Howbeit ’tis ever the fashion of holy kings and great

  That this one will they love of manfolk, and that other one will they hate.

  But he to no man ever did any deed of unright

  But for you, your shameless souls are shown and come to light:

  Nor forsooth doth all well-doing the fruit of kindness bear.”

  Then Medon, skilled in prudence, thuswise he answered her:

  “Ah well it were, O Queen, that this were the worst of the ill;

  But indeed a grievous matter, a thing more grievous still,

  These Wooers are now devising: may Zeus not bring it to pass!

  For Telemachus now are they eager to slay with the whetted brass,

  As he wendeth him hither homeward; for he went of his father to hear,

  To Pylos exceeding goodly, and Lacedaemon the fair.”

  So he spake, and her knees were loosened and the heart within her failed,

  And a long while over her mouth the speechlessness prevailed,

  And her eyes were filled with tears and her full sweet voice fell dead.

  But at last she spake with words, and answered him and said:

  “Henchman, why then went my child, and wherefore needed he

  To fare on the ships swift-sailing that to men are the steeds of the sea,

  And over the mighty waste of the wallow of waters they wend?

  Doth he so that his name among manfolk may perish and come to an end?”

  But her then Medon answered, in prudence skilled and good:

  “I wot not if one of the Godfolk hath urged him, or his own mood

  Drave him on to fare unto Pylos some tidings thence to get

  If his father were wending homeward, or what fateful doom he hath met.”

  So speaking, straight he departed to the house of Odysseus the fair:

  But soul-wasting grief enwrapped her, nor yet in any chair

  Did she endure to be sitting, though her house had many an one.

  On the threshold of her chamber much-wrought she sat her down

  And piteously bewailed her, and around moaned her handmaids there,

  As many of young or of old as about the homestead were.

  To these amidst plenteous wailing thus spake Penelope:

  ‘ Hearken, O friends! the Olympian much grief hath given to me

  Beyond all other women that with me were born and bred:

  For first my glorious husband, the lion-heart, is dead,

  Bright with all worth and valour past every Danaan man,

  Whose fame was abroad in Hellas and through mid Argos ran:

  And now my son beloved from our halls have the whirlwinds rent,

  And no tidings left: for I knew not the hour when he hastened and went.

  O cruel! that none among you should have had the thought in her head,

  Though well ye knew what was toward, to lead me forth from my bed

  In that nick of time when the youngling on his hollow black ship went;

  For I, if I had wotted that on such a way he was bent,

  Then verily had I stayed him for as fain of the road as he were,

  Or dead should he have left me in these halls of the homestead here.

  But now let a handy swain bid Dolius hither to come,

  The thrall that my father gave me when here I was wending home,

  And who keepeth my orchard of trees, that as swift as may be done

  He sit beside Laertes and tell him how all hath gone,

  If he in his mind mayhappen may weave some rede of avail,

  And going out mid the people ‘gainst those may raise the wail,

  Who his seed and the seed of Odysseus the godlike are eager to slay.”

  But her loved nurse Euryclea in turn did answer and say:

  “Dear Queen, now whether thou slay me straightway with the ruthless sword,

  Or let me live on in the homestead, from thee will I hide no word

  For of all these things have I wotted, and all that he bade me I gave,

  Both bread and honey-sweet wine; but a great oath of me did he have

  To tell thee nothing hereof till the twelfth day came to hand,

  Or till thou thyself hadst lacked him and hadst heard of him leaving the land;

  Lest thou mar thy lovely body with weeping and with woe.

  But now wash thee and on thy body the clean fair raiment do,

  And up to thy bower aloft with thine handmaids wend thy way,

  And there to Athene, the Daughter of Zeus the Shielded, pray:

  For She is the one who may save him, yea, e’en from the very death.

  Nor trouble an old man’s trouble, for my mind to me nowise saith

  That the happy Gods are hating all this Arcesius’ seed:

  But there shall yet be abiding one man to hold at need

  These great high-builded houses and the fat fields far from here.”

  So saying she lulled her wailing and stanched her eyes of the tear;

  So she washed her and on her body the raiment clean she cast,

  And up to her bower aloft with her handmaids then she passed,

  And she set the meal in the maund, and thus to Athene she prayed:

  “Hear me, O Seed of the Shielded, of Zeus, thou untamed Maid!

  If ever Odysseus the Shifty within these halls hath burned

  Fat thighs of ox and of sheep, thereto let thy mind be turned;

  And thereof for my sake be mindful and save my son lest he die,

  And ward him from these my Wooers of the evil hearts and high.”

  She cried out as she spake, and the Goddess was hearkening her prayer and her need

  But great in the shadowy hall was the din of the Wooers indeed,

  And thus would one say to another of those young o’erweening men:

  “This Queen of the many Wooers dights the wedding for us then,

  But nought of the bane is she wotting that is fated for her son.”

  Thus would he say, not knowing what Fate was speeding on.

  But Antinoiis took up the word and spake in their midst again:

  “Now once for all, good fellows, from o’erweening words refrain,

  Lest some one fetch and carry the tidings there within.

  Now let us arise in silence, and the tale and device let us win

  Which unto us all, we Wooers, has seemed so good and fair.”

  So saying, he chose out twenty of the best of those that were there.

  To the ship swift-sailing they hastened, and down to the shore of the sea.

  And first adown to the deeps they hauled her there to be,

  While within her, the coal-black ship, the masts and the sails they set,

  And into the leathern rowlocks the oars withal did they get,

  And fitted all in order, and the white sails hoisted abroad.

  Then the high-souled swains of service brought them their arms aboard,

  And in the deep they moored her and went up one and all;

  And therewith they gat them to supper and abode till night should fall.

  But in her upper chamber all-wise Penelope lay,

  And fasting of meat and of drink she pondered either way,

  Whether her noble son should yet escape his bane,

  Or whether by those Wooers the masterful he should be slain.

  As amidst the thronging menfolk a lion broods o’er his fear,

  Whenso all round about him they draw the ring and the snare,

  In such wise did she ponder till sleep on her did fall,

  And she slept as aback she lay, and her limbs slacked one and all.

  But the Grey-eyed, the Goddess Athene, of other matters thought,

  And an image and a seeming in the shape of a woman she wrought,

  Iphthime Icarius’ daughter, the high-souled; her did wed

  Eumelus, who in Pherae upheld his house and stead.

  To the house of Odysseus the goodly she sped this thing away,

  That Penelope’s sore sorrow and heart-grief she should stay,

  And might stay the weeping and wailing wherewith she made lament.

  So into the sleeping-chamber by the thong of the latch it went,

  And above her head did it stand and this word began to say:

  “O Penelope, then thou sleepest with sorrowing heart alway?

  But the Gods who live so softly will nowise have thee mourn

  And weep in thine affliction; for thy son doth now return,

  Since indeed against the Godfolk no trespasser is he.”

  But therewithal thus answered the wise Penelope

  As she slept exceeding sweetly within the dreamy door:

  “Why comest thou hither, my sister? since never yet before

  Hast thou come here; for thou dwellest in a house far far apart.

  Now thou biddest me cease from lamenting, and my weary grief of heart,

  Wherewith in all unrest my mind and my soul are tossed.

  But first my glorious husband, the lion-heart, have I lost,

  Adorned with worth and valour o’er every Danaan man,

  Whose fame was abroad in Hellas and through mid Argos ran.

  And now my son beloved in the hollow ship hath gone!

  A child! who of toil or of Councils scant knowledge yet hath won.

  And for him more than my husband do I sorrow, for I fear,

  And sore I tremble about him, lest some evil fate he bear

  Amid the folk he hath gone to, or perchance upon the sea;

  For many foemen about him are devising craftily,

  And are eager for his slaughter ere he come to his fatherland.”

  But the shadowy image answered and spake whence it did stand:

  “Heart-up! nor thy mind be holding so utterly in fear;

  For such a guide was with him as all men everywhere

  Would crave to have beside them, and She hath might thereto.

  And She is Pallas Athene, and it pitieth Her of thy woe.

  And now hath She sent me hither to speak this word to thee.”

  But therewith spake and answered all-wise Penelope:

  “Now if of God thou art, and the voice of God hast heard,

  I pray thee of Him the Hapless tell me another word,

  Whether -he yet is living and beholding the light of the sun,

  Or down in the House of Hades dwells dead with his life-days done?”

  But withal the shadowy image thus answered her and said

  “I will not tell thee throughly if the man be alive or dead;

  For ill it is to babble a windy tale, and vain.”

  Therewith by the bolt of the doorpost it drew away again,

  And passed into the breath of the wind: but Icarius’ daughter withal

  Roused her awhile from slumber and joy on her heart did fall,

  So clear was the dream that came to her when the night was deep and dead.

  But the Wooers went a-shipboard and o’er the wet ways sped,

  And in their minds were they brooding for Telemachus bitter bane.

  A certain island is there rock-built in the midst of the main,

  Midways ‘twixt the Ithacan land and Samos craggy and bare:

  It is Asteris called, nor is great: but it hath an haven fair,

  Two-mouthed, and those Achaeans they lay a lurking there.

  BOOK V.

  ARGUMENT.

  A COUNCIL OF THE GODS. HERMES SENT TO CALYPSO TO BID HER FURTHER

  THE RETURN OF ODYSSEUS. ODYSSEUS SAILS AWAY ON A RAFT. HE IS

  WRECKED IN THE SEA HARD ON PH^EACIA AND SWIMS ASHORE THERE.

  NOW Dawn arose from her bed and the great Tithonus’ side

  To bear the light to the Deathless and to mortals far and wide »

  But the gathered Gods were sitting, and there among the rest

  Was Zeus the Lofty Thunderer, whose might is the mightiest.

  There the manifold grief of Odysseus mindful Athene told,

  For e’en yet was she heedful of him whom the house of the Nymph did hold.

  “Zeus, Father and happy Godfolk of the life that never dies,

  Henceforth let no king mace-bearing be kind and mild and wise,

  Nor let him still be minded toward meet and righteous rede,

  But rather hard and cruel and bold for godless deed;

  Since none of the folk remember Odysseus great and good,

  Who once was king among them as a father mild of mood.

  But he in an isle is abiding and bearing heavy woe

  In the halls of the nymph Calypso, who will not let him go;

  And nowise is he able to win to his fathers’ land,

  For no oar-dight ships he hath, and no fellows are to hand,

  E’en such as well might speed him o’er the broad back of the main;

  And now of his dear son’s slaying a certain folk are fain

  As his ways he wendeth homeward; for he went of his father to hear,

  To Pylos exceeding goodly and to Lacedaemon the dear.”

  Then Zeus, the Cloud-packs’ Herder, he answered her and said:

  “O my child, and what a word from the wall of thy teeth hath sped,

  For is not e’en this counsel of thine own devising then,

  That Odysseus home returning might wreak him on these men?

  But with craft Telemachus speed thou, as no might thereto dost thou lack,

  That unto the land of his fathers all scathless he get him aback;

  And the Wooers, home be they wending in their ship with nothing done ‘ ‘‘

  And therewith he spake unto Hermes his well-beloved son:

  “Hermes, since thou in all else hast ever our tidings to speed,

  To the nymph of the hair well-woven now carry this unerring rede;

  The return of Odysseus the patient, that homeward he may hie,

  Though not by the Godfolks’ guiding or the deed of men that die.

  But many a grief enduring upon a raft well-bound

  On the twentieth day shall he win him to Scheria’s loamy ground,

  To the land of those Phaeacians who are the Gods’ own kin;

  And of them and their hearts such worship shall he have as a God may win,

  And in a ship shall they send him to his fatherland the dear,

  And shall give him gold and brass and abundant weed to wear;

  So great that ne’er had Odysseus such spoil from Troy-town got

  Had he come aback all scathless with his due and shared-out lot

  For so aright is it fated that his folk and his friends he behold,

  And come back to his house high-builded and the land of his fathers of old.”

  So he spake, and the Slayer of Argus, the Flitter, gainsaid him nought,

  But straightway unto his foot-soles he bound the shoon fair-wrought,

  Deathless and never-dying: o’er the wet wave him they bear,

  And over the limitless land as swift as the breath of the air.

  And he took his wand wherewithal he lulleth the eyelids of men,

  Of those whom he willeth, but others from slumber he rouseth again.

  This then in his hand thus holding flew the mighty Argus-bane,

  And over Pieria wending from the heavens sank down to the main.

  Then over the billows he drave; as a fowl, as a sea-mew, was he,

  Who over the terrible gulf of the all unharvested sea

  Fares ever hunting the fishes, and her thick wing dips in the deep.

  E’en so o’er the manifold billows his way did Hermes keep;

  But when he came to the island that far and far off lay,

  Then forth from the dark-blue sea-flood aland he went his way,

  Till unto a mighty cavern where dwelt the Nymph did he win,

  E’en she of the hair well-woven; and he found her therewithin.

  On the hearth burned a mighty fire, and the savour and the scent

  Of the well-cleft cedar and sandal all through the island went;

  And therewithin was she singing in a voice exceeding sweet

  As she traversed the loom aweaving and the web with a gold comb beat.

  But all about that cavern there grew a blossoming wood,

  Of alder and of poplar and of cypress savouring good;

  And fowl therein wing-spreading were wont to roost and be,

  For owls were there and falcons, and long-tongued crows of the sea,

  And deeds of the sea they deal with and thereof they have a care.

  But round the hollow cavern there spread and flourished fair

  A vine of garden breeding, and in its grapes was glad;

  And four wells of the white water their heads together had,

  And flowing on in order four ways they thence did get;

  And soft were the meadows blooming with parsley and violet

  Yea, if thither indeed had come e’en one of the Deathless, e’en he

  Had wondered and gladdened his heart with all that was there to see.

  And there in sooth stood wondering the Flitter, the Argus-bane.

  But when o’er all these matters in his soul he had marvelled amain,

  Then into the wide cave went he, and Calypso, Godhead’s Grace,

  Failed nowise there to know him as she looked upon his face;

  For never unknown to each other are the Deathless Gods, though they

  Apart from one another may be dwelling far away.

  But Odysseus the mighty-hearted within he met not there,

  Who on the beach sat weeping, as oft he was wont to wear

  His soul with grief and groaning, and weeping; yea, and he

  As the tears he was pouring downward yet gazed o’er the untilled sea.

  But to Hermes spake Calypso, the Godhead’s Glorious One,

  And said, as aloft she was sitting on her all-bright gleaming throne:

  “O God of the Wand of Gold, O Hermes dread and dear,

  Why comest thou now, since aforetime thou wert not frequent here?

  Tell me whereof thou art minded, for my heart would have it won

  If my might thereto may avail me, and if it be doomed to be done.

  But fare thou forth, for the guest-cheer for thee as now would I dight.”

  In such wise spake the Goddess, and spread the board aright

  With meat of the Deathless before him and mingled the nectar red,

  And there ate and drank the Flitter, the Bane of Argus dead.

  So after that he had eaten, his soul with the meat to rejoice,

  He answered the speech of the Goddess and sent forth the word of his voice:

 

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