The Odyssey by Homer (best novels in english txt) 📕

island, through the misty sea.
By night spring up the mighty winds that make
A wreck of ships, and how can one escape
Destruction, should a sudden hurricane
Rise from the south or the hard-blowing west,
Such as, in spite of all the sovereign gods,
Will cause a ship to founder in the deep?
Let us obey the dark-browed Night, and take
Our evening meal, remaining close beside
Our gallant barque, and go on board again
When morning breaks, and enter the wide sea.’

“So spake Eurylochus; the rest approved.
And then I knew that some divinity
Was meditating evil to our band,
And I bespake him thus in winged words:⁠—

“ ‘Eurylochus, ye force me to your will,
Since I am only one. Now all of you
Bind yourselves to me firmly, by an oath,
That if ye haply here shall meet a herd
Of beeves or flock of sheep, ye will not dare
To slay a single ox or sheep, but feed
Contented on the stores that Circè gave.’

“I spake, and readily my comrades swore
As I required; and when that solemn oath
Was taken, to the land we brought and moored
Our galley in a winding creek, beside
A fountain of sweet water. From the deck
Stepped my companions and made ready there
Their evening cheer. They ate and drank till thirst
And hunger were appeased, and then they thought
Of those whom Scylla from our galley’s deck
Snatched and devoured; they thought and wept till sleep
Stole softly over them amid their tears.
Now came the third part of the night; the stars
Were sinking when the Cloud-compeller Jove
Sent forth a violent wind with eddying gusts,
And covered both the earth and sky with clouds,
And darkness fell from heaven. When Morning came,
The rosy-fingered daughter of the Dawn,
We drew the ship into a spacious grot.
There were the seats of nymphs, and there we saw
The smooth fair places where they danced. I called
A council of my men, and said to them:⁠—

“ ‘My friends, in our good ship are food and drink;
Abstain we from these beeves, lest we be made
To suffer; for these herds and these fair flocks
Are sacred to a dreaded god, the Sun⁠—
The all-beholding and all-hearing Sun.’

“I spake, and all were swayed by what I said
Full easily. A month entire the gales
Blew from the south, and after that no wind
Save east and south. While yet we had our bread
And ruddy wine, my comrades spared the beeves,
Moved by the love of life. But when the stores
On board our galley were consumed, they roamed
The island in their need, and sought for prey,
And snared with barbed hooks the fish and birds⁠—
Whatever came to hand⁠—till they were gaunt
With famine. Meantime I withdrew alone
Into the isle, to supplicate the gods,
If haply one of them might yet reveal
The way of my return. As thus I strayed
Into the land, apart from all the rest,
I found a sheltered nook where no wind came,
And prayed with washen hands to all the gods
Who dwell in heaven. At length they bathed my lids
In a soft sleep. Meantime, Eurylochus
With fatal counsels thus harangued my men:⁠—

“ ‘Hear, my companions, sufferers as ye are,
The words that I shall speak. All modes of death
Are hateful to the wretched race of men;
But this of hunger, thus to meet our fate,
Is the most fearful. Let us drive apart
The best of all the oxen of the Sun,
And sacrifice them to the immortal ones
Who dwell in the broad heaven. And if we come
To Ithaca, our country, we will there
Build to the Sun, whose path is o’er our heads,
A sumptuous temple, and endow its shrine
With many gifts and rare. But if it be
His will, approved by all the other gods,
To sink our barque in anger, for the sake
Of these his high-horned oxen, I should choose
Sooner to gasp my life away amid
The billows of the deep, than pine to death
By famine in this melancholy isle.’

“So spake Eurylochus; the crew approved.
Then from the neighboring herd they drove the best
Of all the beeves; for near the dark-prowed ship
The fair broad-fronted herd with crooked horns
Were feeding. Round the victims stood my crew,
And, offering their petitions to the gods,
Held tender oak-leaves in their hands, just plucked
From a tall tree, for in our good ship’s hold
Was no white barley now. When they had prayed,
And slain and dressed the beeves, they hewed away
The thighs and covered them with double folds
Of caul, and laid raw slices over these.
Wine had they not to pour in sacrifice
Upon the burning flesh; they poured instead
Water, and roasted all the entrails thus.
Now when the thighs were thoroughly consumed,
And entrails tasted, all the rest was carved
Into small portions, and transfixed with spits.

“Just then the gentle slumber left my lids.
I hurried to the shore and my good ship,
And, drawing near, perceived the savory steam
From the burnt-offering. Sorrowfully then
I called upon the ever-living gods:⁠—

“ ‘O Father Jove, and all ye blessed gods,
Who live forever, ’twas a cruel sleep
In which ye lulled me to my grievous harm;
My comrades here have done a fearful wrong.’

“Lampetia, of the trailing robes, in haste
Flew to the Sun, who journeys round the earth,
To tell him that my crew had slain his beeves,
And thus in anger he bespake the gods:⁠—

“ ‘O Father Jove, and all ye blessed gods
Who never die, avenge the wrong I bear
Upon the comrades of Laertes’ son,
Ulysses, who have foully slain my beeves,
In which I took delight whene’er I rose
Into the starry heaven, and when again
I sank from heaven to earth. If for the wrong
They make not large amends, I shall go down
To Hades, there to shine among the dead.’

“The cloud-compelling Jupiter replied:⁠—
‘Still shine, O Sun! among the deathless gods
And mortal men, upon the nourishing earth.
Soon will I cleave, with a white thunderbolt,
Their galley in the midst of the black sea.’

“This from Calypso of the radiant hair
I heard thereafter; she herself, she said,
Had heard it from the herald Mercury.

“When to the ship I came, beside the sea,
I sternly chid them all, man after man,
Yet could we think of no redress; the beeves
Were dead; and now with prodigies the gods
Amazed my comrades⁠—the skins moved and crawled,
The flesh both raw and roasted on the spits
Lowed with the voice of oxen. Six whole days
My comrades feasted, taking from the herd
The Sun’s best oxen. When Saturnian Jove
Brought the seventh day,