The Odyssey(Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Page 18
as the suitors burst into uproar through the shadowed halls
and one of the lusty young men began to brag, “Listen,
our long-courted queen’s preparing us all a marriage —
with no glimmer at all
how the murder of her son has been decreed.”
Boasting so,
870 with no glimmer at all of what had been decreed.
But Antinous took the floor and issued orders:
“Stupid fools! Muzzle your bragging now —
before someone slips inside and reports us.
Up now, not a sound, drive home our plan —
it suits us well, we approved it one and all.”
With that he picked out twenty first-rate men
and down they went to the swift ship at the sea’s edge.
First they hauled the craft into deeper water,
stepped the mast amidships, canvas brailed,
880 made oars fast in the leather oarlock straps
while zealous aides-in-arms brought weapons on.
They moored her well out in the channel, disembarked
and took their meal on shore, waiting for dusk to fall.
But there in her upper rooms she lay, Penelope
lost in thought, fasting, shunning food and drink,
brooding now . . . would her fine son escape his death
or go down at her overweening suitors’ hands?
Her mind in torment, wheeling
like some lion at bay, dreading gangs of hunters
890 closing their cunning ring around him for the finish.
Harried so she was, when a deep kind sleep overcame her,
back she sank and slept, her limbs fell limp and still.
And again the bright-eyed goddess Pallas thought
of one more way to help. She made a phantom now,
895 its build like a woman’s build, Iphthime’s, yes,
another daughter of generous Lord Icarius,
897 Eumelus’ bride, who made her home in Pherae.
Athena sped her on to King Odysseus’ house
to spare Penelope, worn with pain and sobbing,
900 further spells of grief and storms of tears.
The phantom entered her bedroom,
passing quickly in through the doorbolt slit
and hovering at her head she rose and spoke now:
“Sleeping, Penelope, your heart so wrung with sorrow?
No need, I tell you, no, the gods who live at ease
can’t bear to let you weep and rack your spirit.
Your son will still come home —it is decreed.
He’s never wronged the gods in any way.”
And Penelope murmured back, still cautious,
910 drifting softly now at the gate of dreams,
“Why have you come, my sister?
Your visits all too rare in the past,
for you make your home so very far away.
You tell me to lay to rest the grief and tears
that overwhelm me now, torment me, heart and soul?
With my lionhearted husband lost long years ago,
who excelled the Argives all in every strength?
That great man whose fame resounds through Hellas
right to the depths of Argos . . .
And now my darling boy,
920 he’s off and gone in a hollow ship! Just a youngster,
still untrained for war or stiff debate.
Him I mourn even more than I do my husband —
I quake in terror for all that he might suffer
either on open sea or shores he goes to visit.
Hordes of enemies scheme against him now,
keen to kill him off
before he can reach his native land again.”
“Courage!” the shadowy phantom reassured her.
“Don’t be overwhelmed by all your direst fears.
930 He travels with such an escort, one that others
would pray to stand beside them. She has power —
Pallas Athena. She pities you in your tears.
She wings me here to tell you all these things.”
But the circumspect Penelope replied,
“If you are a god and have heard a god’s own voice,
come, tell me about that luckless man as well.
Is he still alive? does he see the light of day?
Or is he dead already, lost in the House of Death?”
“About that man,” the shadowy phantom answered,
940 “I cannot tell you the story start to finish,
whether he’s dead or alive.
It’s wrong to lead you on with idle words.”
At that
she glided off by the doorpost past the bolt —
gone on a lifting breeze. Icarius’ daughter
started up from sleep, her spirit warmed now
that a dream so clear had come to her in darkest night.
But the suitors boarded now and sailed the sea-lanes,
plotting in their hearts Telemachus’ plunge to death.
Off in the middle channel lies a rocky island,
950 just between Ithaca and Same’s rugged cliffs —
951 Asteris —not large, but it has a cove,
a harbor with two mouths where ships can hide.
Here the Achaeans lurked in ambush for the prince.
BOOK FIVE
Odysseus —Nymph and Shipwreck
1 As Dawn rose up from bed by her lordly mate Tithonus,
bringing light to immortal gods and mortal men,
the gods sat down in council, circling Zeus
the thunder king whose power rules the world.
Athena began, recalling Odysseus to their thoughts,
the goddess deeply moved by the man’s long ordeal,
held captive still in the nymph Calypso’s house:
“Father Zeus —you other happy gods who never die —
never let any sceptered king be kind and gentle now,
10 not with all his heart, or set his mind on justice —
no, let him be cruel and always practice outrage.
Think: not one of the people whom he ruled
remembers Odysseus now, that godlike man,
and kindly as a father to his children.
Now
he’s left to pine on an island, racked with grief
in the nymph Calypso’s house —she holds him there by force.
He has no way to voyage home to his own native land,
no trim ships in reach, no crew to ply the oars
and send him scudding over the sea’s broad back.
20 And now his dear son . . . they plot to kill the boy
on his way back home. Yes, he has sailed off
for news of his father, to holy Pylos first,
then out to the sunny hills of Lacedaemon.”
“My child,” Zeus who marshals the thunderheads replied,
“what nonsense you let slip through your teeth. Come now,
wasn’t the plan your own? You conceived it yourself:
Odysseus shall return and pay the traitors back.
Telemachus? Sail him home with all your skill —
the power is yours, no doubt —
30 home to his native country all unharmed
while the suitors limp to port, defeated, baffled men.”
With those words, Zeus turned to his own son Hermes.
“You are our messenger, Hermes, sent on all our missions.
Announce to the nymph with lovely braids our fixed decree:
Odysseus journeys home —the exile must return.
But not in the convoy of the gods or mortal men.
No, on a lashed, makeshift raft and wrung with pains,
38 on the twentieth day he will make his landfall, fertile Scheria,
39 the land of Phaeacians, close kin to the gods themselves,
40 who with all their hearts will prize him like a god
and send him off in a ship to his own beloved land,
giving him bronze and hoards of gold and robes —
more plunder than he could ever have won from Troy
if Odysseus had returned intact with his fair share.
So his destiny ordains. He shall see his loved ones,
reach his high-roofed house, his native land at last.”
So Zeus decreed and the giant-killing guide obeyed at once.
Quickly under his feet he fastened the supple sandals,
ever-glowing gold, that wing him over the waves
50 and boundless earth with the rush of gusting winds.
He seized the wand that enchants the eyes of men
whenever Hermes wants, or wakes us up from sleep.
That wand in his grip, the powerful giant-killer,
54 swooping down from Pieria, down the high clear air,
plunged to the sea and skimmed the waves like a tern
that down the deadly gulfs of the barren salt swells
glides and dives for fish,
dipping its beating wings in bursts of spray —
so Hermes skimmed the crests on endless crests.
60 But once he gained that island worlds apart,
up from the deep-blue sea he climbed to dry land
and strode on till he reached the spacious cave
where the nymph with lovely braids had made her home,
and he found her there inside . . .
A great fire
blazed on the hearth and the smell of cedar
cleanly split and sweetwood burning bright
wafted a cloud of fragrance down the island.
Deep inside she sang, the goddess Calypso, lifting
her breathtaking voice as she glided back and forth
70 before her loom, her golden shuttle weaving.
Thick, luxuriant woods grew round the cave,
alders and black poplars, pungent cypress too,
and there birds roosted, folding their long wings,
owls and hawks and the spread-beaked ravens of the sea,
black skimmers who make their living off the waves.
And round the mouth of the cavern trailed a vine
laden with clusters, bursting with ripe grapes.
Four springs in a row, bubbling clear and cold,
running side-by-side, took channels left and right.
80 Soft meadows spreading round were starred with violets,
81 lush with beds of parsley. Why, even a deathless god
who came upon that place would gaze in wonder,
heart entranced with pleasure. Hermes the guide,
84 the mighty giant-killer, stood there, spellbound . . .
But once he’d had his fill of marveling at it all
he briskly entered the deep vaulted cavern.
Calypso, lustrous goddess, knew him at once,
as soon as she saw his features face-to-face.
Immortals are never strangers to each other,
90 no matter how distant one may make her home.
But as for great Odysseus —
Hermes could not find him within the cave.
Off he sat on a headland, weeping there as always,
wrenching his heart with sobs and groans and anguish,
gazing out over the barren sea through blinding tears.
But Calypso, lustrous goddess, questioned Hermes,
seating him on a glistening, polished chair.
“God of the golden wand, why have you come?
A beloved, honored friend,
100 but it’s been so long, your visits much too rare.
Tell me what’s on your mind. I’m eager to do it,
whatever I can do . . . whatever can be done.”
And the goddess drew a table up beside him,
heaped with ambrosia, mixed him deep-red nectar.
Hermes the guide and giant-killer ate and drank.
Once he had dined and fortified himself with food
he launched right in, replying to her questions:
“As one god to another, you ask me why I’ve come.
I’ll tell you the whole story, mince no words —
110 your wish is my command.
It was Zeus who made me come, no choice of mine.
Who would willingly roam across a salty waste so vast,
so endless? Think: no city of men in sight, and not a soul
to offer the gods a sacrifice and burn the fattest victims.
But there is no way, you know, for another god to thwart
the will of storming Zeus and make it come to nothing.
Zeus claims you keep beside you a most unlucky man,
most harried of all who fought for Priam’s Troy
nine years, sacking the city in the tenth,
120 and then set sail for home.
But voyaging back they outraged Queen Athena
who loosed the gales and pounding seas against them.
There all the rest of his loyal shipmates died
but the wind drove him on, the current bore him here.
Now Zeus commands you to send him off with all good speed:
it is not his fate to die here, far from his own people.
Destiny still ordains that he shall see his loved ones,
reach his high-roofed house, his native land at last.”
But lustrous Calypso shuddered at those words
130 and burst into a flight of indignation. “Hard-hearted
you are, you gods! You unrivaled lords of jealousy —
scandalized when goddesses sleep with mortals,
openly, even when one has made the man her husband.
134 So when Dawn with her rose-red fingers took Orion,
you gods in your everlasting ease were horrified
till chaste Artemis throned in gold attacked him,
out on Delos, shot him to death with gentle shafts.
138 And so when Demeter the graceful one with lovely braids
139 gave way to her passion and made love with Iasion,
140 bedding down in a furrow plowed three times —
Zeus got wind of it soon enough, I’d say,
and blasted the man to death with flashing bolts.
So now at last, you gods, you train your spite on me
for keeping a mortal man beside me. The man I saved,
riding astride his keel-board, all alone, when Zeus
with one hurl of a white-hot bolt had crushed
his racing warship down the wine-dark sea.
There all the rest of his loyal shipmates died
but the wind drove him on, the current bore him here.
150 And I welcomed him warmly, cherished him, even vowed
151 to make the man immortal, ageless, all his days . . .
But since there is no way for another god to thwart
the will of storming Zeus and make it come to nothing,
let the man go —if the Almighty insists, commands —
and destroy himself on the barren salt sea!
I’ll send him off, but not with any escort.
I have no ships in reach, no crew to ply the oars
and send him scudding over the sea’s broad back.
But I will gladly advise him —I’ll hide nothing —
160 so he can reach his native country all unharmed.”
161 And the guide and giant-killer reinforced her words:
“Release him at once, just so. Steer clear of the rage of Zeus!
Or down the years he’ll fume and make your life a hell.”
With that the powerful giant-killer sped away.
The queenly nymph sought out the great Odysseus —
the commands of Zeus still ringing in her ears —
and found him there on the headland, sitting, still,
weeping, his eyes never dry, his sweet life flowing away
with the tears he wept for his foiled journey home,
170 since the nymph no longer pleased. In the nights, true,
he’d sleep with her in the arching cave —he had no choice —
172 unwilling lover alongside lover all too willing . . .
But all his days he’d sit on the rocks and beaches,
wrenching his heart with sobs and groans and anguish,
gazing out over the barren sea through blinding tears.
So coming up to him now, the lustrous goddess ventured,
“No need, my unlucky one, to grieve here any longer,
no, don’t waste your life away. Now I am willing,
heart and soul, to send you off at last. Come,
180 take bronze tools, cut your lengthy timbers,
make them into a broad-beamed raft
and top it off with a half-deck high enough
to sweep you free and clear on the misty seas.
And I myself will stock her with food and water,
ruddy wine to your taste —all to stave off hunger —
give you clothing, send you a stiff following wind
so you can reach your native country all unharmed.
If only the gods are willing. They rule the vaulting skies.
They’re stronger than I to plan and drive things home.”
190 Long-enduring Odysseus shuddered at that
and broke out in a sharp flight of protest.
“Passage home? Never. Surely you’re plotting
something else, goddess, urging me —in a raft —
to cross the ocean’s mighty gulfs. So vast, so full
of danger not even deep-sea ships can make it through,
swift as they are and buoyed up by the winds of Zeus himself.
I won’t set foot on a raft until you show good faith,
until you consent to swear, goddess, a binding oath
you’ll never plot some new intrigue to harm me!”
200 He was so intense the lustrous goddess smiled,
stroked him with her hand, savored his name and chided,
“Ah what a wicked man you are, and never at a loss.
What a thing to imagine, what a thing to say!
Earth be my witness now, the vaulting Sky above
205 and the dark cascading waters of the Styx —I swear
by the greatest, grimmest oath that binds the happy gods:
I will never plot some new intrigue to harm you.
Never. All I have in mind and devise for you
are the very plans I’d fashion for myself