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

tongues
Are spoken by the dwellers of the isle.
In part they are Achaians, and in part
Are Cretans of the soil, a gallant stock;
There dwell Cydonians, Dorians of three tribes,
And proud Pelasgians. Their great capital
Is Cnossus, where the monarch Minos dwelt,
He who at every nine years’ end conferred
With Jove almighty; and to him was born
Deucalion, my brave father, who begat
Me and Idomeneus, the King of Crete.
To Ilium in his beaked galleys sailed
Idomeneus with Atreus’ sons. My name⁠—
A name well known⁠—is Aethon. ’Twas at Crete
I saw Ulysses, who received from me
The welcome due a guest. A violent wind
Had driven him from Maleia and the course
That led to Ilium, and had carried him
To Crete, and lodged him in the dangerous port
Amnisus, close to Ilithyia’s cave,
Where scarce his fleet escaped the hurricane.
Thence came he to the city, and inquired
For King Idomeneus, who was, he said,
His dear and honored guest; but he had sailed
Ten days before, perhaps eleven, for Troy,
In his beaked galleys. To the palace there
I led Ulysses, and with liberal cheer
Welcomed the chief, for plentifully stored
The royal dwelling was. I also gave
Meal from the public magazines to him
And those who followed him, and dark red wine
Brought from the country round, and beeves to slay
In sacrifice, that so their hearts might feel
No lack of aught. Twelve days the noble Greeks
Remained with us. A violent north-wind,
Which scarcely suffered them to stand upright
On shore, withstood them. Some unfriendly power
Had bid it blow; but on the thirteenth day
Its fury ceased, and the fleet put to sea.”

Thus went he on, inventing tales that seemed
Like truth. She listened, melting into tears
That flowed as when on mountain height the snow,
Shed by the west-wind, feels the east-wind’s breath,
And flows in water, and the hurrying streams
Are filled; so did Penelope’s fair cheeks
Seem to dissolve in tears⁠—tears shed for him
Who sat beside her even then. He saw
His weeping wife, and pitied her at heart;
Yet were his eyes like iron or like horn,
And moved not in their lids; for artfully
He kept his tears from falling. When the queen
Had ceased to weep, she answered him and said:⁠—

“Now, stranger, let me prove thee, if in truth
Thou didst receive, as thou hast just declared,
In thine abode, my husband and his train
Of noble friends. Describe the garb he wore;
How looked he, and the friends he brought with him?”

Ulysses, the sagacious, answered her:
“O lady, hard it is to answer thee,
So long have I been far away from home.
’Tis now the twentieth year since he was there
And left the isle, but, as my memory bids,
So will I speak. A fleecy purple cloak
Ulysses wore, a double web; the clasp
Was golden, with two fastenings, and in front
It showed a work of rare design⁠—a hound
That held in his forepaws a spotted fawn,
Struggling before his open mouth. Although
The figures were of gold, we all admired
The hound intent to break his victim’s neck,
The fawn that, writhing, plied her nimble feet
To free herself. Around the hero’s chest
And waist I saw a lustrous tunic worn,
Soft, like the thin film of the onion dried,
And bright as sunshine; many ladies looked
With wonder on it. Yet consider this;
I know not whether thus attired he left
His home, or whether, in the voyage thence,
Some comrade gave the garments, or perhaps
Some friendly host, for he was very dear
To many; among the Greeks were few like him.
I gave him, from myself, a brazen sword,
And a fair purple cloak, a double web,
Besides a tunic reaching to his feet,
And with due honors sent him on his way
In his good ship. There came and went with him
A herald somewhat older than himself;
Let me portray him⁠—hunchbacked, swarthy skinned,
And curly haired, Eurybates his name.
Ulysses honored him above the rest
Of his companions, for they thought alike.”

He ceased; the queen was moved to deeper grief,
For she remembered all the tokens well
Of which he spake; and when that passionate gust
Of weeping ceased, she spake again and said:⁠—

“Stranger, till now thy presence in these halls
Has only moved my pity; thou henceforth
Art dear and honored. It was I who gave
The garments thou hast told me of; these hands
Folded them in my chamber. I put on
The glittering clasp to be his ornament,
And now I never shall behold him more
Returning to his own dear land and home;
So cruel was the fate that took him hence
To Ilium, in his roomy ship, a town
Of evil omen never to be named.”

Ulysses, the sagacious, answered thus:
“O gracious consort of Laertes’ son!
Let not thy grief for him whom thou hast lost
Wither thy beauty longer, and consume
Thy heart. And yet I blame thee not at all;
For any wife in losing him to whom
She gave herself while yet a maid, and bore
Children, will mourn him, though he be in worth
Below Ulysses, who, as fame declares,
Is like the gods. But cease to grieve, and hear
What I shall say, and I shall speak the truth,
Nor will I hide from thee that I have heard,
But lately from Ulysses, yet alive,
And journeying homeward, in the opulent realm
Of the Thesprotians, whence he brings with him
Much and rare treasure, gathered there among
The people. His beloved friends he lost,
And his good ship; the black deep swallowed them
In coming from Trinacria, for his crew
Had slaughtered there the oxen of the Sun.
The Sun and Jove were angry; therefore all
His comrades perished in the billowy sea;
But him upon his galley’s keel the wind
Drove to the coast where the Phaeacians dwell,
The kinsmen of the gods. They welcomed him,
And honored him as if he were a god,
And gave him many things, and would have sent
The hero safely to his native isle;
And here Ulysses would have been long since,
But that he deemed it wise to travel far,
And gather wealth⁠—for well Ulysses knew,
Beyond all other men, the arts of gain,
And none in these could think to rival him;
So Pheidon, king of the Thesprotians said,
Who also, in his palace, swore to me⁠—
As to the gods of heaven he poured the wine⁠—
That even then a galley was drawn down
Into the water, and already manned
With rowers, who should take Ulysses home.
But me he first dismissed, for at the time
A barque of the Thesprotians left the port,
Bound for Dulichium’s cornfields. Ere I