The <I>Odyssey</I>
Page 15
The daughter of Zeus was crying—Helen of Argos.
Telemakhos wept, and Atreus’s son Menelaos.
The eyes of the son of Nestor too were not tearless.
Thoughts about handsome Antilokhos troubled his own heart,
♦ the way a striking son of the Dawn-Goddess had killed him.
Recalling that brother, his words with a feathery swiftness,
“Son of Atreus,” he said, “old Nestor has called you
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sensible more than anyone. We often recall you,
asking each other questions back in our great hall.
Now if you can, say yes to me: mourning at dinner
is not my pleasure and soon the early-born Goddess
Dawn will arrive. I don’t see anything shameful
in tears for a man who’s died, gone to his own doom.
We only honor wretched humans in that way:
we let tears fall from our cheeks and we lop off
hair. Yes, and my brother is dead—hardly the meanest
Argive—maybe you knew him? Although I have never
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seen or met him myself, others have told me
Antilokhos beat out everyone racing or fighting.”
Blond-haired Menelaos answered by saying,
“My friend, you said all that like a person with good sense.
You act and speak in fact as though you were older—
the son of your father!—Nestor also has good sense.
A bloodline’s truly known in a hurry if great Zeus
weaves good luck in the parents’ lives and their children’s.
Thus through all his days Nestor was granted
by Zeus to shine while growing old in his great hall.
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His sons are shrewd and the best young men at a spear-throw.
So we’ll stop the grief we built up before this.
Look to your food again and water for washing
your hands. Our tales can surely wait until morning.
I and Telemakhos then will talk things through with each other.”
He paused and Asphalion splashed his hands with some water,
a ready squire of the highly praised Menelaos.
Their hands went out to the food still lying before them.
Pain Killing
Helen, the daughter of Zeus, now thought of a new plan.
♦ She promptly tossed a drug in the wine they were drinking,
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dulling their pain and anger. They all forgot about evil.
Whoever swallows the drug she placed in the wine-bowl
lets no tear fall from his cheeks for a whole day,
not if his mother and father both were to die there,
not if the man’s own son and brother were hacked down,
slashed by a sword of bronze in front of his own eyes.
The daughter of Zeus had drugs quite useful and helpful,
good ones given by Thon’s wife Poludamna
in Egypt where grain-rich farmland carries the most drugs.
Many are helpful mixes, many are harmful.
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Every man has a doctor’s knowledge surpassing
♦ the rest of men’s: their blood is Paieon’s the Healer.
The Beggar’s Disguise
After she sprinkled the drug and called for a pouring
of wine again, she answered her husband by saying,
“Son of Atreus, Zeus-bred Menelaos, and two good
mens’ sons in our house: to this one and that one
Zeus gives good and bad for it’s all in his power.
Take your chairs then, enjoy our feast in the great hall
♦ and relish a story. My tale will not be unlikely.
“I don’t recall, myself, the name or the number
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of all the battles and trials of steadfast Odysseus.
But one task! The powerful man suffered and worked at
a task I saw at Troy, where Akhaians underwent great pain.
He’d struck himself beforehand, a merciless whipping.
He’d tossed old rags on his back—those of a house-slave.
He’d walked into Troy, the enemy city with broad ways,
moving along by hiding himself in his beggar’s
disguise: hardly a man from ships of Akhaians!
He went through the town that way. All the Trojans
missed him and I was the only person who knew him.
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I questioned the man; at first he avoided me shrewdly;
but later I washed him myself, anointed his body
with oil and clothed him again. I swore him a great oath
not to mention Odysseus’s name to the Trojans
before he arrived at the race-fast ships and his campsite.
Then he told me all the plans of the Akhaians.
“After his long-edged sword cut down plenty of Trojans,
he left to bring back plenty of news to the Argives.
Now when the other Trojan women were loudly mourning,
my heart felt joy: I’d changed inside and was longing
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for home. I hated the mad love Aphrodite
gave me that took me far from the dear land of my Fathers.
I’d left my child, my own bedroom and husband,
a man not lacking either in mind or in body.”
Dread inside the Horse
Blond-haired Menelaos answered by saying,
“Truly, my wife, you said all that in the right way.
By now I’ve learned the planning and thinking of many
warrior lords and traveled to plenty of far lands.
My eyes have not yet seen a war-chief like this one,
a man so steady, a loving heart like Odysseus.
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♦ I’ll tell you a task the man powerfully worked at
inside the smooth-scraped horse. The best of us sat there,
Argives bent on doom and death for the Trojans.
You came yourself to the place. A God must have told you,
wanting somehow to seize kudos for Trojans.
Yes and godlike Deiphobos followed you closely.
Three times you circled the hollow place of our ambush.
You stroked it and called by name the leading Danaans,
sounding like all their Argive wives with your own voice.
The son of Tudeus, I and godlike Odysseus
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sat in the center, hearing the way you were shouting.
Two of us longed for a fight, bitterly yearning
to rush outside, or answer you quickly from inside.
Odysseus checked us, though, for all of our longing.
We all kept still for a while, we sons of Akhaians.
Only Antiklos wanted to give you an answer.
However, Odysseus pressed hard with his forceful
hands on that mouth. Saving all us Akhaians,
he held him there till Pallas Athene removed you.”
Longing for Sleep
But now Telemakhos gave him a sensible answer.
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“Atreus’s son Menelaos, Zeus-bred lord of your people,
so much the worse. For none of that kept a revolting
end from my Father—an iron heart could not help him.
Come on then, send us to bed now. Help us to lie down,
taking some sweetness at last, the pleasure of sleeping.”
Soon as he’d spoken Helen of Argos instructed
handmaids to set out beds close to the walkway,
spread with beautiful violet covers and blankets
and set with layers of fleecy wool on the whole pile.
Torches in hand, the maids went out of the great hall
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to make the beds. A herald guided the men out.
They went to sleep right there in the palace’s forecourt—
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stor’s well-known son and lordly Telemakhos.
Atreus’s son slept in the inmost room of the high house.
Long-gowned Helen lay alongside, a goddess-like woman.
A Plea for the Truth
When newborn Dawn came on with her rose-fingered daylight,
Menelaos, good at a war-cry, rose in his bedroom
and dressed. He hung a sharp sword from a shoulder,
strapped on his oil-smooth feet two beautiful sandals
and left the room. He looked like a God as he walked out.
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He sat by Telemakhos now, he called him and asked him,
“Warlike Telemakhos, tell me why you were driven
over the broad back of the sea to bright Lakedaimon.
Your people’s cause? Or your own? Tell me the whole truth.”
Telemakhos promptly gave him a sensible answer.
“Atreus’s son Menelaos, Zeus-bred lord of your people,
I came here hoping you’d tell me news of my Father.
My home is devoured. Our rich farmlands are wasted.
Enemies crowd my house and slaughter the livestock,
our bunched-up sheep and curl-horned, hoof-dragging cattle.
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Suitors beset my Mother, haughty and high men.
So I’ve come to your knees, hoping you’ll tell me
freely: maybe you saw the wretched end of my Father
by chance with your own eyes or heard it told by another
roamer. Beyond all men his mother bore him to suffer.
But don’t hold back to soothe me, held by your pity.
Tell me plainly how it came to your own sight.
I’m pleading: if ever my Father, worthy Odysseus,
gave his word or promised you work that he made good
on Trojan soil, where Akhaians underwent great pain,
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remember his word now and tell me the whole truth.”
The Lion Returns
Blond-haired Menelaos got angry and told him,
“Look at this! Men who’d lie in the bed of a strongly
spirited man are themselves lacking in courage.
The way a doe might rest her fawns when they’re suckling,
newly born, in the lair of a powerful lion:
she goes off looking to graze on a hillside or grassy
vale but the lion is back too soon to his own lair—
what a sorry end for both of the young deer!
Odysseus too will bring a sorry end to the suitors.
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I pray to Zeus, our Father, Athene and Apollo
that now he’s the man he was in strong-founded Lesbos
♦ the day he stood up and faced Philomeleides wrestling.
He threw him forcefully. Every Akhaian applauded.
If only that strong Odysseus dealt with the suitors,
they’d all be dead in a hurry—that bitter a marriage!
What Happened in Egypt
“But on to the questions you ask. I’ll hardly mislead you,
wandering far from the point. Nor would I fool you:
I’ll tell you the tale I heard from an errorless old man,
a lord of the sea. I won’t keep anything hidden.
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♦ “Gods kept me in Egypt for all my longing to get back
home because I failed to offer hecatombs duly.
Gods are always wanting their orders remembered.
An island well off Egypt lies in the loudly
surging water—Pharos, people have called it—
as far from land as a hollow ship can sail in a single
day with a clear-toned sea-wind blowing behind her.
The harbor is good for mooring or launching a balanced
vessel after she’s drawn fresh water from dark depths.
The Gods kept me there. Twenty days with no rising
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wind or air on the water! No gust that can hurry
a man’s good ship on the broad back of the salt sea.
Help from a Sea-Goddess
“All our food and the strength of my crew would have run out
had not one of the Goddesses pitied and saved me—
the daughter of Proteus, an old and powerful sea-lord.
I moved the heart of Eidothee the most there.
She met me walking alone, away from my crewmen
who’d gone out roaming around the island and fishing
with old bent hooks, their bellies shriveled by hunger.
The Goddess came up close and asked me her questions.
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‘Stranger, are you a fool? Amazingly thoughtless
or lazy by choice? You take pleasure in hardship?
You’re kept so long on this island: can’t you discover
an end to your stay? Your men’s hearts are all shrunken.’
“She spoke that way and I promptly answered by saying,
‘Whatever Goddess you are, I’ll answer you outright.