Book XXIV

But now the ghosts of the men who were of the Wooers' band
Called forth Cyllenian Hermes; and he had his staff in hand,

Lovely and golden, wherewith he lulleth the eyes of men,
Whomsoever he willeth, while others from slumber he rouseth again.
Therewith he roused and drave them, who gibbering went along;
As when in the inmost ingle of a wondrous den the throng
Of night-bats gibbereth fluttering, when one falleth off aloof
From their chain, where clustered together they hang from the rocky roof,
So fared their flock a-twittering, and Hermes void of wrong
Adown the dusky highway led all the band along:
There by the streams of Ocean and the White Rock went their band,
By the gates of the Sun they wended and by the dream-folk's land,
Till in no long while they were gotten to the meads of asphodel,
Wherein the ghosts, the pictures of outworn men-folk, dwell.
And there the ghost of Achilles the Peleus child they met,
And Patroclus, and Antilochus the hero stainless yet,
And Ajax of his body the best of every one
Amid the Danaan people after Peleus' blameless son.

Round him then were they gathered: but drew anigh their host
Agamemnon son of Atreus, and mournful was his ghost;
And with him came others flocking; for all they thronged around

Who with him in the house Ægisthus their doom and death-day found.
So the ghost of the Son of Peleus first spake unto him there:
"Atrides, all we said it that thy days through thou wert dear
To Zeus the Fain-of-thunder above all men of war,
Since over men so many and so valiant, sway ye bore
In the folkland of the Trojans, where Achæans suffered woes;
But baleful fate, that no man once born on earth foregoes,
Was doomed to fall upon thee amidst thine early day.

Ah! would that all fain of thy glory wherewith thou bearedst sway
In the folkland of the Trojans thou hadst met thy death and doom,
Then all the folk of Achæans for thee had made the tomb,

And unto thy son hereafter had been great fame of thy deed:
But now—a death most piteous for thine ending was decreed."
But to him the ghost of Atrides thus spake a word to hear:
"O happy Son of Peleus! Achilles godhead's peer!
Who diedst afar from Argos in Troy; and round thee then
Were slain the sons of the Trojans and Achæans, best of men,
As over thee they battled: in the dustwhirl didst thou lie,
So mighty, so mightily fallen, all thy horse-lore heed gone by.
Yea, daylong there we battled; nor the battle had we stayed,
But if Zeus with the storm and the whirlwind an end of the fight had made.
So then from out of the battle to the ships we brought thee there,
And on the bed we laid thee, and washed thy body fair
With water warm and ointments, and adown did the Danaans pour
The hot tears there above thee, and their hair for thee they shore.
And thy mother came up from the seaflood with the deathless maids of the sea
When she had heard of the tidings, and wondrous the wail for thee
Rose up upon the sea-shore; and the Achæans every one
Fell trembling, and a-fleeing on their hollow ships had they gone,
Had Nestor not refrained them, who knew all ancient lore,
And whose counsel unto all men had oft seemed best before:
So he spake, that man of wisdom, and in this wise said he:

"Hold, Argives! Swains of Achæans, hold now and nowise flee!
For now with her deathless sea-maids from out of the deep of the main
Hath the Mother come but to meet him, her son the newly-slain.'

"So he spake: and the high-heart Achæans refrained them of their fear;
And the Daughters of the Elder of the Salt-sea round thee were,
All piteously bewailing, and did on thee deathless weed;
And the Muses nine, none lacking, fell the burial lay to speed
With sweet replying voices; and no man without a tear
Might ye mark among the Argives. Rose the shrilly song and clear;
Seven days and ten unbroken, while day and night went by,

We wept, both the deathless Godfolk and the menfolk doomed to die.
The eighteenth to the fire we gave thee, and about thee there we slew
Many sheep of the flock the fattest, and the shambling beeves thereto.
Thou wert burned in the weed of the Gods mid ointments goodly store,
And honey sweet, and a many of Achæan men of war

In arms, both footmen and horsemen, went about the bale wherein
Thy body burned, and hugely all round uprose the din.
But when the flame of Hephæstus had burned thee all away,

Thy white bones, O Achilles, we gleaned at the dawn of the day
Into ointment and wine unwatered, and thy mother brought for thee
A two-eared golden vessel, and she gave it out for to be
The gift of Dionysus by all-famed Hephæstus made;
Therein, O glorious Achilles, the white bones of thee we laid,
Mingled with dead Patroclus, son of Menœtias;
But aloof from Antilochus, he who of thee most worshipped was
Of all thy fellows, saving Patroclus dead and gone.

Then the tomb we heaped around them, a great and a goodly one,
We the holy host of the Argives, and the folk that the battle abide,
On a ness that thrusteth forward o'er Hellespont the wide,

That afar it might be beholden of men that sail the sea,
Both of them that now are living and them that yet shall be.
But thy Mother, the Gods beseeching, laid prizes the goodliest
In the midmost lists for the winning of Achæans of the best.
— Full oft ere now hast thou happed on a warrior's burying,

When the swains are gathered together about some perished king,
And they gird them there, and array them for the winning of the prize.
But hereat indeed hadst thou wondered at the sight before thine eyes,
Such prizes and so goodly gave the Goddess for thee there,

Een the silver-footed Thetis: for still to the Gods wert thou dear.
So thy name dieth not with thy dying, but evermore shall abide
Thy fair fame, O Achilles, amongst all men far and wide.
But what joy unto me abideth that I wound up the spindle of strife,
When under the hands of Ægisthus, and of her my baleful wife,
Zeus e'en on the day of my homefare did my baleful bane devise."
But while to one another they spake in e'en such wise
There drew anigh unto them the Flitter, the Argus-bane,

Leading the souls of the Wooers at the hands of Odysseus slain, roo
And they wondered when they beheld them, and straight they went thereto.
But the ghost of Agamemnon the son of Atreus knew

Melaneus' son beloved, Amphimedon great of fame;
For his guest had he been when aforetime to his Ithacan house he came.
So the ghost of the Son of Atreus was the first with the speech-word then:
"Amphimedon, what bane brings you, all chosen, like-aged men,
'Neath the dark earth to journey? No better band than this
Of the best of men might we choose us of any town that is.
As ye sailed on the ships did Poseidon o'erwhelm you utterly,
The bitter winds arousing, and long billows of the sea?
Or did it befall that the foemen your bane on the mainland gave,
As ye cut off the herds of their neat or their goodly sheep-flocks drave,
Or about some city's women would the fight that ye fell in be?

Come, tell me the tale since I ask it, for I call me the guest-friend of thee.
For dost thou not remember how I came to thine house and home
With the godlike Menelaus, to urge on Odysseus to come,

And along with us unto Ilios in the well-decked ship to wend?
Nor over the main had we gotten before a whole month's end,
Since hardly thereto Odysseus the Waster of Cities we won."
Then unto him fell speaking the ghost of Amphimedon:
"O King of folk, Agamemnon, most glorious Atreus' seed,
Thou Zeus-child! all thou tellest I remember well indeed,
And every whit and clearly the tale to thee will I tell
Of our death and our evil ending, in what wise it befel.
"We wooed the wife of Odysseus, the lord so long away,
And unto that loathly wedding said she neither yea nor nay,
But the black doom and the deathday devised for us the while;
Yea in our heart she devised us moreover this same guile;
With a web that was great and mighty her loom in the house did she gear,
A fine web, full of measure, and thus bespake us there:

"'O younglings, ye my Wooers, since the godlike Odysseus is dead,
Await ye abiding the wedding till I to an end have sped
This cloth, for fear the warp-threads should waste and come to nought.

Tis a shroud for the lord Laertes 'gainst the day when he shall be caught
At the last by the baleful doom of Death, the Outstretcher of men:
Lest the women of Achæans through the folk should blame me then,
— Lo the man of many possessions he lieth lacking a shroud!'

So she spoke, for the while prevailing o'er our hearts the high and proud,
And thenceforth o'er that web the mighty by daylight still she wrought,
But ever by night undid it when the candles thereto she had brought.
Three years she beguiled the Achæans, and the thing by guile did hide,
But when came on the fourth year and the seasons came in their tide,
By all the waning of moons and the many days fulfilled,

Then one of the women told us, who in the guile was skilled,
And we found her there unweaving the noble web of cloth;
And so to an end must she bring it perforce and exceeding loth. done,
"So when she had shown us the cloth, and the great web had woven and
And had washed it, and like to the sun or the moon before us it shone,
In that while some baleful God from somewhither Odysseus led
Unto the lands up-country, where the swineherd dwelt in his stead,
Whither came the loved son of Odysseus, the godlike, making the land
In his black ship out from Pylos the country of the sand.
There then the twain for the Wooers did the bale of death forecast
And came on to the glorious city; of whom was Odysseus the last;
But thitherward before him the way did Telemachus lead;
And the swineherd brought on Odysseus all clad in loathly weed,
Most like to a wretched beggar, and a staff-carle very old;
And woeful was the raiment that his body did enfold;
And not one of us might know him, for the man amidst us there
Come to hand upon a sudden, nay, not those that the first-born were.
And with evil words we chid him, and cast at him furthermore
But there in the halls of his house with hardy heart he bore

All things for a while; both the pelting of strokes and the bitter word;
Till the counsel of Zeus the Shielded the mind within him stirred,
And, with Telemachus aiding, the lovely arms took he
And laid them by in the chamber, and shut the door with a key.
Then out of his guile exceeding he bade his wife to lay
The bow before the Wooers, and therewith the iron grey,
For a strife to us ill-fated, well-spring of bane and bale.
And no man there amongst us o'er the huge bow might prevail
To stretch his string: might failed us a long way for the same.
But when into the hands of Odysseus at last the great bow came,
Then all we cried together, and with our words forbade
To give the bow unto him for all the words he made.
But Telemachus only urged him, and gave him straight command.
'And when Odysseus the toil-stout the goodly had got it in hand,

Then lightly the bow he bended, and shot the iron through:
And leapt up and stood on the threshold: then to earth the shafts did he strew,
Glaring terribly around him: and King Antinoüs

He shot, and then, straight aiming, those shafts the dolorous
He loosed upon the others, and each o'er each they fell.
"And then that one of the Gods was their helper knew we well,
For thereon through all the feast-hall they followed on us close,
And on either hand they slaughtered, and the loathly groans arose,
And the din of the cleaving of skulls, and the blood drowned all the floor:
"So died we, Agamemnon, and our bodies furthermore
In the halls of the house of Odysseus, uncared they lie therein;

For in the house of each one thereof nought knoweth our kin
'That they might wash from off us the black blood that our hurts have shed,
And lay us adown with wailing—all the honour of the dead."

But the ghost of the Son of Atreus made answer thereupon:
"O many-wiled Odysseus! Laertes' happy son!
A wife of worth abundant hast thou surely gotten thee;
So good is the heart of the noble, of that Penelope,
Icarius' child; who ever had her lord in memory,
E'en Odysseus: so the glory of her worth shall never die;
But forsooth a lovely story the Deathless Ones shall make
For all the Earth-abiders for Penelope's wise sake.

Nought such was Tyndareus' Daughter, who devised a deed of bale,
To slay her wedded husband: loathly shall be her tale
Amid menfolk, and hereafter yet the ill report shall dwell

On each woman of the women, e'en on her that doeth well"
In such wise with each other held they converse face to face

As they stood in the House of Hades, down in earth's hidden place.
But those others went forth from the city; they quickly came their ways
To the well-arrayed land of Laertes, which he himself in his days

For himself had won: for much toil thereover did he abide,
And there was his house, and about it were the bowers on every side,
Wherein the thralls of his homemen were wont to sleep and dwell,
E'en they who ever wrought him such work as liked him well.
And a goodwife, Sicilian moreover, dwelt underneath that roof,
To have a care of the elder in the field from the city aloof.
So now to his son and the homemen to speech Odysseus fell:
"Do ye yourselves now enter the house that is builded well,
And slaughter at once for your dinner which swine may be best thereto;
But for me, I will make trial of my father, what he will do,
Whether he with his eyes will mark me and know me for his son,
Or know me not, such a long while and so far as I have been gone."
So saying, unto the homemen he gave his battle-gear,
And they hasted into the house. But Odysseus drew anear
The fruit-abounding vineyard the foresaid proof to win:
But down to the great garth going he nowise found therein

Either Dolius, he or his sons, or one homeman; gone were all those
To gather them thorns for a hedge to set round the vineyard close;
And he, Dolius the elder, was leading them all on the road.

So his father he found, who alone in the ordered garth abode,
About a vine-stock digging: in a kirtle foul was he clad,
All patched and right unseemly; and bound round his legs he had
Greaves clouted, wrought of oxhide, the scratching thorns to shun,
And gloves on his hands 'gainst the brambles; and on his head was done
A goatskin hood. In such wise did he eke out sorrow there.
But when the goodly Odysseus, the toil-stout, saw him fare
All worn with eld, and laden with such grief of heart withal,
He shed the tears thereover as he stood 'neath a pear-tree tall.

And then indeed to pondering in his mind and mood he fell,
Whether he should kiss his father, and embrace him about, and tell
All the tale of how he was gotten to his fatherland again;

Or whether of all he should ask him and try him there amain.
And unto him so thinking it seemed the gainfuller part
To try him at first for a while with words that were hard to his heart.
With that thought the goodly Odysseus went up to him speedily,
And he held his head still downward and digged about the tree.
So standing anigh unto him, thus spake his son renowned:
"Old man, no lore thou lackest in dighting thy garden ground,
And well thine heed availeth; for there is nothing here,
No shoot, no fig or vine-stock, no apple-tree or pear,
And no plot of herbs in the garden, that lacketh the care of thee.
But one thing will I tell thee, nor wroth let thy spirit be:
This same good care thou lackest, and both eld thou hast indeed

Full woeful, and art squalid and clad in loathly weed.
Yet thy master's heeding thee nothing is nought for thy sloth, I trow,
For nought thrall-like in thy body and thy bigness dost thou show.

But like to the Kings thou seemest: yea, thou seemest unto me
Like to one who, when he hath washen and eaten as should be,
Should fall to sleeping softly, as meet for elders it is.
But do me to wit of one thing, and straightly tell me this,
Of what man art thou the bondsman, and whose garden tendest thou?
And hereof, too, tell me duly that soothly the thing I may trow,
If verily I am gotten to Ithaca, e'en as he said,
A man that e'en now I fell in with, as I made my way to the stead.
A man scarce wise of his wit; since indeed he endured not I wis
To tell me all, or to hearken my word when I asked him of this,
Concerning my friend, if he liveth and yet abideth to-day,
Or is dead, and unto the houses of Hades hath wended away.
But one thing am I saying, and heed thou my word and hear;
A man erewhile I guested in my fatherland the dear,

Who came to our house: and never a more welcome guest hath come
Of all the guests of the aliens who hath sought unto my home.
But from Ithaca claimed he kinship, and moreover did declare
That Laertes Arceisius son was the father of him there.

So him to the house did I lead, and there I guested him well
With heedful love, when a many as then in the house did dwell;
And guest-gifts there I gave him, e'en such as were meet to be given:
Forsooth of gold well fashioned I gave him talents seven;

And a mixing-bowl I gave him all silver and flowery,
And twelve single cloaks moreover, and twelve shifts of tapestry,
And as many goodly mantles and the kirtles 'longing thereto.
And therewithal four women deft lovely work to do,
And shapely of their bodies, whom he chose out for his own."

Then answered him his father as he shed the tears adown:
"Ye are come to the land, O stranger, whereof thou wouldst be told,
But men insolent and wanton as now the lordship hold.

And those numberless gifts of thy giving but vainly didst thou give.
For if in the Ithacan folkland thou hadst found that man alive,
Then indeed with a good return of thy gifts had he sent thee away,
And with goodly guesting, as meet is for him who beginneth the play.
But come now, tell me of this, and clear let thine answer be:
How many years have worn by since thou guestedst this man with thee,
Thine hapless friend, and my son ill-fated if ever he were—

Whom somewhere afar from his friends and his fatherland the dear
In the sea have the fishes devoured, or the birds and the beasts have got
For a prey upon the mainland; and his mother bewailed him not,

Nor shrouded him round, nor his father—e'en we that begat him, e'en
Nor his wife of the many gifts, wise-witted Penelope,
Did bewail her lord on his death-pier, as meet and right it is, we!—

Nor close his eyes; and due honour to the dead is even this.

But now do thou tell me truly that I may wot it well,
Whence art thou of men, thy begetters and the town where thou dost dwell,
And where the ship is lying that erewhile brought thee here

Along with thy godlike fellows: or alone perchance didst thou fare
Upon the ship of others who, landing thee, went on their way?"

Then Odysseus the many-counselled thuswise did answer and say:
"Yea, soothly, of all these matters will I tell thee clearly, and well.
Out of Alybas come I, wherein in a noble house I dwell.

The son of Apheidas am I, who was King Polypemon's son,
And Eperitus have I to name: now some God drave me on
From Sicania to come hither, and all against my will.
By the field far aloof from the city my ship is lying still.
But as for Odysseus, this year is the fifth year come to hand

From the day when thence he departed, and left my father's land
Ill-fated; yet fair flew the fowl when he went, on the right hand they were.
So fain was I thereover when I sped him forth to fare;

And fain was he departing, and hope in our hearts was alive
To mingle yet in friendship, and glorious gifts to give."

So he spake; but a black cloud of sorrow wrapped the elder of days around,
And straight he took up two-handed the dusky dust from the ground,
And over his hoar head poured it, groaning full heavily.

But stirred was the heart of Odysseus, and the sharp grief rose on high,
And beat against his nostrils as he looked on his father's woe,
And he fell on him and embraced him, and kissed him and spake so:

"I am he of whom thou askest, O father! yea, I am here,
Come back to the land of my fathers at last in the twentieth year;
And now refrain thee of wailing, and cease thy tearful woe,
For all straight out will I tell thee, though needs must we hasten now.
Lo now! I have slain the Wooers within our house and hall,
And avenged me of mocking and heart-grief, and their ill deeds once for
Therewith Laertes answered, and in this wise spake he:
"Tf thou art indeed Odysseus, my child, come home to me,
Then tell me a manifest token that in thee I may surely trow."

Spake then the wise Odysseus, and in such wise answered now:
"Lo first this weal I show thee for thine eyen to behold,
Which the boar with his white tooth furrowed when I went on Parnassus of old.
But thou and my mother beworshipped, ye sent me that journey to make

To Autolycus her father, that I the gifts might take
Which when he came hither he promised, and he swore to give me those.
Then come, till I tell thee the trees in this well-ordered close,
Which thou gavest me erst for mine own, when I but a little one

Was going with thee through the garden, and asking of all that was done,
And through them we went, and thou namedst them, and toldest me all about these,
And thirteen pear-trees ye gave me, and a half score apple-trees,
And of figs two score; and thou namedst withal the fifty rows
Of vines that thou wouldst give me; and in turn bore each of those,
Because indeed grape-bunches there flourished divers and great

When the seasons of Zeus from the heavens laid on them load of weight."
Therewith failed the knees of the elder, and failed the heart in his breast,
When he knew the soothfast tokens that his son made manifest,
And he cast his arms about him, his child beloved well,
And the toil-stout goodly Odysseus took him, fainting as he fell.
But when his breath he had gotten, and his soul came aback to his heart,
Again with words he bespake him, and answered for his part:
"Zeus father! Still the Gods dwell up in Olympus on high,
If the Wooers indeed have paid us for their wanton mastery;

But sore in my mind I fear me lest they speedily hasten here,
All the Ithacan men, and moreover speed tidings everywhere
Throughout all steads and cities of the Cephellenian men."

But the many-counselled Odysseus in this wise answered again:
"Heart up! nor let these matters on thy mind for a trouble lie;
But go we forth to the house that standeth the orchard anigh;
For I sent on Telemachus thither, and the swineherd and herd of the neat,
That they as swiftly as may be should array for us all the meat."
But with those words they wended along to the houses fair,

And when at last they were gotten to the house well-builded there,
Therein Telemachus found they, and the herds of the neat and the swine,
Shearing much flesh into gobbets and blending the dark-red wine.

And that while Laertes the great-heart, within his house and hall
That wife Sicilian washed him, and sleeked him o'er withal,
And did a fair cloak on him; but Athene came to him,
And made that People's Shepherd greater in every limb,
That mightier he was than aforetime, and bigger to look upon.
So up from the bath he wended, and wondered his well-loved son
When he saw him like in aspect to the Gods that never die:
So then he spake unto him, and let the winged words fly:
"O father, now one of the Gods that are for evermore
Hath made thy body and bigness e'en better than heretofore."
Then answered Laertes the heedful, and spake a word to hear:
"Would to Father Zeus and Athene and Apollo that such I were
As when Nericus well-builded, the burg on the mainland's head,
I took, and the Cephellenians as their battle-king I led.

That e'en such I had stood beside thee in our own house yesterday,
With war-gear on my shoulders to aid in the battle-play
Against the men of the Wooers! There then in thine house and hall
Had I loosed the knees of many, and rejoiced thine heart withal."

But while each unto the other such things as this they said,
The others toiled and ceased not, and the banquet ready made;
And they set them down in order on bench and high-seat there,
And they laid their hands to the victual. But therewith now drew anear
Dolius the elder, and with him the sons of that elder withal,
From their work afield a-wearied, whom their mother had gone to call,
That Sicilian wife that gave them their meat, and the home-man old

In diligent fashion cherished, since eld had him in its hold.
But when these saw Odysseus, and their minds considered him well,
They stood in the hall astonished; but to speech Odysseus fell,

And in soothing wise bespake them, and such words before them set:

"Sit down to meat, O elder, and your wonderment forget;
For the meat have we long been yearning to lay hands upon the same,
And here in the hall have abided, expecting till ye came."

So he spake; but forth ran Dolius with both his hands stretched out,
And caught hold of Odysseus and kissed him on his hands and his wrists
And therewithal bespake him, and e'en such words spake he:

"Since thou art come back, beloved, to us that longed for thee, about,
Yet never looked to see it, and the Gods thy ways have led,
All hail! all hail! may the Godfolk give thee life's goodlihead!
But tell me one thing truly that I may know it well;
Doth Penelope the wise-heart know of this tale to tell,
And how thou art returned, or the tidings shall we speed?"
But therewith spake in answer Odysseus of many a rede:
"Old man, she knoweth already: what need thereof to care?"
So again the other sat him adown in the polished chair.

And in turn did the sons of Dolius round Odysseus the mighty stand,
And in words they gave him greeting and clasped him hand in hand,
And then sat them adown in order by their father Dolius there.

Thus then in the halls, of their victual did these men have a care.
But swift Fame fared as a herald through the city on every side,
With the foul fall of the Wooers and the fate whereby they died;
And men heard it altogether and thronged from everywhere,
And about the house of Odysseus in wail and woe they were;
And they bore out the dead from the house, and each buried his own
And those from other cities, home did they send them all;
And on the swift ships laid them for the fisher-folk to bear. withal.
Then flock-meal they fared to the meeting and sore at heart they were.
But when they were gotten together and the meeting of men was made,
Then amidst them arose Eupeithes, and the word before them laid.
For unhealable yet in his heart the grief for Antinoüs lay,
His son, whom the goodly Odysseus of the Wooers first did slay;
So he spake in the meeting of men sore weeping because of his son: done,
"Friends, a great deed 'gainst the Achæans is this that this man hath
- For some in his ships he flitted, and valiant and many were they,
And the hollow ships they perished and the people passed away;
And he came here to slaughter others of Cephellenians the best.
So come ye ere this man swiftly get off in Pylos to rest,
Or unto Elis the Holy, where Epeian men are lords.
Wend we, lest shame enduring shall burden us afterwards,
And this thing be for a shame e'en for folk unborn to hear,
That we avenged not the slaying of our sons and our brethren dear:
Then to me at least nought happy would life be unto my heart;
But dying as soon as might be with the dead would I have my part.
Then go we, lest they forego us, and across to the mainland fare."

So spake he weeping, and pity gat hold of the Achæans there.
But now the godlike minstrel and Medon came thereto,
From the feast-hall of Odysseus, now Sleep had let them go.

And they stood there in the midmost and wonder seized each man,
And Medon learned in wisdom thuswise the word began:
"O men of Ithaca, hearken! for not without the will
Of the Deathless Gods did Odysseus these deeds of his fulfil:
Yea, I myself saw an Immortal of the Gods, who stood anear
Odysseus, and like unto Mentor in all wise did it appear.
And this Deathless God, one while in front of Odysseus appeared,
And heartened him on; and again the folk of the Wooers he scared,
To flee through the house in terror; and there each upon each did they fall."
So he spake; and at his speaking the pale fear crept o'er all.
But the old lord Halitherses, and Alastor's son was he,
Took up the word; and he only things past and to come could see,
Who now of goodwill bespake them, and a word before them laid:
"Hearken now, Ithacan men, to the word that of me shall be said:
O friends, 'tis your dastard doings made these evil matters to be;

For neither to Mentor the folk-herd would ye hearken, nor yet unto me,
When your sons we would be staying of their witless ways of nought;
Who in their baleful folly deeds huge and monstrous wrought,

Eating the wealth and shaming the wife of the noblest of men,
Whereas ye would still be saying, he shall never come back again.
So thuswise be the matter, and the word of my speaking obey,
Nor go ye, lest any meet evil self-made upon the way."
So he spake; but the more part of them rose up with a mighty cry,
While the others gathered together abode there steadfastly,
For his word they liked in nowise, but Eupeithes did they hear
More gladly: so then straightly they ran to their battle-gear.
But when upon their bodies the gleaming brass they had done,
Then were they gathered flock-meal before the wide-wayed town,
And the host amidst their folly forth did Eupeithes lead,
For he thought to avenge the slaying of his son: but never indeed
Should he get him aback; but thereby should hap on his doom and his death.
Now to Zeus the son of Cronos Athene speaketh and saith:
"O father, O son of Cronos, O Highest of all that is high,
Tell me, the asker, what hidden in the deep of thine heart doth lie?
Whether ill war yet thou wilt fashion, and the fearful battle din,
Or wilt make loving-kindness between them, and all they to dwell therein?"
Then Zeus the Cloud-pack's Herder thus fell to answer and speak:
"O child, why ask ye closely, and an answer thus would seek?
For was not this thy counsel, and thine heart's devising then,
That thither should come Odysseus, and avenge him on these men?
So do e'en as thou wilt. But I show the meetest end of the strife:
Since the holy Odysseus hath wreaked him on the Wooers of his wife,
Let them strike true oath, and henceforward to the end let him be king:
And the slaying of their children, and their brethren, e'en this thing
Shall we make them forget, and in kindness shall they dwell as heretofore;
And good peace shall be amongst them and of wealth abundant store."
So he spake, and urged on Athene, who before longed eagerly,
And she went on her ways, down-rushing from Olympus' peaks on high.

But when of the longing for meat heart-soothing an end those had made,
The toil-stout goodly Odysseus took up the word and said:
"Let some one go forth and espy lest anigh they be drawing, those men."

So he spake; but a son of Dolius straight did his bidding then,
And went on the threshold and stood there, and saw them all anigh,
And unto Odysseus straightway he let the winged word fly:

"Yea, verily are they at hand; so arm we now in speed."

So therewith, at the word, they arose, and did on their battle-weed:
And Odysseus and his, they were four; and six Dolius sons there were.
And with them Laertes and Dolius did on the battle-gear,

For all that they were hoary, and warriors pressed by need.
But when they had done on their bodies the gleaming brazen weed,
Then they opened the doors and went forth; and Odysseus led the band.
Then came the Daughter of Zeus, Athene, nigh to-hand,

In Mentor's very likeness of body and of voice,
Whom the toil-stout valiant Odysseus beholding, failed not to rejoice;
And unto Telemachus spake he, and said to his well-loved son:
"Telemachus, now shalt thou learn it thyself, as thou fallest on,

In the tide when men are battling and the best are chosen of worth,
Not to shame the race of thy fathers; we, who over all the earth
Have excelled all other menfolk in manhood and in might."

But Telemachus the heedful thus answered him forthright:
"O father beloved, if thou willest, in my heart shalt thou look, and see
No shaming of the fathers whereof thou toldest me."

So he spake, and glad was Laertes, and thus he speaketh now:
"Kind Gods! what day is this day, wherein so glad I grow,
Wherein my son and my son's son in manly valour vie!"

Then unto him spake Athene, the Grey-eyed, standing a-nigh
"Arceisius' son, of my fellows the lievest and most dear,
Unto the Grey-eyed Maiden and Zeus father speed the prayer,
Then swing up thy spear long-shafted, and poise and cast outright."
So spake she, Pallas Athene, and breathed into him great might;
And unto the Daughter of Zeus the mighty made he his prayer,
And aloft he swung thereafter and cast the long-shaft spear,
And therewith smote Eupeithes on the helm of the cheeks of brass;
Which kept not out the spear-head; right through and through did it pass,
And clashing he fell, and above him his war-gear rattled thereon:
And Odysseus set on their forefront along with his glorious son,
And smote with the edge of the sword and the two-tyned spear in the play;
And there all those had they slaughtered and taken their homefare away,
But if the Daughter of Zeus, the Lord of the Shield of the Goat,
Had withheld not the folk, and refrained them with the mighty voice
of her shout:
"O Ithacan men, withhold you at last from the bitter war!
That speedily ye may be parted and shed the blood no more!"
So Athene spake, and upon them therewith fell the pale bleak fear,
And from their hands in their terror down dropped the battle-gear,
And unto the earth down tumbled, as the Goddess cried o'er the strife.
Then unto the town they turned them in longing for dear life.
But the toil-stout goodly Odysseus cried out with a dreadful cry
And swooped on, gathered together as the erne that aloft doth fly;
But even therewith Cronion cast a bolt of flaming fire,
That fell before the Grey-eyed, the Maid of a mighty Sire,
And unto Odysseus the Grey-eyed Athene cried and said:
"Odysseus of many a wile, Laertes' son, Zeus-bred,
Withhold thee now! with the strife of the balanced battle be done!
Lest Zeus be wroth against thee, the loud-voiced Cronos' son."
So Athene spake, and he hearkened, and glad at heart obeyed.
And oath and troth thereafter betwixt the twain she laid,
She, Pallas Athene, the Daughter of the Lord of the Shield of Fear,
In the likeness of Mentor's body, with a voice like his to hear.