by Homer
I bore it. I stayed right there, hiding and lying
down in the ship while sea-winds cruelly drove us,
all of my men moaning, back to Aiolia Island.
Hated by the Gods
“There we went ashore and gathered some water.
My men all ate by the race-fast ships in a hurry.
After we tasted bread and enough of our good wine,
I took one man as a herald along with a war-friend,
we walked to Aiolos’s well-known house and I found him
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enjoying dinner beside his wife and children.
Going inside, we sat down close to the doorposts,
right at the threshold. With heartfelt wonder they asked us,
‘How did you sail here, Odysseus? What Power attacked you
wrongly? We sent you away in friendship to help you
arrive at your father’s house, the place that you hold dear.’
“They spoke that way and my heart hurt as I told them,
‘Harmful crewmen spoiled things—they and the cruel
Sleep-God. Make things better, my friends: you have the power.’
Cast Out by the King
“I spoke that way, the words I’d used had been gentle,
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but they all hushed. The father answered by saying,
♦ ‘Leave the island and fast, you worst of the living!
To send you again or care for you now would be lawless:
you are a man the blessed Gods will certainly hate now.
Leave us! You came here hated by Gods in the first place.’
After he’d spoken he forced us out with our deep moans.
A New but Narrow Harbor
“We sailed on farther from there, our hearts in sadness.
My crewmen’s spirits tired of the heavy rowing
because of that blunder. No more breeze or a send-off!
We moved along for six daytimes and nighttimes.
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We came on the seventh day to the high fortress of Lamos,
the Laistrugonian town of Telepulos. Men who were herding
homeward could call to herders away and they’d call back.
Staying awake a man might double his pay there,
both a cowherd and shepherd with silver-like sheep-flocks:
♦ the paths of night and day were that close to each other.
We came to the well-known harbor with cliff-face around it,
a massing of high rock unbroken on both sides.
Headlands jutted a ways out, facing each other
but close to the harbor’s mouth, making for narrow
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entry. All the rest of our ships with their up-curved
bows moored in the deep harbor close to each other.
Waves could hardly ever roll in that harbor,
big or small: a glowing calm was around it.
Only my own black ship was moored at the land’s edge
a good ways off, her cables tied to a rock-pile.
Another People to Learn About
“I climbed a stony rise and stood there to look out:
no oxen appeared, no sign of men working a furrow—
only rising smoke could be seen in the far land.
So now I sent off scouts to go there and find out
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who were the men on that land eating their good bread.
I chose two war-friends and sent a third as a herald.
A Ghastly Queen
“Going ashore, they took a smooth cart-path where wagons
had hauled down wood from mountain heights to the city.
Close to the town they met a girl drawing some water,
Antiphates’ hearty daughter—Laistrugonian people.
She’d ambled down to a spring, Artakie’s graceful
flow of water from there to the city.
They walked up close to the girl and asked her questions:
who was her king, who were the people he ruled here?
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She promptly showed them the high-roofed house of her father.
“But after they walked in the well-known house they discovered
his wife was huge as a mountain crag and revolting.
Devoured at Once
“Swiftly she called her husband now from assembly,
the famous Antiphates, bent on a grisly end for my war-friends.
Swiftly he grabbed one man and made him his dinner!
Uneven Battle
“The other two jumped up fast and ran to our moorage.
The king roared through the city, strong Laistrugonians
heard him and came in throngs from this way and that way,
a countless number not like men but like Giants.
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They hurtled man-crushing boulders down from the cliff-tops,
a frightful bedlam soon rose from the moorage
where men were quashed and decks of vessels were buckled.
They speared them like fish and carried them home to be foul meals.
One Ship Runs Off
“While they were killing most of my men in that deep port,
I’d taken the sharp sword from my thigh-sheath,
hacked at the dark-prowed ship’s cables and cut them,
hurriedly rousing my crew. I told them to lean on
their oars to get us out from under disaster.
They all flung up the salt sea, dreading their own doom,
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glad to be running away in my ship from those beetling
cliffs. But all the others were lost back there in a body.
The Island of an Enchantress
“We sailed on farther now, our hearts in mourning,
glad to be saved from death but lacking our good friends.
♦ In time we came to Aiaie, the island where Kirke,
a fair-haired but feared Goddess, lives with her human
way of talking. Her brother is troubling Aietes
and both were born to Helios the Sun-God, the giver
of men’s light, by Perse, their mother, fathered by Ocean.
Our vessel quietly made for that rock-littered shoreline.
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The harbor was good for ships: some God was our pilot.
We disembarked and lay there a day, then another
day and night, our worn-down hearts feeding on anguish.
Far-Off Smoke
“When Dawn in her beautiful braids ended the third night,
I took a spear and a sharp sword in my right hand.
I briskly climbed away from the ship to a high place,
hoping to see men working or hear them talking.
I climbed a stony rise and stood there to look off.
I scanned the ground with its broad pathways and spotted
smoke from Kirke’s hall through dense forest and thicket.
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Now in my mind and heart I pondered the matter,
whether to go and check this bright smoke I had spotted.
But while I pondered first it struck me as better
to go to the race-fast ship on the shore of the salt sea
and help my crew to a meal. Then we could find out.
A Great Stag
“Not far from the ship with its up-curved bow I was walking
along when a God took pity—I was alone there—
sending a huge, high-antlered stag in my own path.
The deer had ambled down just now from a woodland
glade to drink at a river: the sun was a heavy
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weight as he walked. I struck him hard at the backbone’s
midpoint, the brazen spear went straight through his body,
he moaned and fell in the dust. When the spirit had flown off
I stepped on him, pulling the bronze spear from his back-wound.
I laid the weapon down on the ground and I pulled up
shoots with my own ha
nds, plenty of willow and brushwood.
Making a cord about six feet long with a good twist,
I lashed the hooves together—the stag had been fearsome—
and walked on back to the ship, hanging the torso
around my neck, the spear as a prop. One hand and my shoulder
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could not carry the weight: the beast was too heavy.
A Good Meal and a Good Sleep
“I threw it down by the ship and prodded my war-friends,
walking around to each and telling him softly,
‘My friends, we won’t go down, whatever our sad state,
not to Aides’ house before our death-day’s arrival.
Come on now, long as there’s food and drink at the fast ship,
let’s look to a meal and not be wasted by hunger.’
“I spoke that way and they took to my words in a hurry,
uncovering tear-filled eyes on the shore of that restless
sea to gaze at the stag: the beast was a great one.
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After the joy of seeing it all with their own eyes,
they washed their hands and made us a wonderful dinner.
“We ate and drank the rest of that day until sundown,
feasting on honey-sweet wine and plenty of deer-meat.
Then as the sun went down and night was arriving,
we lay and slept right there on the shore of the salt sea.
Hard New Orders
“When newborn Dawn came on with her rose-fingered daylight,
I gathered all of the men myself and I told them,
‘My hard-suffering war-friends, hear what I say now.
How can we know, my friends, where Dusk or the Dawn is?
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Where does Helios rise, the bringer of men’s light,
where does he go under ground? Ponder it fast then:
where does a plan remain? I think there is no plan.
I climbed to the top of a rock-strewn hill for a good view
of all the island, the wreaths of endless water around it.
The land itself lies low and I saw with my own eyes
smoke in the center through dense forest and thicket.’
The Unlucky Lot
“I spoke that way but the spirits were breaking inside them
recalling Antiphates, Laistrugonian war-work,
the crimes of a monster-hearted, man-eating Kuklops.
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They cried aloud, their eyes running with big tears.
But nothing came of all their mourning and wailing.
I counted them out myself, all of my strong-greaved
men into two groups. I joined then both to a leader:
I led one group and godlike Eurulokhos the other.
Promptly we shook our lots in a helmet of bright bronze.
The lot of great-hearted Eurulokhos fell out.
So off he went with twenty-two of my war-friends,
all in tears. They left us mourning behind them.
Lions and Wolves
“They found the home of Kirke soon in a hollow:
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shining stone, raised quite high, with a broad view.
♦ Mountain wolves and lions surrounded the building,
all of them charmed by Kirke—she’d given them bad drugs.
They made no charge at my men but rather they stood up
tall and fawned around them, swishing their long tails.
Dogs will fawn that way for a homecoming master,
always bringing them scraps from a feast to delight them.
The hard-clawed wolves and lions fawned in the same way
around my men, who eyed the beasts and were frightened.
Called inside by the Goddess
“They stopped at the outer gate of the Goddess with fair hair,
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hearing inside the beautiful singing of Kirke.
She moved at a grand loom that lasted forever
doing her Goddess’s work, a glowing and fine weave.
Polites began to say, a leader of good men,
the man I trusted and cared for most of my comrades:
♦ ‘My friends, someone is moving inside at a great loom.
What beautiful song—the floors are echoing music!
A Goddess maybe? a woman? Let’s call to her quickly.’
Soon as he’d spoken the others called to her loudly.
The Goddess came out promptly, opened her bright doors
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and called them inside. They all unknowingly followed.
Only Eurulokhos held back, sensing a trap there.
Men into Pigs
“She led them inside to easeful chairs and they sat down.
She mixed them a cheese and barley meal with her yellow
honey and Pramneian wine. But she added a harmful
drug to their food to make them wholly forget home.
After she gave that drug and they downed it, the Goddess
struck them fast with her rod. She shut them all in a pigsty
then as they grew snouts and grunts, the bristles and bodies
of pigs. Their minds were just as before, they had not changed;