Book XIV

Therewith he went up from the haven along by the rocky way
Of the fells and the woody places, whereby did Athene say

He should find the noble swineherd, who heeded his goods and his gear
Above all the thralls he had got him and all those of his house that were.
So, sitting in the doorway of the garth the man he found,
Where high aloft it was builded, well seen on a rising ground,
Great, fair, with a clear space round it: but the swineherd's very hand
Had builded the wall for the swine of his master aloof from the land,
And nought thereof his mistress or the old Laertes had known:
With great dragged stones had he built it, and with thorns had coped the stone:
He had cleft the black of an oak-tree, and on every side all round
Stout stakes set close together he had driven into the ground;
And within the garth moreover twelve swine-styes had he done,
Good swine-beds near to each other, and there in every one
Were a fifty of earth-wallowers, the fruitful brood-sows, kept,
But the boars of the herd, withoutward from those sow-swine styes they slept;
And fair fewer they were; for the Wooers, the god-great, evermore,
Would minish them by eating, and the swineherd sent of the store

The fattest and the likeliest of all the hog-kind there.
Three hundreds to wit, and sixty, of these same beasts there were;
And four hounds like wild beasts of the woodland beside them ever slept,
Which the swineherd, leader of menfolk, for that cause nourished and kept.
Now he himself fair sandals to his feet was fitting as then,
That were cut from a good sound oxhide, but as for the other men,
There were three that this and that way with the pasturing swine were gone;
But the fourth, perforce he had sent him his ways unto the town
To take a swine to the Wooers, that they the lordly great
Might hallow the beast, their souls with his flesh to satiate.
But the baying dogs on a sudden of Odysseus now caught sight

And ran upon him yelping; and he with practised sleight
Straight sat him down on the earth, and dropped his staff from his hand,
Yet ugly hurt had he suffered in this stead of his very land,

But thereupon the swineherd, with swift feet following on,

Straight gat him out through the entry and dropped the skin adown,
And chid the hounds, and thencefrom drave them this way and that
With plenteous stones cast quickly: and he spake to the King thereat:

"Old man, it lacked but a little that the dogs had thee undone
In sudden wise; and thereafter of thee a shame had I won.
And forsooth of woe and wailing God giveth me enow,
Since in grief for a godlike master do I abide in woe,
While his fatted swine I nourish for other men to eat,
And he belike sore craving for e'en a morsel of meat,
Strays through the alien cities and the far folk many an one,
If yet indeed he liveth and looketh on the sun.
But come thou home to the booth, old man, that thou in the stead,
Having quenched thine own heart's longing for the meal of wine and bread,
May'st tell us whence thou comest and what woe thou bearest withal.''
So spake the goodly swineherd and led him home to the hall,

And brought him and set him adown, and leaved twigs 'neath him spread,
And the skin of a shaggy wild-goat thereover, which he for a bed
Did use for its hairy bigness; and glad was Odysseus at heart

That suchwise he gave him guesting, and therewith spake on his part:
"May Zeus and the other Deathless, O Stranger, give to thee
All that which thou most desirest, since so kind thou takest me."
But therewith Eumæus the Swineherd, he answered him and said:
"O guest, it were not rightful, though e'en worser than thou he were sped,
To put shame upon a stranger; since guests and bedesmen all,
From Zeus they are; and our giving, although it be but small,
Is dear; for the wont 'tis of thrall-folk to be timorous day by day
When young men are their masters and over them bear sway.
Ah verily that man's homefare the Gods perforce have stayed
Who would have cherished me dearly, and given me gear to aid,
An acre and an homestead, and a wife that many woo;
Such gifts as a king beloved his man will give unto,
Who hath toiled and earned good increase by the labour of his hand;
As forsooth has this my toiling wherein I stoutly stand.
Yea much had my king availed me, had he waxen old in his place.
—He is gone; and would that Helen had gone with all her race!

Since for many a man and many wrought she loosening of the knees,
And for Agamemnon's glory went this man across the seas,
Unto Ilios rich in horses with the men of Troy to fight."

So saying, with a girdle he girt himself aright,
And went unto the swine-styes where penned were the piglings' crew,

Whence he took and brought out twain, and both he hallowed and slew,
And scalded, and sheared them piecemeal, and spitted all the meat,
And roasted all and bore it, and set forth for Odysseus to eat,

All hot from the very spits, with the barley white besprent.
And therewith in a cup of ivy heart-gladdening wine he blent,
And sat down over against him, and bade to the meat and spake:
"Eat now, O guest, of the piglings, which are for the thralls to take;
For of the hogs well fatted eat the Wooers day by day,
With no thought in their hearts of the vengeance; nor any pity have they.
Yet the happy Gods, they love not such headlong frowardness,
But the righteous dooms of menfolk and their seemly deeds they bless.
Yea the foemen of the aliens, when they fall upon the land,
And Zeus to them is giving the prey unto their hand,

And they fill their ships for departing that they may get them home,—
'Mid the hearts of e'en these there falleth strong fear of the wrath to come.
But somewhat these Wooers are wotting, or have heard some God maybe
Tell of his piteous ending; so nowise righteously
Will they woo, or get them homewards; but ever in peace they sit

And eat up the wealth in their pride, and spare not any whit.
For as many as are the nights and the days that of Zeus are won
No day but one beast do they hallow, nor ever but two alone:
And his wine will they waste in their riot; in their mastery is it poured;
For indeed was his treasure boundless, nor the like hath any lord
Of the black fields of the mainland, nor yet in Ithaca here;
Nay not twenty men together have such abundant gear.
And to thee will I now be telling what wealth the man doth keep:

He hath twelve herds on the mainland, and as many flocks of sheep,
And of droves of swine as many, and of goat-flocks scattering wide,
E'en such as strangers look to and his own house-carles beside,

But here at the island's outmost, wide-wandering goat-flocks feed,

Eleven in all, and herdsmen of the best their pasture heed;
And daily adown to the Wooers by each man thereof is sped
Of the fatted goats whichever may seem the likeliest head.

But watch and ward am I keeping o'er these same swine ye see,
And ever I cull and send them the fattest that there be."
So he spake; but Odysseus in silence ate greedily and drank,
While still in his heart for the Wooers the evil sprouted rank;
But when he had supped and his soul with the meat was lustier grown,
Eumæus filled and handed the cup that was his own,
And he took it filled with the wine, and his heart rejoiced at the thing;
And therewith he spake to the other, and set a word on the wing:
"O friend, and what man was it with his chattels bought thee then,
This man of whom thou tellest so rich amidst of men?
And for Agamemnon's glory as thou say'st his bane he got.
Tell me, because it may be that of such a man I wot;
Zeus knoweth alone and the others, the Gods that deathless abide.
But I may have seen him to tell of, since I wander far and wide."
But the swineherd, the leader of folk, thuswise did he answer and say:
'Old man, no wanderer's story of the man shall now make way
Unto the hope of his helpmate, or his well-beloved son:
For wandering men, men needy of victuals, many an one,
Would be lying hereof, nought wishful the very sooth to say;
And every gangrel body that to Ithaca chanceth to stray,
Unto the Queen he cometh, and a false tale telleth withal;

And she taketh him in with all kindness, and searcheth into it all;
And she mourneth, and down from her eyelids ever the tear-drops run,
As women will do for a husband in far lands dead and gone.
And thou too belike, old man, might fashion a tale indeed

If any should give thee raiment, a coat and a cloak to thy need.

But the dogs, and the fowl swift-fleeting, this long while now have reft
The skin from the bones of this man, and his soul the body hath left.
Or the fish of the sea have devoured him, and his bones cast up aland,
High up on the shore are lying rolled round in plenteous sand.

There then he died, and thenceforward for his friends who are left behind
Breeds sorrow, and chiefly for me; for nevermore shall I find
Another so kindly a master, wherever I go or may come;
Nay, not if I got me again to my father and mother and home,
And the house wherein I was born, and the folk that cherished me.
Nor so much for them do I sorrow, though fain were I to be
Once more in the land of my fathers, and behold them with mine eyes,
As I long for Odysseus departed; and anigh to my soul it lies.
Yea, for awe I scarce may name him, O guest, though he be not here;
For me in his heart he cherished, and held me lief and dear.
My lord beworshipped I call him, though far away he be."
But the toil-stout goodly Odysseus in thiswise answered he:
"Since utterly thou gainsayest, O friend, nor will have it so

That ever the man shall come back, and thy soul no trust doth know,
So now no longer I say it, but with an oath I swear
That e'en now Odysseus cometh; so give me a guerdon dear

For my tidings then when he cometh aback to his house and his hall,
And do on me goodly raiment, a cloak and a kirtle withal,
But ere then I would not take it for as needy as I be;
For that man is no less loathsome than the Gates of Hell to me,
Who 'neath the pinch of lacking babbleth a lying word.
Bear witness, Zeus the Arch-god, and this guest-loving board,
And the hearth of the glorious Odysseus whereunto I have come,
That all this that I have told of, the days shall bring it home.
Hither shall come Odysseus ere yet this year be sped;

Yea with this moon's last waning, when the new moon stands in its stead,
Then home shall he be gotten, and shall wreak him on each one
Who now befouleth the honour of his wife and his noble son."

Then didst thou, O Swineherd Eumæus, thereto make answer and say:
"Old man, thy meed of good tidings God wot I shall never pay,
Nor ever shall come Odysseus: so drink thy wine in peace
And mind we other matters: mind we no more of these.
For grieved is the heart within me nor merry is my mood
When any man is telling of my trusty king and good.
So now let the oath go by us—Yet might but Odysseus be,
And home as my heart would have it and the heart of Penelope,
And Laertes the Elder of days, and Telemachus godlike and fair!
—Yet ah! for the child that Odysseus begot, in my sorrow I wear.

For the Gods Telemachus nourished as a blossoming shoot of the earth,
And I said to myself that midst men he should be no worser of worth
Than erst was his father beloved, of body so marvellous made.

But now some one of the Deathless his wit once evenly weighed

Hath marred, or some one of menfolk: he hath gone some tidings to get
Of his father to Pylos the Holy; and the masterful Wooers beset
His homeward way with an ambush, that from Ithaca root and rod
May the stock of Arceisius perish, and his name that was great as a God.
Let-a-be! whether he be taken, or escape from these men may get!
And may the Son of Cronos his hand hold over him yet!

But now, old man, I bid thee of thine own trouble to tell;
And give out all things soothly that I may know it well.

Whence art thou then of menfolk? what thy city and thy kin?
In what fashion of keel cam'st thou hither, by what way did the shipmen win
That unto Ithaca brought thee, and for what did they give themselves out?
For that thou camest not hither afoot I may not doubt."

So the many counselled Odysseus now fell to answer and say:
"Vea, of all these things will I tell thee as straightly as I may:
If now for a while were with us both meat and honey-sweet wine,
And we in peace a-feasting within this booth of thine,
While other men fall to it the deeds afield to do,
Then lightly might I be telling my tale the whole year through,
Nor yet an end be making of the story of the ill
And the heart-grief laid upon me, worn through by God's own will.
"Of the kin do I declare me of the men of Crete the wide,
The son of a man that was wealthy: but many sons beside
Gotten in lawful wedlock in his house were born and bred,
While a bought thrall was my mother and bore me all unwed.
Yet e'en as his sons begotten in wedlock he honoured me,
Castor, the son of Hylax, of whose blood I boast me to be.
Amidst the folk of the Cretans as a God was he honoured by all
For his happy wife and his riches, and his noble sons and tall:
But the Fates of Death fell on him, and him away they bare
Unto the House of Hades, and his sons straight fell to share
His livelihood amongst them, and the lots thereover threw.
But to me they gave but a little, and gave me a house thereto,
And a wife I wedded befitting wide-landed men and high;
And that because of my valour, for indeed no dastard was I,
And no blencher from the battle—all now has departed and gone,

And yet when ye look on the straw ye may deem of the harvest won;
But sorrow in all plenty hath long encompassed my ways.
Well; Ares and Athene gave me boldness in those days,

And the might to break the battle, and when for the ambush I chose
The best of the men, and was sowing great bale against the foes,
Nought then my noble spirit forbode the death anear,

But leaping out the foremost, I would smite down with the spear
Such men of the foe as in swiftness of foot to me must yield.
Such was I then in the battle: but I loved no work afield,
Nor yet the thrift of the household that noble race doth rear;
But the ships well dight with oars to me were ever dear,
And shafts of war well shaven, and darts, and the battle-play;

Things baleful, wherefrom others would shrink and shudder away.
But these things God set in my soul, and to me were they goodly gain,
For one man in this delighteth, and of that is another fain.

"Now ere we sons of Achæans went up to the Trojan land,

Nine times the ships swift-faring, and the men I had in hand
To lead 'gainst the alien menfolk, and much good I happed on there;
And thereof I took what liked me, and thereafter had my share

By lot; and my house was holpen and waxed great there and then,
And mighty I waxed and beworshipped amidst the Cretan men.
But when to that way so loathly doomed us far-seeing Zeus
Whereby the knees of a many and a many men grew loose,
Men bade me and Idomeneus the noble and renowned
To lead the ships unto Ilios, nor might a means be found
Whereby we might gainsay it; for the folks' voice pressed us hard.
So then we sons of Achæans thereby for nine years warred,
But the tenth the city of Priam with war we wasted out
And went home with our ships, and God the Achæans scattered about,
But wise Zeus for me the hapless devised the bale and the bane.
"For one month only I bided at home of my children fain,
And my wealth and my wife; and thereafter my heart pressed hard on me
Unto the land of Ægypt to sail across the sea,
In ships dight well and goodly with my godlike company.
Nine ships I arrayed, and in haste the people gathered thereby.
Six days my trusty fellows sat with me there at the feast,
And therewithal I gave them full many a slaughter-beast
Wherewith the Gods to worship, and wherewith to dight the board,
But the seventh day we departed on our way from Crete the broad.
We sailed on swift and softly with a north wind fresh and fair,

As though down stream we were dropping, and no ship of mine that was
Took hurt, and so all scathless and hale we sat at ease,
And the wind and the helmsmen bore us the right way o'er the seas. there

"So to Ægypt the sweet-flowing we came on the fifth fair day,
And in that river of Ægypt my bowed ships did I lay;
Then I charged my trusty fellows and gave them strait command

That they by the ships should be biding and draw them high aland;
And the watchers I bade betake them to the watching steads and the height,
But they yielded to fierce folly and went after the lusts of their might.
The fair fields of the men of Ægypt they fell to plunder and spoil,

And bore off the women and children and slew the men in the broil.
So speedily unto the city came the rumour and the cry,
And men heard the shout and gathered when dawn was in the sky,
And the horsemen and the footmen were over all the plain,
And the light of brass a-flashing; yea, and Zeus the Thunder-fain
Cast ill fear amidst my fellows, and no hardy heart was found
To face the play and abide it; for stark bale stood around.
So there with the whetted brass a many they slew in the stead,
And a many to live in thraldom away from the field they led.

"But for me did Zeus in my mind a rede and a counsel raise
—Though would that there I had perished and met the fate of my days
In Ægypt-land, for more sorrow the time to come waylaid.—

Well, there on the field from my head I doft the helm well made,
And put off the shield from my shoulders, and the spear adown did I fling,
And I went and stood over against them, the horses of the king,

And took his knees and kissed them, and he pitied and saved me from doom,
And set me in his chariot and brought me weeping home,
Though many an one made at me with the ashen-shafted spear,

All eager for my slaying, for exceeding wroth they were;
But he warded them off, for he dreaded the wrath of the Stranger's Speed,
Guest-aiding Zeus, who of all Gods is wroth with the evil deed.
"There seven years I abided and gat me plenteous gear
At the hands of the men of Ægypt, for all men gave to me there.
But when the eighth year's circle came on in its due while
I met a man Phcenician, well-learned in lying guile,
A huckster, who for menfolk a many evils wrought;
And he by his wit wrought on me, and me from thence he brought
Until we came to Phoenicia, where lay his house and gear.
So there with him I abided for the full space of a year,

But when the time was fulfilled by the wane of the months and the days,
And the year came round in order, and the seasons came their ways,
For Lybia then he shipped me in a keel that plied the sea,

Under colour of lies, that I with him a shipper of wares should be;
But thither would he flit me for a great price me to sell:

So with him on the ship must I get me, though I deemed all was not well.
So she ran on under the North wind that blew fresh over the main,
And the midmost sea of the Cretans: but Zeus did their end ordain,
For when Crete was left behind us we opened no new land,
And nought but the sea and the heavens there was on either hand.
Then over our hollow ship the Son of Cronos drew

A coal-blue cloud, and beneath it all black the sea-waves grew.
And therewithal Zeus thundered o'er the ship with a thunder-stroke,
And by his bolt sore smitten through all her frame she shook,
And filled was she of brimstone, and outboard the men were thrown,
And like unto the seamews round the black ship were they strown
In the wash of the waves; and their homefare did the God for all undo.

'But the very Zeus gave to me amidst my weary woe
The great mast, stout, unyielding, which had served the black-bowed ship;
Yea, unto my hands he gave it, that through the toils I might slip.

So thereto I clung, and drifted with the winds in their baleful might.
Nine days o'er the sea I drifted, but on the tenth black night
A mighty billow rolled me high on the Thesprotian strand;
Where Pheidon, king of Thesprotians, the hero of the land,

Did unbought guesting give me: for his dear son happed on me
Foredone with cold and labour, and brought me home from the sea.
For he lifted me up with his hand to go to his father's hall,

And raiment he did upon me, a cloak and a kirtle withal.

"And there did I hear of Odysseus: for he gave me to understand
That him had he guested and cherished on his way to his fatherland.
And the heap of wealth he showed me that Odysseus thither had brought,
Of brass, and of gold, and of iron most fine, and deftly wrought,

Yea, unto his tenth generation would it serve for livelihood.
So heaped in the halls of King Pheidon lay that treasure great and good.
He had gone, they said, to Dodona, the counsel of Zeus to hear,
From the oak-tree of the Godhead that aloft his boughs doth bear,
As to how he might win returning, who had been so long away

From the Ithacan land the wealthy, close hid, or in face of the day.
But the King, as he poured to the Gods in his house, made oath unto me
That the ship was drawn down to the strand, and the shipmen all ready
That should ferry over Odysseus to his well-loved fatherland.
But ere that therefrom he sped me, for a keel there came to hand for sea,

Of Thesprotian men a-wending to Dulichium's wheat-land fair,
And he charged them straitly to bring me to King Acastus there.
But their hearts of an evil counsel were fain concerning me,
That on my grief abiding might be heaped mere misery,
"For when the ship seafaring from the land was gotten far out,
Then straight the day of my thraldom they devised to bring about:
For they stripped me of my raiment, my cloak and kirtle fair,
And did a foul clout on me, and a kirtle ill to wear;
These loathly rags which e'en now beneath thine eyes have been.
So at last they came to the acres of Ithaca clear-seen,
And there in the ship the well-decked they bound me strait and hard
With well-laid ropes; and outboard they gat them afterward,
And made haste to get their supper adown by the side of the sea.
"But meanwhile the Gods themselves undid my bonds for me
Full easily: then wrapping my head in a clout of a hood
Down the steering-oar well shaven I got me and breasted the flood,
And swimming on thenceforward I rowed with either hand,
And right soon afar was I gotten from those, and out aland;
And, coming ashore by a thicket of leafy trees well-grown,
I lay there close while they wandered about and made their moan;
But whenas they deemed it availed not to seek me further there,
To the hollow ship did they get them and thereon again did fare.
And the Gods themselves thenceforward did lightly hide me still,
And then brought me away to the homestead of a man of all goodwill,
'Because forsooth it is fated that I yet shall live my day."

Then thou, O Swineherd Eumæus, thuswise didst answer and say:
"O hapless guest, thou hast moved me and stirred my heart with thy tale
Of all the ways thou hast wandered, and all thou hast borne of bale.
But the word thou say'st of Odysseus 'tis wrong and said athwart,

Nor wilt thou make me trow it: and thou being as thou art,
Why wilt thou lie so vainly? since for my part well I know
Of the homefare of my master, that the Gods begrudge him so,

That they brought him not to his bane down there on the Trojan ground,
Nor yet mid the hands of his fellows when the spindle of war he had
When all the host of Achæans the tomb for him had done,
And fame he had got, and great glory had left behind for his son. wound,
But now without fame or glory have the Snatchers whirled him away.
But for me aloof with the swine I abide, nor any day

Do I get me adown to the city, save the wise Penelope
Should stir me up to go thither when to hand some tidings may be.
Then the folk there sit about him and will have out all his say;
Both those that are grieved that the master so long abideth away,
And those that rejoice all bootless to eat up his livelihood.
But for me, to ask and to question I hold it nothing good,

Since the time when a man of Ætolia came here with a tale in hand,
And befooled me: a man had he slain, and traversed a deal of land,
And hither he came to the homestead, and I dealt with him lovingly.
Who said that amidst the Cretans with Idomeneus did he see
Odysseus mending his ships by the tempest broken and tried;

And he said that he would be coming in the spring or the harvest tide,
And with him his godlike fellows, and he bringing abundant gear.
But thou Elder of many sorrows, since the God hath brought thee here
Take not delight in lying, nor flatter me thus one whit;
For I give thee not compassion, nor cherish thee for it,
But in awe of Zeus the Guest-friend, and for very pity of thee."
Then spake the shifty Odysseus, and thuswise answered he:
"Well, well! the heart within thee is slack indeed to trow,
Since mine oath will nowise win thee, nor wilt thou trust me now.
But strike we here a bargain! For yet I say again,
Let the Gods who hold Olympus bear witness of us twain!
If yet thy King returneth, in his house and his home to be,
Thou shalt give me a cloak and a kirtle, and withal shalt further me
Unto Dulichium island, wherein I fain would dwell.
'But if thy King return not e'en as the tale I tell,
Set on thine homemen to cast me adown from an hill-rock high,
That gangrel men henceforward look to it not to lie."
But therewith the goodly swineherd he answered him and spake:

"Yea verily, guest, my fair fame for honour and kindness' sake
Should be holpen among menfolk, both now and in time to come,
If, when to the stead I had brought thee and guested thee at home,
I should turn again and slay thee, and thy dear life take away!
Unto Zeus the Son of Cronos full heartily then should I pray!

But now 'tis the time for supper; soon now shall my folk come in,
That in the booth fair supper and dainty we may win."
But while about such matters each unto each they spoke,
Lo near at hand were the swine-droves, and withal the herding-folk:
So therewithal they penned them where they were wont to abide,
And huge rose the din and the routing of the swine as they were styed.
But now the goodly swineherd fell to bid his men and say:
"The best of the swine bring hither for me to hallow and slay

For my far-come guest; and we also will make good cheer indeed,
Since for long have we been toiling the white-toothed swine to feed,
And others eat our labour, nor cometh atonement to pass."

So he spake, and fell to cleaving the logs with the ruthless brass,
And a boar they brought withinward, a five-year-old full fat,
And on the hearth they stood him, and the swineherd nought forgat
The Deathless Gods, for his heart in righteous ways was fast.
So he fell to, and into the fire the forelock first he cast

Of the white-toothed boar, and fell praying to the Godfolk one and all
For the wise Odysseus' homefare in the end to his house and his hall.
Then with an oak-log that lay there, once cleft by his hand he smote
The boar, and life went from him; and therewith they sheared his throat,
And singed, and cut him piece-meal; and the swineherd laid the raw
On the rich fat, which in gobbets from each limb did he draw;

And some they cast into the fire besprent with barley-meal,
And the rest they sheared into gobbets and spitted every deal,
And roasted it very deftly, and then they drew off all,
And cast it heaped on the trenchers. Then rose up the swineherd withal
To carve the meat, for he wotted in his heart what was fair and fit,
And into seven portions he dealt the whole of it,
And one thereof to the Nymphs and to Hermes, Maia's Son,
He set by with a prayer, and the others he dealt to every one.
But the long-drawn chine of the boar white-toothed for the worshipful part
He gave unto Odysseus, and the King grew glad at heart,
And the many-wiled Odysseus he spake, and thus said he:
"Eumæus, to Zeus the Father may'st thou be e'en as dear as tome,
Since with goodly cheer dost thou honour e'en such as I am today!"
Then thou, O Swineherd Eumæus, thereto didst answer and say:
"Eat then, O hapless of strangers! in such as is here delight!
For God to one man giveth, and another gainsayeth outright,
In such wise as he will have it; for all things he doth and he may."
So he spake, and burned the firstlings to the Gods of the deathless day,
And poured the dark wine in offering and gave it furthermore

To the hands of the City-waster, as his portion he sat before.
And the bread was Mesaulios' dealing, whom the swineherd had bought alone
What time the King his master was aloof and a long while gone:

And neither the Queen nor Laertes the Elder were wotting of this,

But he bought the man from the Taphians with the gear that was verily his.
So they stretched out their hands to the victual that ready before them lay.
But when the longing for meat and for drink they had done away
Mesaulios bore off the victual, and fulfilled of meat and of bread

They were gotten fain of slumber, and longed for lying abed.
But the night came foul and moonless, with Zeus to raining set,
And a mighty west wind blowing, that ever bringeth wet;
So to them then spake Odysseus the herder of swine to try
If the cloak from his back he would give him, or of his folk thereby
Would egg on one to give it, since of him he had a care:
'Now hearken ye, Eumæus, and all our fellows here,
And a boasting word will I say; for befooling wine is strong
Within me: he who eggeth e'en the wise to raise the song
And laugh out softly, and dance for very lustihead,
And to say the word, it may be, that were better left unsaid,
Yet since I have shouted already, the speech I will not hide.
But O for the days of my youth when with me did the might abide!
When we arrayed an ambush up under Troy-town wall,
And Menelaus Atrides, and Odysseus led, and withal
The third was I of the captains, for that charge on me they laid.
Now when round the burg high-builded and the wall our watch we made,
Then we lay about the city and adown in the thickets there,
Among the reeds of the marish, close crouching under our gear.
But the north-wind dropped and the night-tide came, a foul and an evil time,
Frosty, with snow a-falling, as bitter as the rime,
And into ice was it setting upon our shields of war.
And now for all the others, both kirtle and cloak they bore,
And with their shoulders shielded all close at ease they lay:
But I, when I went with my fellows, had left my cloak by the way,
Like a fool; for I had no deeming of such a bitter night,

And I went with nought but my target, and my war-coat gleaming bright.
So in the third hour of the night-tide, when the stars were shifting their
I spake unto Odysseus, who close beside me lay,
And jogged him with my elbow, and lightly gave he heed: way,

"O many-wiled Odysseus, Zeus-bred, Laertes' seed,
Not long shall I be with the living, for I perish with the cold,'
Whereas no cloak I have gotten, for the God hath me befooled
To go all bare in my kirtle, and now no rede may I find.'

"So I spake, but therewith straightway grew up a rede in his mind;
Such an one as he was for counsel and for fighting in the fray!
So speaking very softly this word to me did he say:

'Be silent, lest some other of Achæans may have heard!"
Then he raised up his head on his elbow, and therewith spake a word:
"Friends, hearken! a boding vision in my sleep hath come to me;
And far away from the ships are we gotten: might some one be
To go tell to the People's Shepherd, Agamemnon Atreus' son,
That he push on the men from the ships to gather and speed us on!'
"Then Thoas, son of Andræmon, at his word rose speedily,
And cast away from off him his cloak of purple dye,
And off to the ships ran swiftly, and I his cloak did on,

And fain therein was I lying till the Gold-throned Day-dawn shone.
Ah, would that I yet were as young, and of might untouched and stout!
Then would one of the homestead's swineherds soon give me a cloak, no
Both for kindness and for compassion of a very man maybe.
But now foul-clad is my body, and men think shame of me." doubt,

Then thou, O swineherd Eumæus, didst answer and speak forth:
"Old man, the tale thou tellest forsooth is one of worth;
Nor speak'st thou out of measure a vain and empty tale.
As now shalt thou lack not a garment, nor aught else that may avail,

A poor and hapless bedesman wandering from stead to town.
But tomorn shalt thou shake upon thee the rags that are thine own,
For nowise cloaks a many or change of coats to wear

Have we, but just one kirtle for every man to bear.
But when at last he cometh, Odysseus' well-loved son,
A kirtle and cloak shall he give thee, that fair raiment thou may'st don,
And shall speed thy ways wherever thy heart and soul desire."
So he spake and arose, and strewed him a bed beside the fire,
And the fells of sheep and the goat-kind withal he heaped thereto,
And there Odysseus laid him; and a cloak o'er him he threw,
Shaggy and great, that stood him in stead for a change of gear
When raging wind and weather rose up against them there.
There then Odysseus slumbered, and him withal beside
The young men lay; but the swineherd it liked not to abide
And slumber on that bed-place, and aloof from his swine to be:
So he armed him, and went outdoors; and Odysseus joyed to see
The man of his goods so heedful, when far away was his lord.
First then o'er his sturdy shoulders he slung the whetted sword,

And then in a thick cloak clad him from the wind to ward him well,
And the skin of a goat well-nourished caught up, a shaggy fell.
And withal a whetted javelin 'gainst men and dogs he bare,

And went his ways to slumber where his swine the white-toothed were,
All sleeping 'neath a rock-den in a north-wind-warded lair.