by Homer
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Drawing the keen-edged sword from next to my strong thigh,
I stopped them from drinking the dark blood all at the same time.
Then each ghost came on in order revealing
her own family and birth. I questioned all of them closely.
A Woman Seized by Poseidon
♦ “The first one I saw was Turo. Beautifully fathered—
she claimed to be born to Salmoneus, faultless and handsome.
She told me she’d married Kretheus, Aiolos’s man-child.
In time she loved a river, the God Enipeus:
of all the rivers on earth his flow was the fairest.
She often called on the beautiful flow of that river.
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Then the Earth Upholder and Shaker took on its likeness,
he laid her down by the mouth of the eddying river,
standing a violet wave around them high as a hillside,
arching over and hiding the God and the death-bound
woman. He loosened her belt. He sprinkled a light sleep.
“After the God was done with his labor of loving,
he took her hand, called her by name and he told her,
‘Be glad you loved me, woman. When seasons have come round
you’ll bear two wonderful boys: the beds of undying
Gods are not fruitless. Care for our children and raise them.
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For now go back to your house and don’t say a word there.
I am in fact the Earth Shaker Poseidon.’
Her God’s and Her Man’s Children
“He spoke that way then entered the billowing water.
With child, she bore in time Pelies and Neleus.
Both became powerful squires of the great God
Zeus. Pelies’ wealth was in sheep, his town Iaolkos,
wide for dancing; Neleus lived in deep-sanded Pulos.
She also bore Kretheus sons, this queen among women:
Aison, Pheres and Amuthaon, chariot fighters.
Famous Mothers and Daughters
♦ “I saw Antiope next, the child of Asopos.
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She actually claimed she’d slept in the arms of the great Zeus.
In time she bore two sons, Amphion and Zethos.
They were the first to build up Thebes with seven
gates, with walls and towers. They never could live well
without such walls in Thebes, whatever their own strength.
♦ “Then I saw Alkmene, the wife of Amphitruon.
She bore the brave one, Herakles—heart like a lion’s—
after she made love in the arms of the great Zeus.
♦ “Megare came, the daughter of highly spirited Kreion.
She married Amphitruon’s son whose strength was untiring.
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Mother and Son in Love
♦ “I saw the mother of Oidipus now. Epikaste was lovely
but did an outrageous thing, not knowing beforehand:
she married her son. He’d murdered his father; he married
his mother. The Gods made all this known among people.
In well-loved Thebes the son would agonize greatly,
ruling Kadmeians. The Gods’ ways can be deadly,
his mother went down to the Gate-Closer, powerful Aides,
after hanging a noose high from her ceiling.
Taken with grief, she left her husband with plenty
of anguish to come—all that a mother’s Avengers can bring on.
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Khloris, Pero, and the Prophet Melampous
“I saw Khloris in all her beauty. Finding her lovely,
Neleus married her, giving her numberless bride-gifts.
The youngest daughter of Amphion, Iasos’s good son—
strong in Orkhomenos once, ruling Minuans—
she reigned in Pulos and bore outstanding children,
brash Periklumenos, Khromios, Nestor of Pulos.
♦ She bore Pero, a strong daughter and marvel to all men,
courted by every neighbor. Neleus gave her
to no one, though, unless he could drive from Phulake
the curl-horned, broad-browed cattle of forceful Iphiklos.
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What hard work! Only a faultless prophet would try it—
Melampous. But God’s heavy portion constrained him:
hard bindings of country farmhands would check him.
Yet when days and months came to an ending,
the year rolling around and seasons returning,
at last the strong one, Iphiklos, loosened the bindings.
All the omens were spelled out. Zeus’s plan was accomplished.
Two Sons, Alive and Dead
♦ “I saw Lede as well, Tundareos’ woman.
She bore him two good sons with their strong hearts:
Kastor, a horse tamer; Poludeukes, a boxer.
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The grain-yielding earth holds them alive still!
Even under the ground they’re honored by great Zeus,
one day fully alive and the other one quite dead.
Thus they have earned esteem resembling the great Gods’.
Two Gigantic Sons Killed in Their Youth
“Next I saw Aloeus’s wife, Iphimedeia.
She actually claimed she’d made love with Poseidon
and bore two sons. But the two were born to a brief life.
Otos, a godlike man, and the famed Ephialtes,
raised on the soil’s rich grain: these two were the tallest
♦ by far and the handsomest after well-known Orion.
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Nine arm-lengths across already when nine years
old, they then grew higher than nine fathoms of water!
In time they even threatened the Gods on Olumpos,
raising an uproar there and waging a mad war.
To scale that heaven they planned to pile on Olumpos
all Mount Ossa—and forested Pelion on Ossa!
They might have prevailed if they reached a measure of manhood.
But Zeus’s son Apollo, borne by the fair-haired Leto,
killed them both before the fuzz on their temples
could bloom and spread, rounding their chins with a full beard.
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The Long Line of Dead Women
♦ “Then I saw Phaidre, Prokris and lovely Ariadne,
daughter of Minos, that harm brooder. Theseus wanted
to bring her from Krete by sea to a hillside of sacred
Athens. He never enjoyed her. Artemis killed her
first on sea-ringed Die. The God Dionusos had marked her.
♦ “I saw Klumene too and Maira. The hated Eriphule:
she took high-priced gold for the death of her own man.
♦ “I cannot name them all or tell you of each one,
every daughter and wife I saw of a great chief:
the ambrosial night would end first. And the sleep-hour,
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whether I go to my race-fast ship and my war-friends
or stay right here. You and the Gods must see to my send-off.”
A Stranger’s Needs
He spoke that way and they all were quiet a long time
as though he’d woven a spell in the shadowy great hall.
White-armed Arete finally started to tell them,
“How does the man strike you men of Phaiakia?
Handsome and tall? With a mind balanced inside him?
Though he’s my guest, everyone shares in our honor.
Don’t be sending him quickly now and don’t be withholding
presents. The stranger’s in need and plenty of treasures
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lie or stand in your halls, thanks to the great Gods.”
Old Ekheneos, a war-chief, stood up to answer.
Among Phaiakian men this man was the eldest.
“My friends, the words of ou
r queen are thought-full and not so
far from the mark of our own ideas. Follow them closely.
But word and work belong to Alkinoos mainly.”
The King’s Word
So now the king, Alkinoos, answered by saying,
“Her words will surely stand so long as I’m living
and ruling over the oar-loving Phaiakians.
Our guest, for all of his hard longing to go home,
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should stay here now till morning. Then I will round out
the rest of our giving. All you men will share in the send-off
but I’ll do the most, for I hold power in this country.”
To Go Home Rich or Poor
Odysseus, full of designs, answered by asking,
“Lordly Alkinoos, praised by all of your people,
what if you asked me now to stay here a whole year,
then sent me off and gave me outstanding presents?
I’d want that too. It’s far better to sail off
with both hands full to the well-loved land of your fathers.
All my people would surely love and respect me
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more if they saw me arrive in Ithaka that way.”
The Ways of a Poet
Now the king, Alkinoos, answered by saying,
“We’d hardly surmise, Odysseus, seeing you this way,
you’d lie and cheat like a fraud, although there are many
raised on the same dark earth, plenty of bad men
building hoaxes and lies no one can see through.
Rather your words are graceful, your heart is a good one.
You told your story with knowing ways like a singer—
all of the Argives’ mourning and pain—and your own pain.
Troy and After
“Come on though, tell me something: answer me truly
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whether you saw those godlike war-friends who followed
you closely to Troy, war-chiefs who went to their doom there.
The night is long, it’s measureless—no one should doze off
yet in my hall—and tell me more of your wonderful doings!
I’d stay until Dawn’s bright light so long as you bore up,
telling the tale of all your cares in our great hall.”
The Harshest Grief
Odysseus, full of designs, answered by saying,
“Lordly Alkinoos, praised by all of your people,
there’s time for plenty of tales and time for a good sleep.
Yet if you long to listen I cannot refuse you.
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I’ll tell you more of our troubles, even the harshest
grief of my war-friends, those who died with me later.
Though they escaped the appalling screeches of Trojans,
they died on the way home. One woman’s will was a bad one.
A Sorry War-Lord’s Ghost
“So when holy Persephoneia had scattered
all those women’s ghosts that way and this way,
a new ghost came—of Atreus’s son Agamemnon.
Though grieved like all the others gathered around him
stabbed in Aigisthos’s house—they went to their doom there—
he knew me at once. After drinking the dark blood
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he cried out loud, his eyes shedding their big tears.
He stretched out both his hands, longing to hold me.
The power was there no longer, all the old-time
force in that once limber body was now gone.
Which Doom This Time?
“My heart felt pity, I wept myself when I saw him
and spoke to the man, my words with a feathery swiftness:
‘Far-famed son of Atreus, the army’s Lord Agamemnon,
what doom has downed you here, what death with its long pain?
Was it lordly Poseidon? Sinking your ships in a sea-storm,
raising the strongest winds, a merciless gusting?
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Or men on land: did enemies gather to harm you
for rustling their flocks of sheep or beautiful cattle,
for fighting over the town’s wealth and its women?’
Like a Slaughter of Beasts
“I spoke that way and he promptly answered by saying,
‘Son of Laertes, nourished by Zeus, wily Odysseus,
Poseidon never downed my ships in a sea-storm
raising a strong wind or merciless gusting.
Men on land? No enemies gathered to harm me.
♦ Aigisthos caused my death. He brought on my own doom
helped by a curse, my wife. They called me to dinner,
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they cut me down in that house like a bull in its barn-stall.
My death was the sorriest end. Other war-friends around me
were butchered like white-tusked boars, slaughtered without stop
like swine in the house of a wealthy, powerful master,
killed for a wedding, an eating bout or a big feast.
By now you’ve looked on plenty of warriors cut down,
whether they died alone or in powerful battles.
Your heart would have felt the most pity to see us