Of Gods and Men

by Daisy Dunn

  “Thus did he pray, and Neptune heard his prayer. Then he picked up a rock much larger than the first, swung it aloft and hurled it with prodigious force. It fell just short of the ship, but was within a little of hitting the end of the rudder. The sea quaked as the rock fell into it, and the wash of the wave it raised drove us onwards on our way towards the shore of the island.

  “When at last we got to the island where we had left the rest of our ships, we found our comrades lamenting us, and anxiously awaiting our return. We ran our vessel upon the sands and got out of her on to the sea shore; we also landed the Cyclops’ sheep, and divided them equitably amongst us so that none might have reason to complain. As for the ram, my companions agreed that I should have it as an extra share; so I sacrificed it on the sea shore, and burned its thigh bones to Jove, who is the lord of all. But he heeded not my sacrifice, and only thought how he might destroy both my ships and my comrades.

  “Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we feasted our fill on meat and drink, but when the sun went down and it came on dark, we camped upon the beach. When the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, I bade my men go on board and loose the hawsers. Then they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars; so we sailed on with sorrow in our hearts, but glad to have escaped death though we had lost our comrades.”

  THE SONG OF DEMODOCUS

  Odyssey, Book VIII

  Homer

  Translated by Emily Wilson, 2018

  At the palace on Scheria, Odysseus is entertained by a blind bard called Demodocus, who sings this story of Hephaestus, the skilled but physically lame craftsman god, who caught his wife Aphrodite in bed with the war god Ares. This much-admired translation is by a contemporary scholar.

  The poet strummed and sang a charming song

  about the love of fair-crowned Aphrodite

  for Ares, who gave lavish gifts to her

  and shamed the bed of Lord Hephaestus, where

  they secretly had sex. The Sun God saw them,

  and told Hephaestus—bitter news for him.

  He marched into his forge to get revenge,

  and set the mighty anvil on its block,

  and hammered chains so strong that they could never

  be broken or undone. He was so angry

  at Ares. When his trap was made, he went

  inside the room of his beloved bed,

  and twined the mass of cables all around

  the bedposts, and then hung them from the ceiling,

  like slender spiderwebs, so finely made

  that nobody could see them, even gods:

  the craftsmanship was so ingenious.

  when he had set that trap across the bed,

  he traveled to the cultured town of Lemnos,

  which was his favorite place in all the world.

  Ares the golden rider had kept watch.

  He saw Hephaestus, famous wonder-worker,

  leaving his house, and went inside himself;

  he wanted to make love with Aphrodite.

  She had returned from visiting her father,

  the mighty son of Cronus; there she sat.

  Then Ares took her hand and said to her,

  “My darling, let us go to bed. Hephaestus

  is out of town; he must have gone to Lemnos

  to see the Sintians whose speech is strange.”

  She was excited to lie down with him;

  they went to bed together. But the chains

  ingenious Hephaestus had created

  wrapped tight around them, so they could not move

  or get up. Then they knew that they were trapped.

  The limping god drew near—before he reached

  the land of Lemnos, he had turned back home.

  Troubled at heart, he came towards his house.

  Standing there in the doorway, he was seized

  by savage rage. He gave a mighty shout,

  calling to all the gods,

  “O Father Zeus,

  and all you blessed gods who live forever,

  look! It is funny—and unbearable.

  See how my Aphrodite, child of Zeus,

  is disrespecting me for being lame.

  She loves destructive Ares, who is strong

  and handsome. I am weak. I blame my parents.

  If only I had not been born! But come,

  see where those two are sleeping in my bed,

  as lovers. I am horrified to see it.

  But I predict they will not want to lie

  longer like that, however great their love.

  Soon they will want to wake up, but my trap

  and chains will hold them fast, until her father

  pays back the price I gave him for his daughter.

  Her eyes stare at me like a dog. She is

  so beautiful, but lacking self-control.”

  The gods assembled at his house: Poseidon,

  Earth-Shaker, helpful Hermes, and Apollo.

  The goddesses stayed home, from modesty.

  The blessed gods who give good things were standing

  inside the doorway, and they burst out laughing,

  at what a clever trap Hephaestus set.

  And as they looked, they said to one another,

  “Crime does not pay! The slow can beat the quick,

  as now Hephaestus, who is lame and slow,

  has used his skill to catch the fastest sprinter

  of all those on Olympus. Ares owes

  the price for his adultery.” They gossiped.

  Apollo, son of Zeus, then said to Hermes,

  “Hermes my brother, would you like to sleep

  with golden Aphrodite, in her bed,

  even weighed down by mighty chains?”

  And Hermes

  the sharp-eyed messenger replied, “Ah, brother,

  Apollo lord of archery: if only!

  I would be bound three times as tight or more

  and let you gods and all your wives look on,

  if only I could sleep with Aphrodite.”

  Then laughter rose among the deathless gods.

  Only Poseidon did not laugh. He begged

  and pleaded with Hephaestus to release

  Ares. He told the wonder-working god,

  “Now let him go! I promise he will pay

  the penalty in full among the gods,

  just as you ask.”

  The famous limping god

  replied, “Poseidon, do not ask me this.

  It is disgusting, bailing scoundrels out.

  How could I bind you, while the gods look on,

  if Ares should escape his bonds and debts?”

  Poseidon, Lord of Earthquakes, answered him,

  “Hephaestus, if he tries to dodge this debt,

  I promise I will pay.”

  The limping god

  said, “Then, in courtesy to you, I must

  do as you ask.” So using all his strength,

  Hephaestus loosed the chains. The pair of lovers

  were free from their constraints, and both jumped up.

  Ares went off to Thrace, while Aphrodite

  smiled as she went to Cyprus, to the island

  of Paphos, where she had a fragrant altar

  and sanctuary. The Graces washed her there,

  and rubbed her with the magic oil that glows

  upon immortals, and they dressed her up

  in gorgeous clothes. She looked astonishing.

  AND SO TO BED

  Odyssey, Book XXIII

  Homer

  Translated by T. E. Shaw (Colonel T. E. Lawrence), 1935

  After marvelling at Odysseus’ tales, the people of Scheria (see previous story) finally conveyed him safely home to Ithaca. To punish them, the sea god Poseidon, father of the blinded Cyclops Polyphemus, turned their ship to stone. Odysseus’ troubles were far from over. First he needed to defeat the evil suitors who had been pursuing his loyal wife Penelope. Then he needed to c
onvince her that he was indeed her husband come home to her after an absence of twenty years. In this translation, T. E. Shaw – Lawrence of Arabia – proved that he was as capable of mastering the tender scenes in Homer as he was the most thrilling episodes of derring-do. The ‘old dame’ is Eurycleia, the nurse of the household. Telemachus is Odysseus and Penelope’s son.

  But it was with a cackle of laughter that the old dame climbed towards the upper room, to warn her mistress of the beloved husband’s return. Her knees moved nimbly and her feet tripped along to the lady’s bed-head where she stood and spoke her part. “Awake dear child, Penelope: open your eyes upon the sight you have yearned for all these days. Odysseus has appeared, at this end of time. He has reached his home and in it slaughtered the recalcitrant suitors who for so long vexed the house, ate his stored wealth and outfaced his son.”

  Circumspect Penelope replied to this: “Dear mother, the Gods have driven you frantic. They turn to foolishness the ripest judgements and the flighty into sober ways. From them comes this derangement of your old true understanding:—but why tease with fantasies a heart already brimmed with grief? Why wake me from this sleep whose sweetness held me in thrall and veiled my eyelids; the best sleep I have enjoyed since Odysseus went away to view that ill city never-to-be-named. Off with you below, instantly, to the women’s quarters. Had any other of my housemaidens roused me with news of this sort I should have sent her smartingly back into her place. Just for this once your great age shall excuse you.”

  Eurycleia persisted. “Dear child, I am in very earnest with you. Odysseus, I say, is here. He came back to the house as that stranger who met such scurvy treatment at all hands. Telemachus long since learnt his identity but very properly hid the knowledge, to let his father’s revenge take shape against those proud rough men.”

  This time her word transported Penelope who leaped from the couch and clasped the old woman, crying shrilly through the tears that rained from her eyes: “Ah, dear mother, but tell me, tell me truly—if as you say he is really come home, how has he coped single-handed with the shameless suitors, who mobbed our house continually?” And the good nurse told her, “I did not see, I do not know: but I heard the groans of their slaying. We all shrank trembling into a corner of our safe room—its doors wedged fast—until your son Telemachus came and called me forth at his father’s bidding. There in the hall I found Odysseus, stalking amidst the bodies of his slain that littered the beaten floor. Your heart would have glowed to see him so lion-like, all battle-stained and steeped in blood. Now the corpses are piled up outside, by the courtyard gates, while he has had a great fire lighted and purges the lovely house. He sent me to summon you; so come, that at the end of all the sorrow you two may enter your hearts’ gladness hand in hand. Surely your lingering hope is now fulfilled. He reaches his fireside alive and finds you and your son still there; while upon each and every one of those suitors who served him ill in the house he has wreaked revenge.”

  “Hush, mother,” said Penelope the decorous. “Do not sing too loud or soon. You know how grateful his reappearance in the house would be to everybody, particularly to me and to his son and mine: but what you proclaim does not ring true. This massacre of the overbearing suitors has been the work of some Immortal, inflamed by their heart-breaking wanton insolence which had regard for no soul they met, neither the bad nor the good: so they have been punished according to their sins. But meantime Odysseus in some far land has lost his way to Achaea—yea, lost himself.” Nurse Eurycleia replied: “My child, why let fall that dull word of your husband’s never coming home, when he is here already and by his fireside? Your heart was always stubborn in unbelief. Why I can quote you a sure proof, that scar from the boar’s white tusk long years ago, which I noted as I washed him. I wanted to tell you upon the instant; but he, careful for his own interests put his hand over my jaw and silenced me. Come with me now—and I pledge my life on it. If I mislead you, then slay me by the meanest death you know.”

  Penelope responded: “Even your storied wisdom, mother dear, hardly equips you to interpret the designs of the eternal Gods. Howbeit let us away to my son, for I would see the suitors lying in death; and their slayer.” She was going down as she spoke, her heart in a turmoil of debate whether to keep her distance while she examined her dear lord, or go straight up at once to kiss his head and clasp his hand. So when at length she came in across the stone threshold it was to take a seat in the fire-light facing Odysseus, but over against the further wall. He sat at the base of a tall pillar, waiting with drooping eyelids to hear his stately consort cry out when she caught sight of him. But she sat there in a long silence, with bewildered heart. One moment she would look and see him in his face; and the next moment fail to see him there, by reason of the foul rags he wore—till Telemachus named her in disapproval. “Mother mine,” he cried, “un-motherly mother and cruel-hearted, how dare you hold aloof from father, instead of running to sit by his side and ply him with questions? No other woman could in cold blood keep herself apart, when her man got home after twenty years of toil and sorrow. Your heart remains harder than a stone.”

  But Penelope explained: “Child, my heart is dazed. I have no force to speak, or ask, or even stare upon his face. If this is Odysseus in truth and at last, then shall we soon know each other better than well by certain private signs between us two, hidden from the rest of the world.” At which the glorious, long-suffering Odysseus smiled and said hastily to Telemachus, “After that, leave your mother alone for the test in her room with me presently. Soon she will come to fuller understanding. The filth of my body, these shabby clothes—such things make her overlook me and deny it can be myself. Meanwhile you and I must discuss our best policy. In a community the slaying of even a single man with few surviving connections to avenge him entails outlawry from home and family; and we have been killing best part of the young men of Ithaca, its pillars of state. I would have you ponder it”—but Telemachus rejoined, “Let that be your business, father dear. They call you the clearest-headed man alive, supreme in your generation. We others will support you whole-heartedly: and I fancy whatever our strength may be, courage at least will not fail us.”

  Said Odysseus, “Then hear what I think best. Wash now and dress, and have the house-women deck themselves. Then let the inspired minstrel with his resounding lyre lead off for us in a dance so merry that all hearing it from outside the walls, neighbours or passers-by, will say, ‘There is a wedding toward.’ Thus rumour of the suitors’ deaths will not spread across the city before we have got away to our tree-clad country place, there to weigh what means of advantage the Olympian may offer to our hands.” They had all listened intently and moved to do his bidding. They washed and put on tunics: the women were arrayed: the revered musician took his hollow lyre and awoke their appetite for rhythm and the gay dance, till the great house around them rang with the measured foot-falls of men and well-gowned women. Outside the house one and another hearing the harmony did say, “I swear someone has wedded the much-courted queen! Callous she was, and lacked the fortitude and constancy to keep the house of her lawful husband until he came,” Such was the gossip, in ignorance of the real event.

  Meanwhile, within, old Eurynome washed and anointed Odysseus, draping upon him a fair tunic and cloak, while Athene crowned him with an especial splendour that filled the eye; she made the hair of his head curl downward floridly, like bloom of hyacinth. As a craftsman lavishly endowed with skill by Hephaestus and Pallas washes his silverwork with fine gold until its mastery shines out, so the grace from Athene glorified his head and shoulders and made his figure, when he left the bath-chamber, seem divine. He retook his former throne opposite his wife and declared, “Proud lady, the heart that the lords of Olympus gave you is harder than any true woman’s. None but you would pitilessly repulse the husband who had won his way home after twenty years of toil. Old dame, favour me now by arranging my bed somewhere apart, that I may lie solitary: for the heart in her breast has turned to iron.”<
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  Said Penelope with reserve, “Proud lord, I neither set myself too high nor esteem you too low: nor am I confused out of mind. It is that I remember only too well how you were when you sailed from Ithaca in your long-oared ship. So Eurycleia, when you make up his great bed for him, move it outside the bridal chamber that he built so firmly. Have forth the heavy bed-frame and pile it high with fleeces and rugs and glossy blankets.” This she said to draw her husband out; and indeed Odysseus was ruffled into protesting to his wife, “Woman, this order pains my heart. Who has changed my bed? It would task the cunningest man—forbye no God happened to shift it in whim—for not the stoutest wight alive could heave it up directly. That bed’s design held a marvellous feature of my own contriving. Within our court had sprung a stem of olive, bushy, long in the leaf, vigorous; the bole of it column-thick. Round it I plotted my bed-chamber, walled entire with fine-jointed ashlar and soundly roofed. After adding joinery doors, fitting very close, I then polled the olive’s spreading top and trimmed its stump from the root up, dressing it so smooth with my tools and so knowingly that I got it plumb, to serve for bed-post just as it stood. With this for main member (boring it with my auger wherever required) I went on to frame up the bed, complete; inlaying it with gold, silver and ivory and lacing it across with ox-hide thongs, dyed blood-purple. That was the style of it, woman, as I explain: but of course I do not know whether the bed stands as it did; or has someone sawn through the olive stem and altered it?”

  As Odysseus had run on, furnishing her with proof too solid for rejection, her knees trembled, and her heart. She burst into tears, she ran to him, she flung her arms about his neck and kissed his head and cried, “My Odysseus, forgive me this time too, you who were of old more comprehending than any man of men. The Gods gave us sorrow for our portion, and in envy denied us the happiness of being together throughout our days, from the heat of youth to the shadow of old age. Be not angry with me, therefore, nor resentful, because at first sight I failed to fondle you thus. The heart within me ever shook for terror of being cheated by some man’s lie, so innumerable are those who plot to serve greedy ends. See, it was that way our life’s sorrow first began. Argive Helen, the daughter of Zeus, did not in her own imagination invent the ruinous folly that let a strange man lie with her in love and intercourse. A God it was that tempted her astray. Never would she have done it had she known how the warrior sons of the Achaeans would fetch her back once more to her native land. But now with those authentic details of our bed, seen by no human eye but yours, mine and my maid’s (Actor’s daughter, given me by my father before I came here and ever the sole keeper of our closed bedchamber-door) you have convinced my heart, slow though you may think it to believe.”