Book XXIII

WITH laughter of triumph-glee to the bower is the old nurse gone
To tell to Penelope that her lord is come back to his own:
And her feet seemed winged as they sped, and no more were the old knees weak.
And she stood by Penelope’s head, and with joy-winged words did she speak:
‘Wake thee, Penelope: wake, dear child, that thine eyes may see
The thing that through all thy days thou hast yearned for wearily.
Odysseus is come! He hath entered his palace, late though it be,
And hath slain the arrogant suitors that wasted his house, and devoured
His goods, and evil-entreated thy son, by their host overpowered.’
But answering her did passing-wise Penelope say:
‘Nurse, nurse, the Gods have driven thee mad! sooth, mighty are they
Though a man shall be never so wise, to drive him all distraught;
And by them is the simple one into paths of prudence brought.
They have caused thee to stumble in mind, who wast erst well-witted enow.
What dost thou to vex me, who bear a spirit fulfilled of woe,
With these wild words, and hast waked me from slumber sweet and sound
Which lay like a fetter upon me, and folded mine eyelids round?
For never gat I such sleep since Odysseus hied him away
To look upon Ilium the cursed, whose name I loathe to say.
Now get thee hence forthright: go down to the hall again:
For if this had been any other of all mine handmaid-train
That had come with such tidings as these, and from slumber had wakened me,
Right soon had I sent her aback to return in sorrow and pain
To the hall: but for thee—thine age hath won this grace for thee.’
Spake again Eurycleia the nurse, and her voice rang rapture-wild:
‘O darling, I mock thee not! but indeed and in truth, dear child,
Odysseus is come, and hath entered his own house, even as I say:
For this was the stranger whom all men scorned but yesterday.
Yea, and the hero’s return hath been long time known to thy son:
But he hid his father’s counsel, and spake thereof unto none,
Till the hour of revenge for the deeds that the arrogant suitors have done.’
Joy-thrilled with a wild heart-throb from her bed hath the lady sprung,
And with passionate tear and sob to the ancient woman she clung:
And she cried, as from breathless-eager lips the winged words flew:
‘O tell me—oh prithee, dear nurse—speak out, and answer true:—
If indeed he hath come to his own, if now in his palace he stands,
How on the shameless suitor-throng could he lay his hands,
Being one and alone, but they were a crowd in our halls alway?’
But in answer to her did the dear nurse Eurycleia say:
‘I saw not, I heard not; only there came as from far away
A groaning of men being slain:—but we were sitting aghast
In the innermost chamber, and strong-knit doors there prisoned us fast;
Till at last thy son Telemachus called to me out of the hall,
Bidding me come, for his father had sent him forth to call.
And there in the midst of the slain my lord Odysseus I found
Standing with carcases strown on the trampled floor all round.
One on another they lay: thine heart would have glowed to see
How gore-bedabbled and dust-besprent, as a lion, was he.
But now, by the fore-court gate is the crowd of their corpses lying;
And the fair-dight palace with sulphur-reek is he purifying.
For he lighted a mighty fire, and hath sent me to call thee in.
Come with me, and so in your heart of hearts ye twain shall win
Unto bliss for the manifold ills ye have suffered in days overpast.
Long time have we waited, but now is the wish fulfilled at the last.
Alive hath he come to his hearth, he hath looked on thy face again,
He hath seen his son in his halls; and on all the suitor-train,
In the house where they evil-entreated him, vengeance for wrong hath he ta’en.’
But cheerless of cheer made answer Penelope passing-wise:
‘O boast thee not yet, dear nurse, neither laugh with triumphant eyes!
For, as touching my lord’s appearing, thou knowest how welcome were this
Unto all, but most unto me and my son, my child and his;—
But no, ah no! it is no true word that thou comest to say:
But one of the Deathless Ones hath been moved yon suitors to slay,
Wroth for the heart-stinging outrage and wrong wrought day by day.
For all that abide on the earth in their pride would they flout and contemn,
The base and the noble alike, whosoever should come unto them.
Therefore their folly hath brought them to bane: but Odysseus—nay,
He hath lost his return to his land: he hath perished far away.’
But again made answer to her Eurycleia the nurse and said:
‘My child, what saying is this through the fence of thy teeth that hath fled?
• Never “thou saidst, “will my husband come back to his fatherland-shore.”
Yet he sat by thine hearth,—O thine heart! it is slow to believe evermore.
Lo now I will tell thee a sign whereby thou shalt surely know—
The scar which the white-flashing tusk of a boar dealt long ago:
This I espied in washing his feet, and fain was I
To have told thee; but swiftly his hands on my lip had stifled my cry,
And he suffered me not to speak, for that wary-wise is my king.
O come! I will hazard my life on the truth of the tale that I bring,
If thou find me a liar, slay me then by the wretchedest death.’
But Penelope passing-wise maketh answer again, and she saith:
‘O nurse, it were hard for thee, be thou never so manifold-wise,
To spy out the hidden counsels that Gods everlasting devise.
Howbeit in anywise down to my son will we pass, that so
I may look on the suitors dead, and the man that hath laid them low.’
She went down from her bower; and her heart to and fro was wavering still:
For awhile shall she hold her apart, and enquire of him all that she will,
Or in loving embrace cling fast to him, kissing his hands and his head?
O’er the threshold of stone hath she passed: on the feast-hall floor doth she tread:
And she sat down face to face with the king, by the further wall,
In the light of the hearth-fire’s blaze: but her lord by a pillar tall
Sat with his eyes down-cast, ever waiting one word from her,
From the wife that beheld him at last, after many a weary year.
Long sat she and made no sign, and her spirit was stilled with amaze.
And now she uplifteth her eyne in an earnest straining gaze;—
Now fall they—she knoweth him not for the rags that his goodlihead hide.
Then Telemachus’ heart grew hot, and he chode with his mother, and cried:
‘My mother, unmotherly mother, who bearest a cruel heart,
Why turn’st thou away from my father, and sittest in silence apart?
And thou car’st not to know—thou hast nothing to ask of the long-lost now!
None other woman on earth would have hardened her heart as thou,
To stand from her husband aloof, when through manifold troubles and sore
He had won in the twentieth year to the home on his fatherland-shore.
But so art thou ever:—thine heart evermore is harder than stone!’
But Penelope passing-wise made answer, and spake to her son:
‘My child, mine heart in my breast is sorely amazed this day:
And I find no word to ask, and I know not what to say:
And I cannot, I cannot look in his face:—but if of a truth
He is very Odysseus come back to his home, we twain, good sooth,
Full well shall be known of each other ere long; for tokens there be,
Yea, many a hidden sign, that we know, and none but we.’ no
So did she answer, and smiled Odysseus the man toil-tried,
And he turned to his vehement child, and with light-winged words he replied:
‘Telemachus, suffer thy mother awhile in our halls this night
To doubt and to prove me: it shall not be long ere she read me a-right.
But now am I evilly vestured in rags and foul to see;
Therefore she slighteth me, telling her heart that I am not he.
But thou, take counsel with me touching what shall be best to be done.
For he that hath murdered a man in the land, yea, only one,—
Though but few be the blood-avengers for that slain man that will plead,—
Yet the slayer must flee, leaving kinsfolk and fatherland-home for the deed.
But we, we have slain the defence of the city, the noblest, I wis,
Of the Ithacan princes: bethink thee, how shall we answer this? ’
And Telemachus wary of wit made answer wisely and well:
‘See thou unto this thyself, dear father, for all men tell
How that in counsel the best thou art of mortal men,
And that none may match him with thee in wisdom’s eagle ken.
We will follow thee heart and soul; and I ween in the hour of the fight
We will fail not in daring and doing, even to our uttermost might. ’
Answering spake Odysseus the man of the wile-fraught breast:
‘Therefore, my son, I will tell how it seemeth to me to be best:
First shall ye go to the bath and shall clothe you in tunics gay,
And speak to the maids in our halls that they dight them in festal array.
And withal shall the glorious bard with his clear-ringing lyre in his hand
Awake with his strains the feet of the merry dancing band;
That folk may say, “Lo, a bridal is there,” if it chance that the sound
Should be heard of the wayfarer passing, or them that be dwelling around;
That the rumour may not go forth through the city far and wide
Concerning the suitors’ slaying, or ever myself shall have hied
To my vineyards and orchard-acres, and there with diligent heed
Will we look unto this, what help Allfather will send in our need.’
So did he speak, and with right good will heard they and obeyed.
Straightway they bathed, and in bright-hued tunics their bodies arrayed.
And the women put on their attire, and the heaven-taught songcraft-skilled
Hath taken the hollow lyre, and the hearts of them all hath he thrilled
With the ecstasy-rush of the song, and their feet with a passion of dancing.
And the great hall throbbed and rung with the fall of the feet white-glancing,
As the ring of the men and the gay-girt maids swung lightly round:
And thus did the isle-folk say, from without as they hearkened the sound:
‘Hark! verily some one is wedding the world-wooed queen this day!
Out on her! seemed it a hard thing on to the end to stay,
Her lord’s house-warder, till came the hero from far away?’
But they saw not the ghastly pile of the slain by the forecourt-wall.
Now the great-heart hero the while is gone to the bath in his hall:
And Eurynome bathed him there, and with oil she anointed her king,
And around him a mantle fair and a tunic-vest did she fling;
And Athene down from his head a glory of beauty shed,
And taller and broader he seemed, and the wealth of his wavy hair
Over his shoulders streamed as the hyacinth’s purple rare.
And even as a craftsman wise that Hephaestus and Pallas have taught
Full many a cunning device, of whose hands rare treasures are wrought,
With the sheen of the gold overspread will a vessel of silver encase,
So on his shoulders and head did Athene shower down grace.
And forth of the bath is he gone: lo, fair as a God he shows:
And he sat him down on the throne whence a little agone he rose.
But nothing she spake nor stirred: and he cried, an indignant word:
‘Strange woman! the Deathless Ones that abide in the halls of heaven
Beyond all women to thee an adamant heart have given!
There is none other woman whose heart with the olden love had striven,
To stand from her husband aloof, when through manifold troubles and sore
He had won in the twentieth year to the home on his fatherland-shore!
Nurse, prithee spread me a couch, I will lay me down to my rest
Alone; for surely of steel is the heart in Penelope’s breast.’
But Penelope passing-wise unshaken answered the king:
‘Strange man! I am not high-minded, nor count it a little thing,
Nor am wonder-dazed; but I know what manner of man thou wast,
When the long-oared galley that bare my lord from Ithaca passed.
Eurycleia, prepare him a couch;—let the strong-knit bed be brought
Out of the stately bower that himself in the old days wrought.
Therewithout be the strong-knit bed set down and with bed-gear strewed,
With fleeces and mantles enow, and with bright rugs lovely-hued.’
So spake she the testing-word for her husband,—Odysseus started,
And indignation-stirred he cried to the queen wise-hearted:
‘Lady, a heart-stinging word and a cruel is this thou hast said!
Who hath elsewhither moved my couch?—good sooth, he were hard bestead,
Were he never so cunning—save haply a God himself came there,
Who would lightly uplift at his pleasure and set down otherwhere;—
But no man living, though never so stalwart-young were he,
Would lightly upheave it; for there is a sign and a marvel to see
Done in the carven bed; I wrought it, and none beside.
There grew in the courtyard an olive with long-leaved arms spread wide,
In its fulness of growth, and in girth as a pillar of this mine hall.
And I built me a chamber about it, and wrought till I finished the wall
With goodly stones close-ranged, and meetly I roofed it above,
And enclosed it with doors well-joined; strong-knit were the beams thereof.
And thereafter I lopped the long-leaved olive’s hoary crown;
And I rough-hewed all the trunk, and with brass did I smooth it down,
Featly and cunningly, for I laid the plummet thereto.
So I shaped me a bedpost, and bored it with augers through and through.
And therewith I began my bed, and I fashioned it fair to see
With curious work of gold and of silver and ivory.
And bright thongs dyed with purple I stretched across below.
Lo this for a token I tell thee; albeit I do not know
If my bed stand fast in its place, or a busy mar-craft there
Have hewn through the stump of the olive and set it otherwhere.’
O knees that as water are weak, O heart’s shield suddenly broken!
Who save Odysseus could speak it—the spell of the secret token?
She stayed not, but weeping she sped to him; dear loving arms hath she flung
Round the neck of Odysseus, his head she kissed, and she cried as she clung:
‘O lour not upon me, Odysseus—thou knowest—thou needs must know,
Who in all things art wisest of men!—but the Gods have meted us woe,
Who begrudged that from life’s sweet morn we twain, ever side by side,
Should pace to the threshold of eld, to a love-litten eventide.
O be not indignant for this, O let not thine anger be hot
That when first I beheld thee with suchlike greeting I welcomed thee not!
For shuddered mine heart in my breast with a sickening fear alway
Lest a stranger should come, and with false words cozen and lead me astray.
There be many that seek after gain by the wicked wile and the lie.
O never Helen the Argive, the child of Zeus most high,
With a man of an alien folk in the bed of love had lain,
Had she but known that the sons of Achaia, the battle-fain,
Would follow to bear her aback to the home from whence she came.
Of a truth ’twas a Goddess that moved her to do the deed of shame—
For not until then had she nursed that folly within her soul,
That bitter infatuate folly, beginning of all our dole.
But now,—forasmuch as thou tellest a token clear as the light
Concerning the bed unseen of any living wight
Save only of thee and me, and but one of my maidens beside,
Actor’s child, who was given by my sire long ago to thy bride,
Who hath warded with diligent heed the doors of our bridal bower—
O husband, the hard heart yields to believe in this sweet hour!’
Then thrilled in his heart and his eyes a passion of crying yet more,
And clasping his winsome-wise beloved, he wept full sore.
O sweet as the first far sight of the land unto them that swim,
Whose ship by the Sea-god’s might on the wild sea stormrack-dim
Hath been split by the mad wind’s roar and the shock of the surge down-crashing,
And but few have swum on to the shore through the wave-crests hoary-dashing,
With the salt from the leagues of sea overcrusting their bodies around,
And with rapture from bane they flee, and they tread on the blessed ground;
So joyed that wife to behold her beloved, with white arms flung
Round his neck, and she could not unfold them, but lovingly, lovingly clung.
And now had the Rosy-fingered beheld them as weeping they lingered,
But Athene the flashing-eyed willed not that this should befall:
For she caused that the night should abide in the West; and she stayed withal
The Dawn by the ocean afar, and suffered her not to yoke
The fleet-footed steeds of her car, light-bearers to all Earth-folk,
Lam pus and Phaethon hight, the steeds that the Day-dawn bring.
Then thus, in the hush of the night, to his wife spake that wise king:
‘Wife, we have not attained to the end of our strife by this.
There are toils for the days to be—a measureless store there is—
Many and hard: I must pass through all to the uttermost.
For this was foretold unto me of the seer Teiresias’ ghost,
In the day that I hied me down unto Hades’ twilight hall
To enquire of the home-return of my men and mine own withal.
But come, let us get us to bed, my wife, that so we twain
May sweetly be lulled in the bosom of sleep the assuager of pain.’
Then spake unto him Penelope passing-wise again:
‘Thy bed shall be dight what time soever thine heart is fain
Of thy rest; for behold, the Deathless have brought my king once more
Back to thy fair-built palace, back to thy fatherland shore.
But now—forasmuch as a God hath awakened remembrance so—
Tell me what labour remaineth: methinks one day I shall know,
And nowise worser is it that the tale be told straightway.’
Then did Odysseus the manifold-counselled answering say:
‘Darling, what hast thou to do to require this thing of me?—
Yet will I tell thee thereof; I will hide no whit from thee.
Thy spirit shall nowise be gladdened: the shadow thereof on mine heart
Darkly and heavily hangeth. He bade me afar to depart
By many a city, and carry a well-poised oar with me,
And to journey until I should come to a folk knowing nought of the sea,
Who use not to mingle the savour of sea-born salt with their meat,
And who have no knowledge of galleys with bows of crimson dye,
Nor of oars fair-balanced, the wings wherewithal o’er the waters they fly.
And he told, and I tell thee, the sign of the goal of my wandering feet:—
I shall meet in the way as I go another wayfaring man
Who shall say that I bear on my shining shoulder a winnowing-fan.
There in the ground must I plant the well-poised oar that I bring,
And offer a sacrifice fair to Poseidon the Earth-shaking King:
A ram, and a bull, and a boar, and then must I turn back home,
And there to the Gods everliving must offer a hecatomb,
Unto all in the order due, that dwell in the heaven’s broad dome.
And at last in a good old age shall death come to me out of the sea,
Softly, so softly, and painlessly laying his finger on me
Overborne by the weight of years bliss-laden, my people around
Happy. Of all these things, said he, should fulfilment be found.’
Made answer with words of cheer that fair wise-thoughted wife:
‘If the Gods vouchsafe thee peace for the eventide of life,
Good hope is thine to be safely brought out of peril and strife.’
So in the hush of the night wise words and loving were said;
The while Eurynome dight with the ancient nurse their bed
By the flaming torches’ light, and with soft bed-gear hath she spread.
So they strewed with diligent haste the bright-hued rugs thereon:
And forth hath the old nurse passed, and unto her rest is she gone.
Then to their chamber they came, and Eurynome paced before:
As the banner of love streamed the flame of the torch that the bower-maiden bore:
But she stayed at the door, and departed, and they twain entered in:
Ah, fain were the weary-hearted to love’s twin-rest to win!
And by this the prince and the neat-herd wight and the swine-herd withal
Break off the dance, and the feet of the women are stilled in the hall.
And they hie them to sleep where the shadows deep on the chambers fall.
Now when those long-sundered had ta’en sweet solace of love’s delight,
Communed they together again, for their hearts were full that night.
And the lovely lady told of the dark days weary-long,
When she looked on the manifold foul deeds of the suitor-throng;
How the glutton for her dear sake had devoured the sheep and the kine,
How, the quenchless thirst to slake of the drunkard, flowed the wine.
And the hero spake to his wife of the smiting of hosts of foes,
And of all his desperate strife in stemming the tide of woes.
And she heard in a trance of deep delight, and never descended
On her eyelids the dewfall of sleep, or ever the tale was ended.
He told of the blood-stained strand where he smote the Ciconians; then
Of the perilous fruitful land of the Lotus-eating men.
And he spake of the Cyclop’s cave, and of that grim vengeance wrought
On the fiend that devoured his brave war-fellows, and pitied them not;
Of the moaning isle where the Wind-ward gave strange help for the way,—
Yet it was not his weird to find for many a weary day
Sweet fatherland, but the sweep of the wings of the hurricane bore
Far away on the fish-fraught deep the wanderer groaning sore;
And he told of the giants’ wide-walled Laestrygonian town,
And the slaughter-crimsoned tide where his galleys and men went down,
Where none save the galley that bare him escaped in the death-fraught hour;
And he told her of Circe’s snare, and the witch-wife’s magic power;
And how to the sunless coast, and to Hades’ mansion drear
He sailed, to enquire of the ghost of Teiresias, Theban seer,
And beheld in the shadow-land there war-fellows of brave days gone,
Yea, looked on the mother that bare him and nursed him a little one;
How weirdly the song-flood rolled when the lips of the Sirens chanted,
Of the Wandering Rocks he told, of Charybdis terror-haunted,
And of Scylla the grim crag-fiend, by whose lair pass scatheless none;
And he told how his shipmates sinned when they slaughtered the kine of the Sun;
And how Zeus, that rolleth his thunder on high, with his smouldering brand
Shivered the galley in sunder, and perished his gallant band
All in a moment, and only himself from their doom might flee;
And he came to Calypso’s lonely isle in an unknown sea,
And she kept him there, for her will was to have him her husband for aye
in her rock-hewn caves; and still would the love-lorn Goddess say
That his youth-tide never should fail with her, nor his death-day come;
But all was of no avail, for the leal heart longed for home;
And how the Phaeacian shore, after manifold troubles, he trod,
And they loved him exceeding sore, and honoured him even as a god,
And lent him a galley to go to his own dear fatherland,
Writh goodly raiment enow and with brass and gold in his hand;—
But he dreamily murmured there, for that sleep slid down upon him,
Lulling the spirit from care, soft-smoothing the weary limb.
But Athene the grey-eyed hasted to do yet more than this:
When she deemed that Odysseus had tasted his heart’s desire of bliss,
In the arms of his wife enfolden, and lapped in happy sleep.
Then from Ocean she speedeth the Golden-throned to climb Heaven’s steep,
To bear unto menfolk light: eftsoons doth Odysseus wake;
And he sprang from his couch forthright, and his hest to his wife he spake:
‘Wife, we have drained out a cup overbrimming with toil and pain:
Thou, weeping with heart-sick yearning to see my face again,
While Zeus and the rest of the Gods with a tribulation-chain
Have fettered mine eager feet far off from my fatherland-shore.
But seeing we twain have come to our dear, dear bed once more,
Unto thee I commit my goods in mine halls to order and keep.
And forasmuch as the suitors have wasted the flocks of my sheep,
Some will I get me in foray, and some shall my folk restore,
Whose sons were the robbers, till full shall my folds be, like as before.
But myself to my vineyards and orchard-acres this morn will depart,
To look on my father,—ah me, he is stricken with anguish of heart!
Thou, hearken my hest, albeit thyself art wise, I trow:
So soon as the sun shall be risen, abroad shall a rumour go
Concerning the suitor-rout, whom I in my halls have slain.
Go up to thy bower, and there abide with thine handmaid-train:
And from looking forth thence upon any, from asking of tidings, refrain.’
Eftsoons as he spake did he don his flashing battle-gear;
And he gave command to his son and the warders of swine and steer
To gird them with war-array, and to take their weapons in hand.
And they all made haste to obey, and they dight them with harness and brand.
And they opened the doors, and forth they hied them; Odysseus led.
And by this was there light on the earth: but Athene around them shed
The veil of a cloud for a night-black shroud, from the town as they sped.