaca, and of what nation they declared
themselves to be—for you cannot have come by land. Tell me also truly,
for I want to know, are you a stranger to this house, or have you been
here in my father’s time? In the old days we had many visitors for my
father went about much himself.”
And Minerva answered, “I will tell you truly and particularly all about
it. I am Mentes, son of Anchialus, and I am King of the Taphians. I
have come here with my ship and crew, on a voyage to men of a foreign
tongue being bound for Temesa4 with a cargo of iron, and I shall bring
back copper. As for my ship, it lies over yonder off the open country
away from the town, in the harbour Rheithron5 under the wooded mountain
Neritum.6 Our fathers were friends before us, as old Laertes will tell
you, if you will go and ask him. They say, however, that he never comes
to town now, and lives by himself in the country, faring hardly, with
an old woman to look after him and get his dinner for him, when he
comes in tired from pottering about his vineyard. They told me your
father was at home again, and that was why I came, but it seems the
gods are still keeping him back, for he is not dead yet not on the
mainland. It is more likely he is on some sea-girt island in mid ocean,
or a prisoner among savages who are detaining him against his will. I
am no prophet, and know very little about omens, but I speak as it is
borne in upon me from heaven, and assure you that he will not be away
much longer; for he is a man of such resource that even though he were
in chains of iron he would find some means of getting home again. But
tell me, and tell me true, can Ulysses really have such a fine looking
fellow for a son? You are indeed wonderfully like him about the head
and eyes, for we were close friends before he set sail for Troy where
the flower of all the Argives went also. Since that time we have never
either of us seen the other.”
“My mother,” answered Telemachus, “tells me I am son to Ulysses, but it
is a wise child that knows his own father. Would that I were son to one
who had grown old upon his own estates, for, since you ask me, there is
no more ill-starred man under heaven than he who they tell me is my
father.”
And Minerva said, “There is no fear of your race dying out yet, while
Penelope has such a fine son as you are. But tell me, and tell me true,
what is the meaning of all this feasting, and who are these people?
What is it all about? Have you some banquet, or is there a wedding in
the family—for no one seems to be bringing any provisions of his own?
And the guests—how atrociously they are behaving; what riot they make
over the whole house; it is enough to disgust any respectable person
who comes near them.”
“Sir,” said Telemachus, “as regards your question, so long as my father
was here it was well with us and with the house, but the gods in their
displeasure have willed it otherwise, and have hidden him away more
closely than mortal man was ever yet hidden. I could have borne it
better even though he were dead, if he had fallen with his men before
Troy, or had died with friends around him when the days of his fighting
were done; for then the Achaeans would have built a mound over his
ashes, and I should myself have been heir to his renown; but now the
storm-winds have spirited him away we know not whither; he is gone
without leaving so much as a trace behind him, and I inherit nothing
but dismay. Nor does the matter end simply with grief for the loss of
my father; heaven has laid sorrows upon me of yet another kind; for the
chiefs from all our islands, Dulichium, Same, and the woodland island
of Zacynthus, as also all the principal men of Ithaca itself, are
eating up my house under the pretext of paying their court to my
mother, who will neither point blank say that she will not marry,7 nor
yet bring matters to an end; so they are making havoc of my estate, and
before long will do so also with myself.”
“Is that so?” exclaimed Minerva, “then you do indeed want Ulysses home
again. Give him his helmet, shield, and a couple of lances, and if he
is the man he was when I first knew him in our house, drinking and
making merry, he would soon lay his hands about these rascally suitors,
were he to stand once more upon his own threshold. He was then coming
from Ephyra, where he had been to beg poison for his arrows from Ilus,
son of Mermerus. Ilus feared the ever-living gods and would not give
him any, but my father let him have some, for he was very fond of him.
If Ulysses is the man he then was these suitors will have a short
shrift and a sorry wedding.
“But there! It rests with heaven to determine whether he is to return,
and take his revenge in his own house or no; I would, however, urge you
to set about trying to get rid of these suitors at once. Take my
advice, call the Achaean heroes in assembly to-morrow morning—lay your
case before them, and call heaven to bear you witness. Bid the suitors
take themselves off, each to his own place, and if your mother’s mind
is set on marrying again, let her go back to her father, who will find
her a husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts that so dear
a daughter may expect. As for yourself, let me prevail upon you to take
the best ship you can get, with a crew of twenty men, and go in quest
of your father who has so long been missing. Some one may tell you
something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some
heaven-sent message may direct you. First go to Pylos and ask Nestor;
thence go on to Sparta and visit Menelaus, for he got home last of all
the Achaeans; if you hear that your father is alive and on his way
home, you can put up with the waste these suitors will make for yet
another twelve months. If on the other hand you hear of his death, come
home at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due pomp, build a
barrow to his memory, and make your mother marry again. Then, having
done all this, think it well over in your mind how, by fair means or
foul, you may kill these suitors in your own house. You are too old to
plead infancy any longer; have you not heard how people are singing
Orestes’ praises for having killed his father’s murderer Aegisthus? You
are a fine, smart looking fellow; show your mettle, then, and make
yourself a name in story. Now, however, I must go back to my ship and
to my crew, who will be impatient if I keep them waiting longer; think
the matter over for yourself, and remember what I have said to you.”
“Sir,” answered Telemachus, “it has been very kind of you to talk to me
in this way, as though I were your own son, and I will do all you tell
me; I know you want to be getting on with your voyage, but stay a
little longer till you have taken a bath and refreshed yourself. I will
then give you a present, and you shall go on your way rejoicing; I will
give you one of great beauty and value—a keepsake such as only dear
friends give to one another.”
Minerva answered, “Do not try to keep me, for I would be on my way at
once. As for any present you may be disposed to make me, keep it till I
come again, and I will take it home with me. You shall give me a very
good one, and I will give you one of no less value in return.”
With these words she flew away like a bird into the air, but she had
given Telemachus courage, and had made him think more than ever about
his father. He felt the change, wondered at it, and knew that the
stranger had been a god, so he went straight to where the suitors were
sitting.
Phemius was still singing, and his hearers sat rapt in silence as he
told the sad tale of the return from Troy, and the ills Minerva had
laid upon the Achaeans. Penelope, daughter of Icarius, heard his song
from her room upstairs, and came down by the great staircase, not
alone, but attended by two of her handmaids. When she reached the
suitors she stood by one of the bearing posts that supported the roof
of the cloisters8 with a staid maiden on either side of her. She held a
veil, moreover, before her face, and was weeping bitterly.
“Phemius,” she cried, “you know many another feat of gods and heroes,
such as poets love to celebrate. Sing the suitors some one of these,
and let them drink their wine in silence, but cease this sad tale, for
it breaks my sorrowful heart, and reminds me of my lost husband whom I
mourn ever without ceasing, and whose name was great over all Hellas
and middle Argos.”9
“Mother,” answered Telemachus, “let the bard sing what he has a mind
to; bards do not make the ills they sing of; it is Jove, not they, who
makes them, and who sends weal or woe upon mankind according to his own
good pleasure. This fellow means no harm by singing the ill-fated
return of the Danaans, for people always applaud the latest songs most
warmly. Make up your mind to it and bear it; Ulysses is not the only
man who never came back from Troy, but many another went down as well
as he. Go, then, within the house and busy yourself with your daily
duties, your loom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants; for
speech is man’s matter, and mine above all others 10—for it is I who am
master here.”
She went wondering back into the house, and laid her son’s saying in
her heart. Then, going upstairs with her handmaids into her room, she
mourned her dear husband till Minerva shed sweet sleep over her eyes.
But the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered cloisters11, and
prayed each one that he might be her bed fellow.
Then Telemachus spoke, “Shameless,” he cried, “and insolent suitors,
let us feast at our pleasure now, and let there be no brawling, for it
is a rare thing to hear a man with such a divine voice as Phemius has;
but in the morning meet me in full assembly that I may give you formal
notice to depart, and feast at one another’s houses, turn and turn
about, at your own cost. If on the other hand you choose to persist in
spunging upon one man, heaven help me, but Jove shall reckon with you
in full, and when you fall in my father’s house there shall be no man
to avenge you.”
The suitors bit their lips as they heard him, and marvelled at the
boldness of his speech. Then, Antinous, son of Eupeithes, said, “The
gods seem to have given you lessons in bluster and tall talking; may
Jove never grant you to be chief in Ithaca as your father was before
you.”
Telemachus answered, “Antinous, do not chide with me, but, god willing,
I will be chief too if I can. Is this the worst fate you can think of
for me? It is no bad thing to be a chief, for it brings both riches and
honour. Still, now that Ulysses is dead there are many great men in
Ithaca both old and young, and some other may take the lead among them;
nevertheless I will be chief in my own house, and will rule those whom
Ulysses has won for me.”
Then Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered, “It rests with heaven to
decide who shall be chief among us, but you shall be master in your own
house and over your own possessions; no one while there is a man in
Ithaca shall do you violence nor rob you. And now, my good fellow, I
want to know about this stranger. What country does he come from? Of
what family is he, and where is his estate? Has he brought you news
about the return of your father, or was he on business of his own? He
seemed a well to do man, but he hurried off so suddenly that he was
gone in a moment before we could get to know him.”
“My father is dead and gone,” answered Telemachus, “and even if some
rumour reaches me I put no more faith in it now. My mother does indeed
sometimes send for a soothsayer and question him, but I give his
prophecyings no heed. As for the stranger, he was Mentes, son of
Anchialus, chief of the Taphians, an old friend of my father’s.” But in
his heart he knew that it had been the goddess.
The suitors then returned to their singing and dancing until the
evening; but when night fell upon their pleasuring they went home to
bed each in his own abode.12 Telemachus’s room was high up in a tower13
that looked on to the outer court; hither, then, he hied, brooding and
full of thought. A good old woman, Euryclea, daughter of Ops, the son
of Pisenor, went before him with a couple of blazing torches. Laertes
had bought her with his own money when she was quite young; he gave the
worth of twenty oxen for her, and shewed as much respect to her in his
household as he did to his own wedded wife, but he did not take her to
his bed for he feared his wife’s resentment.14 She it was who now
lighted Telemachus to his room, and she loved him better than any of
the other women in the house did, for she had nursed him when he was a
baby. He opened the door of his bed room and sat down upon the bed; as
he took off his shirt15 he gave it to the good old woman, who folded it
tidily up, and hung it for him over a peg by his bed side, after which
she went out, pulled the door to by a silver catch, and drew the bolt
home by means of the strap.16 But Telemachus as he lay covered with a
woollen fleece kept thinking all night through of his intended voyage
and of the counsel that Minerva had given him.