Tell of the storm-tossed man, O Muse, who wandered long after he sacked the sacred citadel of Troy. Many the men whose towns he saw, whose ways he proved; and many a pang he bore in his own breast at sea, while struggling for his life and his men’s safe return. Yet even so, despite his zeal, he did not save his men; for through their own perversity they perished, having recklessly devoured the cattle of the exalted Sun, who therefore took away the day of their return. Of this, O goddess, daughter of Zeus, speak as thou wilt to us.
‘Young men who are my suitors, though royal Odysseus now is dead, forbear to urge my marriage till I complete this robe,—its threads must not be wasted,—a shroud for lord Laeärtes, against the time when the sad doom of death that lays men low shall overtake him. Achaean wives about the land, I fear, might give me blame if he should lie without a shroud, he who had great possessions.’ Such were her words, and our high hearts assented. Then in the daytime would she weave at the great web, but in the night unravel, after her torch was set. Thus for three years she hid her craft and cheated the Achaeans. But when the fourth year came, as time rolled on, then at the last one of her slave-maids, who knew full well, confessed, and we discovered her unraveling the splendid web; so then she finished it, against her will, by force.
“Hard are you gods and envious beyond all to grudge that goddesses should mate with men and take without disguise mortals for lovers. Thus when rosy-fingered Dawn chose Orion for her lover, you gods that live at ease soon so begrudged him that at Ortygia chaste Artemis from her golden throne attacked and slew him with her gentle arrows. Again when fair-haired Demeter, yielding to her heart, met Jason in the thrice-ploughed field, not long was Zeus unmindful, but hurled a gleaming bolt and laid him low. So again now you gods grudge me the mortal tarrying here. Yet it was I who saved him, as he rode astride his keel
She found him sitting on the shore, and from his eyes the tears were never dried; his sweet life ebbed away in longings for his home, because the nymph pleased him no more. Yet being compelled, he slept at night within the hollow grotto as she desired, not he. But in the daytime, sitting on the rocks and sands, with tears and groans and griefs racking his heart, he watched the barren sea and poured forth tears.
So saying, royal Odysseus crept from the thicket, but with his strong hand broke a spray of leaves from the close wood, to be a covering round his body for his nakedness. He set off like a lion that is bred among the hills and trusts its strength; onward it goes, beaten with rain and wind; its two eyes glare; and now in search of oxen or of sheep it moves, or tracking the wild deer; its belly bids it make trial of the flocks, even by entering the guarded folds; so was Odysseus about to meet those fair-haired maids, all naked though he was, for need constrained him. To them he seemed a loathsome sight, befouled with brine. They hurried off, one here, one there, over the stretching sands. Only the daughter of Alcinouäs stayed, for in her breast Athene had put courage and from her limbs took fear.
So sang the famous bard. Odysseus melted into tears, and all below his eyes his cheeks were wet. And as a woman wails and clings to her dear husband, who falls for town and people, seeking to shield his home and children from the ruthless day; seeing him dying, gasping, she flings herself on him with a piercing cry; while men behind, smiting her with their spears on back and shoulder, force her along to bondage to suffer toil and trouble; with pain most pitiful her cheeks are thin; so pitifully fell the tears beneath Odysseus’ brows.
“So I spoke, and from a ruthless heart he answered nothing, but starting up laid hands on my companions. He seized on two and dashed them to the ground as if they had been dogs. Their brains ran out upon the floor, and wet the earth. Tearing them limb from limb, he made his supper, and ate as does a mountain lion, leaving nothing, entrails, or flesh, or marrow bones. We in our tears held up our hands to Zeus, at sight of his cruel deeds; helplessness held our hearts. But when the Cyclops had filled his monstrous maw by eating human flesh and pouring down pure milk, he laid himself in the cave full length among his flock.
“ ‘Cyclops, you asked my noble name, and I will tell it; but give the stranger’s gift, just as you promised. My name is Noman. Noman I am called by mother, father, and by all my comrades.’
“So I spoke, and from a ruthless heart he at once answered: ‘No man I eat up last, after his comrades; all the rest first; and that shall be the stranger’s gift for you.’
“ ‘Who are you? Of what people? Where is your town and kindred? I marvel much that drinking of these drugs you were not charmed. None, no man else, ever withstood these drugs who tasted them, so soon as they had passed the barrier of his teeth; but in your breast there is a mind which cannot be beguiled. Surely you are adventurous Odysseus, who the god of the golden wand, the killer of Argus, always declared would come upon his way from Troy,—he and his swift black ship. Nay, then, put up your blade within its sheath, and let us now turn to my bower, that there we two may know our love and learn to trust each other.’
“As she thus spoke, I yearned, though my mind hesitated, to clasp the spirit of my mother, even though dead. Three times the impulse came; my heart urged me to clasp her. Three times out of my arms like a shadow or a dream she flitted, and the sharp pain about my heart grew only more; and speaking in winged words, I said:
“ ‘My mother, why not stay for me who long to clasp you, so that in the very house of Hades, throwing our arms round one another, we two may take our fill of piercing grief? Or is it a phantom high Persephone has sent, to make me weep and sorrow more?’
‘Mock not at death, glorious Odysseus. Better to be the hireling of a stranger, and serve a man of mean estate whose living is but small, than be the ruler over all these dead and gone. No, tell me tales of my proud son, whether or not he followed to the war to be a leader; tell what you know of gallant Peleus, whether he still has honor in the cities of the Myrmidons; or do they slight him now in Hellas and in Phthia, because old age has touched his hands and feet? I am myself no longer in the sunlight to defend him, nor like what I once was when on the Trojan plain I routed a brave troop in rescuing the Argives.
“ ‘Come here, come, Odysseus, whom all praise, great glory of the Achaeans! Bring in your ship, and listen to our song. For none has ever passed us in a black-hulled ship till from our lips he heard ecstatic song, then went his way rejoicing and with larger knowledge. For we know all that on the plain of Troy Argives and Trojans suffered at the gods’ behest; we know whatever happens on the bounteous earth.’
Hateful is every form of death to wretched mortals; and yet to die by hunger, and so to meet one’s doom, is the most pitiful of all. Come then, and let us drive away the best of the Sun’s cattle, and sacrifice them to the immortals who hold the open sky. And if we ever come to Ithaca, our native land, we will at once build a rich temple to the exalted Sun, and put therein many fair offerings. If then the Sun, wroth for his high-horned cattle, seeks to destroy our ship, and other gods consent, for my part I would rather, open-mouthed in the sea, give up my life at once than slowly let it wear away here in this desert island.’
So saying, he entered the stately house and went straight down the hall among the lordly suitors. But upon Argos fell the doom of darksome death when he beheld Odysseus, twenty years away.
As when a man near a great glowing fire turns to and fro a sausage, full of fat and blood, anxious to have it quickly roast; so to and fro Odysseus tossed, and pondered how to lay hands upon the shameless suitors,—he being alone, and they so many. Near him Athene drew, descending out of heaven. In a woman’s form she stood beside his head, and thus addressed him:
“Why wakeful still, unhappiest of men?
So talked the suitors. Meantime wise Odysseus, when he had handled the great bow and scanned it closely,—even as one well-skilled to play the lyre and sing stretches with ease round its new peg a cord, securing at each end the twisted sheep-gut; so without effort did Odysseus string the mighty bow. Holding it now with his right hand, he tried its cord; and clear to the touch it sang, voiced like the swallow.
Then wise Odysseus threw off his rags and sprang to the broad threshold, bow in hand and quiver full of arrows. Out he poured the swift shafts at his feet, and thus addressed the suitors:
“So the dread ordeal ends! Now to another mark I turn, to hit what no man ever hit before, will but Apollo grant my prayer.”
He spoke, and tied the cable of a dark-bowed ship to a great pillar, then lashed it to the round-house, stretching it high across, too high for one to touch the feet upon the ground. And as the wide-winged thrushes or the doves strike on a net set in the bushes; and when they think to go to roost a cruel bed receives them; even so the women held their heads in line, and around every neck a noose was laid, that they might die most vilely. They twitched their feet a little, but not long.
She said this in the hope to prove her husband; but Odysseus spoke in anger to his faithful wife: “Woman, these are bitter words which you have said! Who set my bed elsewhere? A hard task that would be for one, however skilled,—unless a god should come and by his will set it with ease upon some other spot; but among men no living being, even in his prime, could lightly shift it; for a great token is carved into its curious frame. I built it; no one else.
As when the welcome land appears to swimmers, whose sturdy ship Poseidon wrecked at sea, confounded by the winds and solid waters; a few escape the foaming sea and swim ashore; thick salt foam crusts their flesh; they climb the welcome land, and are escaped from danger; so welcome to her gazing eyes appeared her husband. From round his neck she never let her white arms go.