“Why, dear child, what craziness got into your head?
Why bent on rambling over the face of the earth? —
a darling only son! Your father’s worlds away,
god’s own Odysseus, dead in some strange land.
And these brutes here, just wait, the moment you’re gone
they’ll all be scheming against you. Kill you by guile,
they will, and carve your birthright up in pieces.
No, sit tight here, guard your own things here.
Don’t go roving over the barren salt sea —
no need to suffer so!”
410 “Courage, old woman,”
thoughtful Telemachus tried to reassure her,
“there’s a god who made this plan.
But swear you won’t say anything to my mother.
Not till ten or a dozen days have passed
or she misses me herself and learns I’m gone.
She mustn’t mar her lovely face with tears.”
The old one swore a solemn oath to the gods
and vowing she would never breathe a word,
quickly drew off wine in two-eared jars
420 and poured barley in well-stitched leather bags.
Telemachus returned to the hall and joined the suitors.
Then bright-eyed Pallas thought of one more step.
Disguised as the prince, the goddess roamed through town,
pausing beside each likely crewman, giving orders:
“Gather beside our ship at nightfall —be there.”
426 She asked Noëmon, Phronius’ generous son,
to lend her a swift ship. He gladly volunteered.
The sun sank and the roads of the world grew dark.
Now the goddess hauled the swift ship down to the water,
430 stowed in her all the tackle well-rigged vessels carry,
moored her well away at the harbor’s very mouth
and once the crew had gathered, rallying round,
she heartened every man.
Then bright-eyed Pallas thought of one last thing.
Back she went to King Odysseus’ halls and there
she showered sweet oblivion over the suitors,
dazing them as they drank, knocking cups from hands.
No more loitering now, their eyes weighed down with sleep,
they rose and groped through town to find their beds.
440 But calling the prince outside his timbered halls,
taking the build and voice of Mentor once again,
flashing-eyed Athena urged him on: “Telemachus,
your comrades-at-arms are ready at the oars,
waiting for your command to launch. So come,
on with our voyage now, we’re wasting time.”
And Pallas Athena sped away in the lead
as he followed in her footsteps, man and goddess.
Once they reached the ship at the water’s edge
they found their long-haired shipmates on the beach.
450 The prince, inspired, gave his first commands:
“Come, friends, get the rations aboard!
They’re piled in the palace now.
My mother knows nothing of this. No servants either.
Only one has heard our plan.”
He led them back
and the men fell in and fetched down all the stores
and stowed them briskly, deep in the well-ribbed holds
as Odysseus’ son directed. Telemachus climbed aboard.
Athena led the way, assuming the pilot’s seat
reserved astern, and he sat close beside her.
460 Cables cast off, the crew swung to the oarlocks.
Bright-eyed Athena sent them a stiff following wind
rippling out of the west, ruffling over the wine-dark sea
as Telemachus shouted out commands to all his shipmates:
“All lay hands to tackle!” They sprang to orders,
hoisting the pinewood mast, they stepped it firm
in its block amidships, lashed it fast with stays
and with braided rawhide halyards hauled the white sail high.
Suddenly wind hit full and the canvas bellied out
and a dark blue wave, foaming up at the bow,
470 sang out loud and strong as the ship made way,
skimming the whitecaps, cutting toward her goal.
All running gear secure in the swift black craft,
they set up bowls and brimmed them high with wine
and poured libations out to the everlasting gods
who never die —to Athena first of all,
the daughter of Zeus with flashing sea-gray eyes —
and the ship went plunging all night long and through the dawn.
BOOK THREE
King Nestor Remembers
As the sun sprang up, leaving the brilliant waters in its wake,
climbing the bronze sky to shower light on immortal gods
and mortal men across the plowlands ripe with grain —
4 the ship pulled into Pylos, Neleus’ storied citadel,
where the people lined the beaches,
6 sacrificing sleek black bulls to Poseidon,
god of the sea-blue mane who shakes the earth.
They sat in nine divisions, each five hundred strong,
each division offering up nine bulls, and while the people
10 tasted the innards, burned the thighbones for the god,
the craft and crew came heading straight to shore.
Striking sail, furling it in the balanced ship,
they moored her well and men swung down on land.
Telemachus climbed out last, with Athena far in front
and the bright-eyed goddess urged the prince along:
“Telemachus, no more shyness, this is not the time!
We sailed the seas for this, for news of your father —
where does he lie buried? what fate did he meet?
19 So go right up to Nestor, breaker of horses.
20 We’ll make him yield the secrets of his heart.
Press him yourself to tell the whole truth:
he’ll never lie —the man is far too wise.”
The prince replied, wise in his own way too,
“How can I greet him, Mentor, even approach the king?
I’m hardly adept at subtle conversation.
Someone my age might feel shy, what’s more,
interrogating an older man.”
“Telemachus,”
the bright-eyed goddess Athena reassured him,
“some of the words you’ll find within yourself,
30 the rest some power will inspire you to say.
You least of all —I know —
were born and reared without the gods’ good will.”
And Pallas Athena sped away in the lead
as he followed in her footsteps —man and goddess
35 gained the place where the Pylians met and massed.
There sat Nestor among his sons as friends around them
decked the banquet, roasted meats and skewered strips for broiling.
As soon as they saw the strangers, all came crowding down,
waving them on in welcome, urging them to sit.
40 Nestor’s son Pisistratus, first to reach them,
grasped their hands and sat them down at the feast
on fleecy throws spread out along the sandbanks,
43 flanking his brother Thrasymedes and his father.
He gave them a share of innards, poured some wine
in a golden cup and, lifting it warmly toward Athena,
46 daughter of Zeus whose shield is storm and thunder,
greeted the goddess now with an invitation:
“Say a prayer to lord Poseidon, stranger,
his is the feast you’ve found on your arrival.
50 But once you’ve made your libation and your prayer —
all according to ancient custom —hand this cup
/> of hearty, seasoned wine to your comrade here
so he can pour forth too. He too, I think,
should pray to the deathless ones himself.
All men need the gods . . .
but the man is younger, just about my age.
That’s why I give the gold cup first to you.”
With that
Pisistratus placed in her hand the cup of mellow wine
and Pallas rejoiced at the prince’s sense of tact
60 in giving the golden winecup first to her.
At once she prayed intensely to Poseidon:
“Hear me, Sea-lord, you who embrace the earth —
don’t deny our wishes, bring our prayers to pass!
First, then, to Nestor and all his sons grant glory.
Then to all these Pylians, for their splendid rites
grant a reward that warms their gracious hearts.
And last, Poseidon, grant Telemachus and myself
safe passage home, the mission accomplished
that sped us here in our rapid black ship.”
70 So she prayed, and brought it all to pass.
She offered the rich two-handled cup to Telemachus,
Odysseus’ son, who echoed back her prayer word for word.
They roasted the prime cuts, pulled them off the spits
and sharing out the portions, fell to the royal feast.
Once they’d put aside desire for food and drink,
old Nestor the noble charioteer began, at last:
“Now’s the time, now they’ve enjoyed their meal,
to probe our guests and find out who they are.
Strangers —friends, who are you?
80 Where did you sail from, over the running sea-lanes?
81 Out on a trading spree or roving the waves like pirates,
sea-wolves raiding at will, who risk their lives
to plunder other men?”
Poised Telemachus answered,
filled with heart, the heart Athena herself inspired,
to ask for the news about his father, gone so long,
and make his name throughout the mortal world.
“Nestor, son of Neleus, Achaea’s pride and glory —
where are we from, you ask? I will tell you all.
We hail from Ithaca, under the heights of Nion.
90 Our mission here is personal, nothing public now.
I am on the trail of my father’s widespread fame,
you see, searching the earth to catch some news
of great-hearted King Odysseus who, they say,
fought with you to demolish Troy some years ago.
95 About all the rest who fought the Trojans there,
we know where each one died his wretched death,
but father . . . even his death —
the son of Cronus shrouds it all in mystery.
No one can say for certain where he died,
100 whether he went down on land at enemy hands
101 or out on the open sea in Amphitrite’s breakers.
That’s why I’ve come to plead before you now,
if you can tell me about his cruel death:
perhaps you saw him die with your own eyes
or heard the wanderer’s end from someone else.
106 More than all other men, that man was born for pain.
Don’t soften a thing, from pity, respect for me —
tell me, clearly, all your eyes have witnessed.
I beg you —if ever my father, lord Odysseus,
110 pledged you his word and made it good in action
once on the fields of Troy where you Achaeans suffered,
remember his story now, tell me the truth.”
Nestor the noble charioteer replied at length:
“Ah dear boy, since you call back such memories,
such living hell we endured in distant Troy —
we headstrong fighting forces of Achaea —
so many raids from shipboard down the foggy sea,
118 cruising for plunder, wherever Achilles led the way;
119 so many battles round King Priam’s walls we fought,
120 so many gone, our best and bravest fell.
121 There Ajax lies, the great man of war.
There lies Achilles too.
123 There Patroclus, skilled as the gods in counsel.
And there my own dear son, both strong and staunch,
125 Antilochus —lightning on his feet and every inch a fighter!
But so many other things we suffered, past that count —
what mortal in this wide world could tell it all?
Not if you sat and probed his memory, five, six years,
delving for all the pains our brave Achaeans bore there.
130 Your patience would fray, you’d soon head for home . . .
Nine years we wove a web of disaster for those Trojans,
pressing them hard with every tactic known to man,
and only after we slaved did Zeus award us victory.
And no one there could hope to rival Odysseus,
not for sheer cunning —
at every twist of strategy he excelled us all.
Your father, yes, if you are in fact his son . . .
I look at you and a sense of wonder takes me.
Your way with words —it’s just like his —I’d swear
140 no youngster could ever speak like you, so apt, so telling.
As long as I and great Odysseus soldiered there,
why, never once did we speak out at odds,
neither in open muster nor in royal council:
forever one in mind, in judgment balanced, shrewd,
we mapped our armies’ plans so things might turn out best.
But then, once we’d sacked King Priam’s craggy city,
Zeus contrived in his heart a fatal homeward run
for all the Achaeans who were fools, at least,
dishonest too, so many met a disastrous end,
150 thanks to the lethal rage
of the mighty Father’s daughter. Eyes afire,
Athena set them feuding, Atreus’ two sons . . .
They summoned all the Achaean ranks to muster,
rashly, just at sunset —no hour to rally troops —
and in they straggled, sodden with wine, our heroes.
The brothers harangued them, told them why they’d met:
a crisis —Menelaus urging the men to fix their minds
on the voyage home across the sea’s broad back,
but it brought no joy to Agamemnon, not at all.
160 He meant to detain us there and offer victims,
anything to appease Athena’s dreadful wrath —
poor fool, he never dreamed Athena would not comply.
The minds of the everlasting gods don’t change so quickly.
So the two of them stood there, wrangling, back and forth
till the armies sprang up, their armor clashing, ungodly uproar —
the two plans split the ranks. That night we barely slept,
seething with hard feelings against our own comrades,
for Zeus was brooding over us, poised to seal our doom . . .
At dawn, half of us hauled our vessels down to sea,
170 we stowed our plunder, our sashed and lovely women.
But half the men held back, camped on the beach,
waiting it out for Agamemnon’s next commands
while our contingent embarked —
we pushed off and sailed at a fast clip
as a god smoothed out the huge troughing swells.
176 We reached Tenedos quickly, sacrificed to the gods,
the crews keen for home, but a quick return was not
in Zeus’s plans, not yet: that cruel power
loosed a cursed feud on us once again.
180 Some swung their rolling warships hard about —
Odysseus sailed them back, the flexible, wily king,
<
br /> veering over to Agamemnon now to shore his fortunes up.
But not I. Massing the ships that came in my flotilla,
I sped away as the god’s mischief kept on brewing,
185 dawning on me now. And Tydeus’ fighting son
186 Diomedes fled too, rousing all his comrades.
Late in the day the red-haired Menelaus joined us,
188 overtook us at Lesbos, debating the long route home:
189 whether to head north, over the top of rocky Chios,
190 skirting Psyrie, keeping that island off to port
191 or run south of Chios, by Mimas’ gusty cape.
We asked the god for a sign. He showed us one,
he urged us to cut out on the middle passage,
194 straight to Euboea now,
escape a catastrophe, fast as we could sail!
A shrilling wind came up, stiff, driving us on
and on we raced, over the sea-lanes rife with fish
198 and we made Geraestus Point in the dead of night.
Many thighs of bulls we offered Poseidon there —
200 thank god we’d crossed that endless reach of sea.
Then on the fourth day out the crews of Diomedes,
breaker of horses, moored their balanced ships
at Argos port, but I held course for Pylos, yes,
and never once did the good strong wind go limp
from the first day the god unleashed its blast.
And so, dear boy, I made it home from Troy,
in total ignorance, knowing nothing of their fates,
the ones who stayed behind:
who escaped with their lives and who went down.
210 But still, all I’ve gathered by hearsay, sitting here
in my own house —that you’ll learn, it’s only right,
I’ll hide nothing now.
212 They say the Myrmidons,
213 those savage spearmen led by the shining son
of lionhearted Achilles, traveled home unharmed.
215 Philoctetes the gallant son of Poias, safe as well.
216 Idomeneus brought his whole contingent back to Crete,
all who’d escaped the war —the sea snatched none from him.
But Atreus’ son Agamemnon . . . you yourselves, even
in far-off Ithaca, must have heard how he returned,
220 how Aegisthus hatched the king’s horrendous death.
But what a price he paid, in blood, in suffering.
Ah how fine it is, when a man is brought down,
to leave a son behind! Orestes took revenge,
he killed that cunning, murderous Aegisthus,
The Odyssey(Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Page 13