by Homer
lying around that hall, over the wine-bowl
and food-piled tables, the floor a rolling of thick blood.
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The saddest cry I heard was from Priam’s daughter
Kassandre, murdered by sneaking Klutaimnestre
close to me. I raised my hands, I lay on the floor there,
struck by a sword and dying. That bitch of a woman
turned her back: although I was going to Aides
she never closed my eyes or mouth with her fingers.
Woman’s Treachery
‘So nothing’s more feared and doglike than woman,
the kind that thrusts in her heart the doing of such things.
My wife plotted revolting acts in the worst way,
causing her own man’s death. I had been thinking,
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traveling home, at least my children and household
would make me welcome. No, she was utterly hateful,
pouring shame on herself and on every woman
not yet born, even the woman who acts well.’
A Curse on the Whole Family
“After he spoke that way I answered by saying,
‘Look now! Zeus, watching from far off, has been cruel
ravaging Atreus’s line through the plotting of women
right from the start. So many were lost due to Helen.
Now Klutaimnestre set a trap for you far off.’
“I spoke that way and he promptly answered by saying,
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‘Therefore never be kind—not to your own wife.
Don’t tell her all your story, whatever you know well.
Say a few things, yes, but keep the others in hiding.
The Trustworthy Woman
‘Yet for you, Odysseus, death won’t come from your woman.
She’s very understanding, wise in her counsel,
Ikarios’s daughter! Mind-full Penelopeia
was barely a woman—a youthful bride when you left home
to fight that war—with a baby boy at her nipple.
Now he’s a man, no doubt, and sits in the men’s rows,
quite well off. His father will go there and see him,
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the son will embrace his father: that is the right way.
My own wife, though—she never allowed me to fill my
eyes with my son. She killed me, his father, before then.
A Homecoming Strategy
‘So I’ll say this, bear it in mind and remember:
guide your ship to the well-loved land of your fathers
and hide it. Don’t be open. Trust the women no longer.
A Son Dead or Alive
‘Come on now, tell me something: answer me truly
whether you’ve heard, somehow, my boy is alive still.
Maybe in Orkhomenos? Maybe in deep-sanded Pulos?
Or maybe with King Menelaos in wide-open Sparte.
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♦ My godlike Orestes—he’s not yet dead on the broad earth?’
“He spoke that way but I had to answer by saying,
‘Son of Atreus, why do you ask what I don’t know?
Maybe he’s dead or alive. It’s wrong to be windy.’
The Greatest Warrior
“Now as we stood there, exchanging painful and sad words,
both of us mourning losses and shedding our big tears,
the son of Peleus came on, the ghost of Akhilleus.
Patroklos too and handsome Antilokhos came on,
and Aias—in looks and shape the best of all the Danaans
after the son of Peleus, handsome Akhilleus.
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The ghost of the fast-footed grandson of Aiakos knew me.
He spoke with pity, the words with a feathery swiftness,
‘Son of Laertes, nourished by Zeus, wily Odysseus,
tough man: what greater work than this will your heart plan?
How did you dare come down to Aides where senseless
dead men live, the souls of people who’ve worn down?’
Power among the Dead
“After he spoke that way I answered by saying,
‘Akhilleus, Peleus’s son, the greatest by far of Akhaians:
I came in need of Teiresies, hoping he’d spell out
a plan to take me back to rock-strewn Ithakan country.
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I’m still not close to Akhaia, nor have I walked on
my own land. I’m always harmed. But no one, Akhilleus,
no man before or after you ever was more blessed:
when you were alive we Argives honored you just like
the Gods. Now you’re here and powerfully ruling
among the dead. Don’t bewail your dying, Akhilleus.’
Better Alive at Any Cost
“I spoke that way but he promptly answered by saying,
‘Don’t talk nicely of death to me, shining Odysseus.
I’d rather be stuck on a farm, a drudge for some other
threadbare man with hardly a life or resources
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than rule all those who waste away and are dead here.
A Powerless Father
‘But tell me news of my son, high-born and wondrous,
whether he joined that war or not in the front ranks?
Speak about faultless Peleus too—if only you heard tell—
whether he still is esteemed by the Murmidon people.
Or maybe he’s disesteemed in Hellas and Phthie
now that his hands and feet are hobbled by old age.
I cannot help him now in the rays of the Sun-God.
I’m not as I was at wide-plained Troy in the old days,
killing their army’s best and defending the Argives.
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If I could walk in my Father’s house with the same strength
only briefly! They’d hate my unbeatable hands and my power,
the men who’ve treated my Father badly and taken his honor.’
A Powerful Son
“After he spoke that way I answered by saying,
‘I haven’t heard about faultless Peleus, your father.
About Neoptolemos, though, the man-child you cherish,
I’ll tell you everything truly, just as you asked me.
I took him myself aboard my hollow and balanced
ship from Skuros to join with strong-greaved Akhaians.
In fact at the city of Troy when we gathered to make plans,
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he always spoke up first. And he spoke without error:
only godlike Nestor and I could outdo him.
Then on the Trojan plains when we fought with our bronze spears,
he never stayed in the crowd where warriors pressed hard.
He ran out strongly in front and yielded to no one.
He took down plenty of men in fearsome encounters,
I could not tell you them all, I never could name them,
those he killed in the ranks while guarding Akhaians.
But one man, Telephos’s son, he killed with a bronze thrust:
the war-chief, Eurupulos. Plenty of men were around him,
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Keteians, dying because of gifts to a woman.
After the godlike Memnon Eurupulos looked best.
Inside the Horse at Troy
‘Then when the bravest Argives climbed in the great horse
built by Epeios—I was in charge of the whole thing,
both to open that tight-built ruse and to close it—
all the other Danaan planners and leaders
wiped away tears and everyone’s joints trembled beneath him.
But not your son’s, no paleness: I’d watched with my own eyes
that beautiful face. In fact with never a single
tear to wipe, he asked me very often to let him
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go out of the horse! He kept on rubbing the sword-hilt
and bronz
e-heavy spear. What harm he meant for the Trojans!
A Father’s Pride
‘In time when we all had looted the high city of Priam,
he went aboard ship with his proper share and a good prize
unscathed—he’d never been pierced by a bronze-pointed spear-throw
or stabbed in close by a sword. Plenty of those wounds
happen in war. Ares’ rage is chaotic.’
“I stopped and the ghost of Aiakos’s fast-footed grandson
left me with lengthening strides through the asphodel meadow,
glad that I told him how his son was outstanding.
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A Warrior’s Old Spite
“Other ghosts came by of those who were laid out to die once.
Standing sadly each one asked about loved ones.
♦ Only the ghost of Aias, Telamon’s tall son,
stood off a ways. He fumed because I had won out
over the man in a contest close to the black ships
for the arms of Akhilleus, spread by his honored mother.
Sons of Troy were the judges and Pallas Athene.
If only I’d never won a contest of that kind!
What a head the earth now held because of those weapons!
Aias was better in action and beauty than all the Danaans
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after the son of Peleus, handsome Akhilleus.
No Answer
“So I spoke to him now, asking him gently,
‘Aias, faultless Telamon’s son, were you not to forget it,
even in death, your anger because of those hateful
weapons? Gods have made them a curse on the Argives:
you were our tower and died for them. So as Akhaians
mourn that head, the son of Peleus, Akhilleus,
we always mourn yours too. No one’s to blame now
but Zeus. He hated Danaan warriors fiercely,
all our spearmen, and caused your death on that doom-day.
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So then come here, lord, and hear what I’m saying.
Tame your anger and boldness. Master your spirits.’
“I spoke that way but the man said nothing and walked off
to other ghosts of Erebos, men laid out to die once.
Though angry still, he might have spoken, or I might—
no, the heart in my own chest had been longing
to look to other ghosts, men laid out to die once.
A Judge and Two Titans
♦ “So I saw Minos, a shining son of the great Zeus,
holding a scepter of gold, sitting and judging
the dead. Around that lord, pleading for fairness,
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they sat or stood by Aides’ house with its wide gates.
“Next I saw the titanic shape of Orion,
herding animals down through an asphodel meadow,
beasts he’d killed himself in the lonely mountains
wielding an all-bronze club, unbroken forever.
“I saw Tituos too, a son of the well-known Gaia.
He lay spread out—nine hundred feet on the ground there!
Vultures squatted on either side raking his liver,
beaks in his guts. His hands kept failing to stop them.
He’d misused Leto, Zeus’s beautiful woman
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going to Putho once through a lovely place, Panopeus.
Teasing Thirst
“Yes and I saw Tantalos suffering strong pain,
standing in water that rose to his chin but no higher.
He looked so thirsty, he longed to drink but he could not:
each time the old man stooped, wanting to drink it,
the water drained as if swallowed, making the ground look
black at his feet, some Power drying it all up.
High and leafy trees were also hanging with thick fruit:
pear-trees, pomegranates, apple-trees glowing
with fruit, the sweetest figs and olives in blossom.
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Whenever the old man’s hand went reaching to clasp one,
the wind hurled it at shadowy clouds to be hidden.
Up and Down and Up the Hill
“I saw Sisuphos too suffering deep pain.
He struggled to move a gigantic boulder with both hands.
Strained against the stone, hands and his feet set,
he pushed it high uphill. But soon as he might have
nudged it over the crest, its weight turned it around there,
the careless boulder again ran down to the flat ground.
Again he strained himself: he pushed and the sweat ran
down his body. Dust drifted over his forehead.
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Brawling and Death Designed on a Belt
“Now I saw a powerful Herakles figure—
♦ a phantom; the real one gladly dines with the deathless
Gods married to Hebe, the beautiful-ankled
daughter of powerful Zeus and gold-sandaled Here.
The dead kept screeching around that phantom like fear-struck
birds on every side. He looked like a dark night,
he held an uncased bow, its string with an arrow,