Tell me, O Muse, of that clever hero who wandered far after capturing the sacred city of Troy. For he saw the towns and learned the ways of many peoples. Many hardships too he suffered on the sea while struggling for his own life and for the safe return of his men. Yet all his zeal did not save his companions. They perished through their own rashness—the fools!—because they ate the cattle of the Sun, and he therefore kept them from returning home. Tell us also of this, O goddess, daughter of Zeus, beginning where you will.
‘My young suitors, although eager for my marriage, since Odysseus is dead, wait until I finish this robe, lest its threads be wasted. It is a shroud for lord Laertes when dire death shall lay him low. I fear that the Achaean women may censure me, if he who had such great possessions should lie without a shroud.’ So she said, and our manly hearts assented. Then by day she wove the great garment, but by torchlight at night unraveled it. Thus for three years she succeeded in cheating us Achaeans. But at last, in the fourth year, one of her maids let out the secret and we caught her unraveling the splendid shroud; and so she was compelled to finish it.
“You gods are cruel—jealous above all others—to begrudge goddesses honorable wedlock with men whom they love! And now you even object to my having this man stay here!
She found him sitting on the shore, his eyes never dry of tears. His sweet life was ebbing away with yearning for his home. In the daytime he sat on the rocks and sand, breaking his heart with weeping and groans and thought of his trouble, as he wistfully gazed through his tears at the unharvested sea.
So saying, noble Odysseus crept out from beneath the thicket, and with his strong hand broke off a branch of leaves from the thick bushes, that, girt round his body, it might cover his nakedness. And he set out like a mountain-bred lion which trusts in its strength and goes forth buffeted by rain and wind, both eyes aflame, amind cattle or sheep, or in pursuit of wild deer, its hungry belly bidding it even to attempt to enter the guarded fold of flocks. So Odysseus made bold to meet those fair-haired maidens, naked as he was; for need compelled him. Besmirched with foam, he was a loathsome sight to them, and they scampered away, taking flight, one this way, one that, over the broad beach. Only the daughter of Alcinous held her ground; for Athene put courage into her heart and kept her knees from trembling.
Thus sang the famous bard. Odysseus was greatly moved and wet his cheeks with tears. A woman whose dear husband has perished trying to save his city and his children, clings to him and weeps piteously as she sees him gasping in the throes of death. Throwing herself upon him, she utters a heart-rending cry, while foemen behind her smite her on the back and shoulders with their spears and force her away into bondage to suffer toil and trouble, her cheeks wasted with grief. Even as piteously as hers fell the tears beneath the brows of Odysseus.
“So I spoke, and from his savage heart he gave no answer, but sprang up and seized my comrades. He grabbed up two at once, as if they were puppies, and dashed them against the floor, spattering the ground with their brains. Then cutting them in pieces he made a meal of them, eating them as would a mountain lion—entrails, flesh, marrow-filled bones, and all. Wailing aloud at sight of this outrageous deed, we raised our hands to Zeus; but we were helpless. Stuffing his monstrous maw with this human flesh, the Cyclops ate and, after gulping down some pure milk besides, lay down full length in the cave among his flocks.
‘Cyclops, did you ask my famous name? Well, I will tell you; but give me a guest-gift, just as you promised. No-man is my name. Mother and father and all my friends call me No-man.’
“Thereupon he promptly gave this cruel answer: ‘No-man I will eat last, after his companions; all the others first. That shall be your guest-gift.’
“‘Who are you? Of what people? Where are your city and kindred? I am much amazed that you were not affected by drinking this drug! No other who tasted it ever withstood it, when once it had passed the barrier of his teeth; but in you there is a mind that cannot be beguiled. You, surely, are ingenious Odysseus, who, the god of the golden wand, Sudden Appearer, always said, would come here with his black ship on his way from Troy. Come then, sheathe your sword and live here with me, that we may learn to love and to trust each other.’
“When she said this, though my mind shrank from it, I yearned to embrace even the spirit of my dead mother. Three times the impulse came to clasp her form. Three times, like a shadow, or even like a dream, she flitted from my arms, and the sharp grief in my heart grew but keener.
“‘My own mother,’ I said earnestly, ‘why do you not stay for me as I long to embrace you, so that even in the house of Hades we may throw our arms about each other and sate ourselves with chilling grief? Or is this only a phantom that noble Persephone has sent to make me weep and sorrow but the more?’
“‘Speak not to me consolingly of death, I pray you, glorious Odysseus,’ he instantly answered. ‘I would rather be bound to the soil as a day laborer for some very poor man, than rule over all the dead. But come, give me some word of my illustrious son; whether he went to the war to be a leader, or not. And tell me if you have heard anything of noble Peleus; whether he still has honor in the cities of the Myrmidons, or they slight him now throughout Hellas and Phthia because old age hampers him, hand and foot. For I am not his helper now upon the earth, nor such an one as once I was when on the Trojan plain I slew the bravest men while succoring the Greeks.
“‘Hither! Come hither, Odysseus, whom all praise—great pride of the Achaeans!
Here stay thy barque, that thou may’st list to the song of us twain; for
Ne’er yet hath mortal passed by us within his black-hulled vessel
Till he hath heard from our lips our honey-sweet song and, rejoicing
Gone on his way much the wiser. For, lo, we have knowledge of all things—
All that the Argives and Trojans by hest of the gods e’er have suffered
In the wide region of Troy. We know whatever things happen
Here on the boundless earth.’
To wretched mortals any death is hateful; but to die and meet one’s doom by hunger is most pitiful of all. So come, let us drive here the Sun’s best kine and sacrifice them to the gods who hold wide heaven. If we ever reach our native Ithaca, we will at once built a rich temple to Hyperion Helios, and in it place many a splendid offering. But if in anger because of his high-horned cattle, he wants to destroy our ship, and the other gods consent, I for my part would rather, with one gulp at a wave, lose my life, than be worn out by a long stay on this desert island.’
So saying, Eumæus entered the stately palace and went straight down the hall among the lordly suitors. But upon Argos the doom of dark death came, at sight of Odysseus after twenty years.
As a man, when the fire is hot, quickly tosses a sausage, full of fat and blood, over and over, as he is eager for it to be roasted very quickly, so Odysseus kept turning himself over and over as he pondered in what possible way he might lay hands on these shameless suitors, since he was but one against so many.
Then Athene came down from heaven and drew near to his side in the likeness of a woman. She stood above his head and said:
“Why are you keeping vigil again, most unhappy of mortals?
So ran the talk of the suitors. Meanwhile crafty Odysseus had taken up the great bow and had examined it carefully on every side. Then, just as an expert at playing the lyre and singing, stretches a string around a new peg, securing the twisted sheep-gut at each end, thus, without effort, at once he strung the mighty bow. Holding it then in his right hand, he tried the bowstring. Clearly it sang at his touch with a tone like the swallow’s.
Then crafty Odysseus stripped off his rags and sprang to the broad threshold with his bow and quiver full of arrows. Pouring out the swift shafts at his feet, he thus addressed the suitors:
“Well, that dreadful ordeal is at an end! Now I will hit another mark, at which no man ever yet has aimed, if Apollo grants my prayer and I am thus able!”
Then he tied the cable of a dark-prowed ship to a great pillar and lashed it to the round-house, stretching it too high for any one to touch the ground with her feet. And, just as when broad-winged thrushes or doves, seeking to go to roost, dash into a net that has been set in a thicket, and a cruel resting place receives them; so these women held their heads in line. About all their necks were nooses, that they might die most disgracefully. For a while they twitched with their feet, but not long.
This she said to put her husband to the test. But Odysseus in anger said to his faithful wife:
“Woman, these are heart-breaking words of yours! Who has been moving my bedstead? Why, that would be a hard thing to do, even for one who had great skill, unless a very god should come and at his will easily put it in another place! No living man, even in his prime, could change its position; for a great token has been wrought into the curiously-fashioned bed. I built it myself, and none other.
as welcome as is that of the cheering land to swimmers whose sturdy ship, swept on by wind and swelling wave, Poseidon has wrecked upon the sea, while but a few have escaped the foaming billows by swimming to land, and they, with their bodies all crusted with brine, have climbed the shore, rejoicing at their narrow escape from peril. Thus welcome was her husband to her sight, and she she could never quite let her white arms leave his neck.