This is the story of a man, one who was never at a loss. He had travelled far in the world, after the sack of Troy, the virgin fortress; he saw many cities of men, and learnt their mind; he endured many troubles and hardships in the struggle to save his own life and to bring back his men safe to their homes. He did his best, but he could not save his companions. For they perished by their own madness, because they killed and ate the cattle of Hyperion the Sun-god, and the god took care that they should never see home again.
‘Young men who seek my hand, now that Odysseus is dead I know you are in a hurry for marriage; but wait until I finish this cloth, for I don’t want to waste all the thread I have spun. It is a shroud for my lord Laërtês, against the time when all-destroying fate shall carry him away in dolorous death. I should not like the women of our nation to cry scandal, if he should lie without a winding-sheet when he had great possessions.’
“That is what she said, and we swallowed our pride, and consented. There she was all day long, working away at the great web; but at night she used to unravel it by torchlight. So for three years she deluded the whole nation, and they believed her. But the seasons passed on, and the fourth year began, and a time came when one of her women told us, one who knew the secret; we caught her unravelling that fine web! So she had to finish it, because she must, not because she would.
“A hard-hearted lot you are, you gods, and as jealous as jealous can be! Why are you shocked if a goddess sleeps with a man and makes no secret of it, when she happens to find one she could love as a husband? It is always the same. When blushing Dawn chose Orion, all you gods were shocked. You live as you like yourselves, but you would not rest until Artemis let fly one of her gentle bolts and killed him in Ortygia. Her Holiness on that golden throne! Then Demeter had a fancy for Iasion, and pleased herself, made her love-bed on the furrows of the plowland. Zeus heard of it in no time, and killed him dead with a fiery thunderbolt.
“So you gods are all shocked at me now, because there’s a mortal man with me. I saved the man when he was straddling across a ship’s keel,
She found him sitting upon the shore. The tears were never dry in his eyes; life with its sweetness was slowly trickling away. He cared for her no longer; at night he was forced to sleep by her side in the cave, although the love was all on her part, and he spent the days sitting upon the rocks or the sands staring at the barren sea and sorrowing.
So saying, he crawled out of the bushes. He broke off a branch thick with leaves, and held it before him in his hand, to hide his naked body. Then he strode along like a lion of the mountains, proud of his power, who goes on through wind and rain with eyes blazing, as he pounces on cattle and sheep, or chases the wild deer; indeed he is ready to follow belly’s bidding, and to invade even a walled close in search of the bleaters. Odysseus felt just as desperate when he resolved to join a party of pretty girls without a rag upon him; but he could not help it. What a vision they saw! Something filthy and caked in sea-salt which fairly terrified them: away they scampered in all directions, to hide behind hillocks of sand. Only the young princess stood her ground; for Athena took all fear away.
So sang the famous minstrel. Odysseus was melted, and tears ran over his cheeks. He wept as a woman weeps with her arms about a beloved husband, who has fallen in front of his people, fighting to keep the day of ruin from city and children; when she sees him panting and dying, she throws her arms around him and wails aloud, but the enemies behind her beat her about the back and shoulders with their spears, and drag her away into slavery, where labour and sorrow will be her lot and her cheeks will grow thin with pining.
“The cruel monster made no answer, but just jumped up and reached out towards my men, grabbed two like a pair of puppies and dashed them on the ground: their brains ran out and soaked into the earth. Then he cut them up limb by limb, and made them ready for supper. He devoured them like a mountain lion, bowels and flesh and marrow-bones, and left nothing. We groaned aloud, lifting our hands to Zeus, when we saw this brutal business; but there was nothing to be done.
“When Goggle-eye had filled his great belly with his meal of human flesh, washed down with a draught of milk neat, he lay and stretched himself among the sheep.
“‘Cyclops, do you ask me my name? Well, I will tell you, and you shall give me the stranger’s due, as you promised. Noman is my name; Noman is what mother and father call me and all my friends.’
“Then the cruel monster said, ‘Noman shall be last eaten of his company, and all the others shall be eaten before him! that shall be your stranger’s gift.’
“‘Who are you, where do you come from in the wide world? Where is your city, who are your parents? I am amazed that you have swallowed my drugs and you are not bewitched. Indeed, there never was another man who could stand these drugs once he had let them pass his teeth! But you must have a mind that cannot be bewitched. Surely you are Odysseus, the man who is never at a loss! Argeiphontês Goldenrod used to say that you would come on your way from Troy in a ship. Come now, put up your sword in the sheath, let us lie down on my bed and trust each other in love!’
“When I heard this, I longed to throw my arms round her neck. Three times I tried to embrace the ghost, three times it slipt through my hands like a shadow or a dream. A sharp pang pierced my heart, and I cried out straight from my heart to hers:
“‘Mother dear! Why don’t you stay with me when I long to embrace you? Let us relieve our hearts, and have a good cry in each other’s arms. Are you only a phantom which awful Persephoneia has sent to make me more unhappy than ever?’
‘Don’t bepraise death to me, Odysseus. I would rather be plowman to a yeoman farmer on a small holding than lord Paramount in the kingdom of the dead.
“‘But do tell me something about that fine son of mine. Did he go to the war and take a leading place, or not? And tell me of my noble old father; have you heard anything of Peleus? Does he still hold his honourable place among the Myrmidons, or have they lost respect for him throughout the land because his hands and feet are stiff with age? For I am no longer under the sun to help him, strong as I once was on the battlefield of Troy, when I struck down the best of them and defended our people.
“‘Come this way, most admirable Odysseus, glory of the nation! stay your ship, and listen to our voice! No man ever yet sailed past this place, without first listening to the voice which sounds from our lips sweet as honey! No, he has a great treat and goes home a wiser man. For we know all that the Argives and Trojans endured on the plains before Troy by the will of Heaven; and we know all that shall come to pass on the face of mother earth!’
All deaths are hateful to miserable mortals, but the most pitiable death of all is to starve. Come along, let us drive off the best of these cattle, and sacrifice them to the immortal gods who rule the broad heavens. If we ever return home to Ithaca, we will build a rich temple to Helios Hyperion, and set up there many handsome offerings; but if the god is angry about his straighthorns, and wants to destroy our ship, and if the other gods agree, I choose rather to die once with a mouthful of salt water than to be slowly squeezed out in a desert island.’
So saying he entered the well-built mansion, and made straight for the riotous pretenders in hall. But Argos passed into the darkness of death, now that he had seen his master once more after twenty years.
He might have been a good fat black pudding going round in front of a blazing fire, while the cook basted it on the spit to roast it quickly. As he rolled over and over, thinking how he could get his hands on that shameless crew, one against many, Athena came down from heaven and stood by his side in the shape of a woman, saying:
“Why are you wakeful, poor fellow?
Amid all this talk Odysseus balanced the bow and scanned it over. Then as easily as a skilful musician stretches a new string on his harp, fastening the sheepgut over the pegs at each end, so without an effort Odysseus strung the great bow. Then he took the bow in his right hand, and twanged the string; at his touch it sang a clear note like a swallow.
Now Odysseus stript off his rags, and leapt upon the great doorstone, holding the bow and the quiver full of arrows. He spread the arrows before his feet, and called aloud to the company:
“So the great game is played! and now for another mark, which no man has ever hit: I will see if Apollo will hear my prayer and let me strike it.”
So he rigged up a ship’s hawser, fastening one end to a tall pillar and throwing the other round the dome. A noose was looped round the neck of each, and he pulled it up tight so that their feet would not touch the ground. They were strung up with their heads in a row; a pitiable death to die, no lover’s bed indeed! They looked like a lot of thrushes or doves caught in a net when they come to roost in the bushes. Their feet jerked for a little while, but not long.
This was a little trap for her husband. He burst into a rage:
“Wife, that has cut me to the heart! Who has moved my bed? That would be a difficult job for the best workman, unless God himself should come down and move it. It would be easy for God, but no man could easily prize it up, not the strongest man living! There is a great secret in that bed. I made it myself, and no one else touched it.
She felt like a shipwrecked mariner, when the stout ship has been driven before the storm and smashed by the heavy waves, but a few have escaped by swimming. How glad they are to see land at last, to get out of the water and stand upon solid ground all caked with brine! So glad was Penelopeia to see her husband at last; she held her white arms close round his neck, and could not let him go.