Book III

1And the sun leapt up, leaving the beautiful water,¹

into the bronze-bright heaven, to shine for the immortals

and for mortal men across the grain-giving plowland;

and they came in to Pylos, the strong-built city of Neleus.

5There on the beach of the sea the people were offering victims,

bulls all black, to the earth-shaker with the blue-black hair.²

Nine tiers of seats there were, five hundred sitting in each,³

and before each company nine bulls were held ready.

They had just tasted the innards, and were burning thigh-cuts for the god,

10when the ship came straight in: they brailed the sails of the trim vessel,

furled them aloft, moored her, and stepped ashore themselves;

and Telemachus stepped from the ship, Athena going before him.

The goddess spoke to him first, gray-eyed Athena:

"Telemachus, no more need of shyness now, not a scrap of it:⁴

15this is why you have sailed the sea — to learn news

of your father: where the earth hides him, what doom he met.

Come then, go straight to Nestor, breaker of horses:

let us see what counsel he keeps hidden in his breast.

Beg him yourself, so that he speaks unerring truth.

20He will tell you no lie: he is clear-headed beyond most men."⁵

Then clear-headed Telemachus answered her:

"Mentor, how am I to go up? How greet him?

I have no practice yet in close-woven speech —

and a young man is shy of questioning his elder."

25Then the goddess spoke to him again, gray-eyed Athena:

"Telemachus, some of it your own heart will see,⁶

and some a god will prompt. For I do not think

you were born and raised without the gods' good will."

So speaking, Pallas Athena led the way

30swiftly, and he followed in the footsteps of the god.

They came to the gathering-place of the men of Pylos, the rows of seats,

where Nestor sat with his sons, and around them companions

were readying the feast, roasting meats and skewering others.

But when they saw the strangers they came all in a crowd,

35clasped their hands in welcome, and bade them be seated.

First Peisistratus, Nestor's son, coming near,

took the hands of both, and settled them at the feast

on soft fleeces over the sand of the sea,

beside his brother Thrasymedes and his father;

40and he gave them portions of the innards, and poured wine

into a golden cup, and pledging her he addressed

Pallas Athena, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus:

"Pray now, stranger, to the lord Poseidon,

for his is the feast you have found in coming here.

45And when you have poured and prayed, as is right and custom,

give this man too the cup of honey-sweet wine

to pour, since he also, I think, prays to the deathless ones:

all men have need of the gods.

But he is the younger, my own age to the year,

50and so to you first I give the golden cup."

With that he set in her hand the cup of sweet wine;

and Athena rejoiced in the man — clear-headed, just —⁷

because to her first he gave the golden cup;

and at once she prayed at length to the lord Poseidon:

55"Hear me, Poseidon who hold the earth, and do not grudge

us who pray the accomplishment of these works.

To Nestor first of all, and to his sons, grant glory,

and then to all the rest give gracious recompense,

to all the Pylians, for this splendid hecatomb.

60And grant besides that Telemachus and I sail home with the thing accomplished

we came here for, in our fast black ship."

So she prayed — and she herself was accomplishing it all.⁸

Then she gave Telemachus the beautiful two-handled cup,

and the dear son of Odysseus prayed the same.

65And when they had roasted the outer meats and drawn them off,

they divided the portions and feasted the glorious feast.

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

Gerenian Nestor the horseman began to speak among them:⁹

"Now is the fairer time to inquire and ask

70our guests who they are, now they have had their joy of food.

Strangers, who are you? From where do you sail the watery ways?¹⁰

Is it on some business — or do you rove at random,

the way sea-raiders do, who wander

staking their own lives, bearing evil to strangers?"

75Then clear-headed Telemachus answered him,

emboldened: Athena herself had set courage in his heart,

so that he might ask about his absent father

and so that good report among men might be his:

"Nestor, son of Neleus, great glory of the Achaeans,

80you ask from where we are, and I will tell you.

We have come from Ithaca, under Mount Neion;

and the business I speak of is private, not the people's.

I follow the wide fame of my father, in hope I may hear of him:

noble, enduring-hearted Odysseus, who once, they say,

85fought at your side when you sacked the Trojans' city.

All the others, all who warred against the Trojans,

we have had word of — where each man died his bitter death;

but his death the son of Cronos has left past finding:

no one can say for certain where he perished,

90whether he went down on the mainland at enemy hands

or on the deep, under the waves of Amphitrite.

That is why I come now to your knees: in hope you will consent

to tell his bitter death — whether you saw it

with your own eyes, or heard the tale of him from another

95wanderer. Beyond all men his mother bore him for sorrow.

Do not soften anything from courtesy or pity:¹¹

tell me fully whatever sight you came upon.

I beg you — if ever my father, good Odysseus,

promised you word or work and made it good

100in the Trojans' country, where you Achaeans suffered your pains,

remember it for me now: tell me the unerring truth."

Then Gerenian Nestor the horseman answered him:

"Dear boy — since you bring back the misery we endured

in that country, we headstrong sons of the Achaeans,

105all our roving in ships across the misted sea

chasing plunder wherever Achilles led,

and all our fighting around the great city of lord Priam —

there, in those years, our best were killed.

There lies Ajax, dear to the war-god; there Achilles;¹²

110there Patroclus, a counselor the equal of the gods;

there my own dear son, strong and without fault,

Antilochus — surpassing swift of foot, and a fighter.

And many other evils we suffered besides: who among

mortal men could tell them all?

115Not if you stayed five years — six years —

asking all the evils the noble Achaeans suffered there:

you would go home to your own country worn out first.

Nine years we stitched evils around them, plotting¹³

with every kind of cunning — and the son of Cronos barely brought it to an end.

120And there no man would set his wits against him openly —

willing, that is — for noble Odysseus won by far,

in every kind of cunning: your father — if truly

you are his blood. Awe takes me, looking at you.

Your speech, at least, is his: you would not think

125a younger man could speak so like him.

In all that time, I and noble Odysseus

never spoke on opposite sides in assembly or in council:

one heart between us — with sense and considered counsel

we planned for the Argives how the best might come about.

130But when we had sacked Priam's steep city,¹⁴

and gone to our ships, and a god scattered the Achaeans,

then, then Zeus devised in his heart a bitter homecoming

for the Argives — since not all of us were men of sense

or of justice. So many of them came to an evil end

135through the ruinous wrath of the gray-eyed daughter of the mighty Father —¹⁵

who set strife between the two sons of Atreus.

The two of them called the Achaeans all to assembly —

rashly, in no due order, at the setting of the sun,

and the sons of the Achaeans came heavy with wine —

140and they spoke out the reason they had gathered the army.

There Menelaus urged all the Achaeans

to remember homecoming across the broad back of the sea;

and it did not please Agamemnon, not at all: he wanted

to hold the army back, and offer holy hecatombs

145to heal the terrible anger of Athena —

the fool. He did not know she was not to be persuaded:¹⁶

the mind of the gods who are forever does not turn so fast.

So the two of them stood trading hard words;

and the strong-greaved Achaeans sprang up

150with a huge din, and the counsel split them two ways.

That night we lay on our anger, brooding hard thoughts

against each other — for Zeus was readying the stroke of evil —

and at dawn half of us hauled our ships to the bright salt water

and loaded our goods aboard, and the deep-girdled women.

155Half the army held back, staying

there with Atreus' son Agamemnon, shepherd of the people;

and half of us embarked and rowed. And the ships ran fast,

for a god smoothed the sea over its monstrous deeps.

Coming to Tenedos, we offered victims to the gods,

160aching for home. But Zeus had no thought yet of homecoming —

iron-hearted, he stirred up evil strife a second time.

Some turned their curved ships around and went back —

those with Odysseus, the battle-wise lord, the man of shifting counsels —

carrying favor once again to Atreus' son Agamemnon.

165But I, with the ships that followed me gathered close,

fled on, for I knew the god was devising evils.

And the warlike son of Tydeus fled, and roused his companions.

Late upon our track came fair-haired Menelaus,

and caught us at Lesbos debating the long crossing:

170whether to sail above rugged Chios,

by the isle of Psyria, keeping Chios on our left,

or under Chios, past windy Mimas.

We asked the god to show a sign, and he showed one,¹⁷

and bade us cut across the middle sea to Euboea,

175to run out from under the evil quickest.

A whistling wind sprang up astern, and the ships ran fast

down the fish-filled ways, and to Geraestus

they came in by night. And to Poseidon we laid many

bulls' thighs on the fire, having measured the great gulf.

180It was the fourth day when in Argos the companions

of Diomedes, breaker of horses, moored their trim ships;

but I held on for Pylos, and the wind never failed

from the day the god first sent it blowing.

So I came home, dear child, knowing nothing — I cannot tell you

185who of the Achaeans were saved and who were lost.

But all I hear, sitting here in our halls,

you shall learn, as is right; I will hide nothing.

The Myrmidons, they say, those furious spearmen, came home safe,

led by the shining son of great-hearted Achilles;

190safe too Philoctetes, Poias' splendid son;

and Idomeneus brought all his companions to Crete,

all who escaped the war: the sea took none from him.

And Atreus' son — you have heard yourselves, far off as you live,¹⁸

how he came home, and how Aegisthus plotted his bitter death.

195But that man paid for it — grimly, in full.

How good a thing it is, that a son of the dead man be left!

For that son took vengeance on the killer of his father,

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

You too, my friend — and I see how tall and fine you are —¹⁹

200be brave, so that men not yet born will speak well of you."

Then clear-headed Telemachus answered him:

"Nestor, son of Neleus, great glory of the Achaeans,

yes — that man took his vengeance in full, and the Achaeans

will carry his fame wide, a thing for men to come to hear of.

205If only the gods would clothe me in strength like that,

to pay the suitors back for their galling trespass —

the insolent men who scheme their reckless outrage against me!

But the gods have spun no such happiness for me —

not for my father, not for me. Now, come what may, I must endure."

210Then Gerenian Nestor the horseman answered him:

"Dear boy — since you say it yourself and bring it to my mind —

they tell me many suitors for your mother's sake

fill your halls against your will, devising evils.

Tell me: do you bow to it willingly, or do the people

215through the land hate you, following the voice of a god?

Who knows whether one day he will come and repay their violence —

alone, it may be, or all the Achaeans with him?

If only gray-eyed Athena chose to love you

the way she cared in those days for glorious Odysseus

220in the Trojans' country, where we Achaeans suffered our pains —

never have I seen the gods love a man so openly

as Pallas Athena stood by him, in the open —

if she chose to love you like that, and care for you in her heart,

then more than one of those men would forget about marriage for good."

225Then clear-headed Telemachus answered him:

"Old sir, I do not think that word will ever be accomplished.

What you say is too great. Awe holds me. I could not

hope for it to happen — not if the gods themselves willed it."

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

230"Telemachus, what a word has slipped the fence of your teeth!²⁰

Easily, if he wills it, a god brings a man safe home — even from far away.

And I would rather suffer pains in plenty first

and then come home, and look on my day of homecoming,

than come and die at my own hearth, as Agamemnon

235died, by the treachery of Aegisthus and of his own wife.²¹

But death — the death common to all — not even the gods

can beat away from a man they love, once the day comes

when the ruinous doom of death that lays men low takes hold."

Then clear-headed Telemachus answered her:

240"Mentor, let us speak of it no longer, grieved though we are.

For him no homecoming is real any more: long since

the deathless ones have plotted his death and black doom.

Now there is another word I want to ask,

of Nestor — since beyond other men he knows judgments and wisdom;

245three generations of men, they say, he has ruled as king,²²

and to my eyes he seems like one of the deathless ones.

Nestor, son of Neleus: tell me the truth of it —

how did Atreus' son die, wide-ruling Agamemnon?

Where was Menelaus? What death did the schemer plot for him,

250Aegisthus of the crooked counsels — since the man he killed was far the better?

Was Menelaus not in Achaean Argos — was he wandering

somewhere among men, that the other took heart and killed?"

Then Gerenian Nestor the horseman answered him:

"Then I will tell you, child, the whole truth of it.

255You have guessed yourself how it would have gone,

if Atreus' son, fair-haired Menelaus, coming from Troy,

had found Aegisthus alive in the halls:

no man would have heaped the mounded earth over his dead body —

dogs and birds would have torn him

260as he lay on the plain far from the city, and not one

of the Achaean women would have wept him: too monstrous the thing he schemed.

For we were over there, winning our many contests —

and he, at his ease in a fold of horse-grazing Argos,

worked all the while at Agamemnon's wife with charming words.

265At first she pushed the shameful thing away —

shining Clytemnestra — for her mind was still sound;

and beside her, too, there was a singer, whom Atreus' son²³

strictly charged, when he left for Troy, to guard his wife.

But when the doom of the gods bound her to her undoing,

270then Aegisthus led that singer to a desert island

and left him there, spoil and carrion for the birds,

and led her — he willing, she willing — home to his own house.²⁴

Many thigh-cuts he burned on the gods' holy altars,

many offerings he hung up, woven things and gold,

275having accomplished the enormity his heart had never hoped for.

Now we had sailed together on the way from Troy,

Atreus' son and I, in all friendship;

but when we reached holy Sunium, the headland of Athens,

there Phoebus Apollo came with his gentle arrows²⁵

280and killed the helmsman of Menelaus,

the steering-oar of the running ship still in his hands:

Phrontis, Onetor's son, who outdid all the tribes of men

at steering a ship when the storm-winds drive.

So Menelaus was held there, pressed though he was for the road,

285to bury his companion and pay the death-rites over him.

But when he too, going on over the wine-dark sea

in the hollow ships, came at a run to the steep height

of Malea, then wide-voiced Zeus devised for him

a hateful road: he poured on the breath of screaming winds

290and monstrous waves, swollen huge as mountains.

There he split the fleet, and part he drove on Crete,

where the Cydonians lived around the streams of Iardanus.

There is a bare cliff, sheer to the salt water,

at the edge of Gortyn on the misted sea,

295where the South Wind shoves the great swell on the left headland,

toward Phaestus, and a little stone holds back the great sea.

There part of them came in, and the men escaped destruction

barely, but the waves smashed the ships on the reefs;

and the other five ships with their dark-blue prows

300the wind and the water carried and beached on Egypt.

So Menelaus, gathering much substance and gold,

roved with his ships among men of alien speech —

and in that very time Aegisthus schemed those horrors at home.

305Seven years he reigned over Mycenae rich in gold,²⁶

having killed Atreus' son, and the people were broken under him;

but in the eighth his evil came on him: noble Orestes,

back from Athens, cut down his father's killer —

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

The killing done, he gave the Argives a funeral feast²⁷

310for his hateful mother and for spineless Aegisthus;

and on that same day Menelaus of the great war-cry reached him,

bringing home treasure, all the freight his ships could bear.

You too, my friend: do not wander long and far from home,

leaving your goods behind and men in your house

315of such overbearing insolence — or they will devour it all,

dividing your goods among them, and your journey come to nothing.

But to Menelaus I bid you go — I urge it:

he is newly home from foreign parts,

from among peoples no man would hope in his heart

320to return from, once the storm-winds had driven him astray

into a sea so vast that not even the birds

can cross it in a year — so vast it is, and terrible.

Go now, with your own ship and your companions;

or if you would rather go by land, chariot and horses are here,

325and here are my sons, who will be your escorts

to shining Lacedaemon, where fair-haired Menelaus is.

Beg him yourself, so that he speaks unerring truth.

He will tell you no lie: he is clear-headed beyond most men."

So he spoke; and the sun went down, and the dusk came on.

330And among them spoke the goddess, gray-eyed Athena:

"Old sir, all this you have told rightly, in due measure.

But come — cut up the tongues now, and mix the wine,²⁸

so that we may pour to Poseidon and the other immortals

and then think of sleep. It is the hour for it:

335the light is gone already under the western gloom, and it is not fitting

to sit long at the feast of the gods, but to go home."

So spoke the daughter of Zeus, and they heard her voice.

Heralds poured water over their hands,

and young men crowned the mixing-bowls with drink

340and served all, pouring first drops in each cup for the gods;

and they threw the tongues in the fire, and stood, and poured above them.

But when they had poured, and drunk what their hearts would have,

then Athena and godlike Telemachus

both made to go back to the hollow ship.

345But Nestor held them back, catching at them with his words:

"Zeus forbid it — and the other deathless gods —

that you should go from my house to your fast ship

as if from some man utterly cloakless and poor,

who has no cloaks, no plenty of blankets in his house,

350no soft sleeping for himself or for his guests!

I have cloaks and beautiful blankets in plenty.

Never, while I live, shall the dear son of this man Odysseus

lie down on a ship's deck-planks — nor after,

while sons of mine are left in the halls

355to host whatever guest arrives at my doors."

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

"Well said, dear old friend — and it is fitting

that Telemachus obey you: far better so.

Let him go with you now, then, and sleep

360in your halls. But I will go to the black ship

to hearten the companions and give them all their orders.

For I may claim to be the only elder among them:

the rest are younger men who follow out of friendship,

all of an age with great-hearted Telemachus.

365There let me lie down tonight, by the black hollow ship;

and in the morning I go on to the great-hearted Cauconians,

where a debt is owed me — no new thing

and no small one. But this man, since he has come to your house,

send on with a chariot and a son of yours; and give him horses,

370your lightest runners, your strongest."

So speaking, gray-eyed Athena went away

in the likeness of a sea-eagle; and amazement took all who saw,²⁹

and the old man marveled, when his eyes had seen it.

He took Telemachus' hand, and spoke a word, and named him:

375"Dear friend, I have no fear you will prove base or spineless,

if the gods walk with you so, escorts, and you so young!

For this was none other of those who hold Olympus

than the daughter of Zeus, most glorious Tritogeneia,³⁰

she who honored your noble father too among the Argives.

380Queen, be gracious! Grant me good fame —

to me, to my children, to my honored wife —

and I in turn will offer you a yearling heifer, broad of brow,³¹

unbroken, that no man has ever led under the yoke:

her I will offer to you, with gold poured round her horns."

385So he spoke in prayer, and Pallas Athena heard him.

Then Gerenian Nestor the horseman led them —

his sons and his daughters' husbands — to his beautiful house.

And when they reached the lord's famous house,

they sat in order on the benches and the high-backed chairs,

390and for their coming the old man mixed a bowl

of sweet-drinking wine, eleven years old,

which the woman-steward opened, loosening the sealing cap.

Of this the old man mixed a bowl, and to Athena

he prayed long, pouring, to the daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus.

395But when they had poured, and drunk what their hearts would have,

the others went home to sleep, each man to his own house,

but Gerenian Nestor the horseman laid him down there —

Telemachus, dear son of godlike Odysseus —

on a corded bedstead under the echoing porch,

400and beside him Peisistratus of the good ash spear, leader of men,

the one son in his halls still unwed;

and he himself slept in the inner room of the high house,

where the lady his wife made ready his bed and his rest.

When Dawn appeared, the early-born, with fingers of rose,

405Gerenian Nestor the horseman rose up from his bed,

and came out, and took his seat on the polished stones

that stood before his high doors,

white, gleaming as if with oil. On these, in the old days,³²

Neleus used to sit, a counselor the equal of the gods;

410but he long since had gone down to Hades, broken by fate,

and now Gerenian Nestor sat there in his turn, warder of the Achaeans,

holding the scepter. Around him his sons gathered in a body,

coming from their rooms: Echephron and Stratius,

Perseus and Aretus and godlike Thrasymedes;

415and sixth came the hero Peisistratus to join them,

and they led godlike Telemachus and seated him beside them.

And Gerenian Nestor the horseman began to speak among them:

"Quickly, dear children, work my wish for me,

so that first of all the gods I may propitiate Athena,

420who came to me in visible presence at the god's rich feast.

Come then: one of you to the plain for a heifer, fast as may be,

and let the cowherd drive her in;

one go down to great-hearted Telemachus' black ship

and bring up all his companions — leave two men only;

425one bid the goldsmith Laerces come here

to pour gold round the heifer's horns.

The rest of you stay here together; and tell the slave-women

inside to make ready a feast through the famous house —

seats, and firewood round about, and shining water."

430So he spoke, and they all fell to bustling. The heifer came

up from the plain; from the fast trim ship came

great-hearted Telemachus' companions; the smith came

with his bronze tools in his hands, the instruments of his art,

anvil and hammer and the well-made fire-tongs

435he worked the gold with; and Athena came

to receive her offering. And the old horseman Nestor

gave gold, and the smith worked it and poured it round

the heifer's horns, so the goddess might see the glory and be glad.

Stratius and noble Echephron led her by the horns;

440Aretus came from the storeroom carrying lustral water³³

in a flowered basin, and in his other hand the barley-grains

in a basket; and Thrasymedes, steadfast in battle, stood by

with a sharp axe in his hand, to strike the heifer down;

Perseus held the blood-bowl. And the old horseman Nestor

445began with the hand-water and the barley-grains, and long to Athena

he prayed, making first offering, casting hairs from the head into the fire.

And when they had prayed and thrown the scattering barley,

straightway Nestor's son, high-spirited Thrasymedes,

stood close and struck: the axe cut through the tendons

450of the neck, and undid the heifer's strength. And the women cried aloud —³⁴

the daughters and the sons' wives and the honored wife

of Nestor, Eurydice, eldest of the daughters of Clymenus.

Then the men lifted her up from the wide-wayed earth

and held her, and Peisistratus, leader of men, cut the throat.

455And when the black blood had run out, and the life had left the bones,

quickly they broke her apart, and at once cut out the thigh-pieces

all in due order, and wrapped them deep in fat,

folding it double, and laid raw flesh upon them.

The old man burned them on the split wood, and poured the fire-bright wine

460over; and the young men beside him held the five-tined forks.

And when the thighs were burned through, and they had tasted the innards,

they carved up the rest and threaded it on spits

and roasted it, holding the sharp spits in their hands.

Meanwhile beautiful Polycaste had bathed Telemachus —³⁵

465the youngest daughter of Nestor, Neleus' son.

And when she had bathed him and rubbed him richly with oil,

she threw a beautiful mantle around him, and a tunic,

and he stepped from the bath with the body of an immortal,

and went and sat down beside Nestor, shepherd of the people.

470And when they had roasted the outer meats and drawn them off,

they sat and feasted; and good men waited on them,

pouring wine into cups of gold.

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

Gerenian Nestor the horseman began to speak among them:

475"My sons, come — yoke the fine-maned horses for Telemachus,

lead them under the chariot, so he may be making his way."

So he spoke, and they listened well and obeyed:

quickly they yoked the swift horses under the chariot,

and the woman-steward put in bread and wine

480and cooked meats, such things as Zeus-nurtured kings eat.

Then Telemachus mounted the beautiful chariot,

and beside him Peisistratus, Nestor's son, leader of men,

mounted the chariot and took the reins in his hands,

and whipped them to a run; and the pair flew on, nothing loath,

485into the plain, and left the steep city of Pylos behind.

All day long they shook the yoke they bore between them.³⁶

The sun went down, and all the ways grew dark,

and they came to Pherae, to the house of Diocles,

son of Ortilochus, whom Alpheus fathered.

490There they slept the night, and he set guest-gifts before them.

When Dawn appeared, the early-born, with fingers of rose,

they yoked the horses and mounted the inlaid chariot

and drove out of the gateway and the echoing porch;

and he whipped them to a run, and the pair flew on, nothing loath.

495They came to the wheat-bearing plain, and there they pressed

to the journey's end: so well the swift horses carried them.

The sun went down, and all the ways grew dark.³⁷