Book IV

1And they came to hollow Lacedaemon, land of ravines,¹

and drove to the house of glorious Menelaus.

They found him giving a wedding-feast to his many kinsmen²

for his son and his blameless daughter, in his own house.

5The daughter he was sending to the son of Achilles, breaker of ranks:

in Troy long ago he had promised her, had bowed his head

to give her, and now the gods were bringing the marriage to pass.

So now with horses and chariots he was sending her forth

to the famous city of the Myrmidons, whom that man ruled.

10For his son he was bringing home Alector's daughter out of Sparta —

the son born to him in his strength, well-loved Megapenthes,

out of a slave-woman. For to Helen the gods showed no more children

after the first time, when she bore her lovely daughter

Hermione, who had the beauty of golden Aphrodite.

15So they were feasting through the great high-roofed house,

the neighbors and kinsmen of glorious Menelaus,

taking their pleasure; and among them a godlike singer sang

to the lyre, and two tumblers among them,

as he led the song, went spinning through their midst.

20And the two of them halted at the gateway of the house, themselves

and their horses — the hero Telemachus and Nestor's shining son.

Lord Eteoneus came out and saw them,

the busy henchman of glorious Menelaus,

and went through the house to bring the news to the shepherd of the people;

25standing close he spoke winged words to him:

"Two strangers here, Menelaus, nurtured of Zeus —

two men, and they look like the stock of great Zeus.

Tell me: do we unyoke their swift horses for them,

or send them on to another man, who may welcome them?"

30Then fair-haired Menelaus, greatly stirred, replied:³

"You were no fool before, Eteoneus, son of Boethous —

but now you are babbling nonsense like a child.

The two of us ate plenty of strangers' bread,

you and I, on the road home, hoping Zeus might someday

35give us rest from misery. Unyoke the strangers' horses,

and bring the men themselves in, to share the feast."

So he spoke, and the man dashed back through the hall, and called the other

busy henchmen to come along with him.

They loosed the sweating horses from under the yoke

40and tied them up at the mangers of the horses,

and threw them spelt, and mixed white barley in with it,

and leaned the chariot against the gleaming entrance-wall,

and led the men into the godlike house. And they stared

in wonder through the house of the Zeus-nurtured king:

45for there was a sheen as of the sun or the moon⁴

through the high-roofed house of glorious Menelaus.

And when they had had their joy of gazing,

they stepped into the polished baths and bathed.

And when the slave-women had bathed them and rubbed them with oil,

50and thrown about them fleecy cloaks and tunics,

they sat down on high seats beside Menelaus, Atreus' son.

A handmaid brought water for their hands in a pitcher,

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

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

55The grave housekeeper brought bread and set it before them,

laying 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 fair-haired Menelaus greeted them with a wave of the hand:

60"Take of the bread, and be welcome. And afterward,

when you have tasted supper, we will ask what men

you are: for the stock of your parents is not lost in you —

you are of the stock of scepter-bearing kings,

nurtured of Zeus. No base men could father such sons."

65So he spoke, and set before them the fat roast chine of an ox,

lifting it in his hands — the portion of honor they had set for him.

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

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

then Telemachus spoke to the son of Nestor,

70leaning his head close, so that the others might not hear:

"Look, son of Nestor, delight of my heart —⁵

the lightning of bronze through these echoing halls,

the gold and the amber, the silver and the ivory!

Such, I think, is the court of Olympian Zeus within:

75all this here, past speaking! Awe takes me, looking at it."

But fair-haired Menelaus caught what he was saying,

and lifting his voice he spoke winged words to them:

"Dear children, with Zeus no mortal man could vie:

his halls and his possessions are deathless things.

80Among men, another may match me in wealth — or may not.

Much I suffered for it, and far I wandered

to bring it home in my ships: eight years gone before I came,

driven wandering to Cyprus and Phoenicia and the Egyptians;

I reached the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, the Erembi,

85and Libya, where the lambs come horned from the birth,

for the ewes bear three times in the full round of the year.

There no lord and no shepherd goes wanting

for cheese and meat and sweet milk:

the flocks give milk for the milking all the year round.

90But while I roamed those countries gathering

much substance, another man killed my brother —

by stealth, off guard, through the treachery of his cursed wife.⁶

So I take no joy in being lord of all this wealth.

You will have heard it from your fathers, whoever they are:

95I have suffered much, and I lost a house

well lived-in, full of many splendid things.

Would I lived here with a third part only of all this,

and the men were alive who died in those years

in wide Troy, far from horse-grazing Argos!

100And yet — though I mourn them all, and grieve,

often, sitting here in our halls,

and one hour ease my heart with weeping, and the next

leave off, for men are quickly sated of cold lament —

for all of them together I do not mourn so much,

105grieved though I am, as for one man, who makes sleep hateful to me,

and food, when I remember: for no Achaean labored

as Odysseus labored and endured. And the end of it was

sorrow for him, and for me a grief never to be forgotten —

that he is gone so long, and we know nothing,

110whether he lives or is dead. They must be mourning him now,

old Laertes, and steady-hearted Penelope,

and Telemachus, whom he left new-born in the house."

So he spoke, and stirred in the boy the ache to weep for his father:

tears fell from his eyelids to the ground at his father's name,

115and he lifted the purple cloak before his eyes

with both hands. And Menelaus noticed him,

and pondered then in his mind and in his heart

whether to leave it to him to name his father,

or to question him first and test him point by point.

120While he was turning this over in his mind and in his heart,

out of her fragrant high-roofed chamber came Helen,⁷

looking like Artemis of the golden distaff;

and with her Adreste set out her well-made reclining chair,

Alcippe brought a rug of soft wool,

125and Phylo brought her silver basket, given her

by Alcandre, wife of Polybus, who lived in Thebes

of Egypt, where the greatest wealth lies stored in houses:

he gave Menelaus two silver baths

and a pair of tripods and ten talents of gold;

130and apart from these his wife gave Helen beautiful gifts of her own —

a golden distaff she gave, and a basket on wheels,

silver, its rims finished off in gold.

This the handmaid Phylo brought and set beside her,

stuffed with fine-spun yarn, and across it

135lay the distaff, wound with wool of violet darkness.

She sat down on the chair, with a footstool for her feet,

and at once began asking her husband about everything:

"Do we know yet, Menelaus, nurtured of Zeus, who these men

declare themselves to be, who have come to our house?

140Shall I lie, or speak the truth? My heart bids me speak.⁸

For never yet, I say, have I seen such a likeness,

in man or woman — awe takes me, looking at him —

as this boy is like the son of great-hearted Odysseus:

Telemachus, whom that man left new-born in the house

145when for my sake — bitch-faced that I was — you Achaeans⁹

came up under Troy, with bold war in your hearts."

Then fair-haired Menelaus answered her:

"I too see it now, wife, just as you liken him:

those were the very feet of the man, the very hands,

150the glance of his eyes, the head, the hair above.

And just now, remembering Odysseus,

I was telling of all he labored and endured

for my sake — and the boy shed a bitter tear from under his brows,

holding the purple cloak up before his eyes."

155Then Peisistratus, Nestor's son, answered him:

"Menelaus, son of Atreus, Zeus-nurtured, leader of peoples,

this is indeed that man's son, as you say.

But he is modest, and his heart is shy

of splashing forth big words on a first arrival

160in front of you, whose voice delights us both like a god's.

Gerenian Nestor the horseman sent me out

to come with him as escort: he longed to see you,

in hope you might set some word or work before him.

For a son has many sorrows in the house

165when his father is gone and no other helpers stand by him —

as now with Telemachus: the father gone, and no others

in all the land to beat trouble away."

Then fair-haired Menelaus answered him:

"Well now! Truly the son of a beloved man is in my house,

170a man who fought through many trials for my sake;

and I used to say that when he came I would welcome him beyond all

the other Argives — if Olympian Zeus of the wide voice

gave the two of us a homecoming over the sea in our fast ships.

I would have settled him a city in Argos, and built him a house,¹⁰

175and brought him out of Ithaca with his goods and his son

and all his people — emptying out one town

of those that lie around and own me as their lord.

Being here, we would have mingled often; and nothing

would have parted us then, loving and delighting in each other,

180until death's black cloud came folding round us.

But such things, I suppose, the god himself must have grudged,

who made that unlucky man — him alone — the man who never came home."

So he spoke, and stirred in them all the ache of lament.

Argive Helen wept, the daughter of Zeus,

185and Telemachus wept, and Menelaus, Atreus' son,

nor could the son of Nestor keep his eyes dry:

for his heart remembered blameless Antilochus,¹¹

whom the shining son of bright Dawn had killed.

Remembering him, he spoke winged words:

190"Son of Atreus, old Nestor always said

you were clear-headed beyond other mortals, whenever we remembered you

in his halls, and questioned one another.

So now, if it may be, listen to me. I take

no pleasure in weeping after supper — and dawn

195will come, early-born, soon enough. Not that I grudge

lament for any mortal who dies and meets his doom:

this is the only honor left to miserable mortals,¹²

to cut a lock of hair and let a tear fall down the cheek.

For my brother died too — hardly the meanest

200of the Argives. You would know him. I myself never

met him, never saw him. But beyond other men, they say,

Antilochus was surpassing swift of foot, and a fighter."

Then fair-haired Menelaus answered him:

"Dear friend — you have said all a clear-headed man

205could say or do, even a man older than you.

From such a father you come; hence your clear-headed speech.

Easily known is the seed of a man for whom the son of Cronos

spins out happiness at his marriage and his begetting —

as now he has granted Nestor, through all his days,

210to grow old sleek in his own halls,

and his sons to be wise and the best of spearmen.

So we will let the weeping go, which came on us before,

and think again of supper. Let them pour water

over our hands. And at dawn there will be tales again

215for Telemachus and me to tell through to each other."

So he spoke, and Asphalion poured water over their hands,

the busy henchman of glorious Menelaus,

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

Then Helen, daughter of Zeus, thought of one thing more:

220into the wine they were drinking she straightway cast a drug¹³

that undoes grief and anger and brings forgetfulness of every evil.

Whoever swallowed it down, once mixed in the bowl,

would let no tear fall down his cheeks that day,

not though his mother and his father lay there dead,

225not though before his face men put his brother or his own son

to the bronze, and his own eyes saw it.

Such were the subtle drugs the daughter of Zeus possessed,

good drugs, given her by Polydamna, wife of Thon,

the Egyptian — for there the grain-giving plowland bears

230drugs in greatest plenty, many good in the mixing, many baneful;

and every man there is a healer beyond all

humankind: for they are of the race of Paeeon.

When she had cast it in, and bidden the wine be poured,

she took up the talk again, and said:

235"Menelaus, son of Atreus, nurtured of Zeus — and you,¹⁴

sons of good men. To this man and that Zeus gives

good and evil, now one, now another: for he can do all things.

So now — feast where you sit in the halls

and take your pleasure in tales. And I will tell one that fits the hour.

240All of it I could not tell, could not so much as number —

all the trials of enduring-hearted Odysseus;

but here is one thing that mighty man did and dared¹⁵

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

He beat his own body with disfiguring blows,

245threw a foul rag over his shoulders, and like a house-slave

he slipped into the wide-wayed city of his enemies —

hiding himself, in the likeness of another man,

a beggar: he who was nothing of the kind by the Achaean ships.

In that shape he slipped into the Trojans' city, and all of them

250were taken in. I alone knew him for what he was,

and questioned him; and he in his cunning kept slipping away.

But when at last I was bathing him and rubbing him with oil,

and had put clothes on him, and sworn a strong oath

not to reveal Odysseus to the Trojans

255before he reached the fast ships and the huts,

then at last he told me all the Achaeans had in mind.

And he killed many Trojans with the long-edged bronze

on his way back to the Argives, and brought back a harvest of knowledge.

Then the other women of Troy wailed shrill. But my heart

260rejoiced — for my heart had turned already toward going

home again, and I mourned too late the madness Aphrodite

gave me, when she led me there from my own dear country,

forsaking my child, my bridal chamber, and a husband

lacking nothing, in mind or in beauty."

265Then fair-haired Menelaus answered her:

"Yes, wife: all this you have told rightly, in due measure.

By now I have learned the counsel and the mind

of many heroes, and traveled over much of the earth,

but never yet have my eyes looked on such a one

270as the heart of enduring-hearted Odysseus.

Here is one more thing that mighty man did and dared

inside the carved horse, where we sat, all the best

of the Argives, carrying death and doom to the Trojans.

Then you came there — some spirit must have moved you,¹⁶

275one that willed to hand glory to the Trojans —

and godlike Deiphobus came following after you.

Three times you circled the hollow ambush, stroking it,

and you called by name the best of the Danaans,

making your voice the voice of each Argive's wife.

280And I and the son of Tydeus and noble Odysseus,

sitting in the middle of them, heard you calling;

and the two of us were wild to spring up

and come out, or answer at once from within.

But Odysseus held us down, and checked us for all our longing.

285Then all the other sons of the Achaeans kept silence;¹⁷

Anticlus alone was bent on giving you an answer —

but Odysseus clamped his great hands over his mouth

and held them there, unyielding, and saved all the Achaeans:

he held him so until Pallas Athena led you away."

290Then clear-headed Telemachus answered him:

"Menelaus, son of Atreus, Zeus-nurtured, leader of peoples —

the more grief: for none of this kept bitter death from him,

not though the heart inside him had been iron.

But come — send us to bed now, so that at last

295we may lie down and take our joy of sweet sleep."

So he spoke; and Argive Helen ordered the slave-women

to set out bedsteads under the porch, and to lay on them

beautiful purple blankets, and spread rugs above,

and fleecy cloaks on top of all, for cover.

300Out of the hall they went with torches in their hands

and made the beds; and a herald led the guests out.

So they slept there in the forecourt of the house,

the hero Telemachus and Nestor's shining son;

but Atreus' son slept in the inner room of the high house,

305and beside him lay long-robed Helen, shining among women.

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

Menelaus of the great war-cry rose up from his bed,

put on his clothes, slung his sharp sword about his shoulder,

bound the beautiful sandals beneath his shining feet,

310and came out of his bedroom looking like a god.

He sat down beside Telemachus, and spoke a word, and named him:

"What need has brought you here, hero Telemachus,

to shining Lacedaemon, over the broad back of the sea?

A public matter or private? Tell me the plain truth of it."

315Then clear-headed Telemachus answered him:

"Menelaus, son of Atreus, Zeus-nurtured, leader of peoples,

I came in hope you might tell me some word of my father.

My house is being eaten; my rich fields are ruined;

the house is packed with enemies, who day upon day

320slaughter my thronging flocks and my shambling crook-horned cattle —

my mother's suitors, with their overweening insolence.

That is why I come now to your knees: in hope you will consent¹⁸

to tell his bitter death — whether you saw it

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

325wanderer. Beyond all men his mother bore him for sorrow.

Do not soften anything from courtesy or pity:

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

330in the Trojans' country, where you Achaeans suffered your pains,

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

Then fair-haired Menelaus, greatly stirred, replied:

"Shame on them! Truly in the bed of a strong-hearted man

they want to lie — the spineless creatures that they are!

335As when a deer beds down her newborn suckling fawns¹⁹

in the thicket-lair of a mighty lion,

and goes questing the spurs and grassy hollows,

grazing — and then the lion comes back to his own bed

and lets an ugly doom loose on them both:

340so Odysseus will let an ugly doom loose on those men.

If only — father Zeus, Athena, Apollo! —

the man he was long ago in strong-founded Lesbos,

when he rose on a challenge and wrestled Philomeleides

and threw him hard, and all the Achaeans cheered:

345such as he was then, let that Odysseus close with the suitors:

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

As for what you ask of me and beg me: I will not

talk around it, swerving aside, and I will not deceive you.

What the unerring Old Man of the Sea told me,²⁰

350not one word of it will I hide or cover from you.

In Egypt the gods still held me, hungry as I was for home,

because I had not offered them their full hecatombs —

and the gods will always have their commandments remembered.

Now there is an island in the much-surging sea

355off the mouth of Egypt — Pharos, men call it,²¹

as far out as a hollow ship runs in a whole day

with a whistling wind astern of her —

and in it a harbor, good anchorage, from which men launch

their trim ships to sea, once they have drawn black water.

360There the gods held me twenty days: never once the sea-winds

blowing fair, that speed ships

over the broad back of the sea.

And now all our stores would have been spent, and the men's strength,

had not one of the gods pitied me and saved me:

365the daughter of mighty Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea —

Eidothea. For I stirred her heart beyond the rest²²

when she met me wandering alone, apart from my companions —

for they were forever roving round the island, fishing

with bent hooks, their bellies pinched with hunger.

370She stood close by me and spoke, and said:

'Are you a fool, stranger — so slack, so loose of wit?

Or do you slacken by choice, and enjoy your suffering?

So long you are held on the island, and can find

no ending of it, while your companions' hearts grow small.'

375So she spoke, and I answered her:

'I will say this straight, whichever of the goddesses you are:

I am not held here by any will of mine. I must have sinned

against the deathless ones who hold wide heaven.

But tell me — for the gods know all things —

380which of the immortals shackles me here and has bound my road,

and my homecoming — how I shall go over the fish-filled sea.'

So I spoke, and the shining goddess answered at once:

'Then I will tell you, stranger, and tell you truly.

There haunts this place an unerring Old Man of the Sea,

385deathless Proteus of Egypt, who knows the depths

of every sea — Poseidon's under-servant.²³

He, they say, is my father, who begot me.

If you could somehow set an ambush and take hold of him,

he would tell you the road, and the measures of your journey,

390and your homecoming — how you shall go over the fish-filled sea.

And he would tell you too, Zeus-nurtured, if you wish,

whatever evil and good have been done in your halls

while you have been gone on your long and grinding road.'

So she spoke, and I answered her:

395'Devise the ambush yourself, for this old god —

or he will see me first, or know beforehand, and escape me.

A god is hard for a mortal man to master.'

So I spoke, and the shining goddess answered at once:

'Then I will tell you, stranger, and tell you truly.

400When the sun bestrides the middle of heaven,

then the unerring Old Man of the Sea comes out of the water

under the West Wind's breath, hidden in the dark shiver of the sea,

and coming out he beds down under the hollow caves;

and around him seals, the brood of the sea's lovely daughter,²⁴

405sleep in a crowd, come up out of the gray salt water,

breathing out the sharp smell of the deep brine.

There I will bring you at the showing of dawn

and bed you down in the row. Choose well three companions,

the best you have by the well-benched ships.

410And I will tell you all the old man's tricks.

First he will count his seals, and go over them;

and when he has told them off by fives and seen them all,

he will lie down in their midst, like a herdsman in his flocks.

The moment you see him settled down,

415then let strength and force be all your thought:

hold him there for all his struggling, however he strains to escape.

He will make trial of everything, turning into all things²⁵

that creep upon the earth — into water, into god-kindled fire;

but hold him unshakably, and press him the harder.

420And when at last he questions you with words himself,

in the same shape you saw him settle to sleep,

then leave off your force, hero: set the old man loose,

and ask him which of the gods bears hard on you,

and your homecoming — how you shall go over the fish-filled sea.'

425So speaking she plunged under the surging sea.

And I went to the ships where they stood in the sand,

and my heart ran dark with many things as I went.

And when I had come down to the ship and the sea,

we made our supper, and ambrosial night came on,

430and we lay down to sleep on the surf-line of the sea.

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

I set out along the shore of the wide-wayed sea,

praying hard to the gods; and I took three companions,

the three I trusted most for every venture.

435She meanwhile had slipped under the wide gulf of the sea

and brought up out of the deep four sealskins,

all fresh-flayed: she was plotting an ambush against her own father.

She had scooped out beds in the sea-sand

and sat there waiting. And we came up close beside her,

440and she bedded us down in the row, and threw a skin over each.

There our ambush would have been most horrible: the deadly²⁶

stench of the salt-bred seals ground us down horribly —

who would lay himself down beside a beast of the sea? —

but she herself saved us; she devised a great relief:

445she brought ambrosia and set it under each man's nose,

breathing sweetness, and it killed the stench of the beast.

All the morning we waited, with enduring hearts,

and the seals came crowding up out of the sea, and then

lay down in rows along the surf-line of the sea;

450and at midday the old man came out of the sea, and found his fat

seals, and went over them all, and counted the number —

and among the beasts he counted us the first, his heart

never guessing the trick. Then he too lay down.

Then we rushed him with a shout, and threw our arms

455around him; and the old man did not forget his cunning art,

but first he turned to a great-bearded lion,

and then to a serpent, a leopard, a huge boar;

he turned to running water, to a tree in towering leaf;

and we held on unshakably, with enduring hearts.

460But when at last the old man wearied, for all his tricks,

then he questioned me with words, and said:

'Which of the gods, son of Atreus, laid the plan with you

to take me by ambush against my will? What do you need?'

So he spoke, and I answered him:

465'You know, old man — why ask me sideways? —

how long I am held on this island, and can find

no ending of it, and the heart inside me grows small.

But tell me — for the gods know all things —

which of the immortals shackles me here and has bound my road,

470and my homecoming — how I shall go over the fish-filled sea.'

So I spoke, and he answered me at once:

'But you should have offered fair victims to Zeus and the other

gods before embarking, to come most quickly

to your own country, sailing the wine-dark sea.

475For it is not your portion to see your own people, to reach

your well-built house and your own fatherland,

before you go back again to the waters of Egypt,

the river fallen from Zeus, and offer holy hecatombs²⁷

to the deathless gods who hold wide heaven.

480Then the gods will give you the road you long for.'

So he spoke, and my heart broke within me,

because he sent me back over the misted sea

to Egypt again — the long and grinding road.

Even so I answered him and said:

485'All this I will do, old man, just as you command.

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

did all the Achaeans come home unharmed in their ships,

all whom Nestor and I left behind when we sailed from Troy?

Or did any die a bitter death aboard his ship,

490or in the arms of his friends, once he had wound the war to its end?'

So I spoke, and he answered me at once:

'Son of Atreus, why ask me this? You have no need

to know, no need to learn my mind. Not long, I tell you,

will you keep from tears, once you have heard the whole of it.

495Many of them were broken, and many were left;

but of the leaders of the bronze-shirted Achaeans, two

alone died on the homeward way — the fighting you saw yourself —

and one, still living somewhere, is held back on the wide sea.

Ajax was broken among his long-oared ships.²⁸

500Poseidon drove him first against the great rocks

of Gyrae — and yet he saved him from the sea;

and he would have escaped his doom, though Athena hated him,

had he not flung out an overweening word in his great blindness:

he said it was in the gods' despite he had escaped the great gulf of the sea.

505Poseidon heard his loud boasting,

and straightway took his trident in his massive hands

and struck the rock of Gyrae, and split it apart:

one part held its place, but the broken piece fell in the sea —

the piece where Ajax sat when the great blindness took him —

510and it carried him down into the boundless surging deep.

So he died there, when he had drunk the salt water.

But your brother somehow slipped the fates, escaped them

in his hollow ships: the lady Hera saved him.

Yet when he was all but come to the steep height

515of Malea, then a storm-wind snatched him up

and carried him, groaning heavily, over the fish-filled sea

to the border of the country where Thyestes once

had his house, and now Thyestes' son Aegisthus lived.

But when from there too a safe homecoming showed,

520and the gods turned the wind fair, and they reached home —

oh, rejoicing he set foot on his fathers' land,²⁹

and touched his country and kissed it: the hot tears

streamed from him, so glad he was to see his land.

But from a lookout a watchman saw him — posted there

525by Aegisthus of the crooked counsels, who had promised him

two talents of gold for wages: a full year he had watched,

so the king might not slip past unseen and remember his fighting strength.

The man went with his news to the house, to the shepherd of the people,

and at once Aegisthus laid his treacherous craft:

530he picked the twenty best men in the land

and set an ambush, and across the hall he ordered a feast made ready;

and then he went to summon Agamemnon, shepherd of the people,

with horses and chariots — and unspeakable things in his mind.

He led him up unwitting of his death, and killed him

535at the dinner — as a man cuts down an ox at the manger.³⁰

Not one of the companions of Atreus' son was left, who followed him,

and not one of Aegisthus' men: they were killed in the halls.'

So he spoke, and my heart broke within me,

and I wept, sitting there in the sand; my heart

540had no more will to live and see the light of the sun.

But when I had had my fill of weeping and writhing,

then the unerring Old Man of the Sea said to me:

'No more now, son of Atreus, this long unbending

weeping: we shall find no cure in it. Quick as you can,

545try how you may come back to your own fatherland.

Either you will find him alive — or Orestes

has already killed him first, and you may come in time for the burying.'

So he spoke; and the heart and the proud spirit in my breast,

for all my grieving, were warmed again,

550and lifting my voice I spoke winged words to him:

'These men I now know of. But name the third man:

the one still living, held back on the wide sea —

or dead. Grieved as I am, I want to hear it.'

So I spoke, and he answered me at once:

555'The son of Laertes, whose home is in Ithaca.³¹

I saw him on an island, letting the big tears fall,

in the halls of the nymph Calypso, who holds him there

by force; and he cannot come to his own fatherland,

for he has no ships at hand, no oars, no companions

560to carry him over the broad back of the sea.

But for you, Zeus-nurtured Menelaus, it is not fated³²

to die in horse-grazing Argos and meet your doom:

the deathless ones will carry you to the Elysian plain

and the ends of the earth — where fair-haired Rhadamanthus is,

565where life is easiest of all for men:

no snow, no heavy winter, never rain,

but always Ocean sends up the breath of the singing West Wind

to bring men coolness —

because Helen is yours, and you are son-in-law to Zeus.'

570So speaking he plunged under the surging sea.

And I went to the ships with my godlike companions,

and my heart ran dark with many things as I went.

And when we had come down to the ship and the sea,

we made our supper, and ambrosial night came on,

575and we lay down to sleep on the surf-line of the sea.

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

first of all we hauled our ships down to the bright salt water

and set the masts and the sails in the trim ships,

and the men came aboard and took their places at the oarlocks,

580and sitting in order they struck the gray salt water with their oars.

Back to Egypt I brought the ships, to the river

fallen from Zeus, and I offered the full hecatombs;

and when I had put to rest the anger of the gods who are forever,

I heaped a mound for Agamemnon, that his fame might never be quenched.³³

585That done, I sailed for home, and the immortals gave me

a wind, and brought me quickly to my own dear country.

But come now — stay on in my halls

until the eleventh day, or the twelfth;

then I will send you off with honor, and give you shining gifts:

590three horses and a polished chariot; and besides

I will give you a beautiful cup, so that you may pour

to the deathless gods and remember me all your days."

Then clear-headed Telemachus answered him:

"Son of Atreus, do not hold me here for long.

595A year I could gladly sit here at your side

and no ache for home or parents would take me:

such strange delight I have in hearing your tales

and your words. But my companions chafe already

in holy Pylos, and you would hold me long here.

600As for the gift you would give me — let it be some treasure.

The horses I will not take to Ithaca: I will leave them here³⁴

for you, for your own glory. For you are lord of a wide plain,

where lotus grows in plenty, and galingale,

and wheat and spelt and broad white barley.

605In Ithaca there are no wide courses, no meadowland at all:

goat-pasture — and lovelier to me than horse-pasture.

Not one of the islands that lean on the sea is fit for driving horses,

or rich in meadows — and Ithaca beyond them all."

So he spoke; and Menelaus of the great war-cry smiled,³⁵

610and stroked him with his hand, and spoke a word, and named him:

"You are of good blood, dear child — such things you say!

Then I will change the gifts for you; well I can.

Of all the treasures lying stored in my house

I will give you the most beautiful, the most honored:

615I will give you a wrought mixing-bowl — all silver

it is, and its rims are finished off in gold —

the work of Hephaestus. The hero Phaedimus gave it,³⁶

king of the Sidonians, when his house sheltered me

on my way home there. This I would send with you."

620So the two of them spoke such things to one another,

while the feasters came up to the godlike king's house,

driving sheep before them, carrying wine that puts heart in men,³⁷

and their fair-veiled wives sent bread along with them.

So they labored at the feast in the halls.

625But the suitors, in front of Odysseus' hall,

were amusing themselves with discus and javelin throws

on the leveled ground, insolent as ever, where they always played.

There Antinous sat, and godlike Eurymachus,

chiefs of the suitors, in prowess far the best of them all.

630To them Noemon, Phronius' son, came up

and questioned Antinous, and said:

"Antinous, do we know at all — or not —

when Telemachus comes back from sandy Pylos?

He went off with my ship, and now I need her

635to cross to Elis of the wide dancing-grounds, where I keep twelve

brood mares, with hard-working mules at the teat,

unbroken: I would drive one off and break him in."

So he spoke, and their hearts were astonished: they had never thought

he had gone to Neleian Pylos — surely he was somewhere near,

640out at the farms with the flocks, or with the swineherd.

Then Antinous, Eupeithes' son, answered him:

"Tell me the truth of it: when did he go, and what young men

went with him? Picked men of Ithaca — or his own

hired hands and slaves? He could manage even that!

645And tell me this too, honestly, so that I may know it:

did he take the black ship from you by force, against your will,

or did you give it freely, because he begged you with fine words?"

Then Noemon, Phronius' son, answered him:

"I gave it freely, myself. What would any man do

650when such a man, with cares heavy on his heart,

asked? It would be hard to refuse the gift.

The young men who went with him are the best in the land

after ourselves. And for their leader I marked

Mentor going aboard — or a god, the very image of him.³⁸

655But here is what I wonder at: I saw noble Mentor

yesterday at dawn, right here — and he had boarded the ship for Pylos."

So he spoke, and went away to his father's house.

And the proud hearts of the two of them were stunned.

They sat the suitors down in a body and stopped their games,

660and among them spoke Antinous, Eupeithes' son,

in anger: his black-brimming heart was hugely

filled with fury, and his eyes were like blazing fire:

"Damn it all — a great work insolently accomplished,

this voyage of Telemachus! And we said it would come to nothing.

665In the teeth of all of us, a mere boy has simply gone:

hauled down a ship, and picked the best men in the land.

He will begin to be our ruin, and soon. May Zeus

destroy his strength before he reaches the measure of manhood!

But come, give me a fast ship and twenty companions,³⁹

670so I may watch for him and ambush him on his way home,

in the strait between Ithaca and rugged Samos —

so this sailing after his father may cost him grim and dear."

So he spoke, and they all approved it and urged it on.

They rose at once and went into the house of Odysseus.

675Nor was Penelope long in ignorance

of the schemes the suitors were brewing deep in their hearts:

for the herald Medon told her, who had overheard their plans,

standing outside the court while they wove their plot within.

He went through the house to bring the news to Penelope,

680and as he crossed the threshold Penelope said to him:

"Herald, why have the lordly suitors sent you in?

To tell the slave-women of godlike Odysseus

to leave their work and make the feast ready for them?

May they never woo again, never gather anywhere else —

685may this be the last supper they ever eat here,

they who swarm in day after day and shear away the living,

the substance of clear-headed Telemachus! Did you never hear,

in years gone by, when you were children, from your fathers,

what kind of man Odysseus was among your parents' generation?

690Never a deed out of measure, never an unjust word⁴⁰

in all the land — though that is the way of godlike kings:

one mortal a king will hate, another he may love;

but that man never did outrage to a single soul.

No — your hearts are on show, and your ugly works:

695there is no gratitude left, afterward, for good deeds done."

Then Medon answered her, a man of clear-headed sense:

"Would to god, my queen, that this were the worst of it.

A greater evil by far, and harder to bear,

the suitors are plotting now — may the son of Cronos never accomplish it:

700they are bent on cutting Telemachus down with the sharp bronze

on his way home. He went for news of his father

to holy Pylos and to shining Lacedaemon."

So he spoke, and there where she stood her knees went loose, and her heart;

for a long time speechlessness held her words; her eyes

705filled up with tears; the flower of her voice was stopped.⁴¹

At long last she found words to answer him:

"Herald, why is my child gone? There was no need

to board the fast-running ships, that are men's horses⁴²

of the salt water, and cross the great wet waste.

710Is it so that not even his name should be left among men?"

Then Medon answered her, a man of clear-headed sense:

"I do not know whether some god stirred him, or whether his own

heart drove him to go to Pylos, to learn

either his father's homecoming, or what doom he met."

715So he spoke, and went away down through the house of Odysseus.

And heart-eating anguish poured around her; she could no longer

bear to sit on a chair, though the house was full of them,

but sank down on the threshold of her richly-worked chamber,

moaning pitiably; and around her whimpered the slave-women,

720all of them, young and old, that the house held.

And sobbing hard, Penelope said among them:

"Hear me, dear women. The Olympian has given me sorrows

beyond all the women who were bred and born beside me.

Long ago I lost my noble husband, the lion-hearted,⁴³

725graced among the Danaans with every excellence,

that noble man, whose fame goes wide through Hellas and the heart of Argos.

And now again the storm-winds have snatched my beloved son,

without glory, out of these halls, and I never heard him go.

Hard-hearted! Not even you — not one of you — thought

730to wake me from my bed, though your hearts knew well

the hour he went down to the black hollow ship.

If I had learned that he was pondering this journey,

then either he would have stayed, for all his hunger for the road,

or he would have left me dead in these halls behind him.

735But now let someone run and call old Dolius,⁴⁴

my slave, whom my father gave me when I first came here,

who keeps my orchard of many trees — so that quickly

he may go sit beside Laertes and tell him all of it.

Perhaps Laertes may weave some plan in his heart,

740and come out and weep before the people, who are bent

on destroying his line and the line of godlike Odysseus."

Then the dear nurse Eurycleia said to her:

"Dear bride — kill me with the pitiless bronze⁴⁵

or leave me in the house, but I will not hide the story from you.

745I knew all of it. I gave him what he ordered,

bread and sweet wine. And he took a great oath from me

not to tell you before the twelfth day came,

or you missed him yourself and heard that he was gone —

so you would not mar your lovely skin with weeping.

750Now bathe, and take clean clothing for your body,

and go up to your upper room with your attendant women,

and pray to Athena, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus:

she may yet save him, even out of death itself.

And do not grieve a grieving old man more. I cannot think

755the blessed gods have wholly hated the line

of Arceisius' son: someone will yet be left to hold⁴⁶

the high-roofed house and the fat fields far around."

So she spoke, and lulled her lament, and stayed her eyes from weeping.

And she bathed, and took clean clothing for her body,

760and went up to her upper room with her attendant women,

and set the barley-grains in a basket, and prayed to Athena:⁴⁷

"Hear me, child of aegis-bearing Zeus, Unwearied One.

If ever Odysseus of the many designs, in these halls,

burned fat thigh-cuts of ox or sheep for you,

765remember them for me now: save my dear son,

and beat away the suitors in their evil overbearing pride."

So she cried the ritual cry; and the goddess heard her prayer.

But the suitors broke into uproar through the shadowy halls,

and thus would one of the arrogant young men say:

770"So the much-courted queen is making ready a marriage

for one of us — and knows nothing of the death prepared for her son."

So they would say — knowing nothing of what was prepared.⁴⁸

And Antinous addressed them all, and said:

"Fools! Keep clear of overweening talk of any kind —

775or someone may carry the word inside.

Up now, in silence, and let us accomplish

the plan that pleased us all in our hearts."

So he spoke, and picked the twenty best men,

and they went down to the fast ship and the sand-beach of the sea.

780First of all they hauled the ship down to deep water,

and set the mast and the sails in the black ship,

and fitted the oars into their leather slings,

all in due order, and spread the white sails open;

and high-spirited henchmen carried down their arms.

785They moored her well out in the water, and came ashore,

and there they took their supper, and waited for evening to come.

But she in her upper room, watchful-minded Penelope,

lay fasting, tasting neither food nor drink,

turning it over: whether her blameless son would escape death,

790or be broken under the overweening suitors.

As a lion turns and turns amid a crowd of men,⁴⁹

in dread, as they draw the treacherous circle round him,

so she was turning when the deep sleep came upon her;

and she sank back and slept, and all her joints went loose.

795Then the goddess thought of one thing more, gray-eyed Athena.

She made a phantom, fashioned in the likeness of a woman —⁵⁰

Iphthime, daughter of great-hearted Icarius,

wed to Eumelus, whose home was in Pherae —

and sent it to the house of godlike Odysseus,

800so that it might bring Penelope, weeping and mourning,

some pause from lamentation and tear-filled grief.

Into the chamber it came, past the strap of the bolt,

and stood above her head, and said to her:

"Do you sleep, Penelope, your heart worn with grief?

805No — the gods who live at ease will not have you

weep and be anguished: for your son has his homecoming

still; he is no sinner in the sight of the gods."

Then watchful-minded Penelope answered her —

slumbering very sweetly at the gates of dream:⁵¹

810"Why have you come here, sister? You have not been

used to come before: your home is far away.

And you bid me leave off my misery and all the pains

that crowd my mind and heart.

Long ago I lost my noble husband, the lion-hearted,

815graced among the Danaans with every excellence,

that noble man, whose fame goes wide through Hellas and the heart of Argos.

And now again my beloved son has gone in a hollow ship,

a mere boy, unpracticed in hardships and the meetings of men.

It is for him I mourn even more than for that other;

820for him I tremble, for him I fear, that something may strike him,

whether among the men of the land he has gone to, or on the sea.

For many enemies are scheming against him,

hungry to kill him before he comes back to his own country."

And the dim phantom answered her:

825"Take heart. Do not fear too greatly in your mind.

Such an escort goes with him as other men

have prayed to have stand beside them — for she has power —

Pallas Athena. And she pities you your grieving:

it is she who sent me now to tell you this."

830Then watchful-minded Penelope said to her:

"If you are truly a god, and have heard the voice of a god,

then come — tell me also of that other, that man of sorrow:

does he live still somewhere, and see the light of the sun,

or is he dead already, down in the house of Hades?"

835And the dim phantom answered her:

"Of him I will not tell the story through —

whether he lives or is dead. It is evil to speak words empty as wind."⁵²

So speaking it slipped away by the doorpost bolt

into the breath of the winds. And the daughter of Icarius

840started up out of sleep, and her heart was warmed:

so vivid a dream had rushed upon her in the dark hour of the night.

But the suitors had embarked, and were sailing the watery ways,

turning over in their hearts sheer murder for Telemachus.

There is a rocky island in the middle of the sea,

845midway between Ithaca and rugged Samos —

Asteris, no great place; but there are harbors in it

fit for ships to lurk in, open at either end. There the Achaeans waited in ambush.⁵³