The <I>Odyssey</I>
Page 51
for guests and blameless Odysseus’s hearth I have come to:
truly the man’s right now in the land of his fathers!
He sits or creeps, he learns what harm has been done here.
He’s planting seeds of doom for all of the suitors.
That was the omen I saw: I sat on the well-benched
160
ship and spelled out a bird for Telemakhos quickly.”
But mind-full Penelopeia answered by saying,
“Stranger, if only these words of yours could become real!
You’d quickly know of my friendship, all of my presents
would make a man who met you say you are well-blessed.”
They all went on speaking that way with each other.
More Games and Feasts
Suitors enjoyed themselves in front of Odysseus’s
palace meanwhile, hurling a spear or a discus
on leveled ground, maintaining their swagger as always.
The hour for dining was close: sheep-flocks from all sides
170
came from the fields with guides who’d led them before this.
♦ So Medon spoke to the suitors—of all the heralds
they liked him most—he was always there when they feasted:
“Young men with all your hearts enjoying the games here,
come to the palace now and get ready for dinner.
It’s never wrong to take good food at the right time.”
He stopped and they all stood up to follow the man’s words.
Soon as they entered the house where people had lived well,
they set their mantles down on chairs or on high thrones.
Helpers slaughtered goats and sheep, fatted and full-grown.
180
They cut down huge hogs and a bull from the herder,
preparing the banquet.
Leaving the Pig-Farm
Meanwhile Odysseus hurried
to go with the godlike swineherd from country to city.
A leader of men, the swineherd started to tell him,
“My guest, you’re plainly anxious to walk to the city
today as my master told us. Yet I would rather
leave you here on the farm right now as my watchman.
I might be ashamed and afraid though: the master could scold me
later and strong reproofs from a master are jarring.
Come on now, let’s be gone. Much of the daylight’s
190
passed and shortly at dusk I’m sure you’ll be colder.”
The Looks of a Beggar
Full of designs, Odysseus answered by saying,
“I know you and mind you: the man you charge understands you.
Let’s get going. You be our leader the whole way.
But loan me a walking stick if you happened to trim one—
I’d like it to lean on. You talked about slippery footpaths.”
He stopped and tossed his wretched knapsack over a shoulder.
His bag was dotted with holes; its strap was a plain rope.
Eumaios gave him a good stick, suiting his spirits.
The two set out, the dogs and herders remaining
200
behind to guard the pens. So a king, led to his city,
looked like an old man, the sorriest pauper
propped on a stick, his body covered with bad clothes.
The Fountain
After walking the rocky trails and approaching
♦ the city slowly, they came to the pretty flow of a well-built
fountain where people came to draw their water.
Made by Ithakos, Neritos once and Poluktor,
it stood by a grove of poplars that thrived on its water.
The trees were all around it; cool streams were a cascade
down from the rocks. An altar had risen above them
210
to Nymphs and every wayfarer gave them a present.
Taunts from a Goat-Herder
Melantheus, son of Dolios, met them while driving
his goats along, the best in all of his own herds—
food for the suitors. A pair of herders had joined him.
He saw the others and called out, starting to taunt them,
the meanest words rousing the heart of Odysseus:
“It’s all so true now—the ugly leading the ugly!
God brings like to like—always the same thing.
Niggardly pig-man, where are you taking your fat pig,
that bothersome pauper, the kind that licks off a meal-plate?
220
He’ll stand and scratch a shoulder on plenty of doorposts
whining for scraps—never for cauldrons or weapons!
Loan me the man: I’ll make him watch at my stock-pens,
scour them out and haul green shoots to the kids there.
He’ll drink up whey and build his legs into big thighs.
Or maybe he’s learned cheap tricks and he won’t be willing
to do real work. He’d rather hide in the country,
moping and begging for feed for his ravening belly.
I’ll tell you this much though, be sure it will happen:
if ever the man’s in godlike Odysseus’s household,
230
lots of stools will be thrown at his head by the suitors.
They’ll smack his ribs and wear him down in the palace.”
Whether to Kill or to Pray
He spoke that way and crazily kicked at the beggar’s
hip as he passed by. He failed to knock him aside there:
Odysseus kept on steadily, pondering whether
to leap on the man and take his life with a staff-blow
or hoist him high and smash his head on the hard ground.
Instead he bore up, keeping the kick in mind. But the swineherd
glared and scolded the man, raising his hands into prayer.
“Fountain Nymphs, you daughters of Zeus, if Odysseus ever
240
burned his goats and lambs for you, wrapping the thigh-parts
richly in fat: help my prayer to become real,
let the man come home, led by some Power!
Then he would scatter, Melantheus, all of your smugly
put-on glory now. You’re always insulting and roaming
the city while bad herdsmen ruin your livestock.”
More Insults
Melantheus answered him promptly, a driver of goat-flocks:
“Look at this, dogs that talk! His mind is too noisome.
I’ll take him aboard some ship, a black one that’s well-benched.
Far from Ithaka later he’ll bring me a full price.
250
If only Telemakhos died right now in the great hall,
struck by Apollo’s silver bow or killed by the suitors
the way Odysseus’s day of return is dead in some far land!”
He stopped and left them there as they walked on slowly.
On to the Palace
He went off briskly himself to the house of his ruler.
He strolled inside and sat at once among suitors
across from Eurumakhos, liking him most of the men there.
Servers placed a portion of goat-meat before him.
An honored housekeeper brought him bread and arranged it
for eating.
Odysseus, led by the godlike swineherd,
260
approached and stopped. Around them chords from a hollow
lyre came closer: the poet Phemios struck them
and sang inside. Odysseus took the swineherd’s hand and told him,
“Eumaios, truly the beautiful house of Odysseus!
Readily known from all those houses around it,
this part flowing from that part, the courtyard a build-up
of wall and coping, the gates well-paired at the entrance
and carefully worked: no man alive could dispra
ise it.
How and When to Go In?
“Plenty of men, I know, are settled for dinner
inside where meat-smells rise and the sounds of a calling
270
lyre which Gods have made the friend of a good feast.”
Then Eumaios the swineherd, you answered by saying,
“You easily know all that—you’re never unknowing!
Come on though, let’s consider how we can work this.
Will you go first in that house where people have lived well
and mingle with suitors while I remain on the outside?
Or stay out here if you like and I will enter.
You should not linger though—someone may spot you,
punch you or throw things. Mull all that, I would tell you.”
Long-suffering, godlike Odysseus answered,
280
“I know you and mind you: the man you charge understands you.
Go in before me. I’ll stay back here on the outside.
Thrashings are not unknown to me, nor is a pelting:
my heart holds up. I’ve gone through plenty of hardship
at sea and in war. This pain can be added to those pains.
Besides, no one can hide the squeeze of his belly,
a curse that hands out plenty of evil to mankind.
Because of hunger our strong-planked vessels are well-rigged
for tireless seas and bringing their enemies great harm.”
A Very Old Dog
Now as the two men spoke that way with each other,
290
♦ a dog lying nearby raised his head and his two ears.
Steadfast Odysseus once had raised him, this Argos,
but never much enjoyed him, sailing before then
for holy Troy. Young men in the past had taken
the dog hunting for deer, rabbits and wild goats.
But then he lay there scorned when his master had left home,
close to some piles of dung not far from the doorway—
oxen and mule droppings that slaves of Odysseus
would haul off soon to manure stretches of farmland.
So Argos lay there, ticks all over his body,
300
until he suddenly sensed Odysseus close by,
started wagging his tail and dropping his two ears.
Ah but he could not move close to his master.
Odysseus looked aside, wiping a tear off,
hiding it deftly and briefly asking Eumaios,
“Very strange, Eumaios—a dog lying by dung-heaps?
His frame looks good but I’m not sure of his racing,
whether his quickness afoot matches his good looks.
Or maybe he’s only a dog like those at a table,
cared for mainly as handsome show for their masters.”
310
Bygone Speed and Power
Then Eumaios the swineherd, you answered by saying,
“This dog in fact belonged to a man who is now dead
far away. If his flair and frame were now as they once were
the day Odysseus went to Troy, leaving the dog here,
you’d soon be amazed at the sight of his quickness and power.
No game he flushed in the thickest depths of the forest
ever escaped him. How skilled he was as a tracker!
But now he’s wretched. His master is far from his fathers’
land and dead. The women around here are careless
the way that slaves, soon as their master no longer
320
rules them, no longer want to work in the right way.
So Zeus watching from far off takes half of a good man’s
worth as soon as the day of slavery grasps him.”
He stopped and entered the house where people had lived well,
going straight to the hall and the high-born suitors.
But Argos blackened in death, seized by a grim lot
now in the twentieth year when he spotted Odysseus.
Poor Men in the Great Hall
By far the first to notice the swineherd had entered
the house was godlike Telemakhos, hastily nodding
to call him closer. Eumaios, looking around him,
330
took a nearby stool the carver had sat on while slicing
lots of meat for suitors who ate in the household.
He carried the stool to a place by Telemakhos’s table
and sat across from him there. A herald who’d taken
a share of meat laid it before him with bread from a basket.
Not long after, Odysseus walked in his own house.
He looked like an old man, the wretchedest pauper
propped on a stick with shabby clothes on his body.
He sat inside the door on its threshold of ash-wood
and leaned on the cypress doorpost, formerly worked on
340
well by a carpenter, smoothed and straight to a string-line.
Telemakhos called the swineherd closer and told him,
after taking a large loaf from the beautiful basket