that bed of pain my tears have streaked, year in,
year out, from the day Odysseus sailed away to see . . .
673 Destroy, I call it —I hate to say its name!
There I’ll rest, while you lie here in the hall,
spreading your blankets somewhere on the floor,
or the women will prepare a decent bed.”
With that
the queen went up to her lofty well-lit room
and not alone: her women followed close behind.
Penelope, once they reached the upper story,
680 fell to weeping for Odysseus, her beloved husband,
till watchful Athena sealed her eyes with welcome sleep.
BOOK TWENTY
Portents Gather
Off in the entrance-hall the great king made his bed,
spreading out on the ground the raw hide of an ox,
heaping over it fleece from sheep the suitors
butchered day and night, then Eurynome threw
a blanket over him, once he’d nestled down.
And there Odysseus lay . . .
plotting within himself the suitors’ death —
awake, alert, as the women slipped from the house,
the maids who whored in the suitors’ beds each night,
10 tittering, linking arms and frisking as before.
The master’s anger rose inside his chest,
torn in thought, debating, head and heart —
should he up and rush them, kill them one and all
or let them rut with their lovers one last time?
The heart inside him growled low with rage,
as a bitch mounting over her weak, defenseless puppies
growls, facing a stranger, bristling for a showdown —
so he growled from his depths, hackles rising at their outrage.
But he struck his chest and curbed his fighting heart:
20 “Bear up, old heart! You’ve borne worse, far worse,
that day when the Cyclops, man-mountain, bolted
your hardy comrades down. But you held fast —
23 Nobody but your cunning pulled you through
the monster’s cave you thought would be your death.”
So he forced his spirit into submission,
the rage in his breast reined back —unswerving,
all endurance. But he himself kept tossing, turning,
intent as a cook before some white-hot blazing fire
who rolls his sizzling sausage back and forth,
30 packed with fat and blood —keen to broil it quickly,
tossing, turning it, this way, that way —so he cast about:
how could he get these shameless suitors in his clutches,
one man facing a mob? . . . when close to his side she came,
Athena sweeping down from the sky in a woman’s build
and hovering at his head, the goddess spoke:
“Why still awake? The unluckiest man alive!
Here is your house, your wife at home, your son,
as fine a boy as one could hope to have.”
“True,”
the wily fighter replied, “how right you are, goddess,
40 but still this worry haunts me, heart and soul —
how can I get these shameless suitors in my clutches?
Single-handed, braving an army always camped inside.
43 There’s another worry, that haunts me even more.
What if I kill them —thanks to you and Zeus —
how do I run from under their avengers?
Show me the way, I ask you.”
“Impossible man!”
Athena bantered, the goddess’ eyes ablaze.
“Others are quick to trust a weaker comrade,
some poor mortal, far less cunning than I.
50 But I am a goddess, look, the very one who
guards you in all your trials to the last.
I tell you this straight out:
even if fifty bands of mortal fighters
closed around us, hot to kill us off in battle,
still you could drive away their herds and sleek flocks!
So, surrender to sleep at last. What a misery,
keeping watch through the night, wide awake —
you’ll soon come up from under all your troubles.”
With that she showered sleep across his eyes
60 and back to Olympus went the lustrous goddess.
As soon as sleep came on him, loosing his limbs,
slipping the toils of anguish from his mind,
his devoted wife awoke and,
sitting up in her soft bed, returned to tears.
When the queen had wept to her heart’s content
she prayed to the Huntress, Artemis, first of all:
“Artemis —goddess, noble daughter of Zeus, if only
you’d whip an arrow through my breast and tear my life out,
now, at once! Or let some whirlwind pluck me up
70 and sweep me away along those murky paths and
fling me down where the Ocean River running
round the world rolls back upon itself!
Quick
73 as the whirlwinds swept away Pandareus’ daughters —
years ago, when the gods destroyed their parents,
leaving the young girls orphans in their house.
But radiant Aphrodite nursed them well
on cheese and luscious honey and heady wine,
and Hera gave them beauty and sound good sense,
more than all other women —virgin Artemis made them tall
80 and Athena honed their skills to fashion lovely work.
But then, when Aphrodite approached Olympus’ peaks
to ask for the girls their crowning day as brides
from Zeus who loves the lightning —Zeus who knows all,
all that’s fated, all not fated, for mortal man —
then the storm spirits snatched them away
and passed them on to the hateful Furies,
yes, for all their loving care.
Just so
may the gods who rule Olympus blot me out!
Artemis with your glossy braids, come shoot me dead —
90 so I can plunge beneath this loathsome earth
with the image of Odysseus vivid in my mind.
92 Never let me warm the heart of a weaker man!
Even grief is bearable, true, when someone weeps
through the days, sobbing, heart convulsed with pain
yet embraced by sleep all night —sweet oblivion, sleep
dissolving all, the good and the bad, once it seals our eyes —
but even my dreams torment me, sent by wicked spirits.
Again —just this night —someone lay beside me . . .
like Odysseus to the life, when he embarked
100 with his men-at-arms. My heart raced with joy.
No dream, I thought, the waking truth at last!”
At those words
Dawn rose on her golden throne in a sudden gleam of light.
And great Odysseus caught the sound of his wife’s cry
and began to daydream —deep in his heart it seemed
she stood beside him, knew him, now, at last . . .
Gathering up the fleece and blankets where he’d slept,
he laid them on a chair in the hall, he took the oxhide out
and spread it down, lifted his hands and prayed to Zeus:
“Father Zeus, if you really willed it so —to bring me
110 home over land and sea-lanes, home to native ground
after all the pain you brought me —show me a sign,
a good omen voiced by someone awake indoors,
another sign, outside, from Zeus himself!”
And Zeus in all his wisdom heard that prayer.
He thundered at once, out of his clear blue heavens
high above the clouds, and Odysseus’ spirit lifted.
Then from within the halls a woman grinding grain
let fly a lucky word. Close at hand she was,
where the good commander set the handmills once
120 and now twelve women in all performed their tasks,
grinding the wheat and barley, marrow of men’s bones.
The rest were abed by now —they’d milled their stint —
this one alone, the frailest of all, kept working on.
Stopping her mill, she spoke an omen for her master:
“Zeus, Father! King of gods and men, now there
was a crack of thunder out of the starry sky —
and not a cloud in sight!
Sure it’s a sign you’re showing someone now.
So, poor as I am, grant me my prayer as well:
130 let this day be the last, the last these suitors
bolt their groaning feasts in King Odysseus’ house!
These brutes who break my knees —heart-wrenching labor,
grinding their grain —now let them eat their last!”
A lucky omen, linked with Zeus’s thunder.
Odysseus’ heart leapt up, the man convinced
he’d grind the scoundrels’ lives out in revenge.
By now
the other maids were gathering in Odysseus’ royal palace,
raking up on the hearth the fire still going strong.
Telemachus climbed from bed and dressed at once,
140 brisk as a young god —
over his shoulder he slung his well-honed sword,
he fastened rawhide sandals under his smooth feet,
he seized his tough spear tipped with a bronze point
and took his stand at the threshold, calling Eurycleia:
145 “Dear nurse, how did you treat the stranger in our house?
With bed and board? Or leave him to lie untended?
That would be mother’s way —sensible as she is —
all impulse, doting over some worthless stranger,
turning a good man out to face the worst.”
150 “Please, child,” his calm old nurse replied,
“don’t blame her —your mother’s blameless this time.
He sat and drank his wine till he’d had his fill.
Food? He’d lost his hunger. But she asked him.
And when it was time to think of turning in,
she told the maids to spread a decent bed, but he —
so down-and-out, poor soul, so dogged by fate —
said no to snuggling into a bed, between covers.
No sir, the man lay down in the entrance-hall,
on the raw hide of an ox and sheep’s fleece,
and we threw a blanket over him, so we did.”
160 Hearing that,
Telemachus strode out through the palace, spear in hand,
and a pair of sleek hounds went trotting at his heels.
He made for the meeting grounds to join the island lords
while Eurycleia the daughter of Ops, Pisenor’s son,
that best of women, gave the maids their orders:
“Quick now, look alive, sweep out the house,
wet down the floors!
You, those purple coverlets,
fling them over the fancy chairs!
All those tables,
sponge them down —scour the winebowls, burnished cups!
170 The rest —now off you go to the spring and fetch some water,
fast as your legs can run!
Our young gallants won’t be long from the palace,
they’ll be bright and early —today’s a public feast.”
They hung on her words and ran to do her bidding.
Full twenty scurried off to the spring’s dark water,
others bent to the housework, all good hands.
Then in they trooped, the strutting serving-men,
who split the firewood cleanly now as the women
bustled in from the spring, the swineherd at their heels,
180 driving three fat porkers, the best of all his herds.
And leaving them to root in the broad courtyard,
up he went to Odysseus, hailed him warmly:
“Friend, do the suitors show you more respect
or treat you like the dregs of the earth as always?”
“Good Eumaeus,” the crafty man replied,
“if only the gods would pay back their outrage!
Wild and reckless young cubs, conniving here
in another’s house. They’ve got no sense of shame.”
And now as the two confided in each other,
190 the goatherd Melanthius sauntered toward them,
herding his goats with a pair of drovers’ help,
the pick of his flocks to make the suitors’ meal.
Under the echoing porch he tethered these, then turned
on Odysseus once again with cutting insults: “Still alive?
Still hounding your betters, begging round the house?
Why don’t you cart yourself away? Get out!
We’ll never part, I swear,
till we taste each other’s fists. Riffraff,
you and your begging make us sick! Get out —
200 we’re hardly the only banquet on the island.”
No reply. The wily one just shook his head,
silent, his mind churning with thoughts of bloody work . . .
203 Third to arrive was Philoetius, that good cowherd,
prodding in for the crowd a heifer and fat goats.
Boatmen had brought them over from the mainland,
crews who ferry across all travelers too,
whoever comes for passage.
Under the echoing porch he tethered all heads well
and then approached the swineherd, full of questions:
210 “Who’s this stranger, Eumaeus, just come to the house?
What roots does the man claim —who are his people?
Where are his blood kin? his father’s fields?
Poor beggar. But what a build —a royal king’s!
Ah, once the gods weave trouble into our lives
they drive us across the earth, they drown us all in pain,
even kings of the realm.”
And with that thought
he walked up to Odysseus, gave him his right hand
and winged a greeting: “Cheers, old friend, old father,
here’s to your luck, great days from this day on —
220 saddled now as you are with so much trouble.
Father Zeus, no god’s more deadly than you!
No mercy for men, you give them life yourself
then plunge them into misery, brutal hardship.
I broke into sweat, my friend, when I first saw you —
see, my eyes still brim with tears, remembering him,
Odysseus . . . He must wear such rags, I know it,
knocking about, drifting through the world
if he’s still alive and sees the light of day.
If he’s dead already, lost in the House of Death,
230 my heart aches for Odysseus, my great lord and master.
231 He set me in charge of his herds, in Cephallenian country,
when I was just a youngster. How they’ve grown by now,
past counting! No mortal on earth could breed
a finer stock of oxen —broad in the brow,
they thrive like ears of corn. But just look,
these interlopers tell me to drive them in
for their own private feasts. Not a thought
for the young prince in the house, they never flinch —
no regard for the gods’ wrath —in their mad rush
240 to carve up his goods, my master gone so long!
I’m tossed from horn to horn in my own mind . . .
What a traitor I’d be, with the prince still alive,
if I’d run off to some other country, herds and all,
to a new set of str
angers. Ah, but isn’t it worse
to hold out here, tending the herds for upstarts,
not their owners —suffering all the pains of hell?
I could have fled, ages ago, to some great king
who’d give me shelter. It’s unbearable here.
True, but I still dream of my old master,
250 unlucky man —if only he’d drop in from the blue
and drive these suitors all in a rout throughout the halls!”
“Cowherd,” the cool tactician Odysseus answered,
“you’re no coward, and nobody’s fool, I’d say.
Even I can see there’s sense in that old head.
So I tell you this on my solemn, binding oath:
I swear by Zeus, the first of all the gods —
by the table of hospitality waiting for us,
by Odysseus’ hearth where I have come for help,
Odysseus will come home while you’re still here.
260 You’ll see with your own eyes, if you have the heart,
these suitors who lord it here cut down in blood.”
“Stranger, if only,” the cowherd cried aloud,
“if only Zeus would make that oath come true —
you’d see my power, my fighting arms in action!”
Eumaeus echoed his prayer to all the gods
that their wise king would soon come home again.
Now as they spoke and urged each other on,
and once more the suitors were plotting certain doom
269 for the young prince —suddenly, banking high on the left
270 an omen flew past, an eagle clutching a trembling dove.
And Amphinomus rose in haste to warn them all,
“My friends, we’ll never carry off this plot
to kill the prince. Let’s concentrate on feasting.”
His timely invitation pleased them all.
The suitors ambled into Odysseus’ royal house
and flinging down their cloaks on a chair or bench,
they butchered hulking sheep and fatted goats,
full-grown hogs and a young cow from the herd.
They roasted all the innards, served them round
280 and filled the bowls with wine and mixed it well.
Eumaeus passed out cups; Philoetius, trusty herdsman,
brought on loaves of bread in ample wicker trays;
Melanthius poured the wine. The whole company
reached out for the good things that lay at hand.
Telemachus, maneuvering shrewdly, sat his father down
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