_The change from a king to a beggar.--Eumæus and the
herdsmen.--Telemachus._
Not long did Minerva suffer him to indulge vain transports, but
briefly recounting to him the events which had taken place in Ithaca
during his absence, she shewed him that his way to his wife and throne
did not lie so open, but that before he were reinstated in the secure
possession of them, he must encounter many difficulties. His palace,
wanting its king, was become the resort of insolent and imperious men,
the chief nobility of Ithaca and of the neighbouring isles, who, in
the confidence of Ulysses being dead, came as suitors to Penelope.
The queen (it was true) continued single, but was little better than
a state-prisoner in the power of these men, who under a pretence of
waiting her decision, occupied the king's house, rather as owners
than guests, lording and domineering at their pleasure, profaning the
palace, and wasting the royal substance, with their feasts and mad
riots. Moreover the goddess told him how fearing the attempts of these
lawless men upon the person of his young son Telemachus, she herself
had put it into the heart of the prince, to go and seek his father in
far countries; how in the shape of Mentor she had borne him company in
his long search; which, though failing, as she meant it should fail,
in its first object, had yet had this effect, that through hardships
he had learned endurance, through experience he had gathered wisdom,
and wherever his footsteps had been, he had left such memorials, of
his worth, as the fame of Ulysses's son was already blown throughout
the world. That it was now not many days since Telemachus had arrived
in the island, to the great joy of the queen his mother, who had
thought him dead, by reason of his long absence, and had begun to
mourn for him with a grief equal to that which she endured for
Ulysses: the goddess herself having so ordered the course of his
adventures, that the time of his return should correspond with the
return of Ulysses, that they might together concert measures how to
repress the power and insolence of those wicked suitors. This the
goddess told him; but of the particulars of his son's adventures, of
his having been detained in the Delightful Island, which his father
had so lately left, of Calypso, and her nymphs, and the many strange
occurrences which may be read with profit and delight in the history
of the prince's adventures, she forbore to tell him as yet, as judging
that he would hear them with greater pleasure from the lips of his
son, when he should have him in an hour of stillness and safety, when
their work should be done, and none of their enemies left alive to
trouble them.
Then they sat down, the goddess and Ulysses, at the foot of a wild
olive-tree, consulting how they might with safety bring about his
restoration. And when Ulysses revolved in his mind how that his
enemies were a multitude, and he single, he began to despond, and he
said: "I shall die an ill death like Agamemnon; in the threshold of my
own house I shall perish, like that unfortunate monarch, slain by some
one of my wife's suitors." But then again calling to mind his ancient
courage, he secretly wished that Minerva would but breathe such a
spirit into his bosom as she enflamed him with in the hour of Troy's
destruction, that he might encounter with three hundred of those
impudent suitors at once, and strew the pavements of his beautiful
palace with their bloods and brains.
And Minerva knew his thoughts, and she said, "I will be strongly with
thee, if thou fail not to do thy part. And for a sign between us that
I will perform my promise, and for a token on thy part of obedience, I
must change thee, that thy person may not be known of men."
Then Ulysses bowed his head to receive the divine impression, and
Minerva by her great power changed his person so that it might not be
known. She changed him to appearance into a very old man, yet such a
one as by his limbs and gait seemed to have been some considerable
person in his time, and to retain yet some remains of his once
prodigious strength. Also, instead of those rich robes in which king
Alcinous had clothed him, she threw over his limbs such old and
tattered rags as wandering beggars usually wear. A staff supported his
steps, and a scrip hung to his back, such as travelling mendicants
use, to hold the scraps which are given to them at rich men's doors.
So from a king he became a beggar, as wise Tiresias had predicted to
him in the shades.
To complete his humiliation, and to prove his obedience by suffering,
she next directed him in this beggarly attire to go and present
himself to his old herdsman Eumæus, who had the care of his swine and
his cattle, and had been a faithful steward to him all the time of his
absence. Then strictly charging Ulysses that he should reveal himself
to no man, but to his own son, whom she would send to him when she saw
occasion, the goddess went her way.
The transformed Ulysses bent his course to the cottage of the
herdsman, and entering in at the front court, the dogs, of which
Eumæus kept many fierce ones for the protection of the cattle, flew
with open mouths upon him, as those ignoble animals have oftentimes an
antipathy to the sight of any thing like a beggar, and would have rent
him in pieces with their teeth, if Ulysses had not had the prudence
to let fall his staff, which had chiefly provoked their fury, and sat
himself down in a careless fashion upon the ground: but for all that
some serious hurt had certainly been done to him, so raging the dogs
were, had not the herdsman, whom the barking of the dogs had fetched
out of the house, with shouting and with throwing of stones repressed
them.
He said, when he saw Ulysses, "Old father, how near you were to being
torn in pieces by these rude dogs! I should never have forgiven
myself, if through neglect of mine any hurt had happened to you. But
heaven has given me so many cares to my portion, that I might well be
excused for not attending to every thing: while here I lie grieving
and mourning for the absence of that majesty which once ruled here,
and am forced to fatten his swine and his cattle for food to evil men,
who hate him, and who wish his death; when he perhaps strays up and
down the world, and has not wherewith to appease hunger, if indeed he
yet lives (which is a question) and enjoys the cheerful light of the
sun." This he said, little thinking that he of whom he spoke now stood
before him, and that in that uncouth disguise and beggarly obscurity
was present the hidden majesty of Ulysses.
Then he had his guest into the house, and set meat and drink before
him; and Ulysses said, "May Jove and all the other gods requite you
for the kind speeches and hospitable usage which you have shewn me!"
Eumæus made answer, "My poor guest, if one in much worse plight than
yourself had arrived here, it were a shame to such scanty means as I
have, if I had let him depart without entertaining him to the best of
my ability. Poor men, and such as have no houses of their own, are by
Jove himself recommended to our care. But the cheer which we that are
servants to other men have to bestow, is but sorry at most, yet freely
and lovingly I give it you. Indeed there once ruled here a man, whose
return the gods have set their faces against, who, if he had been
suffered to reign in peace and grow old among us, would have been kind
to me and mine. But he is gone; and for his sake would to God that the
whole posterity of Helen might perish with her, since in her quarrel
so many worthies have perished. But such as your fare is, eat it,
and be welcome; such lean beasts as are food for poor herdsmen. The
fattest go to feed the voracious stomachs of the queen's suitors.
Shame on their unworthiness, there is no day in which two or three
of the noblest of the herd are not slain to support their feasts and
their surfeits."
Ulysses gave good ear to his words, and as he ate his meat, he even
tore it and rent it with his teeth, for mere vexation that his fat
cattle should be slain to glut the appetites of those godless suitors.
And he said, "What chief or what ruler is this, that thou commendest
so highly, and sayest that he perished at Troy? I am but a stranger in
these parts. It may be I have heard of some such in my long travels."
Eumæus answered, "Old father, never any one of all the strangers
that have come to our coast with news of Ulysses being alive, could
gain credit with the queen or her son yet. These travellers, to get
raiment or a meal, will not stick to invent any lie. Truth is not the
commodity they deal in. Never did the queen get any thing of them but
lies. She receives all that come graciously, hears their stories,
enquires all she can, but all ends in tears and dissatisfaction. But
in God's name, old father, if you have got a tale, make the most on't,
it may gain you a cloak or a coat from somebody to keep you warm: but
for him who is the subject of it, dogs and vultures long since have
torn him limb from limb, or some great fish at sea has devoured him,
or he lieth with no better monument upon his bones than the sea-sand.
But for me past all the race of men were tears created: for I never
shall find so kind a royal master more; not if my father or my mother
could come again and visit me from the tomb, would my eyes be so
blessed, as they should be with the sight of him again, coming as from
the dead. In his last rest my soul shall love him. He is not here, nor
do I name him as a flatterer, but because I am thankful for his love
and care which he had to me a poor man; and if I knew surely that he
were past all shores that the sun shines upon, I would invoke him as a
deified thing."
For this saying of Eumæus the waters stood in Ulysses's eyes, and he
said, "My friend, to say and to affirm positively that he cannot be
alive, is to give too much licence to incredulity. For, not to speak
at random, but with as much solemnity as an oath comes to, I say to
you that Ulysses shall return, and whenever that day shall be, then
shall you give to me a cloak and a coat; but till then, I will not
receive so much as a thread of a garment, but rather go naked; for
no less than the gates of hell do I hate that man, whom poverty can
force to tell an untruth. Be Jove then witness to my words, that this
very year, nay ere this month be fully ended, your eyes shall behold
Ulysses, dealing vengeance in his own palace upon the wrongers of his
wife and his son."
To give the better credence to his words, he amused Eumæus with a
forged story of his life, feigning of himself that he was a Cretan
born, and one that went with Idomeneus to the wars of Troy. Also he
said that he knew Ulysses, and related various passages which he
alleged to have happened betwixt Ulysses and himself, which were
either true in the main, as having really happened between Ulysses and
some other person, or were so like to truth, as corresponding with the
known character and actions of Ulysses, that Eumæus's incredulity was
not a little shaken. Among other things he asserted that he had lately
been entertained in the court of Thesprotia, where the king's son of
the country had told him, that Ulysses had been there but just before
him, and was gone upon a voyage to the oracle of Jove in Dodona,
whence he should shortly return, and a ship would be ready by the
bounty of the Thesprotians to convoy him straight to Ithaca. "And in
token that what I tell you is true," said Ulysses, "if your king come
not within the period which I have named, you shall have leave to
give your servants commandment to take my old carcase, and throw it
headlong from some steep rock into the sea, that poor men, taking
example by me, may fear to lie." But Eumæus made answer that that
should be small satisfaction or pleasure to him.
So while they sat discoursing in this manner, supper was served in,
and the servants of the herdsman, who had been out all day in the
fields, came in to supper, and took their seats at the fire, for the
night was bitter and frosty. After supper, Ulysses, who had well
eaten and drunken, and was refreshed with the herdsman's good cheer,
was resolved to try whether his host's hospitality would extend
to the lending him a good warm mantle or rug to cover him in the
night-season; and framing an artful tale for the purpose, in a merry
mood, filling a cup of Greek wine, he thus began:
"I will tell you a story of your king Ulysses and myself. If there is
ever a time when a man may have leave to tell his own stories, it is
when he has drunken a little too much. Strong liquor driveth the fool,
and moves even the heart of the wise, moves and impels him to sing
and to dance, and break forth in pleasant laughters, and perchance to
prefer a speech too which were better kept in. When the heart is open,
the tongue will be stirring. But you shall hear. We led our powers to
ambush once under the walls of Troy."
The herdsmen crowded about him eager to hear any thing which related
to their king Ulysses and the wars of Troy, and thus he went on:
"I remember, Ulysses and Menelaus had the direction of that
enterprise, and they were pleased to join me with them in the command.
I was at that time in some repute among men, though fortune has played
me a trick since, as you may perceive. But I was somebody in those
times, and could do something. Be that as it may, a bitter freezing
night it was, such a night as this, the air cut like steel, and the
sleet gathered on our shields like crystal. There was some twenty
of us, that lay close couched down among the reeds and bull-rushes
that grew in the moat that goes round the city. The rest of us made
tolerable shift, for every man had been careful to bring with him a
good cloak or mantle to wrap over his armour and keep himself warm;
but I, as it chanced, had left my cloak behind me, as not expecting
that the night would prove so cool, or rather I believe because I had
at that time a brave suit of new armour on, which, being a soldier,
and having some of the soldier's vice about me, _vanity_, I was not
willing should be hidden under a cloak; but I paid for my indiscretion
with my sufferings, for with the inclement night, and the wet of the
ditch in which we lay, I was well nigh frozen to death; and when I
could endure no longer, I jogged Ulysses who was next to me, and had
a nimble ear, and made known my case to him, assuring him that I must
inevitably perish. He answered in a low whisper, 'Hush, lest any Greek
should hear you, and take notice of your softness.' Not a word more
he said, but shewed as if he had no pity for the plight I was in. But
he was as considerate as he was brave, and even then, as he lay with
his head reposing upon his hand, he was meditating how to relieve me,
without exposing my weakness to the soldiers. At last raising up his
head, he made as if he had been asleep, and said, 'Friends, I have
been warned in a dream to send to the fleet to king Agamemnon for a
supply, to recruit our numbers, for we are not sufficient for this
enterprize;' and they believing him, one Thoas was dispatched on
that errand, who departing, for more speed, as Ulysses had foreseen,
left his upper garment behind him, a good warm mantle, to which I
succeeded, and by the help of it got through the night with credit.
This shift Ulysses made for one in need, and would to heaven that I
had now that strength in my limbs, which made me in those days to be
accounted fit to be a leader under Ulysses! I should not then want the
loan of a cloak or a mantle, to wrap about me and shield my old limbs
from the night-air."
The tale pleased the herdsmen; and Eumæus, who more than all the rest
was gratified to hear tales of Ulysses, true or false, said, that for
his story he deserved a mantle, and a night's lodging, which he should
have; and he spread for him a bed of goat and sheep skins by the fire;
and the seeming beggar, who was indeed the true Ulysses, lay down and
slept under that poor roof, in that abject disguise to which the will
of Minerva had subjected him.
When morning was come, Ulysses made offer to depart, as if he were not
willing to burthen his host's hospitality any longer, but said, that
he would go and try the humanity of the town's folk, if any there
would bestow upon him a bit of bread or a cup of drink. Perhaps the
queen's suitors (he said) out of their full feasts would bestow a
scrap on him: for he could wait at table, if need were, and play the
nimble serving-man, he could fetch wood (he said) or build a fire,
prepare roast meat or boiled, mix the wine with water, or do any of
those offices which recommended poor men like him to services in great
men's houses.
"Alas! poor guest," said Eumæus, "you know not what you speak. What
should so poor and old a man as you do at the suitors' tables? Their
light minds are not given to such grave servitors. They must have
youths, richly tricked out in flowing vests, with curled hair, like so
many of Jove's cup-bearers, to fill out the wine to them as they sit
at table, and to shift their trenchers. Their gorged insolence would
but despise and make a mock at thy age. Stay here. Perhaps the queen,
or Telemachus, hearing of thy arrival, may send to thee of their
bounty."
As he spake these words, the steps of one crossing the front court
were heard, and a noise of the dogs fawning and leaping about as for
joy; by which token Eumæus guessed that it was the prince, who hearing
of a traveller being arrived at Eumæus's cottage that brought tidings
of his father, was come to search the truth, and Eumæus said: "It is
the tread of Telemachus, the son of king Ulysses." Before he could
well speak the words, the prince was at the door, whom Ulysses rising
to receive, Telemachus would not suffer that so aged a man, as he
appeared, should rise to do respect to him, but he courteously and
reverently took him by the hand, and inclined his head to him, as if
he had surely known that it was his father indeed: but Ulysses covered
his eyes with his hands, that he might not shew the waters which stood
in them. And Telemachus said, "Is this the man who can tell us tidings
of the king my father?"
"He brags himself to be a Cretan born," said Eumæus, "and that he has
been a soldier and a traveller, but whether he speak the truth or
not, he alone can tell. But whatsoever he has been, what he is now
is apparent. Such as he appears, I give him to you; do what you will
with him; his boast at present is that he is at the very best a
supplicant."
"Be he what he may," said Telemachus, "I accept him at your hands. But
where I should bestow him I know not, seeing that in the palace his
age would not exempt him from the scorn and contempt which my mother's
suitors in their light minds would be sure to fling upon him. A mercy
if he escaped without blows: for they are a company of evil men, whose
profession is wrongs and violence."
Ulysses answered: "Since it is free for any man to speak in presence
of your greatness, I must say that my heart puts on a wolfish
inclination to tear and to devour, hearing your speech, that these
suitors should with such injustice rage, where you should have the
rule solely. What should the cause be? do you wilfully give way to
their ill manners? or has your government been such as has procured
ill will towards you from your people? or do you mistrust your
kinsfolk and friends in such sort, as without trial to decline their
aid? a man's kindred are they that he might trust to when extremities
ran high."
Telemachus replied: "The kindred of Ulysses are few. I have no
brothers to assist me in the strife. But the suitors are powerful in
kindred and friends. The house of old Arcesius has had this fate from
the heavens, that from old it still has been supplied with single
heirs. To Arcesius Laertes only was born, from Laertes descended only
Ulysses, from Ulysses I alone have sprung, whom he left so young, that
from me never comfort arose to him. But the end of all rests in the
hands of the gods."
Then Eumæus departing to see to some necessary business of his herds,
Minerva took a woman's shape, and stood in the entry of the door,
and was seen to Ulysses, but by his son she was not seen, for the
presences of the gods are invisible save to those to whom they will to
reveal themselves. Nevertheless the dogs which were about the door saw
the goddess, and durst not bark, but went crouching and licking of the
dust for fear. And giving signs to Ulysses that the time was now come
in which he should make himself known to his son, by her great power
she changed back his shape into the same which it was before she
transformed him; and Telemachus, who saw the change, but nothing of
the manner by which it was effected, only he saw the appearance of a
king in the vigour of his age where but just now he had seen a worn
and decrepit beggar, was struck with fear, and said, "Some god has
done this house this honour," and he turned away his eyes, and would
have worshipped. But his father permitted not, but said, "Look better
at me; I am no deity, why put you upon me the reputation of godhead? I
am no more but thy father: I am even he; I am that Ulysses, by reason
of whose absence thy youth has been exposed to such wrongs from
injurious men." Then kissed he his son, nor could any longer refrain
those tears which he had held under such mighty restraint before,
though they would ever be forcing themselves out in spite of him;
but now, as if their sluices had burst, they came out like rivers,
pouring upon the warm cheeks of his son. Nor yet by all these violent
arguments could Telemachus be persuaded to believe that it was his
father, but he said, some deity had taken that shape to mock him; for
he affirmed, that it was not in the power of any man, who is sustained
by mortal food, to change his shape so in a moment from age to youth:
for "but now," said he, "you were all wrinkles, and were old, and now
you look as the gods are pictured."
His father replied: "Admire, but fear not, and know me to be at all
parts substantially thy father, who in the inner powers of his mind,
and the unseen workings of a father's love to thee, answers to his
outward shape and pretence! There shall no more Ulysseses come here. I
am he that after twenty years absence, and suffering a world of ill,
have recovered at last the sight of my country earth. It was the will
of Minerva that I should be changed as you saw me. She put me thus
together; she puts together or takes to pieces whom she pleases.
It is in the law of her free power to do it: sometimes to shew her
favourites under a cloud, and poor, and again to restore to them their
ornaments. The gods raise and throw down men with ease."
Then Telemachus could hold out no longer, but he gave way now to a
full belief and persuasion, of that which for joy at first he could
not credit, that it was indeed his true and very father, that stood
before him; and they embraced, and mingled their tears.
Then said Ulysses, "Tell me who these suitors are, what are their
numbers, and how stands the queen thy mother affected to them?"
"She bears them still in expectation," said Telemachus, "which she
never means to fulfil, that she will accept the hand of some one
of them in second nuptials. For she fears to displease them by an
absolute refusal. So from day to day she lingers them on with hope,
which they are content to bear the deferring of, while they have
entertainment at free cost in our palace."
Then said Ulysses, "Reckon up their numbers that we may know their
strength and ours, if we having none but ourselves may hope to prevail
against them."
"O father," he replied, "I have oft-times heard of your fame for
wisdom, and of the great strength of your arm, but the venturous mind
which your speeches now indicate moves me even to amazement: for in no
wise can it consist with wisdom or a sound mind, that two should try
their strengths against a host. Nor five, or ten, or twice ten strong
are these suitors, but many more by much: from Dulichium came there
fifty and two, they and their servants, twice twelve, crossed the seas
hither from Samos, from Zacynthus twice ten, of our native Ithacans,
men of chief note, are twelve who aspire to the bed and crown of
Penelope, and all these under one strong roof, a fearful odds against
two! My father, there is need of caution, lest the cup which your
great mind so thirsts to taste of vengeance, prove bitter to yourself
in the drinking. And therefore it were well that we should bethink us
of some one who might assist us in this undertaking."
"Thinkest thou," said his father, "if we had Minerva and the king of
skies to be our friends, would their sufficiencies make strong our
part; or must we look out for some further aid yet?"
"They you speak of are above the clouds," said Telemachus, "and are
sound aids indeed; as powers that not only exceed human, but bear the
chiefest sway among the gods themselves."
Then Ulysses gave directions to his son, to go and mingle with the
suitors, and in no wise to impart his secret to any, not even to the
queen his mother, but to hold himself in readiness, and to have his
weapons and his good armour in preparation. And he charged him, that
when he himself should come to the palace, as he meant to follow
shortly after, and present himself in his beggar's likeness to the
suitors, that whatever he should see which might grieve his heart,
with what foul usage and contumelious language soever the suitors
should receive his father, coming in that shape, though they should
strike and drag him by the heels along the floors, that he should not
stir nor make offer to oppose them, further than by mild words to
expostulate with them, until Minerva from heaven should give the sign
which should be the prelude to their destruction. And Telemachus
promising to obey his instructions departed; and the shape of Ulysses
fell to what it had been before, and he became to all outward
appearance a beggar, in base and beggarly attire.