The Odyssey(Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Page 29
But order your men at once to flay the sheep
that lie before you, killed by your ruthless blade,
and burn them both, and then say prayers to the gods,
to the almighty god of death and dread Persephone.
But you —draw your sharp sword from beside your hip,
590 sit down on alert there, and never let the ghosts
of the shambling, shiftless dead come near that blood
till you have questioned Tiresias yourself. Soon, soon
the great seer will appear before you, captain of armies:
he will tell you the way to go, the stages of your voyage,
how you can cross the swarming sea and reach home at last.’
And with those words Dawn rose on her golden throne
and Circe dressed me quickly in sea-cloak and shirt
while the queen slipped on a loose, glistening robe,
filmy, a joy to the eye, and round her waist
600 she ran a brocaded golden belt
and over her head a scarf to shield her brow.
And I strode on through the halls to stir my men,
hovering over each with a winning word: ‘Up now!
No more lazing away in sleep, we must set sail —
Queen Circe has shown the way.’
I brought them round,
my hardy friends-in-arms, but not even from there
could I get them safely off without a loss . . .
608 There was a man, Elpenor, the youngest in our ranks,
none too brave in battle, none too sound in mind.
610 He’d strayed from his mates in Circe’s magic halls
and keen for the cool night air,
sodden with wine he’d bedded down on her roofs.
But roused by the shouts and tread of marching men,
he leapt up with a start at dawn but still so dazed
he forgot to climb back down again by the long ladder —
headfirst from the roof he plunged, his neck snapped
from the backbone, his soul flew down to Death.
Once on our way, I gave the men their orders:
‘You think we are headed home, our own dear land?
620 Well, Circe sets us a rather different course . . .
down to the House of Death and the awesome one, Persephone,
there to consult the ghost of Tiresias, seer of Thebes.’
So I said, and it broke my shipmates’ hearts.
They sank down on the ground, moaning, tore their hair.
But it gained us nothing —what good can come of grief?
Back to the swift ship at the water’s edge we went,
our spirits deep in anguish, faces wet with tears.
But Circe got to the dark hull before us,
tethered a ram and black ewe close by —
630 slipping past unseen. Who can glimpse a god
who wants to be invisible gliding here and there?”
BOOK ELEVEN
The Kingdom of the Dead
“Now down we came to the ship at the water’s edge,
we hauled and launched her into the sunlit breakers first,
stepped the mast in the black craft and set our sail
and loaded the sheep aboard, the ram and ewe,
then we ourselves embarked, streaming tears,
our hearts weighed down with anguish . . .
But Circe, the awesome nymph with lovely braids
who speaks with human voice, sent us a hardy shipmate,
yes, a fresh following wind ruffling up in our wake,
10 bellying out our sail to drive our blue prow on as we,
securing the running gear from stem to stern, sat back
while the wind and helmsman kept her true on course.
The sail stretched taut as she cut the sea all day
and the sun sank and the roads of the world grew dark.
And she made the outer limits, the Ocean River’s bounds
16 where Cimmerian people have their homes —their realm and city
shrouded in mist and cloud. The eye of the Sun can never
flash his rays through the dark and bring them light,
not when he climbs the starry skies or when he wheels
20 back down from the heights to touch the earth once more —
an endless, deadly night overhangs those wretched men.
There, gaining that point, we beached our craft
and herding out the sheep, we picked our way
by the Ocean’s banks until we gained the place
that Circe made our goal.
Here at the spot
26 Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims fast,
and I, drawing my sharp sword from beside my hip,
dug a trench of about a forearm’s depth and length
and around it poured libations out to all the dead,
30 first with milk and honey, and then with mellow wine,
then water third and last, and sprinkled glistening barley
over it all, and time and again I vowed to all the dead,
to the drifting, listless spirits of their ghosts,
that once I returned to Ithaca I would slaughter
a barren heifer in my halls, the best I had,
and load a pyre with treasures —and to Tiresias,
alone, apart, I would offer a sleek black ram,
the pride of all my herds. And once my vows
and prayers had invoked the nations of the dead,
40 I took the victims, over the trench I cut their throats
and the dark blood flowed in —and up out of Erebus they came,
flocking toward me now, the ghosts of the dead and gone . . .
Brides and unwed youths and old men who had suffered much
and girls with their tender hearts freshly scarred by sorrow
and great armies of battle dead, stabbed by bronze spears,
men of war still wrapped in bloody armor —thousands
swarming around the trench from every side —
unearthly cries —blanching terror gripped me!
I ordered the men at once to flay the sheep
50 that lay before us, killed by my ruthless blade,
and burn them both, and then say prayers to the gods,
to the almighty god of death and dread Persephone.
But I, the sharp sword drawn from beside my hip,
sat down on alert there and never let the ghosts
of the shambling, shiftless dead come near that blood
till I had questioned Tiresias myself.
But first
the ghost of Elpenor, my companion, came toward me.
He’d not been buried under the wide ways of earth,
not yet, we’d left his body in Circe’s house,
60 unwept, unburied —this other labor pressed us.
But I wept to see him now, pity touched my heart
and I called out a winged word to him there: ‘Elpenor,
how did you travel down to the world of darkness?
Faster on foot, I see, than I in my black ship.’
My comrade groaned as he offered me an answer:
‘Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, old campaigner,
the doom of an angry god, and god knows how much wine —
they were my ruin, captain . . . I’d bedded down
on the roof of Circe’s house but never thought
70 to climb back down again by the long ladder —
headfirst from the roof I plunged, my neck snapped
from the backbone, my soul flew down to Death. Now,
I beg you by those you left behind, so far from here,
your wife, your father who bred and reared you as a boy,
and Telemachus, left at home in your halls, your only son.
Well I know when you leave this lodging of the dead
that you and your ship will put ashore again
at the island of Aeaea —
then and there,
my lord, remember me, I beg you! Don’t sail off
80 and desert me, left behind unwept, unburied, don’t,
or my curse may draw god’s fury on your head.
No, burn me in full armor, all my harness,
heap my mound by the churning gray surf —
a man whose luck ran out —
so even men to come will learn my story.
Perform my rites, and plant on my tomb that oar
I swung with mates when I rowed among the living.’
‘All this, my unlucky friend,’ I reassured him,
‘I will do for you. I won’t forget a thing.’
So we sat
90 and faced each other, trading our bleak parting words,
I on my side, holding my sword above the blood,
he across from me there, my comrade’s phantom
dragging out his story.
But look, the ghost
of my mother came! My mother, dead and gone now . . .
95 Anticleia —daughter of that great heart Autolycus —
whom I had left alive when I sailed for sacred Troy.
I broke into tears to see her here, but filled with pity,
even throbbing with grief, I would not let her ghost
approach the blood till I had questioned Tiresias myself.
100 At last he came. The shade of the famous Theban prophet,
holding a golden scepter, knew me at once and hailed me:
‘Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, master of exploits,
man of pain, what now, what brings you here,
forsaking the light of day
to see this joyless kingdom of the dead?
Stand back from the trench —put up your sharp sword
so I can drink the blood and tell you all the truth.’
Moving back, I thrust my silver-studded sword
deep in its sheath, and once he had drunk the dark blood
110 the words came ringing from the prophet in his power:
‘A sweet smooth journey home, renowned Odysseus,
that is what you seek
but a god will make it hard for you —I know —
you will never escape the one who shakes the earth,
quaking with anger at you still, still enraged
because you blinded the Cyclops, his dear son.
Even so, you and your crew may still reach home,
suffering all the way, if you only have the power
to curb their wild desire and curb your own, what’s more,
120 from the day your good trim vessel first puts in
121 at Thrinacia Island, flees the cruel blue sea.
There you will find them grazing,
herds and fat flocks, the cattle of Helios,
god of the sun who sees all, hears all things.
125 Leave the beasts unharmed, your mind set on home,
and you all may still reach Ithaca —bent with hardship,
true —but harm them in any way, and I can see it now:
your ship destroyed, your men destroyed as well.
And even if you escape, you’ll come home late
130 and come a broken man —all shipmates lost,
alone in a stranger’s ship —
and you will find a world of pain at home,
crude, arrogant men devouring all your goods,
courting your noble wife, offering gifts to win her.
No doubt you will pay them back in blood when you come home!
But once you have killed those suitors in your halls —
by stealth or in open fight with slashing bronze —
go forth once more, you must . . .
carry your well-planed oar until you come
140 to a race of people who know nothing of the sea,
whose food is never seasoned with salt, strangers all
to ships with their crimson prows and long slim oars,
wings that make ships fly. And here is your sign —
unmistakable, clear, so clear you cannot miss it:
When another traveler falls in with you and calls
146 that weight across your shoulder a fan to winnow grain,
then plant your bladed, balanced oar in the earth
and sacrifice fine beasts to the lord god of the sea,
Poseidon —a ram, a bull and a ramping wild boar —
150 then journey home and render noble offerings up
to the deathless gods who rule the vaulting skies,
to all the gods in order.
153 And at last your own death will steal upon you . . .
154 a gentle, painless death, far from the sea it comes
to take you down, borne down with the years in ripe old age
with all your people there in blessed peace around you.
All that I have told you will come true.’
‘Oh Tiresias,’
I replied as the prophet finished, ‘surely the gods
have spun this out as fate, the gods themselves.
160 But tell me one thing more, and tell me clearly.
I see the ghost of my long-lost mother here before me.
Dead, crouching close to the blood in silence,
she cannot bear to look me in the eyes —
her own son —or speak a word to me. How,
lord, can I make her know me for the man I am?’
‘One rule there is,’ the famous seer explained,
‘and simple for me to say and you to learn.
Any one of the ghosts you let approach the blood
will speak the truth to you. Anyone you refuse
will turn and fade away.’
170 And with those words,
now that his prophecies had closed, the awesome shade
of lord Tiresias strode back to the House of Death.
But I kept watch there, steadfast till my mother
approached and drank the dark, clouding blood.
175 She knew me at once and wailed out in grief
and her words came winging toward me, flying home:
‘Oh my son —what brings you down to the world
of death and darkness? You are still alive!
It’s hard for the living to catch a glimpse of this . . .
180 Great rivers flow between us, terrible waters,
the Ocean first of all —no one could ever ford
that stream on foot, only aboard some sturdy craft.
Have you just come from Troy, wandering long years
with your men and ship? Not yet returned to Ithaca?
You’ve still not seen your wife inside your halls?’
‘Mother,’
I replied, ‘I had to venture down to the House of Death,
to consult the shade of Tiresias, seer of Thebes.
Never yet have I neared Achaea, never once
set foot on native ground,
190 always wandering —endless hardship from that day
I first set sail with King Agamemnon bound for Troy,
the stallion-land, to fight the Trojans there.
But tell me about yourself and spare me nothing.
What form of death overcame you, what laid you low,
some long slow illness? Or did Artemis showering arrows
come with her painless shafts and bring you down?
Tell me of father, tell of the son I left behind:
do my royal rights still lie in their safekeeping?
Or does some stranger hold the throne by now
200 because men think that I’ll come home no more?
Please, tell me about my wife, her turn of mind,
her thoughts . . . still standing fast beside our son,
still guarding our great estates, secure as ever now?
Or has she wed some other countryman at last,
the finest prince among them?’
‘Surely, surely,’
my noble mother answered quickly, ‘she’s still wai
ting
there in your halls, poor woman, suffering so,
her life an endless hardship like your own . . .
wasting away the nights, weeping away the days.
210 No one has taken over your royal rights, not yet.
Telemachus still holds your great estates in peace,
he attends the public banquets shared with all,
the feasts a man of justice should enjoy,
for every lord invites him. As for your father,
he keeps to his own farm —he never goes to town —
with no bed for him there, no blankets, glossy throws;
all winter long he sleeps in the lodge with servants,
in the ashes by the fire, his body wrapped in rags.
But when summer comes and the bumper crops of harvest,
220 any spot on the rising ground of his vineyard rows
he makes his bed, heaped high with fallen leaves,
and there he lies in anguish . . .
with his old age bearing hard upon him, too,
and his grief grows as he longs for your return.
And I with the same grief, I died and met my fate.
No sharp-eyed Huntress showering arrows through the halls
approached and brought me down with painless shafts,
nor did some hateful illness strike me, that so often
devastates the body, drains our limbs of power.
230 No, it was my longing for you, my shining Odysseus —
you and your quickness, you and your gentle ways —
that tore away my life that had been sweet.’
And I, my mind in turmoil, how I longed
to embrace my mother’s spirit, dead as she was!
Three times I rushed toward her, desperate to hold her,
three times she fluttered through my fingers, sifting away
like a shadow, dissolving like a dream, and each time
the grief cut to the heart, sharper, yes, and I,
I cried out to her, words winging into the darkness:
240 ‘Mother —why not wait for me? How I long to hold you! —
so even here, in the House of Death, we can fling
our loving arms around each other, take some joy
in the tears that numb the heart. Or is this just
some wraith that great Persephone sends my way
to make me ache with sorrow all the more?’
My noble mother answered me at once:
‘My son, my son, the unluckiest man alive!
This is no deception sent by Queen Persephone,