All applauded this suggestion, and the gathering dispersed. On the following morning the Phaeacians brought tripods and cauldrons to the ship, and Alcinous himself helped stow them under the rowers’ benches in such a way that the oarsmen would not be hindered by them. After that, the farewell feast was held in the palace. Zeus received his share of the slaughtered cattle, and blind Demodocus sang his most beautiful songs while the guests ate at the board laden with rich and delicate food.
But Odysseus was not there in spirit. His glance kept straying to the window to look at the sun, and he yearned for the hour of its setting as fervently as the peasant who has guided the plough-share through his fields the livelong day and yearns for his evening meal. At last he could no longer restrain his eagerness and said to his kingly host: “Great Alcinous, pour the libation, and let me go! You have done for me all that my heart could desire. The gifts are on my ship, and all is ready for departure. May the immortals heap blessings on you! And may I find waiting for me faithfully my wife, my son, my kinsmen and friends.”
All the Phaeacians joined him in this wish. Alcinous bade Pontonous, the herald, fill the cups for a last time, and each man poured a libation to the gods of Olympus for the safe and joyful return of their guest. Then Odysseus rose, gave his cup to Queen Arete, and said: “Live in happiness, O queen, and may old age and death, which overtake all mortals, come to you late and lightly. I am leaving for my home. May you have joy of your husband, your children, and your people!”
So said Odysseus, and he crossed the threshold of the palace. Alcinous commanded a herald to accompany him to the ship, and Arete sent three of her servants. One carried the tunics and mantles, the second the closed chest, and the third food and wine. All these things were taken aboard. Then a thick mat was laid on the deck and smooth linen spread over it. Silently Odysseus lay down to sleep. The rowers took their places. The ship was loosed from its moorings and sped over the waters to the steady beat of the oars.
ODYSSEUS REACHES ITHACA
The sleep of Odysseus was sweet and peaceful as death. The ship glided across the sea as swiftly and safely as a four-horse chariot speeds over the plain or a hawk flies through the air. It seemed to know it was carrying a precious burden, a man who in wisdom was the peer of gods, and who had borne more than mortal suffering, though now his slumber had blotted out the memory of battle and shipwreck.
When the brightest of the stars shone in the sky, announcing the coming of day, the ship approached Ithaca, and soon it entered the bay consecrated to Phorcys, the old man of the sea. Here two rocky promontories jutted out into the waters, one on each side, and formed a safe harbor. Midway between them grew an old olive tree, and beside it was a twilit cave, the dwelling of nymphs. In it were rows of bowls and jars of stone where bees stored their honey. There were also looms of stone, strung with purple thread, which the nymphs wove into beautiful garments. Two springs, which never ran dry, gushed through the cave. It had two entrances, one toward the north wind for mortals to enter, the other, a hidden door toward the south wind, for the immortal nymphs. Near this cave the Phaeacians landed. They lifted Odysseus with the linen sheet and the mat on which he lay, and laid him down in the sand under the olive tree, still over-powered by sleep. Then they unloaded all the gifts Alcinous and Arete had sent to the ship and put them a little to one side, so that a passerby might not see them too readily and perhaps rob the sleeper. Since they dared not wake him, thinking that his deep slumber was sent by the gods, they took to their oars again and steered for home.
But Poseidon, the sea-god, was angry at the Phaeacians, because with the help of Pallas they had gone contrary to his wish that Odysseus suffer many woes; so he asked Zeus for permission to take vengeance on them. The father of gods granted his request. As their ship approached the island of Scheria and sped toward the home coast with billowing sails, Poseidon rose through the waves, struck it with the flat of his hand, and then sank back into the sea. Instantly the ship and everything on it was turned to stone and rooted fast. The Phaeacians, who had sighted the ship and run to the shore to welcome their countrymen, were amazed to see it stop in full course. But Alcinous guessed what had happened. He called an assembly and said: “I fear this is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy of which my father told me. Poseidon—so he said—hates us because, good sailors that we are, we bring all strangers who ask our help safely back to their native lands. And one day, he went on to tell me, one of our ships, returning from such a journey, would be turned to stone and would be rooted fast before our city like a rock. From this day forward we must give up our custom of seeing strangers home. But now let us sacrifice twelve bullocks to the angry sea-god, lest he surround our city with a solid wall of stone.” When they heard this, the Phaeacians shuddered with terror and hastened to prepare the victims.
Odysseus, meanwhile, had wakened. But he had been away from Ithaca so long that he did not recognize his own country. Besides, Pallas Athene had shed a mist over the land, because she did not want him to reach his palace before preparing him for what he would find there. And so everything, the winding paths, the bay, the cliffs, and the tall trees, looked unfamiliar to him. He sat up, struck his forehead with his hand, and lamented: “To what new and strange land have I come? What new monsters shall I find here? If only I had stayed with the Phaeacians, who received me so hospitably! But it seems they have betrayed me, for they promised to take me home to Ithaca, and now they have abandoned me on a foreign coast. May Zeus avenge me for this! They have, most likely, stolen the gifts I had aboard.”
He looked around and saw tripods, cauldrons, gold, and clothing in orderly piles. He began to count his goods, but nothing was missing. While he was still hesitating what to do, Athene came up to him in the shape of a youth, a shepherd, but delicately formed as the son of a king. Her mantle fell in folds from her shoulders, and she wore sandals and carried a spear in her hand. Odysseus was glad to see a human being and courteously inquired where he was and whether this were the mainland or an island. “You must be from far away,” the goddess replied, “if you do not know the name of this country. All the world has heard of it. It is, to be sure, a hilly region, and we cannot raise horses as they do in the land of the Argives. But we are not poor. The earth yields a plentiful harvest of grain and grapes. We have countless herds of cattle and goats, tall forests, and pure springs. And those who live here have helped make the land famous. Even in Troy, which is surely a distant city, people have heard of the island of Ithaca!”
How Odysseus rejoiced to hear the name of his own country! Still, he was careful not to blurt out his name to the unknown shepherd. He pretended to have come from the far-off island of Crete with half his property. The other half, so he said, he had left there for his sons. He had slain a man who tried to rob him—so he spun out his tale—and had been forced to flee from his native land. When he had finished his story, Pallas Athene smiled and passed her hand caressingly over his face. And suddenly she changed into a tall, beautiful woman. “Really!” she said to him. “Even among the gods themselves it would take a cunning knave to outdo you! Even in your very own realm you will not cease dissembling! But let us say no more about it. I agree that you are the craftiest of men, just as I am the wisest of the immortals. Yet you did not recognize me! You did not dream that I was beside you and saw to it that the Phaeacians met you courteously and hospitably. And now I have come to help you hide the gifts they gave you, to warn you that trouble awaits you in your palace, and to discuss with you the best way to meet it.”
Odysseus looked at the goddess in astonishment and answered: “Noble daughter of Zeus, how could a mortal recognize you who can assume so many different shapes? I have not seen you in your own form since the fall of Troy. But now I beg you to tell me whether it is really true that I am in Ithaca, or whether you deceived me to comfort me in my distress?”
“Use your eyes!” Athene replied. “Do you not recognize the bay of Phorcys, that olive tree, the cave of the nymphs where
you offered up many a sacrifice in days gone by, and those dark-wooded mountains, the range of Neriton?” So spoke Athene, and she dissolved the mist so that the hero saw his country clearly before him. Joyfully he threw himself on the earth, kissed it, and prayed to the nymphs, the patron deities of that place. Then the goddess helped him hide his treasure in the recesses of the cave. When they had rolled a stone in front of it, Odysseus and Athene sat down under the sacred olive tree to devise death for the suitors of whose insolence Athene told him, as well as of the faithfulness of Penelope.
“Had you not reported all this to me,” said Odysseus when he had heard what had happened, “I should have been killed on my arrival home, just as surely as Agamemnon was murdered in Mycenae. But if you, gracious goddess, give me your aid, I shall not be afraid to stand alone against three hundred foes!”
“Be of good courage, my friend,” the goddess replied. “I shall never desert you. Above all I shall see to it now that no one on this island recognizes you. The flesh shall shrivel on your stately limbs, the brown hair vanish from your head. I shall clothe you in rags which everyone will regard with loathing. Your shining eyes shall lose their luster. Not only the suitors, but even your wife and son will take you for an old and ugly stranger. And now I want you to seek out your most honest and loyal subject, the man who tends your swine and is devoted to you from the bottom of his heart. You will find him at the rock of Corax, near the spring Arethusa, where he is pasturing the herd. Sit down beside him and ask him about everything that is going on here. In the meantime I shall hasten to Sparta and recall your son Telemachus, who went there to inquire about you of Menelaus.”
“Since you knew all about me,” said Odysseus with some annoyance, “why did you not tell him in the first place? Did you want him to wander over the sea like myself, while strangers waste his substance?”
But the goddess comforted him, saying: “Do not fear for your son! I myself guided him, and my purpose in urging his journey was to mature the youth through travel and let him win glory, so that on his return he might face the suitors as a man. Rest assured that he is not suffering the slightest discomfort. He is lodged in the palace of Menelaus and has all his heart could wish. It is true that the suitors are lying in ambush for him and want to kill him before he reaches home, but I do not think this will come to pass. Long before that, many of them will sprawl dead on the ground.”
So said the goddess and lightly touched the hero with her staff. Instantly his flesh shrivelled, his back grew bent, and he looked like a ragged and dirty beggar. She handed him a staff and a patched sack which he slung over his shoulder by its frayed cord. Then she disappeared.
ODYSSEUS VISITS THE SWINEHERD
In this shape Odysseus walked over the hills to the place his patron goddess had described, and there he found Eumaeus, the swineherd, the most faithful of his servants. He was pasturing his herd on a wide piece of ground which he had hedged about with heavy stones. Within this enclosure were twelve pens, in each of which fifty sows were kept for breeding. The boars—only three hundred and sixty against six hundred sows!—were outside the pens. The reason there were so few of these was that day after day the suitors demanded a fatted boar for their feast. Four dogs, which looked as savage as wolves, guarded the herd.
The old man was cutting oxhide for sandals. He was alone. Three of his helpers were scattered over the meadow with the animals, and a fourth had gone to the city to deliver the daily boar to the palace.
The dogs were the first to notice Odysseus. They rushed at him with fierce barks, but all he did was to put aside his staff and sit down. And now he might have suffered the disgrace of being attacked by his own dogs, had not the swineherd hurried to the spot and driven them away with stones. Then he turned to his master, whom he took for a poor beggar, and said: “In another moment the dogs would have torn you to pieces, and a new burden would have been added to the weight of sorrow I already bear. It is bad enough that I must mourn for my master who is far away! Here I sit and have to fatten boars for strangers, while he himself, perhaps, has not even a crust to eat and wanders in foreign lands—that is, if he is, still among the living! But come into my hut, poor old man. Let me give you food and wine, and when you have satisfied your hunger, you can tell me from where you have come and what you have suffered to look as wretched as you do.”
They entered the hut of the swineherd. He heaped twigs and leaves on the floor for a pallet and covered it over with the shaggy skin of a wild goat. When Odysseus thanked him for his kind reception, Eumaeus replied: “Old man, one should never neglect a guest, not even the poorest. To be sure, I have not much to offer. If my good master had stayed at home, things would be better with me. He would have seen to it that I had a house, land, and a wife. Then I could play the host in quite another fashion! But he is away—perhaps dead. And I wish ill luck to all of Helen’s line, she who is responsible for the death of so many brave men!”
So saying, the swineherd bound up his tunic with his belt and went to the pens where there were countless young pigs. He took two and slaughtered them, to have something to set before his guest. Then he cut up the meat, sprinkled it with white flour, roasted it on spits, and handed it to Odysseus. From a large jug he poured honey-sweet wine into a wooden bowl, seated himself opposite him, and said: “Eat now, stranger! This is the best I have to offer. It is only the meat of young pigs, for the suitors get all the fatted boars. They are insolent men with even less fear of the gods than pirates! They must have heard that my master is dead, for they do not woo his wife according to the custom of righteous men. They never return to their own homes at all, but stay here squandering the property of Odysseus. They do not slaughter his cattle once or even twice a day, but every hour, and they eat and drink day and night! My lord is as rich as twenty other kings put together. He has twelve herds of cattle and as many herds of sheep, swine, and goats on his farms where his herdsmen and servants tend them for him. Here alone, he has eleven flocks of goats watched over by faithful men, but each man is forced to deliver a he-goat to the suitors day after day. I take care of his swine, and every morning I too must send those greedy guzzlers a boar.”
As the herdsman talked, Odysseus quickly ate the meat and drained his cup without answering, like one who is not thinking of what he is doing. His mind was already intent on the revenge he was going to take on the suitors. When he had satisfied his hunger and thirst and Eumaeus had filled his bowl again, he drank to his health and said in a kind voice: “Describe your master to me in greater detail, my friend. It is quite possible that I know him, that I have met him somewhere, for I have been around in the world a good bit.”
But the swineherd had small faith in this possibility. “Do you think it would be easy for a stranger, a wayfarer, to make us believe what he tells us about our master?” he said. “During the past years, vagabonds who wanted food and shelter have frequently come to my mistress and her son and told them tales of our dear lord which moved them to tears. But I am certain they lied to get food or clothing, and that dogs and birds have devoured his flesh, or fish have eaten it, and that his bare bones are bleaching on some alien shore. Never again will I have so good a master! He was a kind and thoughtful man! When I think of him it is less as my lord than as an elder brother.”
“Well then, because your doubting heart denies so firmly that he will return,” Odysseus said, “I swear to you that he will! I do not lie like those other men who only wanted to get a new tunic or mantle with their tales! I shall not expect rewards until he returns. Though I am in rags and tatters, I shall tell only the truth: before the year is up—I swear it by Zeus, by your hospitable board, and by the herds of Odysseus!—your master will enter his house and punish the suitors who dare to make the life of his wife and son a burden to them.”
“Old man,” said Eumaeus, “I shall not have to reward you for your prediction, for Odysseus will not return. Do not spin out your foolish fancies. Drink your wine and let us talk of other things. I shall
not hold you to your oath. I have no hopes concerning Odysseus, but I am troubled about Telemachus. I hoped to see him like his father both in body and spirit. But a god or a mortal has addled his brain, for he has gone to Pylos to make inquiries about my master. In the meantime, the suitors are lying in ambush, waiting to kill him, the last scion of the age-old line of Arcisius. But now tell me your own griefs. Who are you, and what has brought you to Ithaca?”
Odysseus amused himself by telling the swineherd a long story in which he presented himself as the impoverished son of a rich man on the island of Crete and invented the wildest adventures. He claimed to have been in the war of Troy and to have come across Odysseus there. On the way home, he said, a tempest had cast him ashore on the coast of the Thesprotians, whose king had given him news of Odysseus. The king said that he had been his guest a short time ago and that he had left to travel to the oracle of Dodona to hear the bidding of Zeus.
When Odysseus had finished his web of lies, the swineherd said: “Unhappy stranger! How you have touched me to the quick with the descriptions of your wanderings! The only thing I do not believe is what you have told me about Odysseus. An Aetolian assured me years ago that he had seen my master on Crete, where he was mending his ship. He said Odysseus was certain to come home that very summer, or in the autumn at the latest. And he invented all those lies because he was being hunted for murder and wanted to ingratiate himself with me. Ever since then I have been suspicious of anyone who claims to have seen Odysseus! You shall enjoy my hospitality without being driven to lies.”
Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece Page 74