by Homer
to swear an oath to take me back to my home safe.’
“She stopped and they all swore the way she had asked them.
After the oaths were ended, with swearing behind them,
the woman spoke up again, telling them outright,
‘No more talk. None of you crewmen should hail me
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at all, whether we meet on a roadway or somehow
close to the well, or people will go to the palace
and talk to the old one. The king might feel he should tie me
hard or chain me—and plan the deaths of you all here.
So mind my word. Go on with your trading and stowing.
After the ship’s quite full of your wares and belongings,
let a messenger run to me fast at the palace.
I’ll bring you whatever gold comes to my hand there.
Kidnap
‘Yes and I’ll gladly give you more for my passage.
I’ve taken care of my good master’s child in the great hall,
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a clever boy who scampers along with me outdoors.
I’d like to bring him aboard. He’ll get you a great price
wherever you take him to sell to strange-sounding people.’
So with that word she went to the beautiful palace.
♦ “The men remained with us there, trading a whole year,
filling their hollow ship with plenty of good stores.
Then when the hollow vessel was loaded to sail off
they sent a runner to take the news to the woman.
Their savviest man, he came to the house of my Father
bearing a golden necklace beaded with amber.
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While all the maids and my queenly mother were gazing
closely and handling the gold, making pledges to buy it
now in the great hall, the man quietly nodded.
The woman caught his nod. Soon as he left for the hollow
ship she took my hand and led me out of the palace.
She found some tables and golden cups in the forecourt
where men had dined and worked, surrounding my Father—
they’d gone to their chairs for talk in the people’s assembly—
she hurriedly took three cups to stash in her breast-fold
and haul away. I thoughtlessly followed behind her.
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“After sunset, when all the roadways were darker,
she led me down to the well-known port in a hurry.
There was the fast-running ship and Phoinikian crewmen
boarding briskly to follow the ways of the salt sea.
After they boarded us both, Zeus gave them a fair wind.
Shark Food
“For six whole days, night and day, we were sailing.
Then Zeus, the son of Kronos, gave us the seventh
day and Artemis, Rainer of Arrows, struck the woman.
She made a thump in the bilge, resembling a gull-splash.
They threw her over the side and made her the plunder
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of sharks or seals. I was abandoned and heartsick.
“Wind and wave drove us to Ithaka’s coastline.
Laertes bought me then, using his own wealth.
So my eyes have come to gaze on this island.”
Nothing Is Worse Than to Wander
Nourished by Zeus, Odysseus answered by saying,
“Eumaios, you greatly moved the heart in my own chest
by telling me all that, each heartfelt pain you have suffered.
And yet beside the bad there surely were good things
lavished by Zeus: after pain you arrived at a gentle
master’s home, he offered you food and his good wine
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gladly. Your life goes well; but I was a roamer
through many people’s towns before I arrived here.”
A Great New Day for the Father and Son
So the two men spoke that way with each other
and soon slept. But not for long, only a short time:
Dawn came fast on her beautiful throne. At the seashore
too Telemakhos’s men struck sail. Hurriedly taking
the mast down, rowing their ship to a mooring,
they tossed out anchor-stones, tightened the stern-lines
and disembarked themselves on the shore of the salt sea.
They made a meal there, glowing wine mixing with water.
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Good Pay for Good Work
Soon as the craving for food and drink was behind them,
Telemakhos spoke up first with sensible orders:
“You crewmen sail our black ship now to the city.
I’ll go to the fields myself and look to the herders,
then go on to the city at dusk from the farmland.
At dawn I’ll set out pay for the sea-work before you:
a choice dinner with honeyed wine and the best meat.”
A Poor Place for a Guest Now
A godlike man, Theoklumenos spoke up and asked him,
“Where do I go, dear child? Whose house will I enter?
What man or ruler of rock-strewn Ithakan country?
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Or shall I go straight to your own house and your mother?”
Telemakhos tried to give him a sensible answer.
“I’d tell you otherwise yes, go to our own house:
we don’t lack welcomes for strangers. But now it’s a bad choice—
worse for yourself, since I’ll be away and my Mother
cannot see you. She seldom shows herself when the suitors
are home but stays in her upstairs room with her weaving.
I’ll name you another man though, someone to go to:
Eurumakhos, mind-full Polubos’s son, is outstanding.
Ithakans now regard this man as a great God.
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He’s best of the men by far, the one who is most bent
on marrying my Mother and taking Odysseus’s honor.
But Zeus who lives in the sky will know on Olumpos
whether a harmful day will end before they are married.”
A Sign of the Right Power
♦ Soon as he’d spoken a bird flew by on his right side,
Apollo’s nimble sea-hawk messenger, talons
clutching a pigeon. It plucked feathers that littered
the ground between the ship and Telemakhos’s body.
At once Theoklumenos called him aside from his crewmen,
clasped his hand, spoke his name and addressed him:
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“Telemakhos, surely that bird flew by on your right side
at God’s command. I knew when I saw it the hawk was an omen.
No other family will rule Ithakan country
besides your own. Your line will always have power.”
But shortly Telemakhos gave him a sensible answer.
“If only your words, my guest, could come to a real end!
You’d promptly know of my friendship, all of my own good
bounty and those who met you would say you are well blessed.”
A Good Place for a Guest Now
He spoke to Peiraios next, a crewman he trusted.
“Peiraios, Klutios’s son, you minded me better
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in every way than the others who joined me for Pulos.
Guide our stranger now to your family household.
Esteem and welcome him gladly until I arrive there.”
Peiraios, known for a spear-throw, answered by saying,
“Telemakhos, whether you go or stay here a long time,
I’ll welcome and care for the man myself as a good guest.”
Now to the Swineherd
Those were his words. He boarded ship and commanded
crewmen to board themselves and loosen the stern-lines.
They boarded quickly and took their seats at the oar-locks.
Meanwhile Telemakhos bound some beautiful sandals
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under his feet and lifted a spear, rugged and pointed
with bronze, from the ship’s deck. Stern-lines were cast off:
crewmen pushed away for the city, Telemakhos telling
them all to do so. The well-loved son of godlike Odysseus,
fast on his feet, then hiked until he came to a front yard:
there were the droves of swine and the swineherd, a good man
napping close by, known to be mild to his masters.
BOOK 16 Father and Son Reunited
Fawning Dogs
Soon in the farmhouse the godlike hog-tender kindled
a fire and prepared a meal along with Odysseus.
At dawn the others were sent off, driving the pig-herds.
Telemakhos came. The loud-barking dogs were not barking:
they fawned around the man. Godlike Odysseus,
noting the dogs were fawning and footsteps were coming,
promptly spoke to Eumaios, the words with a feathery swiftness,
“Eumaios, the man approaching us there is your work-friend,
surely someone you know. The dogs are not barking,
they’re fawning around him. I hear the tramp of his footsteps.”
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A Father-Like Welcome
The words were not all spoken when there at the doorway
stood his own dear son. Amazed, the hog-tender jumped up,
dropping the bowls from his hands—those he had worked with
mixing the glowing wine—he rushed to his young lord,
kissing Telemakhos’s head, both of his handsome
eyes and hands. The tears fell from his own eyes.
♦ A loving father welcomes his dear son in the same way,
arriving home in the tenth year from a far land,
his only son, full-grown, for whom he’s agonized often.
So the godlike hog-tender hugged and kissed him all over
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as though his lordly Telemakhos now had escaped death.
He wept as he spoke and the words had a feathery swiftness,
“Sweet light, you came Telemakhos! Truly I thought I’d
never see you again when you shipped out to Pulos.
So now enter, my dear child, for my heart takes
pleasure seeing you newly arrived in my own house
from elsewhere. You don’t come often to farmlands or herdsmen
because remaining in town is right in your own mind
to watch those damaging men, that mob of suitors.”
A Bed Full of Spiders
Telemakhos promptly gave him a sensible answer.
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“So it will be, uncle. But you are the reason
I came here now, to see you again with my own eyes,
to hear you say if my Mother stayed in the great hall
or married another man—if the bed of Odysseus
lies there in loathsome spiderwebs, lacking its sleepers.”
An answer came from the swineherd, a leader of good men:
“The lady stays on surely. Her spirits have borne up
there in your hall although she saddens over the always
wasting nights and days, letting the tears fall.”
The Father Yields to the Son
He spoke that way while taking Telemakhos’s bronze spear.
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The young man passed over the stone threshold and walked in.
His father, Odysseus, rose from his chair as he came on.
Telemakhos checked him though from where he was standing:
“Stay there, stranger. We’ll find a seat in our farmhouse
elsewhere surely. The man beside me will make one.”
After he’d spoken Odysseus went to the same seat.
The swineherd piled up green shoots with a full fleece
on top and the well-loved son of Odysseus sat there.
Eumaios laid before them trenchers of roasted
pork from the night before, left over from dinner.
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He hurriedly set out piles of bread in their baskets.
After he mixed a honey-sweet wine in the ivy
bowl he sat down facing godlike Odysseus.
Their hands went out to the good things lying before them.
Who Is the Stranger?
After the craving for food and drink was behind them,
Telemakhos turned to the God-blessed hog-man and asked him,
“Uncle, where did the stranger come from? How did a ship’s crew
sail him to Ithaka? Who do they claim to be sons of?
I hardly suppose he came to our island by walking.”
In Need and Lowly
Then Eumaios the swineherd, you answered by saying,
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“Well now, my dear child, I’ll tell you the whole truth.
♦ He claims the broad island of Krete as his birthplace.
He says he wandered, moving through plenty of cities
among men: that’s the lot some Power has spun him.
Just now he sneaked away from a ship of Thesprotian
seamen and came to my house. I’ll place him in your hands: