Book XX

BUT Odysseus laid him to rest in the porchway-hall the while;
For he spread on the ground an undressed bull-hide: and thereover a pile
Of many a fleece of the sheep that the Greeks for their feasting slew;
And above, when he lay as for sleep, a mantle Eurynome threw.
So there, with thoughts of bane for the caitiff suitor-train,
Lay Odysseus, but slept not so: for the maids from the feast-hall came,
That had wrought but a little ago with the suitors the deed of shame.
With laughter and wanton word they came, and unmaidenly jest;
And indignation-stirred was his spirit within his breast.
And his thoughts as the tempest-whirl raged, surged as the sea-tide’s swell:
Should he leap on the harlots, and hurl each guilty spirit to hell?
Or leave them but this once more to revel in shame and in sin
With the suitors even as of yore? and his heart growled ever within.
And even as a mother-hound, when she seeth a stranger-wight,
Goeth pacing her whelps around, and growleth afire for the fight,
So growled his heart, for the load of the horror was fearful to bear.
But he smote on his breast, and he chode with the rebel that struggled there:
‘Endure it, endure it, mine heart! thou hast borne yet a shame-fuller sight
In the day when the hideous giant, the Cyclops resistless of might,
Was devouring thy valiant companions; yet thou wast strong to endure,
Till thy wit brought thee forth of his cavern, who thoughtest thy death was sure.’
So spake he, and mightily reined the heart that restively leapt
In his breast, and his mood he restrained and in rest unrestful kept.
Steadfast his heart was and staunch; yet himself tossed this way and that.
And as when one turneth a paunch filled full with blood and with fat
In front of a great fierce fire ever this way and that, and thereon
Stares with impatient desire for the roast to be speedily done,
So to this side and that side he tossed him, and pondered deeply and long
How he might fall on the host of the shameless suitor-throng,
Alone against many: but nigh him Pallas Athene drew;
For she stooped from the halls of the sky, as a woman to outward view;
And behold, she stood at his head in the dimness of night, and she spoke:
‘Why wakest thou thus on thy bed, O wretched above all folk?
Lo, this is thine home; lo, here is thy wife in thine halls with thee,
And thy son, such a son as a man would pray that his own might be.’
And the man of the manifold counsels answered thereunto:
‘Yea Goddess, thy words are wisdom, and all thy sayings are true.
But mine heart is trouble-tossed, and pondereth deep and long
How to lay mine hands on the host of the shameless suitor-throng.
I am one, and alone; but ever they meet in a crowd in mine hall.
Yea also mine heart is perplexed for this which is harder than all:
For if by the favour of Zeus and of thee I shall slay these men,
Devise for me, how shall I ’scape the revenge of their kinsfolk then?’
And again Athene the grey-eyed spake to the hero her rede:
‘Beshrew thee! a man would give ear to a worser friend in his need,
Yea, to a mortal, and nothing so wise in manifold lore.
But I am a Goddess, she that guardeth thee evermore
In all thy troubles, and now an assurance to thee will I give:
If fifty troops of men by the breath of their nostrils that live
Were set in array about us, were furious to fight us and slay,
Yet shouldst thou take their kine and their goodly sheep for a prey.
But now let slumber enclasp thee: it shall not lighten thine heart
To keep vigil the livelong night: and soon shall thine ills depart.’
Then the dews of slumber she poured on his eyelids there as he lay;
And the Goddess divine hath soared to Olympus far away.
When the soft Limb-looser, untying the tangle of troublous thought,
Had seized him, wretchedly lying his wise wife slumbered not.
On her soft couch sat she, and still she wept in her lonely woe,
Till her spirit had drunken its fill of the wells whence tears over-flow;
And she wailed out a prayer in her dark despair to the Maid of the Bow:
‘Artemis, daughter of Zeus, dread Goddess! O that to-day
Thou wouldst plant in my bosom thine arrow and take my life away
This instant!—O were I snatched by a hurricane’s passionate breath,
And away were I swept and away on the mist-dim paths of death,
And were whelmed in the rush of Ocean’s backward-sweeping waters!
And even as the arms of the storm-wind caught up Pandarus’ daughters—
Their parents the Gods had destroyed, and they in the palace remained
Orphans: but Aphrodite their helpless lives sustained
With curds and with pleasant honey and sweet flame-flashing wine;
And in loveliness and in wisdom did Here make them outshine
All daughters of earth, and Artemis made them stately and tall;
And in lovely loom-work Athene made them wise above all.
But when Aphrodite’ the Goddess to wide Olympus sped
To implore for her foster-daughters the bliss of the happy-wed
Of Zeus the thunder-lover, for all things are under his ken,
Both the bliss and the wretchedness of the death-doomed children of men,—
Then the Storm-fiends swooped on the maidens and snatched them away from the light,
To be handmaids unto the loathly Furies in halls of night,
So may the Deathless destroy me that dwell in the height of the skies,
Or may fair-tressed Artemis smite me, that seeing my lord with mine eyes
I might pass under earth to the narrow house, to the mansion abhorred,
And never abase me to gladden the heart of a meaner lord.
Ah, not too heavy to bear is the anguish when all day long
A man must weep heart-haunted aye by a trouble-throng,
If but slumber enfolds him at night—for all remembrance flies
Of good things and evil, when droopeth the sleep-veil over his eyes,—
But to me doth a God send ill dreams, even in the slumber-tide.
For methought this night that there lay one like unto him by my side,
Even such as he was when he went to the war—O mine heart was glad!
For I deemed that nowise a dream, but a vision it was that I had.’
So spake she, and even with the word came the Dawning, the Golden-throned:
And Odysseus the godlike heard her voice as she wept and moaned.
Sudden-waking in dazed surprise, to his startled soul he said
That his wife had pierced his disguise, and stood even then at his head.
Then the things that had been for his bed, the cloak and the fleeces, he bare
To a high-seat the hall within, and he laid them thereon, but the skin
Without on the ground he spread: and he lifted his hands in prayer:
‘Zeus, Father, if ye, the Gods, have consented o’er land and sea
To bring me home, though ye meted out evil aforetime to me,
From one of the folk that be waking within some word let me hear
Fair-boding: without may a token withal from Zeus appear.’
So praying the hero spoke: Allfather hearkened his cry,
And a crash of thunder broke from the Gods’ bright home in the sky,
From the height of the halls of cloud; so Odysseus rejoiced at the sound.
From within then spake aloud a woman of them that ground,
Where anigh him the handmills lay of the Shepherd of Ithaca’s land,
Whereat drudged day by day twelve women, a toil-worn band,
Bruising the barley and wheat, the life and the marrow of men.
Now the sleep of the others was sweet, for their portion was ground by then.
One only was toiling still, for her limbs were exceeding weak:
Yet a moment she stayeth her mill, and a sign for the king doth she speak:
‘Allfather of Gods and men, who sittest enthroned on high,
Full loud hath thy thunder rolled in the star-bestudded sky;
Yet clouds are there none: herein art thou granting to some one a sign.
Now also fulfil unto wretched me this saying of mine:
May this be the last and the uttermost day that the suitors come
For the revel and feast of delight in the halls of the isle-king’s home,
Even they that have loosened my knees with toil heart-breaking and sore
Grinding their meal: this once may they banquet, and never more.’
Glad then was Odysseus’ soul that word fair-boding to hear,
And for Zeus’s thunder-roll; for he deemed that his vengeance was near.
Now the rest of the handmaid-thralls in Odysseus’ beautiful halls,
Awaking out of their sleep, the fire on the hearth ’gan light.
And now doth Telemachus leap from his couch, a godlike wight,
And he clad him, and flung around his shoulders his falchion keen;
And his beautiful sandals he bound fast under his feet’s white sheen;
And a mighty spear with the brass keen-tipped in his hand did he take.
But he stayed him at point to pass o’er the threshold, and turned him and spake:
‘Dear nurse, did ye give yestreen to the stranger the stranger’s right?
Had he food and a couch, or untended lay through a comfortless night?
For thus is my mother’s wont—she is wise: yet in wisdom’s despite
Blindly with honour she welcometh many a worser wight,
And she sendeth the better man empty-handed and shamed away.’
Then did the wise Eurycleia answer the prince and say:
‘Now nay, my son, never blame her, for guiltless she is of blame.
So long as he would, did he sit and drink of the vineyard-flame;
And he said that he hungered for bread no more; for she asked it of him.
But when he bethought him of rest, when the earth-ways all grew dim,
Our lady gave command to her maidens to spread him a bed.
But he, as a man ill-fated and utterly woe-bestead,
Was nowise minded on couches and soft-heaped rugs to sleep;
But even on the hide undressed of an ox, and on fleeces of sheep
In the forecourt-hall he lay, and above him a mantle we cast.’
Then Telemachus turned him away, and forth of the hall hath he passed,
Bearing his lance, and his fleet hounds followed their master’s tread;
And, the sons of Achaia to meet, he hied to the folkmote-stead.
Then cried to her handmaid-train Eurycleia the woman divine,
Who was born far over the main unto Ops and Peisenor’s line:
‘Bestir you,’ she cried,’ let some of you sweep the palace-hall,
And sprinkle, and spread, to cover the fair-wrought thrones withal,
Tapestries purple-dyed, and washed be the tables o’er
With sponges; and cleansed be the bowls wherefrom the wine they pour,
And the double-chalice goblets; and some of you hie to the spring
For the water, and loiter ye not your pitchers hither to bring,
For it shall not be long that the suitor-throng from our hall will stay;
Right early will they return, for this is their festival-day.’
Thus to the handmaids she cried, and they hearkened with heed and obeyed.
So a score to the fountain hied where the streams flashed cool in the shade:
And the rest their labour plied, and the hall of the feasting arrayed.
By this to the forecourt-garth came the suitors’ serving-men,
And deftly and well for the hearth cleft wood; and the handmaids again
From the fountain came with the water: the swineherd behind them pressed;
And he brought three boars for slaughter, of all his herd the best.
But he let the beasts roam wide through the fair garths seeking their food;
But himself by Odysseus’ side with kindly greeting stood:
‘Stranger, say, do the suitors regard thee any more,
Or still in the halls do they do thee dishonour, even as before?’
And Odysseus the manifold-counselled spake unto him in his turn:
‘Eumaeus, O that the Gods would give them requital stern
For the flouts, for the tyrannous outrage, the caitiff devices they frame
In the house of another man, and have no whit of shame!’
As each unto other thus they spake in their grief and their wrath,
The goatherd Melanthius drew nigh on the selfsame path;
She-goats was he driving, the best that in all the flocks he might find,
To be slain for the suitors’ feast; and his two men followed behind.
So he brought them in, and fast to a porch-hall pillar he tied:
But himself on Odysseus cast the word of reviling and cried:
‘Thou here! shall thy kill-joy face be about the house evermore
With thy begging of this man and that? wilt thou never go forth of the door?
But as touching these dealings of thine, we shall not be at one, I wis,
Ere I make thee to taste of mine hand: thy begging is all amiss;
It is shameless robbery:—what! are there feast-halls none but this?’
So in his spite he said: nought answered Odysseus to him,
But he silently shook his head, dark-brooding a purpose grim.
And there as they stood came a third, Philoetius valiant and true,
With fatling goats from the herd and a cow for the suitor crew—
Over the sea-channel these by the ferryman wights were brought,
By the shipmen that over the seas bare all that their helping sought.
So the beasts with heed he tied ’neath the porch-hall’s echoing height;
But himself to the swineherd’s side drew near, and he asked of the wight:
‘Prithee, who is the stranger forlorn that is come but now to our halls,
Friend swineherd, and who be the folk that his countrymen he calls?
Yea, where is his birth-spot found, and the soil of his fatherland where?
Ah hapless!—and stately his frame is, as though ’twere a king stood there!
No marvel the Gods afflict poor wanderers to and fro,
When even for kings they weave the tangled web of woe.’
He spake, and the welcoming right hand gave, drawing near to his side,
And forth of his lips flew the light-winged words, and kindly he cried:
‘Hail, father stranger! may bliss be thy portion in days to be,
Albeit manifold evils this day are encompassing thee.
Allfather, none is so cruel as thou of the Deathless Ones,
Who pitiest not the men whom thyself hast begotten thy sons;
But thou makest them dwell with affliction, and fillest with bitterest woe.
A cold sweat stands on my limbs as I look, and mine eyes overflow
As I call Odysseus to mind, for I think that my king even now
Is a homeless wanderer, clad in even such rags as thou,
If anywhere yet he is living, and seeth the sun’s dear light:
But and if he is dead by this, and in Hades’ halls of night,
Then alas for the noble Odysseus, who set me in charge of his kine
When I was but a lad, in the isle Cephallenia, over the brine!
Now is the tale of them countless: never hath neatherd seen
Such increase of broad-browed beeves, as of ears of corn, I ween.
Yet these am I bidden to bring, the stranger-gluttons to feed,
The while of his son in the ancient halls they take no heed,
Neither quake for the vengeance of God, for now are they hungering
To divide and devour the wealth of the long-departed king;
While the wild dark thoughts through my heart, as the winter whirl-winds, drive,
And it seemeth a caitiff deed, while yet his son is alive,
To get me out of the land, yea, to steal his beeves away
To a people of strangers—yet is it bitterer here to stay
With herds not mine, neither his, in anguish day by day.
Ah, long ago to another proud-souled king had I gone
Fleeing the place where deeds no more to be borne are done;
But mine heart is foreboding yet that the hapless hero may come
And scatter the suitor-rout in the halls of his ancient home.’
Unto him made answer Odysseus in manifold wisdom wise:
‘Herdman, nor witless nor wicked thou seemest to be in mine eyes.
Yea, this do I know of thine heart, that prudence abideth there.
Wherefore I say, and a mighty oath withal will I swear:
Let Zeus, most highest of Gods, know now, and the guest-fain board,
And the hearth, whereunto I am come, of Odysseus, thy princely lord,
While yet thou art here, to his home shall Odysseus the lost return;
And thine eyes, if thou wilt, shall behold him, and all for the which they yearn,
When he slayeth the suitors that lord it here in their insolent pride.’
Then spake unto him the neatherd, the warder of beeves replied:
‘Ah that Kronion, stranger, would grant that this might be!
Thou shouldst know that the strength of mine hands hath not forsaken me.’
Then also Eumaeus prayed to the Gods in the selfsame strain,
That Odysseus the long-delayed might return to his home again.
As each unto other thus the unknown and the faithful said,
For the feet of Telemachus were the suitors plotting to spread
The death-snare;—swift through the sky on their left sped an omen above:
’Twas an eagle soaring on high, and he clutched in his talons a dove.
Straightway did Amphinomus cry to the rest as he boded thereof:
‘Friends, not as to-day may our counsel of slaying Telemachus speed;
For the fates are against us; but now to the feast let us all give heed.’
So gave he his rede, and all the others were well content.
And into the palace-hall of divine Odysseus they went,
And they doffed their mantles, and threw them down upon couch and seat:
And goodly sheep they slew and fatling goats for their meat,
And slaughtered the boars huge-fed, and a pasture-fattened cow;
And they roasted the meats, and they spread on the board; and the red wine now
They mix in the bowls, and the warder of swine dealt cups to them then.
And serveth the bread in order Philoetius, captain of men,
In beautiful-fashioned maunds; and the wine did Melanthius pour.
So the feasters put forth their hands to the banquet’s plenteous store.
And his sire did the prince seat there—giving heed what were best to be done—
In the feast-hall stately and fair, and hard by the threshold-stone;
And he set him a low mean seat, and a table, a scantling board;
And he gave him a share of the meat, and the flame-flushed wine he poured
Bright-mantling up in the golden cup, as he spake the word:
‘There sit thou now, and drink of the wine with the feasting throng,
And myself will guard thee from violent hand and from railing tongue
Of every suitor: this house is not unto all folk free,
For Odysseus gat these halls in possession, and gat them for me.
And you, ye suitors,—bridle your spirit from threatening,
And from violent hands, lest out of it strife and contention spring.’
So the brave young voice rang clear, and biting their lips they heard,
Half wondering, half in fear, that stout and defiant word.
Till Antinous, son of Eupeithes, spake to the rest with a taunt:
‘Achaeans, awhile let us bear with Telemachus’ arrogant vaunt,
Albeit he spareth us not, and is doughty in threats, I wis;
For as yet Zeus letteth our purposes, else in his halls ere this
Had we silenced his voice, albeit a loud-tongued braggart he is.’
But Telemachus heard him unheeding, nor quailed at his evil frown.
And by this came the heralds, leading the hecatomb up through the town:
And the long-haired folk with these the hallowed high-place trod,
In the cool dim shade of the trees of Apollo the Archer-God.
So now is the banquet arrayed, and the roast drawn back from the flame;
And to each is divided his share, and they feast right nobly there:
But that which the henchmen laid by Odysseus was ever the same
As they dealt unto each of the rest of the feasters: for so was it done
By Telemachus’ strict behest, the godlike hero’s son.
But Athene let not the rout of the arrogant suitors refrain
From heart-stinging taunt and flout, to the end that the goad of pain
In the heart of Odysseus, the king of the isle-folk, should rankle and sting.
Now from Same’s island there came one lawless and shameless-bold;
And Ctesippus he had to name, that suitor evil-souled;
Putting trust in the multitude of his riches—the little-hearted!—
The royal wife he wooed of Odysseus the long-departed.
Even he to the overweening suitors aloud ’gan cry:
‘Hearken, ye manful suitors, a word for your ears have I:
Nothing will serve but all this while yon stranger-wight
Must share as the rest:—’twere unseemly and wrongful to do despite
To Telemachus’ guests, what losel soever may come to his door!
Lo now, let me give him a guest-gift, that out of his treasure-store
He may give largesse to the bath-maid, or whomso he will of the thralls
That must wait on his lordly pleasure in godlike Odysseus’ halls.’
Then from his brawny hand the hoof of a bullock he sped,
Snatching it out of a maund: just moved Odysseus his head,
That it lighted not upon him: but a bitter smile and a grim
Did he smile in his heart, as the stroke on the fair-built wall by his side
Crashed,—forth Telemachus broke, and fierce to Ctesippus he cried:
‘Ctesippus, well is it for thee that thy malice was baffled so,
That thou struckest the stranger not, that himself avoided the blow;
Else had I verily smitten thee through with a swift sharp spear;
And thy sire for a bridal-bed had been dighting thy grave-mound here.
Wherefore let none in mine halls affront me with shameful deed;
For now have I understanding to know, and eyes to heed
The evil and good; but a witless child heretofore have I been.
Hitherto have we patiently borne with the things that our eyes have seen,
The reckless slaughter of sheep, and the wasting of wine and of bread;
For if one would withstand a host, I trow he were hard-bestead.
Come now, make an end of your wrongs, ye who deal with your host as a foe!
But and if ye be steadfastly minded now to lay me low,
Even of that were I fain, and better by far were it so,
That I died, than to look evermore upon deeds of shame and wrong,
On the buffeting of the stranger, the handmaids haled along
By shameful hands through the fair halls loud with a rioting throng.’
Hushed were they all as they heard that stern wrath-shivering tone:
But at last one took up the word, Agelaus Damastor’s son:
‘Friends, no man sure would be wroth for a just word spoken aright,
To requite it with railing speech, and with thoughts of mischief and spite.
Meddle not with the stranger, nor buffet, nor any beside of the thralls
That pass to and fro in your sight in the hero Odysseus’ halls.
Yet a word of kindly counsel fain were I now to give
Unto mother and son, an it please their souls such rede to receive:
So long as the heart in your bosoms in faith and in hope might yearn
That Odysseus the passing-wise might yet to his own return,
So long could none think shame that still ye should wait and restrain
The suitors your halls within: yea, this were the more for your gain
In the day of Odysseus’ return, when again he should stand in his hall.
But by this is it plain that the thing that ye longed for shall never befall.
Prithee now, sit thou by thy mother and counsel her thus, that she wed
Whosoever in presents o’erpasseth the rest and in princelihead.
So with joy shalt thou eat and drink, and be lord over everything
That was his; while she is the light of the home of another king.’
Then unto him wise-witted Telemachus answered again:
‘No, Agelaus, by Zeus!—by my father’s sorrow and pain,
Who from Ithaca far hath perished, or roams on an alien shore!—
I let not my mother from marriage: I bid her evermore
That she wed with the man that she will, and whose gifts are an untold store.
But ashamed were I to drive my mother perforce from mine hall
With a masterful word: may God forbid such a thing should befall!’
Then from the suitor-throng, by Pallas Athene raised,
Pealed laughter loud and long, and their wildered thoughts were dazed;
And their laughter grew frenzied and wild, with a weird unnatural sound,
And the meats were blood-defiled that they gorged, and their eyes were drowned
With tears, and their souls were adread with a horror of death-wails near.
And aghast Theoclymenus said to the rest, the godlike seer:
‘Ah wretches! what doom is upon you?—with night are your heads overclouded,
And your faces and knees beneath are with blackness of darkness enshrouded:
There is wildfire of shrieking and moaning, and tears on your cheeks as a flood;
And the walls and the mid-pillar-spaces fair are bedabbled with blood:
With phantoms the porchway is thronged, and the court from wall to wall, as a pall,
Rushing forth to the netherworld gloom, and the sky blackens down
For the sun is dead, and a mist and a death-damp swept over all.’
But all they laughed upon him the louder with ghastly glee;
And Eurymachus Polybus’ son to the rest spake scornfully:
‘Stark mad is our stranger! Witless he came from the alien shore.
We will none of him: hasten, youths, and thrust him forth of the door:
Let him go the market-rabble, who likens our mirth unto night.’
Answered and spake unto him Theoclymenus, godlike wight:
‘Eurymachus, send no guides to direct my goings aright.
I have eyes, I have ears; and moreover I lack not feet for my need,
And a mind, but a mind not framed for shameful purpose and deed.
With these will I forth of the hall, for I mark how your bane draweth nigh,
The doom that none shall be able to shun, neither any to fly
Of all the suitors in godlike Odysseus’ palace that throng,
Wantonly outraging men, and devising reckless wrong.’
Then forth from their voices he strode, and he left that stately pile,
And he came to Peiraeus’ abode, to the glad guest-welcoming smile.
But the lawless suitor-rout looking each in his fellow’s face
Laughed loud at the strangers, to flout the prince with the board’s disgrace:
And an insolent voice rang out through the taunt-storm filling the place:
‘Telemachus, no man on earth hath sorrier guests than thou!
What a gluttonous vagabond wretch is this thou hast gotten but now,
Ever craving for meat and for drink, and utterly skilless of toil,
Strengthless for battle, and nought but a load on the cumbered soil!
And here again was another that rose with his prophet-lore!
But and if thou wouldst hearken to me, sure this would advantage thee more:
Fling we the strangers a-shipboard, and send them over the waves
Unto Sicily; there would they pay thee a right good price for thy slaves.’
So they cried in his tingling ears, but he bare him as deaf to their jeers;
But ever he cast his eyes on his father, and deemed it o’erlong
Till the sign should be given to arise and to deal with the shameless in wrong.
And aye as they rioted thus, sat Penelope facing them there,
Wise child of Icarius, a queen in a queenly chair.
And the strife of the tongues of the men in the hall as they mocked heard she;
For they turned to their feasting then, and they laughed ever louder in glee.
For many a fatling beast had been slain for their stintless cheer:—
Yet never a ghastlier feast might there be than the feast drawing near,
Which the Goddess and hero made speed in the halls they had shamed to array;
For themselves had scattered the seed, making mock at the harvesting day.