The <I>Odyssey</I>
Page 58
and driving closer, the boar rushed out of his thicket,
nape-hair bristling and fire glinting in both eyes.
He stood at bay, quite close, and Odysseus charged him,
briskly hoisting the lengthy spear in his thick-set
hand and hot for a thrust. But the boar was ahead of him, slashing
above the knee, his tusk with a long rip at the flesh there,
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a sidelong tear, though it fell short of the man’s bone.
♦ Odysseus caught him too, driving the glowing
spearhead straight at the right shoulder and through it.
The boar squealed and fell in the dust and its spirit
flew off. Autolukos’s well-loved sons were around him,
anxious to bind the wound of handsome, godlike Odysseus.
They carefully staunched the blackish blood as they sang out
prayers then shortly left for the house of their father.
Healing and Homecoming
In time Autolukos healed him, helped by his children.
They made him well and gave him outstanding presents.
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They sent him gladly and swiftly back to his fathers’
land on Ithaka. There his honored mother and father
rejoiced at his homecoming day and asked about each thing,
how he’d suffered the wound. He told them the story
well of the boar’s white tusk that slashed him while hunting
with sons of Autolukos after he’d gone up Parnesos.
The Truth Is Out
The old woman remembered the scar when she felt it
now with the flat of her hand. The leg she had lifted
fell from her grasp to the bronze basin that clattered,
tipped over and puddled the floor with its water.
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Joy and sorrow seized her heart at the same time,
her eyes welled with tears and her voice was caught in
her throat as she touched the chin of Odysseus saying,
“Dear child, you’re truly Odysseus! Yet I was not sure
before I handled more of my master’s body.”
A Killing Threat
She spoke that way, her eyes going to Penelopeia—
she wanted to show her well-loved husband was right here!
The lady though could not face her or know him:
♦ Athene had shifted her thoughts. Meanwhile Odysseus
felt for the old one’s throat, he clasped it with one hand,
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pulled her close with the other and threatened her saying,
“Good aunt, why would you kill me? You nursed me yourself once
there at your breast. Now with all of my great pain
I’m back in the twentieth year to the land of my Fathers.
What you know was thrust in your heart by some Power.
Still don’t talk. No one else must know in the great hall.
I’ll say this too, I’ll tell you how it will end here:
if Gods bring down the high-born suitors beneath me,
I won’t spare you, my own nurse, when I slaughter
the other women, the rest of the maids in my great hall.”
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Hard as Iron
But thoughtful Eurukleia answered by saying,
“My child, what talk gets over the wall of your front teeth!
You know how steady I am, how strong and unbending.
I’ll surely hold out hard as granite or iron.
And I’ll say this—thrust in your mind what I tell you—
if Gods bring down the high-born suitors beneath you,
I’ll tell you about these women, your maids in the great hall,
those who dishonor you here and those who are blameless.”
And answer came from Odysseus, full of his own plans.
“Good aunt, why name them? No, there is no need.
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I’ll watch them closely myself—I’ll know about each one.
Just keep my story quiet and trust in the high Gods.”
He spoke that way and the old one went through the great hall
to get more foot-wash—all the other had spilled out.
After she washed him well and rubbed him with rich oil,
Odysseus pulled his chair again to the hearth-fire,
closer and warmer. He hid the scar with his tatters.
The Nightingale
Now mind-full Penelopeia started to tell him,
“My guest, I’ll ask you a small thing of my own here.
The hour for welcome rest will soon be upon us—
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for those whom honeyed sleep may hold in spite of their troubles.
But I? Some Power gave me trouble without end:
every day my only joy is in mourning and wailing.
I look to my work and my maids’ work in the household.
When night’s arrived and sleep has taken them all in
I lie in bed, sharp cares come crowding around me,
stabbing my racing heart. Saddened and troubled,
♦ I’m like Pandareos’s daughter, the nightingale singing
sharply in green forest when spring’s newly arriving,
perched among dense leaves on the bough of a high tree.
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She pours out echoing song and varies it often
bewailing her dear child Itulos, son of that ruler,
Zethos: she killed the child with a sword without knowing.
So my heart is in halves, waking this way and that way:
whether to stay with my child, keep everything safe here,
my wealth and handmaids, the huge house with its high roof,
revering my husband’s bed and the voice of our people;
or go off now with the man who’s best of the Akhaians
courting me, bringing countless gifts to the great hall.
My son was a child before, a careless youngster
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who stopped me from going, leaving the house of my husband
to marry. But now that he’s grown to a measure of manhood
in fact he prays I’ll go away from the great hall
again. He frets for his goods, devoured by Akhaians.
Twenty Geese and an Eagle
♦ “Come on though, hear out a dream of mine and explain it.
Twenty geese in my house have come from the water
to eat my grain. I’m warm and glad to be watching.
But then a large, hook-beaked eagle flies from the mountains
and breaks each one of their necks. They lie where he killed them,
piled in the great hall. The eagle soars to the bright sky.
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I scream myself. I cry although I am dreaming,
women in lovely Akhaian braids are around me
mourning sadly—my geese were killed by an eagle.
“The bird flew back then. He perched high on a jutting
roof-beam and spoke with a man’s voice to console me:
‘Take heart, widely renowned Ikarios’s daughter.
No idle dream, your splendid vision will end well.
The geese were your suitors. I was an eagle
before but now I’m back in this form as your husband
who’ll bring a revolting doom on all of the suitors.’
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“He spoke that way, sweet sleep let go of me promptly,
I looked around and saw the geese in my great hall,
eating grain by a trough. They’d eaten before there.”
The Suitors Will All Die
Full of designs Odysseus answered by saying,
“Lady, this is no dream to explain by a bending
this way or that way. Surely Odysseus showed you
himself the way it will end: the suitors will all die.
Not one man will avoid his doom on that death-day.”
T
wo Kinds of Dreams
But mind-full Penelopeia answered by saying,
“Dreams can be useless, my guest, and endlessly baffling.
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Surely they don’t all end for people as clear fact.
Our dreams move like shadows through either of two gates,
one of them made of horn, the other of ivory.
Those that pass through the well-sawn ivory gateway
tend to be guileful—the words they carry are empty.
Those however that pass through the gateway of polished
horn can bring you truth—when a human can see that.
My frightening dream, I think, was not from the polished
horn. How welcome to me and my child if it had been!
Axes in a Line
“But I’ll say this—thrust in your heart what I tell you—
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the dawn that’s coming is cursed, taking me far from
Odysseus’s home because I’ll set up a contest
with axes he used to arrange just so in the great hall,
twelve in a line in all, straight as the ribs of a vessel.
Standing back, he’d shoot through them all with an arrow.
I’ll set up the same contest now for the suitors.
The man who can deftly string the bow with his own hands
and shoot an arrow through all twelve of the axes
wins my hand. I’ll leave the house of my marriage,
a place of so much beauty, wealth and resources.
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I think I’ll recall it someday, even while dreaming.”
Odysseus, full of designs, answered by saying,
“Honored wife of Odysseus, son of Laertes,
don’t delay this contest now in your own house.
Odysseus, full of his plans, will arrive here before then,
well before a suitor handles the polished
bow or strings it and sends a shaft through the iron.”
Tearful Rest Again
Mind-full Penelopeia answered by saying,
“If only you chose, my guest, to remain in the hall here
delighting me! Sleep would never be strewn on my eyelids.
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But doubtless there’s no way for men to be sleepless
always: the deathless Gods have arranged for a portion
of each thing for death-bound people on grain-giving farmlands.
So now I’ll go upstairs myself to an upper
room and lie on the bed. It’s turned into sorrow,
always wet with tears from the day that Odysseus
left for Troy—Evil itself!—no one should name it.
I’ll lie up there while you lie down in the house here,
a bed on the floor. Or maids will set up a plain bed.”
Having spoken she walked upstairs to her glowing
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room and not alone: handmaids had joined her.
After she entered the upstairs room with her women,
she cried for Odysseus, the husband she loved, till the glow-eyed
Athene tossed some honeyed sleep on her eyelids.
BOOK 20 Dawn of the Death-Day
To Kill the Women
So godlike Odysseus, ready to sleep in the forehall,
spread an untanned bull’s-hide and plenty of fleeces,
the wool from sheep the Akhaian suitors had slaughtered.
Eurunome tossed a cloak on the man when he lay down.
Odysseus planned on danger there for the suitors,
lying awake. When women came from the great hall,
those who were used to going to bed with the suitors,
laughing among themselves and chatting together,
the noise they made aroused the heart in his own chest.
He thought things out in his head and heart for a while there:
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whether to rush them and cause the killing of each one,
or let them have their sex with the pride-smitten suitors
one last time. The heart grumbled inside him
♦ the way a dog will growl, standing over her tender
pups and anxious to fight with a man she does not know.
His heart growled that way. Their wrongdoing vexed him.
But shortly he struck his breast and scolded his own heart.
“Bear up, my heart. You bore an action more shameless
the day that Kuklops overpowered and gulped down
hearty war-friends. You held up then till the right plan
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brought you out of the cave—you thought you would die there.”
Help from the Goddess
He spoke that way, scolding the heart in his own chest.
His heart obeyed him well: it bore up and stayed firm.
Yet the man went on tossing this way and that way
much like a cook at a blazing fire, turning a stomach
packed with blood and fat this way and that way,
moving it fast as he can, longing to roast it.
So Odysseus tossed both ways and he wondered:
how could he get his hands on the pride-swollen suitors,