Never yet have I neared Achaea, never once
set foot on native ground . . .
547 my life is endless trouble.
But you, Achilles,
there’s not a man in the world more blest than you —
there never has been, never will be one.
550 Time was, when you were alive, we Argives
honored you as a god, and now down here, I see,
you lord it over the dead in all your power.
So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles.’
I reassured the ghost, but he broke out, protesting,
555 ‘No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus!
556 By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man —
some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive —
than rule down here over all the breathless dead.
But come, tell me the news about my gallant son.
560 Did he make his way to the wars,
did the boy become a champion —yes or no?
Tell me of noble Peleus, any word you’ve heard —
still holding pride of place among his Myrmidon hordes,
564 or do they despise the man in Hellas and in Phthia
because old age has lamed his arms and legs?
For I no longer stand in the light of day —
the man I was —comrade-in-arms to help my father
as once I helped our armies, killing the best fighters
Troy could field in the wide world up there . . .
570 Oh to arrive at father’s house —the man I was,
for one brief day —I’d make my fury and my hands,
invincible hands, a thing of terror to all those men
who abuse the king with force and wrest away his honor!’
So he grieved but I tried to lend him heart:
‘About noble Peleus I can tell you nothing,
576 but about your own dear son, Neoptolemus,
I can report the whole story, as you wish.
I myself, in my trim ship, I brought him
579 out of Scyros to join the Argives under arms.
580 And dug in around Troy, debating battle-tactics,
he always spoke up first, and always on the mark —
godlike Nestor and I alone excelled the boy. Yes,
583 and when our armies fought on the plain of Troy
he’d never hang back with the main force of men —
he’d always charge ahead,
giving ground to no one in his fury,
587 and scores of men he killed in bloody combat.
How could I list them all, name them all, now,
the fighting ranks he leveled, battling for the Argives?
590 But what a soldier he laid low with a bronze sword:
591 the hero Eurypylus, Telephus’ son, and round him
592 troops of his own Cetean comrades slaughtered,
lured to war by the bribe his mother took.
The only man I saw to put Eurypylus
in the shade was Memnon, son of the Morning.
Again, when our champions climbed inside the horse
that Epeus built with labor, and I held full command
to spring our packed ambush open or keep it sealed,
all our lords and captains were wiping off their tears,
600 knees shaking beneath each man —but not your son.
Never once did I see his glowing skin go pale;
he never flicked a tear from his cheeks, no,
he kept on begging me there to let him burst
from the horse, kept gripping his hilted sword,
his heavy bronze-tipped javelin, keen to loose
his fighting fury against the Trojans. Then,
once we’d sacked King Priam’s craggy city,
laden with his fair share and princely prize
he boarded his own ship, his body all unscarred.
610 Not a wound from a flying spear or a sharp sword,
cut-and-thrust close up —the common marks of war.
Random, raging Ares plays no favorites.’
So I said and
613 off he went, the ghost of the great runner, Aeacus’ grandson
614 loping with long strides across the fields of asphodel,
triumphant in all I had told him of his son,
his gallant, glorious son.
Now the rest of the ghosts, the dead and gone
came swarming up around me —deep in sorrow there,
each asking about the grief that touched him most.
620 Only the ghost of Great Ajax, son of Telamon,
kept his distance, blazing with anger at me still
for the victory I had won by the ships that time
I pressed my claim for the arms of Prince Achilles.
His queenly mother had set them up as prizes,
625 Pallas and captive Trojans served as judges.
Would to god I’d never won such trophies!
All for them the earth closed over Ajax,
that proud hero Ajax . . .
greatest in build, greatest in works of war
630 of all the Argives after Peleus’ matchless son.
I cried out to him now, I tried to win him over:
‘Ajax, son of noble Telamon, still determined,
even in death, not once to forget that rage
you train on me for those accursed arms?
The gods set up that prize to plague the Achaeans —
so great a tower of strength we lost when you went down!
For your death we grieved as we did for Achilles’ death —
we grieved incessantly, true, and none’s to blame
but Zeus, who hated Achaea’s fighting spearmen
640 so intensely, Zeus sealed your doom.
Come closer, king, and listen to my story.
Conquer your rage, your blazing, headstrong pride!’
So I cried out but Ajax answered not a word.
He stalked off toward Erebus, into the dark
to join the other lost, departed dead.
Yet now, despite his anger,
he might have spoken to me, or I to him,
but the heart inside me stirred with some desire
to see the ghosts of others dead and gone.
650 And I saw Minos there, illustrious son of Zeus,
firmly enthroned, holding his golden scepter,
judging all the dead . . .
Some on their feet, some seated, all clustering
round the king of justice, pleading for his verdicts
reached in the House of Death with its all-embracing gates.
I next caught sight of Orion, that huge hunter,
rounding up on the fields of asphodel those wild beasts
the man in life cut down on the lonely mountain-slopes,
brandishing in his hands the bronze-studded club
that time can never shatter.
660 I saw Tityus too,
son of the mighty goddess Earth —sprawling there
on the ground, spread over nine acres —two vultures
hunched on either side of him, digging into his liver,
beaking deep in the blood-sac, and he with his frantic hands
could never beat them off, for he had once dragged off
the famous consort of Zeus in all her glory,
Leto, threading her way toward Pytho’s ridge,
668 over the lovely dancing-rings of Panopeus.
669 And I saw Tantalus too, bearing endless torture.
670 He stood erect in a pool as the water lapped his chin —
parched, he tried to drink, but he could not reach the surface,
no, time and again the old man stooped, craving a sip,
time and again the water vanished, swallowed down,
laying bare the caked black earth at his feet —
some spirit drank it dry. And over his head
leafy trees d
angled their fruit from high aloft,
pomegranates and pears, and apples glowing red,
succulent figs and olives swelling sleek and dark,
but as soon as the old man would strain to clutch them fast
680 a gust would toss them up to the lowering dark clouds.
681 And I saw Sisyphus too, bound to his own torture,
grappling his monstrous boulder with both arms working,
heaving, hands struggling, legs driving, he kept on
thrusting the rock uphill toward the brink, but just
as it teetered, set to topple over —
time and again
the immense weight of the thing would wheel it back and
the ruthless boulder would bound and tumble down to the plain again —
so once again he would heave, would struggle to thrust it up,
sweat drenching his body, dust swirling above his head.
690 And next I caught a glimpse of powerful Heracles —
his ghost, I mean: the man himself delights
in the grand feasts of the deathless gods on high,
693 wed to Hebe, famed for her lithe, alluring ankles,
the daughter of mighty Zeus and Hera shod in gold.
Around him cries of the dead rang out like cries of birds,
scattering left and right in horror as on he came like night,
naked bow in his grip, an arrow grooved on the bowstring,
glaring round him fiercely, forever poised to shoot.
A terror too, that sword-belt sweeping across his chest,
700 a baldric of solid gold emblazoned with awesome work . . .
bears and ramping boars and lions with wild, fiery eyes,
and wars, routs and battles, massacres, butchered men.
May the craftsman who forged that masterpiece —
whose skills could conjure up a belt like that —
never forge another!
Heracles knew me at once, at first glance,
and hailed me with a winging burst of pity:
‘Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus famed for exploits,
luckless man, you too? Braving out a fate as harsh
710 as the fate I bore, alive in the light of day?
Son of Zeus that I was, my torments never ended,
forced to slave for a man not half the man I was:
he saddled me with the worst heartbreaking labors.
Why, he sent me down here once, to retrieve the hound
that guards the dead —no harder task for me, he thought —
but I dragged the great beast up from the underworld to earth
and Hermes and gleaming-eyed Athena blazed the way!’
With that he turned and back he went to the House of Death
but I held fast in place, hoping that others might still come,
720 shades of famous heroes, men who died in the old days
and ghosts of an even older age I longed to see,
Theseus and Pirithous, the gods’ own radiant sons.
723 But before I could, the dead came surging round me,
hordes of them, thousands raising unearthly cries,
and blanching terror gripped me —panicked now
that Queen Persephone might send up from Death
726 some monstrous head, some Gorgon’s staring face!
I rushed back to my ship, commanded all hands
to take to the decks and cast off cables quickly.
They swung aboard at once, they sat to the oars in ranks
730 and a strong tide of the Ocean River swept her on downstream,
sped by our rowing first, then by a fresh fair wind.”
BOOK TWELVE
The Cattle of the Sun
“Now when our ship had left the Ocean River rolling in her wake
and launched out into open sea with its long swells to reach
the island of Aeaea —east where the Dawn forever young
has home and dancing-rings and the Sun his risings —
heading in we beached our craft on the sands,
the crews swung out on the low sloping shore
and there we fell asleep, awaiting Dawn’s first light.
As soon as Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone again
I dispatched some men to Circe’s halls to bring
10 the dead Elpenor’s body. We cut logs in haste
and out on the island’s sharpest jutting headland
held his funeral rites in sorrow, streaming tears.
Once we’d burned the dead man and the dead man’s armor,
heaping his grave-mound, hauling a stone that coped it well,
we planted his balanced oar aloft to crown his tomb.
And so we saw to his rites, each step in turn.
Nor did our coming back from Death escape Circe —
she hurried toward us, decked in rich regalia,
handmaids following close with trays of bread
20 and meats galore and glinting ruddy wine.
And the lustrous goddess, standing in our midst,
hailed us warmly: ‘Ah my daring, reckless friends!
You who ventured down to the House of Death alive,
doomed to die twice over —others die just once.
Come, take some food and drink some wine,
rest here the livelong day
and then, tomorrow at daybreak, you must sail.
28 But I will set you a course and chart each seamark,
so neither on sea nor land will some new trap
30 ensnare you in trouble, make you suffer more.’
Her foresight won our fighting spirits over.
So all that day till the sun went down we sat
and feasted on sides of meat and heady wine,
and then when the sun had set and night came on
the men lay down to sleep by the ship’s stern-cables.
But Circe, taking me by the hand, drew me away
from all my shipmates there and sat me down
and lying beside me probed me for details.
I told her the whole story, start to finish,
40 then the queenly goddess laid my course:
‘Your descent to the dead is over, true,
but listen closely to what I tell you now
and god himself will bring it back to mind.
44 First you will raise the island of the Sirens,
those creatures who spellbind any man alive,
whoever comes their way. Whoever draws too close,
off guard, and catches the Sirens’ voices in the air —
no sailing home for him, no wife rising to meet him,
no happy children beaming up at their father’s face.
50 The high, thrilling song of the Sirens will transfix him,
lolling there in their meadow, round them heaps of corpses
rotting away, rags of skin shriveling on their bones . . .
Race straight past that coast! Soften some beeswax
and stop your shipmates’ ears so none can hear,
none of the crew, but if you are bent on hearing,
have them tie you hand and foot in the swift ship,
erect at the mast-block, lashed by ropes to the mast
so you can hear the Sirens’ song to your heart’s content.
But if you plead, commanding your men to set you free,
60 then they must lash you faster, rope on rope.
But once your crew has rowed you past the Sirens
a choice of routes is yours. I cannot advise you
which to take, or lead you through it all —
you must decide for yourself —
but I can tell you the ways of either course.
On one side beetling cliffs shoot up, and against them
pound the huge roaring breakers of blue-eyed Amphitrite —
68 the Clashing Rocks they’re called by all the blissful gods.
Not even birds can escape them, no, not even t
he doves
70 that veer and fly ambrosia home to Father Zeus:
even of those the sheer Rocks always pick off one
and Father wings one more to keep the number up.
No ship of men has ever approached and slipped past —
always some disaster —big timbers and sailors’ corpses
whirled away by the waves and lethal blasts of fire.
76 One ship alone, one deep-sea craft sailed clear,
77 the Argo, sung by the world, when heading home
from Aeetes’ shores. And she would have crashed
against those giant rocks and sunk at once if Hera,
80 for love of Jason, had not sped her through.
On the other side loom two enormous crags . . .
One thrusts into the vaulting sky its jagged peak,
hooded round with a dark cloud that never leaves —
no clear bright air can ever bathe its crown,
not even in summer’s heat or harvest-time.
No man on earth could scale it, mount its crest,
not even with twenty hands and twenty feet for climbing,
the rock’s so smooth, like dressed and burnished stone.
And halfway up that cliffside stands a fog-bound cavern
90 gaping west toward Erebus, realm of death and darkness —
past it, great Odysseus, you should steer your ship.
No rugged young archer could hit that yawning cave
with a winged arrow shot from off the decks.
94 Scylla lurks inside it —the yelping horror,
yelping, no louder than any suckling pup
but she’s a grisly monster, I assure you.
No one could look on her with any joy,
not even a god who meets her face-to-face . . .
She has twelve legs, all writhing, dangling down
100 and six long swaying necks, a hideous head on each,
each head barbed with a triple row of fangs, thickset,
packed tight —and armed to the hilt with black death!
Holed up in the cavern’s bowels from her waist down
she shoots out her heads, out of that terrifying pit,
angling right from her nest, wildly sweeping the reefs
for dolphins, dogfish or any bigger quarry she can drag
from the thousands Amphitrite spawns in groaning seas.
No mariners yet can boast they’ve raced their ship
past Scylla’s lair without some mortal blow —
110 with each of her six heads she snatches up
The Odyssey(Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Page 31