Book XIII

So he spake, and all those people they sat in silence there,
For the tale's delight bound all men through the shadowy halls and
But at last Alcinoüs answered and spake to him and said:

"Yea, now thou art come, Odysseus, to my house high-roofed o'erhead, fair.
And brazen-floored, I deem not that thou shalt wander more
And stray from thy returning for all thy troubles sore.
But for you, a thing I tell you, and on each a charge I lay,
All ye, who in my feast-hall are wont from day to day
To drink the dark wine of worship, and hearken the minstrel's song.

Lo now for the guest the garments in the smooth chest lie along,
And the gold all deftly fashioned, and the other gifts dear-bought:
That the wise Phæacian chieftains already here have brought;

But a tripod and a caldron now give we every man,
And thereafter mid the people shall we gather that we can
In boot thereof; for 'tis heavy for free gifts on one to fall."
In suchwise spake Alcinoüs, and his word seemed good to all,
And therewith they departed and home they went each one.

But when the Mother of Morning, Rose-fingered Day-dawn, shone,
Then adown to the ship they hastened with the man-delighting brass,
And Alcinoüs holy in might about through the ship did pass
And neath the thwarts in order laid all, lest when they drave

The ship with oars a-speeding some hurt a man might have.
Then they went to Alcinoüs' house, and a fair feast there they dight,
And for them an ox he hallowed, Alcinoüs holy in might,
To Zeus the Son of Cronos, Black-cloudy, all men's King:
And they burned up the thighs and were merry in their noble banqueting;
And amidst them the holy minstrel Demodocus sang out,
Beloved of the folk. But Odysseus would ever turn about
His head to the Sun to behold him, as he shone on all and o'er,

As one who desired his setting, for he longed for his homefare sore
—Like a man who longeth for supper for whom daylong by now
Through the fallow two dark oxen have dragged the jointed plough,
And fain is he of the sunset and the ending of the day

That speedeth him home to his supper; and his knees are stiff on the way:
—Fen so fain was now Odysseus of the waning of the light,
And unto those Phæacians oar-fain he spake outright;
And chief unto Alcinoüs he let the word fly forth:
"O lord and king Alcinoüs, of the people most of worth!
Pour now, and send me homeward in peace, and hail be ye!

For now are all things ready that my dear heart longed to be,
The speeders and gifts of well-wishers; and thereof may the Gods of the
Give me all good! and at home may this to me be given,

That there I may find my helpmate and my loved friends safe and sound! heaven

But may joy with you here abiding with your wedded wives abound,
And with your children also! God give you health and might,
And may no kind of evil on the folk of this land alight!"

So he spake; and all yea-said him, and bade the thing to be,
That the guest on his way be speeded since he spake so righteously;
And straightway unto the herald thus spake Alcinoüs' might:

"Now blend the bowl Pontonoüs, and deal the wine aright
To all folk in the feast-hall, that to father Zeus we may pray,
And unto the land of his fathers we may speed the guest away."

He spake, and Pontonoüs straightway the wine heart-soothing filled,
And dealt it about to all men, and drink-offering then they spilled
To the happy Gods of the Heavens, the widespread place and fair,
From where they sat in the high-seat; but Odysseus stood up there,
And unto the hand of Arete the double cup did he take,

And speeding speech unto her, this winged word he spake:
"Hail thou, O Queen, henceforward until eld come on thee,
And death at last and at latest which unto all must be!
I go, but be thou happy abiding in thine house
With thy children and thy people and the King Alcinoüs!"
So saying over the threshold divine Odysseus went,
And withal the herald before him the King Alcinoüs sent,
And down to the ship the speedy, and the side of the sea he led,
And the servants of the women Arete with him sped:
Whereof one bore a mantle and a frock well-washed and fair;
And the weight of the strong-made coffer another woman bare;
And yet there went another, and red wine and bread bore she.
But when they came unto the ship and down to the side of the sea
Therewith the noble speeders took all the gear aboard,
And adown in the hollow ship the meat and drink they stored;
And then they spread for Odysseus a rug and a linen sheet
On the hollow black ship's aft-deck, to sleep on soft and sweet.
So then he went a-shipboard and lay down silently,
And they sat them adown on the benches, each in order as should be.
And so they loosed the hawsers from the hole of the stone on shore.
But as they cast them abackward and tossed up the brine with the oar,
E'en then upon his eyelids did sleep and slumber speed,
Sweetest, and most unbroken, most like to death indeed;
But she, as over the plain the stallions' fourfold yoke
Rush, driven on together by the whip-lash and the stroke,
And rear aloft and speed them, and easy way they make,
So rose her stern on the sea waves, and following on her wake
Rolled on the dark-blue billow of the tumble of the sea:
So all unscathed and steady she sped, nor swift as she
Might fly the stark gerfalcon, the swiftest of all fowl,
As swiftly running onward she cleft the sea-flood's roll,
Bearing a man most like to the Gods for his wisdom and guile,

Who many a sorrow had suffered, and was soul-tossed on a while
As he went through the warfare of men and the terrible deeds of the deep;
But slept there now unfearful, and forgat all woes in sleep.

But when that star was arising, the brightest that cometh his way,
With the tidings of the Day-dawn and the light of the Mother of Day,
The ship on the sea-waves flitting drew nigh the island then.

Know now that there lieth an haven in the land of the Ithacan men,
Of Phorcys the salt-sea's elder, and therein two nesses stand,
Shear cliffs thrust toward the haven drawn down on either hand,
That ward the swell that ariseth 'neath the great winds' mastery,
So that the keels, the well-decked, unmoored within may lie, lot
When unto the goal of the roadstead at last they have gotten to be.
But there at the head of the haven is a long-leaved olive-tree,
And nigh to the tree a rock-den, lovely and shaded all,
Unto the Nymphs made holy whom men the Naiads call.
And therewithin are wine-bowls and wine-jars all of stone;
And there the bees hive honey, and therewithal are done
Long looms of stone, whereinto the very Nymphs do weave
Sea-purple webs more wondrous than eyes may well believe;

And therein are the waters welling. But two ingates are to the den;
The one to the north-side facing is meet for the going of men,
But that to the south more holy, and no gate for men is this,

That they thereby should enter, but the road of the Deathless it is.
Thereto the ship were they driving, for they knew the place of yore;
And therewithal swift speeding she ran half-length on the shore,
So well forsooth was she driven by oarsmen deft of hand:
But they from the decked ship going fared up upon the land;
And first from the hollow ship Odysseus' self they bare,
And he lying on the linen and the blanket glossy-fair,

And there on the sand they laid him in slumber bound as yet.
Then that gear from the ship they carried which he erewhile did get
From Phæacian lords on his homefare through Athene's mighty soul;
And all that in a heap together they laid by an olive bole

And out of the road; lest some one of the land's wayfaring men
Should pass ere Odysseus wakened and spoil it there and then.

Then home again they hied them, nor yet did the Shaker of Earth
Forget his threats 'gainst Odysseus, the peer of the Gods in worth,
Wherewith erewhile he threatened; so the rede of Zeus he sought:

"Zeus Father, well may my worship midst the Deathless come to nought
When now midst men that perish no more they worship me;

Nay not those men Phæacian though of my blood they be.
Lo now! I meant that Odysseus should come home safe on a day
Through many a woe; nor his homefare would I utterly take away
Since thou hadst first yea-said it, and promised it to be.

'But him in a swift ship sleeping have they ferried o'er the sea,
And in Ithaca set him adown with goodly gifts and rare,
Yea, gold and brass abundant, and raiment woven fair,
So much that no such a deal had Odysseus borne away
Had he come from Troy-town scathless with his own allotted prey."

Then Zeus, the Cloud-pack's Herder, he answered again and said:
"Hah, Shaker of Earth, far swaying, what a word hereof hast thou made!
The Gods mar not thy worship; yea, this indeed were hard

If thou, our best and our eldest, by our own hands were marred;
But if one of mankind yield him to his might and mastery
And mar thine honour henceforward, with thee doth the wreaking lie.
Do thy will then, and accomplish the thing that thy soul deems dear."
Then Poseidon the Earth's Shaker, he spake and answered there:
"Nay, I had not tarried to do it, Black-cloudy, after thy word;
But thy wrath have I ever dreaded, and fain would I shun it, lord;
But now the lovely ship of that Phæacian folk
As she cometh aback from the ferry would I shatter with my stroke
Mid the darkling deep, that henceforward they ferry men no more,
And with a mighty mountain their burg will I shadow o'er."

Then Zeus, the Cloud-pack's Herder, thus answered thereupon:
"O friend, thuswise I deem it the meetest to be done:
When all the folk of the city behold her hard at hand

Swift speeding, smite her straightway to a rock anigh the land,
And yet a swift ship's image, that all men may wonder sore;
And with a mighty mountain shalt thou shade their city o'er."

But when Poseidon had heard him, then the Shaker of the Earth
Went on his ways to Scheria, whence Phæacians have their birth;
And there abode: and the sea-swift, the ship, came close anigh
Swift speeding; then Earth Shaker drew near and stood thereby,
And into stone he turned her, and rooted her below,
With the stroke of his hand laid flatling, and thence away did he go.
But unto one another winged words they uttered then,
Those long-oar-wont Phæacians, the ship-renowned men;
And thus unto his neighbour some one of them would say:
"O me! who then on the sea-flood hath made our ship to stay,
E'en as she sped her homeward clear seen of every one?"
Thuswise would they be speaking, nor knew they how 'twas done.
But Alcinoüs spake unto them, and thuswise spake he out:
"Hah! how the old foretelling of my father cometh about!
Whereas he said that Poseidon would be wroth with us one day
Because we ferry all men all scathless on their way.

And that once on a while he would ruin a fair ship of Phæacian men
On the darkling deep, as she hied her from the ferrying back again,
And that he would o'ershadow our city with the mound of a mighty hill.
Such things would the elder give out, and all this doth God fulfil:

So do ye after my bidding, and let us all obey:
Cease we from the ferrying of menfolk whoever cometh his way
And entereth this our city; and twelve bulls of the best ye may get
To Poseidon let us hallow, that he may pity us yet,
Nor with the hill high-reaching may hide our burg outright."
So he spake, and sore they dreaded, and the bulls for the hallowing dight.
But while unto King Poseidon these men in suchwise prayed,
And the lords of those Phæacians, and they who the people swayed
Stood round about the altar, from his sleep Odysseus awoke
In the very land of his fathers; yet knew not the place of his folk,
So long had he been absent: and round about him there
Zeus' Daughter, Pallas Athene, spread a mist amid the air,
That all things she might tell him while yet he was unknown,

Ere either his wife should know him or his friends or the folk of his town,
Before on the Wooers he wreaked him of their prideful mastery.
Therefore all things about him the King as strange did see,

The uncrooked ways far-reaching, the all-safe haven there,
The steep high rocks and the trees, well growing, leafy-fair.
So he rose and stood on his feet, and looked on his father-land,
And groaned therewith, and smiting his thigh with the flat of his hand
He spake a word as he stood there amidst of his weary woe:
"O me! to what land of men-folk that die am I gotten now?
Wild men of no dooms wotting, and masterful of mood,
Or godly men of counsel, guest-loving men and good?
This stuff, whither now do I bear it, and myself whereto do I stray?
Would God that mid the Phæacians I had bided many a day,

Then had I come to some other of the Kings that are of might,
Who belike had cherished me kindly and sped me home aright.
And now forsooth I wot not where these things I shall lay;

For here I will not leave them lest to men they fall a prey.
Out on it! not in all things were they wise and righteous then,
The captains and the elders of those Phæacian men,
Who unto an alien land have brought me; they who said
They would flit me to Ithaca clear-seen, nor good their word have made.
May Zeus of the Suppliants wreak me, who of all men warder is,
And avengeth him of each man who against him doeth amiss!
But now these goods will I look to, and tell them o'er, lest they
In their hollow ship have taken thereof when they went on their way."
So saying the goodly tripods and bowls he numbered and told,
And the goodly woven raiment and all the store of gold,

And thereof no whit was lacking: but his father-land he bewept
As along the shore of the wallow of the washing seas he crept
Lamenting all. But thither now Athene drew anear,

And the semblance of a youngling, a shepherd of sheep, did she wear,
A delicate swain of suchlike as the sons of kings may be:
A cloak about her shoulders two-fold well-wrought had she,
And shoes on her sleek-skinned feet, and in her hand a spear.
But Odysseus was glad when he saw her and came and stood anear,
And therewith he spake unto her in winged words and fleet:
"Hail friend! since in this country thou art the first I meet,
And I bid thee with no evil do thou withstand my way,
But save me, my goods and me also, since unto thee I pray
As unto a God: beseeching I come to thy dear knees.
So tell me truly of matters, since well thou wottest of these;
What land is this, and what people, and what men dwell hereby?
Is it one of the manifest islands, or doth the land here lie
Sloped downlong on the salt-sea, the fruitful land of the main?"
But the Goddess, the Grey-eyed Athene, thus spake and answered again:
"Witless art thou, O Stranger, or from far across the sea,
Whereas of the land thou askest; for never shall it be
A nought and nameless country; there knoweth it many an one,
Both of the men abiding toward the eastward and the sun,
And of those that are over against it down toward the darkling west.
Forsooth 'tis a craggy country, nor yet for horse-draught best;
Yet not a land so sorry, though nothing wide it be,
For it beareth corn past telling, and wine abundantly;
Since ever the shower hath it and the all-abounding dew;
A goat-land good, and a neat-land, and all kinds of wood thereto;
And therein are watering-places unfailing through the year.
Yea to Troy-town, O Stranger, would the name of Ithaca fare,
For as far as men say that it lieth from the lands of Achæan men."
So she spake, but the goodly Odysseus toil-stout was glad as then,
In his father-land rejoicing when she spake unto him thus,
E'en Pallas Athene the Daughter of the great shield-bearing Zeus.
And he sent his voice unto her, and winged words he said;
Yet the very truth he told not, but the word aback he stayed;
For ever-was he holding in his heart a gainful wit:
"Of Ithaca know I; yea, even in wide Crete I heard of it
Far over the sea, and as now am I come thereto, both I
And these my goods; but as many I left with my children to lie
When I fled because I had slain Idomeneus' son most dear,
E'en Orsilochus swift-footed, who in wide Crete dwelt, and there
All men gainseeking vanquished with his feet the swift on the way.
Now he indeed would have spoiled me of all my Troy-won prey
For the which my soul had suffered so many a misery,
And worn through the wars of manfolk and the dreadful waves of the sea
Because I would not serve him, nor please his father's will
Amid the folk of the Trojans, but led mine own folk still.
So him from the field a-wending I smote with the brazen spear
As I with a fellow lay lurking the highway-side anear;
And black night hid the heavens, and no man as we lay

Might note us there; so in secret I took his life away.
But when with the brass sharp-whetted I had slain him there and then
I went to a ship, and besought them, the proud Phcenician men,

And gave to them of the plunder what their souls might satisfy,
And bade them bear me to Pylos and set me down thereby,
Or unto the holy Elis where Epeian men bear sway.
But forsooth the might of the wind it drave them thence away,
Sore 'gainst their will; nor would they have beguiled me with unright.
So then from our course a-straying, hither we came a night
And in haste thrust into the haven; nor of supper had we heed,
No one of us, though soothly thereof we had sore need,
But e'en so from our ship we gat us, and lay down one and all,
And over me sore wearied sweet sleep failed not to fall.
Then from out of the hollow ship they bore my goods aland,
And laid them adown beside me as I slept upon the sand;
And they went aboard, and departed for Sidon builded fair,
But me with heart sore grieving they left behind them here."

So he spake; but the Grey-eyed, the Goddess Athene, smiled and now
She stroked him down with her hand and like to a woman did grow
Comely and great of body, and deft fine things to make;

So she sent her voice out toward him, and winged words she spake:
"Ah, cunning were he and shifty, who thee should overbear
In guilefulness of all kinds, yea e'en if a god he were!
Thou hard one, shifty of rede, guile-greedy, nought wouldst thou
From thy guilefulness refrain thee, nay not in thine own land now,

And thy words of sly devising which thou lov'st from the root of thine heart.
But speak we no more of such things; for we twain know each for our part
All guile; since thou amidst menfolk art far the best of all

In counsel and in speech-words; and on me mid the Gods doth fall

The glory of redes and of sleight.—And thou knewest not me, the Maid,
The Daughter of Zeus, e'en Pallas Athene, ever thine aid,
Who stand beside thee and ward thee in all toil through which ye wear?
Who unto all Phæacians have made thee lief and dear?

And hither to thee am I come, that we may devise, we twain,
How to hide away thy treasure, the Phæacians' gift and gain,
Which they gave thee on thy homefare by my counsel and device.
And now of the fateful troubles would I tell thee in likewise

In thy builded house that abide thee: now forbear, and bear thou the
Nor unto any tell it how thou comest wandering home,
Neither of men nor of women, but in silence suffer all doom,

Thy many griefs, and the mastery that from men shall thee befall."
Then the many-wiled Odysseus, he answered presently:
"O Goddess, 'tis hard for a mortal, though wise of wit he be,
To know thee when he meets thee, for shapes many dost thou on.
But this I know full surely, thou wert kind a while agone
While we sons of the Achæans by Troy-town fought the fight;
But when the steep city of Priam we had overthrown outright
And went up on our ships, and God scattered the Achæans wide abroad,
I saw thee not thenceforward, nor yet my ship aboard

Did I note thee, O Daughter of Zeus, for the putting away of my woe;
But ever with heart sore burdened a wandering did I go
Till the day when the Gods unbound me and the spell of evil broke,
And there midst the men Phæacian and the very wealthy folk

With words then didst thou cheer me, and me to the city didst lead,
But now by the Father I pray thee,—for I deem not yet indeed
That to Ithaca the clear-seen I am come, but am turned away
To some other land; and for thee, these words that thou dost say
Thou speakest but in jesting to mock and cheat my mind.—
In very sooth, am I gotten to my father-land the kind?"

Then answered the Grey-eyed, the Goddess Athene, and thus spake she:
"Yea, and such a thought 'for ever within thy breast must be!
Yet here I may not leave thee amidst thy grief of heart,

Soft-spoken, and keen-witted, and wise to forbear as thou art.
For another man returning from the straying and the strife
Would be eager to look on his homestead and his children and his wife;
But thou in nowise willest to seek out what hath been
Ere thy wife thou hast tried yet further; who still as erst, I ween,
Within her halls abideth and mourneth thee always,
And ever in weeping weareth the night-tide and the days;
But this I never doubted but in my mind held fast,
That thou having lost thy fellows shouldst come home at the last:
But look you, I had no mind against Poseidon to fight,
My father's very brother, who had thee in despite,
For wrath because of thy blinding of his well-beloved son.

Now the Ithacan land will I show thee, that assured thou may'st look
For this is the haven of Phorcys the Elder of the sea;
And lo, at the head of the haven a long-leaved olive-tree, thereon.

And anigh the same a rock-den full lovely, shaded withal;
The holy place of the Nymphs whom men the Naiads call.
Lo, this is the roofed-in rock-den where to the Nymphs of old
Full many a thing didst thou hallow and good gifts an hundredfold;
And lo thou, Neritos yonder in woody raiment clad!"

So she spake, and the mist she scattered, and sight of the land he had;
And the toil-stout goodly Odysseus was glad, and in joy and mirth
Beheld the land that was his; and he kissed the corn-kind earth;

And unto the Nymphs thereafter he lifted his hands and prayed:
"O Naiad Nymphs, Zeus' Daughters, a while ago I said
That never more should I see you: now hail with my kindly prayers!

And gifts withal shall I give you as it was in the other years,
If the Daughter of Zeus, Spoil-driver, be kind that I may live,
And that my son beloved hereafter wax and thrive."

But the Grey-eyed, the Goddess Athene, spake to him for her part:
"Be bold and of good courage, nor with these things vex thine heart!
But as now lay we thy chattels within the holy den,
That there they may bide thy coming all safe from other men.
And then let us fall to counsel how all may best be done."

Therewith she went down to the rock-den, shadowed over from the sun,
And searched out its hiding-places, while Odysseus brought all there,
The gold and the long-lived brass and the raiment woven fair,

Which those folk of the Phæacians to him e'en now had given;
But Pallas Athene, the Daughter of the shielded Zeus of heaven,
Stored all things well and duly, and a stone to the door did roll.
Then they sat them adown together by the holy olive bole;
And there for the masterful Wooers they devise the doom and the death;
And Pallas Athene beginneth, and the word she taketh and saith:

"O Zeus-bred son of Laertes, Odysseus of many a guile,
Think how on the shameless Wooers thou may'st lay thine hands in a while,
Who now these three years over have been masters in thine hall,
Wooing thy godlike helpmate and the wooing gifts giving withal;

While she, for ever lamenting thy late return in her heart,
Unto all of them giveth a hope, and to each man a promise apart,
Sending them many a message, while her mind means another thing."

Therewith the shifty Odysseus thus spake in his answering:
"Hah! e'en as Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, hath died,
Another such bane as baleful in my halls had I come to abide,

But if thou, O Goddess, had told me of those things in their verity;
But I prithee weave and devise it how of these avenged I may be;
And stand by me thyself and set in me that heart for the battle-joy

As wherewith we loosed aforetime the shining coif of Troy.
If thou stand beside me, O Grey-eyed, as battle-glad as then,
Forsooth would I hold the battle 'gainst thrice an hundred men,
With thee, O worshipped Goddess, so kind to bear me aid."
But the Grey-eyed, the Goddess Athene, she answered him and said:
"Yea, surely shail I be with thee, nor my presence shalt thou miss
When we fall to work hereover: and hereof my deeming is
That some one of those, the Wooers who eat thy livelihood,
Shall befoul the widespread hall-floor with the splash of brains and blood.
But come now, unknown shall I make thee to all of human kin;
On thy limbs, the round and lithesome, will I wither thy fair skin,

And the yellow locks on thine head will I waste, and do on thee a clout,
Which any man beholding shall loathe him that it wrappeth about;
And thine eyen will I blear over, that are now so fair and bright;

And so shalt thou seem but loathly unto the Wooers' sight, fa day.
Yea, and unto thy wife and thy child, whom thou leftst in thine hall on
But first unto the swineherd do thou come upon thy way,

Who o'er all thy swine is master, and forgets not his kindness for thee,
And loveth thy son moreover and the wise Penelope.
Amidst his swine is he sitting, ye shall find them pasturing
Along by the rock of Corax and Arethusa the spring.
There eat they abundant acorns and drink of the water black,
Whereby are the swine so nourished that rich laid they nowise lack.
There bide thou, and be asking of all things as thou sittest there,
While I get me gone unto Sparta, the nurse of women fair,
That Telemachus I may summon, yea, him thy very son,
Who to wide-field Lacedæmon and Menelaus has gone
To seek of thy fame and thy rumour, if yet alive ye be."
Spake the many-wiled Odysseus, and answered presently:
"Why then didst thou not tell him since thy mind all things doth know?
Wouldst thou have him also wandering and suffering grief and woe
On the sea that hath no harvest, while men eat his store away?"
But the Grey-eyed, the Goddess Athene, she fell to answer and say:
"Nay, let not thy mind, I bid thee, o'ermuch on him be set;
For I myself, I sent him, that fair fame he might get
Going elsewhere; and no labour he hath, but sitteth in peace
In the house of Menelaus, wherein is all increase.
Forsooth in their black ship biding those youths do him waylay;
For him ere aback he cometh to his land they desire to slay.
But I do not think it shall be so, till the earth hold some of those
Among the men of the Wooers, who eat thy store so close."

So spake Athene, and touched him with the staff that she did bear,
And on his round limbs withered the skin that was fresh and fair,
And she wasted the yellow locks on his head; and his every limb,

The skin of an old man ancient she did it over him,
And bleared his eyen moreover that were so bright erewhile,
And she cast a foul clout on him, and a kirtle very vile,
All tattered and torn, and sullied with the smoke of the feasting-hall,
And a great bald skin of a stag swift-foot she cast o'er all,
And a staff therewith she gave him, and a scrip, an unseemly thing,
All tattered it was and foul, and slung by a twisted string.
So after the Council they parted, and She her way sped on
To Lacedæmon the holy to fetch Odysseus' son.