bursting in on us there, out of the blue. No,
we attacked him, blows and insults flying fast,
and he took it all for a time, in his own house,
180 all the taunts and blows —he had a heart of iron.
But once the will of thundering Zeus had roused his blood,
he and Telemachus bore the burnished weapons off
and stowed them deep in a storeroom, shot the bolts
184 and he —the soul of cunning —told his wife to set
the great bow and the gleaming iron axes out
before the suitors —all of us doomed now —
to test our skill and bring our slaughter on . . .
Not one of us had the strength to string that powerful weapon,
all of us fell far short of what it took. But then,
190 when the bow was coming round to Odysseus’ hands,
we raised a hue and cry —he must not have it,
no matter how he begged! Only Telemachus
urged him to take it up, and once he got it
in his clutches, long-suffering great Odysseus
strung his bow with ease and shot through all the axes,
then, vaulting onto the threshold, stood there poised, and pouring
his flashing arrows out before him, glaring for the kill,
he cut Antinous down, then shot his painful arrows
into the rest of us, aiming straight and true,
200 and down we went, corpse on corpse in droves.
Clearly a god was driving him and all his henchmen,
routing us headlong in their fury down the hall,
wheeling into the slaughter, slashing left and right
and grisly screams broke from skulls cracked open —
the whole floor awash with blood.
So we died,
Agamemnon . . . our bodies lie untended even now,
strewn in Odysseus’ palace. They know nothing yet,
the kin in our houses who might wash our wounds
of clotted gore and lay us out and mourn us.
These are the solemn honors owed the dead.”
210 “Happy Odysseus!”
Agamemnon’s ghost cried out. “Son of old Laertes —
mastermind —what a fine, faithful wife you won!
What good sense resided in your Penelope —
how well Icarius’ daughter remembered you,
Odysseus, the man she married once!
The fame of her great virtue will never die.
The immortal gods will lift a song for all mankind,
a glorious song in praise of self-possessed Penelope.
A far cry from the daughter of Tyndareus, Clytemnestra —
220 what outrage she committed, killing the man she married once! —
yes, and the song men sing of her will ring with loathing.
She brands with a foul name the breed of womankind,
even the honest ones to come!”
So they traded stories,
the two ghosts standing there in the House of Death,
far in the hidden depths below the earth.
Odysseus and his men had stridden down from town
and quickly reached Laertes’ large, well-tended farm
that the old king himself had wrested from the wilds,
years ago, laboring long and hard. His lodge was here
230 and around it stretched a row of sheds where fieldhands,
bondsmen who did his bidding, sat and ate and slept.
And an old Sicilian woman was in charge,
who faithfully looked after her aged master
out on his good estate remote from town.
Odysseus told his servants and his son,
“Into the timbered lodge now, go, quickly,
kill us the fattest porker, fix our meal.
And I will put my father to the test,
see if the old man knows me now, on sight,
240 or fails to, after twenty years apart.”
With that he passed his armor to his men
and in they went at once, his son as well. Odysseus
wandered off, approaching the thriving vineyard, searching,
picking his way down to the great orchard, searching,
but found neither Dolius nor his sons nor any hand.
They’d just gone off, old Dolius in the lead,
to gather stones for a dry retaining wall
to shore the vineyard up. But he did find
his father, alone, on that well-worked plot,
250 spading round a sapling —clad in filthy rags,
in a patched, unseemly shirt, and round his shins
he had some oxhide leggings strapped, patched too,
to keep from getting scraped, and gloves on his hands
to fight against the thorns, and on his head
he wore a goatskin skullcap
to cultivate his misery that much more . . .
Long-enduring Odysseus, catching sight of him now —
258 a man worn down with years, his heart racked with sorrow —
259 halted under a branching pear-tree, paused and wept.
260 Debating, head and heart, what should he do now?
Kiss and embrace his father, pour out the long tale —
how he had made the journey home to native land —
or probe him first and test him every way?
Torn, mulling it over, this seemed better:
test the old man first,
reproach him with words that cut him to the core.
Convinced, Odysseus went right up to his father.
Laertes was digging round the sapling, head bent low
as his famous offspring hovered over him and began,
270 “You want no skill, old man, at tending a garden.
All’s well-kept here; not one thing in the plot,
no plant, no fig, no pear, no olive, no vine,
not a vegetable, lacks your tender, loving care.
But I must say —and don’t be offended now —
your plants are doing better than yourself.
Enough to be stooped with age
but look how squalid you are, those shabby rags.
Surely it’s not for sloth your master lets you go to seed.
There’s nothing of slave about your build or bearing.
280 I have eyes: you look like a king to me. The sort
entitled to bathe, sup well, then sleep in a soft bed.
That’s the right and pride of you old-timers.
Come now, tell me —in no uncertain terms —
284 whose slave are you? whose orchard are you tending?
And tell me this —I must be absolutely sure —
this place I’ve reached, is it truly Ithaca?
Just as that fellow told me, just now . . .
I fell in with him on the road here. Clumsy,
none too friendly, couldn’t trouble himself
290 to hear me out or give me a decent answer
when I asked about a long-lost friend of mine,
whether he’s still alive, somewhere in Ithaca,
or dead and gone already, lost in the House of Death.
Do you want to hear his story? Listen. Catch my drift.
I once played host to a man in my own country;
he’d come to my door, the most welcome guest
from foreign parts I ever entertained.
He claimed he came of good Ithacan stock,
said his father was Arcesius’ son, Laertes.
300 So I took the new arrival under my own roof,
I gave him a hero’s welcome, treated him in style —
stores in our palace made for princely entertainment.
And I gave my friend some gifts to fit his station,
handed him seven bars of well-wrought gold,
a mixing-bowl of solid silver, etched with flowers,
a dozen cloaks, unlined and light, a dozen rugs
and as many full-cut capes and shirts as well,
and to top it off, four women, perfect beauties
skilled in crafts —he could pick them out himself.”
310 “Stranger,” his father answered, weeping softly,
“the land you’ve reached is the very one you’re after,
true, but it’s in the grip of reckless, lawless men.
And as for the gifts you showered on your guest,
you gave them all for nothing.
315 But if you’d found him alive, here in Ithaca,
he would have replied in kind, with gift for gift,
and entertained you warmly before he sent you off.
That’s the old custom, when one has led the way.
But tell me, please —in no uncertain terms —
320 how many years ago did you host the man,
that unfortunate guest of yours, my son . . .
there was a son, or was he all a dream?
That most unlucky man, whom now, I fear,
far from his own soil and those he loves,
the fish have swallowed down on the high seas
or birds and beasts on land have made their meal.
Nor could the ones who bore him —mother, father —
wrap his corpse in a shroud and mourn him deeply.
Nor could his warm, generous wife, so self-possessed,
330 Penelope, ever keen for her husband on his deathbed,
the fit and proper way, or close his eyes at last.
These are the solemn honors owed the dead.
But tell me your own story —that I’d like to know:
Who are you? where are you from? your city? your parents?
Where does the ship lie moored that brought you here,
your hardy shipmates too? Or did you arrive
as a passenger aboard some stranger’s craft
and men who put you ashore have pulled away?”
“The whole tale,”
his crafty son replied, “I’ll tell you start to finish.
340 I come from Roamer-Town, my home’s a famous place,
341 my father’s Unsparing, son of old King Pain,
and my name’s Man of Strife . . .
343 I sailed from Sicily, aye, but some ill wind
blew me here, off course —much against my will —
and my ship lies moored off farmlands far from town.
As for Odysseus, well, five years have passed
since he left my house and put my land behind him,
348 luckless man! But the birds were good as he launched out,
all on the right, and I rejoiced as I sent him off
350 and he rejoiced in sailing. We had high hopes
we’d meet again as guests, as old friends,
and trade some shining gifts.”
At those words
a black cloud of grief came shrouding over Laertes.
Both hands clawing the ground for dirt and grime,
he poured it over his grizzled head, sobbing, in spasms.
Odysseus’ heart shuddered, a sudden twinge went shooting up
through his nostrils, watching his dear father struggle . . .
He sprang toward him, kissed him, hugged him, crying,
“Father —I am your son —myself, the man you’re seeking,
360 home after twenty years, on native ground at last!
Hold back your tears, your grief.
Let me tell you the news, but we must hurry —
I’ve cut the suitors down in our own house,
I’ve paid them back their outrage, vicious crimes!”
“Odysseus . . .”
Laertes, catching his breath, found words to answer.
“You —you’re truly my son, Odysseus, home at last?
Give me a sign, some proof —I must be sure.”
“This scar first,”
quick to the mark, his son said, “look at this —
the wound I took from the boar’s white tusk
370 on Mount Parnassus. There you’d sent me, you
and mother, to see her fond old father, Autolycus,
and collect the gifts he vowed to give me, once,
when he came to see us here.
Or these, these trees —
let me tell you the trees you gave me years ago,
here on this well-worked plot . . .
I begged you for everything I saw, a little boy
trailing you through the orchard, picking our way
among these trees, and you named them one by one.
379 You gave me thirteen pear, ten apple trees
380 and forty figs —and promised to give me, look,
fifty vinerows, bearing hard on each other’s heels,
clusters of grapes year-round at every grade of ripeness,
mellowed as Zeus’s seasons weigh them down.”
Living proof —
and Laertes’ knees went slack, his heart surrendered,
recognizing the strong clear signs Odysseus offered.
He threw his arms around his own dear son, fainting
as hardy great Odysseus hugged him to his heart
until he regained his breath, came back to life
and cried out, “Father Zeus —
390 you gods of Olympus, you still rule on high
if those suitors have truly paid in blood
for all their reckless outrage! Oh, but now
my heart quakes with fear that all the Ithacans
will come down on us in a pack, at any time,
and rush the alarm through every island town!”
“There’s nothing to fear,” his canny son replied,
“put it from your mind. Let’s make for your lodge
beside the orchard here. I sent Telemachus on ahead,
the cowherd, swineherd too, to fix a hasty meal.”
400 So the two went home, confiding all the way
and arriving at the ample, timbered lodge,
they found Telemachus with the two herdsmen
carving sides of meat and mixing ruddy wine.
Before they ate, the Sicilian serving-woman
bathed her master, Laertes —his spirits high
in his own room —and rubbed him down with oil
and round his shoulders drew a fresh new cloak.
And Athena stood beside him, fleshing out the limbs
of the old commander, made him taller to all eyes,
410 his build more massive, stepping from his bath,
so his own son gazed at him, wonderstruck —
face-to-face he seemed a deathless god . . .
“Father” —Odysseus’ words had wings —“surely
one of the everlasting gods has made you
taller, stronger, shining in my eyes!”
Facing his son, the wise old man returned,
“If only —Father Zeus, Athena and lord Apollo —
I were the man I was, king of the Cephallenians
419 when I sacked the city of Nericus, sturdy fortress
420 out on its jutting cape! If I’d been young in arms
last night in our house with harness on my back,
standing beside you, fighting off the suitors,
how many I would have cut the knees from under —
the heart inside you would have leapt for joy!”
So father and son confirmed each other’s spirits.
And then, with the roasting done, the meal set out,
the others took their seats on chairs and stools,
were just putting their hands to bread and meat
when old Dolius trudged in with his sons,
430 worn out from the fieldwork.
The old Sicilian had gone and fetched them home,
the mother who reared the boys and tended Dolius well,
now that the years had ground the old man down . . .
When they saw Odysseus —knew him in their bones —
but the king waved them on with a warm and easy air:
“Sit down to your food, old friend. Snap out of your wonder.
We’ve been cooling our heels here long enough,
eager to get our hands on all this pork,
440 hoping you’d all troop in at any moment.”
Spreading his arms, Dolius rushed up to him,
clutched Odysseus by the wrist and kissed his hand,
greeting his king now with a burst of winging words:
“Dear master, you’re back —the answer to our prayers!
We’d lost all hope but the gods have brought you home!
Welcome —health! The skies rain blessings on you!
But tell me the truth now —this I’d like to know —
shrewd Penelope, has she heard you’re home?
Or should we send a messenger?”
“She knows by now,
450 old man,” his wily master answered brusquely.
“Why busy yourself with that?”
So Dolius went back to his sanded stool.
His sons too, pressing around the famous king,
greeted Odysseus warmly, grasped him by the hand
then took their seats in order by their father.
But now, as they fell to supper in the lodge,
457 Rumor the herald sped like wildfire through the city,
crying out the news of the suitors’ bloody death and doom,
and massing from every quarter as they listened, kinsmen milled
460 with wails and moans of grief before Odysseus’ palace.
And then they carried out the bodies, every family
buried their own, and the dead from other towns
they loaded onto the rapid ships for crews
to ferry back again, each to his own home . . .
Then in a long, mourning file they moved to assembly
where, once they’d grouped, crowding the meeting grounds,
old lord Eupithes rose in their midst to speak out.
Unforgettable sorrow wrung his heart for his son,
Antinous, the first that great Odysseus killed.
470 In tears for the one he lost, he stood and cried,
“My friends, what a mortal blow this man has dealt
to all our island people! Those fighters, many and brave,
he led away in his curved ships —he lost the ships
and he lost the men and back he comes again
to kill the best of our Cephallenian princes.
Quick, after him! Before he flees to Pylos
or holy Elis, where Epeans rule in power —
up, attack! Or we’ll hang our heads forever,
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