Book IV

SO these unto mountain-pent Lacedaemon’s ravine-land came;
And straight to the palace they went of Atreides of wide-spread fame.
Now he sat at a wedding-feast, for his son and his daughter withal,
With many a neighbour guest, in the music resounding hall.
Rank-rifting Achilles’ son was waiting the bride to receive,—
For in Troy, long years agone, had he promised the maiden to give:
So now had the Gods fulfilled the thing that the fathers had willed,—
And the chariots were waiting then the bride with honour to bring
To the city of Myrmidon men whereof was the bridegroom king.
But a princess of Sparta he gave to be Megapenthes’ bride,
His tall son, born of a slave when “The son of my sorrow! “he cried.
But from Helen the God’s decree all fruit of the womb had withholden
Since first she travailed, and bare one daughter exceeding fair,
Hermione, lovely to see as Aphrodite the Golden.
So with neighbours and friends on that high day Menelaus the king
‘Neath the stately hall-roof sat with blithe hearts banqueting.
And the hall’s dim rafters rang to the lyre-notes echoing round;
In the midst two tumblers sprang: through athlete-mazes they wound,
And still as the minstrel sang did the lithe limbs flashing bound.
Meanwhile, in the porch belated, ’mid shadows darkening down,
The hero Telemachus waited with Pylos’ prince of renown.
And there came one forth to see, Eteoneus the henchman true
Of King Menelaus was he, ever tireless his bidding to do.
Through the halls with the tidings he hied to the shepherd of Sparta’s folk:
Swiftly he strode to his side, and the light-winged word he spoke:
“Menelaus, fostered of Zeus, by the house-front yonder stay
Two strangers, and comely to see as the seed of the Gods are they.
Wilt thou that the steeds be unyoked and into thy stalls be led,
Or send we them on to another to give them welcome instead? ‘:
Menelaus the golden-haired made answer with frowning brow:
“Eteoneus, thy father’s son was never a fool ere now:
But this as the empty babble of some young child hast thou said.
Many a time we twain have broken the strangers’ bread,
And now brought home, for a respite from evils to come we pray,
If Zeus of his grace will grant it—unyoke the horses, I say!
Bring thou yon strangers in to the banquet without delay.”
From the hall the henchman darted: his fellows he called, as he passed
And out to the porchway departed, along with himself to haste.
Then they loosed from the yoke with speed the sweating steeds of the strangers,
And into the stalls did they lead them and tethered them unto the mangers;
And they cast the spelt therein, and they mixed it with barley white,
And the chariot set they to lean ’gainst the house-front glittering bright.
And into the palace the thralls led the strangers twain, and amazed
On the beautiful rich-wrought halls of the heaven-blest king they gazed;
For with radiance as of the sun or the moon that walketh in light
Menelaus’ mansion shone over all its stately height.
And when they had gladdened their sight with beholding the marvels fair,
They went to the lavers bright and refreshed their bodies there.
Then forth of the baths they passed, and were sleeked with the unguent rare,
And tunics about them were cast, and mantles warm to wear.
Then each sat down on a throne by Atreus’ kingly son,
And the bright spring water was brought by a maiden and poured from a ewer
Golden, beautiful-wrought, into laver of silver pure
To wash withal, and she spread a table of polished sheen
By their side, and served was the bread by the stewardess modest of mien,
With all things dainty to eat given freely of all her store;
And to these all manner of meat in platters the carver bore:
And flashing back the light stood golden cups on the board.
And to them Menelaus the bright-haired spake the welcoming word:
“Eat of our bread and be welcome, and when ye have tasted our fare,
We will ask who ye be that your father’s image so worthily bear.
Yea, sure ye are sons of sceptred kings the blessed of heaven,
For never of baseborn sires such visage and form were given.”
Then he took in his hands the roast ox-chine, and he gave it them there,
The part that was set for the host himself, the honour-share:
And they put forth their hands to eat of the things on the board that lay.
And so soon as the longing for meat and for drink was done away,
Thereafter Telemachus said unto Nestor’s son full low,—
Anigh to him bending his head, lest the others his thought might know—
“Behold, son of Nestor, who art to my soul exceeding dear,
The lightning-gleam of the brass in the halls of the palace here,
And the splendour of silver and gold, of the amber and ivory!
Sure like unto this the dwelling of Zeus in Olympus must be,
Fair beyond word,—amazement is on me at all that I see.”
Yet not so softly he spake but that King Menelaus heard;
And swift from his lips forth brake the wings of the flying word:
“Nay, dear my sons, with Zeus no mortal shall ever compare,
For his dwelling immortal is, his possessions unearthly fair.
But of men, I know not if any shall rival my wealth or no;
For ’twas after manifold pains, and wandering to and from.
That with galleys freighted with these in the eighth year came I home.
Unto Cyprus, Phoenicia, and on unto Egypt’s folk did I roam,
To the Aethiops, to Sidon, Erembians far at the ends of the earth,
And to Libya, the land where the rams full-horned are brought to the birth;
Yea, thrice do the ewes in the round of the year bring lambs forth there:
Sheep-master and shepherd in that good land have enough and to spare
Of cheese and of flesh, and the pails are brimmed with the fresh milk sweet,
For without surcease is the white stream drawn from the swollen teat.
But as I, amid far lands roaming, abundance of spoil did gain,
Ah me, my brother at home by the hand of another was slain:
By stealth unawares, by his wife’s foul treachery murdered was he.
Therefore have I no joy of all the possessions ye see.
Yea, and your fathers, whoever they be, shall of these things tell.
For my woes were many: mine house the while into ruin fell,
Beautiful-built and filled with all things rich and rare.
Ah that I had but a third of the treasures that once were there!
And ah that the brave and the true were alive that died in the war
In Troy-land wide, from Argos, the nurse of the steed, afar!
Lost, lost!—and my heart aches sorely, and often I make my moan
In the halls that were bright with them once, where now I am sitting alone.
And whiles mine heart with weeping a little I ease, and anon
I refrain, for the dreary pleasure of tears full quickly is gone.
But for none of the loved and lost do I so lament and weep
As for him whose memory maketh me loathe my food and my sleep.
For of all the Achaeans was none that endured such measureless weight
Of toils, as Odysseus dared and endured; yet merciless fate
Appointed him yet more woes, and a pain that I cannot forget
Unto me for the friend long lost; and we know not in any wise yet
Whether he lives or is dead; and doubtless for him they mourn,
Laertes the old, and the wise Penelope drearly forlorn,
And Telemachus, whom in his palace he left a babe new-born.”
Then the fountain of grief at the sound of the name of his sire ’gan well,
And a passion of tears to the ground from the lids of Telemachus fell;
And his purple mantle’s fold to his eyes was he fain to keep,
Clutched in a trembling hold; and the king beheld him weep.
And awhile did his kind heart doubt whether yet he should leave him alone
To remember his sire, till his grief from tears should have gotten relief,
Or to bid the youth speak out, that the cause of his woe might be known.
While wavered thus his intent, ere the word to his lips had leapt,
Out of the brightness and scent of her bower Queen Helen swept,
Like Artemis fair to behold, like the Maid of the arrows of gold;
And behind her Adreste came with a beautiful-fashioned chair,
And Alkippe with broidery-frame, with the soft gay wools stretched there.
And a basket did Phylo bring of silver, the gift of the hand
Of Alkandre, the wife of the King of Thebes in Egyptian land,
In whose stately palace are stored kings’ treasures many and brave.
To Atreides, Egypt’s lord two lavers of silver gave,
Two tripods of brazen sheen, and talents of red gold ten;
And to Helen moreover his queen gave beautiful presents then;
A golden distaff slim, and a basket on wheels that rolled;
Silver it was, and the rim was a wreath of twisted gold.
This brought Phylo her maid, of the fine-spun yarn brimfull,
And across it the spindle was laid with its burden of violet wool.
And Helen sat down on the seat with a footstool under her feet,
And spake to the king with a voice whose ring was music sweet:
“Menelaus fostered of Zeus, do we know what men these be
That have come this day to our palace, and sit at the banquet with thee?
Be it right, be it wrong, I must say it, needs must I, in anywise:—
Never till now any woman or man have I seen with mine eyes
So wondrous like—as I look, I am filled with a strange surprise—
To Telemachus, son of Odysseus, the babe that new-born lay
In the hero’s halls, when he left them on that ill-fated day
When, all for shameless me, the Achaeans hied them afar
Over the sea unto Troy, athirst for the mighty war.”
Answering spake unto her Menelaus the golden-tressed:
“Yea, lady, and now I discern this same which thou hast guessed.
For here are Odysseus’ feet, and Odysseus’ hands are here,
And the glance of his eyes, and his head and his clustering locks appear,
And it was but now that I called Odysseus to mind, and I spake
Of the manifold troubles and toils that he underwent for my sake;
And lo, the bitter tears from under his eyelids rolled,
And he lifted and pressed to his eyes the purple mantle’s fold.”
And Peisistratus Nestor’s son unto them full eagerly spoke:
“Zeus-fostered Atreus’ seed Menelaus, chieftain of folk,
The true-born son of the hero he is, as thou hast proclaimed.
But wise and prudent is he, and his spirit within him was shamed
To be full of words, who but newly hath come to thy presence thus,
The while thou spakest, and sweet as a God’s was thy voice unto us.
It was Nestor, Gerenia’s horseman, that gave commission to me
Hither to bring him; for greatly he longed thy face to see,
To the end he may have some counsel for word or deed from thee.
For the son of a sire long-lost hath many a grief, when alone
He doth stand in his halls, and seeth defenders around him none,
As now Telemachus’ father is gone, and he hath no friend
Among all the people to guard him from bane, and his cause to defend.”
Unto him did golden-haired Menelaus in answer say:
“Lo now, and the son of a dear, dear friend is come this day
To mine house!—the friend that for me full many a labour bore.
Yea, and I said that if ever he came I would welcome him more
Than the rest of the Greeks, if the galleys should bear us over the foam,
By grace of Olympian Zeus far-seeing, unto our home.
I had given him a city in Argos, had built him a palace-hall:
I had brought him from Ithaca’s shore with his son and his people all,
And his goods, and had given him one of the cities round about,
Whereof I am king:—for the dwellers therein, I had driven them out.
And there had we lived, and full oft had forgathered, and nothing for ever
Should have come between us to mar our delight, or our love to sever,
Till under the shroud of death’s dark cloud our hearts should shiver.
Dreams—dreams!—for a God of our bliss did, I ween, with jealousy burn,
And robbed him only, the evil-starred, of his day of return.”
Then at his woeful word were the fountains of grief upstirred;
For tears to the sweet eyes leapt of Helen of birth divine,
And with prince Telemachus wept Menelaus of Atreus’ line,
And the eyes of Nestor’s son were bedimmed with the rainfall of grief,
For he thought of a dear lost one, Antilochus, gallant chief,—
By the son of the Day-dawn bright was he slain in his pride of strength,—
And remembering him and his might he refrained him, and spake at length:
“Atreides, thou ever wast named with the wisest of all mankind
By Nestor the old, what time soever we called thee to mind
When we talked in his halls together, and asked one another of thee:
And now, if it may be, hearken to me, for it seemeth to me
That pleasure is none to mingle our drink with weeping: the morn
Shall serve for sorrow and wail:—yet surely I think not scorn
To lament for those that have died and have passed through the shadow-land portals;
Yea, this is the one poor honour remaining to wretched mortals,
Even shearing of hair, and the tears that adown the wan cheeks run.
I too might weep for a brother, he was not the meanest one
Of the Argive host,—but thou far better than I canst say,
For never I met him nor saw him, the best of the Argive array,
Antilochus, swift of foot and a warrior wight in the fray.”
In answer to him Menelaus the golden-haired began:
“Dear friend, all this hath been said as a right well witted man
Would speak and do, and as one that is wise with the wisdom of age;
Yea, such a man is thy father, and thy words therefore are sage.
Easy to know is the seed of a man for whom hath been spun
At birth and at bridal a happy lot by Kronos’ son,
As now he hath given to Nestor within his palace-hall
A life that hath softly paced to a calm sweet evenfall,
With sons wise-witted around him, stalwart spearmen and tall.
But, friends, from the weeping we made erewhile let us now refrain;
On our hands let them pour the water, and turn we to supper again;
And let us be merry to-night, and our cares shall return with the morrow;
And then shall Odysseus’ son and I commune of our sorrow.”
So, bringing the water with haste, on their hands Asphalion poured,—
Menelaus’ henchman true, ever tireless his bidding to do,—
And they stretched forth their hands to taste of the meats that lay on the board.
And Helen of birth divine took thought in the selfsame hour,
And she mingled along with the wine a drug of marvellous power:
Cares, sorrow, and wrath by the draught shall all be swept from the soul,
If a man of the cup shall have quaffed when this hath been cast in the bowl.
No tear for the rest of the day should adown on his cheeks be shed,
No, not if before him lay his father and mother dead,
Not even if full in his view his brother or darling son
With the pitiless sword they slew, and he looked with his eyes thereon.
Such drugs of might, I ween, unto Helen the fair were known,
Given unto her by a queen, Polydamna the wife of Thon,
Of the land of Egypt, where from the corn-giving earth drugs spring;
Great store of the good doth it bear, and many an evil thing:
And in leechcraft cunning is each of her folk above all on earth,
For up to Paeaeon the leech do they trace their glorious birth.
So when Helen the queen had stirred these in, and had bidden them take
And drink, she took up the word, and unto the rest she spake;
“Zeus-fostered Atreus’ son Menelaus, and ye our friends,
Sons of men of renown,—seeing Zeus unto mortals sends
Good things and evil alike, for that all lieth under his power,—
Eat of our cheer as ye sit in our halls for one little hour.
Be merry in talk, and a tale that accordeth thereto will I tell.
Vain were it if I should essay the story of all that befell,
The deeds of prowess strong-hearted Odysseus was mighty to do.
But hearken to this that the hero dared, yea, carried it through,
In the Troy-folk’s land, where Achaeans were suffering woe upon woe:
For he wealed his body himself with many a shameful blow,
And in guise of a thrall vile rags did he over his body throw;
And so did he enter in to the broad-wayed town of the foe,
And, changing his outward semblance, like to a beggar did seem,—
I wis, midst the galleys Achaean not so was he held in esteem!
So he came to the town of the Troy-folk: they saw and saw not, for their eyes
Were holden therefrom; but I pierced the veil of his cunning disguise,
And I asked him thereof, but he baffled me ever with subtlety wise.
So I brought him unto the bath, and with oil I anointed him o’er,
And clad him in raiment: thereafter an oath of might I swore,
That Odysseus’ coming to Troy in no wise would I betray
Till back to the swift black ships and the tents he had won his way.
And the hero revealed to me all the mind of the Argives then.
And he went, but he slew with the long keen blade many Trojan men
Ere with war-knowledge laden aback to the camp he hied him again.
And a wail of the Trojan women arose for their dead, but full fain
Was the heart in me, for already my spirit homeward yearned;
And with sighs from the folly by Aphrodite inspired I turned,
The madness that drave me from fatherland forth in an evil hour,
That made me forsake my daughter, forsake my bridal bower,
And a husband matchless in mind, and in form fair manhood’s flower.”
Answering spake unto her Menelaus the bright-haired King:
“Yea, lady, fitly and well hast thou spoken everything.
For many men’s thoughts have I learnt ere now, and the mind have known
Of heroes, and wide over earth my journeying feet have gone.
But never such marvellous deeds have I looked upon with mine eyes
As the soul of Odysseus fashioned, the steadfast-hearted, the wise,
As the thing that the stalwart hero was mighty to do and to dare
In the axe-hewn horse, when Achaia’s mightiest sons sat there
With gifts for the Trojans in hand, even doom and the death-despair;
And thou drewest nigh,—but wast surely brought thither by some God’s, power
Who devised for the Trojans glory, and not the fate-fraught hour,—
And godlike Deiphobus followed with thee as thou earnest then,
And thrice didst thou pace round, feeling the cavernous ambush-den;
And there by their names on the chiefs of the Danaan folk didst thou call,
Making thy voice as the voice of the wives of the Argives all,
The while that Tydeus’ son and Odysseus the godlike and I,
There as we sat in the midst of our fellows, heard thy cry;
And the hearts of us two leapt, and scarcely could we refrain
Either from going forth, or from calling in answer again.
But Odysseus held us in check, and he stayed us though never so fain.
There of the rest of the sons of Achaia was none that stirred,
Save Antiklus, he was set upon answering the voice that he heard;
But Odysseus saved us all, for he pressed strong hands on his lip,
Nor till Pallas drew thee away did he slacken his mighty grip.”
Then unto him wise-witted Telemachus answering spoke:
“Zeus-fostered Atreus’ son, Menelaus chieftain of folk,
The harder his lot!—all this could not his destruction avert,
No, not though in his breast he bore an iron heart!
But now let us turn to our rest, and so shall we sink this night
Into the arms of sleep, lulled softly in dreamy delight.”
Then Helen the Argive said the word to the handmaids, to go
And set in the porch a bed, and rugs on the same to throw
Dyed of the crimson red, and carpets thereover to strow,
And above warm mantles to lay, to cover himself withal;
And bearing a torch went they from her presence out of the hall.
And forth, when the couch is spread, the henchman the guests hath led.
So there in the porch away were their hearts into rest-land gone,
As the hero Telemachus lay by Nestor’s goodly son.
In a chamber of that proud pile Atreides the king lay sleeping,
And beside him slumbered the while Queen Helen of robe far-sweeping,
The grey mists flushed into red, and the Rose-fingered smiled from afar,
And lightly upsprang from his bed Menelaus the mighty in war;
And he clad him, and flung around his shoulder his falchion keen,
And his beautiful sandals he bound fast under his feet’s white sheen.
Then forth of his chamber he hied: as a God seemed he to behold:
And he sat by Telemachus’ side, and the thought of his heart he told:
“Hero, what is the need that hath hither from far drawn thee
To Sparta the hallowed, over the ridges broad of the sea?
Doth it touch thy folk or thyself? prithee answer sooth unto me.”
Then unto him wise-witted Telemachus answering spoke,
“Zeus-fostered Atreus’ son, Menelaus chieftain of folk,
I have come, if perchance thou couldst tell any word of my sire’s home-track;
For mine house is devoured, and my goodly lands, they are gone to wrack;
And my palace is thronged with foes, and they to my sorrow still
My sheep and my trail-foot wreath-horned kine for their feasting kill,
My mother’s suitors, whom insolence all unmeasured doth fill.
Therefore I come to thy knees, and beseech thee now to declare
The mournful destruction that came upon him, if anywhere
Thou hast seen this thing with thine eyes, or hast heard the tale of another
That hath roamed,—for he above all men was born unto woe of his mother.
Speak no smooth words out of care for my pain, or of pity now,
But frankly declare unto me, hast anywhere seen him, and how?
I beseech thee, if ever my father Odysseus, the valiant in fight,
In word or in deed kept troth unto thee and covenant-plight
In Troy-land, wherein ye Achaeans long time suffered woe upon woe,
Remember it now, I entreat thee, and tell to me all thou dost know.”
And with deep indignation stirred Menelaus made reply:
“O shame! and these be the men that are fain in the couch to lie
Of a hero mighty-hearted, and they such a dastard throng!
It is even as when a hind in the lair of a lion strong
Layeth her new-dropt fawns, her tender sucklings, asleep,
And she tracketh the deep-grassed dells and the spurs of the mountain-steep,
Cropping the pasture, the while that lion returns to his lair,
And dealeth the weakling invaders a ghastly destruction there.
So unto them shall Odysseus a ghastly destruction bear.
O Zeus Allfather, Athene, Apollo! that this might befall,
That such as he was when erewhile by Lesbos’ well-built wall
He stood up with Philomeleides in desperate wrestling strain,
And mightily cast him down, and all the Achaeans were fain,—
Ah, in such wise if Odysseus amidst of the suitors were seen,
Swift would the doom of them all be, bitter the bridal, I ween!
And as touching the thing for the which thou prayest and bidd’st me declare,
Deceive thee I will not, nor speech of evasion shall answer thy prayer.
But even the things that the grey Sea-ancient spake unto me,
No word of them all will I cover, nor hide them away from thee.
By Egypt the Gods still kept me, yearning to win to mine home,
Because not yet had I offered the costly hecatomb;
For the Gods will ever that men remember the thing they command.
Now a certain island there is, a wave-engirdled strand,—
On this side Egypt it lieth, and Pharos its name, men say—
From the mainland as far as a hollow galley might make in a day,
If the shrill sea-wind piped ever behind over all the way.
And there is a haven good, where they run ships high on the shore,
Yet only to draw them water and launch on the sea once more.
There twenty heavily-dragging days did the Gods keep me,
And never the winds sprang up that breathe on the face of the sea,
And over the long sea-rollers speed the good ship on.
And now had the victual been spent and the strength of my shipmates gone,
Had a Goddess not looked with compassion upon me, and stooped to save,
The daughter of Proteus the mighty Sea-ancient, lord of the wave,
Even Eidothea, for with ruth for my plight deep-stirred was her heart.
And she came upon me as I drearily strayed from my shipmates apart,—
For they wandered fishing around the desert strand evermore,
With bent hooks searching the waves, and the hunger upon them was sore,—
And anigh me she drew, and she spake to me there on the lonely shore:
‘Art thou so utterly mad, O stranger, or slack of thy wit,
Or art thou reckless, and happy in suffering dost thou sit,
That all this time in the isle thou art prisoned, and canst not deliver
Thy life from the snare, and fainter the soul of thy mates groweth ever? ‘
So did she speak, and answer I made full heavily:
‘What Goddess soever thou art, I will tell my trouble to thee.
Nowise of my will am I prisoned, but haply offence hath been given
By me unto one of the Deathless that dwell in the broad-arched heaven.
But, seeing the Gods know all, I pray thee, Goddess, to say
Of which of the Gods am I fettered and here am constrained to stay,
And may not pass over the fish-fraught sea on mine homeward way.’
So did I speak, and straightway answered the Goddess divine:
‘Stranger, this will I tell thee, and true shall this word be of mine.
The soothfast grey Sea-ancient hitherward useth to come:
Known unto him are all the depths of the halls of foam,
Deathless Egyptian Proteus, Poseidon the Earth-shaker’s thrall,—
And indeed they say he begat me, and him my father they call.
Now if thou couldst lie in ambush, and once lay hold upon him,
He should tell thee thy way, and the measures of all that sea-track dim,
And the home-path over the sea where the folk of the fish-world swim,—
Yea, tell thee, thou fostered of Zeus, whatsoever thy spirit would,
Even whatsoe’er hath been wrought in thy halls of evil and good
While thou art afar on a measureless track o’er the troublous flood.’
So did the Goddess speak, and answer to her I made:
‘Bethink thee thyself how the snare for the Ancient divine shall be laid,
Lest he see me, or know it before, and lightly escape our hands,
For hard were the task to quell a God with a mortal’s bands.’
So did I speak, and straightway answered the Goddess divine:
‘Stranger, this will I tell thee, and true shall this word be of mine.
What time the sun shall have climbed to the midnoon height of the skies,
Then the soothfast grey Sea-ancient out of the brine doth arise
With the west wind’s breath from under a shiver of darkling waves,
Passing forth of the sea to lay him down in the vaulted caves.
And around him the seal-herd, the brood that fair Halosydne bore,
Sleep in a throng, having risen out of the sea-surf hoar,
With their bodies areek with the evil smell of the fathomless sea.
And’ so soon as the dayspring is risen, thither will I lead thee.
There will I couch you in order,—now choose thou out of the rest
Three of thy men that thou know’st in the well-benched ships for thy best.
And all the guile of the Ancient will I unto thee uncover:
First will he number the seals, and the tale of them all go over.
And so soon as his fingers have reckoned them up, and he knoweth the number,
In the midst, as a shepherd amidst of his sheep, shall he lay him to slumber.
But as soon as ye see that the God is fallen on deep sleep, then
Rouse up the strength and the daring within you, and quit you like men.
Seize him and hold, though he madden to ’scape, though he plunge and spring.
He will pass into every shape, and to semblance of everything
That moveth on earth, and in water shall fleet, and in fire shall roar;
But hold him unflinchingly still, and constrain him only the more.
But when in his own true shape he shall question you with words,
Even like as ye saw him lying amidst of the sea-born herds,
Refrain from your violence then, and set the Ancient free,
Hero, and ask what God it is that harasseth thee,
And withal concerning the home-track over the fish-fraught sea.’
So having spoken, she plunged in the mountain-surging flood.
But I went back unto where on the sands the galleys stood,
And with many a thought as I went did mine heart full darkly brood.
But when I was come to my ship as she lay by the hoar surf-line,
We dressed our supper, and over us came the night divine.
And there we slept where the ripples crept to the murmuring shore,
Till, rosy-fingered, the sweet Dawn lingered mid mists no more.
Forthwith then to the strand of the broad-wayed sea did I speed
With many a prayer to the Gods: three mates with me did I lead
In whom I trusted most for every venturous deed.
Into the heart of the mid-wave hollows down plunged she,
And four seal -skins she brought in her hands from the depths of the sea,
And all had been newly flayed,—so the snare for her father she planned,
And she scooped for us beds trenchwise by the surf in the ribbed sea-sand.
And she sat there, and waited for us, and anigh unto her we drew,
And she couched us, and o’er each man the skin of a seal she threw.
But a horrible ambush for us had been there, for stifled were we
With the foul sick strangling stench of the fosterlings of the sea,—
For who could endure to lie down with a beast of the briny deep?
But the Goddess devised a refreshing, our spirits from bane to keep,
For she laid ambrosia beneath the nostrils of every one,
And before its delicious breathing the reek of the sea-beast was gone.
There all through the morning with patiently-biding heart did we stay.
And the seals from the brine rose upward in throngs, and thereafter they lay,
Row upon row, to sleep by the sea-surf’s dashing sound.
And at high noon rose the Ancient out of the brine, and he found
The huge-grown seals, and he went over all, and he reckoned the tale,
And he counted us first with the beasts, nor aught did his cunning avail
To discern the cheat, and thereafter he laid him the sea-flock among.
Then shouting we rushed upon him, and round him our arms we flung.
Then the Ancient forgat not his wisdom, the craft that was mighty to feign;
But first he became a lion wild-tossing the flame of his mane,
And thereafter a dragon, a panther, and lo, ’twas a boar tusk-clashing,—
’Twas a tree high-waving its leaves—it was water rippling and plashing!
But ever with heart unbaffled that shifting shape did we strain,
Till the Ancient sorcery-wise grew weary, and needs must refrain,
And then in his own shape uttered the word for the which I was fain:
‘Which of the Gods was it, Atreus’ son, this counsel that gave
To take me by ambush perforce, and what is the thing thou dost crave?’
So did he speak, and I uttered my voice, and to him I replied:
‘Ancient, thou knowest—and why dost thou speak but to turn me aside?—
How long in the isle I am prisoned, and naught I can do availeth,
For I cannot escape; my strength is fleeting, the heart in me faileth.
But, seeing the Gods know all, I pray thee that thou wouldst say
Of which of the Gods I am fettered, and here am constrained to stay,
And may not pass over the fish-fraught sea on mine homeward way.’
Answered me then the soothfast Ancient, the hoary-wise:
‘Nay, but to Zeus and the rest of the Gods must thou sacrifice
Fair victims, and then go aboard, and so shalt thou run with the breeze
Swift to thy fatherland over the wine-dark wash of the seas.
For know that it is not thy weird to behold thy friends, and to come
Back to the land of thy fathers, back to thine high-roofed home,
Till again to the water of Egypt’s river downfallen from heaven
Thou hast measured thy track, and the holy hecatomb-honour hast given
To the deathless Gods that abide in the broad-arched heavens on high.
So the Gods shall grant thee the home-track for which thy soul doth sigh.’
So did he speak, but mine heart was riven asunder with pain
For that thus he commanded to cross the misty sea again
Afar unto Egypt-land, a weary and woeful way.
Yet in grief’s despite I answered, and thus unto him did I say:
‘I will do as thou biddest, Ancient, and bring to an end the task.
But give me an answer of truth to the thing that I furthermore ask.
Did all the Achaean war-kings win in the ships safe home
Whom Nestor and I left, passing from Troy-land over the foam?
Or hath any by bitter destruction died in his galley afar,
Or passed in the arms of his friends, having woven the web of war? ‘
So did I speak, but he straightway answered and cried unto me:
‘Atreides, what hast thou to do to ask me?—’twere better for thee
Not to know of the thing that I know; and I tell thee thine heart shall be stirred
With pain, and thy tears soon flow, when all my tale thou hast heard.
For many the sword devoured, and left was many an one;
But of all the Achaean brass-mailed chieftains two alone
Were lost in the home-way:—yea, by their side in the fight stoodest thou;—
And one in an isle ’mid the sea-plains wide is a prisoner now.
With his long-oared galleys was Ajax wrecked in the breaker-swirl;
For against the Gyraean rocks did Poseidon the black ship hurl;
But the God saved him from the sea, from the threshold of Hades’ gate;
And now had he ’scaped destruction, for all Athene’s hate,
But for his own presumption, the word that in madness he cried,
How that even in the Gods’ despite he had ’scaped from the deep sea-tide.
But Poseidon heard the vaunts that on high to the heavens he flung,
And straight in his mighty hands his three-forked mace he swung,
And he smote the Gyraean rock, and the crag in sunder he clave,
And the half abode in his place, and the half plunged down to the wave,
Even that whereon Ajax had sat in his folly and frenzy of soul,
And it whelmed him down welter of surges and fathomless-deep sea-roll.
So he died, when the vaunt-filled mouth had been filled with a draught from the sea.
But thy brother—he ’scaped the fates; for a little the doom shunned he
In his hollow galleys, for him Queen Here from bane did keep.
But when he drew nigh to Maleia’s mountain-foreland steep,
Then a tempest caught him and drave him with staggering sails aslant,
Heavily groaning, over the fishes’ trackless haunt
To the uttermost verge of the land where Thyestes in days bygone
Dwelt, but the lord of it then was Aegisthus, Thyestes’ son.
But even as they deemed that the home-faring scatheless from thence should be,
The Gods turned backward the wind, and he won to his home by sea.
O glad was he then to stand on his fatherland soil again!
And he kissed the ground as he touched it: the tears like summer rain
Fell from his eyes, for he looked on his land, and thereof was he fain.
But afar from a height was he spied of the watchman whom that false lord,
Aegisthus, had planted there, and had promised a goodly reward,
Two talents of gold; and a whole year’s space had he watched from the height,
Lest he should come ere he knew with the storm of his battle-might;
So with tidings he hied to the hall of his lord, the shepherd of folk.
Then Aegisthus craftily dealt, and he plotted the treachery-stroke;
For he chose to him twenty, his mightiest men, and his ambush he laid,
And aloof at the hall’s far side he bade that the feast be arrayed.
And with chariots and horses he hied him to meet Agamemnon the king,
And he bade to the banquet, the while in his heart was a horrible thing.
And homeward he brought him not knowing the death that was doomed to befall,
And he slew him amidst of the feast, as they slaughter an ox at the stall;
Nor was any man left of the king Agamemnon’s warrior train,
Neither one of the men of Aegisthus, but all in the hall lay slain.”
Then with hearing the words that he said mine heart went nigh to break;
And I wept as I sat on the sands; no more could my spirit take
Any pleasure in life, nor to look on the light of the sun was I fain;
And I wept and I rolled to and fro in a passion of impotent pain,
Till my heart was weary of woe, and spake the Sea-ancient again:
‘No longer, Atreus’ son, weep ceaselessly, nay, but refrain,
Seeing nothing thereby shall be won; and with speed lay to thine hand,
To the end that thou mayest come to the soil of thy fatherland.
For perchance thou shalt find him alive, and perchance by Orestes slain
Or ever thou come, and for thee but the burial-feast shall remain.’
So did he speak, and my heart and my lordly soul at the word
Again in my breast, for all mine anguish, kindled and stirred.
And I lift up my voice, and the light-winged words from my lips forth came:
‘These therefore I know: but now unto me the third man name,
Who is yet alive, and is prisoned amidst of the wide sea-plain,
Or, if he be dead, I would hear it, in spite of my anguished pain.’
So did I ask, and he answered me straightway, and spake furthermore:
‘The son of Laertes, that dwelleth in halls upon Ithaca’s shore,
Him have I seen in an island, and ever his hot tears flow
In the halls of Calypso the nymph, and she will not let him go;
And he cannot escape from thence, nor return to his fatherland:
No galley with oars hath he, neither arms of a trusty band
To speed him away over long-ridging rollers of misty sea.
But, O thou fostered of Zeus, it is not fate-spoken for thee
In Argos the battle-steed-nurse to come to thy death-doom end:
But thee to the ends of the earth the Deathless Ones shall send,
To the plain Elysian, wherein bright-haired Rhadamanthus doth dwell,
Where restful is life, and ever with men it goeth full well;
Where the snow never drifts, where the tempest is not, nor the rain’s cold gleam,
But the breath of the west-wind ever and aye from the Ocean-stream
With whispering soft and with cool sweet kisses for men doth arise:—
Because thou hast Helen to wife, and art kinsman to Zeus in their eyes.’
So having spoken, he plunged in the mountain-surging flood.
But I went with my godlike mates unto where the galley stood;
And with many a thought as I went did my heart full darkly brood.
But when I was come to my ship, as she lay by the hoar surf-line,
We dressed our supper, and over us came the night divine;
And there we slept where the ripples crept to the murmuring shore,
Till, rosy-fingered, the sweet Dawn lingered mid mists no more.
Then first did we haul the galleys down to the vast sea-tide,
And we set up the masts in the shapely keels, and the sails shook wide;
And we entered up into the ship, and arow sat down to the stroke,
And the sea with the orderly dash of the blades into hoar foam broke.
So back unto Egypt’s river, the heaven-descended, I came
With my galleys, and rose unto heaven the holy hecatomb-flame.
So when I had honoured the Deathless, and past was the cloud of their frown,
I piled Agamemnon a barrow, that his might be quenchless renown.
So, making an end, I returned, and the Deathless gave me a breeze,
And they wafted me back to my fatherland swiftly over the seas.
But come now, tarry awhile within these halls of mine,
Till at least the eleventh day dawn, or the light of the twelfth day shine;
And then shalt thou go in peace, and glorious gifts shalt receive,
Three steeds, and a well-polished car; and besides all this will I give
A lovely chalice, and thence drink-offerings shalt thou pour
To the Deathless Ones, and so mayest think upon me evermore.”
Then did Telemachus wise of wit make answer and say:
“Atreides, hinder me not, that I overlong should stay.
For by thee were I fain to sit through the round of the rolling year,
Nor once should a yearning come o’er me for home or for parents dear,
So sorely I love thy words and the tale of thy telling to hear.
But already in Pylos the sandy my comrades chafe at my stay,
And here art thou keeping me yet with an overlong delay.
But as for the gift thou wouldst give, be it somewhat to keep for thy sake;
But thy bounty I leave with thee here, for the horses I cannot take
Unto Ithaca’s isle; for the lealand wide that thou rulest over
Is a plain, where galingale groweth, and store of the ruddy clover,
And the wheat and the spelt and the bere broad-bearded and white to see.
But in Ithaca horse-runs wide there are none, neither meadow-lea;
Goat-pasture it is,—yet fairer than horse-grazing land unto me.
Yea, meadowless islands are not for horses; their hill-slopes fall
Steeply adown to the sea, and in Ithaca most of all.”
So did he speak, and smiled Menelaus the warrior-lord;
And he lovingly touched the child of Odysseus, and spake the word:
“Dear son, thy words give proof of the blood of no mean man.
Therefore the gift thou shalt take will I change, for this I can.
And, of all the royal treasures within my palace that shine,
The costliest thing and the fairest to see, even that shall be thine.
I will give thee a bowl fair-carven, of silver its precious mould,
Save only the rim thereof, and it gleams with the flame of gold.
’Tis the work of Hephaestus: the hero Phaedimus gave it to me,
The Sidonians’ king, when I stood ’neath the roof of his hall by the sea,
When the home-track brought me thither; and this is the gift thou shalt take.”
So they communing together each unto other spake.
Now came the banqueting throng to the halls of the godlike king:
And men drove fatlings along, and the glorious wine did they bring;
And wives with headveils fair sent thither for them the bread:
So in the wide hall there was the goodly banquet spread.
But in front of the palace of king Odysseus the suitor-crew
Did the hunting-javelins fling for their sport, and the quoits they threw,
In the level-beaten court where their insolence erst rang high;
And Antinous watching the sport with Eurymachus sat thereby:
The chiefs of the suitors were they, and the others in might they outshone.
And to them drew near that day Noemon, Phronius’ son.
To Antinous thus did he speak, putting question concerning his thought:
“Antinous, touching Telemachus, know we at all or not
How soon he is like to return from Pylos’ sandy shore:
He is thitherward gone with my galley, and now have I need therefor,
Even to pass overseas unto Elis’s lealand plain.
Twelve mares have I there, and mules unbroken: of them am I fain
To drive away some from the herd, and to break them in to the rein.”
But his words perplexed them sore, and amazement their hearts did fill:
They had thought not of Pylos’ shore; in the fields they deemed him still
Counting the swine-droves o’er, or the sheep that fed on the hill.
Then did Antinous, son of Eupeithes, answer and say:
“Tell to me truly this—when went he, and who were they
That along with him went? of the Ithacans chosen, or folk of his own,
Hired servants or thralls? Yea, sooth, even this deed might he have done!
And answer me this thing too, to the end I may know it aright:
Did he take by force that galley from thee in thine own despite,
Or didst thou willingly grant it, for prayer that he made unto thee?”
But Noemon Phronius’ son made answer wonderingly:
“Surely I willingly gave it;—what else had another man done?
When a man so princely, yea, such a trouble-burdened one,
Maketh request, it were hard to refuse the boon, good sooth.
And men, even they that are counted the pride of the Ithacan youth,
Went as the crew of his ship: and the master thereof, as I deem,
Was Mentor, or else a God, for indeed he was like unto him.
But at this I marvel, that Mentor I here saw yesterday
At the daybreak,—yet unto Pylos then did he sail away!”
He spake, and he turned him again to go to the house of his father;
But over the souls of the twain did a cloud of amazement gather.
And they cried to the rest round about them to sit, their contests done:
And to them did Antinous shout, Eupeithes’ insolent son:
And he cried in his anguish sore, and a torrent of fury and shame
O’er his passion-dark soul did pour, and his eyes were as gleaming flame;
“Lo, how Telemachus now hath defiantly done the deed!
See, now is his journey accomplished!—we deemed that he never should speed.
Very boy that he is, he is gone, as he said, in despite of us all!
He hath launched him a ship, he hath chosen of the folk good fellows and tall.
From this time forth will he work us mischief—May Zeus destroy
And blast his might in the bud, or ever he breed us annoy!
But come now, give me a galley swift, and twenty men,
And so will I wait in ambush, and watch for his coming again
In the strait ’twixt Ithaca’s isle and Samos’ rugged coast:
So to his grief shall he sail the seas for his father lost.”
And they shouted that so should he do, and they all were of one consent.
Then straightway the suitor-crew to the hall of Odysseus went.
Howbeit it was not long ere Penelope also was ware
Of the words of the suitor-throng and the darkly-plotted snare,
Seeing Medon the herald had heard, as he stood in the court the while;
And he bare to the queen the word how they wove the web of their guile;
For he hied with the tidings fast through Penelope’s palace-hall;
But, as over the threshold he passed, did the queen indignantly call:
“Herald, with what behest art thou come from the suitor-band?
To give to the maids of Odysseus the godlike their command
To forsake their labours, and yonder for them the banquet to lay?
I would that of all their wooing this were the latest day,
That this were the end of your banquets, your uttermost revelling-hour,
Ye that assemble together and all our substance devour,
The wise Telemachus’ store, as though ye never had heard,
In the days overpast of your childhood, your fathers’ praising word,
How good Odysseus was in the days when he ruled the land,
How none of your sires had mock of his mouth or harm of his hand.
Not so is the wont of the kings of the earth in their godlike state;
For they show unto one their favour, another must taste their hate.
But who of my lord had tyrannous handling?—None, there was none!
But herein is your malice made bare, and your shameful deeds are shown:
Thankless ye are for the favours forgotten, the good deeds done.”
Then Medon the prudent-counselled spake to her answering:
“Ah Queen, and would that this of thine ills were the direst thing!
But a greater wrong by far, and a sorer evil than all
Is this that the suitors are plotting,—Zeus grant it may never befall!
For now is their purpose set that thy son with the sword be slain
As he homeward returneth: for news of his sire hath he crossed the main
Unto Pylos, the sacred strand, unto Sparta, the hallowed plain.”
But she reeleth with knees stricken weak, in her heart no spirit is found,
And her lips no word may speak, and the tide of her anguish hath drowned
Her eyes, and her agony’s weight hath fettered that rich voice fast.
Yet hardly reviving and late, full feebly she spake at the last:
“Herald, and why hath my son departed?—no need had he
To mount on the fleet-faring galleys, the chariot-steeds of the sea:
—And they pass, O far away, o’er the hungry weltering tide!—
Hath he done it, that not so much as his name among men may abide? “
And Medon the prudent-counselled made answer thereafter to her:
“I know not whether a God came hither his spirit to stir,
Or whether his own soul moved him to Pylos to go, to enquire
Of the home-coming feet or the fate that perchance hath befallen his sire.”
So when he had ended the word he returned to Odysseus’ hall;
But heart-breaking anguish was poured over her, nor endured she at all
To sit upon any couch of all in the palace that were;
Nay, low on the floor did she crouch of the chamber fashioned fair.
And she piteously wailed, and around her the moan of her handmaids rung,
Of all in the house that were found, of the old, and withal of the young.
And with anguished heart-stricken cry she mourned to her maids thereby:
“Hearken, my friends, for Zeus hath dealt very bitterly
With me, above all that were born and nurtured along with me.
Erewhile my gallant husband, the lion-hearted, I lost,
In all that a man may do unmatched in the Danaan host;
And the voice of his fame through the length and breadth of Hellas is gone.
And now have the tempests snatched away my beloved son:
And none knoweth what hath befallen: I heard not concerning his going.
—Cruel ones! none of you cared, albeit of this well knowing,
None of you cared to come and awaken me out of my sleep,
When my son was departing away in the black ship over the deep.
For if I had heard that he purposed such journey as this in his heart,
Verily should he have tarried, how eager soe’er to depart;
Else had he left his mother dead in his palace-hall.
But let some one away with speed, and the old man Dolius call,—
My servant; when hither I came did my father give him to me,
Of mine orchard now is he keeper, the garden of many a tree,—
That with haste he may go to Laertes, and all these things may say,
If so it may hap that he in his heart shall devise some way,
And shall go and make moan to the people, the folk that purpose to slay
My son, his seed, and the seed of Odysseus the godlike lord.”
Then Eurycleia the ancient nurse took up the word:
“Dear lady, for this shalt thou slay thy thrall with the pitiless sword,
Or bid me live on, but the word from thee will I nowise hide:
All this did I know, and whatever he bade me, did I provide,
Sweet wine, and bread; and he caused me to swear no word to say
Of this unto thee, till the twelfth day came from his going away,
Or thou fell’st in a longing for him, and didst hear he was gone and afar,
That thou shouldst not with tears unavailing thy radiant loveliness mar.
But bathe thyself now, and in raiment clean thy body array,
And pass to thine upper chamber along with thine handmaids, and pray
To Athene the Daughter of Zeus who the shield of the Aegis doth bear;
For she can deliver him, yea, from the jaws of death can she tear.
But an old man sore vexed vex not further, for surely I deem
That the seed of Arkeisius’ son not utterly hateful doth seem
In the eyes of the Gods, but still of his line shall a man be found
To be lord of his high-roofed halls and the fair lands lying around.”
Then from wailing refrained the queen, and the tears from her eyelids were stayed;
And she bathed herself, and in clean fair raiment her body arrayed.
And up to her chamber she passed with her handmaiden-train at her side:
From the basket the barley she cast, and in prayer to Athene she cried:
“Hear me, thou Child of the Aegis-bearer, Unwearied One!
If e’er in his halls many-counselled Odysseus hath sacrifice done
With the fat of oxen or sheep aflame on thine altar-fire,
I beseech thee, remember it now, and save his beloved son,
And confound the suitors, and baffle their arrogant hearts’ desire.”
Then the sacrifice-cry she cried, and the Goddess hearkened her call.
But the suitors with tumult and brawl were loud through the shadowy hall;
And thus, in their insolent pride, spake one to another there:
“Doubtless this queen of many a wooer e’en now doth prepare
Her bridal; nor knoweth how waits for her son the murder-snare.”
So with infatuate breast they laughed, and the truth none knew:
But Antinous spake to the rest of the lawless suitor-crew:
“Ye fools, refrain you all alike from arrogant speech,
Lest the thing we devise to the ears of those within should reach.
But come, let us all full silently rise, our purpose to speed,
That the word that hath pleased us all may quickly become the deed.”
Then the mightiest twenty he chose from the throng of the household’s foes;
And they hasted, and soon as the crew to the sea and the galley were come,
Down to the deep they drew, and they launched her forth on the foam.
And the sail and the tapering mast they brought, and they laid them along;
And they lashed the long oars fast, each one with its leathern thong,—
All things in order due,—and they spread the white sail wide;
And their weapons were brought for them then by their insolent serving-men.
And off the land in the blue sea moored they the galley to ride:
Then supped on the shore the crew, and waited the eventide.
But Penelope passing-wise is still in the women’s bower;
And fasting there she lies through many a wretched hour,
Ever moaning her heart within, “Shall my darling escape them yet,
Or be taken in that death-gin which the arrogant suitors have set? “
As a baffled lion doth brood, as he quails in the midst of his foes,
When the tinchel draws in through the wood, when the hunters around him close,
So wild are the thoughts that leap through her brain, till the tired eyes swim,
And the pale face droops in sleep, and smoothed is each cramped limb.
But Athene of flashing eyes hath another thing yet to do;
For a phantom she caused to arise, and lo, as a woman it grew,
And Iphthime’s form it bore, Icarius’ queenly daughter,
Whom Eumelus wedded of yore, and afar unto Pherae brought her.
And she sped the phantom’s flight to Odysseus’ hall that night,
To make Penelope cease from the mourning born of her fears,
And to give to the sad heart peace, and to dry up the fountain of tears.
And into the chamber it sped,—by the thong of the bolt did it slip,—
And it leaned o’er Penelope’s head, and it murmured with shadowy lip:
“Penelope, sleepest thou, with a nightmare-pain in thy breast?
—Nay, this shall the Gods forbid that abide in sorrowless rest,
That wailing and woe should be thine, for thy son shall return unto thee;
For in sooth in the sight of the Gods no evil-doer is he.”
Saith Penelope passing-wise to the shade that her sister seems,
As she restfully, sweetly lies in the gates of the hall of dreams:
“Sister, why art thou here, who hast not been wont to come
Heretofore unto me, for thou dwell’st in a far-away distant home?
And thou biddest me cease from my woe, biddest all the anguish depart,
The cloud that o’ershadows my soul, the. weight that oppresses my heart.
Erewhile mine hero-husband, the lion-hearted, I lost,
In all that a man may do unmatched in the Danaan host,
And the voice of his fame through the length and the breadth of Hellas is gone.
And departed now in the hollow ship is my darling son,
Untried in toils and in strife of tongues when the folkmotes gather.
Yea, and I mourn even more for him than his hero-father;
And sorely I tremble and fear lest unto him mischief betide
Midst the folk whereunto he is gone, or out on the sea-plains wide.
For foes full many are plotting against his life, and burn
To slay him, or ever again to the land of his sires he return.”
Answering then unto her the shadowy phantom replied:
“Take heart, let not thy bosom of courage be utterly void;
For now hath there gone with thy son such a guard for the way, such a guide
As men full oft have besought to stand in her might at their side,
Even Pallas Athene: thy mourning the Goddess’s ruth hath stirred,
And now hath she sent me hither to speak unto thee this word.”
Made answer the wise-heart queen, as thrilled her slumbering breast:
“If a Goddess thou art indeed, and hast hearkened a God’s behest,
Tell me, O tell me also of that ill-fated one!
Is he anywhere yet alive and beholding the light of the sun?
Or is he in Hades’ halls?—ah me, can it be he hath died? ‘
Answering then unto her the shadowy phantom replied:
“Nay, but I may not tell thee all that remaineth behind,
Whether he live or be dead,—but the idle word is as wind.”
And the phantom was no more there: by the bolt of the door had it darted,
Passing into the breath of the air. But out of her slumber she started;
And her heart was aglow and agleam, and its darkness was turned into light
For the vivid blessed dream that had come in the hush of the night.
But the suitors had gone aboard, and out to sea they stood,
Panting to redden the sword with the son of Odysseus’ blood.
Now a rocky islet lies in the mid-strait’s sea-surge hoar,—
To the west doth Samos arise, to the east is Ithaca’s shore,—
Asteris, nowise great, and havens therein there be twain.
There lurk the Achaeans, and wait till the prey returneth again.