The <I>Odyssey</I>
Page 49
Help from the Gods
Long-suffering, godlike Odysseus answered,
“I’ll tell you myself then. Thrust in your heart what you hear now.
Ponder Athene helping us both with her Father
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Zeus. Then should I plan on others to guard us?”
But now Telemakhos gave him a sensible answer.
“Those you mention of course are able defenders.
Their thrones are high in the clouds. They’re also the rulers
of other men and all the Gods who are deathless.”
Long-suffering, godlike Odysseus answered,
“They won’t hold back from the hard fighting a long time,
those two Gods, when all the suitors and we two
measure the strength of Ares there in my great hall.
The Beatings to Come
“But now as for you: at the first showing of Dawn’s light
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go back home and mix with the swaggering suitors.
The swineherd will bring me down to the city in good time.
I’ll look quite old again, the wretchedest pauper.
If I’m mistreated at home, the heart in your own chest
must bear each hurt, however badly I suffer,
even dragged by the feet through the house to the outdoors
or battered by things they throw at me. Watch it and bear up.
Tell them surely to stop such brainless behavior
but speak to them gently. The suitors will hardly obey you.
Yet the day of their downfall truly is close by.
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Sooty Weapons
“I’ll say this also—thrust in your heart what I tell you.
Soon as Athene, full of her plans, puts it inside me,
I’ll nod my head your way. After you spot me,
take all of Ares’ tools that lie in the great hall
and put each one away in the innermost upstairs
room to hide. Then smoothly lie to the suitors
after they miss the weapons. Say if they ask you,
‘I took them away from the smoke. The weapons no longer
look like those Odysseus left when he ventured
to far-off Troy. The breath of the hearth-fire has grimed them.
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The son of Kronos, besides, placed in my heart a greater
fear that drunk from the wine and starting a fight here
you just might wound each other, disgracing your dinner
and courtship. For iron can draw a man to its own self.’
“For us two only leave a couple of bronze spears,
two swords and a pair of ox-hide shields for our handling.
Then we can charge the suitors at last. And we’ll take them
as Pallas Athene and Zeus the Counselor hex them!
Who Can Be Trusted?
“Another thing to thrust in your heart when I tell you:
if you’re my son, you truly belong in our bloodline,
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let no one hear Odysseus came to his own house.
Don’t let Laertes know, or Eumaios the swineherd,
no household help or the lady herself, Penelopeia.
Only you and I will learn the aims of the women.
As for the male helpers, I say we should test them,
find out whether their hearts will honor and fear us,
or who’s careless, belittling the man that you are now.”
His glowing son was prompt to answer by saying,
“Oh my Father, I think you’ll know of my spirit
very soon: nothing thoughtless will guide me.
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But I don’t think that plan of yours will advance us
both right now. Instead I ask you to ponder:
testing every worker will take you a long time
out on the farms while carefree men in the great hall
devour your goods wantonly, sparing you nothing.
As for the women, yes, I’d say you should test them,
those who treat you with scorn and those who are blameless.
Still I’d like us not to size up men in the farmsteads,
maybe rather to save that job until later—
unless you’ve heard from Zeus who carries the great shield.”
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Back into Home Port
All the while they spoke that way with each other,
a well-worked ship was heading for Ithaka’s harbor
carrying all of Telemakhos’s crewmen from Pulos.
After they came into port—the harbor had good depth—
they hauled the night-black ship from the sea onto dry land.
Highly spirited helpers carried the gear off
briskly and took the beautiful gifts to the Klutios household.
A Mother’s Great Relief
A herald was promptly sent to Odysseus’s palace
bearing a message to thought-full Penelopeia:
Telemakhos, now on a farm, had ordered his vessel
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to sail to the city; the queen, strong in her spirits,
should not be afraid or worry, shedding her soft tears.
By chance the godlike swineherd encountered the herald
taking the same news on the way to that woman.
Soon as they entered the high-roofed house of the godlike
king the herald spoke up, surrounded by handmaids:
“Just now, my queen, your well-loved son has returned home.”
The swineherd though came close to Penelopeia
to tell her all that her well-loved son had enjoined him.
Then after he gave her all the news he was told to,
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he left the hall and courtyard. He hiked back to the pig-farm.
No Murder after All
Ah but the suitors’ hearts were dismayed and discouraged.
They left the hall, moved by a high wall of the courtyard
not so far from the palace entrance and sat down.
Eurumakhos, Polubos’s son, began to address them.
“My friends, a huge and overbearing labor is ended:
we thought Telemakhos never would leave on this voyage.
Come on then, let’s haul our best black ship to the water,
gather a crew of rowers and send off a message
fast to our men on the island—tell them to sail home.”
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He’d hardly said all that when Amphinomos, shifting
his place, spotted a ship in the fathomless harbor.
Crewmen were taking in sail and holding the oars up.
He broke out laughing, blithely telling his cronies,
“Let’s not rush them a message—they’re home here already!
Maybe a God told them or maybe they spotted
Telemakhos’s passing ship but could not overtake her.”
New Murder Plans
He stopped and they all stood up to go to the seashore.
The black vessel was briskly hauled onto dry land
and highly spirited helpers carried the gear off.
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The suitors went in a crowd to the place of assembly,
no others allowed to be seated, younger or older.
♦ Antinoos, son of Eupeithes, spoke to them outright.
“Look at this! Gods have saved this man from a bad end.
Our watchmen sat for days on crags where the wind blew,
often taking turns. At the setting of Helios we never
passed the night on land: we sailed on the open
sea in our race-fast ship, hoping with God-bright
Dawn to ambush Telemakhos—take him and kill him.
Some other Power, meanwhile, was guiding him back home.
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Any Field or Road
“For us here now let’s plan Telemakhos’s sorry
death again. He mustn’t escape: so long as he goes on
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living I don’t think all our efforts will flourish.
The man himself is clever, a knower and planner,
our island people no longer favor us wholly.
Come on then, before he gathers all the Akhaians
again to assembly—I think he won’t be relaxing
but rather vent his rage by telling the whole crowd
the way we plotted a headlong murder and lost him.
They’ll hardly praise us hearing we acted wrongly.
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They also must not wrong us, drive us away from
our land or force us to go to a foreigners’ country.
“Take him first! Kill the man in a field, or a cart-path
far from the city. We’ll hold his wealth and belongings
ourselves and split them fairly. We’ll offer the palace
of course to his mother to own—and the man she will marry!
Or Should the Suit Be Ended?
“Yet if my words don’t please you, maybe you’d rather
the man live on with all the goods of his fathers.
Let’s stop gathering then to devour his pleasant
store of wealth. Let each man bring from his own hall
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presents to woo and win her. The lady can marry
the man who offers most. Her lot is his coming.”
First the Will of the Gods
After he’d spoken they all were utterly silent.
Then Amphinomos rose in the assembly to speak out.
A shining son of Nisos, the son of lordly Aretios,
he’d led the suitors who came from Doulikhion’s grain-rich,
grassy island. In time he’d pleased Penelopeia
most with his talk. The man’s heart was a good one.
He meant well now as he faced the gathering saying,
“My friends: I’d never want Telemakhos murdered.
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Killing the son of a king is a frightful action.
I say first let’s ask the Gods for their own plan.
If Zeus with all his laws and greatness will say yes,
I’ll kill him myself and tell the rest of you, ‘Kill him.’
But not if the Gods recoil. Then I would say, ‘Stop.’”
Amphinomos spoke that way and his words were appealing.
They promptly rose and walked to Odysseus’s palace,
entered and found polished chairs where they sat down.
A Plea from the Queen
A new idea now came to thought-full Penelopeia:
she’d show herself to the lawless and prideful suitors.
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She knew of the end they’d planned for her son in the great hall—
Medon the herald had told her—he’d heard them plotting.
So she came with her handmaids down to the great hall,
closer now to the suitors. This brightest of women
stood by a post supporting the well-built roof-beams,
holding a lustrous veil that covered her cheekbones.
♦ She turned on Antinoos, called him by name and reviled him:
“Antinoos, clutching your pride, you worker of evil!
They say on Ithakan land among men of your own age
you’re the first in counsel and speech. Yet you are not so:
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you’re mad. Why do you plot such doom, Telemakhos’s murder?
Don’t you care for humble pleading? But Lord Zeus
cares and watches. It’s wrong to plot harm for another.
A Father in Flight
“Don’t you recall your father came here and pleaded,
humble and fearing the people? They’d raged at him fiercely
because your father had joined with Taphian pirates
to raid Thesprotian cities—they were our friends then.
His people wanted to kill him, tear out the man’s heart
and eat his piles of wealth that suited their spirits.
Odysseus checked and stopped them, their zeal notwithstanding.
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Now you’d freely devour his home and marry his woman,
cut off his child from life and sicken me greatly.
I tell you to stop. I tell the others to stop too.”
Denials
Eurumakhos, Polubos’s son, gave her an answer.
“Ikarios’s daughter! My thought-full Penelopeia,
take heart. Don’t let your breast be alarmed about all this.
For now the man’s not living, no, and he won’t live,
who’ll lay a hand on your son Telemakhos wrongly,
not while I live myself and look on the good earth.
So I will tell you, be sure it will come to a fast end:
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the dark blood of that man at once would be flowing
around my spear. For Odysseus, looter of cities,
often sat me too on his knees and settled his roast meat
right in these hands. He often gave me his red wine.
So now I hold Telemakhos dearer than every
man by far. I say he should not fear death from the suitors.
Not from us men—from Gods it can’t be avoided.”