by Homer
the high-roofed house and the far spreads of your rich land.”
Barley Grains
Her soothing words slowed the tears of Penelopeia.
The woman bathed and dressed her body in clean clothes.
She went upstairs to her room with handmaids around her.
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She placed barley grains in a basket and called on Athene:
♦ “Hear me, unfailing daughter of Zeus who carries the great shield!
If often shrewd Odysseus ever burned in your honor
the fat-rich thighs of heifers or ewes in our great hall,
remember them now. Save the son I have so loved!
Guard him against the crimes of overproud suitors.”
She spoke and wailed. The Goddess heard her at prayer.
The Murder Plan
But suitors made loud noise in the shadowy great hall.
Some overprevailing younger suitors were saying,
“Our queen has plenty of suitors!” “And ready to marry
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surely.” “Not knowing her son’s death is our own plan.”
They spoke that way, not knowing how it would all end.
Now Antinoos rose to tell them a few words:
“What Power has maddened you? Stop this overwrought chatter
of every sort. Word might spread through the household.
Come on, stand up instead, be quiet and follow
the plan we worked on closely which all of us thought through.”
A Black Ship out to Sea
Having spoken he picked out twenty of the best men.
They walked to the shore, to a race-fast ship by the salt sea.
First they hauled her down into deeper water,
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then set the mast and broke out sail on the black ship.
They moved her oars through leather straps at the thole-pins,
all in order. They stretched and spread out the white sail.
Highly spirited helpers carried the gear on.
They moored her out in some deep water and left her
to take some food nearby as dusk was arriving.
Closing in on the Lioness
Thought-full Penelopeia lay in her upstairs
room without food, no taste of wine or a good meal,
her thoughts on death—would her handsome man-child avoid it?
Or maybe the overbearing suitors would kill him.
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The way a lioness fears and plots among crowding
men who tighten their crafty circle around her,
the queen thought hard till finally weariness came on
sweetly. She sank down, her whole body relaxing.
The Phantasm of a Sister
Then the glow-eyed Goddess Athene thought of a new plan.
♦ She made a figure taking the form of a woman,
Ipthime, one of the great-hearted Ikarios’s daughters.
Eumelos had married the woman; their home was in Pherai.
Athene sent her to godlike Odysseus’s household
to make Penelopeia stop her lamenting,
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to end her shedding of tears, moaning and mourning.
The figure passed through the door-bolt and entered the bedroom.
Standing over her head, she spoke to her softly.
“Uneasy at heart, do you sleep, Penelopeia?
The Gods in their carefree lives are unwilling to let you
cry and mourn because your son has yet to return home.
Plainly the man has not offended the great Gods.”
Penelopeia thoughtfully answered by saying—
close to the gates of dream, pleasantly dozing—
“My sister, why did you come here? Seldom before this
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have you joined us: you live so far in your own house.
You want me to stop mourning? Let go of the many
pangs that sting my mind and trouble my spirits?
I lost a good man before, his heart like a lion’s,
in every manly strength the best of Danaans,
so well known through far-flung Hellas and Argos.
Now the child I love went off in a hollow
ship foolishly, unaware of strife and assemblies.
I mourn for my son. More than I mourn for his father
I dread for my child, I tremble at what he could suffer
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maybe on land he walks on, maybe on far seas.
For lots of enemies now are plotting against him,
eager to kill him before he’s back in the land of his fathers.”
Help from a Great Guide
Promptly the murky figure answered by saying,
“Take heart. Don’t be afraid so much in your good soul,
for such a guide goes with him. Others have prayed for
that Goddess to stand so close. The Lady has power.
Pallas Athene pities your wailing and mourning
now and sends me to help you, to say what I’ve told you.”
Longing for Odysseus
But thought-full Penelopeia answered by asking,
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“You’re truly a God? I’ve heard the voice of a Goddess?
Come on then, tell me about my wretched husband,
whether he’s still alive and gazing at sunlight
or dead by now, gone down to the household of Aides.”
Promptly the murky figure answered by saying,
“Frankly I won’t go on at length of your husband,
whether alive or dead. It’s wrong to be windy.”
Having spoken the figure passed through the door-bolt,
joining a night-wind’s breath. Ikarios’s daughter
rose from sleep, her heart brightened and warmer:
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a vision in real form had rushed through the dark night.
In Wait for a Killing
But suitors, having embarked, sailed on a seaway
with headlong doom on their minds—Telemakhos’s murder.
A stony island lay in the midst of the broad sea,
from Ithaka halfway over to rock-littered Samos.
Asteris, not so broad, had harbors for vessels
on both sides. There the Akhaians waited in ambush.
BOOK 5 A Raft on the High Seas
The Gods in Council
♦ When Dawn rose from her bed by lordly Tithonos
to bring back light to the Gods and men, the deathless and dying,
the Gods assembled and sat down. Zeus was among them,
the high thundering God, the greatest in power.
Kalupso Clings to Odysseus
♦ Athene recalled and counted Odysseus’s many
troubles. His life in the Nymph’s home had her worried.
“Fatherly Zeus and all you Gods, happy forever,
let no king holding a scepter be willingly gracious
or kind ever, knowing or caring for justice:
let him be hard, always acting unfairly
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now that no one recalls godlike Odysseus,
none of the people he ruled, kind as a father.
He lies there still on that island, feeling the same pain.
The Nymph, Kalupso, holds him back in her household
by force. He cannot sail to the land of his fathers,
lacking a ship with oars and a body of crewmen
to send him over the broad back of the salt sea.
“Now these men are plotting to murder his well-loved
son who’s bound for home. He’d gone for news of his father
to holy Pulos and then to bright Lakedaimon.”
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Save Telemakhos
Stormcloud-gathering Zeus gave her an answer.
“My child, what talk gets over the wall of your front teeth!
Wasn’t it you who planned all this in your own mind,
Odysseus taking revenge on men wh
en he came home?
So guide Telemakhos: you know how and can do it.
Let him arrive unharmed in the land of his fathers.
Then the suitors can sail back in their own ship.”
Free Odysseus
He looked to a son he loved, saying to Hermes,
“You’ve always acted here as our Messenger, Hermes.
Tell the lovely braided Nymph my plan is unshaken:
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steadfast Odysseus must return. So he may travel
without a God or death-bound human to guide him.
He’ll lash and board a raft, he’ll suffer a great deal
for twenty days and arrive on Skherie’s rich soil,
Phaiakian land. Born close to the great Gods,
they’ll honor the man like a God himself in their center.
They’ll send him by ship to the well-loved land of his fathers
laden with bronze, gold and plenty of clothing—
more than Odysseus ever could take from the Trojans,
arriving safely home with his rightful share of the booty.
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For now his lot is to go and gaze on his loved ones,
to see the high-roofed house in the land of his fathers.”
Flight of the Messenger
♦ He spoke that way and the Splendor of Argos obeyed him.
Quickly he tied to his feet the beautiful sandals
of deathless gold that took him over the water
and over the measureless land as fast as a wind-gust.
He carried a wand that lulls the vision of humans—
a God might want that; others he rouses even from deep sleep.
Wand in hand, the strong Splendor of Argos went flying,
passing Pierie, diving through air to the broad sea.
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He hurried over the wave-crests resembling a seagull
catching fish on a spread of alarming and restless
Ocean, wetting its rapid wing-beats in water:
Hermes was borne past numberless waves in the same way.
Weaving and Singing
Now approaching the island lying a ways off,
the purple sea behind him, he stepped onto dry land.
He walked to a huge cave, the home of the lovely
braided Nymph. He found her inside and approached her.
A big fire burned at the hearth, scenting the farthest
island places with tree-smoke, citron and cedar,
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chopped and blazing. She sang inside with a mellow
voice while moving about her loom—she wove with a shuttle
of gold. Plants bloomed and surrounded the cave-mouth:
black poplar, scented cypress and alder.
Long-winged birds were there, nesting or roosting;
little owls and hawks, terns with their long tongues,
always following waves, hard-working shorebirds.
Close to the hollow cave a grapevine was trailing,
a youthful bloom, swelling with blossom-like clusters.
Four springs, their sparkling waters close to each other,
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flowed then changed their courses that way and this way.
Wild celery and violet spread through the balmy
meadows around them. Even a God who arrived here
would gaze on it all amazed, enjoying it warmly.
Odysseus by the Sea
The Splendor of Argos, the Messenger, stood there and marveled.
But after a while when his heart had wondered at all this,
he briskly walked in the spread-out cave. He was well-known:
Kalupso, the shining Goddess, faced him and eyed him.
The deathless Gods are not unknown to each other,
not even those who live in homes that are far off.
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But great-hearted Odysseus was not to be found here—
he’d gone to the shore again. How often he sat there
and wept, his heart in the pangs of sorrow and mourning!
He’d stare at the restless water, letting the tears fall.
A Welcome First
Hermes now was asked by goddess-like, shining Kalupso,
after she sat him down on a glittering chair there,
“Why are you here, Hermes, you with your gold wand,
both esteemed and a friend? You visit so seldom.
Tell me your thoughts. My heart enjoins me to help you
work if I can, if the work may be brought to a good end.
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But follow me first and be welcome now as a guest is.”
Soon as she’d spoken the Goddess arranged for a table
♦ filled with ambrosia and mixed him a rose-colored nectar.
The Messenger ate and drank, the Splendor of Argos.
The Unavoidable Will of Zeus
After dining and filling his heart with her good fare,
words finally came and he answered by saying,
“You asked me, Goddess to God, why I have come here.
I’ll tell you the faultless truth since that’s what you called for.
Zeus told me to come. It’s not to my liking—