Complete Works of William Morris, page 624
At Lesbos he came upon us, as we schemed the long-drawn way,
Whether northing Chios the craggy, our ships we so should lay
Beside the island Psyria, that on our lee it lie,
Or else to the south of Chios pass windy Mimas by.
So we prayed the God for a token, and he set forth one in a while,
And bade us cleave mid ocean into Euboea’s isle,
That we at our best and swiftest might flee the bale and the bane.
Then arose the wind shrill piping and the keels sped on amain,
And ran o’er the way of the fishes, and by night and cloud we made
Gerasstus; there to Poseidon the thighs of bulls we paid
A many, since thus we had measured so great a deal of sea.
But the fourth day it was ere in Argos Tydides’ company,
That Diomede, Tamer of Horses, their good ships stayed by the shore.
But for me I made for Pylos, and the wind dropped never more
From the time when God first sent it across the sea to blow.
“So I came, dear child, unwitting, and nought of the others I know,
Nor who was saved of Acha^ans, nor what man had his bane:
But of all the knowledge that sitting within these halls I gain,
Thou shalt wot as is meet and right; I will hide nought; all will I tell
Now men say that the Myrmidon Folk, the spear-wont, fared home well,
E’en they whom the famous son of great-heart Achilles led,
And that well the son of Poias, Philoctetes the glorious, sped;
And Idomeneus brought unto Crete his fellows, every one
Who had ‘scaped the war and the battle; the sea-flood swallowed none.
But ye, though afar ye are dwelling, of the son of Atreus have heard,
How he came to his home; how ^Egisthus for him wove woful weird.
But the man, e’en he who did it, in wretched wise did he pay.
It is good that the son of the murdered be left for another day.
For he, he avenged his father, and slew his father’s bane,
vEgisthus guileful of rede, who his famous father had slain.
And thou friend, so great and so fair as I behold thee now,
Be stout, that good word of thy fame mid the late-born folk may grow.”
But Telemachus the heedful thus spake and answered again:
“O Nestor, O son of Neleus, great grace of Achaean men,
Full well did he avenge him, and Achaeans far and near
Shall make his fame to be hearkened, that those who are coming may hear.
But would that the Gods might be giving e’en me so much of might,
That I on the Wooers might wreak me for their most grievous unright!
Whereas in their pride they fashion and devise me impious ill:
But of no such happy doings the Gods for me have will,
Nay, not for me nor my father; we must bear all e’en as we may.”
Then thus did Nestor, the Rider of Gerenia, answer and say:
“O friend, since the word thou speakest and hereof thou mindest me,
Men say that thy mother’s wooers a many now there be
In thy house, though thou wouldest it not, who devise thee evil fate.
Say then, art thou cowed as a craven, or liest thou under the hate
Of thy land and thy people hearkening what the voice of God doth speak?
Yet who knoweth but he returning their wrong one day shall wreak,
Whether alone he returneth or with all the Achaean men.
But ah! if the Grey eyed Athene would befriend thee now, as then,
In the days that were she cherished Odysseus, the glory of war,
Mid the Troy-folk, where we, the Achaeans, so many a heart-grief bore.
For never saw I the God-folk love men in such open wise
As Pallas stood beside him to help before all eyes.
And if thee in her heart she would cherish, and befriend thee such a way,
Then some of these, meseemeth, should forget their wedding-day.”
But Telemachus the heedful thus answered him and said:
“O father, thy word meseemeth to its end shall never be sped,
For a mighty word hast thou spoken, and great wonder holdeth me;
Nor shall this my hope be fulfilled, though the Gods would have it to be.’
But the Goddess, the Grey-eyed Athene, thereto made answer and said:
“Telemachus, what is this word from the wall of thy teeth that hath sped?
For ’tis easy for God if he willeth, though far off, man to save.
But I for my part were fainer a many griefs to have
And come home safe in the ending, and see my returning day,
Than to come as came Agamemnon, and die on my hearth straightway;
For he fell by the wiles of yEgisthus and the woful wiles of his wife.
But not even the very God-folk, not even a loved man’s life,
From the common death can deliver, when come is the fate full strong,
And the deadly doom is upon him that layeth men along.”
But Telemachus the heedful thus answered thereunto:
“Let us speak hereof no further, though our hearts be full of woe.
For him there is no returning: for already, have no doubt,
Black doom and deadly ending have the Deathless meted out.
But one other word would I speak and ask of Nestor here,
Since he knoweth righteous wisdom above all that ever were;
For o’er three generations of men they say he hath been the king,
And unto mine eyes beholding he is as a deathless thing:
O Nestor, O son of Neleus, speak now true word unto me!
Agamemnon, son of Atreus, wide ruler, how died he?
Where then was Menelaus? What bale did he bring forth
For him, ^Egisthus the wily, since he slew a man more worth?
Or was he not in Argos but wandering wide away,
Amid other dwellings of man-folk, when the man grew bold to slay?”
But the Rider of Gerenia, old Nestor, answered there:
“I will show thee now, O youngling, all things as they verily were.
For thou thyself hast an inkling of what deed hereof would have come’
If the yellow Menelaus, from Troy returning home,
Had happed upon ^Egisthus alive in the halls of his stead.
Then full surely on his body no earth had there been shed.
But the fowl and the dogs had feasted on the dead man as he lay
In the wold without the city, and no Achaean may
Would have raised the death-song o’er him; for a monstrous deed had he done.
Yea, there afar were we biding where many a deed we won,
While he in the nook of Argos, the horseland, sat at ease,
The wife of Agamemnon with wheedling words to please.
And indeed it is true that the woman for a while the foul deed spurned,
The glorious Clytemnestra, for in wisdom well was she learned.
And a minstrel was with her moreover, whom, when unto Troy he would speed,
Was the son of Atreus bidding that well his wife he should heed,
But when the fate of the Gods had bound her that fall she must,
Then into a desert island that man the minstrel thrust,
And left him there for the fowl to be a quarry and prey,
And longing he led her longing to his house and his home away.
Many thighs of beasts he burned on the altar of sacrifice,
And he hung up many adornments, both of gold and webs of price;
Whereas he had done the deed, and the thing unhoped in his heart
“But we sailed while these things were adoing and from Troy did we depart,
We twain, Atrides and I, in goodwill and happiness.
But whenas we were making Sunium, the holy Athenian ness,
There Phoebus Apollo falling with kindly shafts amain
On the pilot of Menelaus, thereof he had his bane;
E’en as he held the tiller of the good ship fleeting fast;
Phrontis, the son of Onetor, who all tribes of men surpassed
In steering a ship when the storm-winds drive hard across the sea.
So aback was held Menelaus, though fain of the road was he,
That he might bury his fellow with all rites of the burial bed.
a But now, as in hollow ships o’er the wine-dark sea he sped,
And, speeding, to that steep headland of Malaea now was brought,
A road and a way full loathly far-seeing Zeus for him wrought;
And the blast of the wind shrill-piping he poured upon his host,
And the billows monstrous-swollen all mountain-high uptost.
Thence he sundered the host atwain: one half unto Crete did he drive,
Where about Jardanus’ streams Cydonian people live.
Now a smooth rock thereby goeth to the water, sheer and steep,
The outermost ness of Gortys thrust forth in the darkling deep.
There the south-west driveth a billow against the leftward ness
To Phaestus, and small is the rock that wardeth the great seas’ stress.
Thereon drave part of the ship-host, and hardly saved were the folk,
But the ships the might of the billows against the sea-rocks broke.
But as to those five, those others, the wind and the water bore
Their coal-blue prows and brought them anigh the ^Egyptian shore.
“Thus then he fared, and gathering great store of goods and of gold,
Came on with his keels to the aliens and the folk of another fold.
But amidst all this.<£gisthus at home wrought deeds right grim;
For the son of Atreus he slaughtered, and the folk were in bonds to him.
Seven years did hd lord it over Mycenae golden-great,
But the eighth year came Orestes the glorious, came his fate;
He betook him home from Athens and slew his father’s bane,
^Egisthus, crafty of rede, who his famous father had slain.
He slew him, and then to the Argives gave the feast of the burial bed
Over his baleful mother and ^igisthus mightless and dead.
And that same day came Menelaus, the skilled in the voice of war,
And plenteous wealth was with him, the freight that his good ship bore.
“But thou, dear son, from thy homestead no longer be wandering wide,
Leaving thy wealth, and leaving such men in thine house to abide,
So utterly overweening, lest they eat up all from thee,
And share out all thy havings, and in vain shall thy wayfaring be;
But unto Menelaus I charge thee and bid thee to fare,
For he has come but newly to his home from otherwhere,
Yea, from men whence no man in his heart could have hope to win away
When once the winds and the whirlwinds had driven him far astray,
Into so mighty an ocean that not in one whole year
Could the very fowl flee from it, so great it is and drear.
So now depart with thy fellows in thy ship across the sea.
Or if of the land thou art liefer, I have twi-car and horses for thee;
And my sons are for thee moreover, and they shall bring thee there
Unto glorious Lacedaemon, and Menelaus the fair;
And thou thyself shalt beseech him that he tell thee the very truth.
And nought of lies will he tell thee, for most wise he is forsooth.”
He spake, and the sun was setting and the dark came on amain,
And the Goddess, the Grey-eyed Athene, she spake and answered again:
“Yea, father, thou sayest it meetly, and good is this word of thine;
But betake ye to slicing the tongues and to blending of the wine,
That we unto Poseidon and all the Deathless may pour,
And so of our beds bethink us, for this is the rightful hour.
For the light is gone under the darkness, and no man doth it befit
To sit long at the feast of the Gods, but all of us homeward to flit.”
So spake the Daughter of Zeus, and they hearkened her voice and her word;
And the water over their hands the serving-fellows poured,
And the swains to the bowls betook them, and with drink they brimmed them up,
And dealt about to all men, and poured from cup unto cu
And then they arose and poured forth, and cast the tongues on the fire;
But when they had poured, and had drunk each man to his heart’s desire,
Then therewithal did Athene and godlike Telemachus yearn
To get them gone thenceforth, to their hollow ship to return:
Yet did Nestor hold them aback and with words did on them fall:
“Nay now, may Zeus forbid it, and the Deathless one and all,
That ye to your ship swift sailing should depart from me to-night,
As though from a poor man’s dwelling and the house of a raimentless wight,
As from one who nothing of blankets or of rugs in his house doth keep,
That neither he nor his guest-friends full soft anights may sleep;
Whereas in my house are blankets and noble rugs good store.
Nay, ne’er shall the son beloved of the man Odysseus of yore
On the deck of his ship be lying, while I am living at least.
But thereafter my sons in my homestead shall abide the folk to feast,
Whoso may fare unto usward for the guesting of our stead.”
Then the Goddess, the Grey-eyed Athene, in this wise answered and said:
“All good are thy words, dear father, and well it befitteth thee
That Telemachus do thy bidding; for fairer so shall it be;
And he with thee will be wending to sleep in thine house and thine hall.
But aboard of the coal-black ship will I be wending withal
To hearten up my fellows, and to tell them what hath betid,
For that I alone amid these men am the elder may not be hid;
And the rest they are but younglings, and for love’s sake with us fare:
To Telemachus mighty of mood all equal in age they are.
So I in the black ship’s hollow will sleep, and on the morn
To those great-souled Cauconians will I belike be borne,
Where owed unto me is increase; nor yet of yesterday,
Nor little it is. But this man, to thy house he hath wended his way,
Set him forth with thy sons and thy twi-car and give him horses at need,
E’en such as thou hast that are stoutest and swiftest-footed to speed.”
So spake the Grey-eyed Athene, and like to an eagle was gone,
And wonder and awe held all men who were gazing thereupon;
And the old man marvelled indeed at the sight he had seen with his eyes,
And he took Telemachus’ hand, and named him, and spake in such wise:
“Nought base I deem thee, O friend, and no weakling shalt thou be,
When the Gods in thine early days thus guide and further thee.
For none other was this of all those that Olympian houses hold,
Save the Daughter of Zeus, the War-glorious, the Trito-born from of old.
E’en she who honoured thy father mid the Argives in the strife.
But do thou, O Queen, be gracious! and give good glory of life
To me and to my children, and my wife of reverend grace;
And a heifer will I give thee, a yearling wide of face,
Untamed, whom no man ever beneath the yoke hath won:
E’en her to thee will I hallow, and her horns with gold shall be done.”
Thus-wise he prayed, and Athene gave ear to the words he sped.
Then the Rider of Gerenia, old Nestor, these men led,
E’en his sons and his daughters’ husbands, to the lovely house of his home.
But when to the house all-glorious of the king they now were come,
They sat them down in order on bench and noble seat,
And the elder blended the bowl with wine all honey-sweet,
E’en that which the handmaid, the goodwife, in its eleventh year
Had opened at last, and loosened the jar’s head-binding gear.
This then in the bowl he blended, and many things did he pray,
The old man, as he poured to Athene, Zeus the Shield-bearer’s May.
But when they had poured and had drunk as their hearts desired thereto.
The others thence departed and each to his house did go;
But Telemachus, son beloved of Odysseus’ godlihead,
Did Nestor, Gerenian Rider, lead off to sleep and bed,
On the framed and jointed bedstead in the echoing cloister there,
By Pisistratus, leader of war-ranks, the lord of the ashen spear,
Who alone of his sons abided in his house and hall unwed:
But for him, he slept as his wont was, in the nook of his high-built stead,
Where his bed, and therewith his bed-gear, his queen-wife for him dight
But when the Mother of Morning, Rose-fingered Dawn, shone bright,
The Rider, Gerenian Nestor, rose up from his bed straightway,
And gat him forth and sat him on the well-smoothed stones that lay
In the forefront of his homestead, before the high-built door,
White, polished, well-sleeked over: there in the days of yore
Would Neleus oft be sitting, as the Gods in council great;
But now to the House of Hades had he wended, tamed by fate.
And there in his turn sat Nestor, the Achaeans’ warder, the King,
Holding his staff; and about him were his gathered sons in a ring,
New come from their rooms. Echephron and Stratius, there they were;
Perseus was there, and Aretus, Thrasymedes, godhead’s peer;
And to them came forth the sixth man, Pisistratus warfain and great
So Telemachus the godlike amidst them they led to his seat,
And Nestor, Gerenian Rider, in their midst the word began:
“Loved sons, fulfil my desire in the swiftest wise ye can,
That of all the Gods from Athene I most the grace may gain,
Who to our glorious God-feast came manifest and plain.
Now let one go to the meadow, that, as swift as it may be done,
We have a heifer hither, with the neatherd driving her on;
And let one to the black ship going of Telemachus, mighty of mind,
