The Odyssey: The Fitzgerald Translation

by Homer;Robert Fitzgerald

  ahead of him. He followed in her footsteps

  down to the seaside, where they found the ship,

  and oarsmen with flowing hair at the water’s edge.

  Telémakhos, now strong in the magic, cried:

  “Come with me, friends, and get our rations down!

  They are all packed at home, and my own mother

  knows nothing!—only one maid was told.”

  He turned and led the way, and they came after,

  carried and stowed all in the well-trimmed ship

  as the dear son of Odysseus commanded.

  Telémakhos then stepped aboard; Athena

  took her position aft, and he sat by her.

  The two stroke oars cast off the stern hawsers

  and vaulted over the gunnels to their benches.

  Grey-eyed Athena stirred them a following wind,

  soughing from the north-west on the winedark sea,

  and as he felt the wind, Telémakhos

  called to all hands to break out mast and sail.

  They pushed the fir mast high and stepped it firm

  amidships in the box, made fast the forestays,

  then hoisted up the white sail on its halyards

  until the wind caught, booming in the sail;

  and a flushing wave sang backward from the bow

  on either side, as the ship got way upon her,

  holding her steady course.

  Now they made all secure in the fast black ship,

  and, setting out the winebowls all a-brim,

  they made libation to the gods,

  the undying, the ever-new,

  most of all to the grey-eyed daughter of Zeus.

  And the prow sheared through the night into the dawn.

  BOOK III

  THE LORD OF THE WESTERN APPROACHES

  The sun rose on the flawless brimming sea

  into a sky all brazen—all one brightening

  for gods immortal and for mortal men

  on plowlands kind with grain.

  And facing sunrise

  the voyagers now lay off Pylos town,

  compact stronghold of Neleus. On the shore

  black bulls were being offered by the people

  to the blue-maned god who makes the islands tremble:

  nine congregations, each five hundred strong,

  led out nine bulls apiece to sacrifice,

  taking the tripes to eat, while on their altars

  thighbones in fat lay burning for the god.

  Here they put in, furled sail, and beached the ship;

  but Telémakhos hung back in disembarking,

  so that Athena turned and said:

  “Not the least shyness, now, Telémakhos,

  You came across the open sea for this—

  to find out where the great earth hides your father

  and what the doom was that he came upon.

  Go to old Nestor, master charioteer,

  so we may broach the storehouse of his mind.

  Ask him with courtesy, and in his wisdom

  he will tell you history and no lies.”

  But clear-headed Telémakhos replied:

  “Mentor; how can I do it, how approach him?

  I have no practice in elaborate speeches, and

  for a young man to interrogate an old man

  seems disrespectful—”

  But the grey-eyed goddess said:

  “Reason and heart will give you words, Telémakhos;

  and a spirit will counsel others. I should say

  the gods were never indifferent to your life.”

  She went on quickly, and he followed her

  to where the men of Pylos had their altars.

  Nestor appeared enthroned among his sons,

  while friends around them skewered the red beef

  or held it scorching. When they saw the strangers

  a hail went up, and all that crowd came forward

  calling out invitations to the feast.

  Peisístratos in the lead, the young prince,

  caught up their hands in his and gave them places

  on curly lambskins flat on the sea sand

  near Thrasymêdês, his brother, and his father;

  he passed them bits of the food of sacrifice,

  and, pouring wine in a golden cup,

  he said to Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus:

  “Friend, I must ask you to invoke Poseidon:

  you find us at this feast, kept in his honor.

  Make the appointed offering then, and pray,

  and give the honeyed winecup to your friend

  so he may do the same. He, too,

  must pray to the gods on whom all men depend,

  but he is just my age, you are the senior,

  so here, I give the goblet first to you.”

  And he put the cup of sweet wine in her hand.

  Athena liked his manners, and the equity

  that gave her precedence with the cup of gold,

  so she besought Poseidon at some length:

  “Earthshaker, listen and be well disposed.

  Grant your petitioners everything they ask:

  above all, honor to Nestor and his sons;

  second, to every man of Pylos town

  a fair gift in exchange for this hekatomb;

  third, may Telémakhos and I perform

  the errand on which last night we put to sea.”

  This was the prayer of Athena—

  granted in every particular by herself.

  She passed the beautiful wine cup to Telémakhos,

  who tipped the wine and prayed as she had done.

  Meanwhile the spits were taken off the fire,

  portions of crisp meat for all. They feasted,

  and when they had eaten and drunk their fill, at last

  they heard from Nestor, prince of charioteers:

  “Now is the time,” he said, “for a few questions,

  now that our young guests have enjoyed their dinner.

  Who are you, strangers? Where are you sailing from,

  and where to, down the highways of sea water?

  Have you some business here? or are you, now,

  reckless wanderers of the sea, like those corsairs

  who risk their lives to prey on other men?”

  Clear-headed Telémakhos responded cheerfully,

  for Athena gave him heart. By her design

  his quest for news about his father’s wandering

  would bring him fame in the world’s eyes. So he said:

  “Nestor, pride of Akhaians, Neleus’ son,

  you ask where we are from, and I can tell you:

  our home port is under Mount Neion, Ithaka.

  We are not here on Ithakan business, though,

  but on my own. I want news of my father,

  Odysseus, known for his great heart, and I

  will comb the wide world for it. People say

  he fought along with you when Troy was taken.

  As to the other men who fought that war,

  we know where each one died, and how he died;

  but Zeus allotted my father death and mystery.

  No one can say for sure where he was killed,

  whether some hostile landsmen or the sea,

  the stormwaves on the deep sea, got the best of him.

  And this is why I come to you for help.

  Tell me of his death, sir, if perhaps

  you witnessed it, or have heard some wanderer

  tell the tale. The man was born for trouble.

  Spare me no part of it for kindness’ sake,

  but put the scene before me as you saw it.

  If ever Odysseus my noble father

  served you by promise kept or work accomplished

  in the land of Troy, where you Akhaians suffered,

  recall those things for me the way they were.”

  Then Nestor, prince of charioteers, made answer:

 
“Dear friend, you take me back to all the trouble

  we went through in that country, we Akhaians:

  rough days aboard ship on the cloudy sea

  cruising away for pillage after Akhilleus;

  rough days of battle around Priam’s town.

  Our losses, then—so many good men gone:

  Ares’ great Aias lies there, Akhilleus lies there,

  Patróklos, too, the wondrous counselor,

  and my own strong and princely son, Antílokhos—

  fastest man of them all, and a born fighter.

  Other miseries, and many, we endured there.

  Could any mortal man tell the whole story?

  Not if you stayed five years or six to hear

  how hard it was for the flower of the Akhaians;

  you’d go home weary, and the tale untold.

  Think: we were there nine years, and we tried everything,

  all stratagems against them,

  up to the bitter end that Zeus begrudged us.

  And as to stratagems, no man would claim

  Odysseus’ gift for those. He had no rivals,

  your father, at the tricks of war.

  Your father?

  Well, I must say I marvel at the sight of you:

  your manner of speech couldn’t be more like his;

  one would say No; no boy could speak so well.

  And all that time at Ilion, he and I

  were never at odds in council or assembly—

  saw things the same way, had one mind between us

  in all the good advice we gave the Argives.

  But when we plundered Priam’s town and tower

  and took to the ships, God scattered the Akhaians.

  He had a mind to make homecoming hard for them,

  seeing they would not think straight nor behave,

  or some would not. So evil days came on them,

  and she who had been angered,

  Zeus’s dangerous grey-eyed daughter, did it,

  starting a fight between the sons of Atreus.

  First they were fools enough to call assembly

  at sundown, unheard of hour;

  the Akhaian soldiers turned out, soaked with wine,

  to hear talk, talk about it from their commanders:

  Menelaos harangued them to get organized—

  time to ride home on the sea’s broad back, he said;

  but Agamemnon wouldn’t hear of it. He wanted

  to hold the troops, make sacrifice, a hekatomb,

  something to pacify Athena’s rage.

  Folly again, to think that he could move her.

  Will you change the will of the everlasting gods

  in a night or a day’s time?

  The two men stood there hammering at each other

  until the army got to its feet with a roar,

  and no decision, wanting it both ways.

  That night no one slept well, everyone cursing

  someone else. Here was the bane from Zeus.

  At dawn we dragged our ships to the lordly water,

  stowed aboard all our plunder

  and the slave women in their low hip girdles.

  But half the army elected to stay behind

  with Agamemnon as their corps commander;

  the other half embarked and pulled away.

  We made good time, the huge sea smoothed before us,

  and held our rites when we reached Ténedos,

  being wild for home. But Zeus, not willing yet,

  now cruelly set us at odds a second time,

  and one lot turned, put back in the rolling ships,

  under command of the subtle captain, Odysseus;

  their notion was to please Lord Agamemnon.

  Not I. I fled, with every ship I had;

  I knew fate had some devilment brewing there.

  Diomedes roused his company and fled, too,

  and later Menelaos, the red-haired captain,

  caught up with us at Lesbos,

  while we mulled over the long sea route, unsure

  whether to lay our course northward of Khios,

  keeping the Isle of Psyria off to port,

  or inside Khios, coasting by windy Mimas.

  We asked for a sign from heaven, and the sign came

  to cut across the open sea to Euboia,

  and lose no time putting our ills behind us.

  The wind freshened astern, and the ships ran

  before the wind on paths of the deep sea fish,

  making Geraistos before dawn. We thanked Poseidon

  with many a charred thighbone for that crossing.

  On the fourth day, Diomedes’ company

  under full sail put in at Argos port,

  and I held on for Pylos. The fair wind,

  once heaven set it blowing, never failed.

  So this, dear child, was how I came from Troy,

  and saw no more of the others, lost or saved.

  But you are welcome to all I’ve heard since then

  at home; I have no reason to keep it from you.

  The Myrmidon spearfighters returned, they say,

  under the son of lionhearted Akhilleus;

  and so did Poias’ great son, Philoktetes.

  Idomeneus brought his company back to Krete;

  the sea took not a man from him, of all

  who lived through the long war.

  And even as far away as Ithaka

  you’ve heard of Agamémnon—how he came

  home, how Aigisthos waited to destroy him

  but paid a bitter price for it in the end.

  That is a good thing, now, for a man to leave

  a son behind him, like the son who punished

  Aigisthos for the murder of his great father.

  You, too, are tall and well set-up, I see;

  be brave, you too, so men in times to come

  will speak well of you.”

  Then Telémakhos said:

  “Nestor, pride of Akhaians, Neleus’ son,

  that was revenge, and far and wide the Akhaians

  will tell the tale in song for generations.

  I wish the gods would buckle his arms on me!

  I’d be revenged for outrage

  on my insidious and brazen enemies.

  But no such happy lot was given to me

  or to my father. Still, I must hold fast.”

  To this Lord Nestor of Gerênia said:

  “My dear young friend, now that you speak of it,

  I hear a crowd of suitors for your mother

  lives with you, uninvited, making trouble.

  Now tell me how you take this. Do the people

  side against you, hearkening to some oracle?

  Who knows, your father might come home someday

  alone or backed by troops, and have it out with them.

  If grey-eyed Athena loved you

  the way she did Odysseus in the old days,

  in Troy country, where we all went through so much—

  never have I seen the gods help any man

  as openly as Athena did your father—

  well, as I say, if she cared for you that way,

  there would be those to quit this marriage game.”

  But prudently Telémakhos replied:

  “I can’t think what you say will ever happen, sir.

  It is a dazzling hope. But not for me.

  It could not be—even if the gods willed it.”

  At this grey-eyed Athena broke in, saying:

  “What strange talk you permit yourself, Telémakhos,

  A god could save the man by simply wishing it—

  from the farthest shore in the world.

  If I were he, I should prefer to suffer

  years at sea, and then be safe at home;

  better that than a knife at my hearthside

  where Agamemnon found it—killed by adulterers.

  Though as for death, of course all men must suffer it:
>
  the gods may love a man, but they can’t help him

  when cold death comes to lay him on his bier.”

  Telémakhos replied:

  “Mentor, grievously though we miss my father, why

  go on as if that homecoming could happen?

  You know the gods had settled it already,

  years ago, when dark death came for him.

  But there is something else I imagine Nestor

  can tell us, knowing as he does the ways of men.

  They say his rule goes back over three generations,

  so long, so old, it seems death cannot touch him.

  Nestor, Neleus’ son, true sage, say how

  did the Lord of the Great Plains, Agamemnon, die?

  What was the trick Aigisthos used

  to kill the better man? And Meneláos,

  where was he? Not at Argos in Akhaia,

  but blown off course, held up in some far country,

  is that what gave the killer nerve to strike?”

  Lord Nestor of Gerenia made answer:

  “Well, now, my son, I’ll tell you the whole story.

  You know, yourself, what would have come to pass

  if red-haired Menelaos, back from Troy,

  had caught Aigisthos in that house alive.

  There would have been no burial mound for him,

  but dogs and carrion birds to huddle on him

  in the fields beyond the wall, and not a soul

  bewailing him, for the great wrong he committed.

  While we were hard-pressed in the war at Troy

  he stayed safe inland in the grazing country,

  making light talk to win Agamémnon’s queen.

  But the Lady Klytaimnestra, in the first days,

  rebuffed him, being faithful still;

  then, too, she had at hand as her companion

  a minstrel Agamemnon left attending her,

  charged with her care, when he took ship for Troy.