The Odyssey, Page 55
Homer
making it into a bedpost, bored holes in it with my auger.
Beginning with that, I worked till I'd finished the whole bed,
adorned it with inlays--gold, silver, ivory--then latticed
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the bed frame with thongs of oxhide, dyed bright purple.
Thus I describe this token to you--though I've no idea
if this bed of mine's still in place, wife, or whether by now
some man's severed the olive's trunk, and moved it elsewhere."
So he spoke. Her knees and heart were undone on the spot,
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since well she knew the sure tokens that Odysseus had described.
Then she ran straight to him in tears, and flung her arms
about his neck, kissed his face, and addressed him, saying:
"Don't be angry with me, Odysseus! In all other matters
you've been the wisest of men--the gods it was brought us grief,
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begrudging that we two should remain one with the other,
enjoy our joint life together from youth to the brink of old age.
But please don't now get cross or take me to task because
at first sight I didn't, as now, give you a loving welcome!
The heart in my breast was always terrified lest some man
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might turn up here, beguile me with his specious story--
many there are who scheme for their own low profit!
Not even Argive Helen, Zeus' progeny, would have coupled
in love and bed with that foreigner had she but known
the Achaians' warlike sons were going to fetch her back
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to her own home and country. In her case a god
incited her to commit her improper act: not till then
did she put in her mind that ghastly act of mad folly,
that first brought such grief upon us as well. But now--
since you've already recounted, clear and plain, the tokens
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of this bed of ours, seen by no other living mortal
except you and me alone, and one solitary handmaid,
Aktor's daughter, a gift from my father, before I came here,
the doorkeeper of our close-built bridal chamber now--
you've convinced my heart, all too stubborn though it was."
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So she spoke, and stirred in his heart yet more the urge to cry,
and he wept as he held in his arms his loyal beloved wife,
and welcome as is the appearance of dry land to men swimming,
men whose strong ship Poseidon has wrecked out on the deep,
as it's driven on by the gale and the cresting waves,
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and few have made it to land out of the grey salt sea
by swimming, and thick is the brine that's crusted on their bodies,
and glad they are to have got ashore, and escaped disaster--
so welcome to her was her husband as she looked upon him,
never relaxing the hold of her white arms round his neck.
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Indeed, rosy-fingered Dawn would have risen while they wept
had the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, not planned things otherwise.
The night's last stage she prolonged, while holding up
golden-throned Dawn at Ocean, and not permitting her
to yoke up her swift-footed horses, bringing light to mankind--
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Phaethon and Lampos, the colts that draw Dawn's chariot.
Then resourceful Odysseus addressed his wife, saying: "Not yet
have we reached the conclusion, my wife, of all our trials:
there's a measureless task still awaiting us in the future,
both long and hard: I need to accomplish this in full.
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That's what the ghost of Teiresias prophesied to me
on the day I ventured down into the realm of Hades
to enquire about my comrades' homecoming, and my own.
But come, my wife, let's to bed, so that now, at last, soothed
by sweet sleep, we may find our joy and comfort together."
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Then prudent Penelope responded to him, saying:
"Your bed shall be ready for you whenever your heart
is so inclined, now the gods have managed your return
to your well-built home, and to your native country:
but since you've thought of this, and a god's put it in your mind,
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tell me what this trial is--I fancy I'll learn its nature
soon enough: no bad thing to know of it in advance."
Then resourceful Odysseus responded to her, saying:
"Strange lady, why do you now so urgently want me
to tell you this? Well, I'll do so, I'll keep nothing secret.
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But your heart will get no joy of it, nor am I myself
happy about it. Teiresias said I must travel to numerous
cities of men, while holding a well-shaped oar in my hands,
until I come among men who know nothing of the sea,
who eat their food without flavoring it with salt
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and have never set eyes on ships with purple cheeks
or on the well-shaped oars that serve as a ship's wings;
and he told me a manifest sign, one that wouldn't escape me:
when on the road I encounter another man who believes
what I have on my sturdy shoulder is a winnowing-fan,
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I'm to fix my well-shaped oar on end in the ground,
and offer a lavish sacrifice to the lord Poseidon--
a ram, a bull, and a stud boar that mounts its sows.
I then must come back home, make rich sacred offerings
to the immortal gods who possess broad heaven,
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in due order. Death will come to me from the sea,
the gentlest of ends, that will take me only when
I've worn out a sleek old age, with my people round me
prospering. All of this, he told me, would come to pass."
Prudent Penelope then responded to him, saying:
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"If indeed the gods are allowing you a better old age,
then there's hope that we'll get a chance to escape our troubles."
Such was the conversation between them. All this while
the nurse and Eurynome were making up their bed
with soft bedclothes, under the light of flaming torches;
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and when they'd hastily readied the solid bedstead,
the old nurse went off to sleep in her own quarters,
while Eurynome, maid of the bedchamber, conducted them
on their way to bed, holding a torch on her hand.
After escorting them there she too retired, while they
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happily rediscovered the world of their old-time bed.
Telemachos and the cowherd and the swineherd now
stopped their feet from dancing, stopped the women too,
and lay down to sleep themselves, in the shadowy halls.
When the couple had had their fill of passionate lovemaking,
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they got pleasure from conversation, chatting to one another.
She, bright among women, told of all she'd borne in the halls,
having to watch the destructive crowd of suitors, those who,
with her as excuse, had slaughtered many cattle and fat sheep,
while too much wine was drawn from the storage jars; while he,
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Zeus-born Odysseus, recounted all the woes he'd inflicted
on others, and all he'd endured with pain himself;
and she heard him out with delight, and sweet sleep never
was shed on her eyelids until his whole tale was told.
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then came to the rich terrain of the lotus-eating men;
and all that the Kyklops did, and the price he made him pay
for those of his sturdy comrades he'd pitilessly devoured;
and then how he came to Aiolos, who readily welcomed him,
and gave him conveyance--but he was not yet fated to reach
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his own land: once again the storm wind snatched him up
and bore him, heavily groaning, over the fish-rich deep;
then how he'd come to Telepylos, where the Laistrygonians
destroyed his ships and all his well-greaved comrades,
Odysseus alone escaping in his black ship. He next
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recounted all of Kirke's deceits and contrivances,
how he'd gone in his many-oared ship to Hades' dank domain,
to consult the spirit of Theban Teiresias; and how
there he'd seen every one of his former companions,
besides the mother who bore him, and nursed him as a child;
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how he'd heard the voice of the Sirens, unceasing singers;
how he'd come to the Wandering Rocks, and to dread Charybdis
and Skylle, from whom till then no man had escaped unscathed;
and how his comrades had slaughtered the cattle of Helios;
and how his swift ship had been struck by a smoldering bolt
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from high-thundering Zeus, and his fine comrades died together,
all of them: he alone got clear of the grim death spirits;
how he came to the isle of Ogygia and the nymph Kalypso,
who kept him there, longing to have him as her husband,
in her hollow caves, and looked after him, and declared
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she would make him immortal and ageless all his days,
yet never could win over the heart in his breast; and how
after many hardships endured he reached the Phaiakians,
who treated him with high honor, as though he were a god,
and conveyed him home in a ship to his native country
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with presents of bronze and gold and apparel. This concluded
the tale as he told it and was when sweet limb-loosening
sleep sprang on him, dissolving his heart's anxieties.
The grey-eyed goddess Athene now had another idea.
When she figured Odysseus had had his fill of pleasure
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from bedding his wife and sleeping, she at once aroused
from Ocean the Dawn, early risen and golden-throned,
to bring light to mankind; and now Odysseus arose
from his soft bed, and gave a charge to Penelope, saying:
"My wife, by now we've had a surfeit of endless trials,
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both of us, you here weeping over my troubled homecoming,
while Zeus and the other deities hobbled me with hardships
far from my own country, though I longed to be back!
But now we've come at last to the marriage bed we yearned for,
you'll care for such possessions as I have here in the halls;
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and as for the flocks that these haughty suitors have wasted,
I'll get a good many by raiding, and others that the Achaians
will give me, until we've replenished every last empty stall!
My first task now is to visit my wooded farmstead and see
my sturdy old father, who's so distressed on my account.
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And on you, wife, I lay this charge, as a sensible woman:
Beginning at sunrise the word will very soon get around
concerning these men, the suitors, whom I slew in our halls;
so both you and your women servants must go upstairs
to your chamber and sit there: no peeping, don't ask questions."
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That said, he arranged his fine armor about his shoulders,
woke up Telemachos and the cowherd and the swineherd,
and ordered them all to lay hands on their war gear. They
did not disregard him, but donned their bronze body armor,
and opened the doors and went out, with Odysseus leading.
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Light already was over the earth, but Athene concealed them
in darkness, and led them out quickly from the city.
Book 24
Hermes, god of Kyllene, now summoned forth the ghosts
of the men who'd been suitors: he held the staff in his hands--
exquisite, golden--with which he bemuses the eyes
of those he wishes, while others he conjures out of their sleep.
This he used to herd and to lead them: they followed him, squeaking.
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As in the furthest recesses of some vast cave the bats
flit about squeaking when one of them falls down the rock face
from the chain they form, clinging closely one to another,
so these went along with him, squeaking. Hermes the healer
conducted them down dank and moldering pathways:
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by the streams of Ocean they went, and the White Rock,
they went by the gates of the sun and the region of dreams,
and quickly they now arrived at the meadow of asphodels,
where ghosts dwell, the shades of those whose toils are over.
There they found the ghost of Peleus' son Achilles,
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and those of Patroklos and of peerless Antilochos,
and of Aias, unmatched for handsomeness and stature
among all the Danaans, save for Peleus' peerless son.
So these gathered round Achilles. Close to them now
there came the ghost of Atreus' son Agamemnon,
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grieving; and round him clustered the ghosts of all those
who'd died and met their fate with him in Aigisthos' house;
and the first ghost to address him was the son of Peleus, saying:
"Son of Atreus, we had this belief that Zeus, the hurler of bolts,
loved you above other heroes, for all your days, because
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you were lord over many brave men out there in the land
of the Trojans, where we Achaians suffered much hardship.
Yet on you as well there was fated to come too early
that deadly destiny which no mortal born can avoid--
Would that, while still enjoying your royal power,
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you'd encountered your death and fate in Trojan country!
"Then all the Achaians would have made you a burial mound,
and great glory would have been yours, and your son's, hereafter,
whereas now you've been doomed to suffer a most piteous death."
Then the ghost of the son of Atreus responded to him, saying:
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"Ah, fortunate son of Peleus, godlike Achilles: you died
out at Troy, far from Argos, and around you others were slain,
the finest sons of the Trojans and the Achaians,
fighting over your body; amid the swirling dust
great in your greatness you lay, your horsemanship forgotten.
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That whole day we battled; we'd never have quit fighting
had Zeus not unleashed a hurricane, and stopped us.
But when we'd carried you out of the battle to the ships,
we laid you on a litter, and cleansed your splendid body
with warm water and unguents, and the Danaans shed
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many warm tears over you, cut off locks of their hair.
Your mother came up from the sea with her immortal sea nymphs
when she heard the news: a cry echoed over the deep,
a strange
cry, and panic now seized on all the Achaians:
they'd have taken off and run for it, back to the hollow ships,
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had they not been checked by a man versed in ancient wisdom--
