Complete Works of William Morris, page 658
As he charged him athwart; but the bone of the man he touched not it.
But a stroke Odysseus smote him, and his right shoulder he hit,
And straightway through and through him came the spear-shaft’s glittering
And he fell in the dust a-grunting, and forth his spirit fled. [head,
Then the kindly Autolycus’ children the boar they dighted there,
And the hurt of the goodly Odysseus, the valiant godhead’s peer,
Deftly they bound, and they staunched the blood with the staunching-song,
And unto the house of their father they speedily brought him along.
Him Autolycus thereafter, and the sons of Autolycus,
Having healed him well and given him gifts great and glorious,
Did truly and kindly speed him with gifts on either hand
To Ithaca, where his father and high mother to his land
Returning gave him welcome, and asked him of each deed,
And the hurt that he had gotten; and the tale to them did he speed,
How a-hunting of the wood-boar, his white tooth tore him thus,
As unto Parnassus he wended with the sons of Autolycus.
But now as the old wife took him, and with flat hand stroked him withal.
She handled the scar and knew it, and let the limb down fall,
And it came adown on the bath-vat, that with a clanging sound
Upon its side turned over, and the water spilled on the ground;
Then joy and sorrow mingled caught her heart, tears filled her eyes,
And choked was her fulness of voice, and scarce might utterance arise:
But she touched the chin of Odysseus, and spake as her voice she got:
“O thou art Odysseus! — dear child, and I, I knew thee not
Until all over my master these hands of mine had passed!”
And unto Penelope therewith a glance of her eyes she cast,
Full fain that she should be wotting that her lord was there in the place.
But she had no might to behold him, and to look and heed his face,
For her mind thence turned Athene. But Odysseus groped about
With his hands, and so with his right hand he caught the nurse by
And with the other drew her yet nigher him and said: [the throat,
“Ah, nurse, wouldst thou destroy me? and thou, when me thou hast fed
On thy very breast! Yea, ’tis I, that with many a grief to bear,
Have come back to the land of my fathers at last in the twentieth year.
But now since thou hast known me, and some God thy soul hath taught,
Keep silence, lest to some other of the house the knowledge be brought;
For one thing now I tell thee, and fulfilled shall be the same:
If these high-hearted Wooers the God ‘neath me shall tame,
For all that I was thy suckling from thee will I not refrain
When the other serving-women by me in the house are slain.”
But the heart-wise Euryclea, she answered him and said:
“O me, my child! what a word from the hedge of thy teeth hath sped!
Thou knowest my will, how steadfast, how little I use to bend;
I will hold me hard as the iron or some stark stone to the end
But now a thing will I tell thee; in thine heart do thou ponder it well,
If some God these high-heart Wooers beneath thine hand shall quell,
Of the women here in the hall will I give the tale to thee,
And tell thee whichso shame thee, and whichso sackless be.”
But to her then spake and answered Odysseus of many a rede:
“Nay, why shouldst thou tell me, goodwife? hereof is nought of need.
Nay, each myself will I mark her, and will know how each doth live:
Hold but thy peace of speaking, and the rest to the Gods do thou give.’
So he spake, and therewith the carline through the feast-hall went adown
To fetch the foot-washing water, for the first to the earth was thrown;
But when she had washed him and sleeked him with olive oil all o’er,
Then Odysseus drew the settle anigh to the fire once more,
To warm him, and hid the scar with his rags that it should not be seen
But Penelope spake amidst them, and thus said the all-wise Queen:
“O guest, yet a little longer will I ask thee in speech to abide,
For soon shall be the season of the happy slumber-tide
For him whom the sweet sleep taketh, though grieved at heart he be;
But a sorrow without measure hath the God ordained for me.
Daylong indeed I delight me with the wailing of my woe;
As my work and the women’s o’erseeing, about the house I go:
But when at last night cometh, and Sleep taketh hold of all,
Then I lie on my bed, and thick thronging the sorrows on me fall,
And bitter-sharp and ceaseless stir up my heart to wail;
As when the Pandareus’ daughter, the fallow nightingale,
Singeth exceeding sweetly in the new-come Spring’s increase,
Amid the close leaves sitting, and the covert of the trees;
And many a trill she turneth, and her full voice doth she pour
As that Itylus she bewaileth, her loved son, whom of yore
With the brass she slew unwitting, e’en the son of Zethus the King.
So twowise hither and thither my soul goes wavering,
Whether here by my son abiding I shall guard all steadfastly,
My treasure, and my handmaids, and my great house roofed on high,
And worship the bed of my husband, and the fame of the folk and their
Or shall follow some one of Achaeans, whoso is the worthiest lord, [word,
And wooeth me here in the halls with wooing gifts measureless great.
And so long as my son was light-minded and nought but a child of estate,
Then I might not wed and be leaving my child and my husband’s home;
But now that great he is waxen, and to manhood’s measure hath come,
He also in turn craves of me to get me gone from the hall,
Being grieved at the gear a-waning; for the Achaean lords eat all.
“But come now, hearken a dream, and the same unto me arede:
I have twenty geese in the homestead who come up from the water to feed
On the wheat; and me it delighteth to look upon the same.
But lo you, a crook-nebbed eagle adown from the mountain came,
And brake all their necks and slew them, that there on a heap they lay
In the stead, and aloft he flew to the holy lift of the day.
And for me I wept and bewailed me though nought but a dream it were,
And the well-tressed damsels Achaean were gathered about me there,
While sore I wept that the eagle had slaughtered my geese for me.
But aback came the eagle, and now on the jutting eaves sat he,
And spake with the voice of a mortal, and bade me stay my woe:
“‘ Heart up, Icarius’ Daughter, whom all the world doth know
No dream is this, but a vision most good, aiid shall come to pass;
For these geese they are the Wooers, and I, the erne that was,
Now as thy very husband to thee have come back home,
And over all the Wooers shall draw a deadly doom,’
“So he spake, and Sleep the soother then let me go, and fled:
And I gazed about, and my geese, I beheld them there in the stead,
The wheat from the trough devouring, and all as it was before.”
Then Odysseus of many a rede this answer toward her bore:
“How then may this dream’s a-reding be turned another road,
Since the very man, e’en Odysseus himself, to thee hath showed
What wise shall all be accomplished? for manifest and plain
Shows the death for all the Wooers, none shall ‘scape the doom of bane?”
But Penelope the heart-wise unto this answer fell:
“Yet, guest, dreams come to nothing and confused tales they tell,
Nor yet doth all their tokening to all men come about.
Lo now, of dreams swift-fleeting! through two gates fare they out,
And one of horn is fashioned, and one of the wood-beast’s tooth,
And those through the tooth that wend them to usward, they forsooth
But vainly do beguile us with the promise idly borne;
While they that come unto menfolk by the gate of polished hom
Fulfil their tokening truly to the man who them hath seen:
But not from thence meseemeth hath the way to meward been
Of that wild dream, else welcome to me and my son it were:
But this I tell thee, and hold it in thine heart with heed and care,
That to-morrow cometh name-cursed for the day that shall sunder me
From Odysseus’ house: for the contest shall I ordain it to be,
The game of the axes; which that man within our house and hall
Would set up a-row like ship-ribs to the number of twelve in all,
And, standing aloof, a long way, would shoot a shaft right through,
So this contest shall I ‘stablish for them that come hither to woo.
For lo you, whoso with his palms the bow shall lightly bend,
And through all twelve of the axes a shaft therefrom shall send,
Him then shall I follow, departing from this house of the wedded wife,
This fair house, so abundant in all that upholdeth life,
Which yet shall I remember, though but in dreams it be.
Then Odysseus many-counselled he answered, and thus spake he:
“O beworshipped wife of Odysseus, that is Laertes’ son,
This strife within your homestead delay not; let it be done!
For hither ere that shall Odysseus the many-counselled have come,
Ere these men have handled the bow well polished, or drawn home
The bow-string unto the nocks, or shot the iron through.”
Then Penelope the heart-wise in turn made answer thereto:
“O guest, if thou wert willing to sit here in the hall
And pleasure me thus, no slumber on mine eyelids then should fall.
But nowise it availeth that sleepless men should live;
For the Deathless unto menfolk on the cornkind earth do give
Some share of sleep and slumber, yea unto every one:
Now therefore unto my chamber aloft will I be gone,
And in my bed will lay me, which is made but a place of lament,
And with my tears is watered since the day when Odysseus went
To look on evil Ilios, the nameless place of guilt. [wilt,
There then will I lay me; but thou, lay thee down in this house as thou
And on the floor do thou streak thee; or a bed for thee let them dight.”
So saying, her ways she wended to her bower-aloft the bright;
But not alone, for the handmaids along with her did they fare.
So, going aloft to her chamber with her women thralls, then there
She fell to bewail Odysseus her dear lord, till at last
Sweet slumber over her eyelids Grey-eyed Athene cast.
BOOK XX.
ARGUMENT
HEREIN IS TOLD OF SIGNS AND WONDERS IN AND ABOUT THE
HOUSE OF ODYSSEUS.
SO adown in the porch Odysseus the valiant had his bed,
For he strewed him an untanned oxhide, and over that he spread
Many fells of the sheep which the lordlings of Achaeans there had slain,
And over him Eurynome spread a cloak when down he was lain.
There then lay Odysseus waking, with his mind on bale intent
For those Wooers; but the women now forth from the feast-hall went,
Who e’en now with the Wooers were mingled, and along with them were laid,
And each to each were they laughing, and game and glee they made.
Moved then was the heart of the man within his breast the dear,
And much in doubt was he swaying in his heart and his spirit there,
Whether falling on he should deal them, to every one, her bane,
Or suffer them to mingle with the masterful Wooers again,
E’en one last time and latest; and growled his inmost heart
And e’en as a bitch that goeth round her tender whelps to part
The strange man from them, and bays him, and longeth for the strife,
So inly was he growling in grudge at their evil life,
And, smiting his breast, with a speech-word his heart he fell to chide:
“Yet bear it, O heart! things uglier hast thou borne upon a tide;
Yea, on the day when the Cyclops’ stark fury ate thy men,
Thy goodly folk; and thou bearedst, till even out of the den [day.”
Rede led thee forth, though thou deemedst that thou shouldst die that
So he spake, the soul a-chiding within his breast that lay,
That abode in all obedience steadfast the thing to bear,
But he himself in meanwhile was tossing here and there.
As when a man hath gotten by a great fire blazing out
A paunch of fat and of blood, and turneth it oft about
Hither and thither, all eager to roast it speedily;
So tossed he hither and thither, and ever pondered he
What wise he might have the handling of those Wooers bare of shame,
And he but one among many. Then anigh him Athene came,
Come adown from the lofty heavens, and e’en as a woman was made;
So over his head was she standing, and the word to him she said:
“Why watchest thou and wakest, O man most luckless of life?
In thine own house now thou liest, and within the house is thy wife,
And thy child; such a son as all men would have their son to be.”
Then the many-counselled Odysseus thus answered, and said he:
“Yea, all these things, O Goddess, aright dost thou surely say,
But one thing the mind in my breast doth turn about and weigh,
What wise on these shameless Wooers I now may lay my hand,
Being one alone, and they ever are within a gathered band.
And withal a greater matter I ponder earnestly,
In what wise, if I slay them by the will of Zeus and thee,
I myself may come off scathless: now hereof, I prithee, heed;”
But the Goddess, the Grey-eyed Athene, thus did her answer speed r
“Hard heart! a man might hearken to a friend e’en sorrier;
Yea if he were but a mortal, nor so wise of counsel were
But I that am a Goddess, and through all toil and pain
Without fail ever guard thee, one thing I tell thee plain:
If fifty bands of menfolk, word-speaking wights that are,
Stood round about us, eager for our slaying in the war,
Yet their kine shouldst thou be driving and their goodly fatted sheep.
So now let slumber have thee; for ’tis grievous watch to keep,
And wake night-long; and thine evils shalt thou beguile at last.”
So she spake, and over his eyelids the sleep and slumber cast,
But back again to Olympus did that Godhead’s Glory depart.
But while Sleep, limb-loosener, took him, and let loose the cares of his heart,
His wife, the wont of wisdom, she wakened from her sleep,
And sat up on her bed soft-fashioned and fell therewith to weep.
But when of very weeping all satiate was her mind,
Then to Artemis of all Gods prayed that crown of womankind:
“O Artemis beworshipped, Zeus’ daughter, thee I pray,
Cast thy shaft into my bosom and take my soul away,
Now, now! or let the whirlwind before the lapse of days
Catch me up, and bear me, hurried adown the dusky ways,
A waif for the outgate of Ocean that aback on his ways doth flow.
As the storm-wind bare off the daughters of Pandareus long ago,
When the Gods had slain their parents, and orphans in their hall
Were they left, and Aphrodite she nourished them withal
With cheese and with sweet honey, and joyful wine and good;
And Herd gave unto them beyond all womanhood
Fair shape and wit; and stature gave the holy Artemis;
And cunning gave Athene in the craft that goodly is.
But once, while Aphrodite to the long Olympus hied,
To pray for these same damsels a happy wedding-tide
Of Zeus, the Fain-of-the-thunder, since he knoweth utterly
All things that are doomed and undoomed for men on earth that die.
That while the Wights of the Tempest snatched them up there and then,
And gave them over for handmaids to the Wreakers loathed of men;
E’en so may Olympus’ dwellers from all eyes cover me,
Or the fair-tressed Artemis smite me while Odysseus yet I see,
Yea, e’en if I needs must wend me beneath the dreadful earth
Rather than be the darling of a man of worser worth.
“But lo you, a bale to be borne with if one shall weep through the day,
And ever in ceaseless sorrow shall wear his life away,
But Slumber holds him a night-tide, for all memory then dieth out,
Both of good and of ill, when his eyelids the slumber covereth about:
But evil dreams unto me sendeth God in the sleeping tide;
Yea, e’en on this very night one like to him lay by my side, [glad,
E’en such as he was when he wended with the host; and my heart was
For I thought that a dream no longer, but a vision at last I had had.” go
So she spake; and even therewith was the Gold-throned Dawning come.
But unto the valiant Odysseus the voice of her wailing went home,
And therewith he fell a-pondering, and it seemed to his mind and his mood
As even now she knew him, and over his bed-head stood.
So he took up the cloak and the fleeces wherein he had slept that tide,
And laid them down on a bench of the hall, but bore out the hide
Without doors; and prayed unto Zeus with hands uplifted on high:
“Zeus Father, if ye have willed it, o’er the wet ways and o’er the dry,
