this is just the way of mortals when we die.
250 Sinews no longer bind the flesh and bones together —
the fire in all its fury burns the body down to ashes
once life slips from the white bones, and the spirit,
rustling, flitters away . . . flown like a dream.
But you must long for the daylight. Go, quickly.
Remember all these things
so one day you can tell them to your wife.’
And so we both confided, trading parting words,
and there slowly came a grand array of women,
all sent before me now by august Persephone,
260 and all were wives and daughters once of princes.
They swarmed in a flock around the dark blood
while I searched for a way to question each alone,
and the more I thought, the more this seemed the best:
Drawing forth the long sharp sword from beside my hip,
I would not let them drink the dark blood, all in a rush,
and so they waited, coming forward one after another.
Each declared her lineage, and I explored them all.
268 And the first I saw there? Tyro, born of kings,
269 who said her father was that great lord Salmoneus,
270 said that she was the wife of Cretheus, Aeolus’ son.
271 And once she fell in love with the river god, Enipeus,
far the clearest river flowing across the earth,
and so she’d haunt Enipeus’ glinting streams,
till taking his shape one day
the god who girds the earth and makes it tremble
bedded her where the swirling river rushes out to sea,
and a surging wave reared up, high as a mountain, dark,
arching over to hide the god and mortal girl together.
Loosing her virgin belt, he lapped her round in sleep
280 and when the god had consummated his work of love
he took her by the hand and hailed her warmly:
‘Rejoice in our love, my lady! And when this year
has run its course you will give birth to glorious children —
bedding down with the gods is never barren, futile —
and you must tend them, breed and rear them well.
Now home you go, and restrain yourself, I say,
never breathe your lover’s name but know —
I am Poseidon, god who rocks the earth!’
With that he dove back in the heaving waves
290 and she conceived for the god and bore him Pelias, Neleus,
and both grew up to be stalwart aides of Zeus almighty,
292 both men alike. Pelias lived on the plains of Iolcos,
rich in sheepflocks, Neleus lived in sandy Pylos.
And the noble queen bore sons to Cretheus too:
295 Aeson, Pheres and Amythaon, exultant charioteer.
296 And after Tyro I saw Asopus’ daughter Antiope,
proud she’d spent a night in the arms of Zeus himself
298 and borne the god twin sons, Amphion and Zethus,
the first to build the footings of seven-gated Thebes,
300 her bastions too, for lacking ramparts none could live
in a place so vast, so open —strong as both men were.
302 And I saw Alcmena next, Amphitryon’s wife,
who slept in the clasp of Zeus and merged in love
and brought forth Heracles, rugged will and lion heart.
305 And I saw Megara too, magnanimous Creon’s daughter
wed to the stalwart Heracles, the hero never daunted.
307 And I saw the mother of Oedipus, beautiful Epicaste.
What a monstrous thing she did, in all innocence —
she married her own son . . .
310 who’d killed his father, then he married her!
But the gods soon made it known to all mankind.
So he in growing pain ruled on in beloved Thebes,
lording Cadmus’ people —thanks to the gods’ brutal plan —
while she went down to Death who guards the massive gates.
Lashing a noose to a steep rafter, there she hanged aloft,
strangling in all her anguish, leaving her son to bear
317 the world of horror a mother’s Furies bring to life.
318 And I saw magnificent Chloris, the one whom Neleus
wooed and won with a hoard of splendid gifts,
320 so dazzled by her beauty years ago . . .
321 the youngest daughter of Iasus’ son Amphion,
322 the great Minyan king who ruled Orchomenos once.
She was his queen in Pylos, she bore him shining sons,
324 Nestor and Chromius, Periclymenus too, good prince.
325 And after her sons she bore a daughter, majestic Pero,
the marvel of her time, courted by all the young lords
round about. But Neleus would not give her to any suitor,
none but the man who might drive home the herds
329 that powerful Iphiclus had stolen. Lurching,
330 broad in the brow, those longhorned beasts,
331 and no small task to round them up from Phylace.
332 Only the valiant seer Melampus volunteered —
he would drive them home —
but a god’s iron sentence bound him fast:
barbarous herdsmen dragged him off in chains.
Yet when the months and days had run their course
and the year wheeled round and the seasons came again,
then mighty Iphiclus loosed the prophet’s shackles,
once he had told him all the gods’ decrees.
340 And so the will of Zeus was done at last.
341 And I saw Leda next, Tyndareus’ wife,
who’d borne the king two sons, intrepid twins,
343 Castor, breaker of horses, and the hardy boxer Polydeuces,
both buried now in the life-giving earth though still alive.
Even under the earth Zeus grants them that distinction:
one day alive, the next day dead, each twin by turns,
they both hold honors equal to the gods’.
348 And I saw Iphimedeia next, Aloeus’ wife,
who claimed she lay in the Sea-lord’s loving waves
350 and gave the god two sons, but they did not live long,
351 Otus staunch as a god and far-famed Ephialtes.
They were the tallest men the fertile earth has borne,
the handsomest too, by far, aside from renowned Orion.
Nine yards across they measured, even at nine years old,
nine fathoms tall they towered. They even threatened
the deathless gods they’d storm Olympus’ heights
with the pounding rush and grinding shock of battle.
358 They were wild to pile Ossa upon Olympus, then on Ossa
359 Pelion dense with timber —their toeholds up the heavens.
360 And they’d have won the day if they had reached peak strength
but Apollo the son of Zeus, whom sleek-haired Leto bore,
laid both giants low before their beards had sprouted,
covering cheek and chin with a fresh crop of down.
364 Phaedra and Procris too I saw, and lovely Ariadne,
365 daughter of Minos, that harsh king. One day Theseus tried
366 to spirit her off from Crete to Athens’ sacred heights
but he got no joy from her. Artemis killed her first
368 on wave-washed Dia’s shores, accused by Dionysus.
369 And I saw Clymene, Maera and loathsome Eriphyle —
370 bribed with a golden necklace
to lure her lawful husband to his death . . .
But the whole cortege I could never tally, never name,
not all the daughters and wives of great men I saw there.
Long before that, the godsent night would ebb away.
But the time has come for sleep, either with friends
aboard your swift ship or here in your own house.
My passage home will rest with the gods and you.”
Odysseus paused . . . They all fell silent, hushed,
his story holding them spellbound down the shadowed halls
380 till the white-armed queen Arete suddenly burst out,
“Phaeacians! How does this man impress you now,
his looks, his build, the balanced mind inside him?
The stranger is my guest
but each of you princes shares the honor here.
So let’s not be too hasty to send him on his way,
and don’t scrimp on his gifts. His need is great,
great as the riches piled up in your houses,
thanks to the gods’ good will.”
Following her,
the old revered Echeneus added his support,
390 the eldest lord on the island of Phaeacia:
“Friends, the words of our considerate queen —
they never miss the mark or fail our expectations.
So do as Arete says, though on Alcinous here
depend all words and action.”
“And so it will be” —
Alcinous stepped in grandly —“sure as I am alive
and rule our island men who love their oars!
Our guest, much as he longs for passage home,
must stay and wait it out here till tomorrow,
till I can collect his whole array of parting gifts.
400 His send-off rests with every noble here
but with me most of all:
I hold the reins of power in the realm.”
Odysseus, deft and tactful, echoed back,
“Alcinous, majesty, shining among your island people,
if you would urge me now to stay here one whole year
then speed me home weighed down with lordly gifts,
I’d gladly have it so. Better by far, that way.
The fuller my arms on landing there at home,
the more respected, well received I’d be
410 by all who saw me sailing back to Ithaca.”
“Ah Odysseus,” Alcinous replied, “one look at you
and we know that you are no one who would cheat us —
no fraud, such as the dark soil breeds and spreads
across the face of the earth these days. Crowds of vagabonds
frame their lies so tightly none can test them. But you,
416 what grace you give your words, and what good sense within!
You have told your story with all a singer’s skill,
the miseries you endured, your great Achaeans too.
But come now, tell me truly: your godlike comrades —
420 did you see any heroes down in the House of Death,
any who sailed with you and met their doom at Troy?
The night’s still young, I’d say the night is endless.
For us in the palace now, it’s hardly time for sleep.
Keep telling us your adventures —they are wonderful.
I could hold out here till Dawn’s first light
if only you could bear, here in our halls,
to tell the tale of all the pains you suffered.”
So the man of countless exploits carried on:
“Alcinous, majesty, shining among your island people,
430 there is a time for many words, a time for sleep as well.
But if you insist on hearing more, I’d never stint
on telling my own tale and those more painful still,
the griefs of my comrades, dead in the war’s wake,
who escaped the battle-cries of Trojan armies
only to die in blood at journey’s end —
thanks to a vicious woman’s will.
Now then,
no sooner had Queen Persephone driven off
the ghosts of lovely women, scattering left and right,
than forward marched the shade of Atreus’ son Agamemnon,
440 fraught with grief and flanked by all his comrades,
troops of his men-at-arms who died beside him,
who met their fate in lord Aegisthus’ halls.
He knew me at once, as soon as he drank the blood,
and wailed out, shrilly; tears sprang to his eyes,
he thrust his arms toward me, keen to embrace me there —
no use —the great force was gone, the strength lost forever,
now, that filled his rippling limbs in the old days.
I wept at the sight, my heart went out to the man,
my words too, in a winging flight of pity:
450 ‘Famous Atrides, lord of men Agamemnon!
What fatal stroke of destiny brought you down?
Wrecked in the ships when lord Poseidon roused
some punishing blast of stormwinds, gust on gust?
Or did ranks of enemies mow you down on land
as you tried to raid and cut off herds and flocks
or fought to win their city, take their women?’
457 The field marshal’s ghost replied at once:
‘Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, mastermind of war,
I was not wrecked in the ships when lord Poseidon
460 roused some punishing blast of stormwinds, gust on gust,
nor did ranks of enemies mow me down on land —
Aegisthus hatched my doom and my destruction,
he killed me, he with my own accursed wife . . .
he invited me to his palace, sat me down to feast
then cut me down as a man cuts down some ox at the trough!
So I died —a wretched, ignominious death —and round me
all my comrades killed, no mercy, one after another,
just like white-tusked boars
butchered in some rich lord of power’s halls
470 for a wedding, banquet or groaning public feast.
You in your day have witnessed hundreds slaughtered,
killed in single combat or killed in pitched battle, true,
but if you’d laid eyes on this it would have wrenched your heart —
how we sprawled by the mixing-bowl and loaded tables there,
throughout the palace, the whole floor awash with blood.
476 But the death-cry of Cassandra, Priam’s daughter —
the most pitiful thing I heard! My treacherous queen,
Clytemnestra, killed her over my body, yes, and I,
lifting my fists, beat them down on the ground,
480 dying, dying, writhing around the sword.
But she, that whore, she turned her back on me,
well on my way to Death —she even lacked the heart
to seal my eyes with her hand or close my jaws.
So,
there’s nothing more deadly, bestial than a woman
set on works like these —what a monstrous thing
she plotted, slaughtered her own lawful husband!
Why, I expected, at least, some welcome home
from all my children, all my household slaves
when I came sailing back again . . . But she —
490 the queen hell-bent on outrage —bathes in shame
not only herself but the whole breed of womankind,
even the honest ones to come, forever down the years!’
So he declared and I cried out, ‘How terrible!
Zeus from the very start, the thunder king
has hated the race of Atreus with a vengeance —
his trustiest weapon women’s twisted wiles.
What armies of us died for the sake of Helen . . .
Clytemnestra schemed your death while you were worlds away!’
‘True, true,’ Agamemnon’s ghost kept pressing on,
500 ‘so even your own wife —never indulge her too far.
Never reveal the whole truth, whatever you may know;
just tell her a part of it, be sure to
hide the rest.
Not that you, Odysseus, will be murdered by your wife.
She’s much too steady, her feelings run too deep,
Icarius’ daughter Penelope, that wise woman.
She was a young bride, I well remember . . .
we left her behind when we went off to war,
with an infant boy she nestled at her breast.
That boy must sit and be counted with the men now —
510 happy man! His beloved father will come sailing home
and see his son, and he will embrace his father,
that is only right. But my wife —she never
even let me feast my eyes on my own son;
she killed me first, his father!
I tell you this —bear it in mind, you must —
when you reach your homeland steer your ship
into port in secret, never out in the open . . .
the time for trusting women’s gone forever!
Enough. Come, tell me this, and be precise.
520 Have you heard news of my son? Where’s he living now?
Perhaps in Orchomenos, perhaps in sandy Pylos
or off in the Spartan plains with Menelaus?
He’s not dead yet, my Prince Orestes, no,
he’s somewhere on the earth.’
So he probed
but I cut it short: ‘Atrides, why ask me that?
I know nothing, whether he’s dead or alive.
It’s wrong to lead you on with idle words.’
So we stood there, trading heartsick stories,
deep in grief, as the tears streamed down our faces.
530 But now there came the ghosts of Peleus’ son Achilles,
Patroclus, fearless Antilochus —and Great Ajax too,
the first in stature, first in build and bearing
of all the Argives after Peleus’ matchless son.
The ghost of the splendid runner knew me at once
and hailed me with a flight of mournful questions:
‘Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, man of tactics,
reckless friend, what next?
What greater feat can that cunning head contrive?
What daring brought you down to the House of Death? —
540 where the senseless, burnt-out wraiths of mortals make their home.’
The voice of his spirit paused, and I was quick to answer:
‘Achilles, son of Peleus, greatest of the Achaeans,
I had to consult Tiresias, driven here by hopes
he would help me journey home to rocky Ithaca.
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