24 Mount Neriton’s leafy ridges shimmering in the wind.
Around her a ring of islands circle side-by-side,
Dulichion, Same, wooded Zacynthus too, but mine
27 lies low and away, the farthest out to sea,
rearing into the western dusk
while the others face the east and breaking day.
30 Mine is a rugged land but good for raising sons —
and I myself, I know no sweeter sight on earth
than a man’s own native country.
True enough,
Calypso the lustrous goddess tried to hold me back,
deep in her arching caverns, craving me for a husband.
So did Circe, holding me just as warmly in her halls,
36 the bewitching queen of Aeaea keen to have me too.
But they never won the heart inside me, never.
So nothing is as sweet as a man’s own country,
his own parents, even though he’s settled down
40 in some luxurious house, off in a foreign land
and far from those who bore him.
No more. Come,
let me tell you about the voyage fraught with hardship
Zeus inflicted on me, homeward bound from Troy . . .
44 The wind drove me out of Ilium on to Ismarus,
45 the Cicones’ stronghold. There I sacked the city,
killed the men, but as for the wives and plunder,
that rich haul we dragged away from the place —
we shared it round so no one, not on my account,
would go deprived of his fair share of spoils.
50 Then I urged them to cut and run, set sail,
but would they listen? Not those mutinous fools;
there was too much wine to swill, too many sheep to slaughter
down along the beach, and shambling longhorn cattle.
And all the while the Cicones sought out other Cicones,
called for help from their neighbors living inland:
a larger force, and stronger soldiers too,
skilled hands at fighting men from chariots,
skilled, when a crisis broke, to fight on foot.
Out of the morning mist they came against us —
60 packed as the leaves and spears that flower forth in spring —
and Zeus presented us with disaster, me and my comrades
doomed to suffer blow on mortal blow. Lining up,
both armies battled it out against our swift ships,
both raked each other with hurtling bronze lances.
Long as morning rose and the blessed day grew stronger
we stood and fought them off, massed as they were, but then,
when the sun wheeled past the hour for unyoking oxen,
the Cicones broke our lines and beat us down at last.
Out of each ship, six men-at-arms were killed;
70 the rest of us rowed away from certain doom.
From there we sailed on, glad to escape our death
yet sick at heart for the dear companions we had lost.
But I would not let our rolling ships set sail until the crews
74 had raised the triple cry, saluting each poor comrade
cut down by the fierce Cicones on that plain.
Now Zeus who masses the stormclouds hit the fleet
with the North Wind —
a howling, demonic gale, shrouding over
in thunderheads the earth and sea at once —
and night swept down
from the sky and the ships went plunging headlong on,
80 our sails slashed to rags by the hurricane’s blast!
We struck them —cringing at death we rowed our ships
to the nearest shoreline, pulled with all our power.
There, for two nights, two days, we lay by, no letup,
eating our hearts out, bent with pain and bone-tired.
When Dawn with her lovely locks brought on the third day,
then stepping the masts and hoisting white sails high,
we lounged at the oarlocks, letting wind and helmsmen
keep us true on course . . .
And now, at long last,
I might have reached my native land unscathed,
but just as I doubled Malea’s cape, a tide-rip
90 and the North Wind drove me way off course
92 careering past Cythera.
Nine whole days
I was borne along by rough, deadly winds
on the fish-infested sea. Then on the tenth
our squadron reached the land of the Lotus-eaters,
95 people who eat the lotus, mellow fruit and flower.
We disembarked on the coast, drew water there
and crewmen snatched a meal by the swift ships.
Once we’d had our fill of food and drink I sent
100 a detail ahead, two picked men and a third, a runner,
to scout out who might live there —men like us perhaps,
who live on bread? So off they went and soon enough
they mingled among the natives, Lotus-eaters, Lotus-eaters
104 who had no notion of killing my companions, not at all,
they simply gave them the lotus to taste instead . . .
Any crewmen who ate the lotus, the honey-sweet fruit,
107 lost all desire to send a message back, much less return,
their only wish to linger there with the Lotus-eaters,
grazing on lotus, all memory of the journey home
110 dissolved forever. But I brought them back, back
to the hollow ships, and streaming tears —I forced them,
hauled them under the rowing benches, lashed them fast
and shouted out commands to my other, steady comrades:
‘Quick, no time to lose, embark in the racing ships!’ —
so none could eat the lotus, forget the voyage home.
They swung aboard at once, they sat to the oars in ranks
and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke.
From there we sailed on, our spirits now at a low ebb,
and reached the land of the high and mighty Cyclops,
120 lawless brutes, who trust so to the everlasting gods
they never plant with their own hands or plow the soil.
Unsown, unplowed, the earth teems with all they need,
wheat, barley and vines, swelled by the rains of Zeus
to yield a big full-bodied wine from clustered grapes.
They have no meeting place for council, no laws either,
no, up on the mountain peaks they live in arching caverns —
each a law to himself, ruling his wives and children,
not a care in the world for any neighbor.
Now,
a level island stretches flat across the harbor,
130 not close inshore to the Cyclops’ coast, not too far out,
thick with woods where the wild goats breed by hundreds.
No trampling of men to start them from their lairs,
no hunters roughing it out on the woody ridges,
stalking quarry, ever raid their haven.
No flocks browse, no plowlands roll with wheat;
unplowed, unsown forever —empty of humankind —
the island just feeds droves of bleating goats.
138 For the Cyclops have no ships with crimson prows,
no shipwrights there to build them good trim craft
140 that could sail them out to foreign ports of call
as most men risk the seas to trade with other men.
Such artisans would have made this island too
a decent place to live in . . . No mean spot,
it could bear you any crop you like in season.
The water-meadows along the low foaming shore
run soft and moist, and your vines would never flag.
The land’s clear for plowing. Harvest on harvest,
a
man could reap a healthy stand of grain —
the subsoil’s dark and rich.
150 There’s a snug deep-water harbor there, what’s more,
no need for mooring-gear, no anchor-stones to heave,
no cables to make fast. Just beach your keels, ride out
the days till your shipmates’ spirit stirs for open sea
and a fair wind blows. And last, at the harbor’s head
there’s a spring that rushes fresh from beneath a cave
and black poplars flourish round its mouth.
Well,
here we landed, and surely a god steered us in
through the pitch-black night.
Not that he ever showed himself, with thick fog
160 swirling around the ships, the moon wrapped in clouds
and not a glimmer stealing through that gloom.
Not one of us glimpsed the island —scanning hard —
or the long combers rolling us slowly toward the coast,
not till our ships had run their keels ashore.
Beaching our vessels smoothly, striking sail,
the crews swung out on the low shelving sand
and there we fell asleep, awaiting Dawn’s first light.
When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more
we all turned out, intrigued to tour the island.
170 The local nymphs, the daughters of Zeus himself,
flushed mountain-goats so the crews could make their meal.
Quickly we fetched our curved bows and hunting spears
from the ships and, splitting up into three bands,
we started shooting, and soon enough some god
had sent us bags of game to warm our hearts.
A dozen vessels sailed in my command
and to each crew nine goats were shared out
and mine alone took ten. Then all day long
till the sun went down we sat and feasted well
180 on sides of meat and rounds of heady wine.
The good red stock in our vessels’ holds
had not run out, there was still plenty left;
the men had carried off a generous store in jars
when we stormed and sacked the Cicones’ holy city.
Now we stared across at the Cyclops’ shore, so near
we could even see their smoke, hear their voices,
their bleating sheep and goats . . .
And then when the sun had set and night came on
we lay down and slept at the water’s shelving edge.
190 When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more
I called a muster briskly, commanding all the hands,
‘The rest of you stay here, my friends-in-arms.
I’ll go across with my own ship and crew
and probe the natives living over there.
What are they —violent, savage, lawless?
or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?’
With that I boarded ship and told the crew
to embark at once and cast off cables quickly.
They swung aboard, they sat to the oars in ranks
200 and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke.
But as soon as we reached the coast I mentioned —no long trip —
we spied a cavern just at the shore, gaping above the surf,
towering, overgrown with laurel. And here big flocks,
sheep and goats, were stalled to spend the nights,
and around its mouth a yard was walled up
with quarried boulders sunk deep in the earth
and enormous pines and oak-trees looming darkly . . .
Here was a giant’s lair, in fact, who always pastured
his sheepflocks far afield and never mixed with others.
210 A grim loner, dead set in his own lawless ways.
Here was a piece of work, by god, a monster
built like no mortal who ever supped on bread,
no, like a shaggy peak, I’d say —a man-mountain
rearing head and shoulders over the world.
Now then,
I told most of my good trusty crew to wait,
to sit tight by the ship and guard her well
while I picked out my dozen finest fighters
and off I went. But I took a skin of wine along,
219 the ruddy, irresistible wine that Maron gave me once,
220 Euanthes’ son, a priest of Apollo, lord of Ismarus,
because we’d rescued him, his wife and children,
reverent as we were;
he lived, you see, in Apollo’s holy grove.
And so in return he gave me splendid gifts,
he handed me seven bars of well-wrought gold,
a mixing-bowl of solid silver, then this wine . . .
He drew it off in generous wine-jars, twelve in all,
all unmixed —and such a bouquet, a drink fit for the gods!
No maid or man of his household knew that secret store,
230 only himself, his loving wife and a single servant.
Whenever they’d drink the deep-red mellow vintage,
232 twenty cups of water he’d stir in one of wine
and what an aroma wafted from the bowl —
what magic, what a godsend —
no joy in holding back when that was poured!
Filling a great goatskin now, I took this wine,
provisions too in a leather sack. A sudden foreboding
told my fighting spirit I’d soon come up against
some giant clad in power like armor-plate —
240 a savage deaf to justice, blind to law.
Our party quickly made its way to his cave
but we failed to find our host himself inside;
he was off in his pasture, ranging his sleek flocks.
So we explored his den, gazing wide-eyed at it all,
the large flat racks loaded with drying cheeses,
the folds crowded with young lambs and kids,
split into three groups —here the spring-born,
here mid-yearlings, here the fresh sucklings
off to the side —each sort was penned apart.
250 And all his vessels, pails and hammered buckets
he used for milking, were brimming full with whey.
From the start my comrades pressed me, pleading hard,
‘Let’s make away with the cheeses, then come back —
hurry, drive the lambs and kids from the pens
to our swift ship, put out to sea at once!’
But I would not give way —
and how much better it would have been —
not till I saw him, saw what gifts he’d give.
But he proved no lovely sight to my companions.
260 There we built a fire, set our hands on the cheeses,
offered some to the gods and ate the bulk ourselves
and settled down inside, awaiting his return . . .
And back he came from pasture, late in the day,
herding his flocks home, and lugging a huge load
of good dry logs to fuel his fire at supper.
He flung them down in the cave —a jolting crash —
we scuttled in panic into the deepest dark recess.
And next he drove his sleek flocks into the open vault,
all he’d milk at least, but he left the males outside,
270 rams and billy goats out in the high-walled yard.
Then to close his door he hoisted overhead
a tremendous, massive slab —
no twenty-two wagons, rugged and four-wheeled,
could budge that boulder off the ground, I tell you,
such an immense stone the monster wedged to block his cave!
Then down he squatted to milk his sheep and bleating goats,
each in order, and put a suckling underneath each dam.
And half of the fresh white milk he curdled quickly,
&n
bsp; set it aside in wicker racks to press for cheese,
280 the other half let stand in pails and buckets,
ready at hand to wash his supper down.
As soon as he’d briskly finished all his chores
he lit his fire and spied us in the blaze and
‘Strangers!’ he thundered out, ‘now who are you?
Where did you sail from, over the running sea-lanes?
286 Out on a trading spree or roving the waves like pirates,
sea-wolves raiding at will, who risk their lives
to plunder other men?’
The hearts inside us shook,
terrified by his rumbling voice and monstrous hulk.
290 Nevertheless I found the nerve to answer, firmly,
‘Men of Achaea we are and bound now from Troy!
Driven far off course by the warring winds,
over the vast gulf of the sea —battling home
on a strange tack, a route that’s off the map,
and so we’ve come to you . . .
so it must please King Zeus’s plotting heart.
We’re glad to say we’re men of Atrides Agamemnon,
whose fame is the proudest thing on earth these days,
so great a city he sacked, such multitudes he killed!
300 But since we’ve chanced on you, we’re at your knees
in hopes of a warm welcome, even a guest-gift,
the sort that hosts give strangers. That’s the custom.
Respect the gods, my friend. We’re suppliants —at your mercy!
304 Zeus of the Strangers guards all guests and suppliants:
strangers are sacred —Zeus will avenge their rights!’
‘Stranger,’ he grumbled back from his brutal heart,
‘you must be a fool, stranger, or come from nowhere,
telling me to fear the gods or avoid their wrath!
309 We Cyclops never blink at Zeus and Zeus’s shield
310 of storm and thunder, or any other blessed god —
we’ve got more force by far.
I’d never spare you in fear of Zeus’s hatred,
you or your comrades here, unless I had the urge.
But tell me, where did you moor your sturdy ship
when you arrived? Up the coast or close in?
I’d just like to know.’
So he laid his trap
but he never caught me, no, wise to the world
I shot back in my crafty way, ‘My ship?
Poseidon god of the earthquake smashed my ship,
320 he drove it against the rocks at your island’s far cape,
he dashed it against a cliff as the winds rode us in.
I and the men you see escaped a sudden death.’
The Odyssey(Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Page 25