-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 5
/
chs-odyssey.xml
4243 lines (4219 loc) · 767 KB
/
chs-odyssey.xml
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-model href="http://www.stoa.org/epidoc/schema/8.19/tei-epidoc.rng"
schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?>
<TEI xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0">
<teiHeader>
<fileDesc>
<titleStmt>
<title>Odyssey (English). Machine readable text</title>
<author>Homer</author>
<sponsor>Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University</sponsor>
<principal>Samuel Butler, 1835-1902.</principal>
<respStmt>
<resp>Revised by</resp>
<name>Soo-YOung Kim</name>
<name>Kelly McCray</name>
<name>Gregory Nagy</name>
<name>Timothy Power</name>
</respStmt>
<funder>Center for Hellenic Studies</funder>
</titleStmt>
<extent>about 700Kb</extent>
<publicationStmt>
<publisher>President and Fellows of Harvard College</publisher>
<pubPlace>Cambridge, MA</pubPlace>
<authority>Center for Hellenic Studies</authority>
</publicationStmt>
<notesStmt>
<note anchored="true">XML prepared by Gregory Crane. </note>
</notesStmt>
<sourceDesc>
<biblStruct>
<monogr>
<author>Homer</author>
<title>The Odyssey: rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original.</title>
<imprint>
<publisher>London: A. C. Fifield</publisher>
<date>1900</date>
</imprint>
</monogr>
</biblStruct>
</sourceDesc>
</fileDesc>
<encodingDesc>
<refsDecl n="CTS">
<cRefPattern n="card" matchPattern="(\w+).(\w+)"
replacementPattern="#xpath(/tei:TEI/tei:text/tei:body/tei:div/tei:div[@n='$1']/tei:div[@n='$2'])">
<p>This pointer pattern extracts book and card</p>
</cRefPattern>
<cRefPattern n="book" matchPattern="(\w+)"
replacementPattern="#xpath(/tei:TEI/tei:text/tei:body/tei:div/tei:div[@n='$1'])">
<p>This pointer pattern extracts book</p>
</cRefPattern>
</refsDecl>
<refsDecl>
<refState unit="Book" delim="."/>
<refState unit="card"/>
</refsDecl>
</encodingDesc>
<profileDesc>
<langUsage>
<language ident="eng">English</language>
<language ident="grc">Greek</language>
</langUsage>
</profileDesc>
<revisionDesc>
<change when="20200820" who="Gregor Crane">Converted the plain text of the CHS HTML to EpiDoc.</change>
</revisionDesc>
</teiHeader>
<text>
<body>
<div type="translation" n="urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng3" xml:lang="eng">
<div type="textpart" subtype="rhapsody" n="1">
<p><s>That man, tell me O Muse the song of that man, that versatile [polu-tropos] man, who in very many ways <milestone unit="line" n="2"/> veered from his path and wandered off far and wide, after he had destroyed the sacred citadel of Troy.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="3"/>Many different cities of many different people did he see, getting to know different ways of thinking [noos].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="4"/>Many were the pains [algea] he suffered in his heart [thūmos] while crossing the sea <milestone unit="line" n="5"/> struggling to merit [arnusthai] the saving of his own life [psūkhē] and his own homecoming [nostos] as well as the homecoming of his comrades [hetairoi].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="6"/>But do what he might he could not save his comrades [hetairoi], even though he very much wanted to.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="7"/>For they perished through their own deeds of sheer recklessness, 8disconnected [nēpioi] as they were, because of what they did to the cattle of the sun-god Helios.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="9"/>They ate them.</s>
<s>So the god [Helios] deprived them of their day of homecoming [nostimon].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="10"/>Starting from any single point of departure, O goddess, daughter of Zeus, tell me, as you have told those who came before me.</s></p>
<p><s>11 So now all those who escaped precipitous death <milestone unit="line" n="12"/> were safely home, having survived the war and the sea voyage.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="13"/>But he [= Odysseus], apart from the others, though he was longing for his homecoming [nostos] and for his wife, <milestone unit="line" n="14"/> was detained by the queenly nymph [numphē] Kalypsō, who has her own luminous place among all the goddesses <milestone unit="line" n="15"/> who had got him into a large cave and wanted to marry him.</s>
<s>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 trials [āthloi] were not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him <milestone unit="line" n="20"/> except Poseidon, who still persecuted godlike Odysseus without ceasing and would not let him get home.</s></p>
<p><s>Now Poseidon had gone off to <milestone unit="line" n="23"/> the Ethiopians, who are divided in two, the most remote of men: <milestone unit="line" n="24"/> some where Hyperion [Helios] sets, others where he rises.</s>
<s>He had gone there <milestone unit="line" n="25"/> 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 Zeus, and the father of gods and men spoke first.</s>
<s>At that moment he was thinking of stately Aegisthus, <milestone unit="line" n="30"/> who had been killed by Agamemnon’s far-famed son Orestes; so he said to the other gods:</s></p>
<p><s>32 “Oh my, how mortals hold us gods responsible [= aitioi]!</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="33"/>For they say that their misfortunes come from us.</s>
<s>But they get their sufferings, <milestone unit="line" n="34"/> beyond what is fated, by way of their own acts of recklessness [atasthaliai].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="35"/>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 Hermes, the mighty watcher, to warn him not to do either of these things, <milestone unit="line" n="40"/> inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home.</s>
<s>Hermes told him this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has paid for everything in full.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then owl-vision Athena said,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="45"/>“Father, son of Kronos, 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 high-spirited Odysseus that my heart bleeds, when I think of <milestone unit="line" n="50"/> his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt island, far away, poor man, from all his friends.</s>
<s>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 the sky and earth asunder.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="55"/>This daughter of Atlas has got hold of poor unhappy Odysseus, 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.</s>
<s>You, sir, <milestone unit="line" n="60"/> take no heed of this, and yet when Odysseus was at Troy did he not propitiate you with many a burnt sacrifice?</s>
<s>Why then should you keep on being so angry with him?”</s></p>
<p><s>And Zeus said, “My child, what are you talking about?</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="65"/>How can I forget godlike Odysseus than whom there is no more capable man on earth [in regard to noos], nor more liberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in the sky?</s>
<s>Bear in mind, however, that earth-encircler Poseidon is still furious with Odysseus for having blinded an eye of Polyphemus, king of the Cyclopes.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="70"/>Polyphemus is son to Poseidon, shaker of the earth, by the nymph Thoösa, daughter to the sea-king Phorkys; therefore though he will not <milestone unit="line" n="75"/> kill Odysseus outright, he torments him by preventing him from his homecoming [nostos].</s>
<s>Still, let us lay our heads together and see how we can help him to return; Poseidon will then be pacified, for if we are all of a mind he can hardly stand out against us.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="80"/> And owl-vision Athena said, “Father, son of Kronos, King of kings, if, then, the gods now mean that Odysseus should get home, we should first send Hermes, the guide, the slayer of Argos <milestone unit="line" n="85"/> to the Ogygian island to tell lovely-haired Kalypsō that we have made up our minds and that he is to have his homecoming [nostos].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="88"/>As for me, I will go travel to Ithaca, going to his [= Odysseus’] son <milestone unit="line" n="89"/> in order to give him [= Telemachus] more encouragement and to put power [menos] into his heart [phrenes].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="90"/>He is to summon the long-haired Achaeans for a meeting in assembly, <milestone unit="line" n="91"/> and he is to speak out to all the suitors [of his mother Penelope], who persist in <milestone unit="line" n="92"/> slaughtering again and again any number of his sheep and oxen.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="93"/>And I will conduct him to Sparta and to sandy Pylos, <milestone unit="line" n="94"/> and thus he will learn the return [nostos] of his dear [philos] father, if by chance he [= Telemachus] hears it, <milestone unit="line" n="95"/> and thus may genuine glory [kleos] possess him throughout humankind.”</s></p>
<p><s>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 terrifying bronze-shod spear, <milestone unit="line" n="100"/> 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, and then, right away, she was in the district [dēmos] of Ithaca, at the gateway of Odysseus’ house, <milestone unit="line" n="105"/> disguised as a visitor, Mentes, chief of the Taphians, and she held a bronze spear in her hand.</s>
<s>There she found the lordly suitors seated on hides of the oxen which they had killed and eaten, and diverting their hearts [thūmos] with board games in front of the house.</s>
<s>Men-servants and pages were bustling about to wait upon them, <milestone unit="line" n="110"/> 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.</s></p>
<p><s>Godlike Telemachus saw her long before any one else did.</s>
<s>He was sitting moodily among the suitors <milestone unit="line" n="115"/> thinking about his brave father, and how he would send them fleeing out of the house, if he were to come to his own again and be honored as in days gone by.</s>
<s>Thus brooding as he sat among them, he caught sight of Athena and went straight to the gate, for he was vexed <milestone unit="line" n="120"/> that a stranger should be kept waiting for admittance.</s>
<s>He took her right hand in his own, and bade her give him her spear.</s>
<s>“Welcome,” said he, “to our house, and when you have partaken of food you shall tell us what you have come for.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="125"/> He led the way as he spoke, and Athena followed him.</s>
<s>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, patient-hearted Odysseus <milestone unit="line" n="130"/> and he conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he threw a cloth of damask.</s>
<s>There was a footstool also for her feet, 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, <milestone unit="line" n="135"/> and that he might ask her more freely about his father.</s></p>
<p><s>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.</s>
<s>An upper servant brought them bread, <milestone unit="line" n="140"/> 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 man-servant brought them wine and poured it out for them.</s></p>
<p><s>Then the suitors came in and <milestone unit="line" n="145"/> took their places on the benches and seats.</s>
<s>Right away 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.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="150"/>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 Phemios, whom they compelled perforce to sing to them.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="155"/>As soon as he touched his lyre and began to sing Telemachus spoke low to Athena of the owl’s vision, with his head close to hers that no man might hear.</s></p>
<p><s>“I hope, sir,” said he, “that you will not be offended with what I am going to say.</s>
<s>Singing comes cheap to those who do not pay for it, <milestone unit="line" n="160"/> and all this is done at the cost of one whose bones lie rotting in some wilderness or grinding to powder in the surf.</s>
<s>If these men were to see my father come back to Ithaca they would pray for longer legs <milestone unit="line" n="165"/> rather than a longer purse, for wealth 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.</s>
<s>And now, sir, tell me and tell me true, <milestone unit="line" n="170"/> who you are and where you come from.</s>
<s>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.</s>
<s>Tell me also truly, for I want to know, <milestone unit="line" n="175"/> are you a stranger to this house, or have you been here in my father’s time?</s>
<s>In the old days we had many visitors for my father went about much himself.”</s></p>
<p><s>And owl-vision Athena answered, “I will tell you truly and particularly all about it.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="180"/>I am Mentes, son of high-spirited Ankhialos, and I am King of the oar-loving Taphians.</s>
<s>I have come here with my ship and crew, on a voyage to men of a foreign tongue being bound for Temesa with a cargo of iron, and I shall bring back copper.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="185"/>As for my ship, it lies over yonder off the open country away from the town, in the harbor Rheithron under the wooded mountain Neriton.</s>
<s>Our fathers were friends before us, as the old hero Laertes will tell you, if you will go and ask him.</s>
<s>They say, however, that he never comes to town <milestone unit="line" n="190"/> 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.</s>
<s>They told me your father was at home again, and that was why I came, <milestone unit="line" n="195"/> but it seems the gods are still keeping him back, for he is not dead yet not on the mainland.</s>
<s>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.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="200"/>I am no prophet [mantis], and know very little about omens, but I speak as it is borne in upon me from the sky, 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 <milestone unit="line" n="205"/> of getting home again.</s>
<s>But tell me, and tell me true, can Odysseus really have such a fine looking young man for a son?</s>
<s>You are indeed wonderfully like him about the head and eyes, for we were close friends <milestone unit="line" n="210"/> before he set sail for Troy where the flower of all the Argives went also.</s>
<s>Since that time we have never either of us seen the other.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="215"/> “My mother,” answered the spirited Telemachus, “tells me I am son to Odysseus, but it is a wise child that knows his own father.</s>
<s>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 the sky than he <milestone unit="line" n="220"/> who they tell me is my father.”</s></p>
<p><s>And owl-vision Athena said, “There is no fear of your lineage dying out yet, while Penelope has such a fine son as you are.</s>
<s>But tell me, and tell me true, <milestone unit="line" n="225"/> what is the meaning of all this feasting, and who are these people?</s>
<s>What is it all about?</s>
<s>Have you some banquet, or is there a wedding in the family—for no one seems to be bringing any provisions of his own?</s>
<s>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.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="230"/> “Sir,” said the spirited 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, <milestone unit="line" n="235"/> and have hidden him away more closely than mortal man was ever yet hidden.</s>
<s>I could have borne it better even though he were dead, if he had fallen with his men in the district [dēmos] of 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, <milestone unit="line" n="240"/> and I should myself have been heir to his renown [kleos];</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="241"/>But now the whirlwinds [harpuiai] have abducted him, without kleos.</s>
<s>He is gone without leaving so much as a trace behind him, and I inherit nothing but dismay.</s>
<s>Nor does the matter end simply with grief for the loss of my father; the gods have laid sorrows upon me of yet another kind; <milestone unit="line" n="245"/> for the chiefs from all our islands, Doulikhion, Samē, and the woodland island of Zakynthos, 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, nor yet <milestone unit="line" n="250"/> bring matters to an end; so they are making havoc of my estate, and before long will do so also with myself.”</s></p>
<p><s>“Is that so?” exclaimed Athena, “Then you do indeed want absent Odysseus home again.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="255"/>Give him his helmet, shield, and a couple 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.</s>
<s>He was then coming from Ephyra, <milestone unit="line" n="260"/> where he had been to beg poison for his arrows from Ilos, son of Mermeros.</s>
<s>Ilos 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.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="265"/>If Odysseus is the man he then was these suitors will have a swift doom and a sorry wedding.</s></p>
<p><s>But there!</s>
<s>It rests with the gods 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 <milestone unit="line" n="270"/> to get rid of these suitors at once.</s>
<s>Take my advice, call the Achaean heroes in assembly tomorrow—lay your case before them, and call the gods to bear you witness.</s>
<s>Bid the suitors take themselves off, each to his own place, <milestone unit="line" n="275"/> 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.</s>
<s>As for yourself, let me prevail upon you <milestone unit="line" n="280"/> 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.</s>
<s>Some one may tell you something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some message [kleos] sent from the gods may direct you.</s>
<s>First you go to Pylos and ask radiant Nestor; <milestone unit="line" n="285"/> and then from there to Sparta and to golden-haired Menelaos, the one who was the last of the Achaeans, wearers of bronze tunics, to come back home; if you hear that your father is alive and about to achieve his homecoming [nostos], you can put up with the waste these suitors will make for yet another twelve months.</s>
<s>If on the other hand you hear of his death, <milestone unit="line" n="290"/> come home at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due pomp, build a grave marker [sēma] to his memory, and make your mother marry again.</s>
<s>Then, having done all this, think it well over in your mind how, by fair means or foul, <milestone unit="line" n="295"/> you may kill these suitors in your own house.</s>
<s>You are too old to plead infancy any longer; have you not heard how people are singing Orestes’ praises [kleos] for having killed <milestone unit="line" n="300"/> his father’s murderer treacherous Aegisthus?</s>
<s>You are a fine, smart looking young man; show your mettle, then, and make yourself a name in story.</s>
<s>Now, however, I must go back to my ship and to my crew, who will be impatient if I keep them waiting longer; <milestone unit="line" n="305"/> think the matter over for yourself, and remember what I have said to you.”</s></p>
<p><s>“Sir,” answered the spirited 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 <milestone unit="line" n="310"/> till you have taken a bath and refreshed yourself.</s>
<s>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.”</s></p>
<p><s>Owl-vision Athena answered,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="315"/>“Do not try to keep me, for I would be on my way at once.</s>
<s>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.</s>
<s>You shall give me a very good one, and I will give you one of no less value in return.”</s></p>
<p><s>With these words <milestone unit="line" n="319"/> owl-vision Athena went away <milestone unit="line" n="320"/> and like a bird she flew up, but into his heart [thūmos] <milestone unit="line" n="321"/> she [= Athena] had placed power [menos] and daring, and she had mentally connected [hupo-mnē] him with his father <milestone unit="line" n="322"/> even more than before.</s>
<s>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.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="325"/> The famed singer was singing for them [= the suitors], and they in silence <milestone unit="line" n="326"/> sat and listened.</s>
<s>He [= Phemios the singer] was singing the homecoming [nostos] of the Achaeans, <milestone unit="line" n="327"/> a disastrous [lugros] homecoming from Troy, and Pallas Athena was the one who brought it all to fulfillment [epi-tellesthai].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="328"/>From her room upstairs, this divinely inspired song of his was understood in her mind by <milestone unit="line" n="329"/> the daughter of Ikarios, the exceptionally intelligent Penelope, <milestone unit="line" n="330"/> and she came down the lofty staircase of her palace.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="331"/>She came not alone, but attended by two of her handmaidens.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="332"/>When she reached the suitors, this most radiant of women, <milestone unit="line" n="333"/> she stood by one of the posts that supported the roof of the halls, <milestone unit="line" n="334"/> holding in front of her cheeks a luxuriant veil, <milestone unit="line" n="335"/> and a trusted handmaiden stood on either side of her.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="336"/>Then, shedding tears, she addressed the godlike singer:</s></p>
<p><s>337 “Phemios, you know many another thing that charms mortals, <milestone unit="line" n="338"/> all about the deeds of men and gods, to which singers give glory [kleeîn].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="339"/>Sing for them [= the suitors] some one of those songs of glory, and let them in silence <milestone unit="line" n="340"/> drink their wine.</s>
<s>But you stop this sad song, <milestone unit="line" n="341"/> this disastrous [lugrē] song, which again and again affects my very own [philon] heart in my breast, <milestone unit="line" n="342"/> wearing it down, since an unforgettable grief [penthos alaston] comes over me, more than ever.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="343"/>I feel this way because that is the kind of person I long for, recalling his memory again and again, <milestone unit="line" n="344"/> the memory of a man whose glory [kleos] extends far and wide throughout Hellas and midmost Argos.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="345"/> “Mother,” answered the spirited Telemachus, “let the bard sing what he has a mind [noos] to; bards are not responsible [aitios] for the ills they sing of; it is Zeus, not they, who is responsible [aitios], and who sends weal or woe upon humankind according to his own good pleasure.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="350"/>There should be no feeling of sanction [nemesis] against this one for singing the ill-fated return of the Danaans, <milestone unit="line" n="351"/> for men would most rather give glory [kleos] to that song <milestone unit="line" n="352"/> which is the newest to make the rounds among listeners.</s>
<s>Make up your mind to it and bear it; Odysseus is not the only man who never came <milestone unit="line" n="355"/> back from Troy, but many another went down as well as he.</s>
<s>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—for it is I who am master here.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="360"/> She went wondering back into the house, and laid her son’s saying in her heart.</s>
<s>Then, going upstairs with her handmaids into her room, she mourned her dear husband till owl-vision Athena shed sweet sleep over her eyes.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="365"/>But the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered halls, and prayed each one that he might be her bedmate.</s></p>
<p><s>Then the spirited Telemachus spoke, “You suitors of my mother,” he cried, “you with your overweening insolence [hubris], let us feast at our pleasure now, and let there be no <milestone unit="line" n="370"/> brawling, for it is a rare thing to hear a man with such a divine voice as Phemios 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, <milestone unit="line" n="375"/> turn and turn about, at your own cost.</s>
<s>If on the other hand you choose to persist in sponging upon one man, may the gods help me, but Zeus shall reckon with you in full, <milestone unit="line" n="380"/> and when you fall in my father’s house there shall be no man to avenge you.”</s></p>
<p><s>The suitors bit their lips as they heard him, and marveled at the boldness of his speech.</s>
<s>Then, Antinoos, son of Eupeithes, said, “The gods seem to have given you lessons <milestone unit="line" n="385"/> in bluster and tall talking; may Zeus never grant you to be chief in Ithaca as your father was before you.”</s></p>
<p><s>The spirited Telemachus answered, “Antinoos, do not chide with me, but, <milestone unit="line" n="390"/> god willing, I will be chief too if I can.</s>
<s>Is this the worst fate you can think of for me?</s>
<s>It is no bad thing to be a chief, for it brings both riches and honor.</s>
<s>Still, now that Odysseus is dead there are many great men in Ithaca <milestone unit="line" n="395"/> 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 great Odysseus has won for me.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then Eurymakhos, son of Polybos, answered,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="400"/>“It rests with the gods 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 [biē] nor rob you.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="405"/>And now, my good man, I want to know about this stranger.</s>
<s>What country does he come from?</s>
<s>Of what family is he, and where is his estate?</s>
<s>Has he brought you news about the return of your father, or was he on business of his own?</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="410"/>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.”</s></p>
<p><s>“The homecoming [nostos] of my father is dead and gone,” answered the spirited Telemachus, “and even if some rumor reaches me I put no more faith in it now.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="415"/>My mother does indeed sometimes send for a soothsayer and question him, but I give his prophesying no heed.</s>
<s>As for the stranger, he was Mentes, son of Ankhialos, chief of the oar-loving Taphians, an old friend of my father’s.”</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="420"/>But in his heart he knew that it had been the goddess.</s></p>
<p><s>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.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="425"/>Telemachus’ room was high up in a tower that looked on to the outer court; there, then, he went, brooding and full of thought.</s>
<s>A good old woman, Eurykleia, daughter of Ops, the son of Peisenor, went before him with a couple of blazing torches.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="430"/>Laertes had bought her with his own wealth when she was quite young; he gave the worth of twenty oxen for her, and showed 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.</s>
<s>She it was who now lighted Telemachus to his room, and she loved him <milestone unit="line" n="435"/> better than any of the other women in the house did, for she had nursed him when he was a baby.</s>
<s>He opened the door of his bed room and sat down upon the bed; as he took off his khiton he gave it to the good old woman, who folded it tidily up, <milestone unit="line" n="440"/> 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.</s>
<s>But Telemachus as he lay covered with a woolen fleece kept thinking all night through of his intended voyage and of the counsel that Athena had given him.</s></p></div>
<div type="textpart" subtype="rhapsody" n="2">
<p><s>Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, dear Telemachus rose and dressed himself.</s>
<s>He bound his sandals on to his comely feet, girded his sword about his shoulder, <milestone unit="line" n="5"/> and left his room looking like an immortal god.</s>
<s>He at once sent the criers round to call the people in assembly, so they called them and the people gathered there; then, when they were got together, <milestone unit="line" n="10"/> he went to the place of assembly spear in hand—not alone, for his two hounds went with him.</s>
<s>Athena endowed him with a presence of such divine gracefulness [kharis] that all marveled at him as he went by, and when he took his place in his father’s seat even the oldest councilors made way for him.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="15"/> Aigyptios, a man bent double with age, and of infinite experience, was the first to speak.</s>
<s>His son Antiphos the spearman had gone with Odysseus to Ilion, land of noble steeds, but the savage Cyclops had killed him <milestone unit="line" n="20"/> when they were all shut up in the cave, and had cooked his last dinner for him.</s>
<s>He had three sons left, of whom two still worked on their father’s land, while the third, Eurynomos, was one of the suitors; nevertheless their father could not get over the loss of Antiphos, and was still weeping for him when he began his speech.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="25"/> “Men of Ithaca,” he said, “hear my words.</s>
<s>From the day great Odysseus left us there has been no meeting of our councilors until now; who then can it be, whether old or young, that finds it so necessary to convene us?</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="30"/>Has he got wind of some enemy force approaching, and does he wish to warn us, or would he speak upon some other matter of public moment?</s>
<s>I am sure he is an excellent person, and I hope Zeus will grant him his heart’s desire.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="35"/> Telemachus took this speech as of good omen and rose at once, for he was bursting with what he had to say.</s>
<s>He stood in the middle of the assembly and the good herald Peisenor, a man of deep discretion, brought him his staff.</s>
<s>Then, turning to Aigyptios,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="40"/>“Sir,” said he, “it is I, as you will shortly learn, who have convened you, for it is I who am the most aggrieved.</s>
<s>I have not got wind of any enemy force approaching about which I would warn you, nor is there any matter of public moment on which I would speak.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="45"/>My grievance is purely personal, and turns on two great misfortunes which have fallen upon my house.</s>
<s>The first of these is the loss of my excellent father, who was chief among all you here present, and was like a father to every one of you; the second is much more serious, and before long will be the utter ruin of my estate.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="50"/>The sons of all the chief men among you are pestering my mother to marry them against her will.</s>
<s>They are afraid to go to her father Ikarios, asking him to choose the one he likes best, and to provide marriage gifts for his daughter, <milestone unit="line" n="55"/> but day by day they keep hanging about my father’s house, sacrificing our oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much as a thought to the quantity of wine they drink.</s>
<s>No estate can stand such recklessness; we have now no Odysseus to ward off harm from our doors, <milestone unit="line" n="60"/> and I cannot hold my own against them.</s>
<s>I shall never all my days be as good a man as he was, still I would indeed defend myself if I had power to do so, for I cannot stand such treatment any longer; my house is being disgraced and ruined.</s>
<s>Have respect, therefore, to your own consciences <milestone unit="line" n="65"/> and to public opinion.</s>
<s>Fear, too, the wrath [mēnis] of the gods, lest they should be displeased and turn upon you.</s>
<s>I pray you by Zeus the Olympian and Themis, who is the beginning and the end of councils, <milestone unit="line" n="70"/> [do not] hold back, my friends, and leave me single-handed—unless it be that my brave father Odysseus did some wrong to the strong-greaved Achaeans which you would now avenge on me, by aiding and abetting these suitors.</s>
<s>Moreover, if I am to be eaten out of house and home at all,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="75"/>I had rather you did the eating yourselves, for I could then take action against you to some purpose, and serve you with notices from house to house till I got paid in full, whereas now I have no remedy.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="80"/> With this Telemachus dashed his staff to the ground and burst into tears.</s>
<s>Every one was very sorry for him, but they all sat still and no one ventured to make him an angry answer, save only Antinoos, who spoke thus:</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="85"/> “Telemachus, insolent braggart that you are, how dare you try to throw the blame upon us suitors?</s>
<s>We are not the ones who are responsible [aitioi] but your mother is, for she knows many kinds of craftiness [kerdos].</s>
<s>This three years past, and close on four, <milestone unit="line" n="90"/> she has been driving us out of our minds, by encouraging each one of us, and sending him messages that say one thing but her mind [noos] means other things.</s>
<s>And then there was that other trick she played us.</s>
<s>She set up a great loom in her room, and began to weave <milestone unit="line" n="95"/> an enormous fine web. ‘Sweet hearts,’ said she, ‘Great Odysseus is indeed dead, still do not press me to marry again immediately, wait—for I would not have skill in weaving perish unrecorded—till I have completed a shroud for the hero Laertes, to be in readiness against the time when <milestone unit="line" n="100"/> death shall take him.</s>
<s>He is very rich, and the women of the district [dēmos] will talk if he is laid out without a shroud.’</s></p>
<p><s>This was what she said, and we assented; whereon we could see her working on her great web all day long, <milestone unit="line" n="105"/> but at night she would undo it again by torchlight.</s>
<s>She fooled us in this way for three years and we never found her out, but as time [hōrā] wore on and she was now in her fourth year, one of her maids who knew what she was doing told us, and we caught her in the act of undoing her work, <milestone unit="line" n="110"/> so she had to finish it whether she would or no.</s>
<s>The suitors, therefore, make you this answer, that both you and the Achaeans may understand—‘Send your mother away, and bid her marry the man of her own and of her father’s choice’; <milestone unit="line" n="115"/> for I do not know what will happen if she goes on plaguing us much longer with the airs she gives herself on the score of the accomplishments Athena has taught her, and because she knows so many kinds of kerdos.</s>
<s>We never yet heard of such a woman; we know all about</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="120"/>Tyro, Alkmene, Mycenae, wearer of garlands, and the famous women of old.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="121"/>Of all these women, not one knew thoughts equal to [homoia] the thoughts <milestone unit="line" n="122"/> knew, but they were nothing to your mother, any one of them.</s>
<s>It was not fair of her to treat us in that way, and as long as she continues in the mind [noos] with which the gods have now endowed her, so long shall we go on eating up your estate; <milestone unit="line" n="125"/> and I do not see why she should change, for she gets all the honor and glory [kleos], and it is you who pay for it, not she.</s>
<s>Understand, then, that we will not go back to our lands, neither here nor elsewhere, till she has made her choice and married some one or other of us.”</s></p>
<p><s>The spirited Telemachus answered,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="130"/>“Antinoos, how can I drive the mother who bore me from my father’s house?</s>
<s>My father is abroad and we do not know whether he is alive or dead.</s>
<s>It will be hard on me if I have to pay Ikarios the large sum which I must give him if I insist on sending his daughter back to him.</s>
<s>Not only will he deal rigorously with me, but some superhuman force [daimōn] will also <milestone unit="line" n="135"/> punish me; for my mother when she leaves the house will call on the Furies [Erinyes] to avenge her; besides, it would not be a creditable thing to do [= “it will result in nemesis for me among men”], and I will have nothing to say to it.</s>
<s>If you choose to take offence at this, leave the house and feast elsewhere <milestone unit="line" n="140"/> at one another’s houses at your own cost turn and turn about.</s>
<s>If, on the other hand, you elect to persist in sponging upon one man, may the gods help me, but Zeus shall reckon with you in full, <milestone unit="line" n="145"/> and when you fall in my father’s house there shall be no man to avenge you.”</s></p>
<p><s>As he spoke Zeus sent two eagles from the top of the mountain, and they flew on and on with the wind, sailing side-by-side in their own lordly flight.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="150"/>When they were right over the middle of the assembly they wheeled and circled about, beating the air with their wings and glaring death into the eyes of them that were below; then, fighting fiercely and tearing at one another, they flew off towards the right over the town.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="155"/>The people wondered as they saw them, and asked each other what all this might be; whereon the aged warrior Halitherses, who was the best prophet and reader of omens among them, <milestone unit="line" n="160"/> spoke to them plainly and in all honesty, saying:</s></p>
<p><s>“Hear me, men of Ithaca, and I speak more particularly to the suitors, for I see mischief brewing for them.</s>
<s>Odysseus is not going to be away much longer; indeed <milestone unit="line" n="165"/> he is close at hand to deal out death and destruction, not on them alone, but on many another of us who live in Ithaca.</s>
<s>Let us then be wise in time, and put a stop to this wickedness before he comes.</s>
<s>Let the suitors do so of their own accord; it will be better for them, <milestone unit="line" n="170"/> for I am not prophesying without due knowledge; everything has happened to resourceful Odysseus as I foretold when the Argives set out for Troy, and he with them.</s>
<s>I said that after going through much hardship and losing all his men <milestone unit="line" n="175"/> he should come home again in the twentieth year and that no one would know him; and now all this is coming true.”</s></p>
<p><s>Eurymakhos, son of Polybos, then said, “Go home, old man, and prophesy to your own children, or it may be worse for them.</s>
<s>I can read these omens myself <milestone unit="line" n="180"/> much better than you can; birds are always flying about in the sunshine somewhere or other, but they seldom mean anything.</s>
<s>Odysseus has died in a far country, and it is a pity you are not dead along with him, instead of prating here about omens <milestone unit="line" n="185"/> and adding fuel to the anger of Telemachus which is fierce enough as it is.</s>
<s>I suppose you think he will give you something for your family, but I tell you—and it shall surely be—when an old man like you, who should know better, talks a young one over till he becomes troublesome, <milestone unit="line" n="190"/> in the first place his young friend will only fare so much the worse—he will take nothing by it, for the suitors will prevent this—and in the next, we will lay a heavier fine, sir, upon yourself than you will at all like paying, for it will bear hardly upon you.</s>
<s>As for Telemachus, I warn him in the presence of you all <milestone unit="line" n="195"/> to send his mother back to her father, who will find her a husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts so dear a daughter may expect.</s>
<s>Till then we shall go on harassing him with our suit; for we fear no man, <milestone unit="line" n="200"/> and care neither for him, with all his fine speeches, nor for any fortune-telling of yours.</s>
<s>You may preach as much as you please, but we shall only hate you the more.</s>
<s>We shall go back and continue to eat up Telemachus’ estate without paying him, till such time as his mother leaves off tormenting us <milestone unit="line" n="205"/> by keeping us day after day on the tiptoe of expectation, each vying with the other in his suit for a prize of such rare perfection [aretē].</s>
<s>Besides we cannot go after the other women whom we should marry in due course, but for the way in which she treats us.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then the spirited Telemachus said, “Eurymakhos, and you other haughty suitors,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="210"/>I shall say no more, and entreat you no further, for the gods and the people of Ithaca now know my story.</s>
<s>Give me, then, a ship and a crew of twenty men to take me here and there, and I will go to Sparta and to Pylos <milestone unit="line" n="215"/> to inquire about the nostos of my father who has so long been missing.</s>
<s>Some one may tell me something, or (and people often hear kleos in this way) some message sent from the gods may direct me.</s>
<s>If I can hear of him as alive and achieving his homecoming [nostos] I will put up with the waste you suitors will make for yet another <milestone unit="line" n="220"/> twelve months.</s>
<s>If on the other hand I hear of his death, I will return at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due pomp, build a grave marker [sēma] to his memory, and make my mother marry again.”</s></p>
<p><s>With these words he sat down, <milestone unit="line" n="225"/> and Mentor who had been a friend of stately Odysseus, and had been left in charge of everything with full authority over the servants, rose to speak.</s>
<s>He, then, plainly and in all honesty addressed them thus:</s></p>
<p><s>“Hear me, men of Ithaca,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="230"/>I hope that you may never have a kind and well-disposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern you equitably; I hope that all your chiefs henceforward may be cruel and unjust, for there is not one of you but has forgotten godlike Odysseus, who ruled you as though he were your father.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="235"/>I am not half so angry with the suitors, for if they choose to do violence in the naughtiness of their minds [noos], and wager their heads that Odysseus will not return, they can take the high hand and eat up his estate, but as for you others I am shocked at the way <milestone unit="line" n="240"/> in which you the rest of the population [dēmos] all sit still without even trying to stop such scandalous goings on—which you could do if you chose, for you are many and they are few.”</s></p>
<p><s>Leiokritos, son of Euenor, answered him saying, “Mentor, what folly is all this, that you should set the people to stay us?</s>
<s>It is a hard thing <milestone unit="line" n="245"/> for one man to fight with many about his victuals.</s>
<s>Even though Odysseus himself were to set upon us while we are feasting in his house, and do his best to oust us, his wife, who wants him back so very badly, would have small cause for rejoicing, <milestone unit="line" n="250"/> and his blood would be upon his own head if he fought against such great odds.</s>
<s>There is no sense in what you have been saying.</s>
<s>Now, therefore, do you people go about your business, and let his father’s old friends, Mentor and Halitherses, speed this boy on his journey, if he goes at all— <milestone unit="line" n="255"/> which I do not think he will, for he is more likely to stay where he is till some one comes and tells him something.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then he broke up the assembly, and every man went back to his own abode, while the suitors returned to the house of godlike Odysseus.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="260"/> Then Telemachus went all alone by the sea side, washed his hands in the gray waves, and prayed to Athena.</s>
<s>“Hear me,” he cried, “you god who visited me yesterday, and bade me sail the seas in search of the nostos of my father <milestone unit="line" n="265"/> who has so long been missing.</s>
<s>I would obey you, but the Achaeans, and more particularly the wicked suitors, are hindering me that I cannot do so.”</s></p>
<p><s>As he thus prayed, Athena came close up to him in the likeness and with the voice of Mentor.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="270"/>“Telemachus, you will not be weak or resourceless in the future <milestone unit="line" n="271"/> if truly the goodly power [menos] of your father has been instilled in you, for Odysseus never broke his word nor left his work half done.</s>
<s>If, then, you take after him, your voyage will not be fruitless, but unless you have the blood of Odysseus and of Penelope in your veins</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="275"/>I see no likelihood of your succeeding.</s>
<s>Sons are seldom as good men as their fathers; they are generally worse, not better; still, as you are not going to be either fool or coward henceforward, and are not entirely without some share of your father’s wise discernment,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="280"/>I look with hope upon your undertaking.</s>
<s>But mind you never have thoughts [noos] like those of any of those foolish suitors, for they are neither sensible nor just [dikaioi], and give no thought to death and to the doom that will shortly fall on one and all of them, so that they shall perish on the same day.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="285"/>As for your voyage, it shall not be long delayed; your father was such an old friend of mine that I will find you a ship, and will come with you myself.</s>
<s>Now, however, return home, and go about among the suitors; begin getting provisions ready for your voyage; see everything well stowed, <milestone unit="line" n="290"/> the wine in jars, and the barley meal, which is the staff of life, in leather bags, while I go round the district [dēmos] and round up volunteers at once.</s>
<s>There are many ships in Ithaca both old and new; I will run my eye over them for you and will choose the best; <milestone unit="line" n="295"/> we will get her ready and will put out to sea without delay.”</s></p>
<p><s>Thus spoke Athena, daughter of Zeus, and Telemachus lost no time in doing as the goddess told him.</s>
<s>He went moodily and found the suitors <milestone unit="line" n="300"/> flaying goats and singeing pigs in the outer court.</s>
<s>Antinoos came up to him at once and laughed as he took his hand in his own, saying, “Telemachus, my fine fire-eater, bear no more ill blood neither in word <milestone unit="line" n="305"/> nor deed, but eat and drink with us as you used to do.</s>
<s>The Achaeans will find you in everything—a ship and a picked crew to boot—so that you can set sail for sacred Pylos at once and get news of your noble father.”</s></p>
<p><s>“Antinoos,” answered the spirited Telemachus,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="310"/>“I cannot eat in peace, nor take pleasure of any kind with such men as you are.</s>
<s>Was it not enough that you should waste so much good property of mine while I was yet a boy?</s>
<s>Now that I am older and <milestone unit="line" n="315"/> know more about it, I am also stronger, and whether here among this people [dēmos], or by going to Pylos, I will do you all the harm I can.</s>
<s>I shall go, and my going will not be in vain though, thanks to you suitors, I have neither ship nor crew of my own, and must be passenger not captain.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="320"/> As he spoke he snatched his hand from that of Antinoos.</s>
<s>Meanwhile the others went on getting dinner ready about the buildings, jeering at him tauntingly as they did so.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="325"/> “Telemachus,” said one youngster, “means to be the death of us; I suppose he thinks he can bring friends to help him from Pylos, or again from Sparta, where he seems bent on going.</s>
<s>Or will he go to Ephyra as well, for poison <milestone unit="line" n="330"/> to put in our wine and kill us?”</s></p>
<p><s>Another said, “Perhaps if Telemachus goes on board ship, he will be like his father and perish far from his friends.</s>
<s>In this case we should have plenty to do, <milestone unit="line" n="335"/> for we could then divide up his property amongst us: as for the house we can let his mother and the man who marries her have that.”</s></p>
<p><s>This was how they talked.</s>
<s>But Telemachus went down into the lofty and spacious store-room where his father’s treasure of gold and bronze lay heaped up upon the floor, and where the linen and spare clothes were kept in open chests.</s>
<s>Here, too, there was a store of fragrant olive oil, <milestone unit="line" n="340"/> while casks of old, well-ripened wine, unblended and fit for a god to drink, were ranged against the wall in case Odysseus should come home again after all.</s>
<s>The room was closed with well-made doors <milestone unit="line" n="345"/> opening in the middle; moreover the faithful old house-keeper Eurykleia, daughter of Ops, the son of Peisenor, was in charge of everything both night and day.</s>
<s>Telemachus called her to the store-room and said: “Nurse, draw me off some <milestone unit="line" n="350"/> of the best wine you have, after what you are keeping for my father’s own drinking, in case, poor man, he should escape death, and find his way home again after all.</s>
<s>Let me have twelve jars, and see that they all have lids; also fill me some well-sewn leather bags with barley meal <milestone unit="line" n="355"/> —about twenty measures in all.</s>
<s>Get these things put together at once, and say nothing about it.</s>
<s>I will take everything away this evening as soon as my mother has gone upstairs for the night.</s>
<s>I am going to Sparta and to Pylos, and</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="360"/>I am going to find out about the nostos of my father, if I should hear.”</s></p>
<p><s>When dear Eurykleia heard this she began to cry, and spoke fondly to him, saying, “My dear child, what ever can have put such notion as that into your head?</s>
<s>Where in the world do you want to go to— <milestone unit="line" n="365"/> you, who are the one hope of the house?</s>
<s>Your poor illustrious father is dead and gone in some foreign locale [dēmos] nobody knows where, and as soon as your back is turned these wicked ones here will be scheming to get you put out of the way, and will share all your possessions among themselves; stay where you are among your own people, <milestone unit="line" n="370"/> and do not go wandering and worrying your life out on the barren ocean.”</s></p>
<p><s>“Fear not, nurse,” answered the spirited Telemachus, “my scheme is not without the sanction of the gods; but swear that you will say nothing about all this to my mother, till I have been away some ten or twelve days, <milestone unit="line" n="375"/> unless she hears of my having gone, and asks you; for I do not want her to spoil her beauty by crying.”</s></p>
<p><s>The old woman swore most solemnly that she would not, and when she had completed her oath, she began drawing off the wine into jars, <milestone unit="line" n="380"/> and getting the barley meal into the bags, while Telemachus went back to the suitors.</s></p>
<p><s>Then owl-vision Athena turned her thoughts to another matter.</s>
<s>She took his shape, and went round the town to each one of the crew, telling them <milestone unit="line" n="385"/> to meet at the ship by sundown.</s>
<s>She went also to Noemon, glorious son of Phronios, and asked him to let her have a ship—which he was very ready to do.</s>
<s>When the sun had set and darkness was over all the land, she got the ship into the water, put <milestone unit="line" n="390"/> all the tackle on board her that ships generally carry, and stationed her at the end of the harbor.</s>
<s>Presently the crew came up, and the owl-vision goddess spoke encouragingly to each of them.</s></p>
<p><s>Furthermore she went to the house of godlike Odysseus, <milestone unit="line" n="395"/> and threw the suitors into a deep slumber.</s>
<s>She caused their drink to fuddle them, and made them drop their cups from their hands, so that instead of sitting over their wine, they went back into the town to sleep, with their eyes heavy and full of drowsiness.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="400"/>Then she took the form and voice of Mentor, and called Telemachus to come outside.</s></p>
<p><s>“Telemachus,” said she, “the strong-greaved men are on board and at their oars, waiting for you to give your orders, so make haste and let us be off.”</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="405"/>Then she led the way, while Telemachus followed in her steps.</s>
<s>When they got to the ship they found the crew waiting by the water side, and the hallowed prince, Telemachus said,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="410"/>“Now my men, help me to get the stores on board; they are all put together in the hall, and my mother does not know anything about it, nor any of the maid servants except one.”</s></p>
<p><s>With these words he led the way and the others followed after.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="415"/>When they had brought the things as he told them, dear son of Odysseus, Telemachus went on board, Athena going before him and taking her seat in the stern of the vessel, while Telemachus sat beside her.</s>
<s>Then the men loosed the hawsers and took their places on the benches.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="420"/>Owl-vision Athena sent them a fair wind from the West, that whistled over the deep blue waves whereon Telemachus told them to catch hold of the ropes and hoist sail, and they did as he told them.</s>
<s>They set the mast in its socket in the cross plank, raised it, <milestone unit="line" n="425"/> and made it fast with the forestays; then they hoisted their white sails aloft with ropes of twisted ox-hide.</s>
<s>As the sail bellied out with the wind, the ship flew through the deep blue water, and the foam hissed against her bows as she sped onward.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="430"/>Then they made all fast throughout the ship, filled the mixing-bowls to the brim, and made drink offerings to the immortal gods that are from everlasting, but more particularly to the owl-vision daughter of Zeus.</s></p>
<p><s>Thus, then, the ship sped on her way through the watches of the night from dark till dawn.</s></p></div>
<div type="textpart" subtype="rhapsody" n="3">
<p><s>But as the sun was rising from the fair sea into the firmament of the sky to shed light on mortals and immortals, they reached Pylos, the strong-founded city of Neleus.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="5"/>Now the people of Pylos were gathered on the sea shore to offer sacrifice of black bulls to dark-haired Poseidon, lord of the Earthquake.</s>
<s>There were nine guilds with five hundred men in each, and there were nine bulls to each guild.</s>
<s>As they were eating the innards and burning the thigh bones [on the embers] in the name of Poseidon,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="10"/>Telemachus and his crew arrived, furled their sails, brought their ship to anchor, and went ashore.</s></p>
<p><s>Owl-vision Athena led the way and Telemachus followed her.</s>
<s>Presently she said, “Telemachus, you must not at all feel shame [aidōs] or be nervous; <milestone unit="line" n="15"/> you have taken this voyage to try and find out where your father is buried and how he came by his end; so go straight up to Nestor, breaker of horses, that we may see what he has got to tell us.</s>
<s>Beg of him to speak the truth, <milestone unit="line" n="20"/> and he will tell no lies, for he is an excellent person.”</s></p>
<p><s>“But how, Mentor,” replied the spirited Telemachus, “dare I go up to Nestor, and how am I to address him?</s>
<s>I have never yet been used to holding long conversations with people, and feel shame [aidōs] about questioning one who is so much older than myself.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="25"/> “Some things, Telemachus,” answered owl-vision Athena, “will be suggested to you by your own instinct, and some superhuman force [daimōn] will prompt you further; for I am assured that the gods have been with you from the time of your birth until now.”</s></p>
<p><s>She then went quickly on, <milestone unit="line" n="30"/> and Telemachus followed in her steps till they reached the place where the guilds of the Pylian people were assembled.</s>
<s>There they found Nestor sitting with his sons, while his company round him were busy getting dinner ready, and putting pieces of meat on to the spits while other pieces were cooking.</s>
<s>When they saw the strangers they crowded round them, <milestone unit="line" n="35"/> took them by the hand and bade them take their places.</s>
<s>Nestor’s son Peisistratos at once offered his hand to each of them, and seated them on some soft sheepskins that were lying on the sands near his father and his brother Thrasymedes.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="40"/>Then he gave them their portions of the innards and poured wine for them into a golden cup, handing it to Athena first, and saluting her at the same time.</s></p>
<p><s>“Offer a prayer, sir,” said he, “to lord Poseidon, for it is his feast that you are joining; <milestone unit="line" n="45"/> when you have duly prayed and made your drink-offering, pass the cup to your friend that he may do so also.</s>
<s>I doubt not that he too lifts his hands in prayer, for man cannot live without gods in the world.</s>
<s>Still, he is younger than you are, and is much of an age with myself, <milestone unit="line" n="50"/> so I will give you the precedence.”</s></p>
<p><s>As he spoke he handed her the cup.</s>
<s>Athena thought that he was just [dikaios] and right to have given it to herself first; she accordingly began praying heartily to Poseidon.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="55"/>“O god,” she cried, “you who encircle the earth, grant the prayers of your servants that call upon you.</s>
<s>More especially we pray you send down your grace on Nestor and on his sons; thereafter also make the rest of the Pylian people some handsome return for the goodly hecatomb they are offering you.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="60"/>Lastly, grant Telemachus and myself a happy issue, in respect of the matter that has brought us in our swift black ship to Pylos.”</s></p>
<p><s>When she had thus made an end of praying, she handed the cup to dear Telemachus and he prayed likewise.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="65"/>By and by, when the outer meats were roasted and had been taken off the spits, <milestone unit="line" n="66"/> apportioning portions [moirai], they feasted a very glorious feast [dais].</s>
<s>As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, Nestor, charioteer of Gerenia, began to speak.</s></p>
<p><s>“Now,” said he, “that our guests have done their dinner, <milestone unit="line" n="70"/> it will be best to ask them who they are.</s>
<s>Who, then, sir strangers, are you, and from what port have you sailed?</s>
<s>Are you traders?</s>
<s>Or do you sail the seas as rovers with your hand against every man, and every man’s hand against you?”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="75"/> The spirited Telemachus answered boldly, for Athena had given him courage to ask about his father and get himself a good name [kleos].</s>
<s>“Nestor,” said he, “son of Neleus, honor to the Achaean name, <milestone unit="line" n="80"/> you ask whence we come, and I will tell you.</s>
<s>We come from Ithaca under Neriton, and the matter about which I would speak is of private not public import.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="83"/>I am going after the widespread kleos of my father, if I should hear, radiant patient-hearted Odysseus, who is said <milestone unit="line" n="85"/> to have ransacked the town of Troy in company with yourself.</s>
<s>We know what fate befell each one of the other heroes who fought at Troy, but as regards Odysseus the gods have hidden from us the knowledge even that he is dead at all, for no one can certify us in what place he perished, <milestone unit="line" n="90"/> nor say whether he fell in battle on the mainland, or was lost at sea amid the waves of Amphitrite.</s>
<s>Therefore I am suppliant at your knees, if haply you may be pleased to tell me of his melancholy end, whether you saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some <milestone unit="line" n="95"/> other traveler, for he was a man born to trouble.</s>
<s>Do not soften things out of any pity for me, but tell me in all plainness exactly what you saw.</s>
<s>If my brave father Odysseus ever did you loyal service, either by word or deed, <milestone unit="line" n="100"/> when you Achaeans were harassed among the [dēmos] Trojans, bear it in mind now as in my favor and tell me truly all.”</s></p>
<p><s>“My friend,” answered Nestor, “you recall a time of much sorrow to my mind, for the brave Achaeans <milestone unit="line" n="105"/> suffered much both at sea, while privateering under Achilles, and when fighting before the great city of king Priam.</s>
<s>Our best men all of them fell there—Ajax, Achilles,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="110"/>Patroklos, peer of gods in counsel, and my own dear son, Antilokhos, a man singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant.</s>
<s>But we suffered much more than this; what mortal tongue indeed could tell the whole story?</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="115"/>Though you were to stay here and question me for five years, or even six, I could not tell you all that the Achaeans suffered, and you would turn homeward weary of my tale before it ended.</s>
<s>Nine long years did we try every kind of stratagem, but the hand of the gods <milestone unit="line" n="120"/> was against us.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="120"/>Back then, there was nobody who would set himself up as equal to [homoios] him [= Odysseus] in craft [mētis], <milestone unit="line" n="121"/> no, nobody would be willing to do so, since radiant Odysseus was so much better, your father—if indeed you are his son.</s>
<s>I can hardly believe my eyes—and you talk just like him too—no one would <milestone unit="line" n="125"/> say that people of such different ages could speak so much alike.</s>
<s>He and I never had any kind of difference from first to last neither in camp nor council, but in singleness of heart and purpose [noos] we advised the Argives how all might be ordered for the best.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="130"/> But after we [= the Achaeans] had destroyed the lofty city of Priam <milestone unit="line" n="131"/> and we went into our ships, the god dispersed us.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="132"/>And then it was that Zeus devised in his thinking a plan to make a disastrous [lugros] homecoming [nostos] <milestone unit="line" n="133"/> for the Argives [= Achaeans]; for they had not at all been either mindful [= having noos] or just [dikaioi], <milestone unit="line" n="134"/> not all of them, and so many of them met up with a bad destiny <milestone unit="line" n="135"/> because of the disastrous [oloē] anger [mēnis] of the daughter of the mighty father—of the goddess with the looks of an owl, who brought about a quarrel [eris] between the two sons of Atreus.</s></p>
<p><s>The sons of Atreus called a meeting which was not as it should be [= without kosmos], for it was sunset and the Achaeans were heavy with wine.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="140"/>When they explained why they had called the people together, it seemed that Menelaos was for sailing homeward [nostos] at once, and this displeased Agamemnon, who thought that we should wait till we had offered hecatombs <milestone unit="line" n="145"/> to appease the anger of Athena.</s>
<s>Fool that he was, he might have known that he would not prevail with her, for when the gods have made up their minds [noos] they do not change them lightly.</s>
<s>So the two stood bandying hard words, whereon the strong-greaved Achaeans sprang to their feet <milestone unit="line" n="150"/> with a cry that rent the air, and were of two minds as to what they should do.</s></p>
<p><s>That night we rested and nursed our anger, for Zeus was hatching mischief against us.</s>
<s>But in the morning some of us drew our ships into the water and put our goods with our women on board, <milestone unit="line" n="155"/> while the rest, about half in number, stayed behind with Agamemnon.</s>
<s>We—the other half—embarked and sailed; and the ships went well, for the gods had smoothed the sea.</s>
<s>When we reached Tenedos we offered sacrifices to the gods, <milestone unit="line" n="160"/> for we were longing for our homecoming [nostos]; cruel Zeus, however, did not yet mean that we should do so, and raised a second quarrel in the course of which some among us turned their ships back again, and sailed away under Odysseus to make their peace with Agamemnon; <milestone unit="line" n="165"/> but I, and all the ships that were with me pressed forward, for I saw that mischief was brewing.</s>
<s>The son of Tydeus went on also with me, and his crews with him.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="168"/>He came late, golden-haired Menelaos did, after the two of us [= Nestor and Diomedes].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="169"/>It was at Lesbos that he [= Menelaos] caught up with us, as we were planning the long part of our sea voyage— <milestone unit="line" n="170"/> for we did not know whether to go outside Chios by the island of Psyra, keeping this to our left, or inside Chios, over against the stormy headland of Mimas.</s>
<s>So we asked a superhuman force [daimōn] for a sign, and were shown one to the effect that we should be soonest out of danger if we headed our ships across the open sea <milestone unit="line" n="175"/> to Euboea.</s>
<s>This we therefore did, and a fair wind sprang up which gave us a quick passage during the night to Geraistos, where we offered many sacrifices to Poseidon for having helped us so far on our way.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="180"/>Four days later Diomedes, breaker of horses, and his men stationed their ships in Argos, but I held on for Pylos, and the wind never fell light from the day when the gods first made it fair for me.</s></p>
<p><s>Therefore, my dear young friend, I returned without hearing anything <milestone unit="line" n="185"/> about the others.</s>
<s>I know neither who got home safely nor who were lost but, as in duty bound, I will give you without reserve the reports that have reached me since I have been here in my own house.</s>
<s>They say the Myrmidons returned home safely under great-hearted Achilles’ glorious son, Neoptolemos; <milestone unit="line" n="190"/> so also did the valiant son of Poias, Philoctetes.</s>
<s>Idomeneus, again, lost no men at sea, and all his followers who escaped death in the field got safe home with him to Crete.</s>
<s>No matter how far out of the world you live, you will have heard of Agamemnon and the bad end he came to at the hands of Aegisthus <milestone unit="line" n="195"/> and a fearful reckoning did treacherous Aegisthus presently pay.</s>
<s>See what a good thing it is for a man to leave a son behind him to do as Orestes did, who killed false Aegisthus the murderer of his noble father.</s>
<s>You too, then—for you are a tall, smart-looking young man— <milestone unit="line" n="200"/> show your mettle and make yourself a name in story.”</s></p>
<p><s>“Nestor, son of Neleus,” answered the spirited Telemachus, “honor to the Achaean name, the Achaeans will bear the kleos of Orestes in song <milestone unit="line" n="205"/> even to future generations, for he has avenged his father nobly.</s>
<s>Would that the gods might grant me to do like vengeance on the insolence of the wicked suitors, who are ill-treating me and plotting my ruin; but the gods have no such happiness [olbos] in store for me and for my father, so we must bear it as best we may.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="210"/> “My friend,” said Nestor, the charioteer of Gerenia, “now that you remind me, I remember to have heard that your mother has many suitors, who are ill-disposed towards you and are making havoc of your estate.</s>
<s>Do you submit to this tamely, or are the people of the dēmos, <milestone unit="line" n="215"/> following the voice of a god, against you?</s>
<s>Who knows but that Odysseus may come back after all, and pay these scoundrels in full, either single-handed or with a force of Achaeans behind him?</s>
<s>If owl-vision Athena were to take as great a liking to you as she did to glorious Odysseus <milestone unit="line" n="220"/> when we were fighting in the Trojan dēmos (for I never yet saw the gods so openly fond of anyone as Athena then was of your father), if she would take as good care of you as she did of him, these wooers would soon some of them forget their wooing.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="225"/> The spirited Telemachus answered, “I can expect nothing of the kind; it would be far too much to hope for.</s>
<s>I dare not let myself think of it.</s>
<s>Even though the gods themselves willed it no such good fortune could befall me.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then owl-vision goddess Athena said,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="230"/>“Telemachus, what are you talking about?</s>
<s>Heaven has a long arm if it is minded to save a man; and if it were me, I should not care how much I suffered before getting home, provided I could be safe when I was once there.</s>
<s>I would rather this, than get home quickly, and then be killed in my own house as Agamemnon <milestone unit="line" n="235"/> was by the treachery of Aegisthus and his wife.</s>
<s>Still, death is certain, and when a man’s hour is come, not even the gods can save him, no matter how fond they are of him.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="240"/> “Mentor,” answered the spirited Telemachus, “do not let us talk about it any more.</s>
<s>There is no chance of my father’s ever having a homecoming [nostos]; the gods have long since counseled his destruction.</s>
<s>There is something else, however, about which I should like to ask Nestor, for he knows much more than anyone else does.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="245"/>They say he has reigned for three generations so that it is like talking to an immortal.</s>
<s>Tell me, therefore, Nestor, and tell me true [alēthēs]; how did widely ruling Agamemnon come to die in that way?</s>
<s>What was Menelaos doing?</s>
<s>And how came false Aegisthus <milestone unit="line" n="250"/> to kill so far better a man than himself?</s>
<s>Was Menelaos away from Achaean Argos, voyaging elsewhere among humankind, that Aegisthus took heart and killed Agamemnon?”</s></p>
<p><s>“I will tell you truly [alēthēs],” answered Nestor, the charioteer of Gerenia,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="255"/>“and indeed you have yourself divined how it all happened.</s>
<s>If fair-haired Menelaos when he got back from Troy had found Aegisthus still alive in his house, there would have been no grave marker heaped up for him, not even when he was dead, but he would have been thrown outside the city to dogs <milestone unit="line" n="260"/> and vultures, and not a woman would have mourned him, for he had done a deed of great wickedness; but we were over there, enduring ordeals [āthloi] at Troy, and Aegisthus who was taking his ease quietly in the heart of Argos, cajoled Agamemnon’s wife, beautiful Clytemnestra, with incessant flattery.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="265"/> At first she would have nothing to do with his wicked scheme, for she was of a good natural disposition; moreover there was a singer with her, to whom Agamemnon had given strict orders on setting out for Troy, that he was to keep guard over his wife; but when the gods had counseled her destruction,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="270"/>Aegisthus led this bard off to a desert island and left him there for crows and seagulls to batten upon—after which she went willingly enough to the house of Aegisthus.</s>
<s>Then he offered many burnt sacrifices to the gods, and decorated many temples with tapestries and gilding, <milestone unit="line" n="275"/> for he had succeeded far beyond his expectations.</s></p>
<p><s>Meanwhile Menelaos and I were on our way home from Troy, on good terms with one another.</s>
<s>When we got to Sounion, which is the point of Athens, Apollo with his painless <milestone unit="line" n="280"/> shafts killed Phrontis son of Onētor, the steersman [kubernētēs] of Menelaos’ ship (and never a man knew better how to handle a vessel in rough weather), so that he died then and there with the steering-oar in his hand, and Menelaos, though very anxious to press forward, <milestone unit="line" n="285"/> had to wait in order to bury his comrade and give him his due funeral rites.</s>
<s>Presently, when he too could put to sea again, and had sailed on as far as the Malean headland, Zeus of the wide brows counseled evil against him and made it blow hard <milestone unit="line" n="290"/> till the waves ran mountains high.</s>
<s>Here he divided his fleet and took the one half towards Crete where the Cydonians dwell round about the waters of the river Iardanos.</s>
<s>There is a high headland hereabouts stretching out into the sea from a place called Gortyn, <milestone unit="line" n="295"/> and all along this part of the coast as far as Phaistos the sea runs high when there is a south wind blowing, but past Phaistos the coast is more protected, for a small headland can make a great shelter.</s>
<s>Here this part of the fleet was driven on to the rocks and wrecked; but the crews just managed to save themselves.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="300"/>As for the other five ships, they were taken by winds and seas to Egypt, where Menelaos gathered much gold and substance among people of an alien speech.</s>
<s>Meanwhile Aegisthus here at home plotted his evil deed.</s>
<s>For seven years after he had killed Agamemnon he ruled in golden Mycenae, <milestone unit="line" n="305"/> and the people were obedient under him, but in the eighth year Orestes came back from Athens to be his bane, and killed the murderer of his father.</s>
<s>Then he celebrated the funeral rites <milestone unit="line" n="310"/> of his mother and of false unwarlike Aegisthus by a banquet to the people of Argos, and on that very day Menelaos of the great cry came home, with as much treasure as his ships could carry.</s></p>
<p><s>Take my advice then, and do not go traveling about for long so far from home, nor leave your property with such dangerous people in your house; <milestone unit="line" n="315"/> they will eat up everything you have among them, and you will have been on a fool’s errand.</s>
<s>Still, I should advise you by all means to go and visit Menelaos, who has lately come off a voyage among such distant peoples as no man could ever hope to get back from, <milestone unit="line" n="320"/> when the winds had once carried him so far out of his reckoning; even birds cannot fly the distance in a twelvemonth, so vast and terrifying are the seas that they must cross.</s>
<s>Go to him, therefore, by sea, and take your own men with you; or if you would rather travel by land you can have a chariot, <milestone unit="line" n="325"/> you can have horses, and here are my sons who can escort you to Lacedaemon where fair-haired Menelaos lives.</s>
<s>Beg of him to speak the truth, and he will tell you no lies, for he is an excellent person.”</s></p>
<p><s>As he spoke the sun set and it came on dark, <milestone unit="line" n="330"/> whereon owl-vision goddess Athena said, “Sir, all that you have said is well; now, however, order the tongues of the victims to be cut, and mix wine that we may make drink-offerings to Poseidon, and the other immortals, and then go to bed, for it is time [hōra].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="335"/>People should go away early and not keep late hours at a religious festival.”</s></p>
<p><s>Thus spoke the daughter of Zeus, and they obeyed her saying.</s>
<s>Men servants poured water over the hands of the guests, while pages filled the mixing-bowls with wine and water, <milestone unit="line" n="340"/> and handed it round after giving every man his drink-offering; then they threw the tongues of the victims into the fire, and stood up to make their drink-offerings.</s>
<s>When they had made their offerings and had drunk each as much as he was minded, Athena and godlike Telemachus were for going on board their ship, <milestone unit="line" n="345"/> but Nestor caught them up at once and stayed them.</s></p>
<p><s>“Heaven and the immortal gods,” he exclaimed, “forbid that you should leave my house to go on board of a ship.</s>
<s>Do you think I am so poor and short of clothes, or that I have so few cloaks as to be unable to find comfortable beds <milestone unit="line" n="350"/> both for myself and for my guests?</s>
<s>Let me tell you I have store both of rugs and cloaks, and shall not permit the son of my old friend Odysseus to camp down on the deck of a ship—not while I live—nor yet will my sons after me, <milestone unit="line" n="355"/> but they will keep open house as I have done.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then the owl-vision goddess Athena answered, “Sir, you have spoken well, and it will be much better that Telemachus should do as you have said; he, therefore, shall return with you and sleep <milestone unit="line" n="360"/> at your house, but I must go back to give orders to my crew, and keep them in good heart.</s>
<s>I am the only older person among them; the rest are all young men of Telemachus’ own age, who have taken this voyage out of friendship; <milestone unit="line" n="365"/> so I must return to the ship and sleep there.</s>
<s>Moreover tomorrow I must go to the great-hearted Kaukones where I have a large sum of wealth long owed to me.</s>
<s>As for Telemachus, now that he is your guest, send him to Lacedaemon in a chariot, and let one of your sons go with him.</s>
<s>Be pleased also to provide him with <milestone unit="line" n="370"/> your best and fleetest horses.”</s></p>
<p><s>When she had thus spoken, she flew away in the form of an eagle, and all marveled as they beheld it.</s>
<s>Nestor was astonished, and took Telemachus by the hand.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="375"/>“My friend,” said he, “I see that you are going to be a great hero some day, since the gods wait upon you thus while you are still so young.</s>
<s>This can have been none other of those who dwell in the sky than Zeus’ terrifying daughter, the most-honored Trito-born, who showed such favor towards your brave father among the Argives.”</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="380"/>“Holy queen,” he continued, “send down noble glory [kleos] upon myself, my good wife, and my children.</s>
<s>In return, I will offer you in sacrifice a broad-browed heifer of a year old, unbroken, and never yet brought by man under the yoke.</s>
<s>I will gild her horns, and will offer her up to you in sacrifice.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="385"/> Thus did he pray, and Athena heard his prayer.</s>
<s>He then led the way to his own house, followed by his sons and sons-in-law.</s>
<s>When they had got there and had taken their places on the benches and seats, <milestone unit="line" n="390"/> he mixed them a bowl of sweet wine that was eleven years old when the housekeeper took the lid off the jar that held it.</s>
<s>As he mixed the wine, he prayed much and made drink-offerings to Athena, daughter of Aegis-bearing Zeus.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="395"/>Then, when they had made their drink-offerings and had drunk each as much as he was minded, the others went home to bed each in his own abode; but Nestor, the charioteer of Gerenia, put Telemachus, the dear son of godlike Odysseus, to sleep in the room that was over the gateway <milestone unit="line" n="400"/> along with Peisistratos, who was the only unmarried son now left him.</s>
<s>As for himself, he slept in an inner room of the house, with the queen his wife by his side.</s></p>
<p><s>Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="405"/>Nestor, the charioteer of Gerenia, left his couch and took his seat on the benches of white and polished marble that stood in front of his house.</s>
<s>Here aforetime sat Neleus, peer of gods in counsel, <milestone unit="line" n="410"/> but he was now dead, and had gone to the house of Hādēs; so Nestor of Gerenia sat in his seat, scepter in hand, as guardian of the public weal.</s>
<s>His sons as they left their rooms gathered round him, Ekhephron, Stratios, Perseus, Aretos, and Thrasymedes; <milestone unit="line" n="415"/> the sixth son was the hero Peisistratos, and when godlike Telemachus joined them they made him sit with them.</s>
<s>Nestor then addressed them.</s></p>
<p><s>“My sons,” said he, “make haste to do as I shall bid you.</s>
<s>I wish first and foremost to propitiate the great goddess Athena, <milestone unit="line" n="420"/> who manifested herself visibly to me during yesterday’s festivities.</s>
<s>Go, then, one or other of you to the plain, tell the stockman to look me out a heifer, and come on here with it at once.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="425"/>Another must go to great-hearted Telemachus’ ship, and invite all the crew, leaving two men only in charge of the vessel.</s>
<s>Some one else will run and fetch Laerkeus the goldsmith to gild the horns of the heifer.</s>
<s>The rest, stay all of you where you are; tell the maids in the house to prepare an excellent dinner, and to fetch seats, and logs of wood for a burnt offering.</s>
<s>Tell them also to bring me some clear spring water.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="430"/> Then they hurried off on their several errands.</s>
<s>The heifer was brought in from the plain, and great-hearted Telemachus’ crew came from the ship; the goldsmith brought the anvil, hammer, and tongs, <milestone unit="line" n="435"/> with which he worked his gold, and Athena herself came to the sacrifice.</s>
<s>Nestor, the old charioteer, gave out the gold, and the smith gilded the horns of the heifer that the goddess might have pleasure in their beauty.</s>
<s>Then Stratios and noble Ekhephron brought her in by <milestone unit="line" n="440"/> the horns; Aretos fetched water from the house in a ewer that had a flower pattern on it, and in his other hand he held a basket of barley meal; sturdy Thrasymedes stood by with a sharp axe, ready to strike the heifer, while Perseus held a bucket.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="445"/>Then Nestor began with washing his hands and sprinkling the barley meal, and he offered many a prayer to Athena as he threw a lock from the heifer’s head upon the fire.</s></p>
<p><s>When they had done praying and sprinkling the barley meal Thrasymedes, the high-hearted son of Nestor dealt his blow, and brought the heifer down with a stroke that cut through the tendons <milestone unit="line" n="450"/> at the base of her neck, whereon the daughters and daughters-in-law of Nestor, and his venerable wife Eurydice (she was eldest daughter to Klymenos) shouted ‘ololu’ in delight.</s>
<s>Then they lifted the heifer’s head from off the ground, and Peisistratos, leader of men, cut her throat.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="455"/>When she had done bleeding and was quite dead, they cut her up.</s>
<s>They cut out the thigh-bones, wrapped them round in two layers of fat, set some pieces of raw meat on the top of them.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="459"/>And the old man burned them [= the thigh bones] over splinters of wood, and bright wine did he <milestone unit="line" n="460"/> pour over them, while the young men were getting ready for him the five-pronged forks that they were holding in their hands.</s>
<s>When the thighs were burned and they had tasted the innards, they cut the rest of the meat up small, put the pieces on the spits and toasted them over the fire.</s></p>
<p><s>Meanwhile lovely Polykaste,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="465"/>Nestor’s youngest daughter, washed Telemachus.</s>
<s>When she had washed him and anointed him with oil, she brought him a fair mantle and khiton.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="468"/>He emerged from the bathtub [asaminthos], looking like [homoios] the immortals in size, and took his seat by the side of Nestor.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="470"/>When the outer meats were done they drew them off the spits and sat down to dinner where they were waited upon by some worthy henchmen, who kept pouring them out their wine in cups of gold.</s>
<s>As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink Nestor, the charioteer of Gerenia, said,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="475"/>“Sons, put Telemachus’ horses to the chariot that he may start at once.”</s></p>
<p><s>Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said, and yoked the fleet horses to the chariot.</s>
<s>The housekeeper packed them up a provision of bread, wine, <milestone unit="line" n="480"/> and sweetmeats fit for the sons of princes.</s>
<s>Then Telemachus got into the chariot, while Peisistratos, leader of men, the son of Nestor, gathered up the reins and took his seat beside him.</s>
<s>He lashed the horses on and they flew forward nothing loath <milestone unit="line" n="485"/> into the open country, leaving the high citadel of Pylos behind them.</s>
<s>All that day did they travel, swaying the yoke upon their necks till the sun went down and darkness was over all the land.</s>
<s>Then they reached Pherai where Diokles lived, who was son to Ortilokhos and grandson to Alpheus.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="490"/>Here they passed the night and Diokles entertained them hospitably.</s>
<s>When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn; appeared, they again yoked their horses and drove out through the gateway under the echoing gatehouse.</s>
<s>Peisistratos lashed the horses on and they flew forward, holding back nothing; <milestone unit="line" n="495"/> presently they came to the wheat lands of the open country, and in the course of time completed their journey, so well did their steeds take them.</s>
<s>Now when the sun had set and darkness was over the land...</s></p></div>
<div type="textpart" subtype="rhapsody" n="4">
<p><s>They reached the low-lying city of Lacedaemon, where they drove straight to the halls of glorious Menelaos.</s>
<s>They found him in his own house, feasting with his many clansmen in honor of the wedding of his son, and also of his daughter, <milestone unit="line" n="5"/> whom he was marrying to the son of that valiant warrior Achilles.</s>
<s>He had given his consent and promised her to him while he was still at Troy, and now the gods were bringing the marriage about; so he was sending her with chariots and horses to the city of the Myrmidons over whom Achilles’ son <milestone unit="line" n="10"/> was reigning.</s>
<s>For his only son he had found a bride from Sparta, daughter of Alektor.</s>
<s>This son, Megapenthes, was born to him of a bondwoman, for the gods granted Helen no more children after she had borne Hermione, who was fair as golden Aphrodite herself.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="15"/> So they feasted throughout the big palace with its high ceilings, <milestone unit="line" n="16"/> both the neighbors and the kinsmen of glorious Menelaos, <milestone unit="line" n="17"/> and they were feeling delight [terpesthai]; in their midst sang-and-danced [melpesthai] a divine singer [aoidos], <milestone unit="line" n="18"/> playing on the special lyre [phorminx]; two special dancers [kubistētēre] among them <milestone unit="line" n="19"/> were swirling as he led [exarkhein] the singing-and-dancing [molpē] in their midst.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="20"/> The hero Telemachus and the shining son of Nestor stayed their horses at the gate, whereon powerful Eteoneus, servant to glorious Menelaos came out, and as soon as he saw them ran hurrying back into the house to tell his Master.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="25"/>He went close up to him and said, “Menelaos, dear to Zeus, there are some strangers come here, two men, who look like sons of Zeus.</s>
<s>What are we to do?</s>
<s>Shall we take their horses out, or tell them to find friends elsewhere as they best can?”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="30"/> Fair-haired Menelaos was very angry and said, “Eteoneus, son of Boethoös, you never used to be a fool, but now you talk like a simpleton.</s>
<s>Take their horses out, of course, and show the strangers in that they may have supper; you and I have stayed often enough at other people’s houses before we got back here, where the gods <milestone unit="line" n="35"/> grant that we may rest in peace henceforward.”</s></p>
<p><s>So Eteoneus bustled back and bade other servants come with him.</s>
<s>They took their sweating steeds from under the yoke, <milestone unit="line" n="40"/> made them fast to the mangers, and gave them a feed of oats and barley mixed.</s>
<s>Then they leaned the chariot against the end wall of the courtyard.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="43"/>They [=Telemachus and Peisistratos] were escorted inside the heavenly [theion] palace.</s>
<s>Seeing what they were seeing, <milestone unit="line" n="44"/> they were filled with awe [thauma] as they proceeded through the palace of the king, that man whose origins are celestial.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="45"/>There was a gleam [aiglē] there, which was like the gleam of the sun or the moon, <milestone unit="line" n="46"/> spreading throughout that palace famed for its high ceilings, that home of radiant Menelaos.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="47"/>But then, after they had feasted their eyes on what they saw, they went into the bath room and washed themselves.</s></p>
<p><s>When the servants had washed them and anointed them with oil, <milestone unit="line" n="50"/> they brought them woolen cloaks and khitons, and the two took their seats by the side of Menelaos, son of Atreus.</s>
<s>A maidservant 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.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="55"/>An upper servant brought them bread, and offered them many good things of what there was in the house, while the carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and set cups of gold by their side.</s></p>
<p><s>Fair-haired Menelaos then greeted them saying,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="60"/>“Eat up, and welcome; when you have finished supper I shall ask who you are, for the lineage of such men as you cannot have been lost.</s>
<s>You must be descended from a line of scepter-bearing kings, for poor people do not have such sons as you are.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="65"/> Then he handed them a piece of fat roast loin, which had been set near him as being a prime part, and they laid their hands on the good things that were before them; as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, Telemachus said to the son of Nestor, with <milestone unit="line" n="70"/> his head so close that no one might hear,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="71"/>“I want you to notice something, son of Nestor, you who are so dear to my heart: <milestone unit="line" n="72"/> notice the flash [steropē] of bronze [khalkos] as its light pervades the echoing hall <milestone unit="line" n="73"/> and also the flash of gold and of electrum and of silver and of ivory.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="74"/>I’m guessing that Zeus, who lives on Olympus, has such a hall inside his palace, <milestone unit="line" n="75"/> and he would have as many indescribable things as are here.</s>
<s>A sense of holy awe takes hold of me as I look at these things.”</s></p>
<p><s>Menelaos of the fair hair overheard him and said, “No one, my sons, can hold his own with Zeus, for his house and everything about him is immortal; but among mortal men— <milestone unit="line" n="80"/> well, there may be another who has as much wealth as I have, or there may not; but at all events I have traveled much and have undergone much hardship, for it was nearly eight years before I could get home with my fleet.</s>
<s>I went to Cyprus, Phoenicia and the Egyptians; I went also to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the Erembians, <milestone unit="line" n="85"/> and to Libya where the lambs have horns as soon as they are born, and the sheep bear lambs three times a year.</s>
<s>Every one in that country, whether master or man, has plenty of cheese, meat, and good milk, for the ewes yield all the year round.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="90"/>But while I was traveling and getting great riches among these people, my brother was secretly and shockingly murdered through the perfidy of his wicked wife, so that I have no pleasure in being lord of all this wealth.</s>
<s>Whoever your parents may be they must have told you about all this, <milestone unit="line" n="95"/> and of my heavy loss in the ruin of a stately dwelling fully and magnificently furnished.</s>
<s>Would that I had only a third of what I now have so that I had stayed at home, and all those were living who perished on the plain of Troy, far from horse-pasturing Argos.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="100"/>I often grieve, as I sit here in my house, for one and all of them.</s>
<s>At times I cry aloud for sorrow, but presently I leave off again, for crying is cold comfort and one soon tires of it.</s>
<s>Yet grieve for these as I may, I do so <milestone unit="line" n="105"/> for one man more than for them all.</s>
<s>I cannot even think of him without loathing both food and sleep, so miserable does he make me, <milestone unit="line" n="106"/> since none of the Achaeans struggled so much <milestone unit="line" n="107"/> as Odysseus struggled and achieved.</s>
<s>For him there would be <milestone unit="line" n="108"/> cares in the future, whereas I would have an unforgettable grief [akhos alaston] always, for he has been gone a long time, and we know not <milestone unit="line" n="110"/> whether he is alive or dead.</s>
<s>His old father, his long-suffering wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus, whom he left behind him an infant in arms, are plunged in grief on his account.”</s></p>
<p><s>Thus spoke Menelaos, and the heart of Telemachus yearned as he turned his thoughts to his father.</s>
<s>Tears fell from his eyes as he heard him thus <milestone unit="line" n="115"/> mentioned, so that he held his cloak before his face with both hands.</s>
<s>When Menelaos saw this he doubted whether to let him choose his own time for speaking, or to ask him at once and find what it was all about.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="120"/> While he was thus in two minds Helen came down from her high-vaulted and perfumed room, looking as lovely as Artemis of the golden distaff herself.</s>
<s>Adraste brought her a seat, Alkippe a soft woolen rug, <milestone unit="line" n="125"/> while Phylo fetched her the silver work-box which Alkandra, wife of Polybos, had given her.</s>
<s>Polybos lived in Egyptian Thebes, which is the richest city in the whole world; he gave Menelaos two baths, both of pure silver, two tripods, and ten talents of gold; besides all this, <milestone unit="line" n="130"/> his wife gave Helen some beautiful presents, to wit, a golden distaff, and a silver work-box that ran on wheels, with a gold band round the top of it.</s>
<s>Phylo now placed this by her side, full of fine spun yarn, <milestone unit="line" n="135"/> and a distaff charged with violet colored wool was laid upon the top of it.</s>
<s>Then Helen took her seat, put her feet upon the footstool, and began to question her husband.</s></p>
<p><s>“Do we know, Menelaos, beloved of Zeus,” said she, “the names of these strangers who have come to visit us?</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="140"/>Shall I guess right or wrong?</s>
<s>But I cannot help saying what I think.</s>
<s>Never yet have I seen either man or woman so like somebody else (indeed when I look at him I hardly know what to think) as this young man is like Telemachus, whom great-hearted Odysseus left as a baby behind him, <milestone unit="line" n="145"/> when you Achaeans went to Troy with battle in your hearts, on account of my most shameless self.”</s></p>
<p><s>“My dear wife,” replied fair-haired Menelaos, “I see the likeness just as you do.</s>
<s>His hands and feet are just like Odysseus’; <milestone unit="line" n="150"/> so is his hair, with the shape of his head and the expression of his eyes.</s>
<s>Moreover, when I was talking about Odysseus, and saying how much he had suffered on my account, tears fell from his eyes, and he hid his face in his mantle.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="155"/> Then Peisistratos, son of Nestor, said, “Menelaos, son of Atreus, you are right in thinking that this young man is Telemachus, but he is very modest [sōphrōn], and is ashamed in his thūmos to come here and begin opening up discourse <milestone unit="line" n="160"/> with one whose conversation is so divinely interesting as your own.</s>
<s>My father, Nestor the charioteer of Gerenia, sent me to escort him here, for he wanted to know whether you could give him any counsel or suggestion.</s>
<s>A son has always trouble at home when his father <milestone unit="line" n="165"/> has gone away leaving him without supporters; and this is how Telemachus is now placed, for his father is absent, and there is no one among his own dēmos to stand by him.”</s></p>
<p><s>“Bless my heart,” replied fair-haired Menelaos; “then I am receiving a visit from the son of a very dear friend, <milestone unit="line" n="170"/> who suffered much hardship [āthlos] for my sake.</s>
<s>I had always hoped to entertain him with most marked distinction when the gods had granted us a safe return [nostos] from beyond the seas.</s>
<s>I should have founded a city for him in Argos, and built him <milestone unit="line" n="175"/> a house.</s>
<s>I should have made him leave Ithaca with his goods, his son, and all his people, and should have ransacked for them some one of the neighboring cities that are subject to me.</s>
<s>We should thus have seen one another continually, <milestone unit="line" n="180"/> and nothing but death could have interrupted so close and happy an intercourse.</s>
<s>I suppose, however, that the gods grudged us such good fortune, for it has made him, <milestone unit="line" n="182"/> that wretched one, the only one who has not come home.”</s></p>
<p><s>Thus did he speak, and his words set them all to weeping.</s>
<s>Helen of Argos, daughter of Zeus, wept, Telemachus <milestone unit="line" n="185"/> wept, and so did Menelaos the son of Atreus, nor could Nestor’s son Peisistratos keep his eyes from filling, when he remembered his dear brother stately Antilokhos whom the son of bright Dawn had killed.</s>
<s>Then he said to Menelaos,</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="190"/> “Sir, my father Nestor, when we used to talk about you at home, told me you were a person of rare and excellent understanding.</s>
<s>If, then, it be possible, do as I would urge you.</s>
<s>I am not fond of crying while I am getting my supper.</s>
<s>Morning will come <milestone unit="line" n="195"/> in due course, and in the forenoon I care not how much I cry for those that are dead and gone.</s>
<s>This is all we can do for the poor things.</s>
<s>We can only shave our heads for them and wring the tears from our cheeks.</s>
<s>I had a brother who died at Troy; he was by no means the worst man <milestone unit="line" n="200"/> there; you are sure to have known him—his name was Antilokhos; I never set eyes upon him myself, but they say that he was singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant.”</s></p>
<p><s>“Your discretion, my friend,” answered fair-haired Menelaos,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="205"/>“is beyond your years.</s>
<s>It is plain you take after your father.</s>
<s>One can soon see when a man is son to one whom Zeus grants blessedness [olbos] both as regards wife and offspring—and he has blessed Nestor from first to last all his days, <milestone unit="line" n="210"/> giving him a green old age in his own house, with sons about him who are both well disposed and valiant.</s>
<s>We will put an end therefore to all this weeping, and attend to our supper again.</s>
<s>Let water be poured over our hands.</s>
<s>Telemachus and I can talk with one another fully <milestone unit="line" n="215"/> in the morning.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then Asphalion, one of the servants, poured water over their hands and they laid their hands on the good things that were before them.</s></p>
<p><s>Then Zeus’ daughter Helen turned her thoughts to another matter.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="220"/>She [= Helen] put a drug into the wine from which they drank.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="221"/>It [= the drug] was against penthos [nē-penthes] and against anger [a-kholon].</s>
<s>It made one forget all bad things.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="222"/>Whoever swallowed it, once it was mixed with the wine into the mixing bowl, <milestone unit="line" n="223"/> could not shed a tear from his cheeks for that day, <milestone unit="line" n="224"/> even if his mother and father died <milestone unit="line" n="225"/> or if he had earlier lost a brother or his own dear son, <milestone unit="line" n="226"/> killed by bronze weapons—even if he saw it all happen with his own eyes.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="227"/>Such magical things she had, the daughter of Zeus, <milestone unit="line" n="228"/> things of good outcome [esthla], which to her did Polydamna give, wife of Thon. 229She was Egyptian.</s>
<s>For her, many were the things produced by the life-giving earth, <milestone unit="line" n="230"/> magical things—many good [esthla] mixtures and many baneful [lugra] ones.</s>
<s>Moreover, every one in the whole country is a skilled physician, for they are of the lineage of Paieon.</s>
<s>When Helen had put this drug in the bowl, and had told the servants to serve the wine round, she said:</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="235"/> “Menelaos, son of Atreus, dear to Zeus, and you my good friends, sons of honorable men (which is as Zeus wills, for he is the giver both of good and evil, and can do what he chooses).</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="238"/>Sit now and dine in the palace, and be entertained <milestone unit="line" n="239"/> by the stories.</s>
<s>For the things that I will say in proper order are appropriate.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="240"/>I could not possibly tell of or name <milestone unit="line" n="241"/> all the struggles that are the share of the enduring Odysseus, <milestone unit="line" n="242"/> but I will tell of this one thing that he did and endured— 243—that man of power [kratos] —in the district of Troy, where you Achaeans suffered pains [pēma plural]. feast here as you will, and listen while I tell you a tale in season.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="240"/>I cannot indeed name every single one of the exploits [āthlos] of enduring Odysseus, but I can say what he did when he was in the Trojan dēmos, and you Achaeans were in all sorts of difficulties.</s>
<s>He covered himself with wounds and bruises, dressed himself <milestone unit="line" n="245"/> all in rags, and entered the enemy’s city looking like a menial or a beggar, quite different from how he looked when he was among his own people.</s>
<s>In this disguise he entered the city of Troy, and no one said anything to him.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="250"/>I alone recognized him and began to question him, but he was too cunning for me.</s>
<s>When, however, I had washed and anointed him and had given him clothes, and after I had sworn a solemn oath not to betray him to the Trojans <milestone unit="line" n="255"/> till he had got safely back to his own camp and to the ships, he explained to me the whole plan [noos] of the Achaeans.</s>
<s>He killed many Trojans and got much information before he reached the Argive camp, for all which things the Trojan women made lamentation, but for my own part</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="260"/>I was glad, for my heart was beginning to long after my home, and I was unhappy about the wrong [atē] that Aphrodite had done me in taking me over there, away from my country, my girl, and my lawful wedded husband, who is indeed by no means deficient either in looks or understanding.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="265"/> Then fair-haired Menelaos said, “All that you have been saying, my dear wife, is true.</s>
<s>I have traveled much, and have learned the plans and noos of many a hero, <milestone unit="line" n="270"/> but I have never seen such another man as enduring Odysseus.</s>
<s>What endurance too, and what courage he displayed within the wooden horse, wherein all the bravest of the Argives were lying in wait to bring death and destruction upon the Trojans.</s>
<s>At that moment you came up to us; <milestone unit="line" n="275"/> some superhuman force [daimōn] who wished well to the Trojans must have set you on to it and you had Deiphobos the godlike with you.</s>
<s>Three times did you go all round our hiding place and pat it; you called our chiefs each by his own name, <milestone unit="line" n="279"/> making your voice like [eïskein] the voices of their wives.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="280"/>Diomedes, great Odysseus, and I from our seats inside heard what a noise you made.</s>
<s>Diomedes and I could not make up our minds whether to spring out then and there, or to answer you from inside, but Odysseus held us all in check, <milestone unit="line" n="285"/> so we sat quite still, all except Antiklos, who was beginning to answer you, when Odysseus clapped his two brawny hands over his mouth, and kept them there.</s>
<s>It was this that saved us all, for he muzzled Antiklos till Athena took you away again.”</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="290"/>“How sad,” exclaimed the spirited Telemachus, “that all this was of no avail to save him, nor yet his own iron courage.</s>
<s>But now, sir, be pleased to send us all to bed, that we may lie down <milestone unit="line" n="295"/> and enjoy the blessed boon of sleep.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then Helen of Argos told the maid servants to set beds in the room that was in the gatehouse, and to make them with good red rugs, and spread coverlets on the top of them with woolen cloaks for the guests to wear.</s>
<s>So the maids <milestone unit="line" n="300"/> went out, carrying a torch, and made the beds, to which a man-servant presently conducted the strangers.</s>
<s>Thus, then, did the hero Telemachus and glorious Peisistratos sleep there in the forecourt, while the son of Atreus lay in an inner room <milestone unit="line" n="305"/> with lovely Helen by his side.</s></p>
<p><s>When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Menelaos rose and dressed himself.</s>
<s>He bound his sandals on to his comely feet, <milestone unit="line" n="310"/> girded his sword about his shoulders, and left his room looking like an immortal god.</s>
<s>Then, taking a seat near Telemachus he said:</s></p>
<p><s>“And what, Telemachus, has led you to take this long sea voyage to shining Lacedaemon?</s>
<s>Are you on public or private business?</s>
<s>Tell me all about it.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="315"/> “I have come, sir,” replied Telemachus, “to see if you can tell me anything about my father.</s>
<s>I am being eaten out of house and home; my fair estate is being wasted, and my house is full of miscreants who in overweening hubris <milestone unit="line" n="320"/> keep killing great numbers of my sheep and oxen, on the pretence of wooing my mother.</s>
<s>Therefore, I am suppliant at your knees if haply you may tell me about my father’s melancholy end, whether you saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from <milestone unit="line" n="325"/> some other traveler; for he was a man born to trouble.</s>
<s>Do not soften things out of any pity for myself, but tell me in all plainness exactly what you saw.</s>
<s>If my brave father Odysseus ever did you loyal service either by word or deed, <milestone unit="line" n="330"/> when you Achaeans were harassed in the dēmos of the Trojans, bear it in mind now as in my favor and tell me truly all.”</s></p>
<p><s>Menelaos on hearing this was very much shocked.</s>
<s>“So,” he exclaimed, “these cowards would usurp a brave man’s bed?</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="335"/>A hind might as well lay her new born young in the lair of a lion, and then go off to feed in the forest or in some grassy dell: the lion when he comes back to his lair will make short work with the pair of them— <milestone unit="line" n="340"/> and so will Odysseus with these suitors.</s>
<s>By father Zeus, Athena, and Apollo, <milestone unit="line" n="342"/> being such a man as the one who [i.e.</s>
<s>Odysseus], in well-founded Lesbos, <milestone unit="line" n="343"/> in rivalry stood up and wrestled Philomeleides <milestone unit="line" n="344"/> and threw him down mightily, and all the Achaeans were glad— <milestone unit="line" n="345"/> if he is still such and were to come near these suitors, they would have a swift doom and a sorry wedding.</s>
<s>As regards your questions, however, I will not prevaricate nor deceive you, <milestone unit="line" n="350"/> but will tell you without concealment all that the old man of the sea told me.</s></p>
<p><s>351 In Egypt did they hold me up, the gods did, though I sorely wanted to make a homecoming [neesthai] back here [deuro = at home, where I am speaking now].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="352"/>Yes, they held me up, since [epei] I did not perform for them a perfect sacrifice of one hundred cattle [hekatombai].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="353"/>The gods always wanted their protocols to be kept in mind.</s>
<s>Now off Egypt, about as far as a ship can sail in a day with a good stiff breeze behind her, there is an island <milestone unit="line" n="355"/> called Pharos—it has a good harbor from which vessels can get out into open sea when they have taken in water— <milestone unit="line" n="360"/> and the gods becalmed me twenty days without so much as a breath of fair wind to help me forward <milestone unit="line" n="363"/> and by now all the food would have wasted away, and along with it the strength of the men, if a goddess had not taken pity upon me and saved me <milestone unit="line" n="365"/> in the person of Eidothea, daughter to mighty Proteus, the old man of the sea, for she had taken a great fancy to me.</s></p>
<p><s>She came to me one day when I was by myself, as I often was, for the men used to go with their barbed hooks, all over the island in the hope of catching a fish or two to save them from the pangs of hunger. <milestone unit="line" n="370"/> ‘Stranger,’ said she, ‘it seems to me that you like starving in this way—at any rate it does not greatly trouble you, for you stick here day after day, without even trying to get away though your men are dying by inches.’</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="375"/> ‘Let me tell you,’ said I, ‘whichever of the goddesses you may happen to be, that I am not staying here of my own accord, but must have offended the gods that live in the sky.</s>
<s>Tell me, therefore, for the gods know everything: which <milestone unit="line" n="380"/> of the immortals it is that is hindering me in this way, and tell me also how I may sail the sea so as to reach my home [nostos]?’</s></p>
<p><s>‘Stranger,’ replied she, ‘I will make it all quite clear to you.</s>
<s>There is an old ever truthful immortal who lives under the sea hereabouts and whose name is Proteus.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="385"/>He is an Egyptian, and people say he is my father; he is Poseidon’s head man and knows every inch of ground all over the bottom of the sea.</s>
<s>If you can snare him and hold him tight, he will tell you about your voyage, what courses you are to take, <milestone unit="line" n="390"/> and how you are to sail the sea so as to have a homecoming [nostos].</s>
<s>He will also tell you, illustrious one, if you so will, all that has been going on at your house both good and bad, while you have been away on your long and dangerous journey.’</s></p>
<p><s>‘Can you show me,’ said I, <milestone unit="line" n="395"/> ‘some strategy by means of which I may catch this old god without his suspecting it and finding me out?</s>
<s>For a superhuman force [daimōn] is not easily caught—not by a mortal man.’</s></p>
<p><s>‘Stranger,’ said she, shining among goddesses, ‘I will make it all quite clear to you.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="400"/>About the time when the sun shall have reached the mid-point in the sky, the ever-truthful old man of the sea comes up from under the waves, heralded by the West wind that furs the water over his head.</s>
<s>As soon as he has come up he lies down, and goes to sleep in a great sea cave, where the seals— [Halosydne’s chickens as they call them]— <milestone unit="line" n="405"/> come up also from the gray sea, and go to sleep in shoals all round him; and a very strong and fish-like smell do they bring with them.</s>
<s>Early tomorrow morning I will take you to this place and will lay you in ambush.</s>
<s>Pick out [krinein], therefore, the three best men you have in your fleet, <milestone unit="line" n="410"/> and I will tell you all the tricks that the old man will play you.</s></p>
<p><s>First he will look over all his seals, and count them; then, when he has seen them and tallied them on his five fingers, he will go to sleep among them, as a shepherd among his sheep.</s>
<s>The moment you see that he is asleep seize him; <milestone unit="line" n="415"/> put forth all your strength [biē] and hold him fast, for he will do his very utmost to get away from you.</s>
<s>He will turn himself into every kind of creature that goes upon the earth, and will become also both fire and water; but you must hold him fast and grip him tighter and tighter, <milestone unit="line" n="420"/> till he begins to talk to you and comes back to what he was when you saw him go to sleep; then you may slacken your hold [biē] and let him go; and you can ask him which of the gods it is that is angry with you, and what you must do to have a homecoming [nostos] over the fishy sea.’</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="425"/> Having so said she dived under the waves, whereon I turned back to the place where my ships were ranged upon the shore; and my heart was clouded with care as I went along.</s>
<s>When I reached my ship we got supper ready, for night was falling, <milestone unit="line" n="430"/> and camped down upon the beach.</s>
<s>When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I took the three men on whose prowess of all kinds I could most rely, and went along by the sea-side, praying heartily to the gods.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="435"/>Meanwhile the goddess fetched me up four seal skins from the bottom of the sea, all of them just skinned, for she meant to play a trick upon her father.</s>
<s>Then she dug four pits for us to lie in, and sat down to wait till we should come up.</s>
<s>When we were close to her, <milestone unit="line" n="440"/> she made us lie down in the pits one after the other, and threw a seal skin over each of us.</s>
<s>Our ambuscade would have been intolerable, for the stench of the fishy seals was most distressing—who would go to bed with a sea monster if he could help it?—but here, too, the goddess helped us, and thought of something that gave us great relief, <milestone unit="line" n="445"/> for she put some ambrosia under each man’s nostrils, which was so fragrant that it killed the smell of the seals.</s></p>
<p><s>We waited the whole morning and made the best of it, watching the seals come up in hundreds to bask upon the sea shore, <milestone unit="line" n="450"/> till at noon the old man of the sea came up too, and when he had found his fat seals he went over them and counted them.</s>
<s>We were among the first he counted, and he never suspected any guile, but laid himself down to sleep as soon as he had done counting.</s>
<s>Then we rushed upon him with a shout and <milestone unit="line" n="455"/> seized him; on which he began at once with his old tricks, and changed himself first into a lion with a great mane; then all of a sudden he became a dragon, a leopard, a wild boar; the next moment he was running water, and then again directly he was a tree, but we stuck to him and never lost hold, <milestone unit="line" n="460"/> till at last the cunning old creature became distressed, and said, ‘Which of the gods was it, Son of Atreus, that hatched this plot with you for snaring me and seizing me against my will?</s>
<s>What do you want?’</s></p>
<p><s>‘You know that yourself, old man,’ I answered. <milestone unit="line" n="465"/> ‘You will gain nothing by trying to put me off.</s>
<s>It is because I have been kept so long in this island, and see no sign of my being able to get away.</s>
<s>I am losing all heart; tell me, then, for you gods know everything, which of the immortals it is that is hindering me, <milestone unit="line" n="470"/> and tell me also how I may sail the sea so as to have a homecoming [nostos]?’</s></p>
<p><s>‘Then,’ he said, ‘if you would finish your voyage and get home quickly, you must offer sacrifices to Zeus and to the rest of the gods before embarking; <milestone unit="line" n="475"/> for it is decreed that you shall not get back to your friends, and to your own house, till you have returned to the sky-fed stream of Egypt, and offered holy hecatombs to the immortal gods that reign in the sky.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="480"/>When you have done this they will let you finish your voyage.’</s></p>
<p><s>I was broken-hearted when I heard that I must go back all that long and terrifying voyage to Egypt; nevertheless, I answered, <milestone unit="line" n="485"/> ‘I will do all, old man, that you have laid upon me; but now tell me, and tell me true, whether all the Achaeans whom Nestor and I left behind us when we set sail from Troy have got home safely, or whether any one of them came to a bad end either on board his own ship <milestone unit="line" n="490"/> or among his friends when the days of his fighting were done.’</s></p>
<p><s>‘Son of Atreus,’ he answered, ‘why ask me?</s>
<s>You had better not know my mind [noos], for your eyes will surely fill when you have heard my story.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="495"/>Many of those about whom you ask are dead and gone, but many still remain, and only two of the chief men among the bronze-armored Achaeans perished during their return home.</s>
<s>As for what happened on the field of battle—you were there yourself.</s>
<s>A third Achaean leader is still at sea, alive, but hindered from returning [nostos].</s>
<s>Ajax was wrecked, <milestone unit="line" n="500"/> for Poseidon drove him on to the great rocks of Gyrai; nevertheless, he let him get safe out of the water, and in spite of all Athena’s hatred he would have escaped death, if he had not ruined himself by boasting.</s>
<s>He said the gods could not drown him even though they had tried to do so, <milestone unit="line" n="505"/> and when Poseidon heard this large talk, he seized his trident in his two brawny hands, and split the rock of Gyrai in two pieces.</s>
<s>The base remained where it was, but the part on which Ajax was sitting fell headlong into the sea <milestone unit="line" n="510"/> and carried Ajax with it; so he drank salt water and was drowned.</s></p>
<p><s>512 But your brother [= Agamemnon] escaped from the forces of destruction, and he slipped away <milestone unit="line" n="513"/> in his hollow ships.</s>
<s>Hera had saved [sōzein] him.</s>
<s>But when he was just about to reach the high promontory of Malea, <milestone unit="line" n="515"/> a gust of wind [thuella] <milestone unit="line" n="516"/> carried him, heavily groaning, over the fishy [ikhthuoeis] sea [pontos] and drove him to the foreland where Thyestes used to dwell, but where Aegisthus was then living.</s>
<s>By and by, however, it seemed as though he was to have his return [nostos], <milestone unit="line" n="520"/> safe after all, for the gods backed the wind into its old quarter and they reached home; whereon Agamemnon kissed his native soil, and shed tears of joy at finding himself in his own country.</s></p>
<p><s>Now there was a watchman whom Aegisthus kept always on the watch, and to whom he had <milestone unit="line" n="525"/> promised two talents of gold.</s>
<s>This man had been looking out for a whole year to make sure that Agamemnon did not give him the slip and prepare war; when, therefore, this man saw Agamemnon go by, he went and told Aegisthus who at once began to lay a plot for him.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="530"/>He picked [krinein] twenty of his bravest warriors from the dēmos and placed them in ambuscade on one side of the hall, while on the opposite side he prepared a banquet.</s>
<s>Then he sent his chariots and horsemen to Agamemnon, and invited him to the feast, but he meant foul play.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="535"/>He got him there, all unsuspicious of the doom that was awaiting him, and killed him when the banquet was over as though he were butchering an ox in the shambles; not one of Agamemnon’s followers was left alive, nor yet one of Aegisthus’, but they were all killed there in the halls.’</s></p>
<p><s>Thus spoke Proteus, and I was broken hearted as I heard him.</s>
<s>I sat down upon the sands and wept; I felt as though I could no longer <milestone unit="line" n="540"/> bear to live nor look upon the light of the sun.</s>
<s>Presently, when I had had my fill of weeping and writhing upon the ground, the ever-truthful old man of the sea said, ‘Son of Atreus, do not waste any more time in crying so bitterly; it can do no manner of good; find your way home <milestone unit="line" n="545"/> as fast as ever you can, for Aegisthus be still alive, and even though Orestes anticipates you in killing him, you may yet come in for his funeral.’</s></p>
<p><s>Then I took comfort in my my heart and bold spirit [thūmos] in spite of all my sorrow, <milestone unit="line" n="550"/> and said, ‘I know, then, about these two; tell me, therefore, about the third man of whom you spoke; is he still alive, but at sea, and unable to get home?</s>
<s>Or is he dead?</s>
<s>Tell me, no matter how much it may grieve me.’</s></p>
<p><s>‘The third man,’ he answered, <milestone unit="line" n="555"/> ‘is Odysseus, son of Laertes, who dwells in Ithaca.</s>
<s>I can see him in an island sorrowing bitterly in the house of the nymph Kalypsō, who is keeping him prisoner, and he cannot reach his home for he has no ships nor sailors <milestone unit="line" n="560"/> to take him over the sea.</s>
<s>As for your own end, Menelaos, fostered son of Zeus, you shall not die in horse-pasturing Argos, but the gods will take you to the Elysian plain, which is at the ends of the world.</s>
<s>There fair-haired Rhadamanthus <milestone unit="line" n="565"/> reigns, and men lead an easier life than any where else in the world, for in Elysium there is no snow, nor heavy winter-storm, nor rain, <milestone unit="line" n="567"/> but the Okeanos sends up the gusts of shrill-blowing Zephyros <milestone unit="line" n="568"/> at all times, so as to reanimate men.</s>
<s>This will happen to you because you have married Helen, and are</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="570"/>Zeus’ son-in-law.’</s></p>
<p><s>As he spoke he dived under the waves, whereon I turned back to the ships with my companions, and my heart was clouded with care as I went along.</s>
<s>When we reached the ships we got supper ready, for night was falling, <milestone unit="line" n="575"/> and camped down upon the beach.</s>
<s>When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, we drew our ships into the water, and put our masts and sails within them; then we went on board ourselves, took our seats on the benches, <milestone unit="line" n="580"/> and smote the gray sea with our oars.</s>
<s>I again stationed my ships in the sky-fed stream of Egypt, and offered hecatombs that were full and sufficient.</s>
<s>When I had thus appeased the anger of the gods, I raised a tomb to the memory of Agamemnon that his kleos <milestone unit="line" n="585"/> might be inextinguishable, after which I had a quick passage home, for the gods sent me a fair wind.</s></p>
<p><s>And now for yourself—stay here some ten or twelve days longer, and I will then speed you on your way.</s>
<s>I will make you a noble <milestone unit="line" n="590"/> present of a chariot and three horses.</s>
<s>I will also give you a beautiful chalice that so long as you live you may think of me whenever you make a drink-offering to the immortal gods.”</s></p>
<p><s>“Son of Atreus,” replied the spirited Telemachus, “do not press me to stay longer;</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="595"/>I should be contented to remain with you for another twelve months; I find your conversation so delightful that I should never once wish myself at home with my parents; but my crew whom I have left at Pylos are already impatient, and you are detaining me from them.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="600"/>As for any present you may be disposed to make me, I had rather that it should be a piece of plate.</s>
<s>I will take no horses back with me to Ithaca, but will leave them to adorn your own stables, for you have much flat ground in your kingdom where lotus thrives, as also meadowsweet and wheat and barley, and oats with their white and spreading ears; <milestone unit="line" n="605"/> whereas in Ithaca we have neither open fields nor racecourses, and the country is more fit for goats than horses, and I like it the better for that.</s>
<s>None of our islands have much level ground, suitable for horses, and Ithaca least of all.”</s></p>
<p><s>Menelaos smiled <milestone unit="line" n="610"/> and took Telemachus’ hand within his own.</s>
<s>“What you say,” said he, “shows that you come of good family.</s>
<s>I both can, and will, make this exchange for you, by giving you the finest and most precious piece of plate in all my house.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="615"/>It is a mixing-bowl by Hephaistos’ own hand, of pure silver, except the rim, which is inlaid with gold.</s>
<s>The hero Phaidimos, king of the Sidonians, gave it me in the course of a visit which I paid him when I returned there on my homeward journey.</s>
<s>I will make you a present of it.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="620"/> Thus did they converse as guests kept coming to the king’s house.</s>
<s>They brought sheep and wine, while their wives had put up bread for them to take with them; so they were busy cooking their dinners in the courts.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="625"/> Meanwhile the suitors were throwing discs or aiming with spears at a mark on the leveled ground in front of Odysseus’ house, and were behaving with all their old hubris.</s>
<s>Antinoos and Eurymakhos, who were their ringleaders and much the foremost in aretē among them all, were sitting together <milestone unit="line" n="630"/> when Noemon, son of Phronios, came up and said to Antinoos,</s></p>
<p><s>“Have we any idea, Antinoos, on what day Telemachus returns from Pylos?</s>
<s>He has a ship of mine, and I want it, <milestone unit="line" n="635"/> to cross over to Elis: I have twelve brood mares there with yearling mule foals by their side not yet broken in, and I want to bring one of them over here and break him.”</s></p>
<p><s>They were astounded when they heard this, for they had been sure that Telemachus had not gone to the city of Neleus.</s>
<s>They thought he was only away somewhere <milestone unit="line" n="640"/> on the farms, and was with the sheep, or with the swineherd; so Antinoos, son of Eupeithes, said, “When did he go?</s>
<s>Tell me truly, and what young men did he take with him?</s>
<s>Were they freemen or his own bondsmen—for he might manage that too?</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="645"/>Tell me also, did you let him have the ship of your own free will because he asked you, or did he take it by force [biē] without your leave?”</s></p>
<p><s>“I lent it him,” answered Noemon.</s>
<s>“What else could I do <milestone unit="line" n="650"/> when a man of his position said he was in a difficulty and asked me to oblige him?</s>
<s>I could not possibly refuse.</s>
<s>As for those who went with him they were the best young men we have in the dēmos, and I saw Mentor go on board as captain—or some god who was exactly like him.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="655"/>I cannot understand it, for I saw splendid Mentor here myself yesterday morning, and yet he was then setting out for Pylos.”</s></p>
<p><s>Noemon then went back to his father’s house, but Antinoos and Eurymakhos were very angry.</s>
<s>They told the others to leave off competing [āthlos], and to come and sit down along with themselves.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="660"/>When they came, Antinoos, son of Eupeithes, spoke in anger.</s>
<s>His heart was black with rage, and his eyes flashed fire as he said:</s></p>
<p><s>“Skies above!</s>
<s>This voyage of Telemachus is a very serious matter; we had made sure that it would come to nothing, <milestone unit="line" n="665"/> but the young man has got away in spite of us, and with a crew picked [krinein] from the best of the dēmos, too.</s>
<s>He will be giving us trouble presently; may Zeus destroy him with violence [biē] before he is full grown.</s>
<s>Find me a ship, therefore, with a crew of twenty men, <milestone unit="line" n="670"/> and I will lie in wait for him in the straits between Ithaca and Samos; he will then rue the day that he set out to try and get news of his father.”</s></p>
<p><s>Thus did he speak, and the others applauded his saying; they then all of them went inside the buildings.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="675"/> It was not long before Penelope came to know what the suitors were plotting; for a manservant, Medon, overheard them from outside the outer court as they were laying their schemes within, and went to tell his mistress.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="680"/>As he crossed the threshold of her room Penelope said: “Medon, what have the suitors sent you here for?</s>
<s>Is it to tell the maids to leave their godlike master’s business and cook dinner for them?</s>
<s>I wish they <milestone unit="line" n="685"/> may neither woo nor dine henceforward, neither here nor anywhere else, but let this be the very last time, for the waste you all make of my high-spirited son’s estate.</s>
<s>Did not your fathers tell you when you were children how good Odysseus had been to them—never doing anything high-handed, <milestone unit="line" n="690"/> nor speaking harshly to anybody in the dēmos?</s>
<s>Such is the justice [dikē] of divine kings: they may take a fancy to one man and dislike another, but Odysseus never did an unjust thing by anybody—which shows what bad hearts you have, <milestone unit="line" n="695"/> and that there is no such thing as gratitude [kharis] left in this world.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then Medon, a man of spirited mind said, “I wish, Madam, that this were all; but they are plotting something much more dreadful now—may the gods frustrate their design.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="700"/>They are going to try and murder Telemachus as he is coming home from Pylos and glorious Lacedaemon, where he has been to get news of his father.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then Penelope’s heart sank within her, and for a long time she was speechless; her eyes <milestone unit="line" n="705"/> filled with tears, and she could find no utterance.</s>
<s>At last, however, she said, “Why did my son leave me?</s>
<s>What business had he to go sailing off in fast-running ships that make long voyages over the ocean like sea-horses?</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="710"/>Does he want to die without leaving any one behind him to keep up his name?”</s></p>
<p><s>“I do not know,” answered Medon, “whether some god set him on to it, or whether he went on his own impulse to see if he could find out if his father was dead, or alive and on his way home [nostos].”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="715"/> Then he went downstairs again, leaving Penelope in an agony of grief [akhos].</s>
<s>There were plenty of seats in the house, but she had no heart for sitting on any one of them; she could only fling herself on the floor of her own room and cry; whereon all the maids in the house, <milestone unit="line" n="720"/> both old and young, gathered round her and began to cry too, till at last in a transport of sorrow she exclaimed,</s></p>
<p><s>“My dears, the gods have been pleased to try me with more affliction than any other woman of my age and country.</s>
<s>First I lost my brave and lion-hearted husband, <milestone unit="line" n="725"/> who had every good quality [aretē] under the sky, and whose kleos was great over all Hellas and middle Argos;</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="727"/>But now the gusts of wind [thuellai] have abducted my beloved son, without my having heard one word about his leaving home.</s>
<s>You hussies, there was not one of you would so much as think <milestone unit="line" n="730"/> of giving me a call out of my bed, though all of you very well knew when he was starting.</s>
<s>If I had known he meant taking this voyage, he would have had to give it up, no matter how much he was bent upon it, or leave me a corpse behind him—one or other.</s>
<s>Now, however, <milestone unit="line" n="735"/> go some of you and call old man Dolios, who was given me by my father on my marriage, and who is my gardener.</s>
<s>Bid him go at once and tell everything to Laertes, who may be able to hit on some plan <milestone unit="line" n="740"/> for enlisting public sympathy on our side, as against those who hanker <milestone unit="line" n="741"/> to destroy [pthinein] his progeny [i.e., of Laertes] which is also that of godlike Odysseus.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then the dear old nurse Eurykleia said, “You may kill me, Madam, or let me live on in your house, whichever you please, but I will tell you the real truth.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="745"/>I knew all about it, and gave him everything he wanted in the way of bread and wine, but he made me take my solemn oath that I would not tell you anything for some ten or twelve days, unless you asked or happened to hear of his having gone, for he did not want you to spoil your beauty by crying.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="750"/>And now, Madam, wash your face, change your dress, and go upstairs with your maids to offer prayers to Athena, daughter of Aegis-bearing Zeus, for she can save him even though he be in the jaws of death.</s>
<s>Do not trouble Laertes: he has trouble enough already.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="755"/>Besides, I cannot think that the gods hate the lineage of the son of Arkeisios so much, but there will be a son left to come up after him, and inherit both the house and the fair fields that lie far all round it.”</s></p>
<p><s>With these words she made her mistress leave off crying, and dried the tears from her eyes.</s>
<s>Penelope washed her face, changed her dress, <milestone unit="line" n="760"/> and went upstairs with her maids.</s>
<s>She then put some bruised barley into a basket and began praying to Athena.</s></p>
<p><s>“Hear me,” she cried, “Daughter of Aegis-bearing Zeus, the one who cannot be worn down.</s>
<s>If ever resourceful Odysseus while he was here burned you fat thigh bones of sheep or heifer, <milestone unit="line" n="765"/> bear it in mind now as in my favor, and save my darling son from the villainy of the suitors.”</s></p>
<p><s>She cried aloud as she spoke, and the goddess heard her prayer; meanwhile the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered hall, and one of them said:</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="770"/> “The queen is preparing for her marriage with one or other of us.</s>
<s>Little does she dream that her son has now been doomed to die.”</s></p>
<p><s>This was what they said, but they did not know what was going to happen.</s>
<s>Then Antinoos said, “Comrades, let there be no loud <milestone unit="line" n="775"/> talking, lest some of it get carried inside.</s>
<s>Let us be up and do that in silence, about which we are all of a mind.”</s></p>
<p><s>He then chose [krinein] twenty men, and they went down to their ship and to the sea side; <milestone unit="line" n="780"/> they drew the vessel into the water and got her mast and sails inside her; they bound the oars to the thole-pins with twisted thongs of leather, all in due course, and spread the white sails aloft, while their fine servants brought them their armor.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="785"/>Then they made the ship fast a little way out, came on shore again, got their suppers, and waited till night should fall.</s></p>
<p><s>But circumspect Penelope lay in her own room upstairs unable to eat or drink, and wondering whether her brave son would escape, <milestone unit="line" n="790"/> or be overpowered by the wicked suitors.</s>
<s>Like a lioness caught in the toils with huntsmen hemming her in on every side she thought and thought till she sank into a slumber, and lay on her bed bereft of thought and motion.</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="795"/> Then owl-vision goddess Athena turned her thoughts to another matter, and made a vision in the likeness of Penelope’s sister, Iphthime, daughter of great-hearted Ikarios, who had married Eumelos and lived in Pherai.</s>
<s>She told the vision to go to the house of godlike Odysseus, <milestone unit="line" n="800"/> and to make Penelope leave off crying, so it came into her room by the hole through which the thong went for pulling the door to, and hovered over her head, saying,</s></p>
<p><s>“You are asleep, Penelope: <milestone unit="line" n="805"/> the gods who live at ease will not suffer you to weep and be so sad.</s>
<s>Your son has done them no wrong, so he will yet come back to you.”</s></p>
<p><s>Circumspect Penelope, who was sleeping sweetly at the gates of dreamland, answered,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="810"/>“Sister, why have you come here?</s>
<s>You do not come very often, but I suppose that is because you live such a long way off.</s>
<s>Am I, then, to leave off crying and refrain from all the sad thoughts that torture me?</s>
<s>I, who have lost my brave and lion-hearted husband, <milestone unit="line" n="815"/> who had every good quality [aretē] under the sky, and whose kleos was great over all Hellas and middle Argos; and now my darling son has gone off on board of a ship—a foolish man who has never been used to undergoing ordeals [ponoi], nor to going about among gatherings of men.</s>
<s>I am even more anxious about him than about my husband;</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="820"/>I am all in a tremble when I think of him, lest something should happen to him, either from the people in the dēmos where he has gone, or at sea, for he has many enemies who are plotting against him, and are bent on killing him before he can return home.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then the vision said,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="825"/>“Take heart, and be not so much dismayed.</s>
<s>There is one gone with him whom many a man would be glad enough to have stand by his side, I mean Athena; it is she who has compassion upon you, and who has sent me to bear you this message.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="830"/> “Then,” said circumspect Penelope, “if you are a god or have been sent here by divine commission, tell me also about that other unhappy one—is he still alive, or is he already dead and in the house of Hādēs?”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="835"/> And the vision said, “I shall not tell you for certain whether he is alive or dead, and there is no use in idle conversation.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then it vanished through the thong-hole of the door and was dissipated into thin air; <milestone unit="line" n="840"/> but Penelope rose from her sleep refreshed and comforted, so vivid had been her dream.</s></p>
<p><s>Meantime the suitors went on board and sailed their ways over the sea, intent on murdering Telemachus.</s>
<s>Now there is a rocky islet called Asteris, of no great size, <milestone unit="line" n="845"/> in mid channel between Ithaca and Samos, and there is a harbor on either side of it where a ship can lie.</s>
<s>Here then the Achaeans placed themselves in ambush.</s></p></div>
<div type="textpart" subtype="rhapsody" n="5">
<p><s>And now, as Dawn rose from her couch beside haughty Tithonos—harbinger of light alike to mortals and immortals—the gods met in council and with them, Zeus the lord of thunder, who is their king.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="5"/>Then Athena began to tell them of the many sufferings of Odysseus, for she pitied him away there in the house of the nymph Kalypsō.</s></p>
<p><s>“Father Zeus,” said she, “and all you other gods that live in everlasting bliss, I hope there may never be such a thing as a kind and well-disposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern equitably.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="10"/>I hope they will be all henceforth cruel and unjust, for there is not one of his subjects who has not forgotten godlike Odysseus, who ruled them as though he were their father.</s>
<s>There he is, lying in great pain in an island where dwells the nymph Kalypsō, who will not let him go; <milestone unit="line" n="15"/> and he cannot get back to his own country, for he can find neither ships nor sailors to take him over the sea.</s>
<s>Furthermore, wicked people are now trying to murder his only son Telemachus, <milestone unit="line" n="20"/> who is coming home from Pylos and glorious Lacedaemon, where he has been to see if he can get news of his father.”</s></p>
<p><s>“What, my dear, are you talking about?” replied her father.</s>
<s>“Did you not send him there yourself, because you thought [noos] it would help Odysseus to get home and punish the suitors?</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="25"/>Besides, you are perfectly able to protect Telemachus, and to see him safely home again, while the suitors have to come hurrying back without having killed him.”</s></p>
<p><s>When he had thus spoken, he said to his beloved son Hermes, “Hermes, you are our messenger, <milestone unit="line" n="30"/> go therefore and tell Kalypsō we have decreed that poor enduring Odysseus is to return home [nostos].</s>
<s>He is to be convoyed neither by gods nor men, but after a perilous voyage of twenty days upon a raft he is to reach fertile Skheria, <milestone unit="line" n="35"/> the land of the Phaeacians, who are near of kin to the gods, and will honor him as though he were one of ourselves.</s>
<s>They will send him in a ship to his own country, and will give him more bronze and gold and raiment than he would have brought back from Troy, <milestone unit="line" n="40"/> if he had had all his prize wealth and had got home without disaster.</s>
<s>This is how we have settled that he shall return to his country and his friends.”</s></p>
<p><s>Thus he spoke, and Hermes, guide and guardian, slayer of Argos, did as he was told.</s>
<s>Right away he bound on his glittering golden sandals <milestone unit="line" n="45"/> with which he could fly like the wind over land and sea.</s>
<s>He took the wand with which he seals men’s eyes in sleep or wakes them just as he pleases, and flew holding it in his hand over Pieria; <milestone unit="line" n="50"/> then he swooped down through the firmament till he reached the level of the sea, whose waves he skimmed like a cormorant that flies fishing every hole and corner of the ocean, and drenching its thick plumage in the spray.</s>
<s>He flew and flew over many a weary wave, <milestone unit="line" n="55"/> but when at last he got to the island which was his journey’s end, he left the sea and went on by land till he came to the cave where the nymph Kalypsō lived.</s></p>
<p><s>He found her at home.</s>
<s>There was a large fire burning on the hearth, and one could smell from far the fragrant reek of burning cedar <milestone unit="line" n="60"/> and sandalwood.</s>
<s>As for herself, she was busy at her loom, shooting her golden shuttle through the warp and singing beautifully.</s>
<s>Round her cave there was a thick wood of alder, poplar, and sweet smelling cypress trees, <milestone unit="line" n="65"/> wherein all kinds of great birds had built their nests—owls, hawks, and chattering sea-crows that have their business in the waters.</s>
<s>A vine loaded with grapes was trained and grew luxuriantly about the mouth of the cave; <milestone unit="line" n="70"/> there were also four running rills of water in channels cut pretty close together, and turned here and there so as to irrigate the beds of violets and luscious herbage over which they flowed.</s>
<s>Even a god could not help being charmed with such a lovely spot, <milestone unit="line" n="75"/> so Hermes stood still and looked at it; but when he had admired it sufficiently he went inside the cave.</s></p>
<p><s>Kalypsō knew him at once— <milestone unit="line" n="80"/> for the gods all know each other, no matter how far they live from one another—but great-hearted Odysseus was not within; he was on the sea-shore as usual, looking out upon the barren ocean with tears in his eyes, groaning and breaking his heart for sorrow.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="85"/>Kalypsō, shining among goddesses, gave Hermes a seat and said: “Why have you come to see me, Hermes—honored, and ever welcome—for you do not visit me often?</s>
<s>Say what you want; I will do it for you at once <milestone unit="line" n="90"/> if I can, and if it can be done at all; but come inside, and let me set refreshment before you.</s></p>
<p><s>As she spoke she drew a table loaded with ambrosia beside him and mixed him some red nectar, so Hermes ate and drank <milestone unit="line" n="95"/> till he had had enough, and then said:</s></p>
<p><s>“We are speaking god and goddess to one another, and you ask me why I have come here, and I will tell you truly as you would have me do.</s>
<s>Zeus sent me; it was no doing of mine; <milestone unit="line" n="100"/> who could possibly want to come all this way over the sea where there are no cities full of people to offer me sacrifices or choice hecatombs?</s>
<s>Nevertheless I had to come, for none of us other gods can cross aegis-bearing Zeus, nor transgress his orders [his noos].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="105"/>He says that you have here the most ill-starred of all those who fought nine years before the city of King Priam and sailed home in the tenth year after having ransacked it.</s>
<s>During their homecoming [nostos] they sinned against Athena, who raised both wind and waves against them, <milestone unit="line" n="110"/> so that all his brave companions perished, and he alone was carried here by wind and tide.</s>
<s>Zeus says that you are to let this by man go at once, for it is decreed that he shall not perish here, far from his own people, but shall return <milestone unit="line" n="115"/> to his house and country and see his friends again.”</s></p>
<p><s>Kalypsō, shining among divinities, trembled with rage when she heard this, “You gods,” she exclaimed, “ought to be ashamed of yourselves.</s>
<s>You are always jealous and hate seeing a goddess take a fancy <milestone unit="line" n="120"/> to a mortal man, and live with him in open matrimony.</s>
<s>So when rosy-fingered Dawn made love to Orion, you precious gods were all of you furious till Artemis went and killed him in Ortygia.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="125"/>So again when Demeter of the lovely hair fell in love with Iasion, and yielded to him in a thrice plowed fallow field, Zeus came to hear of it before so long and killed Iasion with his thunder-bolts.</s>
<s>And now you are angry with me too because</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="130"/>I have a man here.</s>
<s>I found the poor creature sitting all alone astride of a keel, for Zeus had struck his ship with lightning and sunk it in mid ocean, so that all his crew were drowned, while he himself was driven by wind and waves on to my island.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="135"/>I got fond of him and cherished him, and had set my heart on making him immortal, so that he should never grow old all his days; still I cannot cross aegis-bearing Zeus, nor bring his counsels [noos] to nothing; therefore, if he insists upon it, <milestone unit="line" n="140"/> let the man go beyond the seas again; but I cannot send him anywhere myself for I have neither ships nor men who can take him.</s>
<s>Nevertheless I will readily give him such advice, in all good faith, as will be likely to bring him safely to his own country.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="145"/> “Then send him away,” said Hermes, “and fear the mēnis of Zeus, lest he grow angry and punish you.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then he took his leave, <milestone unit="line" n="150"/> and Kalypsō went out to look for great-hearted Odysseus, for she had heard Zeus’ message.</s>
<s>She found him sitting upon the beach with his eyes ever filled with tears, his sweet life wasting away as he wept for his homecoming [nostos]; for he had got tired of Kalypsō, and though he was forced to sleep with her <milestone unit="line" n="155"/> in the cave by night, it was she, not he, that would have it so.</s>
<s>As for the daytime, he spent it on the rocks and on the sea-shore, weeping, crying aloud for his despair, and always looking out upon the sea.</s>
<s>Kalypsō then went close up to him said:</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="160"/> “My poor man, you shall not stay here grieving and fretting your life out any longer.</s>
<s>I am going to send you away of my own free will; so go, cut some beams of wood, and make yourself a large raft with an upper deck that it may carry you safely over the sea.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="165"/>I will put bread, wine, and water on board to save you from starving.</s>
<s>I will also give you clothes, and will send you a fair wind to take you home, if the gods in the sky so will it— <milestone unit="line" n="170"/> for they know more about these things, and can settle them better than I can.”</s></p>
<p><s>Long-suffering great Odysseus shuddered as he heard her.</s>
<s>“Now goddess,” he answered, “there is something behind all this; <milestone unit="line" n="173"/> when you devise this you are devising something else, and it’s not sending me on my way home when you bid me do such a dreadful [deinon] thing as put to sea <milestone unit="line" n="175"/> on a raft.</s>
<s>Not even a well-found ship with a fair wind could venture on such a distant voyage: nothing that you can say or do shall make me go on board a raft unless you first solemnly swear that you mean me no mischief.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="180"/> Kalypsō, shining among divinities, smiled at this and caressed him with her hand: “You know a great deal,” said she, “but you are quite wrong here.</s>
<s>May the sky above and earth below be my witnesses, <milestone unit="line" n="185"/> with the waters of the river Styx—and this is the most solemn oath which a blessed god can take—that I mean you no sort of harm, <milestone unit="line" n="188"/> but I think and ponder only the kinds of things <milestone unit="line" n="189"/> that I would devise for myself if I were in such need.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="190"/>I have a decent disposition [noos] and my <milestone unit="line" n="191"/> heart [thūmos] is not of iron.</s>
<s>It’s a compassionate heart.”</s></p>
<p><s>When she had thus spoken she led the way rapidly before him, and Odysseus followed in her steps; so the pair, goddess and man, went on and on till they came to Kalypsō’s cave, <milestone unit="line" n="195"/> where he took the seat that Hermes had just left.</s>
<s>The nymph set before him all kinds of food to eat and drink of the kind that mortals consume; but she herself sat opposite godlike Odysseus, and her maids set ambrosia and nectar before her, <milestone unit="line" n="200"/> and they laid their hands on the good things that were before them.</s>
<s>When they had satisfied themselves with meat and drink, shining goddess Kalypsō spoke, saying:</s></p>
<p><s>“Resourceful Odysseus, noble son of Laertes, so you would start home <milestone unit="line" n="205"/> to your own land at once?</s>
<s>Good luck go with you, but if you could only know how much suffering is in store for you before you get back to your own country, you would stay where you are, keep house along with me, and let me make you immortal, no matter how anxious you may be to see <milestone unit="line" n="210"/> this wife of yours, of whom you are thinking all the time, day after day; yet I flatter myself that I am no whit less tall or well-looking than she is, for it is not to be expected that a mortal woman should compare in beauty with an immortal.”</s></p>
<p><s>“Goddess,” replied resourceful Odysseus,</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="215"/>“do not be angry with me about this.</s>
<s>I am quite aware that my wife, circumspect Penelope, is nothing like so tall or so beautiful as yourself.</s>
<s>She is only a woman, whereas you are an immortal.</s>
<s>Nevertheless, I want to get home, <milestone unit="line" n="220"/> and can think of nothing else.</s>
<s>If some god wrecks me when I am on the sea, I will bear it and make the best of it.</s>
<s>I have had infinite trouble both by land and sea already, so let this go with the rest.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="225"/> Presently the sun set and it became dark, whereon the pair retired into the inner part of the cave and went to bed.</s></p>
<p><s>When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Odysseus put on his khiton and cloak, <milestone unit="line" n="230"/> while the goddess wore a dress of a light gossamer fabric, very fine and graceful, with a beautiful golden waistband about her waist and a veil to cover her head.</s>
<s>She at once set herself to think how she could speed great-hearted Odysseus on his way.</s>
<s>So she gave him a great bronze axe that suited his hands; <milestone unit="line" n="235"/> it was sharpened on both sides, and had a beautiful olive-wood handle fitted firmly on to it.</s>
<s>She also gave him a sharp adze, and then led the way to the far end of the island where the largest trees grew—alder, poplar and pine, that reached the sky— <milestone unit="line" n="240"/> very dry and well seasoned, so as to sail light for him in the water.</s>
<s>Then, when she had shown him where the best trees grew, Kalypsō, shining among divinities, went home, leaving him to cut them, which he soon finished doing.</s>
<s>He cut down twenty trees in all and adzed them smooth, <milestone unit="line" n="245"/> squaring them by rule in good workmanlike fashion.</s>
<s>Meanwhile Kalypsō, the shining goddess, came back with some augers, so he bored holes with them and fitted the timbers together with bolts and rivets.</s>
<s>He made the raft as broad as a skilled shipwright <milestone unit="line" n="250"/> makes the beam of a large vessel, and he filed a deck on top of the ribs, and ran a gunwale all round it.</s>
<s>He also made a mast with a yard arm, <milestone unit="line" n="255"/> and a rudder to steer with.</s>
<s>He fenced the raft all round with wicker hurdles as a protection against the waves, and then he threw on a quantity of wood.</s>
<s>By and by Kalypsō, the shining goddess, brought him some linen to make the sails, and he made these too, excellently, <milestone unit="line" n="260"/> making them fast with braces and sheets.</s>
<s>Last of all, with the help of levers, he drew the raft down into the water.</s></p>
<p><s>In four days he had completed the whole work, and on the fifth shining Kalypsō sent him from the island after washing him and giving him some clean clothes.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="265"/>She gave him a goat skin full of black wine, and another larger one of water; she also gave him a wallet full of provisions, and found him much good meat.</s>
<s>Moreover, she made the wind fair and warm for him, and gladly did glorious Odysseus spread his sail before it, <milestone unit="line" n="270"/> while he sat and guided the raft skillfully by means of the rudder.</s>
<s>He never closed his eyes, but kept them fixed on the Pleiades, on late-setting Boötes, and on the Bear—which men also call the wagon, and which turns round and round where it is, facing Orion: <milestone unit="line" n="275"/> she alone has no share in the baths of Okeanos —for Kalypsō, bright among goddesses, had told him to keep this to his left.</s>
<s>Seventeen days did he sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth the dim outlines of the mountains <milestone unit="line" n="280"/> on the nearest part of the Phaeacian coast appeared, rising like a shield on the horizon.</s></p>
<p><s>But lord Poseidon, the strong Earthshaker, who was returning from the Ethiopians, caught sight of Odysseus a long way off, from the mountains of the Solymoi.</s>
<s>He could see him sailing upon the sea, and it made him very angry, <milestone unit="line" n="285"/> so he wagged his head and muttered to himself, saying, “Heavens, so the gods have been changing their minds about Odysseus while I was away in Ethiopia, and now he is close to the land of the Phaeacians, where it is decreed that he shall escape from the calamities that have befallen him.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="290"/>Still, he shall have plenty of hardship yet before he has done with it.”</s></p>
<p><s>Then he gathered his clouds together, grasped his trident, stirred it round in the sea, and roused the rage of every wind that blows till earth, sea, and sky were hidden in cloud, and night sprang forth out of the sky.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="295"/>Winds from East, South, North, and West fell upon him all at the same time, and a tremendous sea got up, so that Odysseus’ heart began to fail him.</s>
<s>“Alas,” he said to himself in his dismay, “what ever will become of me?</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="300"/>I am afraid Kalypsō was right when she said I should have trouble by sea before I got back home.</s>
<s>It is all coming true.</s>
<s>How black is Zeus making the sky with his clouds, and what a sea the winds <milestone unit="line" n="305"/> are raising from every quarter at once.</s>
<s>I am now safe to perish.</s>
<s>Blest and thrice blest were those Danaans who fell at Troy in the cause [kharis] of the sons of Atreus.</s>
<s>Would that I had been killed on the day when the Trojans <milestone unit="line" n="310"/> were pressing me so sorely about the dead body of Achilles, for then I should have had due burial <milestone unit="line" n="311"/> and then the Achaeans would have carried on my [kleos]; but now it seems that I shall come to a most pitiable end.”</s></p>
<p><s>As he spoke a sea broke over him with such terrific fury that the raft reeled again, <milestone unit="line" n="315"/> and he was carried overboard a long way off.</s>
<s>He let go the helm, and the force of the hurricane was so great that it broke the mast half way up, and both sail and yard went over into the sea.</s>
<s>For a long time Odysseus was under water, and it was all he could do <milestone unit="line" n="320"/> to rise to the surface again, for the clothes Kalypsō had given him weighed him down; but at last he got his head above water and spat out the bitter brine that was running down his face in streams.</s>
<s>In spite of all this, however, he did not lose sight of his raft, <milestone unit="line" n="325"/> but swam as fast as he could towards it, got hold of it, and climbed on board again so as to escape drowning.</s>
<s>The sea took the raft and tossed it about as Autumn winds whirl thistledown round and round upon a road. <milestone unit="line" n="330"/> [It was as though the South, North, East, and West winds were all playing battledore and shuttlecock with it at once.]</s></p>
<p><s>333 He [= Odysseus] was seen by the daughter of Kadmos.</s>
<s>She is Ino, with the beautiful ankles, <milestone unit="line" n="334"/> and she is also called the White Goddess [Leukotheā], but she had been a mortal before that, endowed with a special voice [audē].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="335"/>But now, in the depths, she had a share in the honor [tīmē] that belongs to gods.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="336"/>She took pity on Odysseus, lost at sea and suffering pains [algea].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="337"/>Appearing as a winged diving bird [aithuia], she emerged from the waters <milestone unit="line" n="338"/> and perched on the raft, addressing him with this set of words [mūthos]:</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="339"/>“Unfortunate man, why on earth is Poseidon the earth-shaker <milestone unit="line" n="340"/> so terribly hateful toward you, creating so many bad experiences for you?</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="341"/>But I now see that he will not destroy you, much as he wants to.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="342"/>Do as I tell you, and I think you will not miss in your mind what I tell you: <milestone unit="line" n="343"/> get out of these clothes of yours and let your raft be carried off by the winds.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="344"/>Just let it go.</s>
<s>Then start paddling with your hands and strive for your homecoming [nostos] <milestone unit="line" n="345"/> by heading for the land of the Phaeacians, where your destiny [moira] for escape awaits you.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="346"/>Here, take my veil [krēdemnon] and wrap it around your chest.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="347"/>It is a veil that is immortalizing [ambroton], and there is nothing to be afraid of: you will not suffer anything or be destroyed.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="348"/>But as soon as you touch land with your hands, <milestone unit="line" n="349"/> at that moment take off the veil and throw it into the wine-colored sea [pontos].</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="350"/>Throw it as far back as you can into the sea, while you turn in the other direction.”</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="351"/>Speaking these words, the goddess took off her veil [krēdemnon] and gave it him.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="352"/>Then she plunged down again into the seething sea [pontos], <milestone unit="line" n="353"/> looking like the diving bird [aithuia], and vanished beneath the dark waves.</s></p>
<p><s>But long-suffering great Odysseus did not know what to think.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="355"/>“Alas,” he said to himself in his dismay, “this is only some one or other of the gods who is luring me to ruin by advising me to quit my raft.</s>
<s>At any rate I will not do so at present, for the land where she said I should be quit of all troubles seems to be still a good way off.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="360"/>I know what I will do—I am sure it will be best—no matter what happens I will stick to the raft as long as her timbers hold together, but when the sea breaks her up I will swim for it; I do not see how I can do any better than this.”</s></p>
<p><s><milestone unit="line" n="365"/> While he was thus in two minds, Poseidon, shaker of the earth, sent a terrifying great wave that seemed to rear itself above his head till it broke right over the raft, which then went to pieces <milestone unit="line" n="370"/> as though it were a heap of dry chaff tossed about by a whirlwind.</s>
<s>Odysseus got astride of one plank and rode upon it as if he were on horseback; he then took off the clothes divine Kalypsō had given him, bound Ino’s veil under his arms, and plunged into the sea— <milestone unit="line" n="375"/> meaning to swim on shore.</s>
<s>King Poseidon, the strong Earthshaker, watched him as he did so, and wagged his head, muttering to himself and saying, “‘There now, swim up and down as you best can till you fall in with well-to-do people.</s>
<s>I do not think you will be able to say that I have let you off too lightly.”</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="380"/>Then he lashed his fair-maned horses and drove to Aigai where his palace is.</s></p>
<p><s>But Athena, daughter of Zeus, resolved to help Odysseus, so she bound the ways of all the winds except one, and made them lie quite still; <milestone unit="line" n="385"/> but she roused a good stiff breeze from the North that should lay the waters till Zeus-sprung Odysseus reached the land of the oar-loving Phaeacians where he would be safe.</s></p>
<p><s>Then he floated about for two nights and two days in the water, with a heavy swell on the sea and death staring him in the face; <milestone unit="line" n="390"/> but when the third day broke, the wind fell and there was a dead calm without so much as a breath of air stirring.</s>
<s>As he rose on the swell he looked eagerly ahead, and could see land quite near.</s>
<s>Then, as children rejoice when their dear father <milestone unit="line" n="395"/> begins to get better after having for a long time borne sore affliction sent him by some angry spirit, but the gods deliver him from evil, so was Odysseus thankful when he again saw land and trees, and swam on with all his strength that he might once more set foot upon dry ground.</s>
<s><milestone unit="line" n="400"/>When, however, he got within earshot, he began to hear the surf thundering up against the rocks, for the swell still broke against them with a terrific roar.</s>
<s>Everything was enveloped in spray; there were no harbors where a ship might ride, nor shelter of any kind, <milestone unit="line" n="405"/> but only headlands, low-lying rocks, and mountain tops.</s></p>