Tell me, Muse, of the versatile man who was driven off course many times after he had sacked the holy citadel of Troy. Many were the peoples whose cities he saw, and whose minds he got to know; and at sea many were the pains he felt in his heart as he tried to secure his own life and his comrades’ return home. Even so he did not save them, much as he wanted to. Instead they perished through their own outrageous behaviour, foolish men who ate up the cattle of Hyperion the Sun; and he took from them the day of their homecoming. From some point or other, goddes, daughter of Zeus, tell us too about these things.
‘Young men, who are my suitors, now that divine Odysseus is dead, though you are eager for my marriage, wait until such time as I complete the robe, so that the threads are not wasted uselessly, a funeral shroud for the hero Laertes, against the day when the dreadful fate of death with its long-lasting sorrow takes him in her grip, in case any of the Achaian women among the folk hold it against me if he lies there without a winding sheet, for all the possessions he has got.’
So she spoke, and on our side our proud hearts obeyed her. Then in the daytime she used to weave the great web, and at night she undid it, when she had set torches by her side. In this way for three years by her trickery she escaped detection, and prevailed on the Achaians. But when the fourth year came and the seasons were on us, then one of the women, who knew the truth, told, and we caught her undoing the bright web. In this way she finished it, even though she did not want to, under duress.
‘You are harsh, you gods, and envious above all others, seeing that you begrudge goddesses to lie by the side of men openly, if one makes a man her dear husband: as when rose-fingered Dawn took Orion for her own, the gods whose life is easy felt envy, until holy Artemis of the golden throne visited him at Ortygie with her gentle arrows and killed him, and as when Demeter of the lovely hair gave way to her passion and joined in loving union with Iasion in the much ploughed field, and Zeus did not remain ignorant for long, who killed him striking him with his flashing thunderbolt, so now again, you gods, you are envious of me, that a mortal man should be here with me. Him I saved when he was alone, bestriding the keel
She found him sitting on the shore; his eyes were never dry from tears, and his sweet life was draining out of him as he wept over his return, for the nymph pleased him no longer. The nights he used to spend in the hollow caverns under duress by her side; he was not willing, but she was. By day he would sit on the rocky headlands tearing at his heart with tears, lamentations and sarrows, and look over the unharvested sea, shedding tears.
So saying the divine Odysseus emerged from the bushes. He broke off in his stout hand a branch of leaves from the dense wood, to protect a fellow’s private parts on his body. He went like a mountain lion, confident in its strength, which goes on its way though buffeted by rain and wind, its eyes burning: he goes after cattle or sheep, or after wild deer, and his stomach tells him he must even go into their stoutly built home to try for the flocks. So it was that Odysseus was on the point of making contact with the lovely-haired girls, naked though he was; for he was in dire straits. He looked dreadful to them, his appearance being made foul by the salt water. In terror they ran off in different directions along the projecting shores. Alone the daughter of Alcinoos stood her ground, as Athene put courage in her heart and took fear from her limbs.
That then was what the very famous minstrel was singing about, and Odysseus was overcome; a tear dampened his cheeks below his eyes. As a woman weeps, stooping to embrace her dear husband who has fallen before his city and people, trying to stave off the pitiless day for the town and his children, and sees him dying, gasping for breath, and she collapses over him crying aloud, while others behind her strike at her back and shoulders with their spears, bringing bondage upon her, for her to have pain and sorrow, and her cheeks are wasted with the most pitiful grief — so Odysseus shed a pitiful tear from below his brow.
So I spoke. He made no reply with his pitiless heart, but heaping up laid hands upon my comrades, and snatching two together knocked them like puppies on to the ground, and their brains ran out on the earth making the ground wet. Cutting them up limb by limb he furnished his supper. He ate like a mountain lion, without stopping, innards and flesh and the bones with their marrow. We in tears lifted up our hands to Zeus as we saw the frightful acts, and a feeling of helplessness held our spirits. When the Cyclops had filled his great belly, eating human flesh and drinking unmixed milk on top of it, he lay down inside the cave, stretching himself out through the sheep.
‘Cyclops, you ask me for my famous name; I will tell you, and you give me the stranger’s present as you undertook. “No One” is my name; “No One” is what my mother and father and all my comrades call me.’
So I spoke, and he at once replied with a pitiless heart: ‘I shall eat No One last among his comrades, and the rest first; that shall be your present.’
‘Who are you, and who are you descended from? Where is your city, and your parents? I am amazed that you have not been charmed on drinking these drugs. No other man has withstood these drugs who has drunk them once they have passed the fence of his teeth; but you have some sort of mind that cannot be laid under a spell in your breast. Are you the versatile Odysseus, whom the slayer of Argos with the golden staff was always saying would come, returning from Troy with his fast black ship? Come now, but your sword in its sheath, and let the pair of us after this climb into our bed, so that we may join in loving union with trust in each other.’
So she spoke. I wanted, deliberating in my mind, to hold the ghost of my dead mother. Three times I started towards her, my spirit telling me to hold her, and three times she flew from my hands like a shadow, or rather a dream. In my heart the sharp pang of grief grew more, and I spoke to her with these winged words: ‘My mother, why do you not wait for me who long to hold you, so that even in Hades we may put our arms around each other and both take our pleasure in chill lamentation? Or has proud Persephone sent me this spectre for me to lament and weep even more?’
‘Do not try to talk death away, glorious Odysseus: I would prefer to be on earth, as another’s serf, in the household of a man without land and with nothing much to live on, than be king of all the dead that have perished. But come, tell me what there is to say about my proud son, whether he followed to war to be a leader, or not. Tell me of the excellent Peleus, if you have any knowledge of him, whether he still holds <a position of> honour among the many Myrmidons, or whether they hold him in dishonour throughout Hellas and Phthia because his hands and feet are in the grip of old age. If only I were there to help, in the sunlight, being just as I was once when in broad Troy I killed their best people in protecting the Argives
‘Come here, much-praised Odysseus, great glory of the Achaians; halt your ship so that you can hear the voice of us two. No one has ever driven past this way in a black ship before hearing our honey-toned voice from our mouths: people enjoy <the sound> and go on their way, knowing more. You see, we know everything, all the hardships undergone through the gods’ will by the Argives and Trojans at broad Troy, and we know everything that happens on the richly-providing earth.’
All deaths are hateful to poor mortals, but the most pitiful is to meet your fate by dying of hunger. So come, let us drive off the best of the Sun’s cattle, and sacrifice to the immortal gods who hold the broad sky. If we should arrive at Ithaca, our home land, we may at once build a rich temple to Hyperion the Sun, and put in it many excellent ornaments. If he is at all angry about the cattle with their upright horns, and wants to destroy our ship, and the other gods go along with him, I prefer to lose my life with one swallow at the waves than be worn down over a long time on a desert islad.’
So saying he went into the well-built house, and made straight for the hall to find the proud suitors. As for Argos, the doom of black death took him straight after seeing Odysseus, in the twentieth year.
As a man, a large fire blazing, quickly turns a haggis full of fat and blood, and longs for it to be cooked really quickly, so he twisted this way and that, thinking over how he was going to lay hands on the shameless suitors, being one against many. Athene came up to him, descending from the sky; in her body she resembled a woman. She stood above his head and addressed these words to him: ‘Whty ever are you awake, of all men the one most dogged by fate?
So said the suitors, but the resourceful Odysseus at once, after he had taken up the bow and looked all round, as a man who knows about lyres and singing easily tautens a new string on its peg, fastening the well-twisted sheep-gut at both ends, so without effort Odysseus tautened the great bow, and with his right hand took and tried the string; it gave a nice sound in response, its voice like a swallow’s.
Baring himself from his rags the resourceful Odysseus leapt towards the great threshold, holding the bow and a quiver full of arrows, and poured out the swift shafts there and then in front of his feet, and spoke out among the suitors: ‘So, this formidable contest has come to its end! Now I shall find out if I can hit a quite different target, Apollo granting my prayer, one which no man has yet struck.’
So he spoke, and fastening the cable of a ship with a dark-blue bow from a pillar of the great round-house he put it round them, making it taut on top so that no one could reach the ground with her feet. As long-winged thrushes or doves dash against a net which receives them, so they had their heads in a row, and there were nooses round all their necks so that they would die in the most pitiful way. They twitched with their feet — for a short while, not very long.
So she spoke, putting her husband to the test. Odysseus in dismay addressed the wife whose thoughts were loyal: ‘My wife, what you have just said is painful to my heart. Who has put my bed somewhere else? It would be hard even for a really skilled man, unless a god came along himself and put it in a different place, easily, if he wanted to; but of men no living human being, not even one full of vigour, could easily lever it up, because its construction is a tour de force on the elaborate bed, which I worked on and no one else.
As when land appears, a welcome sight, to men swimming, whose well-made ship Poseidon has wrecked at sea, driven on by the wind and massive waves; a few escape to the mainland from the grey sea by swimming, a lot of salt caked around their bodies, and they set foot joyfully on land after their escape from disaster — that is how welcome her husband was to her as she looked at him, and she absolutely would not let her white arms go from round his neck: