by Homer
chair and the sons of Dolios welcomed famous
Odysseus, taking his hands and talking the same way.
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Then they took their seats by Dolios, their father.
They all busied themselves with food in the big room.
Mounting Pain and Anger
But Rumor, the Messenger, raced through all of the city
with news of a hateful doom, the deaths of the suitors.
Soon as they heard, people gathered from all sides
moaning and crying in front of Odysseus’s palace.
They hauled the dead from his house and buried the bodies.
Corpses from other towns were sent to their own homes,
laid on fast-running ships to be ferried by sailors.
Then they thronged the assembly place with their anguished
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hearts. After they’d all gathered, crowding together,
the man who stood up first to speak was Eupeithes.
A boundless grief lay on his heart for his dear son
Antinoos, struck down first by godlike Odysseus.
He wept for him now as he spoke to the gathering saying,
“My friends, what great crimes this man has aimed at Akhaians!
He led off plenty of brave men to Troy on his black ships,
♦ then lost the hollow ships and lost the last of the good men.
Now he’s come home and killed the best Kephallenians.
Come on then, before he sails in a hurry for Pulos
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or God-bright Elis, where people are ruled by Epeians,
let’s go or plainly appear shameful forever.
Such disgace will be known by men in the future
unless we punish those who slaughtered our brothers
and sons. Life would bring no joy to my own breast.
I’d sooner die, go among those who are rotting.
Instead let’s move, or they’ll cross the sea and outrun us.”
Better Counsel
He’d spoken in tears, pity grasping all the Akhaians,
but Medon came to them now and the God-gifted singer—
sleep had let them go from Odysseus’s great hall.
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They stood in the center, surprise fastened on each man
as Medon spoke to the crowd like a sensible person.
“Listen, you men of Ithaka! Surely Odysseus
planned no work that countered the will of the deathless
Gods for I saw an ambrosial God myself with Odysseus,
standing close by. Strongly resembling Mentor,
surely a deathless God was in front of Odysseus,
often rousing the man and rushing the great hall
at times to panic the suitors, who fell on each other.”
Stinging Reproaches
He spoke that way, they all were gripped by a dull green
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fear and a war-chief spoke up next. Old Halitherses,
the son of Mastor, had often seen behind and before them—
this man only. He meant well as he told the assembly,
“Listen now, you Ithakans, here’s what I tell you.
This work was born, my friends, of wrongs by yourselves here.
You never obeyed me or Mentor, a shepherd of people,
or made your sons put an end to their madness,
their own great crimes. They acted reckless and vicious,
wasting the man’s wealth and badly treating his woman,
a ruler’s wife. They thought he’d never return home.
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So let things stay. Do as I tell you and don’t move
now or someone may draw down harm by his own hand.”
Another War
He spoke that way but more than half of them jumped up,
shouting him down. The rest who stayed in their places
loathed his talk in their hearts. Obeying Eupeithes,
many were suddenly dashing off for their weapons.
Soon as the gleaming bronze covered their bodies
they all crammed in a broad space in front of the city.
Eupeithes promptly led them away in his folly.
He thought to avenge the death of his son but he’d never
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come back home himself. He’d go to his own doom.
Help from the Gods
♦ Now Athene spoke to Zeus, the son of Kronos.
“Our Father, son of Kronos, highest of rulers,
Tell me, I ask, what thoughts are hiding inside you.
Would you arouse more war, pain and the fearsome
noise of battle? Or set down friendship on both sides?”
Stormcloud-gathering Zeus answered by saying,
“Why do you ask me, my child? What are these questions?
Wasn’t it you in fact who planned in your own mind
the way Odysseus truly would come for his vengeance?
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Do as you like. But I’ll tell you a way that is likely.
Now that godlike Odysseus has punished the suitors,
men should strongly swear he will rule there always.
Let’s you and I make them forget about killings
of sons and brothers. Then they’ll care for each other
just as before. Let peace and plenty be ample.”
His talk encouraged Athene, anxious already
to leap out swiftly and down from the heights of Olumpos.
The Threat of Battle
The longing for honey-minded food in the farmhouse had ended.
Long-suffering, godlike Odysseus spoke first.
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“Let someone go out and see if men are approaching.”
A son of Dolios went out the way he was ordered.
He stood on the threshold, saw a crowd as it came on
and told Odysseus—words with a feathery swiftness—
“They’re coming closer, let’s arm ourselves in a hurry.”
He stopped and they all stood up to put on their armor:
the six who were sons of Dolios, Odysseus’s three men,
Dolios too and Laertes donning their armor,
gray as they were, old men forced to be fighters.
Soon as the gleaming bronze covered their bodies,
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they opened the doors and left with Odysseus out front.
A Family Fighting Side by Side
Athene, the daughter of Zeus, came to them close by,
both in her voice and body looking like Mentor.
Long-suffering, godlike Odysseus, glad to have seen her,
spoke to his own dear son Telemakhos quickly:
“Learn this much, Telemakhos, now that you’ve entered
a battle yourself that chooses the bravest of fighters,
not to shame the line of your Fathers who’ve outdone
all of the earth’s men before in prowess and courage.”
Telemakhos promptly gave him a sensible answer.
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“Watch if you like, dear Father: mine is a spirit
that won’t disgrace your bloodline the way you describe it.”
And soon as he’d spoken Laertes joyfully called out:
“Dear Gods, how this day is making me happy—
my son and grandson rival each other in prowess!”
The First Throw
Glow-eyed Athene stood up close to him saying,
“Son of Arkeisios, dearer by far than of all my war-friends,
pray to our Father Zeus and his glow-eyed daughter
then swiftly poise your long-shafted weapon and throw it.”
♦ Pallas Athene paused and breathed in him great strength.
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Having prayed to the Goddess, the daughter of great Zeus,
he poised the long-shadowing spear and he threw it,
striking Eupeithes. The bronze cheek of his helmet
failed to stop i
t, the brazen weapon was right through,
the man fell down heavily, armor rattling around him.
Fierce but Short Fighting
The well-known son and Odysseus drove at their front lines,
stabbing men with two-edged spears or a sword-thrust.
They soon would have killed them all and stopped their return home
had not Athene, the daughter of Zeus who carries the great shield,
called out loudly and held back all of the people:
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“End this battle, Ithakans! War is too grueling.
Without more bloodshed now you should part in a hurry.”
Athene had spoken: they all were gripped by a dull green
fear and weapons flew from their panicky fingers,
falling to earth in heaps when the Goddess had called out.
They turned and ran to the city, longing for more life.
When long-suffering, godlike Odysseus cried out
savagely and swooped on them fast as a high-diving eagle,
the son of Kronos hurled sulphurous lightning
that fell close to the glow-eyed child of that powerful Father.
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Glow-eyed Athene told Odysseus promptly,
“Son of Laertes, nourished by Zeus, wily Odysseus,
stop now. End this war involving your whole land.
Don’t anger Zeus, the son of Kronos, watching from far off.”
A Long Peace Willed by the Gods
When Athene spoke he obeyed, heartily glad to.
So she made peace, a lasting agreement on both sides—
Pallas Athene, daughter of Zeus who carries the great shield,
both in her voice and body looking like Mentor.
Notes
Richard P. Martin
1.1 The man. Like other epics, the Odyssey starts with the poet identifying his theme in the very first word of the composition—here “man” (andra). The epithet polutropos (literally, “of many turnings”) is translated as “resourceful,” but its sense carries over into the phrase “wandering widely” since Odysseus is marked by both his mental twists and turns (his cunning) and the physical battering to which he has been subjected, to and fro across many seas. The hero’s intelligence wins out; recklessness and transgression—like that of Odysseus’s unfortunate crew—lead to destruction.
1.1 my Muse. Daughters of Zeus and Memory (Mnêmosunê)—and patron goddesses of poetry, dance, and music (which owes them its name)—the Muses were regularly addressed at the start of ancient Greek compositions. As eternal divinities, they were thought to have witnessed all the events of the past, and therefore a poet could ask them for accurate information, almost as if accessing a database, but subject to the wish of the Muse for the exact entry-point to the past (see line 10: “start in your own place”). At the beginning of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, a single goddess is invoked. Elsewhere in Homer, they are sometimes addressed as a group (as in Il. 2.484), but all nine are named, within early Greek poetry, only in Hesiod’s Theogony, a poem roughly contemporary with the Odyssey. In that miniature epic, telling of Zeus’s rise to power, the poet depicts himself as literally inspired (“breathed into”) by the Muses and told to sing of the origins of the gods. The assignment of genres to the care of an individual Muse (tragedy to Melpomene, lyric poetry to Erato, history to Clio, etc.) was a later ancient invention. It is difficult to tell to what extent the invocation of the Muse was a performer’s fiction—a way of asserting a privileged status and relation to the gods—or a belief deeply held by poets and their audiences. In any event, the convention became standard in later Classical epics and imitations of them.
1.24 some where the God Huperion sets. The motif of like groups or places being located at the world’s extremes is common in myths worldwide. The phenomenon is referred to as coincidentia oppositorum (“coming together of opposites”) and is common in the Odyssey, where it is reinforced by the archaic Greek geographical belief that the world was disc-shaped and surrounded by a cosmic river, Okeanos. The Greek word Aithiops, which gives us “Ethiopians,” means “fiery-faced.” Apparently it refers to peoples of North Africa, whose darker complexion was explained as the result of their living in regions closer to the sun.
1.30 Orestes had killed him. The tale of the family of Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks against Troy, forms a constant counterpoint in the Odyssey to that of Odysseus and his family. Agamemnon’s position as king of the richest realm naturally placed him at the head of the expedition; also, it was his brother Menelaos’s wife, Helen, who had been seduced and led off by the Trojan prince Paris. According to a story not mentioned in Homer, but looming large in later tragic drama, Agamemnon’s own wife, Klutaimnestre, took the lead in murdering him after his triumphal return from Troy. In the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus (458 B.C.), she justifies her act as compensation for the loss of their daughter, Iphigeneia, slain by Agamemnon as an offering to Artemis when that goddess caused the departing Greek fleet to be delayed at Aulis. In the Odyssey, Klutaimnestre is a sort of anti-Penelopeia, the image of a faithless wife. But her adulterous lover Aigisthos (Agamemnon’s first cousin) is given more of the credit for planning the death of the king. The mention of Orestes, the king’s avenging son, will be repeated twice in the early part of the poem (1.298–300 and 3.197–200), when Telemakhos, son of Odysseus, is urged by his elders to make a name for himself. Of course, the analogy has a flaw: the suitors of Penelopeia have not been successful, like Aigisthos, in winning over the queen’s affection; Odysseus has not been proven dead; and Telemakhos has no clear basis for revenge. His dawning realization of his unique situation will mark the growth of the young son of Odysseus.
1.91 the suitors. Athene casually introduces the suitors into the narrative, as if the audience has already heard about them, although this is the first reference in the poem. Such details make us aware that Homeric poetry was performed for listeners deeply imbued with poetic traditions of all types, who had heard many versions of any given tale. They also well illustrate the allusive and strategic art of the poet. Information is relayed by degrees, usually by the characters themselves, and usually only when it makes an effective rhetorical point. Only gradually will we learn that there are 108 suitors, from Ithaka and surrounding islands; that they have forced the employees of Odysseus’s household, from court bard to serving maids, to do their will; and that they were deceived for three years by Penelopeia’s ruse of unweaving nightly the handiwork she told them she must finish before she could remarry. The characters of two in particular (Eurumakhos and Antinoos) will be sketched more fully, while the mass of suitors remains largely anonymous.