by Homer
A Built-Up City and Harbor
Pallas Athene spoke that way and she led him
forward briskly. He followed the Goddess’s footsteps.
Phaiakians, known for their ships, scarcely remarked him
moving along through the city. Beautifully braided,
40
feared as a Goddess, Athene had poured that amazing
mist around him. At heart she cared for him closely.
Odysseus marveled at balanced ships in their harbors,
assembly places of war-chiefs, lengthy and high-raised
walls topped with stakes, a wonder to gaze at.
Go to the Lady First
Soon as they reached the renowned home of that ruler,
the glow-eyed Goddess Athene started to tell him,
“Fatherly stranger, there’s the house that you asked me
to point out. You’ll find the lords nourished by great Zeus
dining inside. Go in then, don’t be a fretful
50
heart. A daring man does better in every
labor however far he’s traveled from elsewhere.
Our Lady’s the first person you’ll find in the great hall.
Arete’s the name she goes by, born in the royal
bloodline, the same as King Alkinoos’s bloodline.
The Seed of a God
♦ “Nausithoos first was born to the Earth-Shaker Poseidon.
His mother was Periboia, the best and prettiest woman,
the youngest daughter of ample-hearted Eurumedon,
once the king of the highly spirited Giants.
He caused those reckless beings to die and he died too.
60
Poseidon loved his daughter and fathered a boy-child,
the great-hearted Nausithoos, lord of Phaiakians.
Nausithoos fathered Alkinoos next and Rhexenor.
The latter was sonless, killed by the silver bow of Apollo
when still a groom in his hall, and with only a daughter,
Arete. King Alkinoos made her his own wife
and highly esteemed her: no woman on earth is esteemed so,
of all those managing households under their husbands.
The Lady’s esteemed in a heartfelt way by her loving
children as well, of course by Alkinoos always—
70
and all the people, who view their queen as a Goddess.
They welcome her loudly whenever she walks through the city.
That Lady is never lacking in good understanding:
♦ she settles quarrels for women she likes, and for men too.
Indeed if the Lady takes you close to her own heart,
then you might hope to look on all of your loved ones
and sail to the high-roofed house in the land of your fathers.”
A Home of Bronze, Gold, and Silver
Glow-eyed Athene spoke that way and she left him,
forsaking the charm of Skherie. Over the restless
♦ sea she came to Marathon, broad roadways of Athens,
80
and entered Erekhtheus’s tight-built house. But Odysseus,
now at the well-known house of Alkinoos, stood there
mulling a long time before he stepped on the threshold
of bronze. A sunlike glow, the luster of moonlight
hung on the great-hearted Alkinoos’s high-roofed
home where bronze walls extended this way and that way
from threshold to farthest corners, topped with a blue frieze.
Doors of gold in the tight-built house closed on the inside.
Silver doorposts stood on a threshold of polished
bronze and the lintel was silver, the handle of pure gold.
90
Silver and golden dogs were on both sides of the doorway,
made by Hephaistos, knowing the ways of the artist.
Acting as watch-dogs of great-hearted Alkinoos’s palace,
deathless creatures, all their days they were ageless.
Along the wall were chairs, set out on both sides
from threshold to farthest corner. Beautiful chair-cloths
covered them, thrown there, finely worked by the women.
Phaiakian lords had used those chairs to be seated,
dining and drinking, their holdings lasting forever.
Boys of gold, standing on well-crafted bases,
100
held in their hands the brightly flickering torches
glowing each night for those who dined in the great hall.
Women Known for Their Loom-Craft
The king had fifty women slaves in the household.
They grind down tawny grain using their hand-mills
♦ or weave at looms, turning wheels of the wool-staffs.
They sit and their hands are like trembling leaves of an aspen.
Oil and moisture seep through the tight-woven fabric.
Just as Phaiakian men are outstanding at moving
a race-fast ship through the water, their women are first-rate
loom workers. Athene has given them stunning
110
workmanship, better than anyone’s craft, and their good minds.
More Gifts from the Gods
Beyond the court but close to the gates is an orchard,
four large measures of land with fencing on all sides.
The trees grow tall there, fruit-trees in full bloom:
pear-trees, pomegranates, apple-trees glowing
with fruit, the sweetest figs and olives in blossom.
Fruit is never lacking or lost in that orchard,
summer or winter, year round. Westwind is always
blowing to help some grow and others to ripen.
Pear after pear matures, apples on apples,
120
fig after fig. The grapes are cluster on cluster:
a vineyard is planted there, heavy with fruitage.
Level ground on the warm side is for drying
grapes in the sun; another place is for plucking,
others for stepping. In front, shedding their blossoms,
are unripe grapes, while others darken slowly.
The lowest ground is a garden bed in good order.
Every kind of shoot grows there the whole year
round near a pair of springs. One seeps through the garden;
the other flows right under the courtyard threshold
130
in front of the high-roofed house—townspeople draw there.
So the Gods lavished outstanding gifts on Alkinoos.
The Knees of the Lady
Long-suffering, godlike Odysseus stood there gazing.
After his heart had truly wondered at each thing,
he promptly crossed the threshold, walked in the palace
and found Phaiakian lords and counselors dropping
wine from their cups for the far-sighted Splendor of Argos,
the last God to be offered wine when they thought about sleeping.
Long-suffering, godlike Odysseus moved through the great hall
held in the dense mist Athene had poured down
140
until he came to lordly Alkinoos, then to Arete.
Odysseus threw his arms around the knees of Arete
just as the wondrous mist flowed down from his body.
Everyone hushed, seeing the man in the household.
They stared in amazement. Then Odysseus spoke out:
“Queen Arete, daughter of godlike Rhexenor,
I come to your knees and your husband’s after my great pain.
I pray the Gods will give the rest of these diners a happy
life with each man passing down to all his children
the wealth in his hall and honors bestowed by his people.
150
But send me off in a hurry—help me return home.
I’ve suffered harm too long, far from my loved ones.�
�
A God Goes with the Stranger
♦ He spoke that way and sat by the hearth in some ashes,
close to the fire. All the people were quiet.
At length a war-chief answered, old Ekheneos.
Of all the Phaiakians there this man was the eldest,
a standout speaker, knowing the ways of the old ones.
Meaning well he spoke to the king and the people:
“It’s not becoming, Alkinoos, never the right thing
for strangers to sit on the hearth’s ground among ashes.
160
Others are holding back: they wait for your own word.
Come on then, raise our guest and give him a good seat,
the chair studded with silver. Order your stewards
to mix more wine and for Zeus, whose joy is in thunder,
pour from our goblets. Zeus goes with the lowly stranger.
Let the housekeeper feed our guest whatever is inside.”
A Very Honored Welcome
Soon as Alkinoos heard—his power was holy—
he took Odysseus’s hand and raised the resourceful,
shrewd man from the hearth. He set him down on a shining
chair and made friendly Laodamas stand up,
170
the son who’d sat beside him, the son whom he loved most.
A maid brought water now and poured from a pitcher
of stunning gold. Odysseus washed his hands in the silver
basin. She drew up a polished table before him.
An honored housekeeper brought in bread and arranged it.
She laid out plenty of dishes, free with her holdings.
Godlike Odysseus ate and drank. He’d suffered a long time.
Honey-Minded Wine
Strong Alkinoos turned to a herald and told him,
“Pontonoos, mix our wine in the wine-bowl and serve it
to all in the great hall. For Zeus, whose joy is in thunder,
180
we’ll pour from our goblets: he goes with a lowly stranger.”
Pontonoos mixed the honey-minded wine when his ruler
had spoken and then he served them all drops for libation.
Somber Spinners
After they poured for Zeus and drank as their spirits
moved them, Alkinoos told the gathering outright,
“Listen, Phaiakian counselors, lords of the people!
Let me speak as the heart in my chest has enjoined me.
Now that you’ve dined, go to your houses and lie down.
At dawn we’ll gather more of our elders together,
we’ll entertain our guest in the hall and we’ll lay down
190
handsome victims for Gods. In time we can ponder
a send-off: without pain or struggle the stranger
may leave on one of our ships for the land of his fathers
gladly and swiftly, however far he has come from.
The man won’t suffer harm or pain in the meantime—
not till he walks on his own land. There he may suffer
♦ whatever doom the somber Spinners have worked out,
spinning their thread from the hour he was born to his mother.
What If the Man Is a God?
“But now if he came as a deathless God from the heavens,
that’s something new the Gods are carefully planning.
200
Before this Gods have always appeared to us plainly
whenever we killed our lustrous bulls by the hundred.
They dined among us all and they sat alongside us.
If one of us faced them alone, too, as he wandered,
they never went into hiding—we are their close kin!
So are the Kuklops and wild clans of the Giants.”
What Is More Doglike?
Odysseus, full of designs, answered by saying,
“Don’t think that way, Alkinoos. I am no deathless
God like those who rule broadly in heaven—
not with my size and shape. I’m human and death-bound.
210
The men you’ve known who carry the heaviest burden
of pain however: I’m their match with my own pain.
I could speak in fact for a longer time of my hardship,
all the sorrow, willed by the Gods, I have gone through.
But now you should let me eat, for all of my troubles.
Nothing is more hateful and doglike than hunger:
it tells then forces a man to remember its own needs,
however worn the man is, the longing he suffers,
the way my heart still mourns. ‘Eat up and drink now,’
my belly always tells me, and makes me forgetful
220
of all my other anguish. It only commands me to fill up.
“You please hurry, though, when Dawn is a bright light
help me to go, a wretched man, to my own land,
despite my suffering. Let me die when I’ve gazed on
my ample and high-roofed house, my slaves and my treasure.”