by Homer
rather, and planning doom, the murder of every
suitor. He’ll cause trouble for many besides you,
too, living on clear-viewed Ithaka. Ponder a long time
before then: how can we stop this? You suitors can stop it
yourselves indeed. You know which course is the best one.
I’m not a witless prophet for I have been well taught.
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I say for Odysseus everything now will be ended
the way I foretold when Argives left for the coastline
of Troy and Odysseus joined them, full of the best plans.
He’d suffer often, I said, and lose all of his war-friends.
Then in the twentieth year, when no one would know him,
he’d come back home. All this now is to happen.”
Birds Can Mean Nothing
But shortly Polubos’s son Eurumakhos answered,
“Go off, old man. Foretell big things to your children
at home and stop them from suffering harm in the future!
For this I’m far better at prophesying than you are:
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plenty of birds fly back and forth in the Sun-God’s
rays; not all are omens. Odysseus perished
a long way off. You should have died with the dead man
just like that, ending all this talk about seers,
not rousing the way you do Telemakhos’s anger.
You wait for his gift for your house—if only he grants it!
Pain to Be Spread Around
“No, I’ll plainly tell you how it will end here.
If you as the older man with all of your wisdom,
hoodwink a younger man and stir up his anger,
first you’ll make for a lot more pain for the young man:
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he cannot change a thing because of us all here.
Then old man, we’ll levy a fine which will make you
wince repaying. Your heart’s pain will be bitter.
“I charge Telemakhos now myself as we all hear:
tell your mother to go back home to her father.
Let them arrange for a wedding, preparing the many
bride-gifts, those that go with a well-loved daughter.
But not before then, surely, will sons of Akhaians
end their rough courting. No one anyhow scares us,
not Telemakhos there, for all of his high talk.
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And you, old man, we hardly listen to omens
you mouth which don’t come true. They make you more hated.
So his goods will crassly be eaten without our
ever paying, long as the lady stalls the Akhaians
in marriage. We go on waiting all of our days here,
wrangling over her worth. We hardly go looking
for other women we all might properly marry.”
Sea Travel
Telemakhos promptly gave him a sensible answer.
“Eurumakhos—yes, and you other high-born suitors—
I won’t beg you. I’ll say no more of the matter.
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The Gods know well enough, and all the Akhaians.
But now give me a race-fast ship with some rowers,
twenty crewmen to help me travel that way and this way.
I’ll sail to both Sparte and deep-sanded Pulos
for word of my Father’s return—he’s gone for a long time.
Maybe a man will tell me—maybe a rumor
from Zeus—he often brings good news to us people.
Then worn as I am, if I hear that my Father’s
alive and heading home, I’ll wait for another
year. But then if I hear he’s dead, gone from the living,
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I’ll come back home to the well-loved land of my Fathers
and raise a mound up high. I’ll honor the dead man
duly and fully. I’ll give my Mother a good man.”
A Challenge for the People
He spoke that way and sat down. The next one to stand up
was Mentor, an old friend of handsome Odysseus
who’d charged him, boarding ship, to care for his whole house
and keep things safe; the rest were to follow the old man.
Meaning well now, he faced the gathering saying,
“Listen closely, you Ithakans! Hear what I tell you.
Let no king holding a scepter be willingly gracious
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or kind ever, knowing and caring for justice.
Let him be hard, always acting unfairly
now that no one recalls godlike Odysseus,
♦ people he ruled as king, and kind as a father.
But truly I don’t blame the emboldened suitors,
their minds’ evil designs and the force they are using:
their own heads are at risk for devouring Odysseus’s
household brutally, saying he’ll never return home.
No, I’m angry more at the rest of you people,
those who have sat here dumb, never a harsh word
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to stop the suitors, although they’re few and you’re many.”
Uneven Battle
But then Euenor’s son Leiokritos answered,
“Mischief Mentor! Crazed in your head, what are you saying,
goading people to stop us? It’s surely a hard thing,
even with more men as you have, to fight over dinner!
But even if Ithaka’s Lord Odysseus came home,
heartily anxious to force us high-born suitors,
dining there in the man’s house, from his great hall,
his wife would hardly rejoice, however she pined for
his coming: he’d go to his doom shamefully right there,
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fighting outnumbered. So what you’ve told us is not right.
The Gathering Is Ended
“Come on now, people, break up—each to your own work!
Mentor and Halitherses, Odysseus’s household
friends from the start, will speed up Telemakhos’s voyage.
And yet I’m thinking he’ll stay right here for a long time,
waiting for news on Ithaka, never making this journey.”
He said so much: his words cut short the assembly.
The crowd broke up, each man went off to his own house.
Suitors left for the home of godlike Odysseus.
A Plea to Athene
♦ Telemakhos walked apart on the shore of the salt sea.
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Washing his hands in the gray surf he prayed to Athene.
“Hear me: you came to our house yesterday, Goddess,
you told me to sail a ship on the haze-covered water,
asking for news of my Father, gone for a long time.
But everything’s thwarted now by all the Akhaians,
the suitors mainly. They’re overprevailing and evil.”
Sons and Fathers
While he prayed like that Athene had come close,
taking a voice and shape that struck him like Mentor’s.
She spoke to him now and the words had a feathery swiftness:
“You won’t be a low or thoughtless man in the future,
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Telemakhos, not if your father’s power has filled you:
the man could bring his word and work to a good end.
The voyage you go on won’t be fruitless or endless.
Yet if you’re not the man’s child and Penelopeia’s,
I cannot hope you’ll end all this as you’d like to.
A boy just like his father is truly unlikely.
Most are worse and those who are better are so few.
But since you won’t be thoughtless or mean in the future
because Odysseus’s wiles won’t utterly fail you,
I then have hope you’ll bring this work to a good end.
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A Good Crew and
Ship
“So now slight the thoughts and plans of the suitors.
They’re such fools, lacking fairness and good sense.
They know nothing of doom, that portion of darkness
truly close to them—all of them dying in one day!
The voyage you’d like should not be delayed any longer.
Since I’m so close to the line and house of your father,
I’ll deck out a race-fast ship myself and I’ll join you.
“Go back home for now and mix with the suitors.
Get ready with stores, place them all in containers,
wine in amphoras and groats, the backbone of sailors,
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in skintight sacks. I’ll go to the city and gather
an eager crew in a hurry. Plenty of newer
and older ships are in sea-ringed Ithaka’s harbor.
I’ll look at them all myself and pick out the best one.
We’ll hurry and get her ready to launch on the broad sea.”
Back to the Old Times
Athene, daughter of Zeus, had spoken. Waiting no longer
after he heard the voice of the Goddess, the young man
made his way back home. But sad in his own heart—
he found disdainful suitors again in the great hall.
They flayed his goats; they roasted pigs in the courtyard.
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Antinoos walked right up to Telemakhos laughing,
taking his hand. He called his name and he told him,
“High-talking Telemakhos, fearless and forceful!
Don’t keep harmful words or work in your own chest.
Drink and dine with me rather, just like the old times.
Akhaians will surely bring all this to a good end—
a vessel with hand-picked rowers to hurry and take you
to holy Pulos for news of your high-born father.”
Death Warning
But now Telemakhos gave him a sensible answer.
“Antinoos, how can I calmly dine with you prideful
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men and enjoy myself, acting without care?
It’s not enough you suitors devour my belongings,
all that wealth from the times when I was a boy here.
But now I’m grown. I’ve heard stories from others,
I’m learning well, the spirit’s rising inside me.
I’ll try to harm you somehow. I’ll send you your death-day,
whether I sail to Pulos or stay in my own land.
I’ll go and it won’t be in vain, the voyage I spoke of,
though I must sail as a passenger, owning no well-rowed
ship. That way, I guess, was more to your liking.”
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Dangerous Teasing
He stopped and calmly removed his hand from Antinoos’s
clasp. Then suitors ready to dine in the palace
mocked Telemakhos, laughing and taunting him loudly,
some overbearing younger suitors complaining,
“Of course: Telemakhos plans to slaughter us all here!”
“Maybe he’ll bring back war-guards from deep-sanded Pulos.”
“Yes, or from Sparte: he’s anxious now and a wild man!”
“Or maybe he means to sail to Ephure’s grain-rich
♦ land in order to bring back potions and poisons
to toss in the wine-bowl.” “He’ll kill us all in the great hall!”
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Other younger suitors overbearingly answered,
“Who knows? Sailing his hollow ship he may wander
and die himself, far from friends, just like Odysseus.”
“That way, though, he’d make the job of dividing
all his wealth much harder.” “His house would be given
then to his mother.” “Yes—to the man she would marry!”
The Choicest Wine
So they went on. But the son walked down to his father’s
broad and high-roofed storeroom. Gold in a tall pile
lay there, bronze, clothes in chests and various scented
oils. Bulky jars of wine, sweetened and aging,
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stood there, an uncut, God-pleasing vintage inside them,
arranged close to the wall—should Odysseus ever
come back home after suffering great pain.
The double doors had barlike planks and were tightly
joined. Day and night a housekeeper stayed close,
a woman watching it all with plenty of know-how—
Eurukleia, the daughter of Ops, a son of Peisenor.
Telemakhos called to her now at the storeroom and told her,
“Good mother, draw some wine in the two-handled wine-jar,
the sweet one next to the choicest wine you have kept here
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for luckless, Zeus-bred Odysseus. Maybe he’ll come back
home from somewhere, saved from doom and his death-day.
Fill twelve jars and fit them all with their covers.
Pour groats into bags, well-sewn and of leather—