Book I

1Tell me the man, Muse — the man of many turnings, who was driven¹

wandering far, once he had sacked Troy's holy citadel:

many were the cities of men he saw, and he learned their minds,

many the griefs he suffered at heart on the open sea,

5striving to win his own life and his companions' homecoming.

Even so he could not save them, hard though he strove:

they perished by their own recklessness,

fools, who ate the cattle of Helios Hyperion,

and the god took from them their day of homecoming.

10Begin where you will, goddess, daughter of Zeus — tell us, too, the tale.²

By then all the others, all who had escaped sheer ruin,

were home, safely past the war and past the sea.

Him alone — aching for homecoming and his wife —

the queenly nymph Calypso, shining among goddesses, held back³

15in her hollow caves, hungry to make him her husband.

But when the year came, in the wheeling round of seasons,

in which the gods had spun the thread of his return home

to Ithaca — not even there was he free of trials,

even among his own. And the gods pitied him,

20all but Poseidon: he raged without rest

against godlike Odysseus, until the day he reached his own land.

But now Poseidon was gone among the far-off Ethiopians —

the Ethiopians, sundered in two, remotest of mankind,

half where Hyperion sets and half where he rises —

25to receive a hecatomb of bulls and rams,

and there he sat at the feast, delighting. But the other gods

were gathered together in the halls of Olympian Zeus,

and among them the father of men and gods began to speak,

for his heart was remembering blameless Aegisthus,⁴

30whom Agamemnon's son, far-famed Orestes, killed.

Remembering him, he spoke among the immortals:

"Shameful! — how mortals lay their blame upon the gods.

From us, they say, all evils come — while they themselves,

by their own recklessness, earn griefs beyond their portion:⁵

35as Aegisthus now, beyond his portion, took to wife

the wedded bride of Atreus' son, and killed the man at his homecoming,

knowing it meant sheer ruin — for we told him beforehand,

sending Hermes down, the sharp-eyed slayer of Argus,⁶

not to kill the man and not to court his wife:

40for vengeance for the son of Atreus would come from Orestes

the day he came of age and longed for his own land.

So Hermes spoke, meaning him well — but the mind of Aegisthus

he could not turn. Now he has paid for everything at once."

Then the goddess answered him, gray-eyed Athena:⁷

45"Father of us all, son of Cronos, highest of the mighty,

that man, yes, lies in a ruin he richly earned —

so may any other perish who does such things.

But my heart is on fire for battle-wise Odysseus,⁸

ill-starred man, who far from his own people suffers long

50on a sea-ringed island, at the navel of the sea.

A wooded island; a goddess has her dwelling there,

the daughter of Atlas the deadly-minded, he who knows

the depths of every sea, and himself grips the pillars,

the tall ones, that hold earth and heaven apart.

55It is his daughter who keeps that broken, grieving man,

and always with soft words, with winding, coaxing words,

she charms him to forget Ithaca. But Odysseus,

who would be glad to see even the smoke go leaping up

from his own country, aches to die. And your heart

60does not turn for it, Olympian. Did Odysseus never

please you, offering sacrifice beside the Argive ships

in wide Troy? Why so at odds with Odysseus, Zeus?"⁹

Then Zeus who gathers the clouds answered her:

"My child, what a word has slipped the fence of your teeth!¹⁰

65How could I ever forget godlike Odysseus,

who is beyond all mortals in mind, and beyond all others gave

offerings to the deathless gods who hold wide heaven?

No: it is Poseidon who holds the earth, in anger

unbending, always, for the Cyclops, whose one eye Odysseus blinded —

70godlike Polyphemus, whose power is greatest

among all the Cyclopes. The nymph Thoösa bore him,

daughter of Phorcys, a lord of the barren salt sea,

when in her hollow caves she lay with Poseidon.

Ever since, Poseidon the shaker of earth does not kill

75Odysseus, but drives him wandering from his father's land.

But come, let all of us here take careful thought together

for his homecoming — how he shall come. Poseidon will let go

his anger. He cannot, against us all,

wrangle alone in the teeth of the deathless gods."

80Then the goddess answered him, gray-eyed Athena:

"Father of us all, son of Cronos, highest of the mighty,

if this now truly pleases the blessed gods,

that Odysseus of the many designs come home to his own house,

then let us dispatch Hermes, the guide, the slayer of Argus,

85to the island Ogygia, so that with all speed

he may tell the nymph of the lovely braids our fixed decree:

the homecoming of enduring-hearted Odysseus — that he shall return.

And I will go to Ithaca, to stir his son

the more, and set strength of purpose in his heart

90to call the long-haired Achaeans into assembly

and speak out to all the suitors, who day upon day

slaughter his thronging flocks and his shambling crook-horned cattle.¹¹

And I will send him to Sparta and to sandy Pylos

to ask after his dear father's homecoming, if he may hear of it —

95and so that good report among men may be his."

So she spoke, and bound beneath her feet the beautiful sandals,

ambrosial, golden, that carry her over the water

and over the boundless earth with the breath of the wind;

and she took up her strong spear, edged with sharp bronze,

100heavy, huge, and solid, with which she breaks the ranks of men,

of heroes, when the daughter of the mighty Father is angered.

Down she went, darting from the peaks of Olympus,

and stood in the land of Ithaca at Odysseus' doorway,

on the courtyard's threshold, the bronze spear in her palm,

105in the likeness of a stranger: Mentes, leader of the Taphians.¹²

There she found the lordly suitors. They were pleasing

their hearts with counters, out in front of the doors,¹³

sitting on hides of oxen they themselves had slaughtered,

with heralds and quick serving-men among them:

110some were mixing wine and water in the great bowls,

and some were wiping the tables down with porous sponges

and setting them out, and some carved meat in plenty.

Godlike Telemachus saw her far the first,

for he sat among the suitors, sore at heart,

115seeing his noble father in his mind's eye: if only he would come

from somewhere, and make a scattering of the suitors through the house,

and take back his honor, and be lord of his own possessions.

So he brooded, sitting among the suitors — and he saw Athena.

He went straight for the porch, indignant at heart

120that a stranger be left standing at the door; and standing near her

he took her right hand, and relieved her of the bronze spear,

and lifting his voice he spoke winged words to her:¹⁴

"Welcome, stranger. Here you will find kindness — and afterward,

when you have tasted supper, you shall tell us what you need."

125So saying he led the way, and Pallas Athena followed.

And when they were inside the high-roofed house,

he carried the spear to the tall pillar and set it upright

inside the polished spear-rack, where already other

spears stood in numbers, enduring-hearted Odysseus' own;

130and he led her to a high seat, spreading linen beneath her,

a beautiful seat, cunningly worked, with a footstool for her feet.

For himself he set a painted bench beside her, apart from the others,

the suitors, for fear the stranger, sickened by the din,

might lose all taste for supper, fallen among bullies —

135and so that he might ask him about his absent father.

A handmaid brought water for their hands in a pitcher,¹⁵

a beautiful golden one, and poured it over a silver basin

for them to wash, and drew up a polished table beside them.

The grave housekeeper brought bread and set it before them,

140laying out delicacies in plenty, giving gladly of her store;

a carver lifted platters of meat of every kind

and set them down, and placed gold cups beside them,

and a herald kept coming round to them, pouring the wine.

In came the lordly suitors, and they took their seats

145in order on the benches and the high-backed chairs.

Heralds poured water over their hands,

slave-women heaped bread in baskets at their sides,¹⁶

and young men crowned the mixing-bowls with drink,

and their hands went out to the good things spread before them.

150But when they had put away desire for food and drink,

the suitors — other things now filled their hearts:

song and dance, for these are the ornaments of a feast.

A herald put the beautiful lyre into the hands

of Phemius, who sang for the suitors under compulsion,¹⁷

155and he swept the strings and struck up his lovely singing.

But Telemachus spoke to gray-eyed Athena,

leaning his head close, so that the others might not hear:

"Dear stranger, will you take offense at what I say?

These men care only for such things — the lyre and song —

160and easily, since unpunished they devour another man's living:

a man whose white bones rot somewhere in the rain,

lying on a mainland shore, or the salt wave rolls them.

But if they saw him once come home to Ithaca,

every man of them would pray to be quicker on his feet

165rather than richer in gold and fine clothes.

But no — he has perished by an evil doom, and for us there is

no comfort left, not though some man upon the earth

should say he is coming still: his day of homecoming is lost.

But come, tell me this, and tell it to me truly:

170What man are you, and from where? Where are your city and your parents?¹⁸

On what kind of ship did you come? And how did sailors

bring you to Ithaca? Who did they claim to be?

For I hardly think you came here on foot.

And tell me this too, honestly, so that I may know it:

175is this your first coming here, or are you from of old

my father's guest-friend? For many were the men who came

to our house — since he, too, went much among mankind."

Then the goddess spoke to him again, gray-eyed Athena:

"Then I will tell you all of it, and truly.

180I declare myself Mentes, son of wise Anchialus,

and I am lord of the oar-loving Taphians.

Now I have put in here with my ship and my companions,

sailing the wine-dark sea toward men of alien speech,

to Temese, after copper; the cargo I carry is gleaming iron.¹⁹

185My ship stands off in the fields, away from the city,

in the harbor of Rheithron, under wooded Neion.

Guest-friends of each other's houses we declare ourselves

from the beginning — only go and ask the old man,

the hero Laertes, who they say comes no more

190to the city, but far out in the fields endures his sorrows

with one old serving-woman, who sets his food and drink

before him whenever weariness takes hold of his limbs

as he creeps along the rise of his terraced vineyard.

And now I have come. They said he was here among his people —

195your father. But no: the gods are thwarting his road.

For noble Odysseus has not yet died anywhere on earth;

he lives still, held back somewhere on the wide sea,

on a sea-ringed island, and hard men have him,

savages, who hold him there, I think, against his will.

200And now I will prophesy to you, as the immortals

cast it into my heart, and as I believe it will be —

though I am no prophet, no sure reader of birds.

He will not now be long away from his own dear country,

no, not if iron chains should hold him:

205he will find a way to come home, for he is a man of many devices.

But come, tell me this, and tell it to me truly:

whether you, grown so tall, are the son of Odysseus himself.

The likeness is uncanny — the head, the fine eyes.

We were often in each other's company, he and I,

210before he went up into Troy, where the others also,

the best of the Argives, went in the hollow ships.

Since that day I have not seen Odysseus, nor he me."

Then clear-headed Telemachus answered her:²⁰

"Then I will tell you, stranger, all of it, and truly.

215My mother says I am his. For myself, I cannot know:

no man yet has been witness to his own begetting.²¹

Would that I had been the son of some blessed man

whom old age overtook among his own possessions!

Instead, the man born unluckiest of mortal men —

220his son, they say, I am. Since you ask me this."

Then the goddess spoke to him again, gray-eyed Athena:

"The gods have not appointed your line to be nameless

in time to come: Penelope has borne too fine a son.

But come, tell me this, and tell it to me truly:

225What feast is this, what gathering? What is your part in it?

A banquet? A wedding? For plainly no man here brought his own share:²²

so overweening, so past all bounds they seem to me,

feasting through the house. A man would burn with anger,

seeing shame upon shame — any man of sense who entered."

230Then clear-headed Telemachus answered her:

"Stranger — since you ask me this and press the question —

there was a time this house promised to be rich and honored,

while that man was still here among his people.

Now the gods have willed otherwise, plotting evil:

235they have made him vanish as no other man has vanished,

no man on earth. For I would not grieve so even for his death

had he gone down among his companions in the Trojans' country,

or in the arms of his friends, once he had wound the war to its end.

Then the whole Achaean people would have built him a tomb,

240and he would have won great fame in time to come for his son as well.

Instead the whirlwinds have snatched him away without glory;²³

he is gone — unseen, unheard-of — and to me he has left

anguish and lament. Nor is he all I have to mourn

and groan for: the gods have made me other bitter cares.

245All the great men who hold power among the islands —

Dulichium and Same and wooded Zacynthus —

and all who lord it through rocky Ithaca:

so many woo my mother, and wear this house away.

And she neither refuses the marriage she loathes, nor can she

250bring it to an end. And they eat on, wasting

my house. Soon they will tear me to pieces too."

Then, stung to anger, Pallas Athena spoke to him:

"Shame on it! Great indeed is your need of the vanished Odysseus,

to lay his two hands on these shameless suitors.

255If only he came now and stood at the outer doors

of the house, with helmet and shield and a pair of spears,

the man he was the first time I set eyes on him

in our own house, drinking and glad at heart,

up from Ephyra, from Ilus son of Mermerus —

260for Odysseus went there too, in his fast ship,

in search of a man-killing poison, so he might have it

to smear on his bronze-shod arrows. Ilus would not²⁴

give it, for he feared the undying gods' displeasure;

but my father gave it him, for he loved him terribly —

265the man he was then! Let that Odysseus close with the suitors:

quick would their fates be then, and bitter their weddings.

But surely these things lie on the knees of the gods:²⁵

whether he comes home and takes repayment, or does not,

here in his own halls. As for you, I charge you: consider

270how you will thrust the suitors from the hall.

Come then, mark me now, and take my words to heart.

Tomorrow call the Achaean heroes into assembly

and speak your word to all, and let the gods stand witness.

Command the suitors to scatter, each to his own,

275and your mother — if her heart is stirred toward marriage,

let her go back to the hall of her father, that powerful man:

there they will make the marriage and set out the bride-gifts,

very many, all that should follow a beloved child.

To you yourself my advice is close and shrewd, if you will hear it.

280Man a ship with twenty oars, the best there is,

and go out asking after your long-gone father.

Some mortal man may tell you — or you may hear the Rumor

that comes from Zeus, which most of all carries word among men.²⁶

Go first to Pylos, and question noble Nestor;

285from there to Sparta, to fair-haired Menelaus,

for of the bronze-shirted Achaeans he came home last.

If you hear your father is alive and homeward bound,

then, ground down as you are, hold out one more year.

But if you hear that he is dead, that he is no more,

290then come back to your own dear fatherland

and heap his burial mound, and over it pay the death-rites,

very many, as is fitting, and give your mother to a husband.

Then, when you have made an end of all this and done it,

take counsel in your mind and in your heart

295how in your halls you are to kill the suitors,

whether by guile or in the open. It is no longer for you²⁷

to hold to childish things: you are past that age.

Or have you not heard what fame noble Orestes took²⁸

among all mankind, when he killed his father's killer,

300Aegisthus of the crooked counsels, who cut down his famous father?

You too, my friend — and I see how tall and fine you are —

be brave, so that men not yet born will speak well of you.

But now I will go down to my fast ship

and my companions, who I think grow restless with waiting.

305Let this be your own care. Take my words to heart."

Then clear-headed Telemachus answered her:

"Stranger, you say these things out of a kind heart,

as a father to his son, and I will never forget them.

But come now, stay a while, though you are eager for the road,

310so that bathed first, your own heart gladdened,

you may go to your ship with a gift, rejoicing in spirit —

a costly thing, and beautiful, to be your treasure

from me: such things as dear guest-friends give their guests."

Then the goddess answered him, gray-eyed Athena:

315"Hold me back no longer; I long for the road.

The gift — whatever your own heart bids you give me —

give it when I come again, for carrying home,

and choose one truly beautiful. It will bring you its match in return."

So gray-eyed Athena spoke, and she was gone,

320flown up and away like a bird. And in his heart²⁹

she had set strength and courage, and brought his father to his mind

more even than before. And when he sensed it in his mind,

he was awed at heart, for he guessed she was a god.

And at once he went back among the suitors, a man like a god himself.

325For them the famous singer was singing, and they in silence

sat and listened. He sang the Achaeans' homecoming,

the bitter one, that Pallas Athena laid on them out of Troy.

From her upper room she took into her heart the god-filled song:

Icarius' daughter, watchful-minded Penelope.³⁰

330She came down the steep stairway of her house,

not alone: two handmaids came attending her.

And when she reached the suitors, shining among women,

she stood beside the pillar of the close-built roof,

holding her glistening veil before her cheeks,

335a trusted handmaid standing on either side,

and in tears she spoke to the godlike singer:

"Phemius, you know many other spells for mortal ears,³¹

deeds of men and gods, that singers make renowned.

Sit and sing them one of those, and let them drink

340their wine in silence. But break off this song,

this bitter song that forever wears away the heart

in my breast — for on me above all has fallen grief past forgetting.

So dear a face I long for, remembering always,

the man whose fame goes wide through Hellas and the heart of Argos."

345Then clear-headed Telemachus answered her:

"Mother, why grudge the trusted singer his right

to please us however his mind is moved? Singers are not

to blame: Zeus, surely, is to blame, who gives

to men who eat bread whatever he wills, to each man singly.

350There is no fault in him for singing the Danaans' hard doom:

men will always give their louder praise to the song³²

that comes to its hearers newest on the air.

Let your heart and spirit steel themselves to hear it.

Odysseus was not the only one to lose his day of homecoming

355at Troy: many other men were lost as well.

Go into the house and see to your own work,

the loom and the distaff, and command your handmaids

to go about their work. The word belongs to men —³³

to all men, and to me above all: mine is the power in this house."

360In wonder, she went back into the house,

for she laid her son's clear-headed word to heart.

Climbing to her upper room with her serving-women,

she wept there for Odysseus, her dear husband, until

gray-eyed Athena cast sweet sleep upon her eyelids.

365But the suitors broke into uproar through the shadowy halls,

and every man of them prayed to lie beside her in bed.

And clear-headed Telemachus began to speak among them:

"Suitors of my mother, insolent past all bearing,

for now let us feast and take our pleasure — but with no more

370shouting, since it is a fine thing to listen to a singer

such as this man is, with a voice like the gods'.

But at dawn let us go and take our seats in assembly,

all of us, so I may declare my word to you outright:

get out of my halls. Go busy yourselves with other feasts,

375eating your own goods, moving from house to house.

But if this seems to you the better thing, the more profitable,

that one man's living be destroyed and nothing paid,

then carve away. And I will cry to the gods who live forever,

in hope that Zeus may grant deeds of requital come to pass:

380then you would die inside this house, and nothing paid for you."

So he spoke, and all of them bit hard into their lips,

marveling at Telemachus, that he spoke so boldly.

Then Antinous spoke to him, Eupeithes' son:³⁴

"Telemachus, surely the gods themselves are teaching you

385to talk so high and speak with so much daring.

May the son of Cronos never make you king in sea-circled

Ithaca — though by blood it is your inheritance."³⁵

Then clear-headed Telemachus answered him:

"Antinous, will you take offense at what I say?

390Even that I would be willing to take, if Zeus should give it.

Do you say kingship is the worst thing that can befall a man?

It is no bad thing to be king: at once a man's house

grows rich, and the man himself more honored.

But there are other kings enough among the Achaeans

395in sea-circled Ithaca, young men and old:

let one of them have it, since noble Odysseus is dead.

But I will be lord of our own house

and of the slaves that noble Odysseus won for me."

Then Eurymachus, Polybus' son, answered him:

400"Telemachus, truly these things lie on the knees of the gods:

which of the Achaeans will be king in sea-circled Ithaca.

Your goods you may keep, and be lord in your own house;

may the man never come who would strip your goods from you

by force, against your will, while Ithaca is yet lived in.

405But I would ask you, best of men, about the stranger:

where does that man come from? What country does he claim

for his own? Where are his kin, the plowlands of his fathers?

Does he bring some message of your father's coming,

or did he arrive here pressing a need of his own?

410How he leapt up and vanished in a moment! He did not wait

to be known — and yet his face was in no way base."

Then clear-headed Telemachus answered him:

"Eurymachus, my father's homecoming is lost.

I put no more trust in messages, wherever they come from,

415nor give heed to any prophecy my mother

may seek, calling some diviner into the hall.

As for the stranger — a guest-friend of my father's house, from Taphos;

he declares himself Mentes, son of wise Anchialus,

and he is lord of the oar-loving Taphians."

420So spoke Telemachus. But in his heart he knew the deathless goddess.

And they turned to dancing and the loveliness of song

and took their pleasure, and waited for evening to come on;

and while they took their pleasure the black evening came.

Then they went home to bed, each man to his own house.

425But Telemachus — where his bedroom was built high

off the beautiful courtyard, in a place with a clear view all around —

went up to bed, turning many things over in his mind.

Beside him, bearing blazing torches, walked one whose thoughts were loyal:

Eurycleia, daughter of Ops, Peisenor's son.

430Laertes had bought her long ago with his own goods,

when she was still in her first youth, at the price of twenty oxen,³⁶

and honored her in his halls as he honored his faithful wife —

but never took her to his bed: he shunned his wife's anger.

She it was who carried the blazing torches beside him, and of all

435the house-slaves she loved him most: she had nursed him when he was small.

He opened the doors of the close-built room,

sat down on the bed, and pulled his soft tunic off,

and dropped it into the shrewd old woman's hands.

She folded the tunic and smoothed it out,

440hung it on a peg beside the corded bedstead,

and went out of the room, drawing the door shut

by its silver handle, and slid the bolt home with its strap.

There all night long, wrapped in the choice fleece of the sheep,

he pondered in his heart the road Athena had shown him.