that I must rove through towns on towns of men,
that I must carry a well-planed oar until
I come to a 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,
310 wings that make ships fly. And here is my sign,
he told me, clear, so clear I cannot miss it,
and I will share it with you now . . .
When another traveler falls in with me and calls
that weight across my shoulder a fan to winnow grain,
then, he told me, I must plant my 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 —
then journey home and render noble offerings up
to the deathless gods who rule the vaulting skies,
320 to all the gods in order.
And at last my own death will steal upon me . . .
a gentle, painless death, far from the sea it comes
to take me down, borne down with the years in ripe old age
with all my people here in blessed peace around me.
All this, the prophet said, will come to pass.”
“And so,” Penelope said, in her great wisdom,
“if the gods will really grant a happier old age,
there’s hope that we’ll escape our trials at last.”
So husband and wife confided in each other,
330 while nurse and Eurynome, under the flaring brands,
were making up the bed with coverings deep and soft.
And working briskly, soon as they’d made it snug,
back to her room the old nurse went to sleep
as Eurynome, their attendant, torch in hand,
lighted the royal couple’s way to bed and,
leading them to their chamber, slipped away.
Rejoicing in each other, they returned to their bed,
the old familiar place they loved so well.
Now Telemachus, the cowherd and the swineherd
340 rested their dancing feet and had the women do the same,
and across the shadowed hall the men lay down to sleep.
But the royal couple, once they’d reveled in all
the longed-for joys of love, reveled in each other’s stories,
the radiant woman telling of all she’d borne at home,
watching them there, the infernal crowd of suitors
slaughtering herds of cattle and good fat sheep —
while keen to win her hand —
draining the broached vats dry of vintage wine.
349 And great Odysseus told his wife of all the pains
350 he had dealt out to other men and all the hardships
he’d endured himself —his story first to last —
and she listened on, enchanted . . .
Sleep never sealed her eyes till all was told.
He launched in with how he fought the Cicones down,
then how he came to the Lotus-eaters’ lush green land.
Then all the crimes of the Cyclops and how he paid him back
for the gallant men the monster ate without a qualm —
then how he visited Aeolus, who gave him a hero’s welcome
then he sent him off, but the homeward run was not his fate,
360 not yet —some sudden squalls snatched him away once more
and drove him over the swarming sea, groaning in despair.
Then how he moored at Telepylus, where Laestrygonians
wrecked his fleet and killed his men-at-arms.
He told her of Circe’s cunning magic wiles
and how he voyaged down in his long benched ship
to the moldering House of Death, to consult Tiresias,
ghostly seer of Thebes, and he saw old comrades there
and he saw his mother, who bore and reared him as a child.
He told how he caught the Sirens’ voices throbbing in the wind
and how he had scudded past the Clashing Rocks, past grim Charybdis,
past Scylla —whom no rover had ever coasted by, home free —
and how his shipmates slaughtered the cattle of the Sun
and Zeus the king of thunder split his racing ship
with a reeking bolt and killed his hardy comrades,
all his fighting men at a stroke, but he alone
escaped their death at sea. He told how he reached
Ogygia’s shores and the nymph Calypso held him back,
deep in her arching caverns, craving him for a husband —
cherished him, vowed to make him immortal, ageless, all his days,
380 yes, but she never won the heart inside him, never . . .
then how he reached the Phaeacians —heavy sailing there —
who with all their hearts had prized him like a god
and sent him off in a ship to his own beloved land,
giving him bronze and hoards of gold and robes . . .
and that was the last he told her, just as sleep
overcame him . . . sleep loosing his limbs,
slipping the toils of anguish from his mind.
Athena, her eyes afire, had fresh plans.
Once she thought he’d had his heart’s content
390 of love and sleep at his wife’s side, straightaway
she roused young Dawn from Ocean’s banks to her golden throne
to bring men light and roused Odysseus too, who rose
from his soft bed and advised his wife in parting,
“Dear woman, we both have had our fill of trials.
You in our house, weeping over my journey home,
fraught with storms and torment, true, and I,
pinned down in pain by Zeus and other gods,
for all my desire, blocked from reaching home.
But now that we’ve arrived at our bed together —
400 the reunion that we yearned for all those years —
look after the things still left me in our house.
But as for the flocks those brazen suitors plundered,
much I’ll recoup myself, making many raids;
404 the rest our fellow-Ithacans will supply
till all my folds are full of sheep again.
But now I must be off to the upland farm,
our orchard green with trees, to see my father,
good old man weighed down with so much grief for me.
And you, dear woman, sensible as you are,
410 I would advise you, still . . .
quick as the rising sun the news will spread
of the suitors that I killed inside the house.
So climb to your lofty chamber with your women.
Sit tight there. See no one. Question no one.”
He strapped his burnished armor round his shoulders,
roused Telemachus, the cowherd and the swineherd,
and told them to take up weapons honed for battle.
They snapped to commands, harnessed up in bronze,
opened the doors and strode out, Odysseus in the lead.
420 By now the daylight covered the land, but Pallas,
shrouding them all in darkness,
quickly led the four men out of town.
BOOK TWENTY-FOUR
Peace
1 Now Cyllenian Hermes called away the suitors’ ghosts,
holding firm in his hand the wand of fine pure gold
that enchants the eyes of men whenever Hermes wants
or wakes us up from sleep.
With a wave of this he stirred and led them on
6 and the ghosts trailed after with high thin cries
as bats cry in the depths of a dark haunted cavern,
shrilling, flittering, wild when one drops from the chain —
slipped from the rock face, while the rest cling tight . . .
10 So with their high thin cries the ghosts floc
ked now
and Hermes the Healer led them on, and down the dank
moldering paths and past the Ocean’s streams they went
and past the White Rock and the Sun’s Western Gates and past
the Land of Dreams, and they soon reached the fields of asphodel
where the dead, the burnt-out wraiths of mortals, make their home.
There they found 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.
20 They had grouped around Achilles’ ghost, and now
the shade of Atreus’ son Agamemnon marched toward them —
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.
Achilles’ ghost was first to greet him: “Agamemnon,
you were the one, we thought, of all our fighting princes
Zeus who loves the lightning favored most, all your days,
because you commanded such a powerful host of men
on the fields of Troy where we Achaeans suffered.
30 But you were doomed to encounter fate so early,
you too, yet no one born escapes its deadly force.
If only you had died your death in the full flush
of the glory you had mastered —died on Trojan soil!
Then all united Achaea would have raised your tomb
and you’d have won your son great fame for years to come.
Not so. You were fated to die a wretched death.”
And the ghost of Atrides Agamemnon answered,
“Son of Peleus, great godlike Achilles! Happy man,
you died on the fields of Troy, a world away from home,
40 and the best of Trojan and Argive champions died around you,
fighting for your corpse. And you . . . there you lay
in the whirling dust, overpowered in all your power
and wiped from memory all your horseman’s skills.
That whole day we fought, we’d never have stopped
if Zeus had not stopped us with sudden gales.
Then we bore you out of the fighting, onto the ships,
we laid you down on a litter, cleansed your handsome flesh
with warm water and soothing oils, and round your body
49 troops of Danaans wept hot tears and cut their locks.
50 Hearing the news, your mother, Thetis, rose from the sea,
immortal sea-nymphs in her wake, and a strange unearthly cry
came throbbing over the ocean. Terror gripped Achaea’s armies,
they would have leapt in panic, boarded the long hollow ships
if one man, deep in his age-old wisdom, had not checked them:
Nestor —from the first his counsel always seemed the best,
and now, concerned for the ranks, he rose and shouted,
‘Hold fast, Argives! Sons of Achaea, don’t run now!
This is Achilles’ mother rising from the sea
with all her immortal sea-nymphs —
60 she longs to join her son who died in battle!’
That stopped our panicked forces in their tracks
as the Old Man of the Sea’s daughters gathered round you —
wailing, heartsick —dressed you in ambrosial, deathless robes
and the Muses, nine in all, voice-to-voice in choirs,
their vibrant music rising, raised your dirge.
Not one soldier would you have seen dry-eyed,
the Muses’ song so pierced us to the heart.
For seventeen days unbroken, days and nights
we mourned you —immortal gods and mortal men.
70 At the eighteenth dawn we gave you to the flames
and slaughtered around your body droves of fat sheep
and shambling longhorn cattle, and you were burned
in the garments of the gods and laved with soothing oils
and honey running sweet, and a long cortege of Argive heroes
paraded in review, in battle armor round your blazing pyre,
men in chariots, men on foot —a resounding roar went up.
And once the god of fire had burned your corpse to ash,
at first light we gathered your white bones, Achilles,
cured them in strong neat wine and seasoned oils.
80 Your mother gave us a gold two-handled urn,
a gift from Dionysus, she said,
a masterwork of the famous Smith, the god of fire.
Your white bones rest in that, my brilliant Achilles,
84 mixed with the bones of dead Patroclus, Menoetius’ son,
apart from those of Antilochus, whom you treasured
more than all other comrades once Patroclus died.
Over your bones we reared a grand, noble tomb —
devoted veterans all, Achaea’s combat forces —
89 high on its jutting headland over the Hellespont’s
90 broad reach, a landmark glimpsed from far out at sea
by men of our own day and men of days to come.
And then
your mother, begging the gods for priceless trophies,
set them out in the ring for all our champions.
You in your day have witnessed funeral games
for many heroes, games to honor the death of kings,
when young men cinch their belts, tense to win some prize —
but if you’d laid eyes on these it would have thrilled your heart,
magnificent trophies the goddess, glistening-footed Thetis,
held out in your honor. You were dear to the gods,
100 so even in death your name will never die . . .
Great glory is yours, Achilles,
for all time, in the eyes of all mankind!
But I?
What joy for me when the coil of war had wound down?
For my return Zeus hatched a pitiful death
at the hands of Aegisthus —and my accursed wife.”
As they exchanged the stories of their fates,
Hermes the guide and giant-killer drew up close to both,
leading down the ghosts of the suitors King Odysseus killed.
Struck by the sight, the two went up to them right away
110 and the ghost of Atreus’ son Agamemnon recognized
111 the noted prince Amphimedon, Melaneus’ dear son
who received him once in Ithaca, at his home,
and Atrides’ ghost called out to his old friend now,
“Amphimedon, what disaster brings you down to the dark world?
All of you, good picked men, and all in your prime —
no captain out to recruit the best in any city
could have chosen better. What laid you low?
Wrecked in the ships when lord Poseidon roused
some punishing blast of gales and heavy breakers?
120 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?
Answer me, tell me. I was once your guest.
Don’t you recall the day I came to visit
your house in Ithaca —King Menelaus came too —
126 to urge Odysseus to sail with us in the ships
on our campaign to Troy? And the long slow voyage,
crossing wastes of ocean, cost us one whole month.
That’s how hard it was to bring him round,
Odysseus, raider of cities.”
130 “Famous Atrides!”
Amphimedon’s ghost called back. “Lord of men, Agamemnon,
I remember it all, your majesty, as you say,
and I will tell you, start to finish now,
the story of our death,
the brutal end contrived
to take us off.
We were courting the wife of Odysseus, gone so long.
She neither spurned nor embraced a marriage she despised,
no, she simply planned our death, our black doom!
This was her latest masterpiece of guile:
140 she set up a great loom in the royal halls
and she began to weave, and the weaving finespun,
the yarns endless, and she would lead us on: ‘Young men,
my suitors, now that King Odysseus is no more,
go slowly, keen as you are to marry me, until
I can finish off this web . . .
so my weaving won’t all fray and come to nothing.
This is a shroud for old lord Laertes, for that day
when the deadly fate that lays us out at last will take him down.
I dread the shame my countrywomen would heap upon me,
150 yes, if a man of such wealth should lie in state
without a shroud for cover.’
Her very words,
and despite our pride and passion we believed her.
So by day she’d weave at her great and growing web —
by night, by the light of torches set beside her,
she would unravel all she’d done. Three whole years
she deceived us blind, seduced us with this scheme . . .
Then, when the wheeling seasons brought the fourth year on
and the months waned and the long days came round once more,
one of her women, in on the queen’s secret, told the truth
160 and we caught her in the act —unweaving her gorgeous web.
So she finished it off. Against her will. We forced her.
But just as she bound off that great shroud and washed it,
spread it out —glistening like the sunlight or the moon —
just then some wicked spirit brought Odysseus back,
from god knows where, to the edge of his estate
where the swineherd kept his pigs. And back too,
to the same place, came Odysseus’ own dear son,
scudding home in his black ship from sandy Pylos.
The pair of them schemed our doom, our deathtrap,
170 then lit out for town —
Telemachus first in fact, Odysseus followed,
later, led by the swineherd, and clad in tatters,
looking for all the world like an old and broken beggar
hunched on a stick, his body wrapped in shameful rags.
Disguised so none of us, not even the older ones,
could spot that tramp for the man he really was,
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