she set up a great loom in the royal halls
and she began to weave, and the weaving finespun,
the yarns endless, and she would lead us on: ‘Young men,
my suitors, now that King Odysseus is no more,
go slowly, keen as you are to marry me, until
I can finish off this web . . .
so my weaving won’t all fray and come to nothing.
This is a shroud for old lord Laertes, for that day
110 when the deadly fate that lays us out at last will take him down.
I dread the shame my countrywomen would heap upon me,
yes, if a man of such wealth should lie in state
without a shroud for cover.’
Her very words,
and despite our pride and passion we believed her.
So by day she’d weave at her great and growing web —
by night, by the light of torches set beside her,
she would unravel all she’d done. Three whole years
she deceived us blind, seduced us with this scheme . . .
Then, when the wheeling seasons brought the fourth year on,
120 one of her women, in on the queen’s secret, told the truth
and we caught her in the act —unweaving her gorgeous web.
So she finished it off. Against her will. We forced her.
Now Telemachus, here is how the suitors answer you —
you burn it in your mind, you and all our people:
send your mother back! Direct her to marry
whomever her father picks, whoever pleases her.
So long as she persists in tormenting us,
quick to exploit the gifts Athena gave her —
a skilled hand for elegant work, a fine mind
130 and subtle wiles too —we’ve never heard the like,
not even in old stories sung of all Achaea’s
well-coifed queens who graced the years gone by:
133 Mycenae crowned with garlands, Tyro and Alcmena . . .
Not one could equal Penelope for intrigue
but in this case she intrigued beyond all limits.
So, we will devour your worldly goods and wealth
as long as she holds out, holds to that course
the gods have charted deep inside her heart.
Great renown she wins for herself, no doubt,
140 great loss for you in treasure. We’ll not go back
to our old estates or leave for other parts,
not till she weds the Argive man she fancies.”
But with calm good sense Telemachus replied:
“Antinous, how can I drive my mother from our house
against her will, the one who bore me, reared me too?
My father is worlds away, dead or alive, who knows?
Imagine the high price I’d have to pay Icarius
if all on my own I send my mother home.
Oh what I would suffer from her father —
150 and some dark god would hurt me even more
when mother, leaving her own house behind,
152 calls down her withering Furies on my head,
and our people’s cries of shame would hound my heels.
I will never issue that ultimatum to my mother.
And you, if you have any shame in your own hearts,
you must leave my palace! See to your feasting elsewhere,
devour your own possessions, house to house by turns.
But if you decide the fare is better, richer here,
destroying one man’s goods and going scot-free,
160 all right then, carve away!
But I’ll cry out to the everlasting gods in hopes
that Zeus will pay you back with a vengeance —all of you
destroyed in my house while I go scot-free myself!”
And to seal his prayer, farseeing Zeus sent down a sign.
He launched two eagles soaring high from a mountain ridge
and down they glided, borne on the wind’s draft a moment,
wing to wingtip, pinions straining taut till just
above the assembly’s throbbing hum they whirled,
suddenly, wings thrashing, wild onslaught of wings
170 and banking down at the crowd’s heads —a glaring, fatal sign —
talons slashing each other, tearing cheeks and throats
172 they swooped away on the right through homes and city.
All were dumbstruck, watching the eagles trail from sight,
people brooding, deeply, what might come to pass . . .
175 Until the old warrior Halitherses,
176 Mastor’s son, broke the silence for them —
the one who outperformed all men of his time
at reading bird-signs, sounding out the omens,
rose and spoke, distraught for each man there:
180 “Hear me, men of Ithaca! Hear what I have to say,
though my revelations strike the suitors first of all —
a great disaster is rolling like a breaker toward their heads.
Clearly Odysseus won’t be far from loved ones any longer —
now, right now, he’s somewhere near, I tell you,
breeding bloody death for all these suitors here,
pains aplenty too for the rest of us who live
in Ithaca’s sunlit air.
Long before that,
we must put heads together, find some way
to stop these men, or let them stop themselves.
190 Better for them that way, by far. I myself
am no stranger to prophecy —I can see it now!
Odysseus . . . all is working out for him, I say,
just as I said it would that day the Argives sailed
for Troy and the mastermind of battle boarded with them.
I said then: after many blows, and all his shipmates lost,
after twenty years had wheeled by, he would come home,
unrecognized by all . . .
and now, look, it all comes to pass!”
“Stop, old man!”
Eurymachus, Polybus’ son, rose up to take him on.
200 “Go home and babble your omens to your children —
save them from some catastrophe coming soon.
I’m a better hand than you at reading portents.
Flocks of birds go fluttering under the sun’s rays,
not all are fraught with meaning. Odysseus?
He’s dead now, far from home —
would to god that you’d died with him too.
We’d have escaped your droning prophecies then
and the way you’ve loosed the dogs of this boy’s anger —
your eyes peeled for a house-gift he might give you.
210 Here’s my prophecy, bound to come to pass.
If you, you old codger, wise as the ages,
talk him round, incite the boy to riot,
he’ll be the first to suffer, let me tell you.
And you, old man, we’ll clap some fine on you
you’ll weep to pay, a fine to crush your spirit!
Telemachus?
Here in front of you all, here’s my advice for him.
Let him urge his mother back to her father’s house —
her kin will arrange the wedding, provide the gifts,
the array that goes with a daughter dearly loved.
220 Not till then, I’d say, will the island princes quit
their taxing courtship. Who’s there to fear? I ask you.
Surely not Telemachus, with all his tiresome threats.
Nor do we balk, old man, at the prophecies you mouth —
they’ll come to grief, they’ll make us hate you more.
The prince’s wealth will be devoured as always,
mercilessly —no reparations, ever . . . not
while the queen drags out our hopes to wed her,
waiting, day after day, all of us striving hard
to win
one matchless beauty. Never courting others,
230 bevies of brides who’d suit each noble here.”
Telemachus answered, firm in his resolve:
“Eurymachus —the rest of you fine, brazen suitors —
I have done with appeals to you about these matters.
I’ll say no more. The gods know how things stand
and so do all the Achaeans. And now all I ask
is a good swift ship and a crew of twenty men
to speed me through my passage out and back.
I’m sailing off to Sparta, sandy Pylos too,
for news of my long-lost father’s journey home.
240 Someone may tell me something
or I may catch a rumor straight from Zeus,
rumor that carries news to men like nothing else.
Now, if I hear my father’s alive and heading home,
hard-pressed as I am, I’ll brave out one more year.
If I hear he’s dead, no longer among the living,
then back I’ll come to the native land I love,
raise his grave-mound, build his honors high
with the full funeral rites that he deserves —
and give my mother to another husband.”
A declaration,
250 and the prince sat down as Mentor took the floor,
Odysseus’ friend-in-arms to whom the king,
sailing off to Troy, committed his household,
ordering one and all to obey the old man
and he would keep things steadfast and secure.
With deep concern for the realm, he rose and warned,
“Hear me, men of Ithaca. Hear what I have to say.
Never let any sceptered king be kind and gentle now,
not with all his heart, or set his mind on justice —
no, let him be cruel and always practice outrage.
260 Think: not one of the people whom he ruled
remembers Odysseus now, that godlike man,
and kindly as a father to his children!
I don’t grudge these arrogant suitors for a moment,
weaving their violent work with all their wicked hearts —
they lay their lives on the line when they consume
Odysseus’ worldly goods, blind in their violence,
telling themselves that he’ll come home no more.
But all the rest of you, how you rouse my fury!
Sitting here in silence . . .
270 never a word put forth to curb these suitors,
paltry few as they are and you so many.”
“Mentor!”
272 Euenor’s son Leocritus rounded on him, shouting,
“Rabble-rousing fool, now what’s this talk?
Goading them on to try and hold us back!
It’s uphill work, I warn you,
fighting a force like ours —for just a meal.
Even if Odysseus of Ithaca did arrive in person,
to find us well-bred suitors feasting in his halls,
and the man were hell-bent on routing us from the palace —
280 little joy would his wife derive from his return,
for all her yearning. Here on the spot he’d meet
a humiliating end if he fought against such odds.
You’re talking nonsense —idiocy.
No more. Come,
dissolve the assembly. Each man return to his holdings.
Mentor and Halitherses can speed our young prince on,
his father’s doddering friends since time began.
He’ll sit tight a good long while, I trust,
scrabbling for news right here in Ithaca —
he’ll never make that trip.”
290 This broke up the assembly, keen to leave.
The people scattered quickly, each to his own house,
while the suitors strolled back to King Odysseus’ palace.
Telemachus, walking the beach now, far from others,
washed his hands in the foaming surf and prayed to Pallas:
“Dear god, hear me! Yesterday you came to my house,
you told me to ship out on the misty sea and learn
if father, gone so long, is ever coming home . . .
Look how my countrymen —the suitors most of all,
the pernicious bullies —foil each move I make.”
300 Athena came to his prayer from close at hand,
for all the world with Mentor’s build and voice,
and she urged him on with winging words: “Telemachus,
you’ll lack neither courage nor sense from this day on,
not if your father’s spirit courses through your veins —
now there was a man, I’d say, in words and action both!
So how can your journey end in shipwreck or defeat?
Only if you were not his stock, Penelope’s too,
then I’d fear your hopes might come to grief.
Few sons are the equals of their fathers;
310 most fall short, all too few surpass them.
But you, brave and adept from this day on —
Odysseus’ cunning has hardly given out in you —
there’s every hope that you will reach your goal.
Put them out of your mind, these suitors’ schemes and plots.
They’re madmen. Not a shred of sense or decency in the crowd.
Nor can they glimpse the death and black doom hovering
just at their heads to crush them all in one short day.
But you, the journey that stirs you now is not far off,
not with the likes of me, your father’s friend and yours,
320 to rig you a swift ship and be your shipmate too.
Now home you go and mix with the suitors there.
But get your rations ready,
pack them all in vessels, the wine in jars,
and barley-meal —the marrow of men’s bones —
in durable skins, while I make rounds in town
and quickly enlist your crew of volunteers.
Lots of ships in seagirt Ithaca, old and new.
I’ll look them over, choose the best in sight,
we’ll fit her out and launch her into the sea at once!”
330 And so Athena, daughter of Zeus, assured him.
No lingering now —he heard the goddess’ voice —
but back he went to his house with aching heart
and there at the palace found the brazen suitors
skinning goats in the courtyard, singeing pigs for roasting.
Antinous, smiling warmly, sauntered up to the prince,
grasped his hand and coaxed him, savoring his name:
“Telemachus, my high and mighty, fierce young friend,
no more nursing those violent words and actions now.
Come, eat and drink with us, just like the old days.
340 Whatever you want our people will provide. A ship
and a picked crew to speed you to holy Pylos,
out for the news about your noble father.”
But self-possessed Telemachus drew the line:
“Antinous, now how could I dine with you in peace
and take my pleasure? You ruffians carousing here!
Isn’t it quite enough that you, my mother’s suitors,
have ravaged it all, my very best, these many years,
while I was still a boy? But now that I’m full-grown
and can hear the truth from others, absorb it too —
350 now, yes, that the anger seethes inside me . . .
I’ll stop at nothing to hurl destruction at your heads,
whether I go to Pylos or sit tight here at home.
But the trip I speak of will not end in failure.
Go I will, as a passenger, nothing more,
since I don’t seem to command my own crew.
That, I’m sure, is the way that suits you best.”
With this
he nonchalantly drew his hand from Ant
inous’ hand
while the suitors, busy feasting in the halls,
mocked and taunted him, flinging insults now.
360 “God help us,” one young buck kept shouting,
“he wants to slaughter us all!
He’s off to sandy Pylos to hire cutthroats,
even Sparta perhaps, so hot to have our heads.
Why, he’d rove as far as Ephyra’s dark rich soil
and run back home with lethal poison, slip it
into the bowl and wipe us out with drink!”
“Who knows?” another young blade up and ventured.
“Off in that hollow ship of his, he just might drown,
far from his friends, a drifter like his father.
370 What a bore! He’d double our work for us,
371 splitting up his goods, parceling out his house
to his mother and the man who weds the queen.”
So they scoffed
but Telemachus headed down to his father’s storeroom,
broad and vaulted, piled high with gold and bronze,
chests packed with clothing, vats of redolent oil.
And there, standing in close ranks against the wall,
were jars of seasoned, mellow wine, holding the drink
unmixed inside them, fit for a god, waiting the day
Odysseus, worn by hardship, might come home again.
380 Doors, snugly fitted, doubly hung, were bolted shut
and a housekeeper was in charge by night and day —
her care, her vigilance, guarding all those treasures —
Eurycleia the daughter of Ops, Pisenor’s son.
Telemachus called her into the storeroom: “Come, nurse,
draw me off some wine in smaller traveling jars,
mellow, the finest vintage you’ve been keeping,
next to what you reserve for our unlucky king —
in case Odysseus might drop in from the blue
and cheat the deadly spirits, make it home.
390 Fill me an even dozen, seal them tightly.
Pour me barley in well-stitched leather bags,
twenty measures of meal, your stone-ground best.
But no one else must know. These rations now,
put them all together. I’ll pick them up myself,
toward evening, just about the time that mother
climbs to her room and thinks of turning in.
I’m sailing off to Sparta, sandy Pylos too,
for news of my dear father’s journey home.
Perhaps I’ll catch some rumor.”
A wail of grief —
400 and his fond old nurse burst out in protest, sobbing:
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