The Iliad and the Odyssey (Classics of World Literature)

by Homer

  Two two-leav’d gates, the one of ivory,

  The other horn. Those dreams that Fantasy

  Takes from the polish’d ivory port, delude

  The dreamer ever, and no truth include;

  Those that the glittering horn-gate lets abroad,

  Do evermore some certain truth abode.

  But this my dream I hold of no such sort

  To fly from thence; yet, whichsoever port

  It had access from, it did highly please

  My son and me. And this my thoughts profess:

  That day that lights me from Ulysses’ court

  Shall both my infamy and curse consort.

  I therefore purpose to propose them now,

  In strong contention, Ulysses his bow;

  Which he that easily draws, and from his draft

  Shoots through twelve axes (as he did his shaft,

  All set up in a row, and from them all

  His stand-far-off kept firm), my fortunes shall

  Dispose, and take me to his house from hence,

  Where I was wed a maid, in confluence

  Of feast and riches; such a court here then

  As I shall ever in my dreams retain.’

  ‘Do not,’ said he, ‘defer the gameful prize,

  But set to task their importunities

  With something else than nuptials; for your lord

  Will to his court and kingdom be restor’d

  Before they thread those steels, or draw his bow.’

  ‘O guest,’ replied Penelope, ‘would you

  Thus sit and please me with your speech, mine ears

  Would never let mine eyelids close their spheres!

  But none can live without the death of sleep.

  Th’ immortals in our mortal memories keep

  Our ends and deaths by sleep, dividing so,

  As by the fate and portion of our woe,

  Our times spent here, to let us nightly try

  That while we live, as much live as we die.

  In which use I will to my bed ascend,

  Which I bedew with tears, and sigh past end

  Through all my hours spent, since I lost my joy

  For vile, lewd, never-to-be-named Troy.

  Yet there I’ll prove for sleep, which take you here,

  Or on the earth, if that your custom were,

  Or have a bed dispos’d for warmer rest.’

  Thus left she with her ladies her old guest,

  Ascended her fair chamber, and her bed,

  Whose sight did ever duly make her shed

  Tears for her lord; which still her eyes did steep,

  Till Pallas shut them with delightsome sleep.

  The end of the nineteenth book

  Book 20

  The Argument

  Ulysses, in the wooers’ beds

  Resolving first to kill the maids,

  That sentence giving off, his care

  For other objects doth prepare.

  Another Argument

  Psi

  Jove’s thunder chides,

  But cheers the king,

  The wooers’ prides

  Discomfiting.

  Book 20

  Ulysses in the entry laid his head,

  And under him an oxhide newly flay’d,

  Above him sheep fells store; and over those

  Eurynome cast mantles. His repose

  Would bring no sleep yet, studying the ill

  He wish’d the wooers; who came by him still

  With all their wenches, laughing, wantoning,

  In mutual lightness; which his heart did sting,

  Contending two ways: if, all patience fled,

  He should rush up and strike those strumpets dead,

  Or let that night be last, and take th’ extreme

  Of those proud wooers, that were so supreme

  In pleasure of their high-fed fantasies.

  His heart did bark within him to surprise

  Their sports with spoils; no fell she-mastiff can,

  Amongst her whelps, fly eag’rer on a man

  She doth not know, yet scents him something near,

  And fain would come to please her tooth, and tear,

  Than his disdain, to see his roof so fil’d

  With those foul fashions, grew within him wild

  To be in blood of them. But, finding best

  In his free judgment to let passion rest,

  He chid his angry spirit, and beat his breast,

  And said: ‘Forbear, my mind, and think on this:

  There hath been time when bitter agonies

  Have tried thy patience. Call to mind the day

  In which the Cyclop, which pass’d manly sway

  Of violent strength, devour’d thy friends; thou then

  Stood’st firmly bold, till from that hellish den

  Thy wisdom brought thee off, when nought but death

  Thy thoughts resolved on.’ This discourse did breathe

  The fiery boundings of his heart, that still

  Lay in that aesture, without end his ill

  Yet manly suff’ring. But from side to side

  It made him toss apace. You have not tried

  A fellow roasting of a pig before

  A hasty fire, his belly yielding store

  Of fat and blood, turn faster, labour more

  To have it roast, and would not have it burn,

  Than this and that way his unrest made turn

  His thoughts and body, would not quench the fire,

  And yet not have it heighten his desire

  Past his discretion, and the fit enough

  Of haste and speed, that went to all the proof

  His well-laid plots and his exploits requir’d,

  Since he, but one, to all their deaths aspir’d.

  In this contention Pallas stoop’d from heav’n,

  Stood over him, and had her presence giv’n

  A woman’s form, who sternly thus began:

  ‘Why, thou most sour and wretched-fated man

  Of all that breathe, yet liest thou thus awake?

  The house in which thy cares so toss and take

  Thy quiet up is thine; thy wife is there

  And such a son, as if thy wishes were

  To be suffic’d with one they could not mend.’

  ‘Goddess,’ said he, ‘tis true; but I contend

  To right their wrongs, and, though I be but one,

  To lay unhelp’d and wreakful hand upon

  This whole resort of impudents, that here

  Their rude assemblies never will forbear.

  And yet a greater doubt employs my care,

  That if their slaughters in my reaches are,

  And I perform them, Jove and you not pleas’d,

  How shall I fly their friends? And would stand seis’d

  Of counsel to resolve this care in me.’

  ‘Wretch,’ she replied, ‘a friend of worse degree

  Might win thy credence, that a mortal were,

  And us’d to second thee, though nothing near

  So pow’rful in performance nor in care;

  Yet I, a goddess, that have still had share

  In thy achievements, and thy person’s guard,

  Must still be doubted by thy brain, so hard

  To credit anything above thy pow’r –

  And that must come from heav’n – if every hour

  There be not personal appearance made,

  And aid direct giv’n,
that may sense invade.

  I’ll tell thee, therefore, clearly: if there were

  Of divers-languag’d men an army here

  Of fifty companies, all driving hence

  Thy sheep and oxen, and with violence

  Offer’d to charge us, and besiege us round,

  Thou shouldst their prey reprise, and them confound.

  Let sleep then seize thee. To keep watch all night

  Consumes the spirits, and makes dull the sight.’

  Thus pour’d the goddess sleep into his eyes,

  And reascended the Olympian skies.

  When care-and-lineament-resolving sleep

  Had laid his temples in his golden steep,

  His wise-in-chaste-wit-worthy wife did rise,

  First sitting up in her soft bed, her eyes

  Open’d with tears, in care of her estate,

  Which now her friends resolv’d to terminate

  To more delays, and make her marry one.

  Her silent tears then ceas’d, her orison

  This queen of women to Diana made:

  ‘Rev’rend Diana, let thy darts invade

  My woeful bosom, and my life deprive,

  Now at this instant, or soon after drive

  My soul with tempests forth, and give it way

  To those far-off dark vaults, where never day

  Hath pow’r to shine, and let them cast it down

  Where refluent Oceanus doth crown

  His curled head, where Pluto’s orchard is,

  And entrance to our after miseries.

  As such stern whirlwinds ravish’d to that stream

  Pandareus’ daughters, when the gods to them

  Had reft their parents, and them left alone,

  Poor orphan children, in their mansion;

  Whose desolate life did love’s sweet queen incline

  To nurse with pressed milk and sweetest wine;

  Whom Juno deck’d beyond all other dames

  With wisdom’s light, and beauty’s moving flames;

  Whom Phoebe goodliness of stature render’d;

  And to whose fair hands wise Minerva tender’d

  The loom and needle in their utmost skill;

  And while love’s empress scaled th’ Olympian hill

  To beg of lightning-loving Jove (since he

  The means to all things knows, and doth decree

  Fortunes, infortunes, to the mortal race)

  For those poor virgins, the accomplish’d grace

  Of sweetest nuptials, the fierce Harpies prey’d

  On every good and miserable maid,

  And to the hateful Furies gave them all

  In horrid service: yet may such fate fall

  From steep Olympus on my loathed head,

  Or fair-chair’d Phoebe strike me instant dead,

  That I may undergo the gloomy shore

  To visit great Ulysses’ soul, before

  I soothe my idle blood and wed a worse.

  And yet, beneath how desperate a curse

  Do I live now! It is an ill that may

  Be well endur’d, to mourn the whole long day,

  So night’s sweet sleeps, that make a man forget

  Both bad and good, in some degree would let

  My thoughts leave grieving; but, both day and night,

  Some cruel god gives my sad memory sight.

  This night, methought, Ulysses grac’d my bed

  In all the goodly state with which he led

  The Grecian army; which gave joys extreme

  To my distress, esteeming it no dream,

  But true indeed; and that conceit I had,

  That when I saw it false I might be mad,

  Such cruel fates command in my life’s guide.’

  By this the morning’s orient dews had dyed

  The earth in all her colours; when the king,

  In his sweet sleep, suppos’d the sorrowing

  That she us’d waking in her plaintive bed

  To be her mourning, standing by his head,

  As having known him there; who straight arose,

  And did again within the hall dispose

  The carpets and the cushions, where before

  They served the seats. The hide without the door

  He carried back, and then, with held-up hands,

  He pray’d to him that heav’n and earth commands:

  ‘O father Jove, if through the moist and dry

  You, willing, brought me home, when misery

  Had punish’d me enough by your free dooms,

  Let some of these within those inner rooms,

  Startled with horror of some strange ostent,

  Come here, and tell me that great Jove hath bent

  Threat’nings without at some lewd men within.’

  To this his pray’r Jove shook his sable chin,

  And thunder’d from those pure clouds that, above

  The breathing air, in bright Olympus move.

  Divine Ulysses joy’d to hear it roar.

  Report of which a woman miller bore

  Straight to his ears; for near to him there ground

  Mills for his corn, that twice six women found

  Continual motion, grinding barley meal,

  And wheat, man’s marrow. Sleep the eyes did seal

  Of all the other women, having done

  Their usual task; which yet this dame alone

  Had scarce given end to, being, of all the rest,

  Least fit for labour. But when these sounds press’d

  Her ears, above the rumbling of her mill,

  She let that stand, look’d out, and heav’n’s steep hill

  Saw clear and temperate; which made her (unware

  Of giving any comfort to his care

  In that strange sign he pray’d for) thus invoke:

  ‘O king of men and gods, a mighty stroke

  Thy thund’ring hand laid on the cope of stars,

  No cloud in all the air; and therefore wars

  Thou bidst to some men in thy sure ostent!

  Perform to me, poor wretch, the main event,

  And make this day the last, and most extreme,

  In which the wooers’ pride shall solace them

  With whorish banquets in Ulysses’ roof,

  That, with sad toil to grind them meal enough,

  Have quite dissolv’d my knees. Vouchsafe, then, now

  Thy thunders may their latest feast foreshow.’

  This was the boon Ulysses begg’d of Jove,

  Which, with his thunder, through his bosom drove

  A joy, that this vaunt breath’d: ‘Why now these men,

  Despite their pride, will Jove make pay me pain.’

  By this had other maids than those that lay

  Mix’d with the wooers, made a fire like day

  Amidst the hearth of the illustrious hall;

  And then the prince, like a celestial,

  Rose from his bed, to his embalm’d feet tied

  Fair shoes, his sword about his breast applied,

  Took to his hand his sharp-pil’d lance, and met,

  Amidst the entry, his old nurse, that set

  His haste at sudden stand; to whom he said:

  ‘O, my lov’d nurse, with what grace have you laid

  And fed my guest here? Could you so neglect

  His age, to lodge him thus? Though all respect

  I give my mother’s wisdom, I must yet

  Affirm it fail’d in this; for she hath set

&
nbsp; At much more price a man of much less worth,

  Without his person’s note, and yet casts forth

  With ignominious hands, for his form sake,

  A man much better.’ ‘Do not faulty make,

  Good son, the faultless. He was giv’n his seat

  Close to her side, and food till he would eat,

  Wine till his wish was serv’d; for she requir’d

  His wants, and will’d him all things he desir’d;

  Commanded her chief maids to make his bed,

  But he, as one whom sorrow only fed

  And all infortune, would not take his rest

  In bed, and coverings fit for any guest,

  But in the entry, on an ox’s hide

  Never at tanner’s, his old limbs implied

  In warm sheep-fells; yet over all we cast

  A mantle, fitting for a man more grac’d.’

  He took her answer, left the house, and went,

  Attended with his dogs, to sift th’ event

  Of private plots, betwixt him and his sire

  In common counsel. Then the crew entire

  Of all the household maids Euryclea bad

  Bestir them through the house, and see it clad

  In all best form; gave all their parts; and one

  She set to furnish every seat and throne

  With needleworks, and purple clothes of state;

  Another set to scour and cleanse the plate;

  Another all the tables to make proud

  With porous sponges; others she bestow’d

  In all speed to the spring, to fetch from thence

  Fit store of water; all at all expense

  Of pains she will’d to be, for this to all

  Should be a day of common festival,

  And not a wooer now should seek his home

  Elsewhere than there, but all were bid to come

  Exceeding early, and be raised to heav’n

  With all the entertainment could be giv’n.

  They heard with greedy ears, and everything

  Put straight in practice. Twenty to the spring

  Made speed for water; many in the house

  Took pains; and all were both laborious

  And skill’d in labour; many fell to fell

  And cleave their wood; and all did more than well.

  Then troop’d the lusty wooers in, and then

  Came all from spring; at their heels loaded men

  With slaughter’d brawns, of all the herd the prize,

  That had been long fed up in several sties;

  Eumaeus and his men convey’d them there.

  He, seeing now the king, began to cheer,