The Odyssey(Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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my crew concocted!’
Quick as a flash
with her flaring robes Lampetie sped the news
to the Sun on high that we had killed his herds
and Helios burst out in rage to all the immortals:
‘Father Zeus! the rest of you blissful gods who never die —
punish them all, that crew of Laertes’ son Odysseus —
what an outrage! They, they killed my cattle,
the great joy of my heart . . . day in, day out,
when I climbed the starry skies and when I wheeled
410 back down from the heights to touch the earth once more.
Unless they pay me back in blood for the butchery of my herds,
down I go to the House of Death and blaze among the dead!’
But Zeus who marshals the thunderheads insisted,
‘Sun, you keep on shining among the deathless gods
and mortal men across the good green earth.
And as for the guilty ones, why, soon enough
on the wine-dark sea I’ll hit their racing ship
with a white-hot bolt, I’ll tear it into splinters.’
—Or so I heard from the lovely nymph Calypso,
420 who heard it herself, she said, from Hermes, god of guides.
As soon as I reached our ship at the water’s edge
I took the men to task, upbraiding each in turn,
but how to set things right? We couldn’t find a way.
The cattle were dead already . . .
and the gods soon showed us all some fateful signs —
the hides began to crawl, the meat, both raw and roasted,
bellowed out on the spits, and we heard a noise
like the moan of lowing oxen.
Yet six more days
my eager companions feasted on the cattle of the Sun,
430 the pick of the herds they’d driven off, but then,
when Cronian Zeus brought on the seventh day,
the wind in its ceaseless raging dropped at last,
and stepping the mast at once, hoisting the white sail
we boarded ship and launched her, made for open sea.
But once we’d left that island in our wake —
no land at all in sight, nothing but sea and sky —
then Zeus the son of Cronus mounted a thunderhead
above our hollow ship and the deep went black beneath it.
Nor did the craft scud on much longer. All of a sudden
440 killer-squalls attacked us, screaming out of the west,
a murderous blast shearing the two forestays off
so the mast toppled backward, its running tackle spilling
into the bilge. The mast itself went crashing into the stern,
it struck the helmsman’s head and crushed his skull to pulp
and down from his deck the man flipped like a diver —
his hardy life spirit left his bones behind.
Then, then in the same breath Zeus hit the craft
with a lightning-bolt and thunder. Round she spun,
reeling under the impact, filled with reeking brimstone,
450 shipmates pitching out of her, bobbing round like seahawks
swept along by the whitecaps past the trim black hull —
and the god cut short their journey home forever.
But I went lurching along our battered hulk
till the sea-surge ripped the plankings from the keel
and the waves swirled it away, stripped bare, and snapped
the mast from the decks —but a backstay made of bull’s-hide
still held fast, and with this I lashed the mast and keel
together, made them one, riding my makeshift raft
as the wretched galewinds bore me on and on.
460 At last the West Wind quit its wild rage
but the South came on at once to hound me even more,
making me double back my route toward cruel Charybdis.
All night long I was rushed back and then at break of day
I reached the crag of Scylla and dire Charybdis’ vortex
right when the dreadful whirlpool gulped the salt sea down.
But heaving myself aloft to clutch at the fig-tree’s height,
like a bat I clung to its trunk for dear life —not a chance
for a good firm foothold there, no clambering up it either,
the roots too far to reach, the boughs too high overhead,
470 huge swaying branches that overshadowed Charybdis.
But I held on, dead set . . . waiting for her
to vomit my mast and keel back up again —
Oh how I ached for both! and back they came,
late but at last, at just the hour a judge at court,
who’s settled the countless suits of brash young claimants,
rises, the day’s work done, and turns home for supper —
that’s when the timbers reared back up from Charybdis.
I let go —I plunged with my hands and feet flailing,
crashing into the waves beside those great beams
480 and scrambling aboard them fast
I rowed hard with my hands right through the straits . . .
And the father of men and gods did not let Scylla see me,
else I’d have died on the spot —no escape from death.
I drifted along nine days. On the tenth, at night,
the gods cast me up on Ogygia, Calypso’s island,
home of the dangerous nymph with glossy braids
who speaks with human voice, and she took me in,
she loved me . . . Why cover the same ground again?
Just yesterday, here at hall, I told you all the rest,
490 you and your gracious wife. It goes against my grain
to repeat a tale told once, and told so clearly.”
BOOK THIRTEEN
Ithaca at Last
His tale was over now. The Phaeacians all fell silent, hushed,
2 his story holding them spellbound down the shadowed halls
until Alcinous found the poise to say, “Odysseus,
now that you have come to my bronze-floored house,
my vaulted roofs, I know you won’t be driven
off your course, nothing can hold you back —
however much you’ve suffered, you’ll sail home.
Here, friends, here’s a command for one and all,
you who frequent my palace day and night and drink
10 the shining wine of kings and enjoy the harper’s songs.
The robes and hammered gold and a haul of other gifts
you lords of our island council brought our guest —
all lie packed in his polished sea-chest now. Come,
each of us add a sumptuous tripod, add a cauldron!
Then recover our costs with levies on the people:
it’s hard to afford such bounty man by man.”
The king’s instructions met with warm applause
and home they went to sleep, each in his own house.
When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more
20 they hurried down to the ship with handsome bronze gifts,
and striding along the decks, the ardent King Alcinous
stowed them under the benches, shipshape, so nothing
could foul the crewmen tugging at their oars.
Then back the party went to Alcinous’ house
and shared a royal feast.
The majestic king
slaughtered an ox for them to Cronus’ mighty son,
Zeus of the thundercloud, whose power rules the world.
They burned the thighs and fell to the lordly banquet,
reveling there, while in their midst the inspired bard
30 struck up a song, Demodocus, prized by all the people.
True, but time and again Odysseus turned his face
toward the radiant sun, anxious for it to set,
yearning now to
be gone and home once more . . .
As a man aches for his evening meal when all day long
his brace of wine-dark oxen have dragged the bolted plowshare
down a fallow field —how welcome the setting sun to him,
the going home to supper, yes, though his knees buckle,
struggling home at last. So welcome now to Odysseus
the setting light of day, and he lost no time
40 as he pressed Phaeacia’s men who love their oars,
addressing his host, Alcinous, first and foremost:
“Alcinous, majesty, shining among your island people,
make your libations, launch me safely on my way —
to one and all, farewell!
All is now made good, my heart’s desire,
your convoy home, your precious, loving gifts,
and may the gods of Olympus bless them for me!
May I find an unswerving wife when I reach home,
and loved ones hale, unharmed! And you, my friends
50 remaining here in your kingdom now, may you delight
in your loyal wives and children! May the gods
rain down all kinds of fortune on your lives,
misfortune never harbor in your homeland!”
All burst into applause, urging passage home
for their parting guest, his farewell rang so true.
Hallowed King Alcinous briskly called his herald:
“Come, Pontonous! Mix the wine in the bowl,
pour rounds to all our banqueters in the house,
so we, with a prayer to mighty Zeus the Father,
60 can sail our new friend home to native land.”
Pontonous mixed the heady, honeyed wine
and hovering closely, poured full rounds for all.
And from where they sat they tipped libations out
to the happy gods who rule the vaulting skies.
Then King Odysseus rose up from his seat
and placing his two-eared cup in Arete’s hands,
addressed the queen with parting wishes on the wing:
“Your health, my queen, through all your days to come —
until old age and death, that visit all mankind,
70 pay you a visit too. Now I am on my way
but you, may you take joy in this house of yours,
in your children, your people, in Alcinous the king!”
With that the great Odysseus strode across the threshold.
And King Alcinous sent the herald off with the guest
to lead him down to the swift ship and foaming surf.
And Arete sent her serving-women, one to carry
a sea-cloak, washed and fresh, a shirt as well,
another assigned to bear the sturdy chest
and a third to take the bread and ruddy wine.
80 When they reached the ship at the water’s edge
the royal escorts took charge of the gifts at once
and stores of food and wine, stowed them deep in the holds,
and then for their guest they spread out rug and sheets
on the half-deck, clear astern on the ship’s hull
so he might sleep there soundly, undisturbed.
And last, Odysseus climbed aboard himself
and down he lay, all quiet
as crewmen sat to the oarlocks, each in line.
They slipped the cable free of the drilled stone post
90 and soon as they swung back and the blades tossed up the spray
an irresistible sleep fell deeply on his eyes, the sweetest,
soundest oblivion, still as the sleep of death itself . . .
And the ship like a four-horse team careering down the plain,
all breaking as one with the whiplash cracking smartly,
leaping with hoofs high to run the course in no time —
so the stern hove high and plunged with the seething rollers
crashing dark in her wake as on she surged unwavering,
never flagging, no, not even a darting hawk,
the quickest thing on wings, could keep her pace
100 as on she ran, cutting the swells at top speed,
bearing a man endowed with the gods’ own wisdom,
one who had suffered twenty years of torment, sick at heart,
cleaving his way through wars of men and pounding waves at sea
but now he slept in peace, the memory of his struggles
laid to rest.
And then, that hour the star rose up,
the clearest, brightest star, that always heralds
the newborn light of day, the deep-sea-going ship
made landfall on the island . . . Ithaca, at last.
There on the coast a haven lies, named for Phorcys,
110 the old god of the deep —with two jutting headlands,
sheared off at the seaward side but shelving toward the bay,
that break the great waves whipped by the gales outside
so within the harbor ships can ride unmoored
whenever they come in mooring range of shore.
At the harbor’s head a branching olive stands
with a welcome cave nearby it, dank with sea-mist,
117 sacred to nymphs of the springs we call the Naiads.
There are mixing-bowls inside and double-handled jars,
crafted of stone, and bees store up their honey in the hollows.
120 There are long stone looms as well, where the nymphs weave out
their webs from clouds of sea-blue wool —a marvelous sight —
and a wellspring flows forever. The cave has two ways in,
one facing the North Wind, a pathway down for mortals;
the other, facing the South, belongs to the gods,
no man may go that way . . .
it is the path for all the deathless powers.
Here at this bay the Phaeacian crew put in —
they’d known it long before —driving the ship so hard
she ran up onto the beach for a good half her length,
130 such way the oarsmen’s brawny arms had made.
Up from the benches, swinging down to land,
first they lifted Odysseus off the decks —
linen and lustrous carpet too —and laid him
down on the sand asleep, still dead to the world,
then hoisted out the treasures proud Phaeacians,
urged by open-hearted Pallas, had lavished on him,
setting out for home. They heaped them all
by the olive’s trunk, in a neat pile, clear
of the road for fear some passerby might spot
140 and steal Odysseus’ hoard before he could awaken.
Then pushing off, they pulled for home themselves.
But now Poseidon, god of the earthquake, never once
forgetting the first threats he leveled at the hero,
probed almighty Zeus to learn his plans in full:
“Zeus, Father, I will lose all my honor now
145 among the immortals, now there are mortal men
who show me no respect —Phaeacians, too,
born of my own loins! I said myself
that Odysseus would suffer long and hard
150 before he made it home, but I never dreamed
of blocking his return, not absolutely at least,
once you had pledged your word and bowed your head.
But now they’ve swept him across the sea in their swift ship,
they’ve set him down in Ithaca, sound asleep, and loaded the man
with boundless gifts —bronze and hoards of gold and robes —
aye, more plunder than he could ever have won from Troy
if Odysseus had returned intact with his fair share!”
“Incredible,” Zeus who marshals the thunderheads replied.
“Earth-shaker, you with your massive power, why moaning so?
160 The gods don’t disrespect you. What a stir there’d be
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br /> if they flung abuse at the oldest, noblest of them all.
162 Those mortals? If any man, so lost in his strength
and prowess, pays you no respect —just pay him back.
The power is always yours.
Do what you like. Whatever warms your heart.”
“King of the dark cloud,” the earthquake god agreed,
“I’d like to avenge myself at once, as you advise,
but I’ve always feared your wrath and shied away.
But now I’ll crush that fine Phaeacian cutter
170 out on the misty sea, now on her homeward run
171 from the latest convoy. They will learn at last
to cease and desist from escorting every man alive —
I’ll pile a huge mountain round about their port!”
“Wait, dear brother,” Zeus who collects the clouds
had second thoughts. “Here’s what seems best to me.
As the people all lean down from the city heights
to watch her speeding home, strike her into a rock
that looks like a racing vessel, just offshore —
amaze all men with a marvel for the ages.
180 Then pile your huge mountain round about their port.”
Hearing that from Zeus, the god of the earthquake
sped to Scheria now, the Phaeacians’ island home,
and waited there till the ship came sweeping in,
scudding lightly along —and surging close abreast,
the earthquake god with one flat stroke of his hand
struck her to stone, rooted her to the ocean floor
and made for open sea.
The Phaeacians, aghast,
those lords of the long oars, the master mariners
traded startled glances, sudden outcries:
190 “Look —who’s pinned our swift ship to the sea?”
“Just racing for home!”
“Just hove into plain view!”
They might well wonder, blind to what had happened,
till Alcinous rose and made things all too clear:
“Oh no —my father’s prophecy years ago . . .
it all comes home to me with a vengeance now!
He used to say Poseidon was vexed with us because
we escorted all mankind and never came to grief.
He said that one day, as a well-built ship of ours
sailed home on the misty sea from such a convoy,