Recall for me, Muse, the toils of that man so ready of wit in every need, who wandered far and wide after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy. He chanced upon the towns of many men, whose ways of life and thought he also learned, while enduring many woes within his heart as he struggled on the deep to save his life and win a safe return home for his comrades. Yet, even so, he did not save his comrades, though much he yearned to do so. For through the wicked folly of their own hearts they perished, fools that they were to devour the cattle of the sun-god Helios, son of Hyperion. The god therefore took from them the day for their return. Begin at some point, goddess, daughter of Zeus, and tell us of these exploits.
“Young men, my suitors, since incomparable Odysseus has died, wait on my marriage, eager though you are, until I finish this robe as a shroud for the highly honored Laërtes, lest my yarn be ruined and useless for the day when the destructive fate of prostrating death shall lay Laërtes low. Then some Achaean women throughout the land might well be indignant against me, should a man of so great wealth be laid out dead without a shroud.’
“Thus she spoke and our lordly hearts agreed. She then made a practice of weaving the large web by day but unraveling at night by torchlight what she had woven by day. For three long years she hid her crafty plan and thus deceived the Achaeans. But when the fourth year arrived and the seasons rolled round again, one of the women, who knew the entire scheme, made known her trick. And we caught her unraveling the splendid robe. Thus was she forced against her will to finish it.
“Hard-hearted are you gods and envious above all other beings. You envy goddesses who openly lie with men, if ever a goddess makes one her dear bedfellow. Such was the case when rosy-fingered Eos took Orion. You gods who live at ease were jealous until golden-throned, chaste Artemis assailed him in Ortygia with her gentle arrows and slew him. So was it also when fair-tressed Demeter yielded to her desire and couched in love with Iasion in thrice-ploughed fallow land. Not long was this unknown to Zeus, who struck him dead with his bright-flashing thunderbolt. So now again you begrudge me a mortal to dwell with me. I saved him astride the keel of his ship,
She found him sitting on the beach. His eyes were never dry of tears, and his sweet life was ebbing away as he mourned for his return; for the nymph was no longer pleasing him. Yet of necessity he passed the nights beside her in her hollow cave, an unwilling lover beside a willing mistress. But he spent his days sitting on rocky headlands, racking his heart with weeping, groans, and woes as he gazed over the barren deep while tears streamed from his eyes.
Princely Odysseus then crept from the thickly-grown bushes, after breaking from them with his mighty hand a leafy bough to hold before his body and cover his nakedness. Forward he came like a mountain-bred lion, weather-beaten, that sallies forth with flaming eyes, relying on his strength, as he strides among sheep or cattle, or is driven by his belly to invade even strong-built courtyards and raid the flocks within. Even so was Odysseus about to go amid the fair-tressed maidens, despite his nakedness; for he was in great need. But to them he was a terrifying sight, begrimed as he was with sea brine, and they fled with fear and trembling this way and that along the jutting shores. Only the daughter of Alcinoüs stood firm; for Athene put courage in her heart and took all trembling from her limbs.
That was the lay the highly renowned minstrel chanted. Odysseus was brought to tears which bedewed his cheeks beneath his eyelids. As a wife embraces and weeps over her dear husband who has fallen in defense of his city and people, trying to ward off from his city and children the pitiless day of defeat; she, seeing him gasping and dying, flings herself over him wailing aloud, while the enemy behind are smiting her back and shoulders with spears as they lead her into slavery to endure toil and woe, her cheeks worn and wan with pitiful grief, so from the eyes of Odysseus fell pitiful tears.
“Such was my answer to him, to which he made no reply whatever from his pitiless heart, but, darting up, he lunged with his hands into my comrades, and, when he had clutched two of them together, he bashed them against the ground, as though they were puppies, so that their brains ran out and wet the ground. He then cut them up limb by limb and prepared them for his supper. He ate them as a mountain-bred lion would, entrails, flesh, marrowy bones and all, leaving nothing. We, in tears, held up our hands to Zeus as we beheld these inhuman deeds and utter helplessness seized our hearts. When Cyclops had filled his mighty paunch with human flesh and pure milk, he lay stretched out in the cave among his flocks.
‘Cyclops, are you asking for my widely-known name? Well, I will tell you and do you give me the stranger’s gift as you promised. Noman is my name. Noman is the name by which my mother and father and all my companions call me.’
“Such was what I told him and he answered me at once from his pitiless heart: ‘Noman will be the last among his comrades that I will eat after I have first eaten the others. That will be my stranger’s gift to you.’
“‘Who are you? From what people are you? Where is your city and where are your parents? I am amazed that you, having drunk these drugs, are not at all affected by them. For never yet has any other man who has drunk these drugs withstood their power when once they had passed his lips. You have within your breast a mind that cannot be bewitched. You are surely ready-witted Odysseus whom the slayer of Argus, he of the golden wand, was continually saying would come here on his way from Troy with his swift black ships. But come! Put your sword in its sheath and let us mount our bed that, having mingled in love’s embrace, we may come to trust each other.’
“Thus she spoke and, as I pondered in my heart, I felt a longing to clasp the soul of my departed mother. Three times I rushed towards her, as my heart urged me to embrace her, and three times, like a shadow or even a dream, she eluded my arms. The painful grief in my heart waxed greater and, raising my voice, I spoke to her winged words:
“‘My mother, why do you not stay fixed for me, eager as I am to clasp you, so that, with my loving arms around you, we may both even here in Hades indulge ourselves without restraint in chilling lamentation. Is this some wraith which nobly-born Persephoneia sent up that I might wail and groan the more?’
‘Do not be commending death to me, glorious Odysseus. I would rather be on earth as a hired laborer for a landless man who had slight means for living than to be king over all the dead who have died. But come! Tell me about my admirable son, whether he followed us to war to be a leader or not. And tell me about royal Peleus, if you have any news of him, whether he is still held in honor among the cities of the Myrmidons, or is slighted throughout Hellas and Phthia because old age now grips his hands and feet. I am not now his defender in the land where the sun shines, even though I once was such a person as to slay the bravest people in spacious Troy while defeating the Argives.
“‘Come hither in your journey, much praised Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans. Steer your boat here that you may listen to our twin voices. Never yet has any one passed here in his black ship without listening to the honey-sweet voice from our lips, and, having enjoyed it, gone their way richer in knowledge. For we know all the toils which, through the will of the gods, plagued the Argives and Achaeans in wide Troy. We know also all that is to happen on the all-nourishing earth.’
Every manner of death is loathsome to wretched mortals, but to die and meet one’s fate by starvation is the most pitiable of all. So come, let us round up the best of the cattle of Helios and make a sacrifice to the deathless gods who hold the wide heaven. And if it be that we shall reach Ithaca, our native land, we will erect at once a costly shrine to Helios, son of Hyperion, and enrich it with many choice offerings. But if he, angry because of his straight-horned cattle, shall decide to destroy our ship and if the other gods should concur, I prefer to lose my life all at once, gaping open-mouthed at a wave, than have it gradually drained away on a deserted island.’
When he had said this, he entered the well-situated home and went directly into the hall among the lordly suitors. Meantime, the fate of darksome death fell on Argus, in his twentieth year, after seeing Odysseus once more.
As when an animal paunch well-filled with fat and blood is tossed this way and that before a large and glowing fire by one who wants it roasted very quickly, so was Odysseus tossing to and fro as he pondered how he, being just one person, might lay destructive hands on the shameless suitors, who were many. Athene, then, descending out of heaven, came and stood near him in the form of a mortal woman. She took her stand at his head and addressed to him this word: “Why are you, the most ill-fated of all men, lying awake?
Thus spoke the suitors. Meantime, resourceful Odysseus, immediately after he had handled the bow and viewed it from all angles, strung the great bow without effort, just as when one skilled to play the lyre and sing easily stretches a string on a new peg after fastening the well-twisted sheep-gut at both ends. Then, taking the bow in his right hand, he tested the string, which sang out sweetly and clearly, like the sound of a swallow, under his plucking.
Resourceful Odysseus now stripped off his tattered garments and sprang onto the large threshold with his bow and a quiver filled with swift arrows. These he poured out at his feet as he proclaimed among the suitors: “This fateful contest has in fact been ended. Now will I aim at another target, which no man has yet hit, to see if I may hit it and Apollo give me glory.”
Such were his words. He thereupon fastened a strong rope of a dark-prowed ship to a large pillar and lashed the other end around the roundhouse, drawing it high and tight so that no one’s feet might touch the ground. As when doves or long-winged thrushes, rushing into their roosting-place, become entangled in a net set in a thicket and a fateful resting place receives them, so were the necks of these women, holding their heads in a row, enmeshed in nooses, that they might die a most disgraceful death. Their feet twitched about for a little while but not for very long.
Thus she spoke, testing out her husband. And Odysseus, vexed to impatience, said to his devoted wife: “Woman, heartrending indeed are these words that you have spoken. Who has moved my bed elsewhere? A difficult task that would be, even for a highly skilled person, unless some god who wished it should come in person and easily put it in some other place. But no living mortal, not even in full youthful prime, could easily have removed it, since a great distinguishing feature was built into the curiously wrought bed, a bed which I and no one else laboriously built.
As welcome as land appears to swimming sailors whose well-built ship Poseidon has shattered on the sea when beaten by wind and mighty waves, and only a few escape to the mainland from the hoary sea, with much salt-grime encrusted on their flesh as they gladly set foot on land, escaping evil, so welcome to her sight was her dear husband and never for a moment did she release her white arms from his neck.