The Odyssey: The Fitzgerald Translation

by Homer;Robert Fitzgerald

  I cannot myself hear the shade of the hero saying any of these things, except possibly what Murray has him say. But it is quite possible to punctuate the lines in another way, like this: “But I upon the ground, lifting my hands, was throwing them—while dying—around the swordblade.” Or to put it in English, “As I lay on the ground I heaved up my hands and flung them with a dying effort around the swordblade.” There is a scholion in which the lines are so understood, but the scholiast adds πρς κσπσα τ ζφoς, “to pull out the sword”—no doubt in order to die more quickly. G. H. Palmer, one of the few translators to follow the scholiast, settled for “clutched” as a rendering for βλλoν. This was logical, since Palmer, like the Alexandrian and like Stanford, conceived the blade as embedded in Agamemnon. A man with a blade in his midriff would not “fling” his hands around it when all he had to do was, precisely, to clutch it. But βλλoν is stronger than “clutch,” and the sword was not in Agamemnon, in any case. He would have had to heave up and fling his hands around the blade if the blade were a short distance away, within reach but still requiring an effort. This is where the sword of Klytaimnéstra must have been while she slashed or poked at Kassandra. Therefore I prefer to think that as Klytaimnéstra used the sword, Agamémnon, reckless of his hands, tried to get it away from her. Alone among modern translators, so far as I can discover, E. V. Rieu adopted this reading. It not only satisfies all the conditions, syntactical and verbal, but it makes all possible dramatic sense of the line.

  IV

  If you think of the poem as a play or a cinema—inevitable if not irresistible thoughts—you will find many problems for the set designer and the property man. There are two fine ones in the big closing scenes. How precisely are we to visualize the contest with Odysseus’ hunting bow, announced by Penelope in Book XIX and carried out in Book XXI? And in Book XXII what precisely is the layout of the great hall and adjoining passage by which the suitors, for the moment out of sight of Odysseus, are given throwing spears at a crucial point in the fight? The Greek is ambiguous or sketchy.

  In XIX Penelope tells her interesting new confidant of a sudden decision: next day her suitors will be challenged to perform an old feat of her husband’s, and she will be the prize. It is a feat (line 573) with πελκεας, axes,

  “those axes that he used to set up in his hall all twelve in line like a ship’s ribs (or props), then he would take his stand far off and shoot an arrow through.” The prize will go to that suitor who most easily strings her husband’s bow and “shoots through all twelve axes.” To this Odysseus replies in effect that tomorrow is not too soon; her husband will be there before any of the younger men can string the bow διοστευσα τε σδρoν “and shoot through the iron.” It need not escape us that this phrase is rather an addition. We might imagine shooting through twelve axes if they were arranged in a line slightly staggered, leaving an interval of an inch or so for the arrow to pass. The alternative is to imagine apertures in the axeheads, and the phrase of Odysseus, repeated by Telémakhos in Book XXI, inclines us to that. He speaks with familiarity, not to mention his remarkable confidence. It is not the speech of a man still interested in concealing from his wife how well he knows her husband.

  If the arrow is to pass “through the iron” and we interpret this to mean through apertures in the axeheads, then what apertures are meant? D. B. Monro in his edition of The Odyssey, Books XIII—XXIV, printed drawings of two perforated ancient axeheads, one from a Mycenean excavation, another from an early classical metope, and a third drawing of the very late classical bipennis, a double axe whose crescent blades form by their inner edges two circular openings, the one above the haft open and unobstructed. An arrow could pass through any one of these types of axeheads. With archaeological backing, then, we may imagine twelve pervious axes in alignment for the contest. Penélopê’s phrase, “like a ship’s ribs (or props),” in fact makes us see twelve axes stuck in the ground by their helves.

  Oddly enough, there are quite serious objections to this reading. When we say “axe” we mean axehead and helve together. But it seems more likely that the word πλεκυς to Penelope meant “axehead” alone. In Book V when Kalypso gives Odysseus a πλεκυς for cutting timber, she must complete the gift with a στελεν, or helve of olive wood (line 236). In all the references to the gauntlet Odysseus’ arrow had to run, there is no allusion to a στελεν, though a closely related word appears. On the contrary, when Penelope brings the bow back from the storeroom in XXI, 58, her maids bring along a basket full of iron and bronze “accessories of the contest,” certainly axeheads without helves. Any normal axehead, then as now, had an aperture: it had the socket hole where a helve could be fitted. Is there positive evidence that this was the aperture in question? There is indeed.

  When Odysseus finally makes his prize-winning shot in XXI, 420 sqq., we hear that

  “he didn’t miss the πρτης στελες of all the axeheads, and the arrow went clean through and out.” Confusion about the word στελε appears to be ancient and inexhaustible; it was taken very early to mean “helve” or “haft”—that is, to be a synonym for στελεν—and translators in torment have tried to make sense of a shot that did not miss the first axe helve. But if Homer had meant that, if he had meant πρτoυ στελεo, he could have said it. It is metrically equivalent and phonetically a little better. Professor Stanford thinks, and with excellent reason, that the difference in gender may be significant. He agrees with the twelfth century Archbishop of Thessalonica, Eustathius, that the feminine form, στελε, meant “socket” as στελεν meant “helve.” What Homer intended to say was very simple: that Odysseus didn’t miss his bull’s eye, the first socket hole in the line of twelve.

  It is a perfect conclusion, but it lets us in for other difficulties. If the axeheads were without helves, if each was turned so that its socket hole faced the archer, how were they set up and supported? In what respect was the line of axeheads comparable to “a ship’s ribs (or props)”? The second question is easier to answer: the point of similarity could have been merely that in both cases there were equal intervals between one and another. As to the way of setting up the axeheads, all we have to go on are two lines and a half, XXI, 120 sqq., in which Telémakhos prepares the contest:

  Literally, “first he set up the axeheads, after digging a trench through for all, a single trench, a long one, and he trued [it or them] to the line, and he pressed earth on both sides.” It is pertinent to remember that in Homer’s “additive” style items are not always given in any particular order. That is, the pressing of the earth could have preceded or accompanied the truing, and we may understand that he trued the axeheads, not the trench. If we held the theory that axeheads fitted on helves were being set up, a trench would bed the helves, around which earth could then be pressed to hold them upright. I have given the evidence against that. On the other and better theory that axeheads alone were used, is there anything in the context to suggest how they were held up?

  Well, a byproduct of a trench is a long pile of loose earth. If the loose earth beside the trench were “pressed” up in a narrow ridge, with peaks at equal distances, the axeheads could be stuck in these, one blade in the earth and one out, since the πλεκυς was double-bladed. The verb νσσω that appears here in the aorist active, ναζε, “pressed,” had the sense “be piled” in the passive in later Greek. The very point of digging a trench could have been to supply enough earth for this purpose; if it had been a matter of embedding axe helves, they could have been planted in a line of holes like fence posts or fruit trees. It is a good deal to read into these lines, but I am willing to risk it because I see nothing else for it. Telémakhos made a bedding of earth for the axeblades and trued them π στθµην, “to the line,” by the wall builder’s immemorial technique, a stretched cord. One more question: if set up in this way, could the axeheads have been high enough for the bowshot from the door? Odysseus made the bowshot while seated on his s
tool. He held the bow horizontally in the usual ancient style. If he shot from the hip just above knee level in a flat trajectory, the axeheads as I see them could have been at the right height.

  V

  If those passages needed unfolding, more unfolding still must be done to render with clarity the several lines beginning at 126 of Book XXII—a sketch for a ground plan or a stage set. Odysseus has been doing execution with his bow while Telémakhos has brought arms from the storeroom; now all the arrows are gone, and father and son and the two herdsmen arm themselves for combat with spears. The narrative continues:

  “There was a certain ρσoθρη in the well-built wall. And at the edge [or along the top] of the threshold of the hall there was an entry way into the passage, and well-fitted folding doors kept it closed.” This is all baffling, and the editors have left it so. We wish to know what the ρσoθρη was and in which wall it was located. We also wish to know what if anything the ρσoθρη had to do with the passage, where the passage ran, and where precisely the “entry way” opened into it. These lines do not tell us. But we can learn some of the answers from the action that now takes place.

  First, Odysseus tells the swineherd to stand over near the “entry way” and guard it, µα δ’ oη φoρµ, “for there was only one way in.” Why guard it? Because it must be a possible exit for the suitors who have been under fire at the other end of the hall—the only possible exit, we gather, besides the main door where Odysseus and Telemakhos have taken their stand. Now one of the surviving suitors, Ageláos, says to the others,

  “Friends, why doesn’t someone climb up by the ρσθρη and tell the townsmen?” From this it is clear that by climbing through the ρσoθρη you could get into the passage and out by the door where the swineherd has been posted. Out where? If κρτατoν δ παρ’ oδòν is taken to mean “along the top” of the threshold inside the main door, any man issuing at that point would run into the arms of Odysseus and company. It must mean “at the edge” of the threshold outside the entrance. If this were not the meaning, the swineherd would not have had to move to be in a position to guard the “entry way.” His movement, incidentally, seems to have escaped notice by Ageláos, who has also failed to see that Odysseus has no more arrows. The goatherd, Melánthios, answers him:

  “It can’t be done. The fair door of the courtyard is terribly near [or the fair door is terribly near the courtyard] and the mouth of the passage is hard [to force]; one man alone if he were strong could hold off all of us.” If the mouth of the passage is hard to force, it must be a narrow passage, narrow as a catwalk. Melánthios’ remark that one strong man could hold it suggests that he has seen Odysseus order the swineherd outside. All this is fairly clear. But precisely what is “terribly near” to what? That is not so clear.

  Monro and Stanford thought Melánthios meant that the gate into the courtyard from the road was near—near to Odysseus, or near to the exit from the passage. Since the gate is in fact on the other side of the courtyard, these editors thought it could be called “terribly near” only from the point of view of a man in fear of archery as he crossed the courtyard. I find this interpretation strange. A man thinking of making a run under fire would complain of how far the gate seemed, not how near. It may be irrelevant that there can be no more archery, anyway, for Odysseus is out of arrows; Melánthios, like Ageláos, may not have noticed this (neither Monro nor Stanford appears to have noticed it, either). But I doubt that αλς θρετρα necessarily or even possibly means the gate from the road into the courtyard. The word θρα has been used for this. Here is a different word whose proper meaning is certainly “door” and not “gate.” It could mean the door from the passageway into the courtyard, and I think it does. To what or whom is that door terribly near? To Odysseus, who has already posted a guard there. On this interpretation these lines cohere.

  Melánthios proposes to bring the suitors arms from the storeroom, and he climbs

  “up the breaks of the hall and into the storeroom of Odysseus.” The γας or “breaks” have been thought to be steps, but steps are κλμακες. A closer reading would be “fissures” or chinks in the wall, toe holds for a goatherd. Although it is not expressly mentioned at this point, there is no doubt that the aperture to which he climbs is the ρσoθρη, and I should now note that etymologically this word almost certainly means a “raised door” or window. Since his destination is the storeroom, it follows not only that this window-opening gives on the passage by which Ageláos thought someone might get out, but that the passage itself leads to the storeroom at the back of the house. It is the same passage by which at the beginning of the slaughter Telemakhos ran to get arms for his father and friends. From the passage, through the window, Melánthios can hand out arms to the suitors.

  Where is the ρσoθρη? At the far end of the hall from the entrance, as stands to reason and as we learn explicitly later on in line 333 from the position of Phêmios, the harper, when the fight is over. It must be a window in one of the side walls, for two reasons. First, the passage that it lights and ventilates runs along the side of the hall from front to rear. Second, one of the side walls could have a recessed part like a shallow transept, not visible from the entrance. The context requires this. The ρσoθη and all that happens there are out of sight of Odysseus. The young men harried by his shooting would have huddled on the other side of any angle in the wall that offered shelter, and there the ρσρη would have come to their attention. Odysseus may well have had this in mind when he ordered the passage guarded. But why didn’t one of the suitors use the ρσoθρη instead of letting the goatherd work for them? The question as framed almost answers itself: they were accustomed to service. There may be another reason, too. One of the scholia on the ρσoθρη informs us that

  “it was quite high; you had to make a jump to get up to it.” Perhaps jumping for a hole in the wall was beneath the dignity of Akhaian gentlemen with flowing hair.

  VI

  Details like these may turn out to be self-consistent, but what of the poem as a whole? Does it hang together? Did a single composer hold it all in his mind? Whatever opinion we may hold on the famous Question, we may accept at least one modest principle: when proof to the contrary is lacking, any given passage should be interpreted in consonance with the rest. Take the eagles.

  During the assembly scene in Book II, Zeus launches two eagles from a ridge, either τ 8’ or τ 8’ according to the alternative readings. The Oxford editor, T. W. Allen, reasonably chose the first, meaning “for him,” that is, for the last speaker, Telémakhos. The eagles are to be an omen for him. When in their gliding flight they reach a point over the center of the agora they wheel and beat their wings, and then we have two more alternative readings, ς 8’ ‘δτηνπντων κεφαλς or ς δ’ κντων κεφαλς, that is, either the pair “looked at the heads of all [below]” or they “came down on” all the heads. Again Allen chose the reading more charged with life and sense: “came down on.” In the next clause, σσoντo δ’λθρoν, the verb has changed from the dual form, used when the pair of birds was the subject, to a plural form. Does this mean a change of subject? Not necessarily; Homer often uses plural verb forms for dual subjects; indeed he has already done so once in this passage, though not in this sentence. If it does mean a change of subject, then the “heads,” or men in the crowd, are said to behold death or doom in the diving eagles; if it does not mean a change of subject, the diving eagles are said to make doom visible to the men, or in a word to menace them with doom. “Death was in their glare,” as Murray ingeniously puts it, making perhaps the best of both alternatives. Perhaps, but wait. The next line presents us again with a dual form, this time in a middle participle. It goes:

  “tearing, this pair, with talons, cheeks and all around necks (or throats).”

  Now, the received interpretation of this, cited by Liddell & Scott and followed by Murray and practically everyone, takes the middle voice of the verb as reflexive here, meaning
they tore each other’s cheeks and throats. But first let me observe that the middle may or may not have this shade of meaning. It is the voice you would use in Greek if you wanted to say, “We cut ourselves a slice,” and you would not be referring to a knife fight. Second, if the two eagles are a sign, what after all do they signify? What future event do they portend? The old augur Halithersês has no doubt, and neither have we: they stand for the return of Odysseus and the doom of the suitors. Why two eagles? In order that the sign, a sign for Telemakhos, may give him, or at any rate ourselves, to understand that he and Odysseus together will attack the suitors. The two eagles correspond to the two royal assailants. Why then should they assail one another? What would any intelligent augur make of that? No, no, surely; they assail the suitors, who have been arraigned by Telémakhos in the assembly, and if this were not the case there would be no point in their having “come down on the heads of all,” for an eagle fight would have been as well or better conducted high in the air. A scholiast says, τò δ καταδρΨα τς παρες τòν τν µνηστρων σµανε Φóνoν, and he does not use the middle but the active voice: “that business of tearing the [suitors’] cheeks signified the suitors’ violent death.” We are to see the eagles’ portent not merely “in their glare” but their ripping talons.

  Between Book II and Book XV no eagles fly, or at any rate no significant ones, but in Book XV, 160, as Telemakhos is taking leave of Menelaos and Helen, just as he is saying how fine it would be to meet his father on Ithaka so that he could tell him of their hospitality, ππταo δεξòς ρνς, αετς ργν χνα Φρων “a bird, an eagle, flew up on the right, lugging a white goose.” This portent is quickly interpreted by Helen. It means, she says, that just as the eagle flew from the wild mountain of his birth to pounce on the domestic bird, so Odysseus will appear out of the rough world of his wanderings to avenge the wrongs done him at home. Near the end of the same Book (525 sqq.) the motif is repeated. Again the omen appears as if in comment on a speech by Telemakhos, who has just been wondering aloud whether anything will prevent his mother’s marriage to Eurymakhos. This time the portentous bird is not an eagle,αετóς but a hawk, κετóς, carrying a captured dove. And this time the interpretation is not given immediately; it is given to Penélopê in Book XVII (152 sqq.) by the diviner, Theoklymenos, who tells her it meant that Odysseus had already landed on Ithaka. Again there is an interval of two Books, and in XIX (535 sqq.) the motif comes to a kind of flowering when Penélopê recounts her “dream” to the beggar, who is Odysseus. This time there is a more exact correspondence between the terms of the equation; Penélopê was in a position to be exact. Upon the geese feeding at her house