The Odyssey, Page 9

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  in a golden cup, and addressed with welcoming words

  Pallas Athene, daughter of Zeus, who bears the aegis:

  "Make your prayer now, stranger, to the lord Poseidon,

  for his is the feast you have chanced upon, coming here.

  And when you have fittingly prayed and poured libations,

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  then give this man also the cup of honey-sweet wine

  to pour a libation, since he, too, I take it, prays

  to the immortals: all humans stand in need of the gods.

  Still, he is younger, and about the same age as I am:

  that's why to you first I now give this golden cup."

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  So saying, he placed in her hand the cup of sweet wine,

  and Athene rejoiced at this man's nice sense of decorum,

  in giving the golden cup to her first of all; and at once

  she offered this heartfelt prayer to the lord Poseidon:

  "Hear me, Poseidon, Earth-Mover! Do not begrudge us

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  fulfillment of all that our prayers are now requesting!

  On Nestor, first and foremost, and his sons, bestow renown,

  and next, to the rest, to all Pylians, grant a pleasing

  requital for this most splendid and generous sacrifice!

  Grant, too, that we may go home again, Telemachos and I,

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  having achieved what we came here for in our swift black ship."

  So she prayed--and herself was bringing it all to pass.

  Now she gave to Telemachos the fine two-handled cup,

  and in like manner Odysseus' dear son then prayed.

  When the outer meat was roasted, and off the spits, they next

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  divided the helpings, and shared in the sumptuous feast.

  But when they had satisfied their desire for food and drink,

  the first to speak was Nestor, the Gerenian horseman:

  "Now is a better time to interrogate these strangers,

  enquire who they are, now they've had their fill of food.

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  So, strangers, who are you? From where was it you sailed here

  over the watery ways? On business? Or are you reckless rovers,

  cruising the sea like pirates, who, at risk of their own lives,

  go around making trouble for men from other lands?"

  Sagacious Telemachos then responded to him, greatly

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  encouraged: Athene herself now put fresh confidence

  into his heart, to enquire about his long-absent father,

  [and win a good reputation among men at large]:1

  "Nestor, son of Neleus, great glory of the Achaians,

  you want to know where we come from? Then I shall tell you.

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  We're here from that part of Ithake under Mount Neion,

  and the business I'll speak of isn't public, but personal.

  I've come to pursue any rumors about my father--

  the noble, steadfast Odysseus, who once, they say,

  fighting alongside you, brought down the Trojans' city.

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  Of all the others who fought against the Trojans, we've since

  learned how and where it was that each met his grim end;

  but with him Kronos' son has ensured that even his death's

  unknown--no one can say for certain the place where he perished,

  whether dispatched by enemies on the mainland

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  or out on the deep, amid Amphitrite's breakers.2

  That's why I'm here at your knees now--you might be willing

  to tell me about his grim death, if you maybe saw it

  yourself, or heard an account of it from some other

  wanderer: to unmatched sorrow his mother bore him!

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  And don't, from concern or pity, speak false comfort to me,

  but tell me exactly whatever you may have witnessed!

  I beseech you, if ever my father, noble Odysseus, made you

  any promise, by word or action, and delivered on it

  in the land of the Trojans, where you Achaians met grief,

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  remember it now, and tell me the unerring truth of it."

  Nestor, Gerenian horseman, responded to him, saying:

  "Friend, since you've recalled all the grief that we endured

  in that land--we, the dauntless sons of the Achaians!--

  whether on board our ships, on the hazy deep, in pursuit

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  of booty, wherever Achilles might choose to lead us,

  or our drawn-out struggle around King Priam's great city--

  ah, it was there that all our very best were slain!

  There lies the warrior Aias, there lies Achilles, there

  Patroklos, a man who could match the gods in counsel;

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  and there my own dear son, so strong and so virtuous--

  Antilochos, in the first rank as both runner and fighter.

  Many more ills we endured in addition to these: their sum

  what transient mortal could ever narrate in full?

  Not even were you to stay for five--no, six!--whole years

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  would you hear of all the woes the noble Achaians bore there--

  and before then, surfeited, you'd have gone back home for sure!

  Nine years we were busy cobbling up trouble for them

  with ruses of every sort: Kronos' son took a weary age

  to finish the job! There no one tried to compete with noble

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  Odysseus in scheming, since he far outstripped them all

  with ruses of every sort--he, your father, if it's really true

  that you are his offspring! When I look at you I wonder,

  for your way of speaking is like his, one would never think

  that so young a man could speak in so proper a manner!

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  The whole time noble Odysseus and I were out there, neither

  in council nor in assembly did we oppose each other,

  but, being of one mind, with good plans and shrewd judgment

  we'd counsel the Argives on their best course of action.

  But after we'd sacked the towering citadel of Priam

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  and had sailed away, and a god had scattered the Achaians,

  then indeed it was that Zeus planned a grim homecoming

  for the Argives, since not all of them were either right-thinking

  or civilized: thus many met a bad end through the deadly

  wrath of the grey-eyed daughter of a mighty sire. It was she

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  who stirred up strife between the two sons of Atreus.

  The two of them called an assembly of all the Achaians,

  thoughtlessly, not in due order, very close to sunset,

  and the Achaians' sons arrived well loaded with wine

  to hear their speeches, and learn why they'd been summoned.

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  Now Menelaos was urging the whole body of the Achaians

  to embark on the voyage home, over the sea's broad back;

  but this didn't please Agamemnon at all: what he wanted

  was to keep the army in place, and make lavish sacrifices

  to appease the dread wrath of Athene--fool that he was,

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  not knowing that she wouldn't pay him the least attention,

  since the mind of the gods eternal is not changed in a moment.

  So the pair of them stood there, exchanging angry words,

  while the well-greaved Achaians sprang to their feet with a deafening

  clamor, and both these schemes collected their supporters.

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  We spent that night nursing harsh thoughts against

  one another, while Zeus was devising a grief of evils. At dawn

  some
of us hauled our vessel down to the bright salt sea,

  and put aboard our possessions and our deep-sashed women;

  but half of the force held back, remained in place there

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  with Atreus' son Agamemnon, his people's shepherd.

  So half of us now embarked, and rowed out: swiftly our ships

  moved on, for a god smoothed the monster-infested deep.

  When we reached Tenedos we sacrificed to the gods,

  longing for home; but Zeus, not thinking yet of return--

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  the wretch!--rather stirred up bad strife for the second time!

  Some now brought their curved vessels around, sailed back

  with lordly Odysseus--so clever, so subtle-minded--

  once again showing favor to Atreus' son Agamemnon;

  but I, with the full squadron of ships that followed me,

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  kept retreating--I realized the god was planning trouble!--

  as did Tydeus' son too, Ares' favorite, urging on his men,

  while, late in the day, there followed us fair-haired Menelaos,

  who caught up with us at Lesbos, debating the long voyage--

  should we set our course seaward, north of rocky Chios,

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  by the island of Psyra, with Chios on our port side,

  or sail landward of Chios, past Mimas' windswept headland?

  So we asked the god to show us a sign, and he did,

  bidding us cut our way through the deep-sea route to Euboia,

  and thus the soonest get ourselves clear of misfortune.

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  A good tailwind got up now and blew: our vessels ran

  swiftly across the sea's fish-rich paths and reached

  Geraistos at night: to Poseidon we sacrificed many

  bulls' thighs, grateful that we'd traversed the open water.

  It was on the fourth day that the comrades of Diomedes

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  the horse breaker anchored their trim ships at Argos;

  but I held on course for Pylos, nor did that good tailwind

  drop once, from the time the god first set it on to blow.

  Thus I came back, dear child, without news, nor do I know

  anything of the rest, which Achaians survived, which perished.

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  But such reports as have reached me while ensconced here at home

  I shall pass on, as is proper, and not conceal them from you.

  The Myrmidons, those fierce spearmen, they say made it back,

  led by great-hearted Achilles' illustrious son; back too

  came Philoktetes, the distinguished offspring of Poias,

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  while Idomeneus brought safely home to Krete all those

  comrades surviving the conflict: the sea took none of them.

  About Atreus' son you yourselves, though distant, will have heard:

  how he returned, how Aigisthos devised a grim end for him.

  Yet Aigisthos indeed was to pay a most terrible reckoning:

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  so it's good that when any man dies a son should survive,

  since here was a son took revenge on his father's killer--

  the crafty Aigisthos, who'd murdered his famous father.

  You too, my friend--for I see how handsome and tall you are--

  be valiant, that men yet unborn may speak well of you!"

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  Then sagacious Telemachos responded to him, saying:

  "Nestor, Neleus' son, great glory of the Achaians,

  that man indeed got full vengeance, and the Achaians

  shall spread his fame far and wide, for men unborn to hear!

  If only the gods would endow me with the strength

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  to punish these suitors for their grievous transgression--

  their wanton insults, their malicious acts against me!

  But no such good fortune have the gods ever assigned

  to me or my father: now I just have to endure."

  Nestor, Gerenian horseman, responded to him, saying:

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  "Friend, since by mentioning it you've reminded me of this,

  numerous suitors, they say, for your mother's hand, are there

  in your halls against your will, and making trouble for you.

  So tell me, are you letting yourself be bullied, or do

  the folk of the district, swayed by some god's word, despise you?

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  Who knows, one day he may come back, may be revenged,

  either alone, or with all the Achaians. If only grey-eyed

  Athene might choose now to love you as much as once,

  long ago, she was concerned for renowned Odysseus

  in the land of the Trojans, where we Achaians suffered

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  much hardship: for never I saw such open love from the gods

  as Pallas Athene showed him, standing openly at his side!

  If she would love you as much, and care for you in her heart,

  then some of these men would quite forget about marriage."

  Then sagacious Telemachos responded to him, saying

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  "Old sir, I don't think your words will ever find fulfillment:

  What you say is too much, I'm dumbfounded, what I hope for

  could never happen, not even were the gods to will it so!"

  Then the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, responded to him, saying:

  "Telemachos, what's this word has escaped your teeth's barrier?

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  A determined god could save a man easily, even from afar!

  I'd rather endure endless setbacks on the journey back

  before I got home, and saw the day of my returning,

  rather than make it there only to perish, as Agamemnon

  was killed by Aigisthos' treachery, and that of his own wife.

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  Yet death, that's common to all, not the gods themselves

  can ward off even from a man they love, whenever

  the dire fate of pitiless death has once got hold of him."

  Then sagacious Telemachos responded to her, saying:

  "Mentor, despite our grief, let's talk no more of these matters:

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  For him a return's not reality now: long, long before this

  for him the immortals will have contrived death and black fate.

  But now I want to ask Nestor about a different matter,

  since his knowledge of justice and wisdom is unsurpassed--

  three times, they say, he's ruled a generation of men,

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  and to me he has the appearance of an immortal!

  So, Nestor, son of Neleus, tell me this in all honesty:

  how did Atreus' son die, wide-ruling Agamemnon?

  And where was Menelaos? What death for the king did sly

  Aigisthos contrive, since it was a far better man he killed?

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  Was he, Menelaos, not there in Achaian Argos, but roaming

  abroad, so that Aigisthos could nerve himself for murder?"

  Nestor, Gerenian horseman, responded to him, saying:

  "Very well then, my child: I shall tell you the whole truth.

  You yourself are clear how all this would have turned out

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  had Atreus' son, fair-haired Menelaos, discovered,

  on his return from Troy, Aigisthos alive in his halls!

  Not even on his corpse then would the earth have been piled,

  but the dogs and the birds of prey would have devoured him

  as he lay on the plain, far outside the city, nor would any

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  Achaian women have mourned him, so vile the deed he wrought.

  While we were bivouacked out there, campaigning long and hard,

  he, at his ease in a corner of horse-grazing Argos,

  was making seductive proposals to Agamemnon'
s wife.

  Now she indeed to begin with rejected the shameful act,

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  did the noble Klytaimnestra, since hers was a virtuous heart;

  and with her she had a minstrel, whom Atreus' son had ordered,