by Homer
My bravery won her: I was no fool or coward
waging war. Though all that power has left me
look at the husk—I think you’ll know what the grain was.
Surely a great deal of misery owns me
now but Ares gave me boldness then and Athene
drove me to smash front ranks. I picked out the ablest
men for an ambush and plotted my enemies’ mayhem.
My heart was brash, I never looked for a death-blow.
I always leaped out first to kill with a spear-thrust
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whatever enemy ran away on his fast feet.
“So I was warlike. Working a farm I did not like,
tending house or raising children to stand out.
But oared ships were always things that I relished,
battles and carefully crafted lances and arrows.
A somber life to some men? Feared and revolting?
I liked it though—it was placed by a God in my own heart.
This man enjoys one task, that man another.
Driven to Troy
“Before the sons of Akhaians walked onto Troy’s land
I’d led my men nine times in fast-running vessels
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to strike at foreigners, chancing on plenty of booty.
I chose what suited me first; later a good deal
came by lot. My house was a great one in no time,
causing my name to be feared and praised among Kretans.
“Then Zeus, watching from far off, plotted a hateful
course that crumpled a great number of men’s knees.
I was told, along with well-known Idomeneus,
to head our ships for Troy. No one could help me
answer no. The harsh cries of people engulfed us.
“For nine years we fought there, we sons of Akhaians.
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We wrecked the city of Priam during the tenth year
and sailed for home in our ships. But Akhaians were scattered
by Gods when Zeus, that Plotter, planned more harm for a sad man.
Driven to Egypt
“I’d stayed home for only a month, enjoying my children,
my wealth and the wife I’d married, before some spirit
told me to sail once more. I’d voyage to Egypt
with godlike crewmen in ships weighed with our good stores.
Nine vessels were weighed down, my men were gathering briskly
and then for six whole days the war-friends I trusted
dined grandly. I gave them plenty of victims
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myself to offer to Gods and prepare for our dining.
We sailed from the broad island of Krete the seventh
day and were helped by the Northwind’s beautiful blowing:
we moved as if sailing downstream. None of my vessels
came to harm. As we all were healthy and quite safe
we sat down, helmsman and wind holding our course well.
Death or Slavery
“Five days later we reached the gentle waters of Egypt.
I stood my up-curved ships by the river of Egypt
and spoke to them all myself, the crewmen I trusted:
‘Stay here close to the ships and safeguard the squadron.’
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I urged scouts to find good spots to be lookouts.
“They yielded to brashness instead. Pushing their own strength,
♦ they promptly ravaged handsome fields of Egyptian
farmers and hauled off women and helpless children—
they’d murdered the men. But shouts went fast to the city,
the call was heard and with Dawn an army had shown up,
filling the whole plain with foot-soldiers, horsemen
and glaring bronze. Then Zeus, whose joy is in thunder,
threw a revolting scare in my men: no one was daring
to stand and face that menace closing on all sides.
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Many of us died right there, cut down by the sharp bronze.
Others were led off alive and forced into slavery.
Pity for the Humbled Stranger
“But Zeus himself now put a thought in my own mind—
although I wish I’d died there, gone to a black doom
that day in Egypt, since pain would welcome me quite soon—
I pulled my well-worked helmet away from my head fast,
the shield from my shoulder, the spear fell from my right hand,
I went by myself to their king’s chariot horses,
grasped his knees and kissed them. He pitied and saved me.
I wept as he sat me and drove me home in the chariot.
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Despite the ash-wood spears of throngs who approached me,
men who were anxious to kill, glutted with fury,
the king stopped them. He dreaded the anger of great Zeus,
the God of guests who rages most against wrong acts.
Another Liar
“I stayed there seven years. I gathered a good deal
of wealth from Egyptian people. They all were forthcoming.
But then as the eighth year came and moved in a circle,
♦ a man arrived from Phoinikia. A liar and nibbler,
he’d surely caused people plenty of trouble.
He coaxed me and changed my mind: he got me to sail off
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to where his house and wealth were—Phoinikian country.
And there I stayed by the man’s side for a whole year.
The God Storms Again
“When all those months and days came to an ending,
soon as the year rolled by and the seasons had circled,
he took me aboard a seagoing vessel to Libya.
His plan was a lie, that I’d help him ferry some cargo;
he wanted to sell me, in fact—and sell for a huge price.
I went aboard sensing a plot but he forced me.
“Yet as our ship ran on with a beautiful Northwind
passing central Krete, Zeus was planning to kill them.
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Soon as we sailed past Krete, with nothing around us—
no land showing, only the sky and the salt sea—
Zeus, the son of Kronos, heightened a dark cloud
over the hollow ship. Waves were graying beneath it,
the God thundered and hurled a bolt at the same time,
rattling the whole vessel. Struck by that lightning
she filled with sulphur, and all the crewmen were tumbling
♦ over, looking like cormorants circling the black ship,
bobbing on crests. The God stole their return home.
A Saving Mast
“But Zeus himself, as agony clutched at my own heart,
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placed in my hands the unwieldy mast of the dark-prowed
ship to help me escape once more from the worst harm.
I held on tight. Caught in that murderous windstorm,
for nine days I was carried along. Then on the tenth black
night a gigantic swell caught me and rolled me
♦ ashore among Thesprotians. Pheidon, their ruler and war-chief,
cared for me, no pay asked, for his own son had found me
cold and worn down. His hand had helped me to stand up.
He took me home himself to the house of his father
and gave me clothes to wear, a mantle and tunic.
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Come Home Openly or Disguised
“There I heard of Odysseus. Pheidon had loved him,
a guest on his way, he said, to the land of his fathers.
He showed me all the wealth amassed by Odysseus,
bronze and gold, iron wrought with a struggle—
that wealth could feed his heirs to the tenth generation—
so much treasure lay in the house of that ruler.
♦ He told me the man had gone to
Dodone to hear out
plans from Zeus, God of the oak-tree with high leaves:
how to return to fruitful Ithakan country?
Openly? In secret? He’d been away for a long time.
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The king swore in his house before me, tendering wine-drops
to thank the Gods, that a ship was launched and her crewmen
ready to take the man to the well-loved land of his fathers.
Disloyalty and Greed Again
“But first he sent me away. Thesprotian sailors
were bound by chance for Doulikhion, known for its grainfields.
He told them to take me with care to Akastos, the ruler.
But then a vicious scheme entered the crewmen’s
minds to make my pain and misery thorough.
Soon as the seaworthy ship was far from the mainland
they promptly made it the first day of my slave-life.
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They pulled off my clothes, that fine mantle and tunic,
and threw old rags and a wretched mantle around me,
the tatters I’m wearing now—you see with your own eyes.
They came at dusk to clear-viewed Ithakan farmland.
They lashed me tight on the well-planked ship with some twisted
line and disembarked themselves in a hurry
to eat a meal right there on the shore of the salt sea.
“But now the Gods themselves loosened my bindings
with ease and I promptly covered my head with some old rags.
Sliding down the smooth loading plank till I breasted
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the sea, I pulled with both my hands through the water.
I soon came out of the surf apart from the sailors
and climbed from there into woods and copses in full bloom.
I lay huddled and heard them loudly complaining,
searching around me. In time they knew there was nothing
more to be gained by looking, so they reboarded
the hollow ship. Gods themselves had concealed me
deftly. They also led me straight to the lodging
of one shrewd man. For now my lot is to live still.”
Failing to Kill
But then Eumaios the swineherd, you answered by saying,
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“Ah poor stranger, you’ve roused my spirits a good deal
telling me all you suffered and how you have wandered.
But not quite rightly, I think: what you said of Odysseus
cannot sway me. Why does a man of your standing
need to lie, and in vain? I know well of my master’s
coming home and just how much he was hated by each God.
Yet they failed to kill him there among Trojans
or later, the war wound up, in the arms of his close friends.
All the Akhaians then would have built him a great tomb.
The man had also won renown for his child in the future.
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But now the Storm Powers have carried him off without honor.
Lies from Another Wanderer
“I live far off with my hogs. I never go to the city
myself unless our thought-full Penelopeia
asks me to come when news arrives from elsewhere.
Then people sit by the stranger and ask about each thing,
all of those who mourn their king who is long gone
and those who gladly devour his goods without paying.
But I don’t like it, all that asking and prying,
♦ not since a man from Aitolia fooled me with stories.
He’d killed a man, he said, and wandered the whole earth.
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He came to my house, I welcomed him here as a friend would,
he said he’d seen Odysseus, a guest of Idomeneus
on Krete rebuilding vessels a sea-storm had battered.
My lord would be home, he said, by summer or autumn.
He’d bring back stores of wealth and his godlike war-friends.
“Old man with your many woes, a Power has brought you.
Don’t lie to make me cheerful. Don’t be a charmer.
I won’t respect you for that or befriend you, but rather
from awe of Zeus, the strangers’ God, and from pity.”
The Truth or Death
Full of designs, Odysseus answered by saying,
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“Truly the heart in your chest is deeply distrustful.
Even with oaths I cannot move or persuade you.
Come on then, make an agreement now and for later
time for us both, and let the Gods holding Olumpos
witness my word: if your lord comes back to his own house
give me the clothes, a mantle and tunic, and send me
off to Doulikhion—that’s quite dear to my own heart.
But then if your lord’s not home the way I have told you,
loosen your slaves to throw me down from a great cliff.
You’ll make another wretch think twice about lying.”
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The Best Boar
But now the godlike hog-tender answered by saying,