by Homer
Might so assail, that where their spirits dream
On our deaths first, we first may slaughter them!’
Thus the much-sufferer said; and all let fly,
When every man struck dead his enemy.
Ulysses slaughter’d Demoptolemus.
Euryades by young Telemachus
His death encounter’d. Good Eumaeus slew
Elatus. And Philoetius overthrew
Pisander. All which tore the paved floor
Up with their teeth. The rest retir’d before
Their second charge to inner rooms; and then
Ulysses follow’d, from the slaughter’d men
Their darts first drawing. While which work was done,
The wooers threw with huge contention
To kill them all; when with her swallow wing
Minerva cuff’d, and made their javelins ring
Against the doors and thresholds, as before.
Some yet did graze upon their marks. One tore
The prince’s wrist, which was Amphimedon,
Th’ extreme part of the skin but touch’d upon.
Ctesippus over good Eumaeus’ shield
His shoulder’s top did taint; which yet did yield
The lance free pass, and gave his hurt the ground.
Again then charged the wooers, and girt round
Ulysses with their lances; who turn’d head,
And with his javelin struck Eurydamas dead.
Telemachus dislif’d Amphimedon;
Eumaeus, Polybus; Philoetius won
Ctesippus’ bosom with his dart, and said,
In quittance of the jester’s part he play’d,
The neat’s foot hurling at Ulysses: ‘Now,
Great son of Polytherses, you that vow
Your wit to bitter taunts, and love to wound
The heart of any with a jest, so crown’d
Your wit be with a laughter, never yielding
To fools in folly, but your glory building
On putting down in fooling, spitting forth
Puff’d words at all sorts, cease to scoff at worth,
And leave revenge of vile words to the gods,
Since their wits bear the sharper edge by odds;
And, in the mean time, take the dart I drave,
For that right hospitable foot you gave
Divine Ulysses, begging but his own.’
Thus spake the black-ox-herdsman; and straight down
Ulysses struck another with his dart –
Damastor’s son. Telemachus did part,
Just in the midst, the belly of the fair
Evenor’s son, his fierce pile taking air
Out at his back. Flat fell he on his face,
His whole brows knocking, and did mark the place.
And now man-slaught’ring Pallas took in hand
Her snake-fring’d shield, and on that beam took stand
In her true form, where swallow-like she sat.
And then, in this way of the house and that,
The wooers, wounded at the heart with fear,
Fled the encounter, as, in pastures where
Fat herds of oxen feed, about the field
(As if wild madness their instincts impell’d)
The high-fed bullocks fly, whom in the spring,
When days are long, gad-bees or breezes sting.
UIysses and his son the flyers chas’d,
As when, with crooked beaks and seres, a cast
Of hill-bred eagles, cast off at some game,
That yet their strengths keep, but (put up) in flame
The eagle stoops; from which along the field
The poor fowls make wing, this and that way yield
Their hard-flown pinions, then the clouds assay
For ’scape or shelter, their forlorn dismay
All spirit exhaling, all wings’ strength to carry
Their bodies forth, and, truss’d up, to the quarry
Their falc’ners ride in, and rejoice to see
Their hawks perform a flight so fervently:
So, in their flight, Ulysses with his heir
Did stoop and cuff the wooers, that the air
Broke in vast sighs, whose heads they shot and cleft,
The pavement boiling with the souls they reft.
Liodes, running to Ulysses, took
His knees, and thus did on his name invoke:
‘Ulysses! Let me pray thee, to my place
Afford the reverence, and to me the grace,
That never did or said to any dame
Thy court contain’d, or deed or word to blame,
But others so affected I have made
Lay down their insolence; and, if the trade
They kept with wickedness have made them still
Despise my speech, and use their wonted ill,
They have their penance by the stroke of death,
Which their desert divinely warranteth.
But I am priest amongst them, and shall I,
That nought have done worth death, amongst them die?
From thee this proverb then will men derive:
Good turns do never their mere deeds survive.’
He, bending his displeased forehead, said:
‘If you be priest among them, as you plead,
Yet you would marry, and with my wife too,
And have descent by her. For all that woo
Wish to obtain – which they should never do,
Dames’ husbands living. You must therefore pray,
Of force and oft, in court here, that the day
Of my return for home might never shine;
The death to me wish’d therefore shall be thine.’
This said, he took a sword up that was cast
From Agelaus, having struck his last,
And on the priest’s mid neck he laid a stroke
That struck his head off, tumbling as he spoke.
Then did the poet Phemius (whose surname
Was call’d Terpiades, who thither came
Forced by the wooers) fly death; but being near
The court’s great gate, he stood, and parted there
In two his counsels: either to remove
And take the altar of Herceian Jove
(Made sacred to him, with a world of art
Engrav’n about it, where were wont t’ impart
Laertes and Ulysses many a thigh
Of broad-brow’d oxen to the deity),
Or venture to Ulysses, clasp his knee,
And pray his ruth. The last was the decree
His choice resolv’d on. ’Twixt the royal throne
And that fair table that the bowl stood on
With which they sacrific’d, his harp he laid
Along the earth, the king’s knees hugg’d, and said:
‘Ulysses! Let my pray’rs obtain of thee
My sacred skill’s respect, and ruth to me!
It will hereafter grieve thee to have slain
A poet, that doth sing to gods and men.
I of myself am taught, for god alone
All sorts of song hath in my bosom sown,
And I, as to a god, will sing to thee;
Then do not thou deal like the priest with me.
Thine own lov’d son Telemachus will say,
That not to beg here, nor with willing way
Was my access to thy high court address’d,
To give the wooers my song after feast,
But, being
many, and so much more strong,
They forc’d me hither, and compell’d my song.’
This did the prince’s sacred virtue hear,
And to the king, his father, said: ‘Forbear
To mix the guiltless with the guilty’s blood.
And with him likewise let our mercies save
Medon the herald, that did still behave
Himself with care of my good from a child,
If by Eumaeus yet he be not kill’d,
Or by Philoetius, nor your fury met,
While all this blood about the house it swet.’
This Medon heard, as lying hid beneath
A throne set near, half dead with fear of death;
A new-flay’d oxhide, as but there thrown by,
His serious shroud made, he lying there to fly.
But hearing this he quickly left the throne,
His oxhide cast as quickly, and as soon
The prince’s knees seiz’d, saying: ‘O my love,
I am not slain, but here alive and move.
Abstain yourself, and do not see your sire
Quench with my cold blood the unmeasur’d fire
That flames in his strength, making spoil of me,
His wrath’s right, for the wooers’ injury.’
Ulysses smiled, and said: ‘Be confident
This man hath sav’d and made thee different,
To let thee know, and say, and others see,
Good life is much more safe than villany.
Go then, sit free without from death within,
This much-renowned singer from the sin
Of these men likewise quit. Both rest you there,
While I my house purge as it fits me here.’
This said, they went and took their seat without
At Jove’s high altar, looking round about,
Expecting still their slaughter; when the king
Search’d round the hall, to try life’s hidden wing
Made from more death. But all laid prostrate there
In blood and gore he saw. Whole shoals they were,
And lay as thick as in a hollow creek
Without the white sea, when the fishers break
Their many-meshed draught-net up, there lie
Fish frisking on the sands, and fain the dry
Would for the wet change, but th’ all-seeing beam
The sun exhales hath suck’d their lives from them:
So one by other sprawl’d the wooers there.
Ulysses and his son then bid appear
The nurse Euryclea, to let her hear
His mind in something fit for her affair.
He op’d the door, and call’d, and said: ‘Repair,
Grave matron long since born, that art our spy
To all this house’s servile housewif’ry;
My father calls thee, to impart some thought
That asks thy action.’ His word found in nought
Her slack observance, who straight op’d the door
And enter’d to him, when himself before
Had left the hall. But there the king she view’d
Amongst the slain, with blood and gore imbru’d.
And as a lion skulking all in night,
Far-off in pastures, and come home, all dight
In jaws and breast-locks with an ox’s blood
New feasted on him, his looks full of mood:
So look’d Ulysses, all his hands and feet
Freckled with purple. When which sight did greet
The poor old woman (such works being for eyes
Of no soft temper) out she brake in cries,
Whose vent, though throughly open’d, he yet clos’d,
Call’d her more near, and thus her plaints compos’d:
‘Forbear, nor shriek thus, but vent joys as loud.
It is no piety to bemoan the proud,
Though ends befall them moving ne’er so much;
These are the portions of the gods to such.
Men’s own impieties in their instant act
Sustain their plagues, which are with stay but wrack’d.
But these men gods nor men had in esteem,
Nor good nor bad had any sense in them.
Their lives directly ill were, therefore, cause
That death in these stern forms so deeply draws.
Recount, then, to me those licentious dames
That lost my honour and their sex’s shames.’
‘I’ll tell you truly,’ she replied: ‘There are
Twice five-and-twenty women here that share
All work amongst them; whom I taught to spin,
And bear the just bands that they suffer’d in.
Of all which only there were twelve that gave
Themselves to impudence and light behave,
Nor me respecting, nor herself – the queen.
And for your son he hath but lately been
Of years to rule; nor would his mother bear
His empire where her women’s labours were.
But let me go and give her notice now
Of your arrival. Sure some god doth show
His hand upon her in this rest she takes,
That all these uproars bears and never wakes.’
‘Nor wake her yet,’ said he, ‘but cause to come
Those twelve light women to this outer room.’
She made all utmost haste to come and go,
And bring the women he had summon’d so.
Then both his swains and son he bade go call
The women to their aid, and clear the hall
Of those dead bodies, cleanse each board and throne
With wetted sponges. Which with fitness done,
He bade take all the strumpets ’twixt the wall
Of his first court and that room next the hall,
In which the vessel of the house were scour’d,
And in their bosoms sheath their every sword,
Till all their souls were fled, and they had then
Felt ’twas but pain to sport with lawless men.
This said, the women came all drown’d in moan,
And weeping bitterly. But first was done
The bearing thence the dead; all which beneath
The portico they stow’d, where death on death
They heap’d together. Then took all the pains
Ulysses will’d. His son yet and the swains
With paring-shovels wrought. The women bore
Their parings forth, and all the clotter’d gore.
The house then cleans’d, they brought the women out,
And put them in a room so wall’d about
That no means serv’d their sad estates to fly.
Then said Telemachus: ‘These shall not die
A death that lets out any wanton blood,
And vents the poison that gave lust her food,
The body cleansing, but a death that chokes
The breath, and altogether that provokes
And seems as bellows to abhorred lust,
That both on my head pour’d depraves unjust,
And on my mother’s, scandalling the court
With men debauch’d in so abhorr’d a sort.’
This said, a halser of a ship they cast
About a cross-beam of the roof, which fast
They made about their necks, in twelve parts cut,
And hal’d them up so high they could not put
Their feet to any stay. As which was done,
&n
bsp; Look how a mavis, or a pigeon,
In any grove caught with a springe or net,
With struggling pinions ’gainst the ground doth beat
Her tender body, and that then strait bed
Is sour to that swing in which she was bred:
So striv’d these taken birds, till every one
Her pliant halter had enforc’d upon
Her stubborn neck, and then aloft was haul’d
To wretched death. A little space they sprawl’d,
Their feet fast moving, but were quickly still.
Then fetch’d they down Melanthius, to fulfill
The equal execution; which was done
In portal of the hall, and thus begun:
They first slit both his nostrils, cropp’d each ear,
His members tugg’d off, which the dogs did tear
And chop up bleeding sweet; and, while red-hot
The vice-abhorring blood was, off they smote
His hands and feet; and there that work had end.
Then wash’d they hands and feet that blood had stain’d,
And took the house again. And then the king,
Euryclea calling, bade her quickly bring
All-ill-expelling brimstone, and some fire,
That with perfumes cast he might make entire
The house’s first integrity in all.
And then his timely will was, she should call
Her queen and ladies; still yet charging her
That all the handmaids she should first confer.
She said he spake as fitted; but, before,
She held it fit to change the weeds he wore,
And she would others bring him, that not so
His fair broad shoulders might rest clad and show
His person to his servants, was to blame.
‘First bring me fire,’ said he. She went, and came
With fire and sulphur straight; with which the hall
And of the huge house all rooms capital
He throughly sweeten’d. Then went nurse to call
The handmaid servants down; and up she went
To tell the news, and will’d them to present 630
Their service to their sov’reign. Down they came
Sustaining torches all, and pour’d a flame
Of love about their lord, with welcomes home,
With huggings of his hands, with laboursome
Both heads’ and foreheads’ kisses, and embraces,
And plied him so with all their loving graces
That tears and sighs took up his whole desire;
For now he knew their hearts to him entire.
The end of the twenty second book