passage
stringlengths 43
2.05k
| id
int64 0
1.25k
| author
stringclasses 6
values | title
stringclasses 6
values | gutenberg_source_id
int64 11
67.1k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
To speed our course, and waft us o’er the floods:
So shall a barren heifer from the stall
Beneath the knife upon your altars fall;
So in our palace, at our safe return,
Rich with unnumber’d gifts the pile shall burn;
So shall a ram, the largest of the breed,
Black as these regions, to Tiresias bleed.
“Thus solemn rites and holy vows we paid
To all the phantom-nations of the dead;
Then died the sheep: a purple torrent flow’d,
And all the caverns smoked with streaming blood.
When lo! appear’d along the dusky coasts,
Thin, airy shoals of visionary ghosts:
Fair, pensive youths, and soft enamour’d maids;
And wither’d elders, pale and wrinkled shades;
Ghastly with wounds the forms of warriors slain
Stalk’d with majestic port, a martial train:
These and a thousand more swarm’d o’er the ground,
And all the dire assembly shriek’d around.
Astonish’d at the sight, aghast I stood,
And a cold fear ran shivering through my blood;
Straight I command the sacrifice to haste,
Straight the flay’d victims to the flames are cast,
And mutter’d vows, and mystic song applied
To grisly Pluto, and his gloomy bride.
“Now swift I waved my falchion o’er the blood;
Back started the pale throngs, and trembling stood,
Round the black trench the gore untasted flows,
Till awful from the shades Tiresias rose.
“There wandering through the gloom I first survey’d,
New to the realms of death, Elpenor’s shade:
His cold remains all naked to the sky
On distant shores unwept, unburied lie.
Sad at the sight I stand, deep fix’d in woe,
And ere I spoke the tears began to flow.
“‘O say what angry power Elpenor led
To glide in shades, and wander with the dead?
How could thy soul, by realms and seas disjoin’d,
Outfly the nimble sail, and leave the lagging wind?
“The ghost replied: ‘To hell my doom I owe,
Demons accursed, dire ministers of woe!
My feet, through wine unfaithful to their weight, | 1,000 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Betray’d me tumbling from a towery height:
Staggering I reel’d, and as I reel’d I fell,
Lux’d the neck-joint—my soul descends to hell.
But lend me aid, I now conjure thee lend,
By the soft tie and sacred name of friend!
By thy fond consort! by thy father’s cares!
By loved Telemachus’ blooming years?
For well I know that soon the heavenly powers
Will give thee back to-day, and Circe’s shores:
There pious on my cold remains attend,
There call to mind thy poor departed friend.
The tribute of a tear is all I crave,
And the possession of a peaceful grave.
But if, unheard, in vain compassion plead,
Revere the gods. The gods avenge the dead!
A tomb along the watery margin raise,
The tomb with manly arms and trophies grace,
To show posterity Elpenor was.
There high in air, memorial of my name,
Fix the smooth oar, and bid me live to fame.’
“To whom with tears: ‘These rites, O mournful shade,
Due to thy ghost, shall to thy ghost be paid.’
“Still as I spoke the phantom seem’d to moan,
Tear follow’d tear, and groan succeeded groan.
But, as my waving sword the blood surrounds,
The shade withdrew, and mutter’d empty sounds.
“There as the wondrous visions I survey’d,
All pale ascends my royal mother’s shade:
A queen, to Troy she saw our legions pass;
Now a thin form is all Anticlea was!
Struck at the sight I melt with filial woe,
And down my cheek the pious sorrows flow,
Yet as I shook my falchion o’er the blood,
Regardless of her son the parent stood.
“When lo! the mighty Theban I behold,
To guide his steps he bore a staff of gold;
Awful he trod; majestic was his look!
And from his holy lips these accents broke:
“‘Why, mortal, wanderest thou from cheerful day,
To tread the downward, melancholy way?
What angry gods to these dark regions led
Thee, yet alive, companion of the dead?
But sheathe thy poniard, while my tongue relates
Heaven’s steadfast purpose, and thy future fates.’ | 1,001 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
“While yet he spoke, the prophet I obey’d,
And in the scabbard plunged the glittering blade:
Eager he quaff’d the gore, and then express’d
Dark things to come, the counsels of his breast.
“Weary of light, Ulysses here explores
A prosperous voyage to his native shores;
But know—by me unerring Fates disclose
New trains of dangers, and new scenes of woes.
I see, I see, thy bark by Neptune toss’d,
For injured Cyclops, and his eyeball lost!
Yet to thy woes the gods decree an end,
If Heaven thou please: and how to please attend
Where on Trinacrian rocks the ocean roars,
Graze numerous herds along the verdant shores;
Though hunger press, yet fly the dangerous prey,
The herds are sacred to the god of day,
Who all surveys with his extensive eye,
Above, below, on earth, and in the sky!
Rob not the god; and so propitious gales
Attend thy voyage, and impel thy sails:
But, if his herds ye seize, beneath the waves
I see thy friends o’erwhelm’d in liquid graves!
The direful wreck Ulysses scarce survives!
Ulysses at his country scarce arrives!
Strangers thy guides! nor there thy labours end;
New foes arise; domestic ills attend!
There foul adulterers to thy bride resort,
And lordly gluttons riot in thy court.
But vengeance hastes amain! These eyes behold
The deathful scene, princes on princes roll’d!
That done, a people far from sea explore,
Who ne’er knew salt, or heard the billows roar,
Or saw gay vessel stem the watery plain,
A painted wonder flying on the main!
Bear on thy back an oar: with strange amaze
A shepherd meeting thee, the oar surveys,
And names a van: there fix it on the plain,
To calm the god that holds the watery reign;
A threefold offering to his altar bring,
A bull, a ram, a boar; and hail the ocean king.
But home return’d, to each ethereal power
Slay the due victim in the genial hour:
So peaceful shalt thou end thy blissful days,
And steal thyself from life by slow decays: | 1,002 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Unknown to pain, in age resign thy breath,
When late stern Neptune points the shaft with death:
To the dark grave retiring as to rest,
Thy people blessing, by thy people bless’d!
“Unerring truths, O man, my lips relate;
This is thy life to come, and this is fate.’
“To whom unmoved: ‘If this the gods prepare,
What Heaven ordains the wise with courage bear.
But say, why yonder on the lonely strands,
Unmindful of her son, Anticlea stands?
Why to the ground she bends her downcast eye?
Why is she silent, while her son is nigh?
The latent cause, O sacred seer, reveal!’
“‘Nor this (replies the seer) will I conceal.
Know, to the spectres that thy beverage taste,
The scenes of life recur, and actions past:
They, seal’d with truth, return the sure reply;
The rest, repell’d, a train oblivious fly.’
“The phantom-prophet ceased, and sunk from sight,
To the black palace of eternal night.
“Still in the dark abodes of death I stood,
When near Anticlea moved, and drank the blood.
Straight all the mother in her soul awakes,
And, owning her Ulysses, thus she speaks;
‘Comest thou, my son, alive, to realms beneath,
The dolesome realms of darkness and of death!
Comest thou alive from pure, ethereal day?
Dire is the region, dismal is the way!
Here lakes profound, there floods oppose their waves,
There the wide sea with all his billows raves!
Or (since to dust proud Troy submits her towers)
Comest thou a wanderer from the Phrygian shores?
Or say, since honour call’d thee to the field,
Hast thou thy Ithaca, thy bride, beheld?’
“‘Source of my life,’ I cried, ‘from earth I fly
To seek Tiresias in the nether sky,
To learn my doom; for, toss’d from woe to woe,
In every land Ulysses finds a foe:
Nor have these eyes beheld my native shores,
Since in the dust proud Troy submits her towers.
“‘But, when thy soul from her sweet mansion fled,
Say, what distemper gave thee to the dead? | 1,003 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Has life’s fair lamp declined by slow decays,
Or swift expired it in a sudden blaze?
Say, if my sire, good old Laertes, lives?
If yet Telemachus, my son, survives?
Say, by his rule is my dominion awed,
Or crush’d by traitors with an iron rod?
Say, if my spouse maintains her royal trust;
Though tempted, chaste, and obstinately just?
Or if no more her absent lord she wails,
But the false woman o’er the wife prevails?’
“Thus I, and thus the parent-shade returns:
‘Thee, ever thee, thy faithful consort mourns:
Whether the night descends or day prevails,
Thee she by night, and thee by day bewails.
Thee in Telemachus thy realm obeys;
In sacred groves celestial rites he pays,
And shares the banquet in superior state,
Graced with such honours as become the great
Thy sire in solitude foments his care:
The court is joyless, for thou art not there!
No costly carpets raise his hoary head,
No rich embroidery shines to grace his bed;
Even when keen winter freezes in the skies,
Rank’d with his slaves, on earth the monarch lies:
Deep are his sighs, his visage pale, his dress
The garb of woe and habit of distress.
And when the autumn takes his annual round,
The leafy honours scattering on the ground,
Regardless of his years, abroad he lies,
His bed the leaves, his canopy the skies.
Thus cares on cares his painful days consume,
And bow his age with sorrow to the tomb!
“‘For thee, my son, I wept my life away;
For thee through hell’s eternal dungeons stray:
Nor came my fate by lingering pains and slow,
Nor bent the silver-shafted queen her bow;
No dire disease bereaved me of my breath;
Thou, thou, my son, wert my disease and death;
Unkindly with my love my son conspired,
For thee I lived, for absent thee expired.’
“Thrice in my arms I strove her shade to bind,
Thrice through my arms she slipp’d like empty wind,
Or dreams, the vain illusions of the mind.
Wild with despair, I shed a copious tide | 1,004 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Of flowing tears, and thus with sighs replied:
“‘Fliest thou, loved shade, while I thus fondly mourn!
Turn to my arms, to my embraces turn!
Is it, ye powers that smile at human harms!
Too great a bliss to weep within her arms?
Or has hell’s queen an empty image sent,
That wretched I might e’en my joys lament?’
“‘O son of woe,’ the pensive shade rejoin’d;
‘O most inured to grief of all mankind!
‘Tis not the queen of hell who thee deceives;
All, all are such, when life the body leaves:
No more the substance of the man remains,
Nor bounds the blood along the purple veins:
These the funereal flames in atoms bear,
To wander with the wind in empty air:
While the impassive soul reluctant flies,
Like a vain dream, to these infernal skies.
But from the dark dominions speed the way,
And climb the steep ascent to upper day:
To thy chaste bride the wondrous story tell,
The woes, the horrors, and the laws of hell.’
“Thus while she spoke, in swarms hell’s empress brings
Daughters and wives of heroes and of kings;
Thick and more thick they gather round the blood,
Ghost thronged on ghost (a dire assembly) stood!
Dauntless my sword I seize: the airy crew,
Swift as it flash’d along the gloom, withdrew;
Then shade to shade in mutual forms succeeds,
Her race recounts, and their illustrious deeds.
“Tyro began, whom great Salmoneus bred;
The royal partner of famed Cretheus’ bed.
For fair Enipeus, as from fruitful urns
He pours his watery store, the virgin burns;
Smooth flows the gentle stream with wanton pride,
And in soft mazes rolls a silver tide.
As on his banks the maid enamour’d roves,
The monarch of the deep beholds and loves;
In her Enipeus’ form and borrow’d charms
The amorous god descends into her arms:
Around, a spacious arch of waves he throws,
And high in air the liquid mountain rose;
Thus in surrounding floods conceal’d, he proves
The pleasing transport, and completes his loves. | 1,005 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Then, softly sighing, he the fair address’d,
And as he spoke her tender hand he press’d.
‘Hail, happy nymph! no vulgar births are owed
To the prolific raptures of a god:
Lo! when nine times the moon renews her horn,
Two brother heroes shall from thee be born;
Thy early care the future worthies claim,
To point them to the arduous paths of fame;
But in thy breast the important truth conceal,
Nor dare the secret of a god reveal:
For know, thou Neptune view’st! and at my nod
Earth trembles, and the waves confess their god.’
“He added not, but mounting spurn’d the plain,
Then plunged into the chambers of the main,
“Now in the time’s full process forth she brings
Jove’s dread vicegerents in two future kings;
O’er proud Iolcos Pelias stretch’d his reign,
And godlike Neleus ruled the Pylian plain:
Then, fruitful, to her Cretheus’ royal bed
She gallant Pheres and famed Aeson bred;
From the same fountain Amythaon rose,
Pleased with the din of scar; and noble shout of foes.
“There moved Antiope, with haughty charms,
Who bless’d the almighty Thunderer in her arms:
Hence sprung Amphion, hence brave Zethus came,
Founders of Thebes, and men of mighty name;
Though bold in open field, they yet surround
The town with walls, and mound inject on mound;
Here ramparts stood, there towers rose high in air,
And here through seven wide portals rush’d the war.
“There with soft step the fair Alcmena trod,
Who bore Alcides to the thundering god:
And Megara, who charm’d the son of Jove,
And soften’d his stern soul to tender love.
“Sullen and sour, with discontented mien,
Jocasta frown’d, the incestuous Theban queen;
With her own son she join’d in nuptial bands,
Though father’s blood imbrued his murderous hands
The gods and men the dire offence detest,
The gods with all their furies rend his breast;
In lofty Thebes he wore the imperial crown,
A pompous wretch! accursed upon a throne. | 1,006 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
The wife self-murder’d from a beam depends,
And her foul soul to blackest hell descends;
Thence to her son the choicest plagues she brings,
And the fiends haunt him with a thousand stings.
“And now the beauteous Chloris I descry,
A lovely shade, Amphion’s youngest joy!
With gifts unnumber’d Neleus sought her arms,
Nor paid too dearly for unequall’d charms;
Great in Orchomenos, in Pylos great,
He sway’d the sceptre with imperial state.
Three gallant sons the joyful monarch told,
Sage Nestor, Periclimenus the bold,
And Chromius last; but of the softer race,
One nymph alone, a myracle of grace.
Kings on their thrones for lovely Pero burn;
The sire denies, and kings rejected mourn.
To him alone the beauteous prize he yields,
Whose arm should ravish from Phylacian fields
The herds of Iphyclus, detain’d in wrong;
Wild, furious herds, unconquerably strong!
This dares a seer, but nought the seer prevails,
In beauty’s cause illustriously he fails;
Twelve moons the foe the captive youth detains
In painful dungeons, and coercive chains;
The foe at last from durance where he lay,
His heart revering, give him back to day;
Won by prophetic knowledge, to fulfil
The steadfast purpose of the Almighty will.
“With graceful port advancing now I spied,
Leda the fair, the godlike Tyndar’s bride:
Hence Pollux sprung, who wields the furious sway
The deathful gauntlet, matchless in the fray;
And Castor, glorious on the embattled plain,
Curbs the proud steeds, reluctant to the rein:
By turns they visit this ethereal sky,
And live alternate, and alternate die:
In hell beneath, on earth, in heaven above,
Reign the twin-gods, the favourite sons of Jove.
“There Ephimedia trod the gloomy plain,
Who charm’d the monarch of the boundless main:
Hence Ephialtes, hence stern Otus sprung,
More fierce than giants, more than giants strong;
The earth o’erburden’d groan’d beneath their weight, | 1,007 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
None but Orion e’er surpassed their height:
The wondrous youths had scarce nine winters told,
When high in air, tremendous to behold,
Nine ells aloft they rear’d their towering head,
And full nine cubits broad their shoulders spread.
Proud of their strength, and more than mortal size,
The gods they challenge, and affect the skies:
Heaved on Olympus tottering Ossa stood;
On Ossa, Pelion nods with all his wood.
Such were they youths! had they to manhood grown
Almighty Jove had trembled on his throne,
But ere the harvest of the beard began
To bristle on the chin, and promise man,
His shafts Apollo aim’d; at once they sound,
And stretch the giant monsters o’er the ground.
“There mournful Phaedra with sad Procris moves,
Both beauteous shades, both hapless in their loves;
And near them walk’d with solemn pace and slow,
Sad Adriadne, partner of their woe:
The royal Minos Ariadne bred,
She Theseus loved, from Crete with Theseus fled:
Swift to the Dian isle the hero flies,
And towards his Athens bears the lovely prize;
There Bacchus with fierce rage Diana fires,
The goddess aims her shaft, the nymph expires.
“There Clymene and Mera I behold,
There Eriphyle weeps, who loosely sold
Her lord, her honour, for the lust of gold.
But should I all recount, the night would fail,
Unequal to the melancholy tale:
And all-composing rest my nature craves,
Here in the court, or yonder on the waves;
In you I trust, and in the heavenly powers,
To land Ulysses on his native shores.”
He ceased; but left so charming on their ear
His voice, that listening still they seem’d to hear,
Till, rising up, Arete silence broke,
Stretch’d out her snowy hand, and thus she spoke:
“What wondrous man heaven sends us in our guest;
Through all his woes the hero shines confess’d;
His comely port, his ample frame express
A manly air, majestic in distress.
He, as my guest, is my peculiar care: | 1,008 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
You share the pleasure, then in bounty share
To worth in misery a reverence pay,
And with a generous hand reward his stay;
For since kind heaven with wealth our realm has bless’d,
Give it to heaven by aiding the distress’d.”
Then sage Echeneus, whose grave reverend brow
The hand of time had silvered o’er with snow,
Mature in wisdom rose: “Your words (he cries)
Demand obedience, for your words are wise.
But let our king direct the glorious way
To generous acts; our part is to obey.”
“While life informs these limbs (the king replied),
Well to deserve, be all my cares employed:
But here this night the royal guest detain,
Till the sun flames along the ethereal plain.
Be it my task to send with ample stores
The stranger from our hospitable shores:
Tread you my steps! ’Tis mine to lead the race,
The first in glory, as the first in place.”
To whom the prince: “This night with joy I stay
O monarch great in virtue as in sway!
If thou the circling year my stay control,
To raise a bounty noble as thy soul;
The circling year I wait, with ampler stores
And fitter pomp to hail my native shores:
Then by my realms due homage would be paid;
For wealthy kings are loyally obeyed!”
“O king! for such thou art, and sure thy blood
Through veins (he cried) of royal fathers flow’d:
Unlike those vagrants who on falsehood live,
Skill’d in smooth tales, and artful to deceive;
Thy better soul abhors the liar’s part,
Wise is thy voice, and noble is thy heart.
Thy words like music every breast control,
Steal through the ear, and win upon the soul;
Soft, as some song divine, thy story flows,
Nor better could the Muse record thy woes.
“But say, upon the dark and dismal coast,
Saw’st thou the worthies of the Grecian host?
The godlike leaders who, in battle slain,
Fell before Troy, and nobly press’d the plain?
And lo! a length of night behind remains,
The evening stars still mount the ethereal plains. | 1,009 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Thy tale with raptures I could hear thee tell,
Thy woes on earth, the wondrous scenes in hell,
Till in the vault of heaven the stars decay.
And the sky reddens with the rising day.”
“O worthy of the power the gods assign’d
(Ulysses thus replies), a king in mind:
Since yet the early hour of night allows
Time for discourse, and time for soft repose,
If scenes of misery can entertain,
Woes I unfold, of woes a dismal train.
Prepare to hear of murder and of blood;
Of godlike heroes who uninjured stood
Amidst a war of spears in foreign lands,
Yet bled at home, and bled by female hands.
“Now summon’d Proserpine to hell’s black hall
The heroine shades: they vanish’d at her call.
When lo! advanced the forms of heroes slain
By stern AEgysthus, a majestic train:
And, high above the rest Atrides press’d the plain.
He quaff’d the gore; and straight his soldier knew,
And from his eyes pour’d down the tender dew:
His arms he stretch’d; his arms the touch deceive,
Nor in the fond embrace, embraces give:
His substance vanish’d, and his strength decay’d,
Now all Atrides is an empty shade.
“Moved at the sight, I for a apace resign’d
To soft affliction all my manly mind;
At last with tears: ‘O what relentless doom,
Imperial phantom, bow’d thee to the tomb?
Say while the sea, and while the tempest raves,
Has Fate oppress’d thee in the roaring waves,
Or nobly seized thee in the dire alarms
Of war and slaughter, and the clash of arms?’
“The ghost returns: ‘O chief of human kind
For active courage and a patient mind;
Nor while the sea, nor while the tempest raves
Has Fate oppress’d me on the roaring waves!
Nor nobly seized me in the dire alarms
Of war and slaughter, and the clash of arms
Stabb’d by a murderous hand Atrides died,
A foul adulterer, and a faithless bride;
E’en in my mirth, and at the friendly feast,
O’er the full bowl, the traitor stabb’d his guest; | 1,010 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Thus by the gory arm of slaughter falls
The stately ox, and bleeds within the stalls.
But not with me the direful murder ends,
These, these expired! their crime, they were my friends:
Thick as the boars, which some luxurious lord
Kills for the feast, to crown the nuptial board.
When war has thunder’d with its loudest storms,
Death thou hast seen in all her ghastly forms:
In duel met her on the listed ground,
When hand to hand they wound return for wound;
But never have the eyes astonish’d view’d
So vile a deed, so dire a scene of blood.
E’en in the flow of joy, when now the bowl
Glows in our veins, and opens every soul,
We groan, we faint; with blood the doom is dyed.
And o’er the pavement floats the dreadful tide—
Her breast all gore, with lamentable cries,
The bleeding innocent Cassandra dies!
Then though pale death froze cold in every vein,
My sword I strive to wield, but strive in vain;
Nor did my traitress wife these eyelids close,
Or decently in death my limbs compose.
O woman, woman, when to ill thy mind
Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend:
And such was mine! who basely plunged her sword
Through the fond bosom where she reign’d adored!
Alas! I hoped the toils of war o’ercome,
To meet soft quiet and repose at home;
Delusive hope! O wife, thy deeds disgrace
The perjured sex, and blacken all the race;
And should posterity one virtuous find,
Name Clytemnestra, they will curse the kind.’
“Oh injured shade (I cried) what mighty woes
To thy imperial race from woman rose!
By woman here thou tread’st this mournful strand,
And Greece by woman lies a desert land.’
“‘Warn’d by my ills beware, (the shade replies,)
Nor trust the sex that is so rarely wise;
When earnest to explore thy secret breast,
Unfold some trifle, but conceal the rest.
But in thy consort cease to fear a foe,
For thee she feels sincerity of woe;
When Troy first bled beneath the Grecian arms, | 1,011 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
She shone unrivall’d with a blaze of charms;
Thy infant son her fragrant bosom press’d,
Hung at her knee, or wanton’d at her breast;
But now the years a numerous train have ran;
The blooming boy is ripen’d into man;
Thy eyes shall see him burn with noble fire,
The sire shall bless his son, the son his sire;
But my Orestes never met these eyes,
Without one look the murder’d father dies;
Then from a wretched friend this wisdom learn,
E’en to thy queen disguised, unknown, return;
For since of womankind so few are just,
Think all are false, nor e’en the faithful trust.
“‘But, say, resides my son in royal port,
In rich Orchomenos, or Sparta’s court?
Or say in Pyle? for yet he views the light,
Nor glides a phantom through the realms of night.’
“Then I: ‘Thy suit is vain, nor can I say
If yet he breathes in realms of cheerful day;
Or pale or wan beholds these nether skies;
Truth I revere; for wisdom never lies.’
“Thus in a tide of tears our sorrows flow,
And add new horror to the realms of woe;
Till side by side along the dreary coast
Advanced Achilles’ and Patroclus’ ghost,
A friendly pair! near these the Pylian stray’d,
And towering Ajax, an illustrious shade!
War was his joy, and pleased with loud alarms,
None but Pelides brighter shone in arms.
“Through the thick gloom his friend Achilles knew,
And as he speaks the tears descend in dew.
“‘Comest thou alive to view the Stygian bounds,
Where the wan spectres walk eternal rounds;
Nor fear’st the dark and dismal waste to tread,
Throng’d with pale ghosts, familiar with the dead?’
“To whom with sighs: ‘I pass these dreadful gates
To seek the Theban, and consult the Fates;
For still, distress’d, I rove from coast to coast,
Lost to my friends, and to my country lost.
But sure the eye of Time beholds no name
So bless’d as thine in all the rolls of fame;
Alive we hail’d thee with our guardian gods, | 1,012 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
And dead thou rulest a king in these abodes.’
“‘Talk not of ruling in this dolorous gloom,
Nor think vain words (he cried) can ease my doom.
Rather I’d choose laboriously to bear
A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air,
A slave to some poor hind that toils for bread,
Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead.
But say, if in my steps my son proceeds,
And emulates his godlike father’s deeds?
If at the clash of arms, and shout of foes,
Swells his bold heart, his bosom nobly glows?
Say if my sire, the reverend Peleus, reigns,
Great in his Phthia, and his throne maintains;
Or, weak and old, my youthful arm demands,
To fix the sceptre steadfast in his hands?
O might the lamp of life rekindled burn,
And death release me from the silent urn!
This arm, that thunder’d o’er the Phrygian plain,
And swell’d the ground with mountains of the slain,
Should vindicate my injured father’s fame,
Crush the proud rebel, and assert his claim.’
“‘Illustrious shade (I cried), of Peleus’ fates
No circumstance the voice of Fame relates:
But hear with pleased attention the renown,
The wars and wisdom of thy gallant son.
With me from Scyros to the field of fame
Radiant in arms the blooming hero came.
When Greece assembled all her hundred states,
To ripen counsels, and decide debates,
Heavens! how he charm’d us with a flow of sense,
And won the heart with manly eloquence!
He first was seen of all the peers to rise,
The third in wisdom, where they all were wise!
But when, to try the fortune of the day,
Host moved toward host in terrible array,
Before the van, impatient for the fight,
With martial port he strode, and stern delight:
Heaps strew’d on heaps beneath his falchion groan’d,
And monuments of dead deform’d the ground.
The time would fail should I in order tell
What foes were vanquish’d, and what numbers fell:
How, lost through love, Eurypylus was slain,
And round him bled his bold Cetaean train. | 1,013 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
To Troy no hero came of nobler line,
Or if of nobler, Memnon, it was thine.
“When Ilion in the horse received her doom,
And unseen armies ambush’d in its womb,
Greece gave her latent warriors to my care,
’Twas mine on Troy to pour the imprison’d war:
Then when the boldest bosom beat with fear,
When the stern eyes of heroes dropp’d a tear,
Fierce in his look his ardent valour glow’d,
Flush’d in his cheek, or sallied in his blood;
Indignant in the dark recess he stands,
Pants for the battle, and the war demands:
His voice breathed death, and with a martial air
He grasp’d his sword, and shook his glittering spear.
And when the gods our arms with conquest crown’d,
When Troy’s proud bulwarks smoked upon the ground,
Greece, to reward her soldier’s gallant toils,
Heap’d high his navy with unnumber’d spoils.
“Thus great in glory, from the din of war
Safe he return’d, without one hostile scar;
Though spears in iron tempests rain’d around,
Yet innocent they play’d, and guiltless of a wound.’
“While yet I spoke, the shade with transport glow’d,
Rose in his majesty, and nobler trod;
With haughty stalk he sought the distant glades
Of warrior kings, and join’d the illustrious shades.
“Now without number ghost by ghost arose,
All wailing with unutterable woes.
Alone, apart, in discontented mood,
A gloomy shade the sullen Ajax stood;
For ever sad, with proud disdain he pined,
And the lost arms for ever stung his mind;
Though to the contest Thetis gave the laws,
And Pallas, by the Trojans, judged the cause.
O why was I victorious in the strife?
O dear bought honour with so brave a life!
With him the strength of war, the soldier’s pride,
Our second hope to great Achilles, died!
Touch’d at the sight from tears I scarce refrain,
And tender sorrow thrills in every vein;
Pensive and sad I stand, at length accost
With accents mild the inexorable ghost:
‘Still burns thy rage? and can brave souls resent | 1,014 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
E’en after death? Relent, great shade, relent!
Perish those arms which by the gods’ decree
Accursed our army with the loss of thee!
With thee we fall; Greece wept thy hapless fates,
And shook astonish’d through her hundred states;
Not more, when great Achilles press’d the ground,
And breathed his manly spirit through the wound.
O deem thy fall not owed to man’s decree,
Jove hated Greece, and punish’d Greece in thee!
Turn then; oh peaceful turn, thy wrath control,
And calm the raging tempest of thy soul.’
“While yet I speak, the shade disdains to stay,
In silence turns, and sullen stalks away.
“Touch’d at his sour retreat, through deepest night,
Through hell’s black bounds I had pursued his flight,
And forced the stubborn spectre to reply;
But wondrous visions drew my curious eye.
High on a throne, tremendous to behold,
Stern Minos waves a mace of burnish’d gold;
Around ten thousand thousand spectres stand
Through the wide dome of Dis, a trembling band
Still as they plead, the fatal lots he rolls,
Absolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls.
“The huge Orion, of portentous size,
Swift through the gloom a giant-hunter flies:
A ponderous mace of brass with direful sway
Aloft he whirls, to crush the savage prey!
Stern beasts in trains that by his truncheon fell,
Now grisly forms, shoot o’er the lawns of hell.
“There Tityus large and long, in fetters bound,
O’erspreads nine acres of infernal ground;
Two ravenous vultures, furious for their food,
Scream o’er the fiend, and riot in his blood,
Incessant gore the liver in his breast,
The immortal liver grows, and gives the immortal feast.
For as o’er Panope’s enamell’d plains
Latona journey’d to the Pythian fanes,
With haughty love the audacious monster strove
To force the goddess, and to rival Jove.
“There Tantalus along the Stygian bounds
Pours out deep groans (with groans all hell resounds); | 1,015 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
E’en in the circling floods refreshment craves,
And pines with thirst amidst a sea of waves;
When to the water he his lip applies,
Back from his lip the treacherous water flies.
Above, beneath, around his hapless head,
Trees of all kinds delicious fruitage spread;
There figs, sky-dyed, a purple hue disclose,
Green looks the olive, the pomegranate glows.
There dangling pears exalting scents unfold.
And yellow apples ripen into gold;
The fruit he strives to seize; but blasts arise,
Toss it on high, and whirl it to the skies.
“I turn’d my eye, and as I turn’d survey’d
A mournful vision! the Sisyphian shade;
With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone;
The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground.
Again the restless orb his toil renews,
Dust mounts in clouds, and sweat descends in dews.
“Now I the strength of Hercules behold,
A towering spectre of gigantic mould,
A shadowy form! for high in heaven’s abodes
Himself resides, a god among the gods;
There in the bright assemblies of the skies.
He nectar quaffs, and Hebe crowns his joys.
Here hovering ghosts, like fowl, his shade surround,
And clang their pinions with terrific sound;
Gloomy as night he stands, in act to throw
The aërial arrow from the twanging bow.
Around his breast a wondrous zone is roll’d,
Where woodland monsters grin in fretted gold;
There sullen lions sternly seem to roar,
The bear to growl to foam the tusky boar;
There war and havoc and destruction stood,
And vengeful murder red with human blood.
Thus terribly adorned the figures shine,
Inimitably wrought with skill divine.
The mighty good advanced with awful look,
And, turning his grim visage, sternly spoke:
“‘O exercise in grief! by arts refined;
O taught to bear the wrongs of base mankind!
Such, such was I! Still toss’d from care to care, | 1,016 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
While in your world I drew the vital air!
E’en I, who from the Lord of Thunders rose,
Bore toils and dangers, and a weight of woes;
To a base monarch still a slave confined,
(The hardest bondage to a generous mind!)
Down to these worlds I trod the dismal way,
And dragg’d the three-mouth’d dog to upper day
E’en hell I conquer’d, through the friendly aid
Of Maia’s offspring, and the martial maid.
“Thus he, nor deign’d for our reply to stay,
But, turning, stalk’d with giant-strides away.
“Curious to view the kings of ancient days,
The mighty dead that live in endless praise,
Resolved I stand; and haply had survey’d
The godlike Theseus, and Pirithous’ shade;
But swarms of spectres rose from deepest hell,
With bloodless visage, and with hideous yell.
They scream, they shriek; and groans and dismal sounds
Stun my scared ears, and pierce hell’s utmost bounds.
No more my heart the dismal din sustains,
And my cold blood hangs shivering in my veins;
Lest Gorgon, rising from the infernal lakes,
With horrors arm’d, and curls of hissing snakes,
Should fix me stiffen’d at the monstrous sight,
A stony image, in eternal night!
Straight from the direful coast to purer air
I speed my flight, and to my mates repair.
My mates ascend the ship; they strike their oars;
The mountains lessen, and retreat the shores;
Swift o’er the waves we fly; the freshening gales
Sing through the shrouds, and stretch the swelling sails.”
BOOK XII.
ARGUMENT.
THE SIRENE, SCYLLA, AND CHARYBDIS.
He relates how, after his return from the shades, he was sent by Circe on his
voyage, by the coast of the Sirens, and by the strait of Scylla and Charybdis:
the manner in which he escaped those dangers: how, being cast on the island
Trinacria, his companions destroyed the oxen of the Sun: the vengeance that
followed; how all perished by shipwreck except himself, who, swimming on the | 1,017 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
mast of the ship, arrived on the island of Calypso. With which his narration
concludes.
“Thus o’er the rolling surge the vessel flies,
Till from the waves the Ææan hills arise.
Here the gay Morn resides in radiant bowers,
Here keeps her revels with the dancing Hours;
Here Phœbus, rising in the ethereal way,
Through heaven’s bright portals pours the beamy day.
At once we fix our halsers on the land.
At once descend, and press the desert sand:
There, worn and wasted, lose our cares in sleep,
To the hoarse murmurs of the rolling deep.
“Soon as the morn restored the day, we paid
Sepulchral honours to Elpenor’s shade.
Now by the axe the rushing forest bends,
And the huge pile along the shore ascends.
Around we stand, a melancholy train,
And a loud groan re-echoes from the main.
Fierce o’er the pyre, by fanning breezes spread,
The hungry flames devour the silent dead.
A rising tomb, the silent dead to grace,
Fast by the roarings of the main we place;
The rising tomb a lofty column bore,
And high above it rose the tapering oar.
“Meantime the goddess our return survey’d
From the pale ghosts and hell’s tremendous shade.
Swift she descends: a train of nymphs divine
Bear the rich viands and the generous wine:
In act to speak the power of magic stands,
And graceful thus accosts the listening bands;
“‘O sons of woe? decreed by adverse fates
Alive to pass through hell’s eternal gates!
All, soon or late, are doom’d that path to tread;
More wretched you! twice number’d with the dead!
This day adjourn your cares, exalt your souls,
Indulge the taste, and drain the sparkling bowls;
And when the morn unveils her saffron ray,
Spread your broad sails, and plough the liquid way:
Lo, I this night, your faithful guide, explain
Your woes by land, your dangers on the main.’
“The goddess spoke. In feasts we waste the day,
Till Phœbus downward plunged his burning ray; | 1,018 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Then sable night ascends, and balmy rest
Seals every eye, and calms the troubled breast.
Then curious she commands me to relate
The dreadful scenes of Pluto’s dreary state.
She sat in silence while the tale I tell,
The wondrous visions and the laws of hell.
“Then thus: ‘The lot of man the gods dispose;
These ills are past: now hear thy future woes
O prince attend; some favouring power be kind,
And print the important story on thy mind!
“‘Next, where the Sirens dwell, you plough the seas;
Their song is death, and makes destruction please.
Unblest the man, whom music wins to stay
Nigh the cursed shore and listen to the lay.
No more that wretch shall view the joys of life
His blooming offspring, or his beauteous wife!
In verdant meads they sport; and wide around
Lie human bones that whiten all the ground:
The ground polluted floats with human gore,
And human carnage taints the dreadful shore
Fly swift the dangerous coast: let every ear
Be stopp’d against the song! ’tis death to hear!
Firm to the mast with chains thyself be bound,
Nor trust thy virtue to the enchanting sound.
If, mad with transport, freedom thou demand,
Be every fetter strain’d, and added band to band.
“‘These seas o’erpass’d, be wise! but I refrain
To mark distinct thy voyage o’er the main:
New horrors rise! let prudence be thy guide,
And guard thy various passage through the tide.
“‘High o’er the main two rocks exalt their brow,’
The boiling billows thundering roll below;
Through the vast waves the dreadful wonders move,
Hence named Erratic by the gods above.
No bird of air, no dove of swiftest wing,
That bears ambrosia to the ethereal king,
Shuns the dire rocks: in vain she cuts the skies;
The dire rocks meet, and crush her as she flies:
Not the fleet bark, when prosperous breezes play,
Ploughs o’er that roaring surge its desperate way;
O’erwhelm’d it sinks: while round a smoke expires, | 1,019 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
And the waves flashing seem to burn with fires.
Scarce the famed Argo pass’d these raging floods,
The sacred Argo, fill’d with demigods!
E’en she had sunk, but Jove’s imperial bride
Wing’d her fleet sail, and push’d her o’er the tide.
“‘High in the air the rock its summit shrouds
In brooding tempests, and in rolling clouds;
Loud storms around, and mists eternal rise,
Beat its bleak brow, and intercept the skies.
When all the broad expansion, bright with day,
Glows with the autumnal or the summer ray,
The summer and the autumn glow in vain,
The sky for ever lowers, for ever clouds remain.
Impervious to the step of man it stands,
Though borne by twenty feet, though arm’d with twenty hands;
Smooth as the polish of the mirror rise
The slippery sides, and shoot into the skies.
Full in the centre of this rock display’d,
A yawning cavern casts a dreadful shade:
Nor the fleet arrow from the twanging bow,
Sent with full force, could reach the depth below.
Wide to the west the horrid gulf extends,
And the dire passage down to hell descends.
O fly the dreadful sight! expand thy sails,
Ply the strong oar, and catch the nimble gales;
Here Scylla bellows from the dire abodes,
Tremendous pest, abhorr’d by man and gods!
Hideous her voice, and with less terrors roar
The whelps of lions in the midnight hour.
Twelve feet, deform’d and foul, the fiend dispreads;
Six horrid necks she rears, and six terrific heads;
Her jaws grin dreadful with three rows of teeth;
Jaggy they stand, the gaping den of death;
Her parts obscene the raging billows hide;
Her bosom terribly o’erlooks the tide.
When stung with hunger she embroils the flood,
The sea-dog and the dolphin are her food;
She makes the huge leviathan her prey,
And all the monsters of the watery way;
The swiftest racer of the azure plain
Here fills her sails, and spreads her oars in vain;
Fell Scylla rises, in her fury roars, | 1,020 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
At once six mouths expands, at once six men devours.
“‘Close by, a rock of less enormous height
Breaks the wild waves, and forms a dangerous strait;
Full on its crown a fig’s green branches rise,
And shoot a leafy forest to the skies;
Beneath, Charybdis holds her boisterous reign
’Midst roaring whirlpools, and absorbs the main;
Thrice in her gulfs the boiling seas subside,
Thrice in dire thunders she refunds the tide.
Oh, if thy vessel plough the direful waves,
When seas retreating roar within her caves,
Ye perish all! though he who rules the main
Lends his strong aid, his aid he lends in vain.
Ah, shun the horrid gulf! by Scylla fly.
’Tis better six to lose, than all to die.’
“I then: ‘O nymph propitious to my prayer,
Goddess divine, my guardian power, declare,
Is the foul fiend from human vengeance freed?
Or, if I rise in arms, can Scylla bleed?’
“Then she: ‘O worn by toils, O broke in fight,
Still are new toils and war thy dire delight?
Will martial flames for ever fire thy mind,
And never, never be to Heaven resign’d?
How vain thy efforts to avenge the wrong!
Deathless the pest! impenetrably strong!
Furious and fell, tremendous to behold!
E’en with a look she withers all the bold!
She mocks the weak attempts of human might;
Oh, fly her rage! thy conquest is thy flight.
If but to seize thy arms thou make delay,
Again thy fury vindicates her prey;
Her six mouths yawn, and six are snatch’d away.
From her foul wound Crataeis gave to air
This dreadful pest! To her direct thy prayer,
To curb the monster in her dire abodes,
And guard thee through the tumult of the floods.
Thence to Trinacria’s shore you bend your way,
Where graze thy herds, illustrious source of day!
Seven herds, seven flocks enrich the sacred plains,
Each herd, each flock full fifty heads contains;
The wondrous kind a length of age survey,
By breed increase not, nor by death decay. | 1,021 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Two sister goddesses possess the plain,
The constant guardian of the woolly train;
Lampetie fair, and Phaethusa young,
From Phœbus and the bright Neæra sprung;
Here, watchful o’er the flocks, in shady bowers
And flowery meads, they waste the joyous hours.
Rob not the gods! and so propitious gales
Attend thy voyage, and impel thy sails;
But if thy impious hands the flocks destroy,
The gods, the gods avenge it, and ye die!
’Tis thine alone (thy friends and navy lost)
Through tedious toils to view thy native coast.’
She ceased: and now arose the morning ray;
Swift to her dome the goddess held her way.
Then to my mates I measured back the plain,
Climb’d the tall bark, and rush’d into the main;
Then, bending to the stroke, their oars they drew
To their broad breasts, and swift the galley flew.
Up sprung a brisker breeze; with freshening gales
The friendly goddess stretch’d the swelling sails;
We drop our oars; at ease the pilot guides;
The vessel light along the level glides.
When, rising sad and slow, with pensive look,
Thus to the melancholy train I spoke:
“‘O friends, oh ever partners of my woes,
Attend while I what Heaven foredooms disclose.
Hear all! Fate hangs o’er all; on you it lies
To live or perish! to be safe, be wise!
“‘In flowery meads the sportive Sirens play,
Touch the soft lyre, and tune the vocal lay;
Me, me alone, with fetters firmly bound,
The gods allow to hear the dangerous sound.
Hear and obey; if freedom I demand,
Be every fetter strain’d, be added band to band.’
“While yet I speak the winged galley flies,
And lo! the Siren shores like mists arise.
Sunk were at once the winds; the air above,
And waves below, at once forgot to move;
Some demon calm’d the air and smooth’d the deep,
Hush’d the loud winds, and charm’d the waves to sleep.
Now every sail we furl, each oar we ply;
Lash’d by the stroke, the frothy waters fly.
The ductile wax with busy hands I mould, | 1,022 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
And cleft in fragments, and the fragments roll’d;
The aërial region now grew warm with day,
The wax dissolved beneath the burning ray;
Then every ear I barr’d against the strain,
And from access of frenzy lock’d the brain.
Now round the masts my mates the fetters roll’d,
And bound me limb by limb with fold on fold.
Then bending to the stroke, the active train
Plunge all at once their oars, and cleave the main.
“While to the shore the rapid vessel flies,
Our swift approach the Siren choir descries;
Celestial music warbles from their tongue,
And thus the sweet deluders tune the song:
“‘Oh stay, O pride of Greece! Ulysses, stay!
Oh cease thy course, and listen to our lay!
Blest is the man ordain’d our voice to hear,
The song instructs the soul, and charms the ear.
Approach! thy soul shall into raptures rise!
Approach! and learn new wisdom from the wise!
We know whate’er the kings of mighty name
Achieved at Ilion in the field of fame;
Whate’er beneath the sun’s bright journey lies.
Oh stay, and learn new wisdom from the wise!’
“Thus the sweet charmers warbled o’er the main;
My soul takes wing to meet the heavenly strain;
I give the sign, and struggle to be free;
Swift row my mates, and shoot along the sea;
New chains they add, and rapid urge the way,
Till, dying off, the distant sounds decay;
Then scudding swiftly from the dangerous ground,
The deafen’d ear unlock’d, the chains unbound.
“Now all at once tremendous scenes unfold;
Thunder’d the deeps, the smoky billows roll’d!
Tumultuous waves embroil the bellowing flood,
All trembling, deafen’d, and aghast we stood!
No more the vessel plough’d the dreadful wave,
Fear seized the mighty, and unnerved the brave;
Each dropp’d his oar; but swift from man to man
With looks serene I turn’d, and thus began:
‘O friends! O often tried in adverse storms!
With ills familiar in more dreadful forms!
Deep in the dire Cyclopæan den you lay, | 1,023 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Yet safe return’d—Ulysses led the way.
Learn courage hence, and in my care confide;
Lo! still the same Ulysses is your guide.
Attend my words! your oars incessant ply;
Strain every nerve, and bid the vessel fly.
If from yon jostling rocks and wavy war
Jove safety grants, he grants it to your care.
And thou, whose guiding hand directs our way,
Pilot, attentive listen and obey!
Bear wide thy course, nor plough those angry waves
Where rolls yon smoke, yon tumbling ocean raves;
Steer by the higher rock; lest whirl’d around
We sink, beneath the circling eddy drown’d.’
While yet I speak, at once their oars they seize,
Stretch to the stroke, and brush the working seas.
Cautious the name of Scylla I suppress’d;
That dreadful sound had chill’d the boldest breast.
“Meantime, forgetful of the voice divine,
All dreadful bright my limbs in armour shine;
High on the deck I take my dangerous stand,
Two glittering javelins lighten in my hand;
Prepared to whirl the whizzing spear I stay,
Till the fell fiend arise to seize her prey.
Around the dungeon, studious to behold
The hideous pest, my labouring eyes I roll’d;
In vain! the dismal dungeon, dark as night,
Veils the dire monster, and confounds the sight.
“Now through the rocks, appall’d with deep dismay,
We bend our course, and stem the desperate way;
Dire Scylla there a scene of horror forms,
And here Charybdis fills the deep with storms.
When the tide rushes from her rumbling caves,
The rough rock roars, tumultuous boil the waves;
They toss, they foam, a wild confusion raise,
Like waters bubbling o’er the fiery blaze;
Eternal mists obscure the aërial plain,
And high above the rock she spouts the main;
When in her gulfs the rushing sea subsides,
She drains the ocean with the refluent tides;
The rock re-bellows with a thundering sound;
Deep, wondrous deep, below appears the ground.
“Struck with despair, with trembling hearts we view’d | 1,024 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
The yawning dungeon, and the tumbling flood;
When lo! fierce Scylla stoop’d to seize her prey,
Stretch’d her dire jaws, and swept six men away.
Chiefs of renown! loud-echoing shrieks arise;
I turn, and view them quivering in the skies;
They call, and aid with outstretch’d arms implore;
In vain they call! those arms are stretch’d no more.
As from some rock that overhangs the flood
The silent fisher casts the insidious food,
With fraudful care he waits the finny prize,
And sudden lifts it quivering to the skies:
So the foul monster lifts her prey on high,
So pant the wretches struggling in the sky;
In the wide dungeon she devours her food,
And the flesh trembles while she churns the blood.
Worn as I am with griefs, with care decay’d,
Never, I never scene so dire survey’d!
My shivering blood, congeal’d, forgot to flow;
Aghast I stood, a monument of woe!
“Now from the rocks the rapid vessel flies,
And the hoarse din like distant thunder dies;
To Sol’s bright isle our voyage we pursue,
And now the glittering mountains rise to view.
There, sacred to the radiant god of day,
Graze the fair herds, the flocks promiscuous stray:
Then suddenly was heard along the main
To low the ox, to bleat the woolly train.
Straight to my anxious thoughts the sound convey’d
The words of Circe and the Theban shade;
Warn’d by their awful voice these shores to shun,
With cautious fears oppress’d I thus begun:
“‘O friends! O ever exercised in care!
Hear Heaven’s commands, and reverence what ye hear!
To fly these shores the prescient Theban shade
And Circe warn! Oh be their voice obey’d;
Some mighty woe relentless Heaven forebodes:
Fly these dire regions, and revere the gods!’
“While yet I spoke, a sudden sorrow ran
Through every breast, and spread from man to man,
Till wrathful thus Eurylochus began:
“‘O cruel thou! some Fury sure has steel’d
That stubborn soul, by toil untaught to yield! | 1,025 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
From sleep debarr’d, we sink from woes to woes:
And cruel, enviest thou a short repose?
Still must we restless rove, new seas explore,
The sun descending, and so near the shore?
And lo! the night begins her gloomy reign,
And doubles all the terrors of the main:
Oft in the dead of night loud winds arise,
Lash the wild surge, and bluster in the skies.
Oh, should the fierce south-west his rage display,
And toss with rising storms the watery way,
Though gods descend from heaven’s aërial plain
To lend us aid, the gods descend in vain.
Then while the night displays her awful shade,
Sweet time of slumber! be the night obey’d!
Haste ye to land! and when the morning ray
Sheds her bright beam, pursue the destined way.’
A sudden joy in every bosom rose:
So will’d some demon, minister of woes!
“To whom with grief: ‘O swift to be undone!
Constrain’d I act what wisdom bids me shun.
But yonder herbs and yonder flocks forbear;
Attest the heavens, and call the gods to hear:
Content, an innocent repast display,
By Circe given, and fly the dangerous prey.’
“Thus I: and while to shore the vessel flies,
With hands uplifted they attest the skies:
Then, where a fountain’s gurgling waters play,
They rush to land, and end in feasts the day:
They feed; they quaff; and now (their hunger fled)
Sigh for their friends devour’d, and mourn the dead;
Nor cease the tears till each in slumber shares
A sweet forgetfulness of human cares.
Now far the night advanced her gloomy reign,
And setting stars roll’d down the azure plain:
When at the voice of Jove wild whirlwinds rise,
And clouds and double darkness veil the skies;
The moon, the stars, the bright ethereal host
Seem as extinct, and all their splendours lost:
The furious tempest roars with dreadful sound:
Air thunders, rolls the ocean, groans the ground.
All night it raged: when morning rose to land
We haul’d our bark, and moor’d it on the strand, | 1,026 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Where in a beauteous grotto’s cool recess
Dance the green Nereids of the neighbouring seas.
“There while the wild winds whistled o’er the main,
Thus careful I address’d the listening train:
“‘O friends, be wise! nor dare the flocks destroy
Of these fair pastures: if ye touch, ye die.
Warn’d by the high command of Heaven, be awed:
Holy the flocks, and dreadful is the god!
That god who spreads the radiant beams of light,
And views wide earth and heaven’s unmeasured height.’
“And now the moon had run her monthly round,
The south-east blustering with a dreadful sound:
Unhurt the beeves, untouch’d the woolly train,
Low through the grove, or touch the flowery plain:
Then fail’d our food: then fish we make our prey,
Or fowl that screaming haunt the watery way.
Till now from sea or flood no succour found,
Famine and meagre want besieged us round.
Pensive and pale from grove to grove I stray’d,
From the loud storms to find a sylvan shade;
There o’er my hands the living wave I pour;
And Heaven and Heaven’s immortal thrones implore,
To calm the roarings of the stormy main,
And guide me peaceful to my realms again.
Then o’er my eyes the gods soft slumbers shed,
While thus Eurylochus arising said:
“‘O friends, a thousand ways frail mortals lead
To the cold tomb, and dreadful all to tread;
But dreadful most, when by a slow decay
Pale hunger wastes the manly strength away.
Why cease ye then to implore the powers above,
And offer hecatombs to thundering Jove?
Why seize ye not yon beeves, and fleecy prey?
Arise unanimous; arise and slay!
And if the gods ordain a safe return,
To Phœbus shrines shall rise, and altars burn.
But should the powers that o’er mankind preside
Decree to plunge us in the whelming tide,
Better to rush at once to shades below
Than linger life away, and nourish woe.’
“Thus he: the beeves around securely stray,
When swift to ruin they invade the prey; | 1,027 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
They seize, they kill!—but for the rite divine.
The barley fail’d, and for libations wine.
Swift from the oak they strip the shady pride;
And verdant leaves the flowery cake supplied.
“With prayer they now address the ethereal train,
Slay the selected beeves, and flay the slain;
The thighs, with fat involved, divide with art,
Strew’d o’er with morsels cut from every part.
Water, instead of wine, is brought in urns,
And pour’d profanely as the victim burns.
The thighs thus offer’d, and the entrails dress’d,
They roast the fragments, and prepare the feast.
“‘Twas then soft slumber fled my troubled brain;
Back to the bark I speed along the main.
When lo! an odour from the feast exhales,
Spreads o’er the coast and scents the tainted gales;
A chilly fear congeal’d my vital blood,
And thus, obtesting Heaven, I mourn’d aloud;
“‘O sire of men and gods, immortal Jove!
O all ye blissful powers that reign above!
Why were my cares beguiled in short repose?
O fatal slumber, paid with lasting woes!
A deed so dreadful all the gods alarms,
Vengeance is on the wing, and Heaven in arms!’
“Meantime Lampetie mounts the aërial way,
And kindles into rage the god of day;
“‘Vengeance, ye powers (he cries), and then whose hand
Aims the red bolt, and hurls the writhen brand!
Slain are those herds which I with pride survey,
When through the ports of heaven I pour the day,
Or deep in ocean plunge the burning ray.
Vengeance, ye gods! or I the skies forego,
And bear the lamp of heaven to shades below.’
“To whom the thundering Power: ‘O source of day
Whose radiant lamp adorns the azure way,
Still may thy beams through heaven’s bright portal rise,
The joy of earth, the glory of the skies:
Lo! my red arm I bare, my thunders guide,
To dash the offenders in the whelming tide.’
“To fair Calypso, from the bright abodes,
Hermes convey’d these counsels of the gods.
“Meantime from man to man my tongue exclaims, | 1,028 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
My wrath is kindled, and my soul in flames.
In vain! I view perform’d the direful deed,
Beeves, slain in heaps, along the ocean bleed.
“Now heaven gave signs of wrath: along the ground
Crept the raw hides, and with a bellowing sound
Roar’d the dead limbs; the burning entrails groan’d.
Six guilty days my wretched mates employ
In impious feasting, and unhallowed joy;
The seventh arose, and now the sire of gods
Rein’d the rough storms; and calm’d the tossing floods:
With speed the bark we climb; the spacious sails.
Loosed from the yards invite the impelling gales.
Past sight of shore, along the surge we bound,
And all above is sky, and ocean all around;
When lo! a murky cloud the thunderer forms
Full o’er our heads, and blackens heaven with storms.
Night dwells o’er all the deep: and now outflies
The gloomy west, and whistles in the skies.
The mountain-billows roar! the furious blast
Howls o’er the shroud, and rends it from the mast:
The mast gives way, and, crackling as it bends,
Tears up the deck; then all at once descends:
The pilot by the tumbling ruin slain,
Dash’d from the helm, falls headlong in the main.
Then Jove in anger bids his thunders roll,
And forky lightnings flash from pole to pole:
Fierce at our heads his deadly bolt he aims,
Red with uncommon wrath, and wrapp’d in flames:
Full on the bark it fell; now high, now low,
Toss’d and retoss’d, it reel’d beneath the blow;
At once into the main the crew it shook:
Sulphurous odours rose, and smouldering smoke.
Like fowl that haunt the floods, they sink, they rise,
Now lost, now seen, with shrieks and dreadful cries;
And strive to gain the bark, but Jove denies.
Firm at the helm I stand, when fierce the main
Rush’d with dire noise, and dash’d the sides in twain;
Again impetuous drove the furious blast,
Snapp’d the strong helm, and bore to sea the mast.
Firm to the mast with cords the helm I bind,
And ride aloft, to Providence resign’d, | 1,029 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Through tumbling billows and a war of wind.
“Now sunk the west, and now a southern breeze,
More dreadful than the tempest lash’d the seas;
For on the rocks it bore where Scylla raves,
And dire Charybdis rolls her thundering waves.
All night I drove; and at the dawn of day,
Fast by the rocks beheld the desperate way;
Just when the sea within her gulfs subsides,
And in the roaring whirlpools rush the tides,
Swift from the float I vaulted with a bound,
The lofty fig-tree seized, and clung around;
So to the beam the bat tenacious clings,
And pendent round it clasps his leather wings.
High in the air the tree its boughs display’d,
And o’er the dungeon cast a dreadful shade;
All unsustain’d between the wave and sky,
Beneath my feet the whirling billows fly.
What time the judge forsakes the noisy bar
To take repast, and stills the wordy war,
Charybdis, rumbling from her inmost caves,
The mast refunded on her refluent waves.
Swift from the tree, the floating mass to gain,
Sudden I dropp’d amidst the flashing main;
Once more undaunted on the ruin rode,
And oar’d with labouring arms along the flood.
Unseen I pass’d by Scylla’s dire abodes.
So Jove decreed (dread sire of men and gods).
Then nine long days I plow’d the calmer seas,
Heaved by the surge, and wafted by the breeze.
Weary and wet the Ogygian shores I gain,
When the tenth sun descended to the main.
There, in Calypso’s ever-fragrant bowers,
Refresh’d I lay, and joy beguiled the hours.
“My following fates to thee, O king, are known,
And the bright partner of thy royal throne.
Enough: in misery can words avail?
And what so tedious as a twice-told tale?”
BOOK XIII.
ARGUMENT.
THE ARRIVAL OF ULYSSES IN ITHACA.
Ulysses takes his leave of Alcinous and Arete, and embarks in the evening. Next
morning the ship arrives at Ithaca; where the sailors, as Ulysses is yet | 1,030 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
sleeping, lay him on the shore with all his treasures. On their return, Neptune
changes their ship into a rock. In the meantime Ulysses, awaking, knows not his
native Ithaca, by reason of a mist which Pallas had cast around him. He breaks
into loud lamentations; till the goddess appearing to him in the form of a
shepherd, discovers the country to him, and points out the particular places.
He then tells a feigned story of his adventures, upon which she manifests
herself, and they consult together of the measures to be taken to destroy the
suitors. To conceal his return, and disguise his person the more effectually,
she changes him into the figure of an old beggar.
He ceased; but left so pleasing on their ear
His voice, that listening still they seem’d to hear.
A pause of silence hush’d the shady rooms:
The grateful conference then the king resumes:
“Whatever toils the great Ulysses pass’d,
Beneath this happy roof they end at last;
No longer now from shore to shore to roam,
Smooth seas and gentle winds invite him home.
But hear me, princes! whom these walls inclose,
For whom my chanter sings: and goblet flows
With wine unmix’d (an honour due to age,
To cheer the grave, and warm the poet’s rage);
Though labour’d gold and many a dazzling vest
Lie heap’d already for our godlike guest;
Without new treasures let him not remove,
Large, and expressive of the public love:
Each peer a tripod, each a vase bestow,
A general tribute, which the state shall owe.”
This sentence pleased: then all their steps address’d
To separate mansions, and retired to rest.
Now did the rosy-finger’d morn arise,
And shed her sacred light along the skies.
Down to the haven and the ships in haste
They bore the treasures, and in safety placed.
The king himself the vases ranged with care;
Then bade his followers to the feast prepare.
A victim ox beneath the sacred hand
Of great Alcinous falls, and stains the sand. | 1,031 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
To Jove the Eternal (power above all powers!
Who wings the winds, and darkens heaven with showers)
The flames ascend: till evening they prolong
The rites, more sacred made by heavenly song;
For in the midst, with public honours graced,
Thy lyre divine, Demodocus! was placed.
All, but Ulysses, heard with fix’d delight;
He sate, and eyed the sun, and wish’d the night;
Slow seem’d the sun to move, the hours to roll,
His native home deep-imaged in his soul.
As the tired ploughman, spent with stubborn toil,
Whose oxen long have torn the furrow’d soil,
Sees with delight the sun’s declining ray,
When home with feeble knees he bends his way
To late repast (the day’s hard labour done);
So to Ulysses welcome set the sun;
Then instant to Alcinous and the rest
(The Scherian states) he turn’d, and thus address’d:
“O thou, the first in merit and command!
And you the peers and princes of the land!
May every joy be yours! nor this the least,
When due libation shall have crown’d the feast,
Safe to my home to send your happy guest.
Complete are now the bounties you have given,
Be all those bounties but confirm’d by Heaven!
So may I find, when all my wanderings cease,
My consort blameless, and my friends in peace.
On you be every bliss; and every day,
In home-felt joys, delighted roll away;
Yourselves, your wives, your long-descending race,
May every god enrich with every grace!
Sure fix’d on virtue may your nation stand,
And public evil never touch the land!”
His words well weigh’d, the general voice approved
Benign, and instant his dismission moved,
The monarch to Pontonus gave the sign.
To fill the goblet high with rosy wine;
“Great Jove the Father first (he cried) implore;
Then send the stranger to his native shore.”
The luscious wine the obedient herald brought;
Around the mansion flow’d the purple draught;
Each from his seat to each immortal pours,
Whom glory circles in the Olympian bowers | 1,032 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Ulysses sole with air majestic stands,
The bowl presenting to Arete’s hands;
Then thus: “O queen, farewell! be still possess’d
Of dear remembrance, blessing still and bless’d!
Till age and death shall gently call thee hence,
(Sure fate of every mortal excellence!)
Farewell! and joys successive ever spring
To thee, to thine, the people, and the king!”
Thus he: then parting prints the sandy shore
To the fair port: a herald march’d before,
Sent by Alcinous; of Arete’s train
Three chosen maids attend him to the main;
This does a tunic and white vest convey,
A various casket that, of rich inlay,
And bread and wine the third. The cheerful mates
Safe in the hollow poop dispose the cates;
Upon the deck soft painted robes they spread
With linen cover’d, for the hero’s bed.
He climbed the lofty stern; then gently press’d
The swelling couch, and lay composed to rest.
Now placed in order, the Phæacian train
Their cables loose, and launch into the main;
At once they bend, and strike their equal oars,
And leave the sinking hills and lessening shores.
While on the deck the chief in silence lies,
And pleasing slumbers steal upon his eyes.
As fiery coursers in the rapid race
Urged by fierce drivers through the dusty space,
Toss their high heads, and scour along the plain,
So mounts the bounding vessel o’er the main.
Back to the stern the parted billows flow,
And the black ocean foams and roars below.
Thus with spread sails the winged galley flies;
Less swift an eagle cuts the liquid skies;
Divine Ulysses was her sacred load,
A man, in wisdom equal to a god!
Much danger, long and mighty toils he bore,
In storms by sea, and combats on the shore;
All which soft sleep now banish’d from his breast,
Wrapp’d in a pleasing, deep, and death-like rest.
But when the morning-star with early ray
Flamed in the front of heaven, and promised day;
Like distant clouds the mariner descries | 1,033 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Fair Ithaca’s emerging hills arise.
Far from the town a spacious port appears,
Sacred to Phorcys’ power, whose name it bears;
Two craggy rocks projecting to the main,
The roaring wind’s tempestuous rage restrain;
Within the waves in softer murmurs glide,
And ships secure without their halsers ride.
High at the head a branching olive grows,
And crowns the pointed cliffs with shady boughs.
Beneath, a gloomy grotto’s cool recess
Delights the Nereids of the neighbouring seas,
Where bowls and urns were form’d of living stone,
And massy beams in native marble shone,
On which the labours of the nymphs were roll’d,
Their webs divine of purple mix’d with gold.
Within the cave the clustering bees attend
Their waxen works, or from the roof depend.
Perpetual waters o’er the pavement glide;
Two marble doors unfold on either side;
Sacred the south, by which the gods descend;
But mortals enter at the northern end.
Thither they bent, and haul’d their ship to land
(The crooked keel divides the yellow sand).
Ulysses sleeping on his couch they bore,
And gently placed him on the rocky shore.
His treasures next, Alcinous’ gifts, they laid
In the wild olive’s unfrequented shade,
Secure from theft; then launch’d the bark again,
Resumed their oars, and measured back the main,
Nor yet forgot old Ocean’s dread supreme,
The vengeance vow’d for eyeless Polypheme.
Before the throne of mighty Jove he stood,
And sought the secret counsels of the god.
“Shall then no more, O sire of gods! be mine
The rights and honours of a power divine?
Scorn’d e’en by man, and (oh severe disgrace!)
By soft Phæacians, my degenerate race!
Against yon destined head in vain I swore,
And menaced vengeance, ere he reach’d his shore;
To reach his natal shore was thy decree;
Mild I obey’d, for who shall war with thee?
Behold him landed, careless and asleep,
From all the eluded dangers of the deep; | 1,034 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Lo where he lies, amidst a shining store
Of brass, rich garments, and refulgent ore;
And bears triumphant to his native isle
A prize more worth than Ilion’s noble spoil.”
To whom the Father of the immortal powers,
Who swells the clouds, and gladdens earth with showers,
“Can mighty Neptune thus of man complain?
Neptune, tremendous o’er the boundless main!
Revered and awful e’en in heaven’s abodes,
Ancient and great! a god above the gods!
If that low race offend thy power divine
(Weak, daring creatures!) is not vengeance thine?
Go, then, the guilty at thy will chastise.”
He said. The shaker of the earth replies:
“This then, I doom: to fix the gallant ship,
A mark of vengeance on the sable deep;
To warn the thoughtless, self-confiding train,
No more unlicensed thus to brave the main.
Full in their port a Shady hill shall rise,
If such thy will.”—“We will it (Jove replies).
E’en when with transport blackening all the strand,
The swarming people hail their ship to land,
Fix her for ever, a memorial stone:
Still let her seem to sail, and seem alone.
The trembling crowds shall see the sudden shade
Of whelming mountains overhang their head!”
With that the god whose earthquakes rock the ground
Fierce to Phæacia cross’d the vast profound.
Swift as a swallow sweeps the liquid way,
The winged pinnace shot along the sea.
The god arrests her with a sudden stroke,
And roots her down an everlasting rock.
Aghast the Scherians stand in deep surprise;
All press to speak, all question with their eyes.
What hands unseen the rapid bark restrain!
And yet it swims, or seems to swim, the main!
Thus they, unconscious of the deed divine;
Till great Alcinous, rising, own’d the sign.
“Behold the long predestined day! (he cries;)
O certain faith of ancient prophecies
These ears have heard my royal sire disclose
A dreadful story, big with future woes;
How, moved with wrath, that careless we convey | 1,035 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Promiscuous every guest to every bay,
Stern Neptune raged; and how by his command
Firm rooted in the surge a ship should stand
(A monument of wrath); and mound on mound
Should hide our walls, or whelm beneath the ground.
“The Fates have follow’d as declared the seer.
Be humbled, nations! and your monarch hear.
No more unlicensed brave the deeps, no more
With every stranger pass from shore to shore;
On angry Neptune now for mercy call;
To his high name let twelve black oxen fall.
So may the god reverse his purposed will,
Nor o’er our city hang the dreadful hill.”
The monarch spoke: they trembled and obey’d,
Forth on the sands the victim oxen led;
The gathered tribes before the altars stand,
And chiefs and rulers, a majestic band.
The king of ocean all the tribes implore;
The blazing altars redden all the shore.
Meanwhile Ulysses in his country lay,
Released from sleep, and round him might survey
The solitary shore and rolling sea.
Yet had his mind through tedious absence lost
The dear resemblance of his native coast;
Besides, Minerva, to secure her care,
Diffused around a veil of thickened air;
For so the gods ordain’d to keep unseen
His royal person from his friends and queen;
Till the proud suitors for their crimes afford
An ample vengeance to their injured lord.
Now all the land another prospect bore,
Another port appear’d, another shore.
And long-continued ways, and winding floods,
And unknown mountains, crown’d with unknown woods
Pensive and slow, with sudden grief oppress’d,
The king arose, and beat his careful breast,
Cast a long look o’er all the coast and main,
And sought, around, his native realm in vain;
Then with erected eyes stood fix’d in woe,
And as he spoke, the tears began to flow.
“Ye gods (he cried), upon what barren coast,
In what new region, is Ulysses toss’d?
Possess’d by wild barbarians, fierce in arms?
Or men whose bosom tender pity warms? | 1,036 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Where shall this treasure now in safely lie?
And whither, whither its sad owner fly?
Ah, why did I Alcinous’ grace implore?
Ah, why forsake Phæacia’s happy shore?
Some juster prince perhaps had entertain’d,
And safe restored me to my native land.
Is this the promised, long-expected coast,
And this the faith Phæacia’s rulers boast?
O righteous gods! of all the great, how few
Are just to Heaven, and to their promise true!
But he, the power to whose all-seeing eyes
The deeds of men appear without disguise,
’Tis his alone to avenge the wrongs I bear;
For still the oppress’d are his peculiar care.
To count these presents, and from thence to prove,
Their faith is mine; the rest belongs to Jove.”
Then on the sands he ranged his wealthy store,
The gold, the vests, the tripods number’d o’er:
All these he found, but still in error lost,
Disconsolate he wanders on the coast,
Sighs for his country, and laments again
To the deaf rocks, and hoarse-resounding main.
When lo! the guardian goddess of the wise,
Celestial Pallas, stood before his eyes;
In show a youthful swain, of form divine,
Who seem’d descended from some princely line.
A graceful robe her slender body dress’d;
Around her shoulders flew the waving vest;
Her decent hand a shining javelin bore,
And painted sandals on her feet she wore.
To whom the king: “Whoe’er of human race
Thou art, that wanderest in this desert place,
With joy to thee, as to some god I bend,
To thee my treasures and myself commend.
O tell a wretch in exile doom’d to stray,
What air I breathe, what country I survey?
The fruitful continent’s extremest bound,
Or some fair isle which Neptune’s arms surround?
“From what far clime (said she) remote from fame
Arrivest thou here, a stranger to our name?
Thou seest an island, not to those unknown
Whose hills are brighten’d by the rising sun,
Nor those that placed beneath his utmost reign | 1,037 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Behold him sinking in the western main.
The rugged soil allows no level space
For flying chariots, or the rapid race;
Yet, not ungrateful to the peasant’s pain,
Suffices fulness to the swelling grain;
The loaded trees their various fruits produce,
And clustering grapes afford a generous juice;
Woods crown our mountains, and in every grove
The bounding goats and frisking heifers rove;
Soft rains and kindly dews refresh the field,
And rising springs eternal verdure yield.
E’en to those shores is Ithaca renown’d,
Where Troy’s majestic ruins strew the ground.”
At this, the chief with transport was possess’d;
His panting heart exulted in his breast;
Yet, well dissembling his untimely joys,
And veiling truth in plausible disguise,
Thus, with an air sincere, in fiction bold,
His ready tale the inventive hero told:
“Oft have I heard in Crete this island’s name;
For ’twas from Crete, my native soil, I came,
Self-banished thence. I sail’d before the wind,
And left my children and my friends behind.
From fierce Idomeneus’ revenge I flew,
Whose son, the swift Orsilochus, I slew
(With brutal force he seized my Trojan prey,
Due to the toils of many a bloody day).
Unseen I ’scaped, and favour’d by the night,
In a Phoenician vessel took my flight,
For Pyle or Elis bound; but tempests toss’d
And raging billows drove us on your coast.
In dead of night an unknown port we gain’d;
Spent with fatigue, and slept secure on land.
But ere the rosy morn renew’d the day,
While in the embrace of pleasing sleep I lay,
Sudden, invited by auspicious gales,
They land my goods, and hoist their flying sails.
Abandon’d here, my fortune I deplore
A hapless exile on a foreign shore,”
Thus while he spoke, the blue-eyed maid began
With pleasing smiles to view the godlike man;
Then changed her form: and now, divinely bright,
Jove’s heavenly daughter stood confess’d to sight;
Like a fair virgin in her beauty’s bloom, | 1,038 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Skill’d in the illustrious labours of the loom.
“O still the same Ulysses! (she rejoin’d,)
In useful craft successfully refined!
Artful in speech, in action, and in mind!
Sufficed it not, that, thy long labours pass’d,
Secure thou seest thy native shore at last?
But this to me? who, like thyself, excel
In arts of counsel and dissembling well;
To me? whose wit exceeds the powers divine,
No less than mortals are surpass’d by thine.
Know’st thou not me; who made thy life my care,
Through ten years’ wandering, and through ten years’ war;
Who taught thee arts, Alcinous to persuade,
To raise his wonder, and engage his aid;
And now appear, thy treasures to protect,
Conceal thy person, thy designs direct,
And tell what more thou must from Fate expect;
Domestic woes far heavier to be borne!
The pride of fools, and slaves’ insulting scorn?
But thou be silent, nor reveal thy state;
Yield to the force of unresisted Fate,
And bear unmoved the wrongs of base mankind,
The last, and hardest, conquest of the mind.”
“Goddess of wisdom! (Ithacus replies,)
He who discerns thee must be truly wise,
So seldom view’d and ever in disguise!
When the bold Argives led their warring powers,
Against proud Ilion’s well-defended towers,
Ulysses was thy care, celestial maid!
Graced with thy sight, and favoured with thy aid.
But when the Trojan piles in ashes lay,
And bound for Greece we plough’d the watery way;
Our fleet dispersed, and driven from coast to coast,
Thy sacred presence from that hour I lost;
Till I beheld thy radiant form once more,
And heard thy counsels on Phæacia’s shore.
But, by the almighty author of thy race,
Tell me, oh tell, is this my native place?
For much I fear, long tracts of land and sea
Divide this coast from distant Ithaca;
The sweet delusion kindly you impose,
To soothe my hopes, and mitigate my woes.”
Thus he. The blue-eyed goddess thus replies; | 1,039 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
“How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!
Who, versed in fortune, fear the flattering show,
And taste not half the bliss the gods bestow.
The more shall Pallas aid thy just desires,
And guard the wisdom which herself inspires.
Others long absent from their native place,
Straight seek their home, and fly with eager pace
To their wives’ arms, and children’s dear embrace.
Not thus Ulysses; he decrees to prove
His subjects’ faith, and queen’s suspected love;
Who mourn’d her lord twice ten revolving years,
And wastes the days in grief, the nights in tears.
But Pallas knew (thy friends and navy lost)
Once more ’twas given thee to behold thy coast;
Yet how could I with adverse Fate engage,
And mighty Neptune’s unrelenting rage?
Now lift thy longing eyes, while I restore
The pleasing prospect of thy native shore.
Bebold the port of Phorcys! fenced around
With rocky mountains, and with olives crown’d,
Behold the gloomy grot! whose cool recess
Delights the Nereids of the neighbouring seas;
Whose now-neglected altars in thy reign
Blush’d with the blood of sheep and oxen slain,
Behold! where Neritus the clouds divides,
And shakes the waving forests on his sides.”
So spake the goddess; and the prospect clear’d,
The mists dispersed, and all the coast appeared.
The king with joy confess’d his place of birth,
And on his knees salutes his mother earth;
Then, with his suppliant hands upheld in air,
Thus to the sea-green sisters sends his prayer;
“All hail! ye virgin daughters of the main!
Ye streams, beyond my hopes, beheld again!
To you once more your own Ulysses bows;
Attend his transports, and receive his vows!
If Jove prolong my days, and Pallas crown
The growing virtues of my youthful son,
To you shall rites divine be ever paid,
And grateful offerings on your altars laid.”
Thus then Minerva: “From that anxious breast
Dismiss those cares, and leave to heaven the rest. | 1,040 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Our task be now thy treasured stores to save,
Deep in the close recesses of the cave;
Then future means consult.” She spoke, and trod
The shady grot, that brighten’d with the god.
The closest caverns of the grot she sought;
The gold, the brass, the robes, Ulysses brought;
These in the secret gloom the chief disposed;
The entrance with a rock the goddess closed.
Now, seated in the olive’s sacred shade,
Confer the hero and the martial maid.
The goddess of the azure eyes began:
“Son of Laertes! much-experienced man!
The suitor-train thy earliest care demand,
Of that luxurious race to rid the land;
Three years thy house their lawless rule has seen,
And proud addresses to the matchless queen.
But she thy absence mourns from day to day,
And inly bleeds, and silent wastes away;
Elusive of the bridal hour, she gives
Fond hopes to all, and all with hopes deceives.”
To this Ulysses: “O celestial maid!
Praised be thy counsel, and thy timely aid;
Else had I seen my native walls in vain,
Like great Atrides, just restored and slain.
Vouchsafe the means of vengeance to debate,
And plan with all thy arts the scene of fate.
Then, then be present, and my soul inspire,
As when we wrapp’d Troy’s heaven-built walls in fire.
Though leagued against me hundred heroes stand.
Hundreds shall fall, if Pallas aid my hand.”
She answer’d: “In the dreadful day of fight
Know, I am with thee, strong in all my might.
If thou but equal to thyself be found,
What gasping numbers then shall press the ground!
What human victims stain the feastful floor!
How wide the pavements float with guilty gore!
It fits thee now to wear a dark disguise,
And secret walk unknown to mortal eyes.
For this, my hand shall wither every grace,
And every elegance of form and face;
O’er thy smooth skin a bark of wrinkles spread,
Turn hoar the auburn honours of thy head;
Disfigure every limb with coarse attire, | 1,041 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
And in thy eyes extinguish all the fire;
Add all the wants and the decays of life;
Estrange thee from thy own; thy son, thy wife;
From the loathed object every sight shall turn,
And the blind suitors their destruction scorn.
“Go first the master of thy herds to find,
True to his charge, a loyal swain and kind;
For thee he sighs; and to the loyal heir
And chaste Penelope extends his care.
At the Coracian rock he now resides,
Where Arethusa’s sable water glides;
The sable water and the copious mast
Swell the fat herd; luxuriant, large repast!
With him rest peaceful in the rural cell,
And all you ask his faithful tongue shall tell.
Me into other realms my cares convey,
To Sparta, still with female beauty gay;
For know, to Sparta thy loved offspring came,
To learn thy fortunes from the voice of Fame.”
At this the father, with a father’s care:
“Must he too suffer? he, O goddess! bear
Of wanderings and of woes a wretched share?
Through the wild ocean plough the dangerous way,
And leave his fortunes and his house a prey?
Why would’st not thou, O all-enlighten’d mind!
Inform him certain, and protect him, kind?”
To whom Minerva: “Be thy soul at rest;
And know, whatever heaven ordains is best.
To fame I sent him, to acquire renown;
To other regions is his virtue known;
Secure he sits, near great Atrides placed;
With friendships strengthen’d, and with honours graced,
But lo! an ambush waits his passage o’er;
Fierce foes insidious intercept the shore;
In vain; far sooner all the murderous brood
This injured land shall fatten with their blood.”
She spake, then touch’d him with her powerful wand:
The skin shrunk up, and wither’d at her hand;
A swift old age o’er all his members spread;
A sudden frost was sprinkled on his head;
Nor longer in the heavy eye-ball shined
The glance divine, forth-beaming from the mind.
His robe, which spots indelible besmear, | 1,042 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
In rags dishonest flutters with the air:
A stag’s torn hide is lapp’d around his reins;
A rugged staff his trembling hand sustains;
And at his side a wretched scrip was hung,
Wide-patch’d, and knotted to a twisted thong.
So looked the chief, so moved: to mortal eyes
Object uncouth! a man of miseries!
While Pallas, cleaving the wild fields of air,
To Sparta flies, Telemachus her care.
BOOK XIV.
ARGUMENT.
THE CONVERSATION WITH EUMAEUS.
Ulysses arrives in disguise at the house of Eumaeus, where he is received,
entertained, and lodged with the utmost hospitality. The several discourses of
that faithful old servant, with the feigned story told by Ulysses to conceal
himself, and other conversations on various subjects, take up this entire book.
But he, deep-musing, o’er the mountains stray’d
Through mazy thickets of the woodland shade,
And cavern’d ways, the shaggy coast along
With cliffs and nodding forests overhung.
Eumaeus at his sylvan lodge he sought,
A faithful servant, and without a fault.
Ulysses found him busied as he sate
Before the threshold of his rustic gate;
Around the mansion in a circle shone
A rural portico of rugged stone
(In absence of his lord with honest toil
His own industrious hands had raised the pile).
The wall was stone from neighbouring quarries borne,
Encircled with a fence of native thorn,
And strong with pales, by many a weary stroke
Of stubborn labour hewn from heart of oak:
Frequent and thick. Within the space were rear’d
Twelve ample cells, the lodgments of his herd.
Full fifty pregnant females each contain’d;
The males without (a smaller race) remain’d;
Doom’d to supply the suitors’ wasteful feast,
A stock by daily luxury decreased;
Now scarce four hundred left. These to defend,
Four savage dogs, a watchful guard, attend.
Here sat Eumaeus, and his cares applied
To form strong buskins of well-season’d hide.
Of four assistants who his labour share, | 1,043 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Three now were absent on the rural care;
The fourth drove victims to a suitor train:
But he, of ancient faith, a simple swain,
Sigh’d, while he furnish’d the luxurious board,
And wearied Heaven with wishes for his lord.
Soon as Ulysses near the inclosure drew,
With open mouths the furious mastiffs flew:
Down sat the sage, and cautious to withstand,
Let fall the offensive truncheon from his hand.
Sudden, the master runs; aloud he calls;
And from his hasty hand the leather falls:
With showers of stones he drives then far away:
The scattering dogs around at distance bay.
“Unhappy stranger! (thus the faithful swain
Began with accent gracious and humane),
What sorrow had been mine, if at my gate
Thy reverend age had met a shameful fate!
Enough of woes already have I known;
Enough my master’s sorrows and my own.
While here (ungrateful task!) his herds I feed,
Ordain’d for lawless rioters to bleed!
Perhaps, supported at another’s board!
Far from his country roams my hapless lord;
Or sigh’d in exile forth his latest breath,
Now cover’d with the eternal shade of death!
“But enter this my homely roof, and see
Our woods not void of hospitality.
Then tell me whence thou art, and what the share
Of woes and wanderings thou wert born to bear.”
He said, and, seconding the kind request,
With friendly step precedes his unknown guest.
A shaggy goat’s soft hide beneath him spread,
And with fresh rushes heap’d an ample bed;
Jove touch’d the hero’s tender soul, to find
So just reception from a heart so kind:
And “Oh, ye gods! with all your blessings grace
(He thus broke forth) this friend of human race!”
The swain replied: “It never was our guise
To slight the poor, or aught humane despise:
For Jove unfolds our hospitable door,
’Tis Jove that sends the stranger and the poor,
Little, alas! is all the good I can
A man oppress’d, dependent, yet a man:
Accept such treatment as a swain affords, | 1,044 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Slave to the insolence of youthful lords!
Far hence is by unequal gods removed
That man of bounties, loving and beloved!
To whom whate’er his slave enjoys is owed,
And more, had Fate allow’d, had been bestow’d:
But Fate condemn’d him to a foreign shore;
Much have I sorrow’d, but my Master more.
Now cold he lies, to death’s embrace resign’d:
Ah, perish Helen! perish all her kind!
For whose cursed cause, in Agamemnon’s name,
He trod so fatally the paths of fame.”
His vest succinct then girding round his waist,
Forth rush’d the swain with hospitable haste.
Straight to the lodgments of his herd he run,
Where the fat porkers slept beneath the sun;
Of two, his cutlass launch’d the spouting blood;
These quarter’d, singed, and fix’d on forks of wood,
All hasty on the hissing coals he threw;
And smoking, back the tasteful viands drew.
Broachers and all then an the board display’d
The ready meal, before Ulysses laid
With flour imbrown’d; next mingled wine yet new,
And luscious as the bees’ nectareous dew:
Then sate, companion of the friendly feast,
With open look; and thus bespoke his guest:
“Take with free welcome what our hands prepare,
Such food as falls to simple servants’ share;
The best our lords consume; those thoughtless peers,
Rich without bounty, guilty without fears;
Yet sure the gods their impious acts detest,
And honour justice and the righteous breast.
Pirates and conquerors of harden’d mind,
The foes of peace, and scourges of mankind,
To whom offending men are made a prey
When Jove in vengeance gives a land away;
E’en these, when of their ill-got spoils possess’d,
Find sure tormentors in the guilty breast:
Some voice of God close whispering from within,
‘Wretch! this is villainy, and this is sin.’
But these, no doubt, some oracle explore,
That tells, the great Ulysses is no more.
Hence springs their confidence, and from our sighs
Their rapine strengthens, and their riots rise: | 1,045 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Constant as Jove the night and day bestows,
Bleeds a whole hecatomb, a vintage flows.
None match’d this hero’s wealth, of all who reign
O’er the fair islands of the neighbouring main.
Nor all the monarchs whose far-dreaded sway
The wide-extended continents obey:
First, on the main land, of Ulysses’ breed
Twelve herds, twelve flocks, on ocean’s margin feed;
As many stalls for shaggy goats are rear’d;
As many lodgments for the tusky herd;
Two foreign keepers guard: and here are seen
Twelve herds of goats that graze our utmost green;
To native pastors is their charge assign’d,
And mine the care to feed the bristly kind;
Each day the fattest bleeds of either herd,
All to the suitors’ wasteful board preferr’d.”
Thus he, benevolent: his unknown guest
With hunger keen devours the savoury feast;
While schemes of vengeance ripen in his breast.
Silent and thoughtful while the board he eyed,
Eumaeus pours on high the purple tide;
The king with smiling looks his joy express’d,
And thus the kind inviting host address’d:
“Say now, what man is he, the man deplored,
So rich, so potent, whom you style your lord?
Late with such affluence and possessions bless’d,
And now in honour’s glorious bed at rest.
Whoever was the warrior, he must be
To fame no stranger, nor perhaps to me:
Who (so the gods and so the Fates ordain’d)
Have wander’d many a sea, and many a land.”
“Small is the faith the prince and queen ascribe
(Replied Eumaeus) to the wandering tribe.
For needy strangers still to flattery fly,
And want too oft betrays the tongue to lie.
Each vagrant traveller, that touches here,
Deludes with fallacies the royal ear,
To dear remembrance makes his image rise,
And calls the springing sorrows from her eyes.
Such thou mayst be. But he whose name you crave
Moulders in earth, or welters on the wave,
Or food for fish or dogs his relics lie,
Or torn by birds are scatter’d through the sky. | 1,046 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
So perish’d he: and left (for ever lost)
Much woe to all, but sure to me the most.
So mild a master never shall I find;
Less dear the parents whom I left behind,
Less soft my mother, less my father kind.
Not with such transport would my eyes run o’er,
Again to hail them in their native shore,
As loved Ulysses once more to embrace,
Restored and breathing in his natal place.
That name for ever dread, yet ever dear,
E’en in his absence I pronounce with fear:
In my respect, he bears a prince’s part;
But lives a very brother in my heart.”
Thus spoke the faithful swain, and thus rejoin’d
The master of his grief, the man of patient mind:
“Ulysses, friend! shall view his old abodes
(Distrustful as thou art), nor doubt the gods.
Nor speak I rashly, but with faith averr’d,
And what I speak attesting Heaven has heard.
If so, a cloak and vesture be my meed:
Till his return no title shall I plead,
Though certain be my news, and great my need.
Whom want itself can force untruths to tell,
My soul detests him as the gates of hell.
“Thou first be witness, hospitable Jove!
And every god inspiring social love!
And witness every household power that waits,
Guard of these fires, and angel of these gates!
Ere the next moon increase or this decay,
His ancient realms Ulysses shall survey,
In blood and dust each proud oppressor mourn,
And the lost glories of his house return.”
“Nor shall that meed be thine, nor ever more
Shall loved Ulysses hail this happy shore.
(Replied Eumaeus): to the present hour
Now turn thy thought, and joys within our power.
From sad reflection let my soul repose;
The name of him awakes a thousand woes.
But guard him, gods! and to these arms restore!
Not his true consort can desire him more;
Not old Laertes, broken with despair:
Not young Telemachus, his blooming heir.
Alas, Telemachus! my sorrows flow
Afresh for thee, my second cause of woe! | 1,047 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Like some fair plant set by a heavenly hand,
He grew, he flourish’d, and he bless’d the land;
In all the youth his father’s image shined,
Bright in his person, brighter in his mind.
What man, or god, deceived his better sense,
Far on the swelling seas to wander hence?
To distant Pylos hapless is he gone,
To seek his father’s fate and find his own!
For traitors wait his way, with dire design
To end at once the great Arcesian line.
But let us leave him to their wills above;
The fates of men are in the hand of Jove.
And now, my venerable guest! declare
Your name, your parents, and your native air:
Sincere from whence begun, your course relate,
And to what ship I owe the friendly freight?”
Thus he: and thus (with prompt invention bold)
The cautious chief his ready story told.
“On dark reserve what better can prevail,
Or from the fluent tongue produce the tale,
Than when two friends, alone, in peaceful place
Confer, and wines and cates the table grace;
But most, the kind inviter’s cheerful face?
Thus might we sit, with social goblets crown’d,
Till the whole circle of the year goes round:
Not the whole circle of the year would close
My long narration of a life of woes.
But such was Heaven’s high will! Know then, I came
From sacred Crete, and from a sire of fame:
Castor Hylacides (that name he bore),
Beloved and honour’d in his native shore;
Bless’d in his riches, in his children more.
Sprung of a handmaid, from a bought embrace,
I shared his kindness with his lawful race:
But when that fate, which all must undergo,
From earth removed him to the shades below,
The large domain his greedy sons divide,
And each was portion’d as the lots decide.
Little, alas! was left my wretched share,
Except a house, a covert from the air:
But what by niggard fortune was denied,
A willing widow’s copious wealth supplied.
My valour was my plea, a gallant mind,
That, true to honour, never lagg’d behind | 1,048 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
(The sex is ever to a soldier kind).
Now wasting years my former strength confound,
And added woes have bow’d me to the ground;
Yet by the stubble you may guess the grain,
And mark the ruins of no vulgar man.
Me, Pallas gave to lead the martial storm,
And the fair ranks of battle to deform;
Me, Mars inspired to turn the foe to flight,
And tempt the secret ambush of the night.
Let ghastly Death in all his forms appear,
I saw him not, it was not mine to fear.
Before the rest I raised my ready steel,
The first I met, he yielded, or he fell.
But works of peace my soul disdain’d to bear,
The rural labour, or domestic care.
To raise the mast, the missile dart to wing,
And send swift arrows from the bounding string,
Were arts the gods made grateful to my mind;
Those gods, who turn (to various ends design’d)
The various thoughts and talents of mankind.
Before the Grecians touch’d the Trojan plain,
Nine times commander or by land or main,
In foreign fields I spread my glory far,
Great in the praise, rich in the spoils of war;
Thence charged with riches, as increased in fame,
To Crete return’d, an honourable name.
But when great Jove that direful war decreed,
Which roused all Greece, and made the mighty bleed;
Our states myself and Idomen employ
To lead their fleets, and carry death to Troy.
Nine years we warr’d; the tenth saw Ilion fall;
Homeward we sail’d, but heaven dispersed us all.
One only month my wife enjoy’d my stay;
So will’d the god who gives and takes away.
Nine ships I mann’d, equipp’d with ready stores,
Intent to voyage to the Ægyptian shores;
In feast and sacrifice my chosen train
Six days consum’d; the seventh we plough’d the main.
Crete’s ample fields diminish to our eye;
Before the Boreal blast the vessels fly;
Safe through the level seas we sweep our way;
The steersman governs, and the ships obey.
The fifth fair morn we stem the Ægyptian tide, | 1,049 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
And tilting o’er the bay the vessels ride:
To anchor there my fellows I command,
And spies commission to explore the land.
But, sway’d by lust of gain, and headlong will,
The coasts they ravage, and the natives kill.
The spreading clamour to their city flies,
And horse and foot in mingled tumult rise.
The reddening dawn reveals the circling fields,
Horrid with bristly spears, and glancing shields.
Jove thunder’d on their side. Our guilty head
We turn’d to flight; the gathering vengeance spread
On all parts round, and heaps on heaps lie dead.
I then explored my thought, what course to prove
(And sure the thought was dictated by Jove):
Oh, had he left me to that happier doom,
And saved a life of miseries to come!
The radiant helmet from my brows unlaced,
And low on earth my shield and javelin cast,
I meet the monarch with a suppliant’s face,
Approach his chariot, and his knees embrace,
He heard, he saved, he placed me at his side;
My state he pitied, and my tears he dried,
Restrain’d the rage the vengeful foe express’d,
And turn’d the deadly weapons from my breast.
Pious! to guard the hospitable rite,
And fearing Jove, whom mercy’s works delight.
“In Ægypt thus with peace and plenty bless’d,
I lived (and happy still have lived) a guest.
On seven bright years successive blessings wait;
The next changed all the colour of my fate.
A false Phoenician, of insiduous mind,
Versed in vile arts, and foe to humankind,
With semblance fair invites me to his home;
I seized the proffer (ever fond to roam):
Domestic in his faithless roof I stay’d,
Till the swift sun his annual circle made.
To Libya then he mediates the way;
With guileful art a stranger to betray,
And sell to bondage in a foreign land:
Much doubting, yet compell’d I quit the strand,
Through the mid seas the nimble pinnace sails,
Aloof from Crete, before the northern gales:
But when remote her chalky cliffs we lost, | 1,050 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
And far from ken of any other coast,
When all was wild expanse of sea and air,
Then doom’d high Jove due vengeance to prepare.
He hung a night of horrors o’er their head
(The shaded ocean blacken’d as it spread):
He launch’d the fiery bolt: from pole to pole
Broad burst the lightnings, deep the thunders roll;
In giddy rounds the whirling ship is toss’d,
And all in clouds of smothering sulphur lost.
As from a hanging rock’s tremendous height,
The sable crows with intercepted flight
Drop endlong; scarr’d, and black with sulphurous hue,
So from the deck are hurl’d the ghastly crew.
Such end the wicked found! but Jove’s intent
Was yet to save the oppress’d and innocent.
Placed on the mast (the last resource of life)
With winds and waves I held unequal strife:
For nine long days the billows tilting o’er,
The tenth soft wafts me to Thesprotia’s shore.
The monarch’s son a shipwreck’d wretch relieved,
The sire with hospitable rites received,
And in his palace like a brother placed,
With gifts of price and gorgeous garments graced
While here I sojourn’d, oft I heard the fame
How late Ulysses to the country came.
How loved, how honour’d in this court he stay’d,
And here his whole collected treasure laid;
I saw myself the vast unnumber’d store
Of steel elaborate, and refulgent ore,
And brass high heap’d amidst the regal dome;
Immense supplies for ages yet to come!
Meantime he voyaged to explore the will
Of Jove, on high Dodona’s holy hill,
What means might best his safe return avail,
To come in pomp, or bear a secret sail?
Full oft has Phidon, whilst he pour’d the wine,
Attesting solemn all the powers divine,
That soon Ulysses would return, declared
The sailors waiting, and the ships prepared.
But first the king dismiss’d me from his shores,
For fair Dulichium crown’d with fruitful stores;
To good Acastus’ friendly care consign’d:
But other counsels pleased the sailors’ mind: | 1,051 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
New frauds were plotted by the faithless train,
And misery demands me once again.
Soon as remote from shore they plough the wave,
With ready hands they rush to seize their slave;
Then with these tatter’d rags they wrapp’d me round
(Stripp’d of my own), and to the vessel bound.
At eve, at Ithaca’s delightful land
The ship arriv’d: forth issuing on the sand,
They sought repast; while to the unhappy kind,
The pitying gods themselves my chains unbind.
Soft I descended, to the sea applied
My naked breast, and shot along the tide.
Soon pass’d beyond their sight, I left the flood,
And took the spreading shelter of the wood.
Their prize escaped the faithless pirates mourn’d;
But deem’d inquiry vain, and to their ships return’d.
Screen’d by protecting gods from hostile eyes,
They led me to a good man and a wise,
To live beneath thy hospitable care,
And wait the woes Heaven dooms me yet to bear.”
“Unhappy guest! whose sorrows touch my mind!
(Thus good Eumaeus with a sigh rejoin’d,)
For real sufferings since I grieve sincere,
Check not with fallacies the springing tear:
Nor turn the passion into groundless joy
For him whom Heaven has destined to destroy.
Oh! had he perish’d on some well-fought day,
Or in his friend’s embraces died away!
That grateful Greece with streaming eyes might raise
Historic marbles to record his praise;
His praise, eternal on the faithful stone,
Had with transmissive honours graced his son.
Now, snatch’d by harpies to the dreary coast,
Sunk is the hero, and his glory lost!
While pensive in this solitary den,
Far from gay cities and the ways of men,
I linger life; nor to the court repair,
But when my constant queen commands my care;
Or when, to taste her hospitable board,
Some guest arrives, with rumours of her lord;
And these indulge their want, and those their woe,
And here the tears and there the goblets flow.
By many such have I been warn’d; but chief | 1,052 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
By one Aetolian robb’d of all belief,
Whose hap it was to this our roof to roam,
For murder banish’d from his native home.
He swore, Ulysses on the coast of Crete
Stay’d but a season to refit his fleet;
A few revolving months should waft him o’er,
Fraught with bold warriors, and a boundless store
O thou! whom age has taught to understand,
And Heaven has guided with a favouring hand!
On god or mortal to obtrude a lie
Forbear, and dread to flatter as to die.
Nor for such ends my house and heart are free,
But dear respect to Jove, and charity.”
“And why, O swain of unbelieving mind!
(Thus quick replied the wisest of mankind)
Doubt you my oath? yet more my faith to try,
A solemn compact let us ratify,
And witness every power that rules the sky!
If here Ulysses from his labours rest,
Be then my prize a tunic and a vest;
And where my hopes invite me, straight transport
In safety to Dulichium’s friendly court.
But if he greets not thy desiring eye,
Hurl me from yon dread precipice on high:
The due reward of fraud and perjury.”
“Doubtless, O guest! great laud and praise were mine
(Replied the swain, for spotless faith divine),
If after social rites and gifts bestow’d,
I stain’d my hospitable hearth with blood.
How would the gods my righteous toils succeed,
And bless the hand that made a stranger bleed?
No more—the approaching hours of silent night
First claim refection, then to rest invite;
Beneath our humble cottage let us haste,
And here, unenvied, rural dainties taste.”
Thus communed these; while to their lowly dome
The full-fed swine return’d with evening home;
Compell’d, reluctant, to their several sties,
With din obstreperous, and ungrateful cries.
Then to the slaves: “Now from the herd the best
Select in honour of our foreign guest:
With him let us the genial banquet share,
For great and many are the griefs we bear;
While those who from our labours heap their board | 1,053 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Blaspheme their feeder, and forget their lord.”
Thus speaking, with despatchful hand he took
A weighty axe, and cleft the solid oak;
This on the earth he piled; a boar full fed,
Of five years’ age, before the pile was led:
The swain, whom acts of piety delight,
Observant of the gods, begins the rite;
First shears the forehead of the bristly boar,
And suppliant stands, invoking every power
To speed Ulysses to his native shore.
A knotty stake then aiming at his head,
Down dropped he groaning, and the spirit fled.
The scorching flames climb round on every side;
Then the singed members they with skill divide;
On these, in rolls of fat involved with art,
The choicest morsels lay from every part.
Some in the flames bestrew’d with flour they threw;
Some cut in fragments from the forks they drew:
These while on several tables they dispose.
A priest himself the blameless rustic rose;
Expert the destined victim to dispart
In seven just portions, pure of hand and heart.
One sacred to the nymphs apart they lay:
Another to the winged son of May;
The rural tribe in common share the rest,
The king the chine, the honour of the feast,
Who sate delighted at his servant’s board;
The faithful servant joy’d his unknown lord.
“Oh be thou dear (Ulysses cried) to Jove,
As well thou claim’st a grateful stranger’s love!”
“Be then thy thanks (the bounteous swain replied)
Enjoyment of the good the gods provide.
From God’s own hand descend our joys and woes;
These he decrees, and he but suffers those:
All power is his, and whatsoe’er he wills,
The will itself, omnipotent, fulfils.”
This said, the first-fruits to the gods he gave;
Then pour’d of offer’d wine the sable wave:
In great Ulysses’ hand he placed the bowl,
He sate, and sweet refection cheer’d his soul.
The bread from canisters Mesaulius gave
(Eumaeus’ proper treasure bought this slave,
And led from Taphos, to attend his board, | 1,054 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
A servant added to his absent lord);
His task it was the wheaten loaves to lay,
And from the banquet take the bowls away.
And now the rage of hunger was repress’d,
And each betakes him to his couch to rest.
Now came the night, and darkness cover’d o’er
The face of things; the winds began to roar;
The driving storm the watery west-wind pours,
And Jove descends in deluges of showers.
Studious of rest and warmth, Ulysses lies,
Foreseeing from the first the storm would rise
In mere necessity of coat and cloak,
With artful preface to his host he spoke:
“Hear me, my friends! who this good banquet grace;
’Tis sweet to play the fool in time and place,
And wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile,
The grave in merry measures frisk about,
And many a long-repented word bring out.
Since to be talkative I now commence,
Let wit cast off the sullen yoke of sense.
Once I was strong (would Heaven restore those days!)
And with my betters claim’d a share of praise.
Ulysses, Menelaus, led forth a band,
And join’d me with them (’twas their own command);
A deathful ambush for the foe to lay,
Beneath Troy walls by night we took our way:
There, clad in arms, along the marshes spread,
We made the osier-fringed bank our bed.
Full soon the inclemency of heaven I feel,
Nor had these shoulders covering, but of steel.
Sharp blew the north; snow whitening all the fields
Froze with the blast, and gathering glazed our shields.
There all but I, well fenced with cloak and vest,
Lay cover’d by their ample shields at rest.
Fool that I was! I left behind my own,
The skill of weather and of winds unknown,
And trusted to my coat and shield alone!
When now was wasted more than half the night,
And the stars faded at approaching light,
Sudden I jogg’d Ulysses, who was laid
Fast by my side, and shivering thus I said:
“‘Here longer in this field I cannot lie; | 1,055 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
The winter pinches, and with cold I die,
And die ashamed (O wisest of mankind),
The only fool who left his cloak behind.’
“He thought and answer’d: hardly waking yet,
Sprung in his mind a momentary wit
(That wit, which or in council or in fight,
Still met the emergence, and determined right).
‘Hush thee (he cried, soft whispering in my ear),
Speak not a word, lest any Greek may hear’—
And then (supporting on his arm his head),
‘Hear me, companions! (thus aloud he said:)
Methinks too distant from the fleet we lie:
E’en now a vision stood before my eye,
And sure the warning vision was from high:
Let from among us some swift courier rise,
Haste to the general, and demand supplies.’
“Up started Thoas straight, Andraemon’s son,
Nimbly he rose, and cast his garment down!
Instant, the racer vanish’d off the ground;
That instant in his cloak I wrapp’d me round:
And safe I slept, till brightly-dawning shone
The morn conspicuous on her golden throne.
“Oh were my strength as then, as then my age!
Some friend would fence me from the winter’s rage.
Yet, tatter’d as I look, I challenged then
The honours and the offices of men:
Some master, or some servant would allow
A cloak and vest—but I am nothing now!”
“Well hast thou spoke (rejoin’d the attentive swain):
Thy lips let fall no idle word or vain!
Nor garment shalt thou want, nor aught beside,
Meet for the wandering suppliant to provide.
But in the morning take thy clothes again,
For here one vest suffices every swain:
No change of garments to our hinds is known;
But when return’d, the good Ulysses’ son
With better hand shall grace with fit attires
His guest, and send thee where thy soul desires.”
The honest herdsman rose, as this he said,
And drew before the hearth the stranger’s bed;
The fleecy spoils of sheep, a goat’s rough hide
He spreads; and adds a mantle thick and wide;
With store to heap above him, and below, | 1,056 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
And guard each quarter as the tempests blow.
There lay the king, and all the rest supine;
All, but the careful master of the swine:
Forth hasted he to tend his bristly care;
Well arm’d, and fenced against nocturnal air:
His weighty falchion o’er his shoulder tied:
His shaggy cloak a mountain goat supplied:
With his broad spear the dread of dogs and men,
He seeks his lodging in the rocky den.
There to the tusky herd he bends his way,
Where, screen’d from Boreas, high o’erarch’d they lay.
BOOK XV.
ARGUMENT.
THE RETURN OF TELEMACHUS.
The goddess Minerva commands Telemachus in a vision to return to Ithaca.
Pisistratus and he take leave of Menelaus, and arrive at Pylos, where they
part: and Telemachus sets sail, after having received on board Theoclymenus the
soothsayer. The scene then changes to the cottage of Eumaeus, who entertains
Ulysses with a recital of his adventures. In the meantime Telemachus arrives on
the coast, and sending the vessel to the town, proceeds by himself to the lodge
of Eumaeus.
Now had Minerva reach’d those ample plains,
Famed for the dance, where Menelaus reigns:
Anxious she flies to great Ulysses’ heir,
His instant voyage challenged all her care.
Beneath the royal portico display’d,
With Nestor’s son Telemachus was laid:
In sleep profound the son of Nestor lies;
Not thine, Ulysses! Care unseal’d his eyes:
Restless he grieved, with various fears oppress’d,
And all thy fortunes roll’d within his breast.
When, “O Telemachus! (the goddess said)
Too long in vain, too widely hast thou stray’d,
Thus leaving careless thy paternal right
The robbers’ prize, the prey to lawless might.
On fond pursuits neglectful while you roam,
E’en now the hand of rapine sacks the dome.
Hence to Atrides; and his leave implore
To launch thy vessel for thy natal shore;
Fly, whilst thy mother virtuous yet withstands
Her kindred’s wishes, and her sire’s commands; | 1,057 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Through both, Eurymachus pursues the dame,
And with the noblest gifts asserts his claim.
Hence, therefore, while thy stores thy own remain;
Thou know’st the practice of the female train,
Lost in the children of the present spouse,
They slight the pledges of their former vows;
Their love is always with the lover past;
Still the succeeding flame expels the last.
Let o’er thy house some chosen maid preside,
Till Heaven decrees to bless thee in a bride.
But now thy more attentive ears incline,
Observe the warnings of a power divine;
For thee their snares the suitor lords shall lay
In Samos’ sands, or straits of Ithaca;
To seize thy life shall lurk the murderous band,
Ere yet thy footsteps press thy native land.
No!—sooner far their riot and their lust
All-covering earth shall bury deep in dust!
Then distant from the scatter’d islands steer,
Nor let the night retard thy full career;
Thy heavenly guardian shall instruct the gales
To smooth thy passage and supply thy sails:
And when at Ithaca thy labour ends,
Send to the town the vessel with thy friends;
But seek thou first the master of the swine
(For still to thee his loyal thoughts incline);
There pass the night: while he his course pursues
To bring Penelope the wish’d-for news,
That thou, safe sailing from the Pylian strand,
Art come to bless her in thy native land.”
Thus spoke the goddess, and resumed her flight
To the pure regions of eternal light,
Meanwhile Pisistratus he gently shakes,
And with these words the slumbering youth awakes:
“Rise, son of Nestor; for the road prepare,
And join the harness’d coursers to the car.”
“What cause (he cried) can justify our flight
To tempt the dangers of forbidding night?
Here wait we rather, till approaching day
Shall prompt our speed, and point the ready way.
Nor think of flight before the Spartan king
Shall bid farewell, and bounteous presents bring;
Gifts, which to distant ages safely stored, | 1,058 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
The sacred act of friendship shall record.”
Thus he. But when the dawn bestreak’d the east,
The king from Helen rose, and sought his guest.
As soon as his approach the hero knew,
The splendid mantle round him first he threw,
Then o’er his ample shoulders whirl’d the cloak,
Respectful met the monarch, and bespoke:
“Hail, great Atrides, favour’d of high Jove!
Let not thy friends in vain for licence move.
Swift let us measure back the watery way,
Nor check our speed, impatient of delay.”
“If with desire so strong thy bosom glows,
Ill (said the king) should I thy wish oppose;
For oft in others freely I reprove
The ill-timed efforts of officious love;
Who love too much, hate in the like extreme,
And both the golden mean alike condemn.
Alike he thwarts the hospitable end,
Who drives the free, or stays the hasty friend:
True friendship’s laws are by this rule express’d,
Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.
Yet, stay, my friends, and in your chariot take
The noblest presents that our love can make;
Meantime commit we to our women’s care
Some choice domestic viands to prepare;
The traveller, rising from the banquet gay,
Eludes the labours of the tedious way,
Then if a wider course shall rather please,
Through spacious Argos and the realms of Greece,
Atrides in his chariot shall attend;
Himself thy convoy to each royal friend.
No prince will let Ulysses’ heir remove
Without some pledge, some monument of love:
These will the caldron, these the tripod give;
From those the well-pair’d mules we shall receive,
Or bowl emboss’d whose golden figures live.”
To whom the youth, for prudence famed, replied:
“O monarch, care of heaven! thy people’s pride!
No friend in Ithaca my place supplies,
No powerful hands are there, no watchful eyes:
My stores exposed and fenceless house demand
The speediest succour from my guardian hand;
Lest, in a search too anxious and too vain, | 1,059 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Of one lost joy, I lose what yet remain.”
His purpose when the generous warrior heard,
He charged the household cates to be prepared.
Now with the dawn, from his adjoining home,
Was Boethoedes Eteoneus come;
Swift at the word he forms the rising blaze,
And o’er the coals the smoking fragments lays.
Meantime the king, his son, and Helen went
Where the rich wardrobe breathed a costly scent;
The king selected from the glittering rows
A bowl; the prince a silver beaker chose.
The beauteous queen revolved with careful eyes
Her various textures of unnumber’d dyes,
And chose the largest; with no vulgar art
Her own fair hands embroider’d every part;
Beneath the rest it lay divinely bright,
Like radiant Hesper o’er the gems of night,
Then with each gift they hasten’d to their guest,
And thus the king Ulysses’ heir address’d:
“Since fix’d are thy resolves, may thundering Jove
With happiest omens thy desires approve!
This silver bowl, whose costly margins shine
Enchased with gold, this valued gift be thine;
To me this present, of Vulcanian frame,
From Sidon’s hospitable monarch came;
To thee we now consign the precious load,
The pride of kings, and labour of a god.”
Then gave the cup, while Megapenthe brought
The silver vase with living sculpture wrought.
The beauteous queen, advancing next, display’d
The shining veil, and thus endearing said:
“Accept, dear youth, this monument of love,
Long since, in better days, by Helen wove:
Safe in thy mother’s care the vesture lay,
To deck thy bride and grace thy nuptial day.
Meantime may’st thou with happiest speed regain
Thy stately palace, and thy wide domain.”
She said, and gave the veil; with grateful look
The prince the variegated present took.
And now, when through the royal dome they pass’d,
High on a throne the king each stranger placed.
A golden ewer the attendant damsel brings,
Replete with water from the crystal springs; | 1,060 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
With copious streams the shining vase supplies
A silver layer of capacious size.
They wash. The tables in fair order spread,
The glittering canisters are crown’d with bread;
Viands of various kinds allure the taste,
Of choicest sort and savour; rich repast!
Whilst Eteoneus portions out the shares
Atrides’ son the purple draught prepares,
And now (each sated with the genial feast,
And the short rage of thirst and hunger ceased)
Ulysses’ son, with his illustrious friend,
The horses join, the polish’d car ascend,
Along the court the fiery steeds rebound,
And the wide portal echoes to the sound.
The king precedes; a bowl with fragrant wine
(Libation destined to the powers divine)
His right hand held: before the steed he stands,
Then, mix’d with prayers, he utters these commands:
“Farewell, and prosper, youths! let Nestor know
What grateful thoughts still in this bosom glow,
For all the proofs of his paternal care,
Through the long dangers of the ten years’ war.”
“Ah! doubt not our report (the prince rejoin’d)
Of all the virtues of thy generous mind.
And oh! return’d might we Ulysses meet!
To him thy presents show, thy words repeat:
How will each speech his grateful wonder raise!
How will each gift indulge us in thy praise!”
Scarce ended thus the prince, when on the right
Advanced the bird of Jove: auspicious sight!
A milk-white fowl his clinching talons bore,
With care domestic pampered at the floor.
Peasants in vain with threatening cries pursue,
In solemn speed the bird majestic flew
Full dexter to the car; the prosperous sight
Fill’d every breast with wonder and delight.
But Nestor’s son the cheerful silence broke,
And in these words the Spartan chief bespoke:
“Say if to us the gods these omens send,
Or fates peculiar to thyself portend?”
Whilst yet the monarch paused, with doubts oppress’d
The beauteous queen relieved his labouring breast: | 1,061 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
“Hear me (she cried), to whom the gods have given
To read this sign, and mystic sense of heaven,
As thus the plumy sovereign of the air
Left on the mountain’s brow his callow care,
And wander’d through the wide ethereal way
To pour his wrath on yon luxurious prey;
So shall thy godlike father, toss’d in vain
Through all the dangers of the boundless main,
Arrive (or if perchance already come)
From slaughter’d gluttons to release the dome.”
“Oh! if this promised bliss by thundering Jove
(The prince replied) stand fix’d in fate above;
To thee, as to some god, I’ll temples raise.
And crown thy altars with the costly blaze.”
He said; and bending o’er his chariot, flung
Athwart the fiery steeds the smarting thong;
The bounding shafts upon the harness play,
Till night descending intercepts the way.
To Diocles at Pherae they repair,
Whose boasted sire was sacred Alpheus’ heir;
With him all night the youthful stranger stay’d,
Nor found the hospitable rites unpaid,
But soon as morning from her orient bed
Had tinged the mountains with her earliest red,
They join’d the steeds, and on the chariot sprung,
The brazen portals in their passage rung.
To Pylos soon they came; when thus begun
To Nestor’s heir Ulysses’ godlike son:
“Let not Pisistratus in vain be press’d,
Nor unconsenting hear his friend’s request;
His friend by long hereditary claim,
In toils his equal, and in years the same.
No farther from our vessel, I implore,
The coursers drive; but lash them to the shore.
Too long thy father would his friend detain;
I dread his proffer’d kindness urged in vain.”
The hero paused, and ponder’d this request,
While love and duty warr’d within his breast.
At length resolved, he turn’d his ready hand,
And lash’d his panting coursers to the strand.
There, while within the poop with care he stored
The regal presents of the Spartan lord,
“With speed begone (said he); call every mate, | 1,062 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Ere yet to Nestor I the tale relate:
’Tis true, the fervour of his generous heart
Brooks no repulse, nor couldst thou soon depart:
Himself will seek thee here, nor wilt thou find,
In words alone, the Pylian monarch kind.
But when, arrived, he thy return shall know
How will his breast with honest fury glow!”
This said, the sounding strokes his horses fire,
And soon he reached the palace of his sire.
“Now (cried Telemachus) with speedy care
Hoist every sail, and every oar prepare.”
Swift as the word his willing mates obey,
And seize their seats, impatient for the sea.
Meantime the prince with sacrifice adores
Minerva, and her guardian aid implores;
When lo! a wretch ran breathless to the shore,
New from his crime; and reeking yet with gore.
A seer he was, from great Melampus sprung,
Melampus, who in Pylos flourish’d long,
Till, urged by wrongs, a foreign realm he chose,
Far from the hateful cause of all his woes.
Neleus his treasures one long year detains,
As long he groan’d in Philacus’s chains:
Meantime, what anguish and what rage combined
For lovely Pero rack’d his labouring mind!
Yet ’scaped he death; and vengeful of his wrong
To Pylos drove the lowing herds along:
Then (Neleus vanquish’d, and consign’d the fair
To Bias’ arms) he so sought a foreign air;
Argos the rich for his retreat he chose,
There form’d his empire; there his palace rose.
From him Antiphates and Mantius came:
The first begot Oicleus great in fame,
And he Amphiaraus, immortal name!
The people’s saviour, and divinely wise,
Beloved by Jove, and him who gilds the skies;
Yet short his date of life! by female pride he dies.
From Mantius Clitus, whom Aurora’s love
Snatch’d for his beauty to the thrones above;
And Polyphides, on whom Phœbus shone
With fullest rays, Amphiaraus now gone;
In Hyperesia’s groves he made abode,
And taught mankind the counsels of the god.
From him sprung Theoclymenus, who found | 1,063 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
(The sacred wine yet foaming on the ground)
Telemachus: whom, as to Heaven he press’d
His ardent vows, the stranger thus address’d:
“O thou! that dost thy happy course prepare
With pure libations and with solemn prayer:
By that dread power to whom thy vows are paid;
By all the lives of these; thy own dear head,
Declare sincerely to no foe’s demand
Thy name, thy lineage, and paternal land.”
“Prepare, then (said Telemachus), to know
A tale from falsehood free, not free from woe.
From Ithaca, of royal birth I came,
And great Ulysses (ever honour’d name!)
Once was my sire, though now, for ever lost,
In Stygian gloom he glides a pensive ghost!
Whose fate inquiring through the world we rove;
The last, the wretched proof of filial love.”
The stranger then: “Nor shall I aught conceal,
But the dire secret of my fate reveal.
Of my own tribe an Argive wretch I slew;
Whose powerful friends the luckless deed pursue
With unrelenting rage, and force from home
The blood-stain’d exile, ever doom’d to roam.
But bear, oh bear me o’er yon azure flood;
Receive the suppliant! spare my destined blood!”
“Stranger (replied the prince) securely rest
Affianced in our faith; henceforth our guest.”
Thus affable, Ulysses’ godlike heir
Takes from the stranger’s hand the glittering spear:
He climbs the ship, ascends the stern with haste
And by his side the guest accepted placed.
The chief his order gives: the obedient band,
With due observance wait the chief’s command:
With speed the mast they rear, with speed unbind
The spacious sheet, and stretch it to the wind.
Minerva calls; the ready gales obey
With rapid speed to whirl them o’er the sea.
Crunus they pass’d, next Chalcis roll’d away,
With thickening darkness closed the doubtful day;
The silver Phaea’s glittering rills they lost,
And skimm’d along by Elis’ sacred coast.
Then cautious through the rocky reaches wind, | 1,064 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
And turning sudden, shun the death design’d.
Meantime, the king, Eumaeus, and the rest,
Sate in the cottage, at their rural feast:
The banquet pass’d, and satiate every man,
To try his host, Ulysses thus began:
“Yet one night more, my friends, indulge your guest;
The last I purpose in your walls to rest:
To-morrow for myself I must provide,
And only ask your counsel, and a guide;
Patient to roam the street, by hunger led,
And bless the friendly hand that gives me bread.
There in Ulysses’ roof I may relate
Ulysses’ wanderings to his royal mate;
Or, mingling with the suitors’ haughty train,
Not undeserving some support obtain.
Hermes to me his various gifts imparts.
Patron of industry and manual arts:
Few can with me in dexterous works contend,
The pyre to build, the stubborn oak to rend;
To turn the tasteful viand o’er the flame;
Or foam the goblet with a purple stream.
Such are the tasks of men of mean estate,
Whom fortune dooms to serve the rich and great.”
“Alas! (Eumaeus with a sigh rejoin’d).
How sprung a thought so monstrous in thy mind?
If on that godless race thou would’st attend,
Fate owes thee sure a miserable end!
Their wrongs and blasphemies ascend the sky,
And pull descending vengeance from on high.
Not such, my friend, the servants of their feast:
A blooming train in rich embroidery dress’d,
With earth’s whole tribute the bright table bends,
And smiling round celestial youth attends.
Stay, then: no eye askance beholds thee here;
Sweet is thy converse to each social ear;
Well pleased, and pleasing, in our cottage rest,
Till good Telemachus accepts his guest
With genial gifts, and change of fair attires,
And safe conveys thee where thy soul desires.”
To him the man of woes; “O gracious Jove!
Reward this stranger’s hospitable love!
Who knows the son of sorrow to relieve,
Cheers the sad heart, nor lets affliction grieve.
Of all the ills unhappy mortals know, | 1,065 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
A life of wanderings is the greatest woe;
On all their weary ways wait care and pain,
And pine and penury, a meagre train.
To such a man since harbour you afford,
Relate the farther fortunes of your lord;
What cares his mother’s tender breast engage,
And sire forsaken on the verge of age;
Beneath the sun prolong they yet their breath,
Or range the house of darkness and of death?”
To whom the swain: “Attend what you enquire;
Laertes lives, the miserable sire,
Lives, but implores of every power to lay
The burden down, and wishes for the day.
Torn from his offspring in the eve of life,
Torn from the embraces of his tender wife,
Sole, and all comfortless, he wastes away
Old age, untimely posting ere his day.
She too, sad mother! for Ulysses lost
Pined out her bloom, and vanish’d to a ghost;
(So dire a fate, ye righteous gods! avert
From every friendly, every feeling heart!)
While yet she was, though clouded o’er with grief.
Her pleasing converse minister’d relief:
With Climene, her youngest daughter, bred,
One roof contain’d us, and one table fed.
But when the softly-stealing pace of time
Crept on from childhood into youthful prime,
To Samos’ isle she sent the wedded fair;
Me to the fields; to tend the rural care;
Array’d in garments her own hands had wove,
Nor less the darling object of her love.
Her hapless death my brighter days o’ercast,
Yet Providence deserts me not at last;
My present labours food and drink procure,
And more, the pleasure to relieve the poor.
Small is the comfort from the queen to hear
Unwelcome news, or vex the royal ear;
Blank and discountenanced the servants stand,
Nor dare to question where the proud command;
No profit springs beneath usurping powers;
Want feeds not there where luxury devours,
Nor harbours charity where riot reigns:
Proud are the lords, and wretched are the swains.”
The suffering chief at this began to melt; | 1,066 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
And, “O Eumaeus! thou (he cries) hast felt
The spite of fortune too! her cruel hand
Snatch’d thee an infant from thy native land!
Snatch’d from thy parents’ arms, thy parents’ eyes,
To early wants! a man of miseries!
The whole sad story, from its first, declare:
Sunk the fair city by the rage of war,
Where once thy parents dwelt? or did they keep,
In humbler life, the lowing herds and sheep?
So left perhaps to tend the fleecy train,
Rude pirates seized, and shipp’d thee o’er the main?
Doom’d a fair prize to grace some prince’s board,
The worthy purchase of a foreign lord.”
“If then my fortunes can delight my friend,
A story fruitful of events attend:
Another’s sorrow may thy ears enjoy,
And wine the lengthen’d intervals employ.
Long nights the now declining year bestows;
A part we consecrate to soft repose,
A part in pleasing talk we entertain;
For too much rest itself becomes a pain.
Let those, whom sleep invites, the call obey,
Their cares resuming with the dawning day:
Here let us feast, and to the feast be join’d
Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind;
Review the series of our lives, and taste
The melancholy joy of evils pass’d:
For he who much has suffer’d, much will know,
And pleased remembrance builds delight on woe.
“Above Ortygia lies an isle of fame,
Far hence remote, and Syria is the name
(There curious eyes inscribed with wonder trace
The sun’s diurnal, and his annual race);
Not large, but fruitful; stored with grass to keep
The bellowing oxen and the bleating sheep;
Her sloping hills the mantling vines adorn,
And her rich valleys wave with golden corn.
No want, no famine, the glad natives know,
Nor sink by sickness to the shades below;
But when a length of years unnerves the strong,
Apollo comes, and Cynthia comes along.
They bend the silver bow with tender skill,
And, void of pain, the silent arrows kill.
Two equal tribes this fertile land divide, | 1,067 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Where two fair cities rise with equal pride.
But both in constant peace one prince obey,
And Ctesius there, my father, holds the sway.
Freighted, it seems, with toys of every sort,
A ship of Sidon anchor’d in our port;
What time it chanced the palace entertain’d,
Skill’d in rich works, a woman of their land:
This nymph, where anchor’d the Phoenician train,
To wash her robes descending to the main,
A smooth tongued sailor won her to his mind
(For love deceives the best of womankind).
A sudden trust from sudden liking grew;
She told her name, her race, and all she knew,
‘I too (she cried) from glorious Sidon came,
My father Arybas, of wealthy fame:
But, snatch’d by pirates from my native place,
The Taphians sold me to this man’s embrace.’
“‘Haste then (the false designing youth replied),
Haste to thy country; love shall be thy guide;
Haste to thy father’s house, thy father’s breast,
For still he lives, and lives with riches blest.’
“‘Swear first (she cried), ye sailors! to restore
A wretch in safety to her native shore.’
Swift as she ask’d, the ready sailors swore.
She then proceeds: ‘Now let our compact made
Be nor by signal nor by word betray’d,
Nor near me any of your crew descried,
By road frequented, or by fountain side.
Be silence still our guard. The monarch’s spies
(For watchful age is ready to surmise)
Are still at hand; and this, revealed, must be
Death to yourselves, eternal chains to me.
Your vessel loaded, and your traffic pass’d,
Despatch a wary messenger with haste;
Then gold and costly treasures will I bring,
And more, the infant offspring of the king.
Him, child-like wandering forth, I’ll lead away
(A noble prize!) and to your ship convey.’
“Thus spoke the dame, and homeward took the road.
A year they traffic, and their vessel load.
Their stores complete, and ready now to weigh,
A spy was sent their summons to convey:
An artist to my father’s palace came, | 1,068 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
With gold and amber chains, elaborate frame:
Each female eye the glittering links employ;
They turn, review, and cheapen every toy.
He took the occasion, as they stood intent,
Gave her the sign, and to his vessel went.
She straight pursued, and seized my willing arm;
I follow’d, smiling, innocent of harm.
Three golden goblets in the porch she found
(The guests not enter’d, but the table crown’d);
Hid in her fraudful bosom these she bore:
Now set the sun, and darken’d all the shore.
Arriving then, where tilting on the tides
Prepared to launch the freighted vessel rides,
Aboard they heave us, mount their decks, and sweep
With level oar along the glassy deep.
Six calmy days and six smooth nights we sail,
And constant Jove supplied the gentle gale.
The seventh, the fraudful wretch (no cause descried),
Touch’d by Diana’s vengeful arrow, died.
Down dropp’d the caitiff-corse, a worthless load,
Down to the deep; there roll’d, the future food
Of fierce sea-wolves, and monsters of the flood.
An helpless infant I remain’d behind;
Thence borne to Ithaca by wave and wind;
Sold to Laertes by divine command,
And now adopted to a foreign land.”
To him the king: “Reciting thus thy cares,
My secret soul in all thy sorrow shares;
But one choice blessing (such is Jove’s high will)
Has sweeten’d all thy bitter draught of ill:
Torn from thy country to no hapless end,
The gods have, in a master, given a friend.
Whatever frugal nature needs is thine
(For she needs little), daily bread and wine.
While I, so many wanderings past, and woes,
Live but on what thy poverty bestows.”
So passed in pleasing dialogue away
The night; then down to short repose they lay;
Till radiant rose the messenger of day.
While in the port of Ithaca, the band
Of young Telemachus approach’d the land;
Their sails they loosed, they lash’d the mast aside,
And cast their anchors, and the cables tied: | 1,069 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Then on the breezy shore, descending, join
In grateful banquet o’er the rosy wine.
When thus the prince: “Now each his course pursue;
I to the fields, and to the city you.
Long absent hence, I dedicate this day
My swains to visit, and the works survey.
Expect me with the morn, to pay the skies
Our debt of safe return in feast and sacrifice.”
Then Theoclymenus: “But who shall lend,
Meantime, protection to thy stranger friend?
Straight to the queen and palace shall I fly,
Or yet more distant, to some lord apply?”
The prince return’d: “Renown’d in days of yore
Has stood our father’s hospitable door;
No other roof a stranger should receive,
No other hands than ours the welcome give.
But in my absence riot fills the place,
Nor bears the modest queen a stranger’s face;
From noiseful revel far remote she flies,
But rarely seen, or seen with weeping eyes.
No—let Eurymachus receive my guest,
Of nature courteous, and by far the best;
He woos the queen with more respectful flame,
And emulates her former husband’s fame,
With what success, ’tis Jove’s alone to know,
And the hoped nuptials turn to joy or woe.”
Thus speaking, on the right up-soar’d in air
The hawk, Apollo’s swift-wing’d messenger:
His dreadful pounces tore a trembling dove;
The clotted feathers, scatter’d from above,
Between the hero and the vessel pour
Thick plumage mingled with a sanguine shower.
The observing augur took the prince aside,
Seized by the hand, and thus prophetic cried:
“Yon bird, that dexter cuts the aërial road,
Rose ominous, nor flies without a god:
No race but thine shall Ithaca obey,
To thine, for ages, Heaven decrees the sway.”
“Succeed the omens, gods! (the youth rejoin’d:)
Soon shall my bounties speak a grateful mind,
And soon each envied happiness attend
The man who calls Telemachus his friend.”
Then to Peiraeus: “Thou whom time has proved
A faithful servant, by thy prince beloved! | 1,070 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Till we returning shall our guest demand,
Accept this charge with honour, at our hand.”
To this Peiraeus: “Joyful I obey,
Well pleased the hospitable rites to pay.
The presence of thy guest shall best reward
(If long thy stay) the absence of my lord.”
With that, their anchors he commands to weigh,
Mount the tall bark, and launch into the sea.
All with obedient haste forsake the shores,
And, placed in order, spread their equal oars.
Then from the deck the prince his sandals takes;
Poised in his hand the pointed javelin shakes.
They part; while, lessening from the hero’s view
Swift to the town the well-row’d galley flew:
The hero trod the margin of the main,
And reach’d the mansion of his faithful swain.
BOOK XVI.
ARGUMENT.
THE DISCOVERY OF ULYSSES TO TELEMACHUS.
Telemachus arriving at the lodge of Eumaeus, sends him to carry Penelope the
news of his return. Minerva appearing to Ulysses, commands him to discover
himself to his son. The princes, who had lain in ambush to intercept Telemachus
in his way, their project being defeated, return to
Ithaca.
Soon as the morning blush’d along the plains,
Ulysses, and the monarch of the swains,
Awake the sleeping fires, their meals prepare,
And forth to pasture send the bristly care.
The prince’s near approach the dogs descry,
And fawning round his feet confess their joy.
Their gentle blandishment the king survey’d,
Heard his resounding step, and instant said:
“Some well-known friend, Eumaeus, bends this way;
His steps I hear; the dogs familiar play.”
While yet he spoke, the prince advancing drew
Nigh to the lodge, and now appear’d in view.
Transported from his seat Eumaeus sprung,
Dropp’d the full bowl, and round his bosom hung;
Kissing his cheek, his hand, while from his eye
The tears rain’d copious in a shower of joy,
As some fond sire who ten long winters grieves,
From foreign climes an only son receives | 1,071 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
(Child of his age), with strong paternal joy,
Forward he springs, and clasps the favourite boy:
So round the youth his arms Eumaeus spread,
As if the grave had given him from the dead.
“And is it thou? my ever-dear delight!
Oh, art thou come to bless my longing sight?
Never, I never hoped to view this day,
When o’er the waves you plough’d the desperate way.
Enter, my child! Beyond my hopes restored,
Oh give these eyes to feast upon their lord.
Enter, oh seldom seen! for lawless powers
Too much detain thee from these sylvan bowers,”
The prince replied: “Eumaeus, I obey;
To seek thee, friend, I hither took my way.
But say, if in the court the queen reside
Severely chaste, or if commenced a bride?”
Thus he; and thus the monarch of the swains:
“Severely chaste Penelope remains;
But, lost to every joy, she wastes the day
In tedious cares, and weeps the night away.”
He ended, and (receiving as they pass
The javelin pointed with a star of brass),
They reach’d the dome; the dome with marble shined.
His seat Ulysses to the prince resign’d.
“Not so (exclaims the prince with decent grace)
For me, this house shall find an humbler place:
To usurp the honours due to silver hairs
And reverend strangers modest youth forbears.”
Instant the swain the spoils of beasts supplies,
And bids the rural throne with osiers rise.
There sate the prince: the feast Eumaeus spread,
And heap’d the shining canisters with bread.
Thick o’er the board the plenteous viands lay,
The frugal remnants of the former day.
Then in a bowl he tempers generous wines,
Around whose verge a mimic ivy twines.
And now, the rage of thirst and hunger fled,
Thus young Ulysses to Eumaeus said:
“Whence, father, from what shore this stranger, say?
What vessel bore him o’er the watery way?
To human step our land impervious lies,
And round the coast circumfluent oceans rise.”
The swain returns: “A tale of sorrows hear: | 1,072 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
In spacious Crete he drew his natal air;
Long doom’d to wander o’er the land and main,
For Heaven has wove his thread of life with pain.
Half breathless ’scaping to the land he flew
From Thesprot mariners, a murderous crew.
To thee, my son, the suppliant I resign;
I gave him my protection, grant him thine.”
“Hard task (he cries) thy virtue gives thy friend,
Willing to aid, unable to defend.
Can strangers safely in the court reside,
’Midst the swell’d insolence of lust and pride?
E’en I unsafe: the queen in doubt to wed,
Or pay due honours to the nuptial bed.
Perhaps she weds regardless of her fame,
Deaf to the mighty Ulyssean name.
However, stranger! from our grace receive
Such honours as befit a prince to give;
Sandals, a sword and robes, respect to prove,
And safe to sail with ornaments of love.
Till then, thy guest amid the rural train,
Far from the court, from danger far, detain.
’Tis mine with food the hungry to supply,
And clothe the naked from the inclement sky.
Here dwell in safety from the suitors’ wrongs,
And the rude insults of ungovern’d tongues.
For should’st thou suffer, powerless to relieve,
I must behold it, and can only grieve.
The brave, encompass’d by an hostile train,
O’erpower’d by numbers, is but brave in vain.”
To whom, while anger in his bosom glows,
With warmth replies the man of mighty woes:
“Since audience mild is deign’d, permit my tongue
At once to pity and resent thy wrong.
My heart weeps blood to see a soul so brave
Live to base insolence or power a slave,
But tell me, dost thou, prince, dost thou behold,
And hear their midnight revels uncontroll’d?
Say, do thy subjects in bold faction rise,
Or priests in fabled oracles advise?
Or are thy brothers, who should aid thy power,
Turn’d mean deserters in the needful hour?
Oh that I were from great Ulysses sprung,
Or that these wither’d nerves like thine were strung, | 1,073 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Or, heavens! might he return! (and soon appear
He shall, I trust; a hero scorns despair:)
Might he return, I yield my life a prey
To my worst foe, if that avenging day
Be not their last: but should I lose my life,
Oppress’d by numbers in the glorious strife,
I chose the nobler part, and yield my breath,
Rather than bear dishonor, worse than death;
Than see the hand of violence invade
The reverend stranger and the spotless maid;
Than see the wealth of kings consumed in waste,
The drunkard’s revel, and the gluttons’ feast.”
Thus he, with anger flashing from his eye;
Sincere the youthful hero made reply:
“Nor leagued in factious arms my subjects rise,
Nor priests in fabled oracles advise;
Nor are my brothers, who should aid my power,
Turn’d mean deserters in the needful hour.
Ah me! I boast no brother; heaven’s dread King
Gives from our stock an only branch to spring:
Alone Laertes reign’d Arcesius’ heir,
Alone Ulysses drew the vital air,
And I alone the bed connubial graced,
An unbless’d offspring of a sire unbless’d!
Each neighbouring realm, conducive to our woe,
Sends forth her peers, and every peer a foe:
The court proud Samos and Dulichium fills,
And lofty Zacinth crown’d with shady hills.
E’en Ithaca and all her lords invade
The imperial sceptre, and the regal bed:
The queen, averse to love, yet awed by power,
Seems half to yield, yet flies the bridal hour:
Meantime their licence uncontroll’d I bear;
E’en now they envy me the vital air:
But Heaven will sure revenge, and gods there are.
“But go Eumaeus! to the queen impart
Our safe return, and ease a mother’s heart.
Yet secret go; for numerous are my foes,
And here at least I may in peace repose.”
To whom the swain: “I hear and I obey:
But old Laertes weeps his life away,
And deems thee lost: shall I my speed employ
To bless his age: a messenger of joy?
The mournful hour that tore his son away | 1,074 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Sent the sad sire in solitude to stray;
Yet busied with his slaves, to ease his woe,
He dress’d the vine, and bade the garden blow,
Nor food nor wine refused; but since the day
That you to Pylos plough’d the watery way,
Nor wine nor food he tastes; but, sunk in woes,
Wild springs the vine, no more the garden blows,
Shut from the walks of men, to pleasure lost,
Pensive and pale he wanders half a ghost.”
“Wretched old man! (with tears the prince returns)
Yet cease to go—what man so blest but mourns?
Were every wish indulged by favouring skies,
This hour should give Ulysses to my eyes.
But to the queen with speed dispatchful bear,
Our safe return, and back with speed repair;
And let some handmaid of her train resort
To good Laertes in his rural court.”
While yet he spoke, impatient of delay,
He braced his sandals on, and strode away:
Then from the heavens the martial goddess flies
Through the wild fields of air, and cleaves the skies:
In form, a virgin in soft beauty’s bloom,
Skill’d in the illustrious labours of the loom.
Alone to Ithaca she stood display’d,
But unapparent as a viewless shade
Escaped Telemachus (the powers above,
Seen or unseen, o’er earth at pleasure move):
The dogs intelligent confess’d the tread
Of power divine, and howling, trembling, fled.
The goddess, beckoning, waves her deathless hands:
Dauntless the king before the goddess stands:
“Then why (she said), O favour’d of the skies!
Why to thy godlike son this long disguise?
Stand forth reveal’d; with him thy cares employ
Against thy foes; be valiant and destroy!
Lo! I descend in that avenging hour,
To combat by thy side, thy guardian power.”
She said, and o’er him waves her wand of gold
Imperial robes his manly limbs infold;
At once with grace divine his frame improves;
At once with majesty enlarged he moves:
Youth flush’d his reddening cheek, and from his brows
A length of hair in sable ringlets flows; | 1,075 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
His blackening chin receives a deeper shade;
Then from his eyes upsprung the warrior-maid.
The hero reascends: the prince o’erawed
Scarce lifts his eyes, and bows as to a god,
Then with surprise (surprise chastised by fears):
“How art thou changed! (he cried)—a god appears!
Far other vests thy limbs majestic grace,
Far other glories lighten from thy face!
If heaven be thy abode, with pious care,
Lo! I the ready sacrifice prepare:
Lo! gifts of labour’d gold adorn thy shrine,
To win thy grace: O save us, power divine!”
“Few are my days (Ulysses made reply),
Nor I, alas! descendant of the sky.
I am thy father. O my son! my son!
That father, for whose sake thy days have run
One scene of woe! to endless cares consign’d,
And outraged by the wrongs of base mankind.”
Then, rushing to his arms, he kiss’d his boy
With the strong raptures of a parent’s joy.
Tears bathe his cheek, and tears the ground bedew:
He strain’d him close, as to his breast he grew.
“Ah me! (exclaims the prince with fond desire)
Thou art not—no, thou canst not be my sire.
Heaven such illusion only can impose,
By the false joy to aggravate my woes.
Who but a god can change the general doom,
And give to wither’d age a youthful bloom!
Late, worn with years, in weeds obscene you trod;
Now, clothed in majesty, you move a god!”
“Forbear (he cried,) for Heaven reserve that name;
Give to thy father but a father’s claim;
Other Ulysses shalt thou never see,
I am Ulysses, I, my son, am he.
Twice ten sad years o’er earth and ocean toss’d,
’Tis given at length to view my native coast.
Pallas, unconquer’d maid, my frame surrounds
With grace divine: her power admits no bounds;
She o’er my limbs old age and wrinkles shed;
Now strong as youth, magnificent I tread.
The gods with ease frail man depress or raise,
Exalt the lowly, or the proud debase.”
He spoke and sate. The prince with transport flew, | 1,076 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Hung round his neck, while tears his cheek bedew;
Nor less the father pour’d a social flood;
They wept abundant, and they wept aloud.
As the bold eagle with fierce sorrow stung,
Or parent vulture, mourns her ravish’d young;
They cry, they scream, their unfledged brood a prey
To some rude churl, and borne by stealth away:
So they aloud: and tears in tides had run,
Their grief unfinish’d with the setting sun;
But checking the full torrent in its flow,
The prince thus interrupts the solemn woe.
“What ship transported thee, O father, say;
And what bless’d hands have oar’d thee on the way?”
“All, all (Ulysses instant made reply),
I tell thee all, my child, my only joy!
Phæacians bore me to the port assign’d,
A nation ever to the stranger kind;
Wrapp’d in the embrace of sleep, the faithful train
O’er seas convey’d me to my native reign:
Embroider’d vestures, gold, and brass, are laid
Conceal’d in caverns in the sylvan shade.
Hither, intent the rival rout to slay,
And plan the scene of death, I bend my way;
So Pallas wills—but thou, my son, explain
The names and numbers of the audacious train;
’Tis mine to judge if better to employ
Assistant force, or singly to destroy.”
“O’er earth (returns the prince) resounds thy name,
Thy well-tried wisdom, and thy martial fame,
Yet at thy words I start, in wonder lost;
Can we engage, not decades but an host?
Can we alone in furious battle stand,
Against that numerous and determined band?
Hear then their numbers; from Dulichium came
Twice twenty-six, all peers of mighty name.
Six are their menial train: twice twelve the boast
Of Samos; twenty from Zacynthus’ coast:
And twelve our country’s pride; to these belong
Medon and Phemius, skill’d in heavenly song.
Two sewers from day to day the revels wait,
Exact of taste, and serve the feast in state.
With such a foe the unequal fight to try,
Were by false courage unrevenged to die. | 1,077 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Then what assistant powers you boast relate,
Ere yet we mingle in the stern debate.”
“Mark well my voice, (Ulysses straight replies:)
What need of aids, if favour’d by the skies?
If shielded to the dreadful fight we move,
By mighty Pallas, and by thundering Jove?”
“Sufficient they (Telemachus rejoin’d)
Against the banded powers of all mankind:
They, high enthroned above the rolling clouds,
Wither the strength of man, and awe the gods.”
“Such aids expect (he cries,) when strong in might
We rise terrific to the task of fight.
But thou, when morn salutes the aërial plain,
The court revisit and the lawless train:
Me thither in disguise Eumaeus leads,
An aged mendicant in tatter’d weeds.
There, if base scorn insult my reverend age,
Bear it, my son! repress thy rising rage.
If outraged, cease that outrage to repel;
Bear it, my son! howe’er thy heart rebel.
Yet strive by prayer and counsel to restrain
Their lawless insults, though thou strive in vain:
For wicked ears are deaf to wisdom’s call,
And vengeance strikes whom Heaven has doom’d to fall.
Once more attend: when she whose power inspires
The thinking mind, my soul to vengeance fires,
I give the sign: that instant, from beneath,
Aloft convey the instruments of death,
Armour and arms; and, if mistrust arise,
Thus veil the truth in plausible disguise:
“‘These glittering weapons, ere he sail’d to Troy,
Ulysses view’d with stern heroic joy:
Then, beaming o’er the illumined wall they shone;
Now dust dishonours, all their lustre gone.
I bear them hence (so Jove my soul inspires),
From the pollution of the fuming fires;
Lest when the bowl inflames, in vengeful mood
Ye rush to arms, and stain the feast with blood:
Oft ready swords in luckless hour incite
The hand of wrath, and arm it for the fight.’
“Such be the plea, and by the plea deceive:
For Jove infatuates all, and all believe.
Yet leave for each of us a sword to wield, | 1,078 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
A pointed javelin, and a fenceful shield.
But by my blood that in thy bosom glows,
By that regard a son his father owes;
The secret, that thy father lives, retain
Lock’d in thy bosom from the household train;
Hide it from all; e’en from Eumaeus hide,
From my dear father, and my dearer bride.
One care remains, to note the loyal few
Whose faith yet lasts among the menial crew;
And noting, ere we rise in vengeance, prove
Who love his prince; for sure you merit love.”
To whom the youth: “To emulate, I aim,
The brave and wise, and my great father’s fame.
But reconsider, since the wisest err,
Vengeance resolved, ’tis dangerous to defer.
What length of time must we consume in vain,
Too curious to explore the menial train!
While the proud foes, industrious to destroy
Thy wealth, in riot the delay enjoy.
Suffice it in this exigence alone
To mark the damsels that attend the throne:
Dispersed the youth reside; their faith to prove
Jove grants henceforth, if thou hast spoke from Jove.”
While in debate they waste the hours away,
The associates of the prince repass’d the bay:
With speed they guide the vessel to the shores;
With speed debarking land the naval stores:
Then, faithful to their charge, to Clytius bear,
And trust the presents to his friendly care.
Swift to the queen a herald flies to impart
Her son’s return, and ease a parent’s heart:
Lest a sad prey to ever-musing cares,
Pale grief destroy what time awhile forbears.
The incautious herald with impatience burns,
And cries aloud, “Thy son, O queen, returns;”
Eumaeus sage approach’d the imperial throne,
And breathed his mandate to her ear alone,
Then measured back the way. The suitor band,
Stung to the soul, abash’d, confounded, stand;
And issuing from the dome, before the gate,
With clouded looks, a pale assembly sate.
At length Eurymachus: “Our hopes are vain;
Telemachus in triumph sails the main. | 1,079 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Haste, rear the mast, the swelling shroud display;
Haste, to our ambush’d friends the news convey!”
Scarce had he spake, when, turning to the strand,
Amphinomus survey’d the associate band;
Full to the bay within the winding shores
With gather’d sails they stood, and lifted oars.
“O friends!” he cried, elate with rising joy,
“See to the port secure the vessel fly!
Some god has told them, or themselves survey
The bark escaped; and measure back their way.”
Swift at the word descending to the shores,
They moor the vessel and unlade the stores:
Then, moving from the strand, apart they sate,
And full and frequent form’d a dire debate.
“Lives then the boy? he lives (Antinous cries),
The care of gods and favourite of the skies.
All night we watch’d, till with her orient wheels
Aurora flamed above the eastern hills,
And from the lofty brow of rocks by day
Took in the ocean with a broad survey
Yet safe he sails; the powers celestial give
To shun the hidden snares of death, and live.
But die he shall, and thus condemn’d to bleed,
Be now the scene of instant death decreed.
Hope ye success? undaunted crush the foe.
Is he not wise? know this, and strike the blow.
Wait ye, till he to arms in council draws
The Greeks, averse too justly to our cause?
Strike, ere, the states convened, the foe betray
Our murderous ambush on the watery way.
Or choose ye vagrant from their rage to fly,
Outcasts of earth, to breathe an unknown sky?
The brave prevent misfortune; then be brave,
And bury future danger in his grave.
Returns he? ambush’d we’ll his walk invade,
Or where he hides in solitude and shade;
And give the palace to the queen a dower,
Or him she blesses in the bridal hour.
But if submissive you resign the sway,
Slaves to a boy, go, flatter and obey.
Retire we instant to our native reign,
Nor be the wealth of kings consumed in vain;
Then wed whom choice approves: the queen be given | 1,080 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
To some blest prince, the prince decreed by Heaven.”
Abash’d, the suitor train his voice attends;
Till from his throne Amphinomus ascends,
Who o’er Dulichium stretch’d his spacious reign,
A land of plenty, bless’d with every grain:
Chief of the numbers who the queen address’d,
And though displeasing, yet displeasing least.
Soft were his words; his actions wisdom sway’d;
Graceful awhile he paused, then mildly said:
“O friends, forbear! and be the thought withstood:
’Tis horrible to shed imperial blood!
Consult we first the all-seeing powers above,
And the sure oracles of righteous Jove.
If they assent, e’en by this hand he dies;
If they forbid, I war not with the skies.”
He said: the rival train his voice approved,
And rising instant to the palace moved.
Arrived, with wild tumultuous noise they sate,
Recumbent on the shining thrones of state.
Then Medon, conscious of their dire debates,
The murderous counsel to the queen relates.
Touch’d at the dreadful story, she descends:
Her hasty steps a damsel train attends.
Full where the dome its shining valves expands,
Sudden before the rival powers she stands;
And, veiling, decent, with a modest shade
Her cheek, indignant to Antinous said:
“O void of faith! of all bad men the worst!
Renown’d for wisdom, by the abuse accursed!
Mistaking fame proclaims thy generous mind:
Thy deeds denote thee of the basest kind.
Wretch! to destroy a prince that friendship gives,
While in his guest his murderer he receives;
Nor dread superior Jove, to whom belong
The cause of suppliants, and revenge of wrong.
Hast thou forgot, ungrateful as thou art,
Who saved thy father with a friendly part?
Lawless he ravaged with his martial powers
The Taphian pirates on Thesprotia’s shores;
Enraged, his life, his treasures they demand;
Ulysses saved him from the avenger’s hand.
And would’st thou evil for his good repay?
His bed dishonour, and his house betray? | 1,081 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Afflict his queen, and with a murderous hand
Destroy his heir!—but cease, ’tis I command.”
“Far hence those fears (Eurymachus replied,)
O prudent princess! bid thy soul confide.
Breathes there a man who dares that hero slay,
While I behold the golden light of day?
No: by the righteous powers of heaven I swear,
His blood in vengeance smokes upon my spear.
Ulysses, when my infant days I led,
With wine sufficed me, and with dainties fed:
My generous soul abhors the ungrateful part,
And my friend’s son lives nearest to my heart.
Then fear no mortal arm; if Heaven destroy,
We must resign: for man is born to die.”
Thus smooth he ended, yet his death conspired:
Then sorrowing, with sad step the queen retired,
With streaming eyes, all comfortless deplored,
Touch’d with the dear remembrance of her lord:
Nor ceased till Pallas bids her sorrows fly,
And in soft slumber seal’d her flowing eye.
And now Eumaeus, at the evening hour,
Came late, returning to his sylvan bower.
Ulysses and his son had dress’d with art
A yearling boar, and gave the gods their part.
Holy repast! That instant from the skies
The martial goddess to Ulysses flies:
She waves her golden wand, and reassumes
From every feature every grace that blooms;
At once his vestures change; at once she sheds
Age o’er his limbs, that tremble as he treads:
Lest to the queen the swain with transport fly,
Unable to contain the unruly joy;
When near he drew, the prince breaks forth: “Proclaim
What tidings, friend? what speaks the voice of fame?
Say, if the suitors measure back the main,
Or still in ambush thirst for blood in vain?”
“Whether (he cries) they measure back the flood,
Or still in ambush thirst in vain for blood,
Escaped my care: where lawless suitors sway,
Thy mandate borne my soul disdain’d to stay.
But from the Hermaean height I cast a view,
Where to the port a bark high-bounding flew; | 1,082 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Her freight a shining band: with martial air
Each poised his shield, and each advanced his spear;
And, if aright these searching eyes survey,
The eluded suitors stem the watery way.”
The prince, well pleased to disappoint their wiles,
Steals on his sire a glance, and secret smiles.
And now, a short repast prepared, they fed
Till the keen rage of craving hunger fled:
Then to repose withdrawn, apart they lay,
And in soft sleep forgot the cares of day.
BOOK XVII.
ARGUMENT.
Telemachus returning to the city, relates to Penelope the sum of his travels.
Ulysses is conducted by Eumaeus to the palace, where his old dog Argus
acknowledges his master, after an absence of twenty years, and dies with joy.
Eumaeus returns into the country, and Ulysses remains among the suitors, whose
behaviour is described.
Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
Sprinkled with roseate light the dewy lawn,
In haste the prince arose, prepared to part;
His hand impatient grasps the pointed dart;
Fair on his feet the polish’d sandals shine,
And thus he greets the master of the swine:
“My friend, adieu! let this short stay suffice;
I haste to meet my mother’s longing eyes,
And end her tears, her sorrows and her sighs.
But thou, attentive, what we order heed:
This hapless stranger to the city lead:
By public bounty let him there be fed,
And bless the hand that stretches forth the bread.
To wipe the tears from all afflicted eyes,
My will may covet, but my power denies.
If this raise anger in the stranger’s thought,
The pain of anger punishes the fault:
The very truth I undisguised declare;
For what so easy as to be sincere?”
To this Ulysses: “What the prince requires
Of swift removal, seconds my desires.
To want like mine the peopled town can yield
More hopes of comfort than the lonely field:
Nor fits my age to till the labour’d lands,
Or stoop to tasks a rural lord demands. | 1,083 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Adieu! but since this ragged garb can bear
So ill the inclemencies of morning air,
A few hours’ space permit me here to stay:
My steps Eumaeus shall to town convey,
With riper beams when Phœbus warms the day.”
Thus he: nor aught Telemachus replied,
But left the mansion with a lofty stride:
Schemes of revenge his pondering breast elate,
Revolving deep the suitors’ sudden fate,
Arriving now before the imperial hall,
He props his spear against the pillar’d wall;
Then like a lion o’er the threshold bounds;
The marble pavement with his steps resounds:
His eye first glanced where Euryclea spreads
With furry spoils of beasts the splendid beds:
She saw, she wept, she ran with eager pace,
And reach’d her master with a long embrace.
All crowded round, the family appears
With wild entrancement, and ecstatic tears.
Swift from above descends the royal fair
(Her beauteous cheeks the blush of Venus wear,
Chasten’d with coy Diana’s pensive air);
Hangs o’er her son, in his embraces dies;
Rains kisses on his neck, his face, his eyes:
Few words she spoke, though much she had to say;
And scarce those few, for tears, could force their way.
“Light of my eyes: he comes! unhoped-for joy!
Has Heaven from Pylos brought my lovely boy?
So snatch’d from all our cares!—Tell, hast thou known
Thy father’s fate, and tell me all thy own.”
“Oh dearest! most revered of womankind!
Cease with those tears to melt a manly mind
(Replied the prince); nor be our fates deplored,
From death and treason to thy arms restored.
Go bathe, and robed in white ascend the towers;
With all thy handmaids thank the immortal powers;
To every god vow hecatombs to bleed.
And call Jove’s vengeance on their guilty deed.
While to the assembled council I repair:
A stranger sent by Heaven attends me there;
My new accepted guest I haste to find,
Now to Peiraeus’ honour’d charge consign’d.”
The matron heard, nor was his word in vain. | 1,084 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
She bathed; and, robed in white, with all her train,
To every god vow’d hecatombs to bleed,
And call’d Jove’s vengeance on the guilty deed,
Arm’d with his lance, the prince then pass’d the gate,
Two dogs behind, a faithful guard, await;
Pallas his form with grace divine improves:
The gazing crowd admires him as he moves.
Him, gathering round, the haughty suitors greet
With semblance fair, but inward deep deceit,
Their false addresses, generous, he denied.
Pass’d on, and sate by faithful Mentor’s side;
With Antiphus, and Halitherses sage
(His father’s counsellors, revered for age).
Of his own fortunes, and Ulysses’ fame,
Much ask’d the seniors; till Peiraeus came.
The stranger-guest pursued him close behind;
Whom when Telemachus beheld, he join’d.
He (when Peiraeus ask’d for slaves to bring
The gifts and treasures of the Spartan king)
Thus thoughtful answer’d: “Those we shall not move,
Dark and unconscious of the will of Jove;
We know not yet the full event of all:
Stabb’d in his palace if your prince must fall,
Us, and our house, if treason must o’erthrow,
Better a friend possess them than a foe;
If death to these, and vengeance Heaven decree,
Riches are welcome then, not else, to me.
Till then retain the gifts.”—The hero said,
And in his hand the willing stranger led.
Then disarray’d, the shining bath they sought
(With unguents smooth) of polish’d marble wrought:
Obedient handmaids with assistant toil
Supply the limpid wave, and fragrant oil:
Then o’er their limbs refulgent robes they threw,
And fresh from bathing to their seats withdrew.
The golden ewer a nymph attendant brings,
Replenish’d from the pure translucent springs;
With copious streams that golden ewer supplies
A silver layer of capacious size.
They wash: the table, in fair order spread,
Is piled with viands and the strength of bread.
Full opposite, before the folding gate,
The pensive mother sits in humble state; | 1,085 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Lowly she sate, and with dejected view
The fleecy threads her ivory fingers drew.
The prince and stranger shared the genial feast,
Till now the rage of thirst and hunger ceased.
When thus the queen: “My son! my only friend!
Say, to my mournful couch shall I ascend?
(The couch deserted now a length of years;
The couch for ever water’d with my tears;)
Say, wilt thou not (ere yet the suitor crew
Return, and riot shakes our walls anew),
Say, wilt thou not the least account afford?
The least glad tidings of my absent lord?”
To her the youth. “We reach’d the Pylian plains,
Where Nestor, shepherd of his people, reigns.
All arts of tenderness to him are known,
Kind to Ulysses’ race as to his own;
No father with a fonder grasp of joy
Strains to his bosom his long-absent boy.
But all unknown, if yet Ulysses breathe,
Or glide a spectre in the realms beneath;
For farther search, his rapid steeds transport
My lengthen’d journey to the Spartan court.
There Argive Helen I beheld, whose charms
(So Heaven decreed) engaged the great in arms.
My cause of coming told, he thus rejoin’d;
And still his words live perfect in my mind:
“‘Heavens! would a soft, inglorious, dastard train
An absent hero’s nuptial joys profane
So with her young, amid the woodland shades,
A timorous hind the lion’s court invades,
Leaves in that fatal lair her tender fawns,
And climbs the cliffs, or feeds along the lawns;
Meantime returning, with remorseless sway
The monarch savage rends the panting prey:
With equal fury, and with equal fame,
Shall great Ulysses reassert his claim.
O Jove! supreme! whom men and gods revere;
And thou whose lustre gilds the rolling sphere!
With power congenial join’d, propitious aid
The chief adopted by the martial maid!
Such to our wish the warrior soon restore,
As when, contending on the Lesbian shore,
His prowess Philomelides confess’d,
And loud acclaiming Greeks the victor bless’d: | 1,086 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Then soon the invaders of his bed, and throne,
Their love presumptuous shall by death atone.
Now what you question of my ancient friend,
With truth I answer; thou the truth attend.
Learn what I heard the sea-born seer relate,
Whose eye can pierce the dark recess of fate
Sole in an isle, imprison’d by the main,
The sad survivor of his numerous train,
Ulysses lies; detain’d by magic charms,
And press’d unwilling in Calypso’s arms.
No sailors there, no vessels to convey,
No oars to cut the immeasurable way.’
This told Atrides, and he told no more.
Then safe I voyaged to my native shore.”
He ceased; nor made the pensive queen reply,
But droop’d her head, and drew a secret sigh.
When Theoclymenus the seer began:
“O suffering consort of the suffering man!
What human knowledge could, those kings might tell,
But I the secrets of high heaven reveal.
Before the first of gods be this declared,
Before the board whose blessings we have shared;
Witness the genial rites, and witness all
This house holds sacred in her ample wall!
E’en now, this instant, great Ulysses, laid
At rest, or wandering in his country’s shade,
Their guilty deeds, in hearing, and in view,
Secret revolves; and plans the vengeance due.
Of this sure auguries the gods bestow’d,
When first our vessel anchor’d in your road.”
“Succeed those omens, Heaven! (the queen rejoin’d)
So shall our bounties speak a grateful mind;
And every envied happiness attend
The man who calls Penelope his friend.”
Thus communed they: while in the marble court
(Scene of their insolence) the lords resort:
Athwart the spacious square each tries his art,
To whirl the disk, or aim the missile dart.
Now did the hour of sweet repast arrive,
And from the field the victim flocks they drive:
Medon the herald (one who pleased them best,
And honour’d with a portion of their feast),
To bid the banquet, interrupts their play: | 1,087 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Swift to the hall they haste; aside they lay
Their garments, and succinct the victims slay.
Then sheep, and goats, and bristly porkers bled,
And the proud steer was o’er the marble spread.
While thus the copious banquet they provide,
Along the road, conversing side by side,
Proceed Ulysses and the faithful swain;
When thus Eumaeus, generous and humane:
“To town, observant of our lord’s behest,
Now let us speed; my friend no more my guest!
Yet like myself I wish thee here preferr’d,
Guard of the flock, or keeper of the herd,
But much to raise my master’s wrath I fear;
The wrath of princes ever is severe.
Then heed his will, and be our journey made
While the broad beams of Phœbus are display’d,
Or ere brown evening spreads her chilly shade.”
“Just thy advice (the prudent chief rejoin’d),
And such as suits the dictate of my mind.
Lead on: but help me to some staff to stay
My feeble step, since rugged is the way.”
Across his shoulders then the scrip he flung,
Wide-patch’d, and fasten’d by a twisted thong.
A staff Eumaeus gave. Along the way
Cheerly they fare: behind, the keepers stay:
These with their watchful dogs (a constant guard)
Supply his absence, and attend the herd.
And now his city strikes the monarch’s eyes,
Alas! how changed! a man of miseries;
Propp’d on a staff, a beggar old and bare
In rags dishonest fluttering with the air!
Now pass’d the rugged road, they journey down
The cavern’d way descending to the town,
Where, from the rock, with liquid drops distils
A limpid fount; that spread in parting rills
Its current thence to serve the city brings;
An useful work, adorn’d by ancient kings.
Neritus, Ithacus, Polyctor, there,
In sculptured stone immortalized their care,
In marble urns received it from above,
And shaded with a green surrounding grove;
Where silver alders, in high arches twined,
Drink the cool stream, and tremble to the wind. | 1,088 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Beneath, sequester’d to the nymphs, is seen
A mossy altar, deep embower’d in green;
Where constant vows by travellers are paid,
And holy horrors solemnize the shade.
Here with his goats (not vow’d to sacred fame,
But pamper’d luxury) Melanthius came:
Two grooms attend him. With an envious look
He eyed the stranger, and imperious spoke:
“The good old proverb how this pair fulfil!
One rogue is usher to another still.
Heaven with a secret principle endued
Mankind, to seek their own similitude.
Where goes the swineherd with that ill-look’d guest?
That giant-glutton, dreadful at a feast!
Full many a post have those broad shoulders worn,
From every great man’s gate repulsed with scorn:
To no brave prize aspired the worthless swain,
’Twas but for scraps he ask’d, and ask’d in vain.
To beg, than work, he better understands,
Or we perhaps might take him off thy hands.
For any office could the slave be good,
To cleanse the fold, or help the kids to food.
If any labour those big joints could learn,
Some whey, to wash his bowels, he might earn.
To cringe, to whine, his idle hands to spread,
Is all, by which that graceless maw is fed.
Yet hear me! if thy impudence but dare
Approach yon wall, I prophesy thy fare:
Dearly, full dearly, shalt thou buy thy bread
With many a footstool thundering at thy head.”
He thus: nor insolent of word alone,
Spurn’d with his rustic heel his king unknown;
Spurn’d, but not moved: he like a pillar stood,
Nor stirr’d an inch, contemptuous, from the road:
Doubtful, or with his staff to strike him dead,
Or greet the pavement with his worthless head.
Short was that doubt; to quell his rage inured,
The hero stood self-conquer’d, and endured.
But hateful of the wretch, Eumaeus heaved
His hands obtesting, and this prayer conceived:
“Daughters of Jove! who from the ethereal bowers
Descend to swell the springs, and feed the flowers! | 1,089 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Nymphs of this fountain! to whose sacred names
Our rural victims mount in blazing flames!
To whom Ulysses’ piety preferr’d
The yearly firstlings of his flock and herd;
Succeed my wish, your votary restore:
Oh, be some god his convoy to our shore!
Due pains shall punish then this slave’s offence,
And humble all his airs of insolence,
Who, proudly stalking, leaves the herds at large,
Commences courtier, and neglects his charge.”
“What mutters he? (Melanthius sharp rejoins;)
This crafty miscreant, big with dark designs?
The day shall come—nay, ’tis already near—
When, slave! to sell thee at a price too dear
Must be my care; and hence transport thee o’er,
A load and scandal to this happy shore.
Oh! that as surely great Apollo’s dart,
Or some brave suitor’s sword, might pierce the heart
Of the proud son; as that we stand this hour
In lasting safety from the father’s power!”
So spoke the wretch, but, shunning farther fray,
Turn’d his proud step, and left them on their way.
Straight to the feastful palace he repair’d,
Familiar enter’d, and the banquet shared;
Beneath Eurymachus, his patron lord,
He took his place, and plenty heap’d the board.
Meantime they heard, soft circling in the sky
Sweet airs ascend, and heavenly minstrelsy
(For Phemius to the lyre attuned the strain):
Ulysses hearken’d, then address’d the swain:
“Well may this palace admiration claim,
Great and respondent to the master’s fame!
Stage above stage the imperial structure stands,
Holds the chief honours, and the town commands:
High walls and battlements the courts inclose,
And the strong gates defy a host of foes.
Far other cares its dwellers now employ;
The throng’d assembly and the feast of joy:
I see the smokes of sacrifice aspire,
And hear (what graces every feast) the lyre.”
Then thus Eumaeus: “Judge we which were best;
Amidst yon revellers a sudden guest
Choose you to mingle, while behind I stay? | 1,090 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Or I first entering introduce the way?
Wait for a space without, but wait not long;
This is the house of violence and wrong:
Some rude insult thy reverend age may bear;
For like their lawless lords the servants are.”
“Just is, O friend! thy caution, and address’d
(Replied the chief, to no unheedful breast:)
The wrongs and injuries of base mankind
Fresh to my sense, and always in my mind.
The bravely-patient to no fortune yields:
On rolling oceans, and in fighting fields,
Storms have I pass’d, and many a stern debate;
And now in humbler scene submit to fate.
What cannot want? The best she will expose,
And I am learn’d in all her train of woes;
She fills with navies, hosts, and loud alarms,
The sea, the land, and shakes the world with arms!”
Thus, near the gates conferring as they drew,
Argus, the dog, his ancient master knew:
He not unconscious of the voice and tread,
Lifts to the sound his ear, and rears his head;
Bred by Ulysses, nourish’d at his board,
But, ah! not fated long to please his lord;
To him, his swiftness and his strength were vain;
The voice of glory call’d him o’er the main.
Till then in every sylvan chase renown’d,
With Argus, Argus, rung the woods around;
With him the youth pursued the goat or fawn,
Or traced the mazy leveret o’er the lawn.
Now left to man’s ingratitude he lay,
Unhoused, neglected in the public way;
And where on heaps the rich manure was spread,
Obscene with reptiles, took his sordid bed.
He knew his lord; he knew, and strove to meet;
In vain he strove to crawl and kiss his feet;
Yet (all he could) his tail, his tears, his eyes,
Salute his master, and confess his joys.
Soft pity touch’d the mighty master’s soul;
Adown his cheek a tear unbidden stole,
Stole unperceived: he turn’d his head and dried
The drop humane: then thus impassion’d cried:
“What noble beast in this abandon’d state
Lies here all helpless at Ulysses’ gate? | 1,091 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
His bulk and beauty speak no vulgar praise:
If, as he seems, he was in better days,
Some care his age deserves; or was he prized
For worthless beauty? therefore now despised;
Such dogs and men there are, mere things of state;
And always cherish’d by their friends, the great.”
“Not Argus so, (Eumaeus thus rejoin’d,)
But served a master of a nobler kind,
Who, never, never shall behold him more!
Long, long since perish’d on a distant shore!
Oh had you seen him, vigorous, bold, and young,
Swift as a stag, and as a lion strong:
Him no fell savage on the plain withstood,
None ’scaped him bosom’d in the gloomy wood;
His eye how piercing, and his scent how true,
To wind the vapour on the tainted dew!
Such, when Ulysses left his natal coast:
Now years unnerve him, and his lord is lost!
The women keep the generous creature bare,
A sleek and idle race is all their care:
The master gone, the servants what restrains?
Or dwells humanity where riot reigns?
Jove fix’d it certain, that whatever day
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.”
This said, the honest herdsman strode before;
The musing monarch pauses at the door:
The dog, whom Fate had granted to behold
His lord, when twenty tedious years had roll’d,
Takes a last look, and having seen him, dies;
So closed for ever faithful Argus’ eyes!
And now Telemachus, the first of all,
Observed Eumaeus entering in the hall;
Distant he saw, across the shady dome;
Then gave a sign, and beckon’d him to come:
There stood an empty seat, where late was placed,
In order due, the steward of the feast,
(Who now was busied carving round the board,)
Eumaeus took, and placed it near his lord.
Before him instant was the banquet spread,
And the bright basket piled with loaves of bread.
Next came Ulysses lowly at the door,
A figure despicable, old, and poor.
In squalid vests, with many a gaping rent,
Propp’d on a staff, and trembling as he went. | 1,092 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Then, resting on the threshold of the gate,
Against a cypress pillar lean’d his weight
Smooth’d by the workman to a polish’d plane);
The thoughtful son beheld, and call’d his swain
“These viands, and this bread, Eumaeus! bear,
And let yon mendicant our plenty share:
And let him circle round the suitors’ board,
And try the bounty of each gracious lord.
Bold let him ask, encouraged thus by me:
How ill, alas! do want and shame agree!”
His lord’s command the faithful servant bears:
The seeming beggar answers with his prayers:
“Bless’d be Telemachus! in every deed
Inspire him. Jove! in every wish succeed!”
This said, the portion from his son convey’d
With smiles receiving on his scrip he laid.
Long has the minstrel swept the sounding wire,
He fed, and ceased when silence held the lyre.
Soon as the suitors from the banquet rose,
Minerva prompts the man of mighty woes
To tempt their bounties with a suppliant’s art,
And learn the generous from the ignoble heart
(Not but his soul, resentful as humane,
Dooms to full vengeance all the offending train);
With speaking eyes, and voice of plaintive sound,
Humble he moves, imploring all around.
The proud feel pity, and relief bestow,
With such an image touch’d of human woe;
Inquiring all, their wonder they confess,
And eye the man, majestic in distress.
While thus they gaze and question with their eyes,
The bold Melanthius to their thought replies:
“My lords! this stranger of gigantic port
The good Eumaeus usher’d to your court.
Full well I mark’d the features of his face,
Though all unknown his clime, or noble race.”
“And is this present, swineherd! of thy band?
Bring’st thou these vagrants to infest the land?
(Returns Antinous with retorted eye)
Objects uncouth, to check the genial joy.
Enough of these our court already grace;
Of giant stomach, and of famish’d face.
Such guests Eumaeus to his country brings, | 1,093 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
To share our feast, and lead the life of kings.”
To whom the hospitable swain rejoins:
“Thy passion, prince, belies thy knowing mind.
Who calls, from distant nations to his own,
The poor, distinguish’d by their wants alone?
Round the wide world are sought those men divine
Who public structures raise, or who design;
Those to whose eyes the gods their ways reveal,
Or bless with salutary arts to heal;
But chief to poets such respect belongs,
By rival nations courted for their songs;
These states invite, and mighty kings admire,
Wide as the sun displays his vital fire.
It is not so with want! how few that feed
A wretch unhappy, merely for his need!
Unjust to me, and all that serve the state,
To love Ulysses is to raise thy hate.
For me, suffice the approbation won
Of my great mistress, and her godlike son.”
To him Telemachus: “No more incense
The man by nature prone to insolence:
Injurious minds just answers but provoke”—
Then turning to Antinous, thus he spoke:
“Thanks to thy care! whose absolute command
Thus drives the stranger from our court and land.
Heaven bless its owner with a better mind!
From envy free, to charity inclined.
This both Penelope and I afford:
Then, prince! be bounteous of Ulysses’ board.
To give another’s is thy hand so slow?
So much more sweet to spoil than to bestow?”
“Whence, great Telemachus! this lofty strain?
(Antinous cries with insolent disdain):
Portions like mine if every suitor gave,
Our walls this twelvemonth should not see the slave.”
He spoke, and lifting high above the board
His ponderous footstool, shook it at his lord.
The rest with equal hand conferr’d the bread:
He fill’d his scrip, and to the threshold sped;
But first before Antinous stopp’d, and said:
“Bestow, my friend! thou dost not seem the worst
Of all the Greeks, but prince-like and the first;
Then, as in dignity, be first in worth, | 1,094 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
And I shall praise thee through the boundless earth.
Once I enjoy’d in luxury of state
Whate’er gives man the envied name of great;
Wealth, servants, friends, were mine in better days
And hospitality was then my praise;
In every sorrowing soul I pour’d delight,
And poverty stood smiling in my sight.
But Jove, all-governing, whose only will
Determines fate, and mingles good with ill,
Sent me (to punish my pursuit of gain)
With roving pirates o’er the Egyptian main
By Egypt’s silver flood our ships we moor;
Our spies commission’d straight the coast explore;
But impotent of mind, the lawless will
The country ravage, and the natives kill.
The spreading clamour to their city flies,
And horse and foot in mingled tumults rise:
The reddening dawn reveals the hostile fields,
Horrid with bristly spears, and gleaming shields:
Jove thunder’d on their side: our guilty head
We turn’d to flight; the gathering vengeance spread
On all parts round, and heaps on heaps lay dead.
Some few the foe in servitude detain;
Death ill exchanged for bondage and for pain!
Unhappy me a Cyprian took aboard,
And gave to Dmetor, Cyprus’ haughty lord:
Hither, to ’scape his chains, my course I steer,
Still cursed by Fortune, and insulted here!”
To whom Antinous thus his rage express’d:
“What god has plagued us with this gourmand guest?
Unless at distance, wretch! thou keep behind,
Another isle, than Cyprus more unkind,
Another Egypt shalt thou quickly find.
From all thou begg’st, a bold audacious slave;
Nor all can give so much as thou canst crave.
Nor wonder I, at such profusion shown;
Shameless they give, who give what’s not their own.”
The chief, retiring: “Souls, like that in thee,
Ill suits such forms of grace and dignity.
Nor will that hand to utmost need afford
The smallest portion of a wasteful board,
Whose luxury whole patrimonies sweeps,
Yet starving want, amidst the riot, weeps.” | 1,095 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
The haughty suitor with resentment burns,
And, sourly smiling, this reply returns:
“Take that, ere yet thou quit this princely throng;
And dumb for ever be thy slanderous tongue!”
He said, and high the whirling tripod flung.
His shoulder-blade received the ungentle shock;
He stood, and moved not, like a marble rock;
But shook his thoughtful head, nor more complain’d,
Sedate of soul, his character sustain’d,
And inly form’d revenge; then back withdrew:
Before his feet the well fill’d scrip he threw,
And thus with semblance mild address’d the crew:
“May what I speak your princely minds approve,
Ye peers and rivals in this noble love!
Not for the hurt I grieve, but for the cause.
If, when the sword our country’s quarrel draws,
Or if, defending what is justly dear,
From Mars impartial some broad wound we bear,
The generous motive dignifies the scar.
But for mere want, how hard to suffer wrong!
Want brings enough of other ills along!
Yet, if injustice never be secure,
If fiends revenge, and gods assert the poor,
Death shall lay low the proud aggressor’s head,
And make the dust Antinous’ bridal bed.”
“Peace, wretch! and eat thy bread without offence
(The suitor cried), or force shall drag thee hence,
Scourge through the public street, and cast thee there,
A mangled carcase for the hounds to tear.”
His furious deed the general anger moved,
All, even the worst, condemn’d; and some reproved.
“Was ever chief for wars like these renown’d?
Ill fits the stranger and the poor to wound.
Unbless’d thy hand! if in this low disguise
Wander, perhaps, some inmate of the skies;
They (curious oft of mortal actions) deign
In forms like these to round the earth and main,
Just and unjust recording in their mind,
And with sure eyes inspecting all mankind.”
Telemachus, absorb’d in thought severe,
Nourish’d deep anguish, though he shed no tear;
But the dark brow of silent sorrow shook: | 1,096 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
While thus his mother to her virgins spoke:
“On him and his may the bright god of day
That base, inhospitable blow repay!”
The nurse replies: “If Jove receives my prayer,
Not one survives to breathe to-morrow’s air.”
“All, all are foes, and mischief is their end;
Antinous most to gloomy death a friend
(Replies the queen): the stranger begg’d their grace,
And melting pity soften’d every face;
From every other hand redress he found,
But fell Antinous answer’d with a wound.”
Amidst her maids thus spoke the prudent queen,
Then bade Eumaeus call the pilgrim in.
“Much of the experienced man I long to hear,
If or his certain eye, or listening ear,
Have learn’d the fortunes of my wandering lord?”
Thus she, and good Eumaeus took the word:
“A private audience if thy grace impart,
The stranger’s words may ease the royal heart.
His sacred eloquence in balm distils,
And the soothed heart with secret pleasure fills.
Three days have spent their beams, three nights have run
Their silent journey, since his tale begun,
Unfinish’d yet; and yet I thirst to hear!
As when some heaven-taught poet charms the ear
(Suspending sorrow with celestial strain
Breathed from the gods to soften human pain)
Time steals away with unregarded wing,
And the soul hears him, though he cease to sing
“Ulysses late he saw, on Cretan ground
(His fathers guest), for Minos’ birth renown’d.
He now but waits the wind to waft him o’er,
With boundless treasure, from Thesprotia’s shore.”
To this the queen: “The wanderer let me hear,
While yon luxurious race indulge their cheer,
Devour the grazing ox, and browsing goat,
And turn my generous vintage down their throat.
For where’s an arm, like thine, Ulysses! strong,
To curb wild riot, and to punish wrong?”
She spoke. Telemachus then sneezed aloud;
Constrain’d, his nostril echoed through the crowd.
The smiling queen the happy omen bless’d: | 1,097 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
“So may these impious fall, by Fate oppress’d!”
Then to Eumaeus: “Bring the stranger, fly!
And if my questions meet a true reply,
Graced with a decent robe he shall retire,
A gift in season which his wants require.”
Thus spoke Penelope. Eumaeus flies
In duteous haste, and to Ulysses cries:
“The queen invites thee, venerable guest!
A secret instinct moves her troubled breast,
Of her long absent lord from thee to gain
Some light, and soothe her soul’s eternal pain.
If true, if faithful thou, her grateful mind
Of decent robes a present has design’d:
So finding favour in the royal eye,
Thy other wants her subjects shall supply.”
“Fair truth alone (the patient man replied)
My words shall dictate, and my lips shall guide.
To him, to me, one common lot was given,
In equal woes, alas! involved by Heaven.
Much of his fates I know; but check’d by fear
I stand; the hand of violence is here:
Here boundless wrongs the starry skies invade,
And injured suppliants seek in vain for aid.
Let for a space the pensive queen attend,
Nor claim my story till the sun descend;
Then in such robes as suppliants may require,
Composed and cheerful by the genial fire,
When loud uproar and lawless riot cease,
Shall her pleased ear receive my words in peace.”
Swift to the queen returns the gentle swain:
“And say (she cries), does fear or shame detain
The cautious stranger? With the begging kind
Shame suits but ill.” Eumaeus thus rejoin’d:
“He only asks a more propitious hour,
And shuns (who would not?) wicked men in power;
At evening mild (meet season to confer)
By turns to question, and by turns to hear.”
“Whoe’er this guest (the prudent queen replies)
His every step and every thought is wise.
For men like these on earth he shall not find
In all the miscreant race of human kind.”
Thus she. Eumaeus all her words attends,
And, parting, to the suitor powers descends;
There seeks Telemachus, and thus apart | 1,098 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
In whispers breathes the fondness of his heart:
“The time, my lord, invites me to repair
Hence to the lodge; my charge demands my care.
These sons of murder thirst thy life to take;
O guard it, guard it, for thy servant’s sake!”
“Thanks to my friend (he cries): but now the hour
Of night draws on, go seek the rural bower:
But first refresh: and at the dawn of day
Hither a victim to the gods convey.
Our life to Heaven’s immortal powers we trust,
Safe in their care, for Heaven protects the just.”
Observant of his voice, Eumaeus sate
And fed recumbent on a chair of state.
Then instant rose, and as he moved along,
’Twas riot all amid the suitor throng,
They feast, they dance, and raise the mirthful song
Till now, declining towards the close of day,
The sun obliquely shot his dewy ray.
BOOK XVIII.
ARGUMENT.
THE FIGHT OF ULYSSES AND IRUS.
The beggar Irus insults Ulysses; the suitors promote the quarrel, in which Irus
is worsted, and miserably handled. Penelope descends, and receives the presents
of the suitors. The dialogue of Ulysses with Eurymachus.
While fix’d in thought the pensive hero sate,
A mendicant approach’d the royal gate;
A surly vagrant of the giant kind,
The stain of manhood, of a coward mind:
From feast to feast, insatiate to devour,
He flew, attendant on the genial hour.
Him on his mother’s knees, when babe he lay,
She named Arnaeus on his natal day:
But Irus his associates call’d the boy,
Practised the common messenger to fly;
Irus, a name expressive of the employ.
From his own roof, with meditated blows,
He strove to drive the man of mighty woes:
“Hence, dotard! hence, and timely speed thy way,
Lest dragg’d in vengeance thou repent thy stay;
See how with nods assent yon princely train!
But honouring age, in mercy I refrain:
In peace away! lest, if persuasions fail,
This arm with blows more eloquent prevail.”
To whom, with stern regard: “O insolence, | 1,099 | Homer | The Odyssey | 3,160 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.