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The Odysseys of Homer, together with the shorter poems

by Homer · English · Gutenberg #48895 · 977,019 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Odysseys of Homer, together with the shorter poems

Author: Homer

Translator: George Chapman


        
Release date: May 8, 2015 [eBook #48895]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48895

Credits: Phil Schempf


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ODYSSEYS OF HOMER, TOGETHER WITH THE SHORTER POEMS ***

The Odysseys of Homer

by Homer

Translated according to the Greek
by George Chapman

London: Published by

George Newnes Limited

Southhampton Street Strand W.C.

New York: Published by
Charles Scribner’s Sons




Contents

 CHAPMAN’S INTRODUCTION.
 CERTAIN ANCIENT GREEK EPIGRAMS TRANSLATED.
 THE FIRST BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE SECOND BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE THIRD BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE FOURTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE FIFTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE SIXTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE SEVENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE EIGHTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE NINTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE TENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE TWELFTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE THIRTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE FOURTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE FIFTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE SIXTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE SEVENTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE EIGHTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE NINETEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE TWENTIETH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE TWENTY-FIRST BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE TWENTY-SECOND BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE TWENTY-THIRD BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE TWENTY-FOURTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
 THE BATRACHOMYOMACHIA
 HYMNS
 A Hymn to Apollo
 A Hymn to Hermes
 A Hymn to Venus (First Hymn)
 A Hymn to Venus (Second Hymn)
 A Hymn to Bacchus, or the Pirates
 A Hymn to Mars
 A Hymn to Diana
 A Hymn to Venus (Third Hymn)
 A Hymn to Pallas
 A Hymn to Juno
 A Hymn to Ceres
 A Hymn to the Mother of the Gods
 A Hymn to Lion-Hearted Hercules
 A Hymn to Æsculapius
 A Hymn to Castor and Pollux
 A Hymn to Mercury
 A Hymn to Pan
 A Hymn to Vulcan
 A Hymn to Phœbus
 A Hymn to Neptune
 A Hymn to Jove
 A Hymn to Vesta
 A Hymn to the Muses and Apollo
 A Hymn to Bacchus
 A Hymn to Diana
 A Hymn to Pallas
 A Hymn to Vesta and Mercury
 A Hymn to Earth, the Mother of All
 A Hymn to the Sun
 A Hymn to the Moon
 A Hymn to Castor and Pollux
 A Hymn to Men of Hospitality
 EPIGRAMS AND OTHER POEMS
 To Cuma
 In his Return to Cuma
 Upon the Sepulchre of Midus
 Cuma, refusing to eternize their State, etc.
 An Essay of his begun Iliads
 To Thestor’s Son inquisitive about the Causes of Things
 To Neptune
 To the City of Erythræa
 To Mariners
 The Pine
 To Glaucus
 Against the Samian Ministress or Nun
 Written on the Council Chamber
 The Furnace called in to sing by Potters
 Eiresione, or the Olive Branch
 To certain Fisher-Boys pleasing him with Riddles
 _The Translator’s Epilogue_




CHAPMAN’S INTRODUCTION.

TO THE MOST WORTHILY HONOURED,
MY SINGULAR GOOD LORD, ROBERT,
EARL OF SOMERSET,
LORD CHAMBERLAIN, ETC.

I have adventured, right noble Earl, out of my utmost and ever-vowed
service to your virtues, to entitle their merits to the patronage of
Homer’s English life, whose wished natural life the great Macedon would
have protected as the spirit of his empire,

That he to his unmeasur’d mighty acts
Might add a fame as vast; and their extracts,
In fires as bright and endless as the stars,
His breast might breathe and thunder out his wars.
But that great monarch’s love of fame and praise
Receives an envious cloud in our foul days;
For since our great ones ceased themselves to do,
Deeds worth their praise, they hold it folly too
To feed their praise in others. But what can,
Of all the gifts that are, be giv’n to man
More precious than Eternity and Glory,
Singing their praises in unsilenc’d story?
Which no black day, no nation, nor no age,
No change of time or fortune, force nor rage,
Shall ever rase? All which the monarch knew,
Where Homer liv’d entitled, would ensue:
_Cuius de gurgite vivo
Combibit arcanos vatum omnis turba furores, etc._
From whose deep fount of life the thirsty rout
Of Thespian prophets have lien sucking out
Their sacred rages. And as th’ influent stone
Of Father Jove’s great and laborious son
Lifts high the heavy iron, and far implies
The wide orbs that the needle rectifies,
In virtuous guide of ev’ry sea-driv’n course,
To all aspiring his one boundless force;
So from one Homer all the holy fire
That ever did the hidden heat inspire
In each true Muse came clearly sparkling down,
And must for him compose one flaming crown.
He, at Jove’s table set, fills out to us
Cups that repair age sad and ruinous,
And gives it built of an eternal stand
With his all-sinewy Odyssæan hand,
Shifts time and fate, puts death in life’s free state,
And life doth into ages propagate.
He doth in men the Gods’ affects inflame,
His fuel Virtue blown by Praise and Fame;
And, with the high soul’s first impression driv’n,
Breaks through rude chaos, earth, the seas, and heav’n.
The nerves of all things hid in nature lie
Naked before him; all their harmony
Tun’d to his accents, that in beasts breathe minds.
What fowls, what floods, what earth, what air, what winds,
What fires ethereal, what the Gods conclude
In all their counsels, his Muse makes indued
With varied voices that ev’n rocks have mov’d.
And yet for all this, naked Virtue lov’d,
Honours without her he as abject prizes,
And foolish Fame, deriv’d from thence, despises.
When from the vulgar taking glorious bound
Up to the mountain where the Muse is crown’d,
He sits and laughs to see the jaded rabble
Toil to his hard heights, t’ all access unable, etc.

And that your Lordship may in his face take view of his mind, the first
words of his Iliads is _μη̑νιν, wrath_; the first word of his Odysseys,
_ἄνδρα man:_ contracting in either word his each work’s proposition. In
one _predominant perturbation;_ in the other _over-ruling wisdom._ In
one the body’s fervour and fashion of outward fortitude to all possible
height of heroical action; in the other the mind’s inward, constant,
and unconquered empire, unbroken, unaltered, with any most insolent,
and tyrannous infliction. To many most sovereign praises is this poem
entitled; but to that grace, in chief, which sets on the crown both of
poets and orators; _τὸ τὰ μικρὰ μεγάλως, καὶ τὰ κοινὰ καιίνως:_
that is, _Parva magnè dicere; pervulgata novè; jejuna plenè.—To speak
things little greatly; things common rarely; things barren and empty
fruitfully and fully._ The return of a man into his country is his
whole scope and object; which in itself, your Lordship may well say, is
jejune and fruitless enough, affording nothing feastful, nothing
magnificent. And yet even this doth the divine inspiration render vast,
illustrious, and of miraculous composure. And for this, my Lord, is
this poem preferred to his lliads; for therein much magnificence, both
of person and action, gives great aid to his industry; but in this are
these helps exceeding sparing, or nothing; and yet is the structure so
elaborate and pompous that the poor plain ground-work, considered
together, may seem the naturally rich womb to it, and produce it
needfully. Much wondered at, therefore, is the censure of Dionysius
Longinus, (a man otherwise affirmed grave and of elegant judgment,)
comparing Homer in his Iliads to the Sun rising, in his Odysseys to his
descent or setting, or to the ocean robbed of his æsture, many
tributary floods and rivers of excellent ornament withheld from their
observance. When this his work so far exceeds the ocean, with all his
court and concourse, that all his sea is only a serviceable stream to
it. Nor can it be compared to any one power to be named in nature,
being an entirely well-sorted and digested confluence of all; where the
most solid and grave is made as nimble and fluent as the most airy and
fiery, the nimble and fluent as firm and well-bounded as the most grave
and solid. And, taking all together, of so tender impression, and of
such command to the voice of the Muse, that they knock heaven with her
breath, and discover their foundations as low as hell. Nor is this
all-comprising Poesy fantastic or mere fictive; but the most material
and doctrinal illations of truth, both for all manly information of
manners in the young, all prescription of justice, and even Christian
piety, in the most grave and high governed. To illustrate both which,
in both kinds, with all heightof expression, the Poet creates both a
body and a soul in them. Wherein, if the body (being the letter or
history) seems fictive, and beyond possibility to bring into act, the
sense then and allegory, which is the soul, is to be sought, which
intends a more eminent expressure of Virtue for her loveliness, and of
Vice for her ugliness, in their several effects; going beyond the life
than any art within life can possibly delineate. Why then is fiction to
this end so hateful to our true ignorants? Or why should a poor
chronicler of a Lord Mayor’s naked truth (that peradventure will last
his year) include more worth with our modern wizards than Homer for his
naked Ulysses clad in eternal fiction? But this proser Dionysius, and
the rest of these grave and reputatively learned—that dare undertake
for their gravities the headstrong censure of all things, and challenge
the understanding of these toys in their childhoods; when even these
childish vanities retain deep and most necessary learning enough in
them to make them children in their ages, and teach them while they
live—are not in these absolute divine infusions allowed either voice or
relish: for, _Qui Poeticas ad fores accedit, etc._ (says the divine
philosopher) he that knocks at the gates of the Muses, _sine Musarum
furore,_ is neither to be admitted entry, nor a touch at their
thresholds; his opinion of entry ridiculous, and his presumption
impious. Nor must Poets themselves (might I a little insist on these
contempts, not tempting too far your Lordship’s Ulyssean patience)
presume to these doors without the truly genuine and peculiar
induction. There being in Poesy a twofold rapture,—or alienation of
soul, as the abovesaid teacher terms it,—one _insania,_ a disease of
the mind, and a mere madness, by which the infected is thrust beneath
all the degrees of humanity: _et ex homine, brutum quodammodò
redditur:_—(for which poor Poesy, in this diseased and impostorous age,
is so barbarously vilified;)—the other is, _divinus furor,_ by which
the sound and divinely healthful _suprà hominis naturam erigitur, et in
Deum transit._ One a perfection directly infused from God; the other an
infection obliquely and degenerately proceeding from man. Of the divine
fury, my Lord, your Homer hath ever been both first and last instance;
being pronounced absolutely, _τὸν σοφώτατον, καὶ τὸν θειότατον
ποιητήν,_ “the most wise and most divine poet.” Against whom whosoever
shall open his profane mouth may worthily receive answer with this of
his divine defender—Empedocles, Heraclitus, Protagoras, Epicharmus,
etc., being of Homer’s part—_τίς οο͒ν,_ etc.; who against such an army,
and the general Homer, dares attempt the assault, but he must be
reputed ridiculous? And yet against this host, and this invincible
commander, shall we have every _besogne_ and fool a leader. The common
herd, I assure myself, ready to receive it on their horns. Their
infected leaders,

Such men as sideling ride the ambling Muse,
Whose saddle is as frequent as the stews.
Whose raptures are in ev’ry pageant seen,
In ev’ry wassail-rhyme and dancing-green;
When he that writes by any beam of truth
Must dive as deep as he, past shallow youth.
Truth dwells in gulfs, whose deeps hide shades so rich
That Night sits muffled there in clouds of pitch,
More dark than Nature made her, and requires,
To clear her tough mists, heav’n’s great fire of fires,
To whom the sun itself is but a beam.
For sick souls then—but rapt in foolish dream—
To wrastle with these heav’n-strong mysteries,
What madness is it? when their light serves eyes
That are not worldly in their least aspect,
But truly pure, and aim at heav’n direct.
Yet these none like but what the brazen head
Blatters abroad, no sooner born but dead.

Holding, then, in eternal contempt, my Lord, those short-lived bubbles,
eternize your virtue and judgment with the Grecian monarch; esteeming,
not as the least of your new-year’s presents,

Homer, three thousand years dead, now reviv’d,
Ev’n from that dull death that in life he liv’d;
When none conceited him, none understood
That so much life in so much death as blood
Conveys about it could mix. But when death
Drunk up the bloody mist that human breath
Pour’d round about him—poverty and spite.
Thick’ning the hapless vapour—then truth’s light
Glimmer’d about his poem; the pinch’d soul
(Amidst the mysteries it did enrol)
Brake pow’rfully abroad. And as we see
The sun all-hid in clouds, at length got free,
Through some forc’d covert, over all the ways,
Near and beneath him, shoots his vented rays
Far off, and sticks them in some little glade,
All woods, fields, rivers, left besides in shade;
So your Apollo, from that world of light
Clos’d in his poem’s body, shot to sight
Some few forc’d beams, which near him were not seen,
(As in his life or country) Fate and spleen
Clouding their radiance; which when Death had clear’d,
To far-off regions his free beams appear’d;
In which all stood and wonder’d, striving which
His birth and rapture should in right enrich.
Twelve labours of your Thespian Hercules
I now present your Lordship; do but please
To lend life means till th’ other twelve receive
Equal achievement; and let Death then reave
My life now lost in our patrician loves,
That knock heads with the herd; in whom there moves
One blood, one soul, both drown’d in one set height
Of stupid envy and mere popular spite.
Whose loves with no good did my least vein fill;
And from their hates I fear as little ill.
Their bounties nourish not when most they feed,
But, where there is no merit or no need,
Rain into rivers still, and are such show’rs
As bubbles spring and overflow the flow’rs.
Their worse parts and worst men their best suborns,
Like winter cows whose milk runs to their horns.
And as litigious clients’ books of law
Cost infinitely; taste of all the awe
Bench’d in our kingdom’s policy, piety, state;
Earn all their deep explorings; satiate
All sorts there thrust together by the heart
With thirst of wisdom spent on either part;
Horrid examples made of Life and Death
From their fine stuff wov’n; yet when once the breath
Of sentence leaves them, all their worth is drawn
As dry as dust, and wears like cobweb lawn:
So these men set a price upon their worth,
That no man gives but those that trot it forth
Though Need’s foul ways, feed Humours with all cost
Though Judgment sterves in them; rout, State engrost
(At all tobacco-benches, solemn tables,
Where all that cross their envies are their fables)
In their rank faction; shame and death approv’d
Fit penance for their opposites; none lov’d
But those that rub them; not a reason heard
That doth not soothe and glorify their preferr’d
Bitter opinions. When, would Truth resume
The cause to his hands, all would fly in fume
Before his sentence; since the innocent mind
Just God makes good, to Whom their worst is wind.
For, that I freely all my thoughts express,
My conscience is my thousand witnesses;
And to this stay my constant comforts vow,
_You for the world I have, or God for you._




CERTAIN ANCIENT GREEK EPIGRAMS TRANSLATED

All stars are drunk-up by the fiery sun,
And in so much a flame lies shrunk the moon.
Homer’s all-liv’d name all names leaves in death,
Whose splendour only Muses’ bosoms breathe.

ANOTHER

Heav’n’s fires shall first fall darken’d from his sphere,
Grave Night the light weed of the Day shall wear,
Fresh streams shall chase the sea, tough ploughs shall tear
Her fishy bottoms, men in long date dead
Shall rise and live, before Oblivion shed
Those still-green leaves that crown great Homer’s head.

ANOTHER

The great Mæonides doth only write,
And to him dictates the great God of Light.

ANOTHER

Sev’n kingdoms strove in which should swell the womb
That bore great Homer, whom Fame freed from tomb;
Argos, Chios, Pylos, Smyrna, Colophone,
The learn’d Athenian, and Ulyssean throne.

ANOTHER

Art thou of Chios? No. Of Salamine?
As little. Was the Smyrnean country thine?
Nor so. Which then? Was Cuma’s? Colophone?
Nor one nor other. Art thou, then, of none
That fame proclaims thee? None. Thy reason call.
If I confess of one I anger all.




THE FIRST BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS

 THE ARGUMENT

The Gods in council sit, to call
Ulysses from Calypso’s thrall,
And order their high pleasures thus:
Grey Pallas to Telemachus
(In Ithaca) her way addrest;
And did her heav’nly limbs invest
In Mentas’ likeness, that did reign
King of the Taphians, in the main
Whose rough waves near Leucadia run.
Advising wise Ulysses’ son
To seek his father, and address
His course to young Tantalides,
That govern’d Sparta. Thus much said,
She shew’d she was Heav’n’s martial Maid,
And vanish’d from him. Next to this,
The Banquet of the Wooers is.

 ANOTHER ARGUMENT

_Ἂλφα._
The Deities sit;
The Man retired;
Th’ Ulyssean wit
By Pallas fired.

The man, O Muse, inform, that many a way[1]
Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay;
That wander’d wondrous far, when he the town
Of sacred Troy had sack’d and shiver’d down;
The cities of a world of nations,
With all their manners, minds, and fashions,
He saw and knew; at sea felt many woes,
Much care sustain’d, to save from overthrows
Himself and friends in their retreat for home;
But so their fates he could not overcome,
Though much he thirsted it. O men unwise,
They perish’d by their own impieties!
That in their hunger’s rapine would not shun
The oxen of the lofty-going Sun,
Who therefore from their eyes the day bereft
Of safe return. These acts, in some part left,
Tell us, as others, deified Seed of Jove.
Now all the rest that austere death outstrove
At Troy’s long siege at home safe anchor’d are,
Free from the malice both of sea and war;
Only Ulysses is denied access
To wife and home. The grace of Goddesses,
The rev’rend nymph Calypso, did detain
Him in her caves, past all the race of men
Enflam’d to make him her lov’d lord and spouse.
And when the Gods had destin’d that his house,
Which Ithaca on her rough bosom bears,
(The point of time wrought out by ambient years)
Should be his haven, Contention still extends
Her envy to him, ev’n amongst his friends.
All Gods took pity on him; only he,
That girds earth in the cincture of the sea,
Divine Ulysses ever did envy,
And made the fix’d port of his birth to fly.
But he himself solemniz’d a retreat
To th’ Æthiops, far dissunder’d in their seat,
(In two parts parted, at the sun’s descent,
And underneath his golden orient,
The first and last of men) t’ enjoy their feast
Of bulls and lambs, in hecatombs addrest;[2]
At which he sat, giv’n over to delight.
The other Gods in heav’n’s supremest height
Were all in council met; to whom began
The mighty Father both of God and man
Discourse, inducing matter that inclin’d
To wise Ulysses, calling to his mind
Faultful Ægisthus, who to death was done[3]
By young Orestes, Agamemnon’s son.
His memory to the Immortals then
Mov’d Jove thus deeply: “O how falsely men
Accuse us Gods as authors of their ill!
When, by the bane their own bad lives instill,
They suffer all the mis’ries of their states,
Past our inflictions, and beyond their fates.
As now Ægisthus, past his fate, did wed
The wife of Agamemnon, and (in dread
To suffer death himself) to shun his ill,
Incurr’d it by the loose bent of his will,
In slaughtering Atrides in retreat.
Which we foretold him would so hardly set
To his murd’rous purpose, sending Mercury
That slaughter’d Argus, our consid’rate spy,
To give him this charge: ‘Do not wed his wife,
Nor murder him; for thou shalt buy his life
With ransom of thine own, impos’d on thee
By his Orestes, when in him shall be
Atrides’-self renew’d, and but the prime
Of youth’s spring put abroad, in thirst to climb
His haughty father’s throne by his high acts.’
These words of Hermes wrought not into facts
Ægisthus’ powers; good counsel he despis’d,
And to that good his ill is sacrific’d.”
Pallas, whose eyes did sparkle like the skies,
Answer’d: “O Sire! Supreme of Deities,
Ægisthus pass’d his fate, and had desert
To warrant our infliction; and convert
May all the pains such impious men inflict
On innocent suff’rers to revenge as strict,
Their own hearts eating. But, that Ithacus,
Thus never meriting, should suffer thus,
I deeply suffer. His more pious mind
Divides him from these fortunes. Though unkind
Is piety to him, giving him a fate
More suff’ring than the most unfortunate,
So long kept friendless in a sea-girt soil,
Where the sea’s navel is a sylvan isle,
In which the Goddess dwells that doth derive
Her birth from Atlas, who of all alive
The motion and the fashion doth command
With his wise mind, whose forces understand[4]
The inmost deeps and gulfs of all the seas,
Who (for his skill of things superior) stays
The two steep columns that prop earth and heav’n.
His daughter ‘tis, who holds this homeless-driv’n[5]
Still mourning with her; evermore profuse
Of soft and winning speeches, that abuse
And make so languishingly, and possest[6]
With so remiss a mind her loved guest,
Manage the action of his way for home.
Where he, though in affection overcome,
In judgment yet more longs to show his hopes
His country’s smoke leap from her chimney tops,
And death asks in her arms. Yet never shall
Thy lov’d heart be converted on his thrall,
Austere Olympius. Did not ever he,
In ample Troy, thy altars gratify,
And Grecians’ fleet make in thy off’rings swim?
Jove, why still then burns thy wrath to him?”
The Cloud-assembler answer’d: “What words fly,
Bold daughter, from thy pale of ivory?[7]
As if I ever could cast from my care
Divine Ulysses, who exceeds so far
All men in wisdom, and so oft hath giv’n
To all th’ Immortals thron’d in ample heav’n
So great and sacred gifts? But his decrees,
That holds the earth in with his nimble knees,
Stand to Ulysses’ longings so extreme,
For taking from the God-foe Polypheme
His only eye; a Cyclop, that excell’d
All other Cyclops, with whose burden swell’d
The nymph Thoosa, the divine increase
Of Phorcys’ seed, a great God of the seas.
She mix’d with Neptune in his hollow caves,
And bore this Cyclop to that God of waves.
For whose lost eye, th’ Earth-shaker did not kill
Erring Ulysses, but reserves him still
In life for more death. But use we our pow’rs,
And round about us cast these cares of ours,
All to discover how we may prefer
His wish’d retreat, and Neptune make forbear
His stern eye to him, since no one God can,
In spite of all, prevail, but ’gainst a man.”
To this, this answer made the grey-eyed Maid:
“Supreme of rulers, since so well apaid
The blesséd Gods are all then, now, in thee,
To limit wise Ulysses’ misery,
And that you speak as you referr’d to me
Prescription for the means, in this sort be
Their sacred order: Let us now address
With utmost speed our swift Argicides,
To tell the nymph that bears the golden tress
In th’ isle Ogygia, that ’tis our will
She should not stay our lov’d Ulysses still,
But suffer his return; and then will I
To Ithaca, to make his son apply
His sire’s inquest the more; infusing force
Into his soul, to summon the concourse
Of curl’d-head Greeks to council, and deter
Each wooer, that hath been the slaughterer
Of his fat sheep and crooked-headed beeves.
From more wrong to his mother, and their leaves
Take in such terms as fit deserts so great.
To Sparta then, and Pylos, where doth beat
Bright Amathus, the flood, and epithet
To all that kingdom, my advice shall send
The spirit-advanc’d Prince, to the pious end
Of seeking his lost father, if he may
Receive report from Fame where rests his stay;
And make, besides, his own successive worth
Known to the world, and set in action forth.”
This said, her wing’d shoes to her feet she tied,
Form’d all of gold, and all eternified,
That on the round earth or the sea sustain’d
Her ravish’d substance swift as gusts of wind.
Then took she her strong lance with steel made keen,
Great, massy, active, that whole hosts of men,
Though all heroës, conquers, if her ire
Their wrongs inflame, back’d by so great a Sire.
Down from Olympus’ tops she headlong div’d,
And swift as thought in Ithaca arriv’d,
Close at Ulysses’ gates; in whose first court
She made her stand, and, for her breast’s support,
Lean’d on her iron lance; her form imprest
With Mentas’ likeness, come as being a guest.
There found she those proud wooers, that were then
Set on those ox-hides that themselves had slain,
Before the gates, and all at dice were playing.
To them the heralds, and the rest obeying,
Fill’d wine and water; some, still as they play’d,
And some, for solemn supper’s state, purvey’d,
With porous sponges cleansing tables, serv’d
With much rich feast; of which to all they kerv’d.
God-like Telemachus amongst them sat,
Griev’d much in mind; and in his heart begat
All representment of his absent sire,
How, come from far-off parts, his spirits would fire
With those proud wooers’ sight, with slaughter parting
Their bold concourse, and to himself converting
The honours they usurp’d, his own commanding.
In this discourse, he first saw Pallas standing,
Unbidden entry; up rose, and addrest
His pace right to her, angry that a guest
Should stand so long at gate; and, coming near,
Her right hand took, took in his own her spear,
And thus saluted: “Grace to your repair,
Fair guest, your welcome shall be likewise fair.
Enter, and, cheer’d with feast, disclose th’ intent
That caus’d your coming.” This said, first he went,
And Pallas follow’d. To a room they came,
Steep, and of state; the jav’lin of the Dame
He set against a pillar vast and high,
Amidst a large and bright-kept armory,
Which was, besides, with woods of lances grac’d
Of his grave father’s. In a throne he plac’d
The man-turn’d Goddess, under which was spread
A carpet, rich and of deviceful thread;
A footstool staying her feet; and by her chair
Another seat (all garnish’d wondrous fair,
To rest or sleep on in the day) he set,
Far from the prease of wooers, lest at meat
The noise they still made might offend his guest,
Disturbing him at banquet or at rest,
Ev’n to his combat with that pride of theirs,
That kept no noble form in their affairs.
And these he set far from them, much the rather
To question freely of his absent father.
A table fairly-polish’d then was spread,
On which a rev’rend officer set bread,
And other servitors all sorts of meat
(Salads, and flesh, such as their haste could get)
Serv’d with observance in. And then the sewer
Pour’d water from a great and golden ewer,
That from their hands t’ a silver caldron ran.
Both wash’d, and seated close, the voiceful man
Fetch’d cups of gold, and set by them, and round
Those cups with wine with all endeavour crown’d.
Then rush’d in the rude wooers, themselves plac’d;
The heralds water gave; the maids in haste
Serv’d bread from baskets. When, of all prepar’d
And set before them, the bold wooers shar’d,
Their pages plying their cups past the rest.
But lusty wooers must do more than feast;
For now, their hungers and their thirsts allay’d,
They call’d for songs and dances; those, they said,
Were th’ ornaments of feast. The herald straight
A harp, carv’d full of artificial sleight,
Thrust into Phemius’, a learn’d singer’s, hand,
Who, till he much was urg’d, on terms did stand,
But, after, play’d and sung with all his art.
Telemachus to Pallas then (apart,
His ear inclining close, that none might hear)
In this sort said: “My guest, exceeding dear,
Will you not sit incens’d with what I say?
These are the cares these men take; feast and play.
Which eas’ly they may use, because they eat,
Free and unpunish’d, of another’s meat;
And of a man’s, whose white bones wasting lie
In some far region; with th’ incessancy
Of show’rs pour’d down upon them, lying ashore,
Or in the seas wash’d nak’d. Who, if he wore
Those bones with flesh and life and industry,
And these might here in Ithaca set eye
On him return’d, they all would wish to be
Either past other in celerity
Of feet and knees, and not contend t’ exceed
In golden garments. But his virtues feed
The fate of ill death; nor is left to me
The least hope of his life’s recovery,
No, not if any of the mortal race
Should tell me his return; the cheerful face
Of his return’d day never will appear.
But tell me, and let Truth your witness bear,
Who, and from whence you are? What city’s birth?
What parents? In what vessel set you forth?
And with what mariners arriv’d you here?
I cannot think you a foot passenger.
Recount then to me all, to teach me well
Fit usage for your worth. And if it fell
In chance now first that you thus see us here,
Or that in former passages you were
My father’s guest? For many men have been
Guests to my father. Studious of men
His sociable nature ever was.”
On him again the grey-eyed Maid did pass
This kind reply: “I’ll answer passing true
All thou hast ask’d: My birth his honour drew
From wise Anchialus. The name I bear
Is Mentas, the commanding islander
Of all the Taphians studious in the art
Of navigation; having touch’d this part
With ship and men, of purpose to maintain
Course through the dark seas t’ other-languag’d men;
And Temesis sustains the city’s name
For which my ship is bound, made known by fame
For rich in brass, which my occasions need,
And therefore bring I shining steel in stead,
Which their use wants, yet makes my vessel’s freight,
That near a plough’d field rides at anchor’s weight,
Apart this city, in the harbour call’d
Rhethrus, whose waves with Neius’ woods are wall’d.
Thy sire and I were ever mutual guests,
At either’s house still interchanging feasts.
I glory in it. Ask, when thou shalt see
Laertes, th’ old heroë, these of me,
From the beginning. He, men say, no more
Visits the city, but will needs deplore
His son’s believ’d loss in a private field;
One old maid only at his hands to yield
Food to his life, as oft as labour makes
His old limbs faint; which, though he creeps, he takes
Along a fruitful plain, set all with vines,
Which husbandman-like, though a king, he proins.
But now I come to be thy father’s guest;
I hear he wanders, while these wooers feast.
And (as th’ Immortals prompt me at this hour)
I’ll tell thee, out of a prophetic pow’r,
(Not as profess’d a prophet, nor clear seen
At all times what shall after chance to men)
What I conceive, for this time, will be true:
The Gods’ inflictions keep your sire from you.
Divine Ulysses, yet, abides not dead
Above earth, nor beneath, nor buried
In any seas, as you did late conceive,
But, with the broad sea sieg’d, is kept alive
Within an isle by rude and upland men,
That in his spite his passage home detain.
Yet long it shall not be before he tread
His country’s dear earth, though solicited,
And held from his return, with iron chains;
For he hath wit to forge a world of trains,
And will, of all, be sure to make good one
For his return, so much relied upon.
But tell me, and be true: Art thou indeed
So much a son, as to be said the seed[8]
Of Ithacus himself? Exceeding much
Thy forehead and fair eyes at his form touch;
For oftentimes we met, as you and I
Meet at this hour, before he did apply
His pow’rs for Troy, when other Grecian states
In hollow ships were his associates.
But, since that time, mine eyes could never see
Renown’d Ulysses, nor met his with me.”
The wise Telemachus again replied:
“You shall with all I know be satisfied.
My mother certain says I am his son;
I know not; nor was ever simply known
By any child the sure truth of his sire.
But would my veins had took in living fire
From some man happy, rather than one wise,
Whom age might see seis’d of what youth made prise.
But he whoever of the mortal race
Is most unblest, he holds my father’s place.
This, since you ask, I answer.” She, again:
“The Gods sure did not make the future strain
Both of thy race and days obscure to thee,
Since thou wert born so of Penelope.
The style may by thy after acts be won,
Of so great sire the high undoubted son.
Say truth in this then: What’s this feasting here?
What all this rout? Is all this nuptial cheer?
Or else some friendly banquet made by thee?
For here no shots are, where all sharers be.
Past measure contumeliously this crew
Fare through thy house; which should th’ ingenuous view
Of any good or wise man come and find,
(Impiety seeing play’d in ev’ry kind)
He could not but through ev’ry vein be mov’d.”
Again Telemachus: “My guest much lov’d.
Since you demand and sift these sights so far,
I grant ’twere fit a house so regular,
Rich, and so faultless once in government,
Should still at all parts the same form present
That gave it glory while her lord was here.
But now the Gods, that us displeasure bear,
Have otherwise appointed, and disgrace
My father most of all the mortal race.
For whom I could not mourn so were he dead,
Amongst his fellow-captains slaughteréd
By common enemies, or in the hands
Of his kind friends had ended his commands,
After he had egregiously bestow’d
His pow’r and order in a war so vow’d,
And to his tomb all Greeks their grace had done,
That to all ages he might leave his son
Immortal honour; but now Harpies have
Digg’d in their gorges his abhorréd grave.
Obscure, inglorious, death hath made his end,
And me, for glories, to all griefs contend.
Nor shall I any more mourn him alone,
The Gods have giv’n me other cause of moan.
For look how many optimates remain
In Samos, or the shores Dulichian,
Shady Zacynthus, or how many bear
Rule in the rough brows of this island here;
So many now my mother and this house
At all parts make defam’d and ruinous;
And she her hateful nuptials nor denies,
Nor will despatch their importunities,
Though she beholds them spoil still as they feast
All my free house yields, and the little rest
Of my dead sire in me perhaps intend
To bring ere long to some untimely end.”
This Pallas sigh’d and answer’d: “O,” said she,
“Absent Ulysses is much miss’d by thee,
That on these shameless suitors he might lay
His wreakful hands. Should he now come, and stay
In thy court’s first gates, arm’d with helm and shield,
And two such darts as I have seen him wield,
When first I saw him in our Taphian court,
Feasting, and doing his desert’s disport;
When from Ephyrus he return’d by us
From Ilus, son to Centaur Mermerus,
To whom he travell’d through the wat’ry dreads,
For bane to poison his sharp arrows’ heads,
That death, but touch’d, caus’d; which he would not give,
Because he fear’d the Gods that ever live
Would plague such death with death; and yet their fear
Was to my father’s bosom not so dear
As was thy father’s love; (for what he sought
My loving father found him to a thought.)
If such as then Ulysses might but meet
With these proud wooers, all were at his feet
But instant dead men, and their nuptialls
Would prove as bitter as their dying galls.
But these things in the Gods’ knees are repos’d,
If his return shall see with wreak inclos’d,
These in his house, or he return no more;
And therefore I advise thee to explore
All ways thyself, to set these wooers gone;
To which end give me fit attentión:
To-morrow into solemn council call
The Greek heroës, and declare to all
(The Gods being witness) what thy pleasure is.
Command to towns of their nativity
These frontless wooers. If thy mother’s mind
Stands to her second nuptials so inclin’d,
Return she to her royal father’s tow’rs,
Where th’ one of these may wed her, and her dow’rs
Make rich, and such as may consort with grace
So dear a daughter of so great a race
And thee I warn as well (if thou as well
Wilt hear and follow) take thy best-built sail,
With twenty oars mann’d, and haste t’ inquire
Where the abode is of thy absent sire,
If any can inform thee, or thine ear
From Jove the fame of his retreat may hear,
For chiefly Jove gives all that honours men.
To Pylos first be thy addression then,
To god-like Nestor; thence to Sparta haste,
To gold-lock’d Menelaus, who was last
Of all the brass-arm’d Greeks that sail’d from Troy;
And try from both these, if thou canst enjoy
News of thy sire’s return’d life anywhere,
Though sad thou suffer’st in his search a year.
If of his death thou hear’st, return thou home,
And to his memory erect a tomb,
Performing parent-rites, of feast and game,
Pompous, and such as best may fit his fame;
And then thy mother a fit husband give.
These past, consider how thou mayst deprive
Of worthless life these wooers in thy house,
By open force, or projects enginous.
Things childish fit not thee; th’ art so no more.
Hast thou not heard, how all men did adore
Divine Orestes, after he had slain
Ægisthus murd’ring by a treach’rous train
His famous father? Be then, my most lov’d,
Valiant and manly, ev’ry way approv’d
As great as he. I see thy person fit,
Noble thy mind, and excellent thy wit,
All giv’n thee so to use and manage here
That ev’n past death they may their memories bear.
In meantime I’ll descend to ship and men,
That much expect me. Be observant then
Of my advice, and careful to maintain
In equal acts thy royal father’s reign.”
Telemachus replied: “You ope, fair guest,
A friend’s heart in your speech, as well exprest
As might a father serve t’ inform his son;
All which sure place have in my memory won.
Abide yet, though your voyage calls away,
That, having bath’d, and dignified your stay
With some more honour, you may yet beside
Delight your mind by being gratified
With some rich present taken in your way,
That, as a jewel, your respect may lay
Up in your treasury, bestow’d by me,
As free friends use to guests of such degree.”
“Detain me not,” said she, “so much inclin’d
To haste my voyage. What thy loved mind
Commands to give, at my return this way,
Bestow on me, that I directly may
Convey it home; which more of price to me
The more it asks my recompense to thee.”
This said, away grey-eyed Minerva flew,
Like to a mounting lark; and did endue
His mind with strength and boldness, and much more
Made him his father long for than before;
And weighing better who his guest might be,
He stood amaz’d, and thought a Deity
Was there descended; to whose will he fram’d
His pow’rs at all parts, and went so inflam’d
Amongst the wooers, who were silent set,
To hear a poet sing the sad retreat
The Greeks perform’d from Troy; which was from thence
Proclaim’d by Pallas, pain of her offence.
When which divine song was perceiv’d to bear
That mournful subject by the list’ning ear
Of wise Penelope, Icarius’ seed,
Who from an upper room had giv’n it heed,
Down she descended by a winding stair,
Not solely, but the state in her repair
Two maids of honour made. And when this queen
Of women stoop’d so low, she might be seen
By all her wooers. In the door, aloof,
Ent’ring the hall grac’d with a goodly roof,
She stood, in shade of graceful veils, implied
About her beauties; on her either side,
Her honour’d women. When, to tears mov’d, thus
She chid the sacred singer: “Phemiüs,
You know a number more of these great deeds
Of Gods and men, that are the sacred seeds,
And proper subjects, of a poet’s song,
And those due pleasures that to men belong,
Besides these facts that furnish Troy’s retreat,
Sing one of those to these, that round your seat
They may with silence sit, and taste their wine;
But cease this song, that through these ears of mine
Conveys deserv’d occasion to my heart
Of endless sorrows, of which the desert
In me unmeasur’d is past all these men,
So endless is the memory I retain,
And so desertful is that memory,
Of such a man as hath a dignity
So broad it spreads itself through all the pride
Of Greece and Argos.” To the queen replied
Inspir’d Telemachus: “Why thus envies
My mother him that fits societies[9]
With so much harmony, to let him please
His own mind in his will to honour these?
For these ingenious and first sort of men,[10]
That do immediately from Jove retain
Their singing raptures, are by Jove as well
Inspir’d with choice of what their songs impell,
Jove’s will is free in it, and therefore theirs.
Nor is this man to blame, that the repairs
The Greeks make homeward sings; for his fresh muse
Men still most celebrate that sings most news.
And therefore in his note your ears employ:
For not Ulysses only lost in Troy
The day of his return, but numbers more
The deadly ruins of his fortunes bore.
Go you then in, and take your work in hand,
Your web, and distaff; and your maids command
To ply their fit work. Words to men are due,
And those reproving counsels you pursue,
And most to me of all men, since I bear
The rule of all things that are manag’d here.”
She went amaz’d away, and in her heart
Laid up the wisdom Pallas did impart
To her lov’d son so lately, turn’d again
Up to her chamber, and no more would reign
In manly counsels. To her women she
Applied her sway; and to the wooers he
Began new orders, other spirits bewray’d
Than those in spite of which the wooers sway’d.
And (whiles his mother’s tears still wash’d her eyes,
Till grey Minerva did those tears surprise
With timely sleep, and that her wooers did rouse
Rude tumult up through all the shady house,
Dispos’d to sleep because their widow was)
Telemachus this new-giv’n spirit did pass
On their old insolence: “Ho! you that are,
My mother’s wooers! much too high ye bear
Your petulant spirits; sit; and, while ye may
Enjoy me in your banquets, see ye lay
These loud notes down, nor do this man the wrong,
Because my mother hath disliked his song,
To grace her interruption. ’Tis a thing
Honest, and honour’d too, to hear one sing
Numbers so like the Gods in elegance,
As this man flows in. By the morn’s first light,[11]
I’ll call ye all before me in a Court,
That I may clearly banish your resort,
With all your rudeness, from these roofs of mine.
Away; and elsewhere in your feasts combine.
Consume your own goods, and make mutual feast
At either’s house. Or if ye still hold best,
And for your humours’ more sufficéd fill,
To feed, to spoil, because unpunish’d still,
On other findings, spoil; but here I call
Th’ Eternal Gods to witness, if it fall
In my wish’d reach once to be dealing wreaks,
By Jove’s high bounty, these your present checks
To what I give in charge shall add more reins
To my revenge hereafter; and the pains
Ye then must suffer shall pass all your pride
Ever to see redress’d, or qualified.”
At this all bit their lips, and did admire
His words sent from him with such phrase and fire;
Which so much mov’d them that Antinous,
Eupitheus’ son, cried out: “Telemachus!
The Gods, I think, have rapt thee to this height
Of elocution, and this great conceit
Of self-ability. We all may pray,
That Jove invest not in this kingdom’s sway
Thy forward forces, which I see put forth
A hot ambition in thee for thy birth.”
“Be not offended,” he replied, “if I[12]
Shall say, I would assume this empery,
If Jove gave leave. You are not he that sings:
_The rule of kingdoms is the worst of things._
Nor is it ill, at all, to sway a throne;
A man may quickly gain possession
Of mighty riches, make a wondrous prize
Set of his virtues; but the dignities
That deck a king, there are enough beside
In this circumfluous isle that want no pride
To think them worthy of, as young as I,
And old as you are. An ascent so high
My thoughts affect not. Dead is he that held
Desert of virtue to have so excell’d.
But of these turrets I will take on me
To be the absolute king, and reign as free,
As did my father, over all his hand
Left here in this house slaves to my command.”
Eurymachus, the son of Polybus,
To this made this reply: “Telemachus!
The girlond of this kingdom let the knees
Of Deity run for; but the faculties
This house is seis’d of, and the turrets here,
Thou shalt be lord of, nor shall any bear
The least part off of all thou dost possess,
As long as this land is no wilderness.
Nor rul’d by out-laws. But give these their pass,
And tell me, best of princes, who he was
That guested here so late? From whence? And what
In any region boasted he his state?
His race? His country? Brought he any news
Of thy returning father? Or for dues
Of moneys to him made he fit repair?
How suddenly he rush’d into the air,
Nor would sustain to stay and make him known!
His port show’d no debauch’d companion.”
He answer’d: “The return of my lov’d sire
Is past all hope; and should rude Fame inspire
From any place a flatt’ring messenger
With news of his survival, he should bear
No least belief off from my desp’rate love.
Which if a sacred prophet should approve,
Call’d by my mother for her care’s unrest,
It should not move me. For my late fair guest,
He was of old my father’s, touching here
From sea-girt Taphos; and for name doth bear
Mentas, the son of wise Anchialus;
And governs all the Taphians studious
Of navigation.” This he said, but knew
It was a Goddess. These again withdrew
To dances and attraction of the song;
And while their pleasures did the time prolong,
The sable Even descended, and did steep
The lids of all men in desire of sleep.
Telemachus, into a room built high,
Of his illustrious court, and to the eye
Of circular prospect, to his bed ascended,
And in his mind much weighty thought contended
Before him Euryclea (that well knew
All the observance of a handmaid’s due,
Daughter to Opis Pisenorides)
Bore two bright torches; who did so much please
Laërtes in her prime, that, for the price
Of twenty oxen, he made merchandise
Of her rare beauties; and love’s equal flame,
To her he felt, as to his nuptial dame,
Yet never durst he mix with her in bed,
So much the anger of his wife he fled.
She, now grown old, to young Telemachus
Two torches bore, and was obsequious
Past all his other maids, and did apply
Her service to him from his infancy.
His well-built chamber reach’d, she op’d the door,
He on his bed sat, the soft weeds he wore
Put off, and to the diligent old maid
Gave all; who fitly all in thick folds laid,
And hung them on a beam-pin near the bed,
That round about was rich embroidered.
Then made she haste forth from him, and did bring
The door together with a silver ring,
And by a string a bar to it did pull.
He, laid, and cover’d well with curled wool
Wov’n in silk quilts, all night employ’d his mind
About the task that Pallas had design’d.

 FINIS LIBRI PRIMI HOM. ODYSS.

 [1] The information or fashion of an absolute man; and necessary (or
 fatal) passage through many afflictions (according with the most
 Sacred Letter) to his natural haven and country, is the whole argument
 and scope of this inimitable and miraculous poem. And therefore is the
 epithet _πολὐτροπον_ given him in the first verse: _πολὐτροπος_
 signifying, _Homo cujus ingenium velut per multas et varias vias
 vertitur in verum._

 [2] These notes following I am forced to insert (since the words they
 contain differ from all other translations) lest I be thought to err
 out of that ignorance that may perhaps possess my depraver.

 [3] _‘Αμὑμονος_ translated in this place _inculpabilis,_ and made the
 epithet of Ægisthus, is from the true sense of the word, as it is here
 to be understood; which is quite contrary. As _ὰντίθεος_ is to be
 expounded in some place _Divinus,_ or _Deo similis,_ but in another
 (soon after) _contrarius Deo._ The person to whom the epithet is given
 giving reason to distinguish it. And so _ὀλοὁφρων,_ an epithet given
 to Atlas, instantly following, in one place signifies _mente
 perniciosus,_ in the next, _qui universa mente gerit._

 [4] In this place is Atlas given the epithet _ὀλοὁφρων,_ which
 signifies _qui universa mente agitat,_ here given him for the power
 the stars have in all things. Yet this receives other interpretation
 in other places, as abovesaid.

 [5] _Δὐστηνος_ is here turned by others, _infelix,_ in the general
 collection; when it hath here a particular exposition, applied to
 express Ulysses’ desert errors, _‘παρἁ τὁ στἣναι, ut sit, qui vix
 locum invenire potest ubi consistat._

 [6] This is thus translated, the rather to express and approve the
 allegory driven through the whole Odysseys. Deciphering the intangling
 of the wisest in his affections; and the torments that breed in every
 pious mind; to be thereby hindered to arrive so directly as he
 desires, at the proper and only true natural country of every worthy
 man, whose haven is heaven and the next life, to which, this life is
 but a sea in continual æsture and vexation. The words occasioning all
 this are _μαλακοἳς λὀλοις: μαλακὀς_ signifying, _qui languide, et
 animo remisso rem aliquam gerit;_ which being the effect of Calypso’s
 sweet words in Ulysses, is here applied passively to his own
 sufferance of their operation.

 [7] _῞Ερκος ὀδὀντων,_ viz. _vallum_ or _clanstrum dentium,_ which, for
 the better sound in our language, is here turned, Pale of Ivory. The
 teeth being that rampire, or pale, given us by nature in that part for
 restraint and compression of our speech, till the imagination,
 appetite, and soul (that ought to rule in their examination, before
 their delivery) have given worthy pass to them. The most grave and
 divine poet, teaching therein, that not so much for the necessary
 chewing of our sustenance our teeth are given us, as for their stay of
 our words, lest we utter them rashly.

 [8] _Τὀσος παîς, Tantus filius._ Pallas thus enforcing her question to
 stir up the son the more to the father’s worthiness.

 [9] _’Ερἰηρος ἀοιδὀς. Cantor, cujus tam apta est societas hominibus._

 [10] _’Ανδρἀσιν ἀλφηστᾔσιν. ’Αλφηστᾔσιν_ is an epithet proper to poets
 for their first finding out of arts and documents tending to elocution
 and government inspired only by Jove, and are here called the first of
 men, since first they gave rules to manly life, and have their
 information immediately from Jove (as Plato in Ione witnesseth); the
 word deduced from _ἅλφα,_ which is taken for him _qui primas teneat
 aliquâ in re,_ and will _ἀλφηστῃσιν_ then be sufficiently expressed
 with _ingeniosis,_ than which no exposition goes further.

 [11] _’Ηωθεν, prima luce._

 [12] Upon this answer of Telemachus, because it hath so sudden a
 change and is so far let down from his late height of heat, altering
 and tempering so commandingly his affections I thought not amiss to
 insert here Spondanus’ further annotations, which is this: _Prudenter
 Telemachus joco furorem Antinoi ac asperitatem emolliit. Nam ita
 dictum illius interpretatur, ut existimetur censere jocosè ilia etiam
 ab Antinoo adversum se pronunciata. Et primum ironicè se Regem esse
 exoptat propter commoda quæ Reges solent comitari. Ne tamen invidiam
 in se ambitionis concitet, testatur se regnum, Ithacæ non ambire,
 mortuo Ulysse, cum id alii possidere queant se longe præstantiores ac
 digniores: hoc unum ait se moliri, ut propriarum ædium et bonorum
 solus sit dominus, iis exclusis, ac ejectis, qui vi illa occupare ac
 disperdere conantur._




THE SECOND BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS

 THE ARGUMENT

Telemachus to court doth call
The Wooers, and commands them all
To leave his house; and taking then
From wise Minerva ship and men,
And all things fit for him beside,
That Euryclea could provide
For sea-rites till he found his sire,
He hoists sail; when Heav’n stoops his fire.

 ANOTHER ARGUMENT

_βητα._
The old Maid’s store
The voyage cheers.
The ship leaves shore,
Minerva steers.

Now when with rosy fingers, th’ early born
And thrown through all the air, appear’d the Morn,
Ulysses’ lov’d son from his bed appear’d,
His weeds put on, and did about him gird
His sword that thwart his shoulders hung, and tied
To his fair feet fair shoes, and all parts plied
For speedy readiness: who, when he trod
The open earth, to men show’d like a God.
The heralds then he straight charg’d to consort
The curl’d-head Greeks, with loud calls, to a Court.
They summon’d; th’ other came in utmost haste.
Who all assembled, and in one heap plac’d
He likewise came to council, and did bear
In his fair hand his iron-headed spear.
Nor came alone, nor with men-troops prepar’d,
But two fleet dogs made both his train and guard.
Pallas supplied with her high wisdom’s grace,
That all men’s wants supplies, State’s painted face.
His ent’ring presence all men did admire;
Who took seat in the high throne of his sire,
To which the grave peers gave him rev’rend way.
Amongst whom, an Egyptian heroë
(Crookéd with age, and full of skill) begun
The speech to all; who had a loved son
That with divine Ulysses did ascend
His hollow fleet to Troy; to serve which end,
He kept fair horse, and was a man-at-arms,
And in the cruel Cyclop’s stern alarms
His life lost by him in his hollow cave,
Whose entrails open’d his abhorréd grave,
And made of him, of all Ulysses’ train,
His latest supper, being latest slain;
His name was Antiphus, And this old man,
This crookéd-grown, this wise Egyptian,
Had three sons more; of which one riotous
A wooer was, and call’d Eurynomus;
The other two took both his own wish’d course.
Yet both the best fates weigh’d not down the worse,
But left the old man mindful still of moan;
Who, weeping, thus bespake the Session:
“Hear, Ithacensians, all I fitly say:
Since our divine Ulysses’ parting day
Never was council call’d, nor session,
And now by whom is this thus undergone?
Whom did necessity so much compell,
Of young or old? Hath anyone heard tell
Of any coming army, that he thus now
May openly take boldness to avow,
First having heard it? Or will any here
Some motion for the public good prefer?
Some worth of note there is in this command;
And, methinks, it must be some good man’s hand
That’s put to it, that either hath direct
Means to assist, or, for his good affect,
Hopes to be happy in the proof he makes;
And that Jove grant, whate’er he undertakes.”
Telemachus (rejoicing much to hear
The good hope and opinion men did bear
Of his young actions) no longer sat,
But long’d t’ approve what this man pointed at,
And make his first proof in a cause so good;
And in the council’s chief place up he stood;
When straight Pisenor (herald to his sire,
And learn’d in counsels) felt his heart on fire
To hear him speak, and put into his hand
The sceptre that his father did command;
Then, to the old Egyptian turn’d, he spoke:
“Father, not far he is that undertook
To call this Council; whom you soon shall know.
Myself, whose wrongs my griefs will make me show,
Am he that author’d this assembly here.
Nor have I heard of any army near,
Of which, being first told, I might iterate,
Nor for the public good can aught relate,
Only mine own affairs all this procure,
That in my house a double ill endure;
One, having lost a father so renown’d,
Whose kind rule once with’ your command was crown’d;
The other is, what much more doth augment
His weighty loss, the ruin imminent
Of all my house by it, my goods all spent.
And of all this the wooers, that are sons
To our chief peers, are the confusións,
Importuning my mother’s marriáge
Against her will; nor dares their blood’s bold rage
Go to Icarius’, her father’s, court,
That, his will ask’d in kind and comely sort,
He may endow his daughter with a dow’r,
And, she consenting, at his pleasure’s pow’r
Dispose her to a man, that, thus behav’d,
May have fit grace, and see her honour sav’d.
But these, in none but my house, all their lives
Resolve to spend; slaught’ring my sheep and beeves,
And with my fattest goats lay feast on feast,
My gen’rous wine consuming as they list.
A world of things they spoil, here wanting one,
That, like Ulysses, quickly could set gone
These peace-plagues from his house, that spoil like war;
Whom my pow’rs are unfit to urge so far,
Myself immartial. But, had I the pow’r,
My will should serve me to exempt this hour
From out my life-time. For, past patience,
Base deeds are done here, that exceed defence
Of any honour. Falling is my house,
Which you should shame to see so ruinous.
Rev’rence the censures that all good men give,
That dwell about you; and for fear to live
Expos’d to heav’n’s wrath (that doth ever pay
Pains for joys forfeit) even by Jove I pray,
Or Themis, both which pow’rs have to restrain,
Or gather, councils, that ye will abstain
From further spoil, and let me only waste
In that most wretched grief I have embrac’d
For my lost father. And though I am free
From meriting your outrage, yet, if he,
Good man, hath ever with a hostile heart
Done ill to any Greek, on me convert
Your like hostility, and vengeance take
Of his ill on my life, and all these make
Join in that justice; but, to see abus’d
Those goods that do none ill but being ill-us’d,
Exceeds all right. Yet better ’tis for me,
My whole possessions and my rents to see
Consum’d by you, than lose my life and all;
For on your rapine a revenge may fall,
While I live; and so long I may complain
About the city, till my goods again,
Oft ask’d, may be with all amends repaid.
But in the mean space your misrule hath laid
Griefs on my bosom, that can only speak,
And are denied the instant pow’r of wreak.”
This said, his sceptre ’gainst the ground he threw,
And tears still’d from him; which mov’d all the crew,
The court struck silent, not a man did dare
To give a word that might offend his ear.
Antinous only in this sort replied:
“High spoken, and of spirit unpacified,
How have you sham’d us in this speech of yours!
Will you brand us for an offence not ours?
Your mother, first in craft, is first in cause.
Three years are past, and near the fourth now draws,
Since first she mock’d the peers Achaian.
All she made hope, and promis’d ev’ry man,
Sent for us ever, left love’s show in nought,
But in her heart conceal’d another thought.
Besides, as curious in her craft, her loom
She with a web charg’d, hard to overcome,
And thus bespake us: ‘Youths, that seek my bed,
Since my divine spouse rests amongst the dead,
Hold on your suits but till I end, at most,
This funeral weed, lest what is done be lost.
Besides, I purpose, that when th’ austere fate
Of bitter death shall take into his state
Laertes the heroë, it shall deck
His royal corse, since I should suffer check
In ill report of ev’ry common dame,
If one so rich should show in death his shame.’
This speech she us’d; and this did soon persuade
Our gentle minds. But this a work she made
So hugely long, undoing still in night,
By torches, all she did by day’s broad light,
That three years her deceit div’d past our view,
And made us think that all she feign’d was true.
But when the fourth year came, and those sly hours
That still surprise at length dames’ craftiest powers,
One of her women, that knew all, disclos’d
The secret to us, that she still unloos’d
Her whole day’s fair affair in depth of night.
And then no further she could force her sleight,
But, of necessity, her work gave end.
And thus, by me, doth ev’ry other friend,
Professing love to her, reply to thee;
That ev’n thyself, and all Greeks else, may see,
That we offend not in our stay, but she.
To free thy house then, send her to her sire,
Commanding that her choice be left entire
To his election, and one settled will.
Nor let her vex with her illusions still
Her friends that woo her, standing on her wit,
Because wise Pallas hath giv’n wills to it
So full of art, and made her understand
All works in fair skill of a lady’s hand.
But (for her working mind) we read of none
Of all the old world, in which Greece hath shown
Her rarest pieces, that could equal her:
Tyro, Alcmena, and Mycena were
To hold comparison in no degree,
For solid brain, with wise Penelope.
And yet, in her delays of us, she shows
No prophet’s skill with all the wit she owes;
For all this time thy goods and victuals go
To utter ruin; and shall ever so,
While thus the Gods her glorious mind dispose.
Glory herself may gain, but thou shalt lose
Thy longings ev’n for necessary food,
For we will never go where lies our good,
Nor any other where, till this delay
She puts on all she quits with th’ endless stay
Of some one of us, that to all the rest
May give free farewell with his nuptial feast.”
The wise young prince replied: “Antinous!
I may by no means turn out of my house
Her that hath brought me forth and nourish’d me.
Besides, if quick or dead my father be
In any region, yet abides in doubt;
And ’twill go hard, my means being so run out,
To tender to Icarius again,
If he again my mother must maintain
In her retreat, the dow’r she brought with her.
And then a double ill it will confer,
Both from my father and from God on me,
When, thrust out of her house, on her bent knee,
My mother shall the horrid Furies raise
With imprecations, and all men dispraise
My part in her exposure. Never then
Will I perform this counsel. If your spleen
Swell at my courses, once more I command
Your absence from my house; some other’s hand
Charge with your banquets; on your own goods eat,
And either other mutually in treat,
At either of your houses, with your feast.
But if ye still esteem more sweet and best
Another’s spoil, so you still wreakless live,
Gnaw, vermin-like, things sacred, no laws give[1]
To your devouring; it remains that I
Invoke each Ever-living Deity,
And vow, if Jove shall deign in any date
Pow’r of like pains for pleasure so past rate,
From thenceforth look, where ye have revell’d so
Unwreak’d, your ruins all shall undergo.”
Thus spake Telemachus; t’ assure whose threat,
Far-seeing Jove upon their pinions set
Two eagles from the high brows of a hill,
That, mounted on the Winds, together still
Their strokes extended; but arriving now
Amidst the Council, over ev’ry brow
Shook their thick wings and, threat’ning death’s cold fears,
Their necks and cheeks tore with their eager seres;
Then, on the court’s right hand away they flew,
Above both court and city. With whose view,
And study what events they might foretell
The Council into admiration fell.
The old heroë, Halitherses, then,
The son of Nestor, that of all old men,
His peers in that court, only could foresee
By flight of fowls man’s fixed destiny,
’Twixt them and their amaze, this interpos’d:
“Hear, Ithacensians, all your doubts disclos’d.
The Wooers most are touch’d in this ostent,
To whom are dangers great and imminent;
For now not long more shall Ulysses bear
Lack of his most lov’d, but fills some place near,
Addressing to these Wooers fate and death.
And many more this mischief menaceth
Of us inhabiting this famous isle.
Let us consult yet, in this long forewhile,
How to ourselves we may prevent this ill.
Let these men rest secure, and revel still;
Though they might find it safer, if with us
They would in time prevent what threats them thus;
Since not without sure trial I foretell
These coming storms, but know their issue well.
For to Ulysses all things have event,
As I foretold him, when for Ilion went
The whole Greek fleet together, and with them
Th’ abundant-in-all-counsels took the stream.
I told him, that, when much ill he had past,
And all his men were lost, he should at last,
The twentieth year, turn home, to all unknown;
All which effects are to perfection grown.”
Eurymachus, the son of Polybus,
Oppos’d this man’s presage, and answer’d thus:
“Hence, great in years, go, prophesy at home,
Thy children teach to shun their ills to come.
In these superior far to thee am I.
A world of fowls beneath the sun-beams fly
That are not fit t’ inform a prophecy.
Besides, Ulysses perish’d long ago;
And would thy fates to thee had destin’d so,
Since so thy so much prophecy had spar’d
Thy wronging of our rights, which, for reward
Expected home with thee, hath summon’d us
Within the anger of Telemachus.
But this I will presage, which shall be true:
If any spark of anger chance t’ ensue
Thy much old art in these deep auguries,
In this young man incenséd by thy lies,
Ev’n to himself his anger shall confer
The greater anguish, and thine own ends err
From all their objects; and, besides, thine age
Shall feel a pain, to make thee curse presage
With worthy cause, for it shall touch thee near.
But I will soon give end to all our fear,
Preventing whatsoever chance can fall,
In my suit to the young prince for us all,
To send his mother to her father’s house,
That he may sort her out a worthy spouse,
And such a dow’r bestow, as may befit
One lov’d, to leave her friends and follow it.
Before which course be, I believe that none
Of all the Greeks will cease th’ ambitión
Of such a match. For, chance what can to us,
We no man fear, no not Telemachus,
Though ne’er so greatly spoken. Nor care we
For any threats of austere prophecy,
Which thou, old dotard, vaunt’st of so in vain.
And thus shalt thou in much more hate remain;
For still the Gods shall bear their ill expense,
Nor ever be dispos’d by competence,
Till with her nuptials she dismiss our suits,
Our whole lives’ days shall sow hopes for such fruits.
Her virtues we contend to, nor will go
To any other, be she never so
Worthy of us, and all the worth we owe.”
He answer’d him: “Eurymachus, and all
Ye gen’rous Wooers, now, in general,
I see your brave resolves, and will no more
Make speech of these points, and, much less, implore.
It is enough, that all the Grecians here,
And all the Gods besides, just witness bear,
What friendly premonitions have been spent
On your forbearance, and their vain event.
Yet, with my other friends, let love prevail
To fit me with a vessel free of sail,
And twenty men, that may divide to me
My ready passage through the yielding sea
For Sparta, and Amathoan Pylos’ shore,
I now am bound, in purpose to explore
My long-lack’d father, and to try if fame
Or Jove, most author of man’s honour’d name,
With his return and life may glad mine ear,
Though toil’d in that proof I sustain a year.
If dead I hear him, nor of more state, here
Retir’d to my lov’d country, I will rear
A sepulchre to him, and celebrate
Such royal parent-rites, as fits his state;
And then my mother to a spouse dispose.”
This said, he sat; and to the rest arose
Mentor, that was Ulysses’ chosen friend,
To whom, when he set forth, he did commend
His cómplete family, and whom he will’d
To see the mind of his old sire fulfill’d,
All things conserving safe, till his retreat.
Who, tender of his charge, and seeing so set
In slight care of their king his subjects there,
Suff’ring his son so much contempt to bear,
Thus gravely, and with zeal, to him began:
“No more let any sceptre-bearing man,
Benevolent, or mild, or human be,
Nor in his mind form acts of piety,
But ever feed on blood, and facts unjust
Commit, ev’n to the full swing of his lust,
Since of divine Ulysses no man now,
Of all his subjects, any thought doth show.
All whom he govern’d, and became to them,
Rather than one that wore a diadem,
A most indulgent father. But, for all
That can touch me, within no envy fall
These insolent Wooers, that in violent kind
Commit things foul by th’ ill wit of the mind,
And with the hazard of their heads devour
Ulysses’ house, since his returning hour
They hold past hope. But it affects me much,
Ye dull plebeians, that all this doth touch
Your free states nothing; who, struck dumb, afford
These Wooers not so much wreak as a word,
Though few, and you with only number might
Extinguish to them the profaned light.”
Evenor’s son, Leocritus, replied:
“Mentor! the railer, made a fool with pride,
What language giv’st thou that would quiet us
With putting us in storm, exciting thus
The rout against us? Who, though more than we,
Should find it is no easy victory
To drive men, habited in feast, from feasts,
No not if Ithacus himself such guests
Should come and find so furnishing his Court,
And hope to force them from so sweet a fort.
His wife should little joy in his arrive,
Though much she wants him; for, where she alive
Would her’s enjoy, there death should claim his rights.
_He must be conquer’d that with many fights._
Thou speak’st unfit things. To their labours then
Disperse these people; and let these two men,
Mentor and Halitherses, that so boast
From the beginning to have govern’d most
In friendship of the father, to the son
Confirm the course he now affects to run.
But my mind says, that, if he would but use
A little patience, he should here hear news
Of all things that his wish would understand,
But no good hope for of the course in hand.”
This said, the Council rose; when ev’ry peer
And all the people in dispersion were
To houses of their own; the Wooers yet
Made to Ulysses’ house their old retreat.
Telemachus, apart from all the prease,
Prepar’d to shore, and, in the aged seas
His fair hands wash’d, did thus to Pallas pray:
“Hear me, O Goddess, that but yesterday
Didst deign access to me at home, and lay
Grave charge on me to take ship, and inquire
Along the dark seas for mine absent sire!
Which all the Greeks oppose; amongst whom most
Those that are proud still at another’s cost,
Past measure, and the civil rights of men,
My mother’s Wooers, my repulse maintain.”
Thus spake he praying; when close to him came
Pallas, resembling Mentor both in frame
Of voice and person, and advis’d him thus:
“Those Wooers well might know, Telemachus,
Thou wilt not ever weak and childish be,
If to thee be instill’d the faculty
Of mind and body that thy father grac’d;
And if, like him, there be in thee enchac’d
Virtue to give words works, and works their end.
This voyage, that to them thou didst commend,
Shall not so quickly, as they idly ween,
Be vain, or giv’n up, for their opposite spleen.
But, if Ulysses nor Penelope
Were thy true parents, I then hope in thee
Of no more urging thy attempt in hand;
For few, that rightly bred on both sides stand,
Are like their parents, many that are worse,
And most few better. Those then that the nurse
Or mother call true-born yet are not so,
Like worthy sires much less are like to grow.
But thou show’st now that in thee fades not quite
Thy father’s wisdom; and that future light
Shall therefore show thee far from being unwise,
Or touch’d with stain of bastard cowardice.
Hope therefore says, that thou wilt to the end
Pursue the brave act thou didst erst intend.
But for the foolish Wooers, they bewray
They neither counsel have nor soul, since they
Are neither wise nor just, and so must needs
Rest ignorant how black above their heads
Fate hovers holding Death, that one sole day
Will make enough to make them all away.
For thee, the way thou wishest shall no more
Fly thee a step; I, that have been before
Thy father’s friend, thine likewise now will be,
Provide thy ship myself, and follow thee.
Go thou then home, and sooth each Wooer’s vein,
But under hand fit all things for the main;
Wine in as strong and sweet casks as you can,
And meal, the very marrow of a man,
Which put in good sure leather sacks, and see
That with sweet food sweet vessels still agree.
I from the people straight will press for you
Free voluntaries; and, for ships, enow
Sea-circled Ithaca contains, both new
And old-built; all which I’ll exactly view,
And choose what one soever most doth please;
Which rigg’d, we’ll straight launch, and assay the seas.”
This spake Jove’s daughter, Pallas; whose voice heard,
No more Telemachus her charge deferr’d,
But hasted home, and, sad at heart, did see
Amidst his hall th’ insulting Wooers flea
Goats, and roast swine. ’Mongst whom, Antinous
Careless, discov’ring in Telemachus
His grudge to see them, laugh’d, met, took his hand,
And said: “High-spoken, with the mind so mann’d!
Come, do as we do, put not up your spirits
With these low trifles, nor our loving merits
In gall of any hateful purpose steep,
But eat egregiously, and drink as deep.
The things thou think’st on, all at full shall be
By th’ Achives thought on, and perform’d to thee;
Ship, and choice oars, that in a trice will land
Thy hasty fleet on heav’nly Pylos’ sand,
And at the fame of thy illustrious sire.”
He answer’d: “Men, whom pride did so inspire,
Are not fit consorts for an humble guest;
Nor are constrain’d men merry at their feast.
Is ’t not enough, that all this time ye have
Op’d in your entrails my chief goods a grave,
And, while I was a child, made me partake?
My now more growth more grown my mind doth make,
And, hearing speak more judging men than you,
Perceive how much I was misgovern’d now.
I now will try if I can bring ye home
An ill Fate to consort you; if it come
From Pylos, or amongst the people here.
But thither I resolve, and know that there
I shall not touch in vain. Nor will I stay,
Though in a merchant’s ship I steer my way;
Which shows in your sights best; since me ye know
Incapable of ship, or men to row.”
This said, his hand he coyly snatch’d away
From forth Antinous’ hand. The rest the day
Spent through the house with banquets; some with jests,
And some with railings, dignifying their feasts.
To whom a jest-proud youth the wit began:
“Telemachus will kill us ev’ry man.
From Sparta, to the very Pylian sand,
He will raise aids to his impetuous hand.
O he affects it strangely! Or he means
To search Ephyra’s fat shores, and from thence
Bring deathful poisons, which amongst our bowls
Will make a general shipwrack of our souls.”
Another said: “Alas, who knows but he
Once gone, and erring like his sire at sea,
May perish like him, far from aid of friends,
And so he makes us work? For all the ends
Left of his goods here we shall share, the house
Left to his mother and her chosen spouse.”
Thus they; while he a room ascended, high
And large, built by his father, where did lie
Gold and brass heap’d up, and in coffers were
Rich robes, great store of odorous oils, and there
Stood tuns of sweet old wines along the wall,
Neat and divine drink, kept to cheer with all
Ulysses’ old heart, if he turn’d again
From labours fatal to him to sustain.
The doors of plank were, their close exquisite,
Kept with a double key, and day and night
A woman lock’d within; and that was she
Who all trust had for her sufficiency,
Old Euryclea, one of Opis’ race,
Son to Pisenor, and in passing grace
With grey Minerva; her the prince did call,
And said: “Nurse! Draw me the most sweet of all
The wine thou keep’st; next that which for my sire
Thy care reserves, in hope he shall retire.
Twelve vessels fill me forth, and stop them well.
Then into well-sew’d sacks of fine ground meal
Pour twenty measures. Nor, to anyone
But thee thyself, let this design be known.
All this see got together; I it all
In night will fetch off, when my mother shall
Ascend her high room, and for sleep prepare.
Sparta and Pylos I must see, in care
To find my father.” Out Euryclea cried,
And ask’d with tears: “Why is your mind applied.
Dear son, to this course? Whither will you go?
So far off leave us, and belovéd so,
So only? And the sole hope of your race?
Royal Ulysses, far from the embrace
Of his kind country, in a land unknown
Is dead; and, you from your lov’d country gone,
The Wooers will with some deceit assay
To your destruction, making then their prey
Of all your goods. Where, in your own y’are strong,
Make sure abode. It fits not you so young
To suffer so much by the aged seas,
And err in such a wayless wilderness.”
“Be cheer’d, lov’d nurse,” said he, “for, not without
The will of God, go my attempts about.
Swear therefore, not to wound my mother’s ears
With word of this, before from heav’n appears
Th’ elev’nth or twelfth light, or herself shall please
To ask of me, or hears me put to seas,
Lest her fair body with her woe be wore.”
To this the great oath of the Gods she swore;
Which having sworn, and of it every due
Perform’d to full, to vessels wine she drew,
And into well-sew’d sacks pour’d foody meal.
In mean time he, with cunning to conceal
All thought of this from others, himself bore
In broad house, with the Wooers, as before.
Then grey-eyed Pallas other thoughts did own,
And like Telemachus trod through the town,
Commanding all his men in th’ even to be
Aboard his ship. Again then question’d she
Noënon, fam’d for aged Phronius’ son,
About his ship; who all things to be done
Assur’d her freely should. The sun then set,
And sable shadows slid through ev’ry street,
When forth they launch’d, and soon aboard did bring
All arms, and choice of ev’ry needful thing
That fits a well-rigg’d ship. The Goddess then
Stood in the port’s extreme part, where her men,
Nobly appointed, thick about her came,
Whose ev’ry breast she did with spirit enflame.
Yet still fresh projects laid the grey-eyed Dame.
Straight to the house she hasted, and sweet sleep
Pour’d on each Wooer; which so laid in steep
Their drowsy temples, that each brow did nod,
As all were drinking, and each hand his load,
The cup, let fall. All start up, and to bed,
Nor more would watch, when sleep so surfeited
Their leaden eye-lids. Then did Pallas call
Telemachus, in body, voice, and all,
Resembling Mentor, from his native nest,
And said, that all his arm’d men were addrest
To use their oars, and all expected now
He should the spirit of a soldier show.
“Come then,” said she, “no more let us defer
Our honour’d action.” Then she took on her
A ravish’d spirit, and led as she did leap;
And he her most haste took out step by step.
Arrived at sea and ship, they found ashore
The soldiers that their fashion’d-long hair wore;
To whom the prince said: “Come, my friends, let’s bring
Our voyage’s provision; ev’ry thing
Is heap’d together in our court; and none,
No not my mother, nor her maids, but one
Knows our intention.” This express’d, he led,
The soldiers close together followed;
And all together brought aboard their store.
Aboard the prince went; Pallas still before
Sat at the stern, he close to her, the men
Up hasted after. He and Pallas then
Put from the shore. His soldiers then he bad
See all their arms fit; which they heard, and had.
A beechen mast, then, in the hollow base
They put, and hoisted, fix’d it in its place
With cables; and with well-wreath’d halsers hoise
Their white sails, which grey Pallas now employs
With full and fore-gales through the dark deep main.
The purple waves, so swift cut, roar’d again
Against the ship sides, that now ran and plow’d
The rugged seas up. Then the men bestow’d
Their arms about the ship, and sacrifice
With crown’d wine-cups to th’ endless Deities
They offer’d up. Of all yet thron’d above,
They most observ’d the grey-eyed seed of Jove;
Who, from the evening till the morning rose,
And all day long their voyage did dispose.

 FINIS LIBRI SECUNDI HOM. ODYSS.

 [1] The word is _κεἰρετε, κεἰρω_ signifying _insatiabili, quddâm
 edacitate voro._




THE THIRD BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS

 THE ARGUMENT

Telemachus, and Heav’n’s wise Dame
That never husband had, now came
To Nestor; who his either guest
Receiv’d at the religious feast
He made to Neptune, on his shore;
And there told what was done before
The Trojan turrets, and the state
Of all the Greeks since Ilion’s fate.
This book these three of greatest place
Doth serve with many a varied grace.
Which past, Minerva takes her leave.
Whose state when Nestor doth perceive,
With sacrifice he makes it known,
Where many a pleasing rite is shown.
Which done, Telemachus hath gain’d
A chariot of him; who ordain’d
Pisistratus, his son, his guide
To Sparta; and when starry eyed
The ample heav’n began to be,
All house-rites to afford them free,
In Pheris, Diocles did please,
His surname Ortilochides.

 ANOTHER ARGUMENT

_Γἀμμα._
Ulysses’ son
With Nestor lies,
To Sparta gone;
Thence Pallas flies.

The sun now left the great and goodly lake,
And to the firm heav’n bright ascent did make,
To shine as well upon the mortal birth,
Inhabiting the plow’d life-giving earth,
As on the ever-treaders upon death.
And now to Pylos, that so garnisheth
Herself with buildings, old Neleus’ town,
The prince and Goddess come had strange sights shown,
For, on the marine shore, the people there
To Neptune, that the azure locks doth wear,
Beeves that were wholly black gave holy flame.
Nine seats of state they made to his high name;
And ev’ry seat set with five hundred men,
And each five hundred was to furnish then
With nine black oxen ev’ry sacred seat.
These of the entrails only pleas’d to eat,
And to the God enflam’d the fleshy thighs.
By this time Pallas with the sparkling eyes,
And he she led, within the haven bore,
Struck sail, cast anchor, and trod both the shore,
She first, he after. Then said Pallas: “Now
No more befits thee the least bashful brow;
T’ embolden which this act is put on thee,
To seek thy father both at shore and sea,
And learn in what clime he abides so close,
Or in the pow’r of what Fate doth repose.
Come then, go right to Nestor; let us see,
If in his bosom any counsel be,
That may inform us. Pray him not to trace
The common courtship, and to speak in grace
Of the demander, but to tell the truth;
Which will delight him, and commend thy youth
For such prevention; for he loves no lies,
Nor will report them, being truly wise.”
He answer’d: “Mentor! how, alas! shall I
Present myself? How greet his gravity?
My youth by no means that ripe form affords,
That can digest my mind’s instinct in words
Wise, and beseeming th’ ears of one so sage.
Youth of most hope blush to use words with age.”
She said: “Thy mind will some conceit impress,
And something God will prompt thy towardness;
For, I suppose, thy birth, and breeding too,
Were not in spite of what the Gods could do.”
This said, she swiftly went before, and he
Her steps made guides, and follow’d instantly.
When soon they reach’d the Pylian throngs and seats,
Where Nestor with his sons sat; and the meats,
That for the feast serv’d, round about them were
Adherents dressing, all their sacred cheer,
Being roast and boil’d meats. When the Pylians saw
These strangers come, in thrust did all men draw
About their entry, took their hands, and pray’d
They both would sit; their entry first assay’d
By Nestor’s son, Pisistratus. In grace
Of whose repair, he gave them honour’d place
Betwixt his sire and brother Thrasymed,
Who sat at feast on soft fells that were spread
Along the sea sands, kerv’d, and reach’d to them
Parts of the inwards, and did make a stream
Of spritely wine into a golden bowl;
Which to Minerva with a gentle soul
He gave, and thus spake: “Ere you eat, fair guest,
Invoke the Seas’ King, of whose sacred feast
Your travel hither makes ye partners now;
When, sacrificing as becomes, bestow
This bowl of sweet wine on your friend, that he
May likewise use these rites of piety;
For I suppose his youth doth prayers use,
Since all men need the Gods. But you I choose
First in this cup’s disposure, since his years
Seem short of yours, who more like me appears.”
Thus gave he her the cup of pleasant wine;
And since a wise and just man did design
The golden bowl first to her free receit,
Ev’n to the Goddess it did add delight,
Who thus invok’d: “Hear thou, whose vast embrace
Enspheres the whole earth, nor disdain thy grace
To us that ask it in performing this:
To Nestor first, and these fair sons of his,
Vouchsafe all honour; and, next them, bestow
On all these Pylians, that have offer’d now
This most renowned hecatomb to thee,
Remuneration fit for them, and free;
And lastly deign Telemachus and me,
The work perform’d for whose effect we came,
Our safe return, both with our ship and fame.”
Thus pray’d she; and herself herself obey’d,
In th’ end performing all for which she pray’d.
And now, to pray, and do as she had done,
She gave the fair round bowl t’ Ulysses’ son.
The meat then dress’d, and drawn, and serv’d t’ each guest,
They celebrated a most sumptuous feast.
When appetite to wine and food allay’d,
Horse-taming Nestor then began, and said:
“Now life’s desire is serv’d, as far as fare,
Time fits me to enquire what guests these are.
Fair guests, what are ye? And for what coast tries
Your ship the moist deeps? For fit merchandise?
Or rudely coast ye, like our men of prise,
The rough seas tempting, desperately erring,
The ill of others in their good conferring?”
The wise prince now his boldness did begin,
For Pallas’ self had harden’d him within,
By this device of travel to explore
His absent father; which two girlonds wore;
His good by manage of his spirits; and then
To gain him high grace in th’ accounts of men.
“O Nestor! still in whom Nelëus lives!
And all the glory of the Greeks survives,
You ask from whence we are, and I relate:
From Ithaca (whose seat is situate
Where Neius, the renownéd mountain, rears
His haughty forehead, and the honour bears
To be our sea-mark) we assay’d the waves.
The business, I must tell, our own good craves,
And not the public. I am come t’ enquire,
If, in the fame that best men doth inspire
Of my most-suff’ring father, I may hear
Some truth of his estate now, who did bear
The name, being join’d in fight with you alone,
To even with earth the height of Ilion.
Of all men else, that any name did bear,
And fought for Troy, the sev’ral ends we hear;
But his death Jove keeps from the world unknown,
The certain fame thereof being told by none;
If on the continent by enemies slain,
Or with the waves eat of the ravenous main.
For his love ’tis that to your knees I sue,
That you would please, out of your own clear view,
T’ assure his sad end; or say, if your ear
Hath heard of the unhappy wanderer,
To too much sorrow whom his mother bore.
You then by all your bounties I implore,
(If ever to you deed or word hath stood,
By my good father promis’d, render’d good
Amongst the Trojans, where ye both have tried
The Grecian suff’rance) that in nought applied
To my respect or pity you will glose,
But uncloth’d truth to my desires disclose.”
“O my much-lov’d,” said he, “since you renew
Remembrance of the miseries that grew
Upon our still-in-strength-opposing Greece
Amongst Troy’s people, I must touch a piece
Of all our woes there, either in the men
Achilles brought by sea and led to gain
About the country, or in us that fought
About the city, where to death were brought
All our chief men, as many as were there.
There Mars-like Ajax lies; Achilles there;
There the in-counsel-like-the-Gods, his friend;
There my dear son Antilochus took end,
Past measure swift of foot, and staid in fight.
A number more that ills felt infinite;
Of which to reckon all, what mortal man,
If five or six years you should stay here, can
Serve such enquiry? You would back again,
Affected with unsufferable pain,
Before you heard it. Nine years sieg’d we them,
With all the depth and sleight of stratagem
That could be thought. Ill knit to ill past end.
Yet still they toil’d us; nor would yet Jove send
Rest to our labours, nor will scarcely yet.
But no man liv’d, that would in public set
His wisdom by Ulysses’ policy,
As thought his equal; so excessively
He stood superior all ways. If you be
His son indeed, mine eyes ev’n ravish me
To admiration. And in all consent
Your speech puts on his speech’s ornament.
Nor would one say, that one so young could use,
Unless his son, a rhetoric so profuse.
And while we liv’d together, he and I
Never in speech maintain’d diversity;
Nor sat in council but, by one soul led,
With spirit and prudent counsel furnishéd
The Greeks at all hours, that, with fairest course,
What best became them, they might put in force.
But when Troy’s’ high tow’rs we had levell’d thus,
We put to sea, and God divided us.
And then did Jove our sad retreat devise;
For all the Greeks were neither just nor wise,
And therefore many felt so sharp a fate,
Sent from Minerva’s most pernicious hate;
Whose mighty Father can do fearful things.
By whose help she betwixt the brother kings
Let fall contention; who in council met
In vain, and timeless, when the sun was set,
And all the Greeks call’d, that came charg’d with wine.
Yet then the kings would utter their design,
And why they summon’d. Menelaus, he
Put all in mind of home, and cried, To sea.
But Agamemnon stood on contraries,
Whose will was, they should stay and sacrifice
Whole hecatombs to Pallas, to forego
Her high wrath to them. Fool! that did not know
She would not so be won; for not with ease
Th’ Eternal Gods are turn’d from what they please.
So they, divided, on foul language stood.
The Greeks in huge rout rose, their wine-heat blood
Two ways affecting. And, that night’s sleep too,
We turn’d to studying either other’s woe;
When Jove besides made ready woes enow.
Morn came, we launch’d, and in our ships did stow
Our goods, and fair-girt women. Half our men
The people’s guide, Atrides, did contain,
And half, being now aboard, put forth to sea.
A most free gale gave all ships prosp’rous way.
God settled then the huge whale-bearing lake,
And Tenedos we reach’d; where, for time’s sake,
We did divine rites to the Gods. But Jove,
Inexorable still, bore yet no love
To our return, but did again excite
A second sad contention, that turn’d quite
A great part of us back to sea again;
Which were th’ abundant-in-all-counsels man,
Your matchless father, who, to gratify
The great Atrides, back to him did fly.
But I fled all, with all that follow’d me,
Because I knew God studied misery,
To hurl amongst us. With me likewise fled
Martial Tydides. I the men he led
Gat to go with him. Winds our fleet did bring
To Lesbos, where the yellow-headed king,
Though late, yet found us, as we put to choice
A tedious voyage; if we sail should hoise
Above rough Chius, left on our left hand,
To th’ isle of Psyria, or that rugged land
Sail under, and for windy Mimas steer.
We ask’d of God that some ostent might clear
Our cloudy business, who gave us sign,
And charge, that all should, in a middle line,
The sea cut for Eubœa, that with speed
Our long-sustain’d infortune might be freed.
Then did a whistling wind begin to rise,
And swiftly flew we through the fishy skies,
Till to Geræstus we in night were brought;
Where, through the broad sea since we safe had wrought,
At Neptune’s altars many solid thighs
Of slaughter’d bulls we burn’d for sacrifice.
The fourth day came, when Tydeus’ son did greet
The haven of Argos with his cómplete fleet.
But I for Pylos straight steer’d on my course;
Nor ever left the wind his foreright force,
Since God fore-sent it first. And thus I came,
Dear son, to Pylos, uninform’d by fame,
Nor know one sav’d by Fate, or overcome.
Whom I have heard of since, set here at home,
As fits, thou shalt be taught, nought left unshown.
The expert spear-men, ev’ry Myrmidon,
Led by the brave heir of the mighty-soul’d
Unpeer’d Achilles, safe of home got hold;
Safe Philoctetes, Pœan’s famous seed;
And safe Idomenæus his men led
To his home, Crete, who fled the arméd field,
Of whom yet none the sea from him withheld.
Atrides, you have both heard, though ye be
His far-off dwellers, what an end had he,
Done by Ægisthus to a bitter death;
Who miserably paid for forcéd breath,
Atrides leaving a good son, that dyed,
In blood of that deceitful parricide,
His wreakful sword. And thou my friend, as he
For this hath his fame, the like spirit in thee
Assume at all parts. Fair and great, I see,
Thou art in all hope, make it good to th’ end,
That after-times as much may thee commend.”
He answer’d: “O thou greatest grace of Greece,
Orestes made that wreak his master-piece,
And him the Greeks will give a master-praise,
Verse finding him to last all after-days.
And would to God the Gods would favour me
With his performance, that my injury,
Done by my mother’s Wooers, being so foul,
I might revenge upon their ev’ry soul;
Who, pressing me with contumelies, dare
Such things as past the pow’r of utt’rance are.
But Heav’n’s great Pow’rs have grac’d my destiny
With no such honour. Both my sire and I
Are born to suffer everlastingly.”
“Because you name those Wooers, friend,” said he,
“Report says, many such, in spite of thee,
Wooing thy mother, in thy house commit
The ills thou nam’st. But say: Proceedeth it
From will in thee to bear so foul a foil?
Or from thy subjects’ hate, that wish thy spoil,
And will not aid thee, since their spirits rely,
Against thy rule, on some grave augury?
What know they, but at length thy father may
Come, and with violence their violence pay;
Or he alone, or all the Greeks with him?
But if Minerva now did so esteem
Thee, as thy father in times past; whom, past
All measure, she with glorious favours grac’t
Amongst the Trojans, where we suffer’d so;
(O! I did never see, in such clear show,
The Gods so grace a man, as she to him,
To all our eyes, appear’d in all her trim)
If so, I say, she would be pleas’d to love,
And that her mind’s care thou so much couldst move,
As did thy father, ev’ry man of these
Would lose in death their seeking marriages.”
“O father,” answer’d he, “you make amaze
Seize me throughout. Beyond the height of phrase
You raise expression; but ’twill never be,
That I shall move in any Deity
So blest an honour. Not by any means,
If Hope should prompt me, or blind Confidence,
(The Gods of Fools) or ev’ry Deity
Should will it; for ’tis past my destiny.”
The burning-eyed Dame answer’d: “What a speech
Hath past the teeth-guard Nature gave to teach
Fit question of thy words before they fly!
God easily can[1] (when to mortal eye
He’s furthest off) a mortal satisfy;
And does the more still. For thy car’d-for sire,
I rather wish, that I might home retire,
After my suff’rance of a world of woes,
Far off, and then my glad eyes might disclose
The day of my return, then straight retire,
And perish standing by my household fire;
As Agamemnon did, that lost his life
By false Ægisthus, and his falser wife.
For Death to come at length, ’tis due to all;
Nor can the Gods themselves, when Fate shall call
Their most-lov’d man, extend his vital breath
Beyond the fix’d bounds of abhorréd Death.”
“Mentor!” said he, “let’s dwell no more on this,
Although in us the sorrow pious is.
No such return, as we wish, Fates bequeath
My erring father; whom a present death
The Deathless have decreed. I’ll now use speech
That tends to other purpose; and beseech
Instruction of grave Nestor, since he flows
Past shore in all experience, and knows
The sleights and wisdoms, and whose heights aspire
Others, as well as my commended sire,
Whom Fame reports to have commanded three
Ages of men, and doth in sight to me
Show like th’ Immortals. Nestor! the renown
Of old Neleius, make the clear truth known,
How the most-great-in-empire, Atreus’ son,
Sustain’d the act of his destruction,
Where then was Menelaus? How was it
That false Ægisthus, being so far unfit
A match for him, could his death so enforce?
Was he not then in Argos? or his course
With men so left, to let a coward breathe
Spirit enough to dare his brother’s death?”
“I’ll tell thee truth in all, fair son,” said he:
“Right well was this event conceiv’d by thee.
If Menelaus in his brother’s house
Had found the idle liver with his spouse,
Arriv’d from Troy, he had not liv’d, nor dead
Had the digg’d heap pour’d on his lustful head,
But fowls and dogs had torn him in the fields,
Far off of Argos; not a dame it yields
Had giv’n him any tear, so foul his fact
Show’d ev’n to women. Us Troy’s wars had rack’d
To ev’ry sinew’s sufferance, while he
In Argos’ uplands liv’d, from those works free,
And Agamemnon’s wife with force of word
Flatter’d and soften’d, who, at first, abhorr’d
A fact so infamous. The heav’nly dame
A good mind had, but was in blood to blame.
There was a poet, to whose care the king
His queen committed, and in ev’ry thing,
When he from Troy went, charg’d him to apply
Himself in all guard to her dignity.
But when strong Fate so wrapt-in her effects,
That she resolv’d to leave her fit respects,
Into a desert isle her guardian led,
There left, the rapine of the vultures fed.
Then brought he willing home his will’s won prize,
On sacred altars offer’d many thighs,
Hung in the God’s fanes many ornaments,
Garments and gold, that he the vast events
Of such a labour to his wish had brought,
As neither fell into his hope nor thought.
At last, from Troy sail’d Sparta’s king and I,
Both holding her untouch’d. And, that his eye
Might see no worse of her, when both were blown
To sacred Sunium, of Minerva’s town
The goodly promontory, with his shafts severe
Augur Apollo slew him that did steer
Atrides’ ship, as he the stern did guide,
And she the full speed of her sail applied.
He was a man that natións of men
Excell’d in safe guide of a vessel, when
A tempest rush’d in on the ruffled seas;
His name was Phrontis Onetorides.
And thus was Menelaus held from home,
Whose way he thirsted so to overcome,
To give his friend the earth, being his pursuit,
And all his exequies to execute.
But sailing still the wine-hued seas,[2] to reach
Some shore for fit performance, he did fetch
The steep mount of the Malians, and there,
With open voice, offended Jupiter
Proclaim’d the voyage his repugnant mind,
And pour’d the puffs out of a shrieking wind,
That nourish’d billows heighten’d like to hills;
And with the fleet’s division fulfills
His hate proclaim’d; upon a part of Crete
Casting the navy, where the sea-waves meet
Rough Jardanus, and where the Cydons live.
There is a rock, on which the sea doth drive,
Bare, and all broken, on the confines set
Of Gortys, that the dark seas likewise fret;
And hither sent the South a horrid drift
Of waves against the top, that was the left
Of that torn cliff as far as Phæstus’ strand.
A little stone the great sea’s rage did stand.
The men here driv’n ‘scap’d hard the ship’s sore shocks,
The ships themselves being wrack’d against the rocks,
Save only five, that blue fore-castles bore,
Which wind and water cast on Egypt’s shore.
When he (there victling well, and store of gold
Aboard his ships brought) his wild way did hold,
And t’ other languag’d men was forc’d to roam.
Mean space Ægisthus made sad work at home,
And slew his brother, forcing to his sway
Atrides’ subjects, and did sev’n years lay
His yoke upon the rich Mycenian state.
But in the eighth, to his affrighting fate,
Divine Orestes home from Athens came,
And what his royal father felt, the same
He made the false Ægisthus groan beneath.
_Death evermore is the reward of death._
Thus having slain him, a sepulchral feast
He made the Argives for his lustful guest,
And for his mother whom he did detest.
The self-same day upon him stole the king
Good-at-a-martial-shout, and goods did bring,
As many as his freighted fleet could bear.
But thou, my son, too long by no means err,
Thy goods left free for many a spoilful guest,
Lest they consume some, and divide the rest,
And thou, perhaps, besides, thy voyage lose.
To Menelaus yet thy course dispose
I wish and charge thee; who but late arriv’d
From such a shore and men, as to have liv’d
In a return from them he never thought,
And whom black whirlwinds violently brought
Within a sea so vast, that in a year
Not any fowl could pass it anywhere,
So huge and horrid was it. But go thou
With ship and men (or, if thou pleasest now
To pass by land, there shall be brought for thee
Both horse and chariot, and thy guides shall be
My sons themselves) to Sparta the divine,
And to the king whose locks like amber shine.
Intreat the truth of him, nor loves he lies,
Wisdom in truth is, and he’s passing wise.”
This said, the Sun went down, and up rose Night,
When Pallas spake: “O father, all good right
Bear thy directions. But divide we now
The sacrifices’ tongues, mix wines, and vow
To Neptune, and the other Ever-Blest,
That, having sacrific’d, we may to rest.
The fit hour runs now, light dives out of date,
At sacred feasts we must not sit too late.”
She said; they heard; the heralds water gave;
The youths crown’d cups with wine, and let all have
Their equal shares, beginning from the cup
Their parting banquet. All the tongues cut up,
The fire they gave them, sacrific’d, and rose,
Wine, and divine rites us’d, to each dispose;
Minerva and Telemachus desir’d
They might to ship be, with his leave, retir’d.
He, mov’d with that, provok’d thus their abodes:
“Now Jove forbid, and all the long-liv’d Gods,
Your leaving me, to sleep aboard a ship;
As I had drunk of poor Penia’s whip,
Even to my nakedness, and had nor sheet
Nor cov’ring in my house; that warm nor sweet
A guest, nor I myself, had means to sleep;
Where I, both weeds and wealthy cov’rings keep
For all my guests. Nor shall Fame ever say,
The dear son of the man Ulysses lay
All night a-ship-board here while my days shine,
Or in my court whiles any son of mine
Enjoys survival, who shall guests receive,
Whomever my house hath a nook to leave.”
“My much-lov’d father,” said Minerva, “well
All this becomes thee. But persuade to dwell
This night with thee thy son Telemachus,
For more convenient is the course for us,
That he may follow to thy house and rest,
And I may board our black-sail, that addrest
At all parts I may make our men, and cheer
All with my presence, since of all men there
I boast myself the senior, th’ others are
Youths, that attend in free and friendly care
Great-soul’d Telemachus, and are his peers
In fresh similitude of form and years.
For their confirmance, I will therefore now
Sleep in our black bark. But, when light shall show
Her silver forehead, I intend my way
Amongst the Caucons, men that are to pay
A debt to me, nor small, nor new. For this,
Take you him home; whom in the morn dismiss,
With chariot and your sons, and give him horse
Ablest in strength, and of the speediest course”
This said, away she flew, form’d like the fowl
Men call the ossifrage; when ev’ry soul
Amaze invaded; even th’ old man admir’d,
The youth’s hand took, and said: “O most desir’d,
My hope says thy proof will no coward show,
Nor one unskill’d in war, when Deities now
So young attend thee, and become thy guides;
Nor any of the heav’n-hous’d States besides,
But Tritogenia’s self, the Seed of Jove,
The great-in-prey, that did in honour move
So much about thy father, amongst all
The Grecian army. Fairest queen, let fall
On me like favours! Give me good renown!
Which, as on me, on my lov’d wife let down,
And all my children. I will burn to thee
An ox right bred, broad-headed, and yoke-free,
To no man’s hand yet humbled. Him will I,
His horns in gold hid, give thy Deity.”
Thus pray’d he, and she heard; and home he led
His sons, and all his heaps of kindered.
Who ent’ring his court royal, ev’ry one
He marshall’d in his sev’ral seat and throne;
And ev’ry one, so kindly come, he gave
His sweet-wine cup; which none was let to have
Before his ‘leventh year landed him from Troy;
Which now the butleress had leave t’ employ,
Who therefore pierc’d it, and did give it vent.
Of this the old duke did a cup present
To ev’ry guest; made his Maid many a pray’r
That wears the shield fring’d with his nurse’s hair,
And gave her sacrifice. With this rich wine
And food suffic’d, sleep all eyes did decline,
And all for home went; but his court alone
Telemachus, divine Ulysses’ son,
Must make his lodging, or not please his heart.
A bed, all chequer’d with elaborate art,
Within a portico that rung like brass,
He brought his guest to; and his bedfere was
Pisistratus, the martial guide of men,
That liv’d, of all his sons, unwed till then.
Himself lay in a by-room, far above,
His bed made by his barren wife, his love.
The rosy-finger’d Morn no sooner shone,
But up he rose, took air, and sat upon
A seat of white and goodly polish’d stone,
That such a gloss as richest ointments wore,
Before his high gates; where the counsellor
That match’d the Gods (his father) us’d to sit,
Who now, by fate forc’d, stoop’d as low as it.
And here sat Nestor, holding in his hand
A sceptre; and about him round did stand,
As early up, his sons’ troop; Perseus,
The god-like Thrasymed, and Aretus,
Echephron, Stratius, and sixth and last
Pisistratus, and by him (half embrac’d
Still as they came) divine Telemachus;
To these spake Nestor, old Gerenius:
“Haste, lovéd sons, and do me a desire,
That, first of all the Gods, I may aspire
To Pallas’ favour, who vouchsaf’d to me
At Neptune’s feast her sight so openly.
Let one to field go, and an ox with speed
Cause hither brought, which let the herdsman lead;
Another to my dear guest’s vessel go,
And all his soldiers bring, save only two;
A third the smith that works in gold command
(Laertius) to attend, and lend his hand,
To plate the both horns round about with gold;
The rest remain here close. But first, see told
The maids within, that they prepare a feast,
Set seats through all the court, see straight addrest
The purest water, and get fuel fell’d.”
This said, not one but in the service held
Officious hand. The ox came led from field;
The soldiers troop’d from ship; the smith he came,
And those tools brought that serv’d the actual frame
His art conceiv’d, brought anvil, hammers brought,
Fair tongs, and all, with which the gold was wrought.
Minerva likewise came, to set the crown
On that kind sacrifice, and make ’t her own.
Then th’ old knight Nestor gave the smith the gold,
With which he straight did both the horns infold,
And trimm’d the off’ring so, the Goddess joy’d.
About which thus were Nestor’s sons employ’d:
Divine Echephron, and fair Stratius,
Held both the horns. The water odorous,
In which they wash’d, what to the rites was vow’d,
Aretus, in a caldron all bestrow’d
With herbs and flowers, serv’d in from th’ holy room
Where all were drest, and whence the rites must come.
And after him a hallow’d virgin came,
That brought the barley-cake, and blew the flame.
The axe, with which the ox should both be fell’d
And cut forth, Thrasymed stood by and held.
Perseus the vessel held that should retain
The purple liquor of the off’ring slain.
Then wash’d the pious father, then the cake
(Of barley, salt, and oil, made) took, and brake,
Ask’d many a boon of Pallas, and the state
Of all the off’ring did initiate,
In three parts cutting off the hair, and cast
Amidst the flame. All th’ invocation past,
And all the cake broke, manly Thrasymed
Stood near, and sure, and such a blow he laid
Aloft the off’ring, that to earth he sunk,
His neck-nerves sunder’d, and his spirits shrunk.
Out shriek’d the daughters, daughter-in-laws, and wife
Of three-ag’d Nestor, who had eldest life
Of Clymen’s daughters, chaste Eurydice.
The ox on broad earth then laid laterally
They held, while duke Pisistratus the throat
Dissolv’d, and set the sable blood afloat,
And then the life the bones left. Instantly
They cut him up; apart flew either thigh,
That with the fat they dubb’d, with art alone,
The throat-brisk, and the sweet-bread pricking on.
Then Nestor broil’d them on the coal-turn’d wood,
Pour’d black wine on; and by him young men stood,
That spits fine-pointed held, on which, when burn’d
The solid thighs were, they transfix’d, and turn’d
The inwards, cut in cantles; which, the meat
Vow’d to the Gods consum’d, they roast and eat.
In mean space, Polycasté (call’d the fair,
Nestor’s young’st daughter) bath’d Ulysses’ heir;
Whom having cleans’d, and with rich balms bespread,
She cast a white shirt quickly o’er his head,
And then his weeds put on; when forth he went,
And did the person of a God present,
Came, and by Nestor took his honour’d seat,
This pastor of the people. Then, the meat
Of all the spare parts roasted, off they drew,
Sat, and fell to. But soon the temp’rate few
Rose, and in golden bowls fill’d others wine.
Till, when the rest felt thirst of feast decline,
Nestor his sons bad fetch his high-man’d horse,
And them in chariot join, to run the course
The prince resolv’d. Obey’d, as soon as heard,
Was Nestor by his sons, who straight prepar’d
Both horse and chariot. She that kept the store,
Both bread and wine, and all such viands more,
As should the feast of Jove-fed kings compose,
Purvey’d the voyage. To the rich coach rose
Ulysses’ son, and close to him ascended
The duke Pisistratus, the reins intended,
And scourg’d, to force to field, who freely flew;
And left the town that far her splendour threw,
Both holding yoke, and shook it all the day.
But now the sun set, dark’ning ev’ry way,
When they to Pheris came; and in the house
Of Diocles (the son t’ Orsilochus,
Whom flood Alphëus got) slept all that night;
Who gave them each due hospitable rite.
But when the rosy-finger’d Morn arose,
They went to coach, and did their horse inclose,
Drave forth the fore-court, and the porch that yields
Each breath a sound, and to the fruitful fields
Rode scourging still their willing flying steeds,
Who strenuously perform’d their wonted speeds.
Their journey ending just when sun went down,
And shadows all ways through the earth were thrown.

 FINIS LIBRI TERTII HOM. ODYSS.

 [1] _Volente Deo, nihil est difficile._

 [2] _Οἲνοπα πὀντον: οἲνοψ cujus facies vinum repræsentat._




THE FOURTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS

 THE ARGUMENT

Receiv’d now in the Spartan court,
Telemachus prefers report
To Menelaus of the throng
Of Wooers with him, and their wrong.
Atrides tells the Greeks’ retreat,
And doth a prophecy repeat
That Proteus made, by which he knew
His brother’s death; and then doth show
How with Calypso liv’d the sire
Of his young guest. The Wooers conspire
Their prince’s death. Whose treach’ry known,
Penelope in tears doth drown.
Whom Pallas by a dream doth cheer,
And in similitude appear
Of fair Iphthima, known to be
The sister of Penelope.

 ANOTHER ARGUMENT

_Δἐλτα._
Here of the sire
The son doth hear.
The Wooers conspire.
The Mother’s fear.

In Lacedæmon now, the nurse of whales,[1]
These two arriv’d, and found at festivals,
With mighty concourse, the renownéd king,
His son and daughter jointly marrying.
Alector’s daughter he did give his son,
Strong Megapenthes, who his life begun
By Menelaus’ bondmaid; whom he knew
In years when Helen could no more renew
In issue like divine Hermione,
Who held in all fair form as high degree
As golden Venus. Her he married now
To great Achilles’ son, who was by vow
Betroth’d to her at Troy, And thus the Gods
To constant loves give nuptial periods.
Whose state here past, the Myrmidons’ rich town
(Of which she shar’d in the imperial crown)
With horse and chariots he resign’d her to.
Mean space, the high huge house with feast did flow
Of friends and neighbours, joying with the king.
Amongst whom did a heav’nly poet sing,
And touch his harp. Amongst whom likewise danc’d
Two, who in that dumb motion advanc’d,
Would prompt the singer what to sing and play.[2]
All this time in the utter court did stay,
With horse and chariot, Telemachus,
And Nestor’s noble son Pisistratus.
Whom Eteoneus, coming forth, descried,
And, being a servant to the king, most tried
In care and his respect, he ran and cried:
“Guests, Jove-kept Menelaus, two such men
As are for form of high Saturnius’ strain.
Inform your pleasure, if we shall unclose
Their horse from coach, or say they must dispose
Their way to some such house, as may embrace
Their known arrival with more welcome grace?”

He, angry, answer’d: “Thou didst never show
Thyself a fool, Boethides, till now;
But now, as if turn’d child, a childish speech
Vents thy vain spirits. We ourselves now reach
Our home by much spent hospitality
Of other men; nor know if Jove will try
With other after-wants our state again;
And therefore from our feast no more detain
Those welcome guests, but take their steeds from coach,
And with attendance guide in their approach.”

This said, he rush’d abroad, and call’d some more
Tried in such service, that together bore
Up to the guests, and took their steeds that swet
Beneath their yokes from coach; at mangers set,
Wheat and white barley gave them mix’d; and plac’d
Their chariot by a wall so clear, it cast
A light quite through it. And then they led
Their guests to the divine house; which so fed
Their eyes at all parts with illustrious sights,
That admiration seiz’d them. Like the lights
The sun and moon gave, all the palace threw
A lustre through it. Satiate with whose view,
Down to the king’s most bright-kept baths they went,
Where handmaids did their services present,
Bath’d, balm’d them, shirts and well-napt weeds put on,
And by Atrides’ side set each his throne.
Then did the handmaid-royal water bring,
And to a laver, rich and glittering,
Of massy gold, pour’d; which she plac’d upon
A silver caldron, into which might run
The water as they wash’d. Then set she near
A polish’d table, on which all the cheer
The present could afford a rev’rend dame,
That kept the larder, set. A cook then came,
And divers dishes, borne thence, serv’d again;
Furnish’d the board with bowls of gold. And then,
His right hand giv’n the guests, Atrides said:
“Eat, and be cheerful. Appetite allay’d,
I long to ask, of what stock ye descend;
For not from parents whose race nameless end
We must derive your offspring. Men obscure
Could get none such as you. The portraiture
Of Jove-sustain’d and sceptre-bearing kings
Your either person in his presence brings.”
An ox’s fat chine then they up did lift,
And set before the guests; which was a gift,
Sent as an honour to the king’s own taste.
They saw yet ’twas but to be eaten plac’d,
And fell to it. But food and wine’s care past,
Telemachus thus prompted Nestor’s son,
(His ear close laying, to be heard of none):[3]

“Consider, thou whom most of my mind esteems,
The brass-work here, how rich it is in beams,
And how, besides, it makes the whole house sound;
What gold, and amber, silver, ivory, round
Is wrought about it. Out of doubt, the hall
Of Jupiter Olympius hath of all
This state the like. How many infinites
Take up to admiration all men’s sights!”

Atrides over-heard, and said: “Lov’d son,
No mortal must affect contentión
With Jove, whose dwellings are of endless date.
Perhaps of men some one may emulate,
Or none, my house, or me; for I am one
That many a grave extreme have undergone,
Much error felt by sea, and till th’ eighth year,
Had never stay, but wander’d far and near,
Cyprus, Phœnicia, and Sidonia,
And fetch’d the far-off Æthiopia,
Reach’d the Erembi of Arabia,
And Lybia, where with horns ewes yean their lambs,
Which ev’ry full year ewes are three times dams,
Where neither king, nor shepherd, want comes near
Of cheese, or flesh, or sweet milk; all the year
They ever milk their ewes. And here while I
Err’d, gath’ring means to live, one, murd’rously,
Unwares, unseen, bereft my brother’s life,
Chiefly betray’d by his abhorréd wife.
So hold I, not enjoying, what you see.
And of your fathers, if they living be,
You must have heard this, since my suff’rings were
So great and famous; from this palace here
(So rarely-well-built, furnishéd so well,
And substancéd with such a precious deal
Of well-got treasure) banish’d by the doom
Of Fate, and erring as I had no home.
And now I have, and use it, not to take
Th’ entire delight it offers, but to make
Continual wishes, that a triple part
Of all it holds were wanting, so my heart
Were eas’d of sorrows, taken for their deaths
That fell at Troy, by their revivéd breaths.
And thus sit I here weeping, mourning still
Each least man lost; and sometimes make mine ill,
In paying just tears for their loss, my joy.
Sometimes I breathe my woes, for in annoy
The pleasure soon admits satiety.
But all these men’s wants wet not so mine eye,
Though much they move me, as one sole man’s miss,
For which my sleep and meat ev’n loathsome is
In his renew’d thought, since no Greek hath won
Grace for such labours as Laërtes’ son
Hath wrought and suffer’d, to himself nought else
But future sorrows forging, to me hells
For his long absence, since I cannot know
If life or death detain him; since such woe
For his love, old Laërtes, his wise wife,
And poor young son sustains, whom new with life
He left as sireless.” This speech grief to tears
(Pour’d from the son’s lids on the earth) his ears,
Told of the father, did excite; who kept
His cheeks dry with his red weed as he wept,
His both hands us’d therein. Atrides then
Began to know him, and did strife retain,
If he should let himself confess his sire,
Or with all fitting circumstance enquire.

While this his thoughts disputed, forth did shine,
Like to the golden distaff-deck’d Divine,
From her bed’s high and odoriferous room,
Helen. To whom, of an elaborate loom,
Adresta set a chair; Alcippe brought
A piece of tapestry of fine wool wrought;
Phylo a silver cabinet conferr’d,
Giv’n by Alcandra, nuptially endear’d
To lord Polybius, whose abode in Thebes
Th’ Ægyptian city was, where wealth in heaps
His famous house held, out of which did go,
In gift t’ Atrides, silver bath-tubs two,
Two tripods, and of fine gold talents ten.
His wife did likewise send to Helen then
Fair gifts, a distaff that of gold was wrought,
And that rich cabinet that Phylo brought,
Round, and with gold ribb’d, now of fine thread full;
On which extended (crown‘d with finest wool,
Of violet gloss) the golden distaff-lay.

She took her state-chair, and a foot-stool’s stay
Had for her feet; and of her husband thus
Ask’d to know all things: “Is it known to us,
King Menelaus, whom these men commend
Themselves for, that our court now takes to friend?
I must affirm, be I deceiv’d or no,
I never yet saw man nor woman so
Like one another, as this man is like
Ulysses’ son. With admiration strike
His looks my thoughts, that they should carry now
Pow’r to persuade me thus, who did but know,
When newly he was born, the form they bore.
But ’tis his father’s grace, whom more and more
His grace resembles, that makes me retain
Thought that he now is like Telemachus, then
Left by his sire, when Greece did undertake
Troy’s bold war for my impudency’s sake.”

He answer’d: “Now wife, what you think I know,
The true cast of his father’s eye doth show
In his eyes’ order. Both his head and hair,
His hands and feet, his very father’s are.
Of whom, so well remember’d, I should now
Acknowledge for me his continual flow
Of cares and perils, yet still patient.
But I should too much move him, that doth vent
Such bitter tears for that which hath been spoke,
Which, shunning soft show, see how he would cloak,
And with his purple weed his weepings hide.”

Then Nestor’s son, Pisistratus, replied:
“Great pastor of the people, kept of God!
He is Ulysses’ son, but his abode
Not made before here, and he modest too,
He holds it an indignity to do
A deed so vain, to use the boast of words,
Where your words are on wing; whose voice affords
Delight to us as if a God did break
The air amongst us, and vouchsafe to speak.
But me my father, old duke Nestor, sent
To be his consort hither; his content
Not to be heighten’d so as with your sight,
In hope that therewith words and actions might
Inform his comforts from you, since he is
Extremely griev’d and injur’d by the miss
Of his great father; suff’ring ev’n at home,
And few friends found to help him overcome
His too weak suff’rance, now his sire is gone;
Amongst the people, not afforded one
To check the miseries that mate him thus.
And this the state is of Telemachus.”

“O Gods,” said he, “how certain, now, I see
My house enjoys that friend’s son, that for me
Hath undergone so many willing fights!
Whom I resolv’d, past all the Grecian knights,
To hold in love, if our return by seas
The far-off Thunderer did ever please
To grant our wishes. And to his respect
A palace and a city to erect,
My vow had bound me; whither bringing then
His riches, and his son, and all his men,
From barren Ithaca, (some one sole town
Inhabited about him batter’d down)
All should in Argos live. And there would I
Ease him of rule, and take the empery
Of all on me. And often here would we,
Delighting, loving either’s company,
Meet and converse; whom nothing should divide,
Till death’s black veil did each all over hide.
But this perhaps hath been a mean to take
Ev’n God himself with envy; who did make
Ulysses therefore only the unblest,
That should not reach his loved country’s rest.”

These woes made ev’ry one with woe in love;
Ev’n Argive Helen wept, the Seed of Jove;
Ulysses’ son wept; Atreus’ son did weep;
And Nestor’s son his eyes in tears did steep,
But his tears fell not from the present cloud
That from Ulysses was exhal’d, but flow’d
From brave Antilochus’ remember’d due,
Whom the renown’d Son of the Morning slew,
Which yet he thus excus’d: “O Atreus’ son!
Old Nestor says, there lives not such a one
Amongst all mortals as Atrides is
For deathless wisdom. ’Tis a praise of his,
Still giv’n in your remembrance, when at home
Our speech concerns you. Since then overcome
You please to be with sorrow, ev’n to tears,
That are in wisdom so exempt from peers,
Vouchsafe the like effect in me excuse,
If it be lawful, I affect no use
Of tears thus after meals; at least, at night;
But when the morn brings forth, with tears, her light,
It shall not then impair me to bestow
My tears on any worthy’s overthrow.
It is the only rite that wretched men
Can do dead friends, to cut hair, and complain.
But Death my brother took, whom none could call
The Grecian coward, you best knew of all.
I was not there, nor saw, but men report
Antilochus excell’d the common sort
For footmanship, or for the chariot race,
Or in the fight for hardy hold of place.”

“O friend,” said he, “since thou hast spoken so,
At all parts as one wise should say and do,
And like one far beyond thyself in years,
Thy words shall bounds be to our former tears.
O he is questionless a right-born son,
That of his father hath not only won
The person but the wisdom; and that sire
Complete himself that hath a son entire,
Jove did not only his full fate adorn,
When he was wedded, but when he was born.
As now Saturnius, through his life’s whole date,
Hath Nestor’s bliss rais’d to as steep a state,
Both in his age to keep in peace his house,
And to have children wise and valorous.
But let us not forget our rear feast thus.
Let some give water here. Telemachus!
The morning shall yield time to you and me
To do what fits, and reason mutually.”

This said, the careful servant of the king,
Asphalion, pour’d on th’ issue of the spring;
And all to ready feast set ready hand.
But Helen now on new device did stand,
Infusing straight a medicine to their wine,
That, drowning care and angers; did decline
All thought of ill. Who drunk her cup could shed
All that day not a tear, no not if dead
That day his father or his mother were,
Not if his brother, child, or chiefest dear,
He should see murder’d then before his face.
Such useful medicines, only borne in grace
Of what was good, would Helen ever have.
And this juice to her Polydamna gave
The wife of Thoon, an Ægyptian born,
Whose rich earth herbs of medicine do adorn
In great abundance. Many healthful are,
And many baneful. Ev’ry man is there
A good physician out of Nature’s grace,
For all the nation sprung of Pæon’s race.

When Helen then her medicine had infus’d,
She bad pour wine to it, and this speech us’d:

“Atrides, and these good men’s sons, great Jove
Makes good and ill one after other move,
In all things earthly; for he can do all.
The woes past, therefore, he so late let fall,
The comforts he affords us let us take;
Feast, and, with fit discourses, merry make.
Nor will I other use. As then our blood
Griev’d for Ulysses, since he was so good,
Since he was good, let us delight to hear
How good he was, and what his suff’rings were;
Though ev’ry fight, and ev’ry suff’ring deed,
Patient Ulysses underwent, exceed
My woman’s pow’r to number, or to name.
But what he did, and suffer’d, when he came
Amongst the Trojans, where ye Grecians all
Took part with suff’rance, I in part can call
To your kind memories. How with ghastly wounds
Himself he mangled, and the Trojan bounds,
Thrust thick with enemies, adventur’d on,
His royal shoulders having cast upon
Base abject weeds, and enter’d like a slave.
Then, beggar-like, he did of all men crave,
And such a wretch was, as the whole Greek fleet
Brought not besides. And thus through ev’ry street
He crept discov’ring, of no one man known.
And yet through all this diff’rence, I alone
Smoked his true person, talk’d with him; but he
Fled me with wiles still. Nor could we agree,
Till I disclaim’d him quite; and so (as mov’d
With womanly remorse of one that prov’d
So wretched an estate, whate’er he were)
Won him to take my house. And yet ev’n there,
Till freely I, to make him doubtless, swore
A pow’rful oath, to let him reach the shore
Of ships and tents before Troy understood,
I could not force on him his proper good.
But then I bath’d and sooth’d him, and he then
Confess’d, and told me all; and, having slain
A number of the Trojan guards, retir’d,
And reach’d the fleet, for sleight and force admir’d.
Their husbands’ deaths by him the Trojan wives
Shriek’d for; but I made triumphs for their lives,
For then my heart conceiv’d, that once again
I should reach home; and yet did still retain
Woe for the slaughters Venus made for me,
When both my husband, my Hermione,
And bridal room, she robb’d of so much right,
And drew me from my country with her sleight,
Though nothing under heaven I here did need,
That could my fancy or my beauty feed.”

Her husband said: “Wife! what you please to tell
Is true at all parts, and becomes you well;
And I myself, that now may say have seen
The minds and manners of a world of men,
And great heroes, measuring many a ground,
Have never, by these eyes that light me, found
One with a bosom so to be belov’d,
As that in which th’ accomplish’d spirit mov’d
Of patient Ulysses. What, brave man,
He both did act, and suffer, when he wan
The town of Ilion, in the brave-built horse,
When all we chief states of the Grecian force
Were hous’d together, bringing death and Fate
Amongst the Trojans, you, wife, may relate;
For you, at last, came to us; God, that would
The Trojans’ glory give, gave charge you should
Approach the engine; and Deiphobus,
The god-like, follow’d. Thrice ye circled us
With full survey of it; and often tried
The hollow crafts that in it were implied.[4]
When all the voices of their wives in it
You took on you with voice so like and fit,
And ev’ry man by name so visited,
That I, Ulysses, the king Diomed,
(Set in the midst, and hearing how you call’d)
Tydides, and myself (as half appall’d
With your remorseful plaints) would passing fain
Have broke our silence, rather than again
Endure, respectless, their so moving cries.
But Ithacus our strongest phantasies
Contain’d within us from the slenderest noise,
And ev’ry man there sat without a voice.
Anticlus only would have answer’d thee,
But his speech Ithacus incessantly
With strong hand held in, till, Minerva’s call
Charging thee off, Ulysses sav’d us all.”

Telemachus replied: “Much greater is
My grief, for hearing this high praise of his.
For all this doth not his sad death divert,
Nor can, though in him swell’d an iron heart.
Prepare, and lead then, if you please, to rest:
Sleep, that we hear not, will content us best.”
Then Argive Helen made her handmaid go,
And put fair bedding in the portico,
Lay purple blankets on, rugs warm and soft,
And cast an arras coverlet aloft.

They torches took, made haste, and made the bed;
When both the guests were to their lodgings led
Within a portico without the house.
Atrides, and his large-train-wearing spouse,
The excellent of women, for the way,
In a retir’d receit, together lay.
The Morn arose; the king rose, and put on
His royal weeds, his sharp sword hung upon
His ample shoulders, forth his chamber went,
And did the person of a God present.

Telemachus accosts him, who begun
Speech of his journey’s proposition:

“And what, my young Ulyssean heroë,
Provok’d thee on the broad back of the sea,
To visit Lacedæmon the divine?
Speak truth, some public [good] or only thine?”

“I come,” said he, “to hear, if any fame
Breath’d of my father to thy notice came.
My house is sack’d, my fat works of the field
Are all destroy’d; my house doth nothing yield
But enemies, that kill my harmless sheep,
And sinewy oxen, nor will ever keep
Their steels without them. And these men are they
That woo my mother, most inhumanly
Committing injury on injury.
To thy knees therefore I am come, t’ attend
Relation of the sad and wretched end
My erring father felt, if witness’d by
Your own eyes, or the certain news that fly
From others’ knowledges. For, more than is
The usual heap of human miseries,
His mother bore him to. Vouchsafe me then,
Without all ruth of what I can sustain,
The plain and simple truth of all you know.
Let me beseech so much, if ever vow
Was made, and put in good effect to you,
At Troy, where suff’rance bred you so much smart,
Upon my father good Ulysses’ part,
And quit it now to me (himself in youth)
Unfolding only the uncloséd truth.”

He, deeply sighing, answer’d him: “O shame,
That such poor vassals should affect the fame
To share the joys of such a worthy’s bed!
As when a hind, her calves late farrowéd,
To give suck, enters the bold lion’s den,
He roots of hills and herby vallies then
For food (there feeding) hunting; but at length
Returning to his cavern, gives his strength
The lives of both the mother and her brood
In deaths indecent; so the Wooers’ blood
Must pay Ulysses’ pow’rs as sharp an end.
O would to Jove, Apollo, and thy friend
The wise Minerva, that thy father were
As once he was, when he his spirits did rear
Against Philomelides, in a fight
Perform’d in well-built Lesbos, where, down-right
He strook the earth with him, and gat a shout
Of all the Grecians! O, if now full out
He were as then, and with the Wooers coped,
Short-liv’d they all were, and their nuptials hoped
Would prove as desp’rate. But, for thy demand
Enforc’d with pray’rs, I’ll let thee understand
The truth directly, nor decline a thought,
Much less deceive, or sooth thy search in ought;
But what the old and still-true-spoken God,
That from the sea breathes oracles abroad,
Disclos’d to me, to thee I’ll all impart,
Nor hide one word from thy sollicitous heart.

I was in Ægypt, where a mighty time
The Gods detain’d me, though my natural clime
I never so desir’d, because their homes
I did not greet with perfect hecatombs.
For they will put men evermore in mind,
How much their masterly commandments bind.

There is, besides, a certain island, call’d
Pharos, that with the high-wav’d sea is wall’d,
Just against Ægypt, and so much remote,
As in a whole day, with a fore-gale smote,
A hollow ship can sail. And this isle bears
A port most portly, where sea-passengers
Put in still for fresh water, and away
To sea again. Yet here the Gods did stay
My fleet full twenty days; the winds, that are
Masters at sea, no prosp’rous puff would spare
To put us off; and all my victuals here
Had quite corrupted, as my men’s minds were,
Had not a certain Goddess giv’n regard,
And pitied me in an estate so hard;
And ’twas Idothea, honour’d Proteus’ seed,
That old sea-farer. Her mind I make bleed
With my compassion, when (walk’d all alone,
From all my soldiers, that were ever gone
About the isle on fishing with hooks bent;
Hunger their bellies on her errand sent)
She came close to me, spake, and thus began:

‘Of all men thou art the most foolish man!
Or slack in business, or stay’st here of choice,
And dost in all thy suff’rances rejoice,
That thus long liv’st detain’d here, and no end
Canst give thy tarriance? Thou dost much offend
The minds of all thy fellows.’ I replied:

‘Whoever thou art of the Deified,
I must affirm, that no way with my will
I make abode here; but, it seems, some ill
The Gods, inhabiting broad heav’n, sustain
Against my getting off. Inform me then,
For Godheads all things know, what God is he
That stays my passage from the fishy sea?’

‘Stranger,’ said she, ‘I’ll tell thee true: There lives
An old sea-farer in these seas, that gives
A true solution of all secrets here,
Who deathless Proteus is, th’ Ægyptian peer,
Who can the deeps of all the seas exquire,
Who Neptune’s priest is, and, they say, the sire
That did beget me. Him, if any way
Thou couldst inveigle, he would clear display
Thy course from hence, and how far off doth lie
Thy voyage’s whole scope through Neptune’s sky.
Informing thee, O God-preserv’d, beside,
If thy desires would so be satisfied,
Whatever good or ill hath got event,
In all the time thy long and hard course spent,
Since thy departure from thy house.’ This said;
Again I answer’d: ‘Make the sleights display’d
Thy father useth, lest his foresight see,
Or his foreknowledge taking note of me,
He flies the fixt place of his us’d abode.
’Tis hard for man to countermine with God.’

She straight replied: ‘I’ll utter truth in all:
When heav’n’s supremest height the sun doth skall,
The old Sea-tell-truth leaves the deeps, and hides
Amidst a black storm, when the West Wind chides,
In caves still sleeping. Round about him sleep
(With short feet swimming forth the foamy deep)
The sea-calves, lovely Halosydnes call’d,
From whom a noisome odour is exhal’d,
Got from the whirl-pools, on whose earth they lie.
Here, when the morn illustrates all the sky,
I’ll guide, and seat thee in the fittest place
For the performance thou hast now in chace.
In mean time, reach thy fleet, and choose out three
Of best exploit, to go as aids to thee.

But now I’ll show thee all the old God’s sleights:
He first will number, and take all the sights
Of those his guard, that on the shore arrives.
When having view’d, and told them forth by fives,
He takes place in their midst, and there doth sleep,
Like to a shepherd midst his flock of sheep.
In his first sleep, call up your hardiest cheer,
Vigour and violence, and hold him there,
In spite of all his strivings to be gone.
He then will turn himself to ev’ry one
Of all things that in earth creep and respire,
In water swim, or shine in heav’nly fire.
Yet still hold you him firm, and much the more
Press him from passing. But when, as before,
When sleep first bound his pow’rs, his form ye see,
Then cease your force, and th’ old heroë free,
And then demand, which heav’n-born it may be
That so afflicts you, hind’ring your retreat,
And free sea-passage to your native seat.’

This said, she div’d into the wavy seas,
And I my course did to my ships address,
That on the sands stuck; where arriv’d, we made
Our supper ready. Then th’ ambrosian shade
Of night fell on us, and to sleep we fell.
Rosy Aurora rose; we rose as well,
And three of them on whom I most relied,
For firm at ev’ry force, I choos’d, and hied
Straight to the many-river-servéd seas;
And all assistance ask’d the Deities.

Mean time Idothea the sea’s broad breast
Embrac’d, and brought for me, and all my rest,
Four of the sea-calves’ skins but newly flay’d,
To work a wile which she had fashionéd
Upon her father. Then, within the sand
A covert digging, when these calves should land,
She sat expecting. We came close to her;
She plac’d us orderly, and made us wear
Each one his calf’s skin. But we then must pass
A huge exploit. The sea-calves’ savour was
So passing sour, they still being bred at seas,
It much afflicted us; for who can please
To lie by one of these same sea-bred whales?
But she preserves us, and to memory calls
A rare commodity; she fetch’d to us
Ambrosia, that an air most odorous
Bears still about it, which she ‘nointed round
Our either nosthrils, and in it quite drown’d
The nasty whale-smell. Then the great event
The whole morn’s date, with spirits patient,
We lay expecting. When bright noon did flame,
Forth from the sea in shoals the sea-calves came,
And orderly, at last lay down and slept
Along the sands. And then th’ old Sea-God crept
From forth the deeps, and found his fat calves there,
Survey’d, and number’d, and came never near
The craft we us’d, but told us five for calves.
His temples then dis-eas’d with sleep he salves;
And in rush’d we, with an abhorréd cry,
Cast all our hands about him manfully;
And then th’ old Forger all his forms began:
First was a lion with a mighty mane,
Then next a dragon, a pied panther then,
A vast boar next, and suddenly did strain
All into water. Last he was a tree,
Curl’d all at top, and shot up to the sky.

We, with resolv’d hearts, held him firmly still,
When th’ old one (held too strait for all his skill
To extricate) gave words, and question’d me:

‘Which of the Gods, O Atreus’ son,’ said he,
‘Advis’d and taught thy fortitude this sleight,
To take and hold me thus in my despite?’
‘What asks thy wish now?’ I replied. ‘Thou know’st.
Why dost thou ask? What wiles are these thou show’st?
I have within this isle been held for wind
A wondrous time, and can by no means find
An end to my retention. It hath spent
The very heart in me. Give thou then vent
To doubts thus bound in me, ye Gods know all,
Which of the Godheads doth so foully fall
On my addression home, to stay me here,
Avert me from my way, the fishy clear
Barr’d to my passage?’ He replied: ‘Of force,
If to thy home thou wishest free recourse,
To Jove, and all the other Deities,
Thou must exhibit solemn sacrifice;
And then the black sea for thee shall be clear,
Till thy lov’d country’s settled reach. But where
Ask these rites thy performance? ’Tis a fate
To thee and thy affairs appropriate,
That thou shalt never see thy friends, nor tread
Thy country’s earth, nor see inhabited
Thy so magnificent house, till thou make good
Thy voyage back to the Ægyptian flood,
Whose waters fell from Jove, and there hast giv’n
To Jove, and all Gods housed in ample heav’n,
Devoted hecatombs, and then free ways
Shall open to thee, clear’d of all delays.’
This told he; and, methought, he brake my heart,
In such a long and hard course to divert
My hope for home, and charge my back retreat
As far as Ægypt. I made answer yet:
‘Father, thy charge I’ll perfect; but before
Resolve me truly, if their natural shore
All those Greeks, and their ships, do safe enjoy,
That Nestor and myself left, when from Troy
We first rais’d sail? Or whether any died
At sea a death unwish’d? Or, satisfied,
When war was past, by friends embrac’d, in peace
Resign’d their spirits? He made answer: ‘Cease
To ask so far. It fits thee not to be
So cunning in thine own calamity.
Nor seek to learn what learn’d thou shouldst forget.
Men’s knowledges have proper limits set,
And should not prease into the mind of God.
But ’twill not long be, as my thoughts abode,
Before thou buy this curious skill with tears.
Many of those, whose states so tempt thine ears,
Are stoop’d by death, and many left alive,
One chief of which in strong hold doth survive,
Amidst the broad sea. Two, in their retreat,
Are done to death. I list not to repeat
Who fell at Troy, thyself was there in fight,
But in return swift Ajax lost the light,
In his long-oar’d ship. Neptune, yet, awhile
Saft him unwrack’d, to the Gyræan isle,
A mighty-rock removing from his way.
And surely he had ‘scap’d the fatal day,
In spite of Pallas, if to that foul deed
He in her fane did, (when he ravishéd
The Trojan prophetess) he had not here
Adjoin’d an impious boast, that he would bear,
Despite the Gods, his ship safe through the waves
Then rais’d against him. These his impious braves
When Neptune heard, in his strong hand he took
His massy trident, and so soundly strook
The rock Gyræan, that in two it cleft;
Of which one fragment on the land he left,
The other fell into the troubled seas;
At which first rush’d Ajax Oïliades,
And split his ship, and then himself afloat
Swum on the rough waves of the world’s vast mote,
Till having drunk a salt cup for his sin,
There perish’d he. Thy brother yet did win
The wreath from death, while in the waves they strove,
Afflicted by the rev’rend wife of Jove.
But when the steep mount of the Malian shore
He seem’d to reach, a most tempestuous blore,
Far to the fishy world that sighs so sore,
Straight ravish’d him again as far away,
As to th’ extreme bounds where the Agrians stay,
Where first Thyestes dwelt, but then his son
Ægisthus Thyestiades liv’d. This done,
When his return untouch’d appear’d again,
Back turn’d the Gods the wind, and set him then
Hard by his house. Then, full of joy, he left
His ship, and close t’ his country earth he cleft,
Kiss’d it, and wept for joy, pour’d tear on tear,
To set so wishedly his footing there.
But see, a sentinel that all the year
Crafty Ægisthus in a watchtow’r set
To spy his landing, for reward as great
As two gold talents, all his pow’rs did call
To strict remembrance of his charge, and all
Discharg’d at first sight, which at first he cast
On Agamemnon, and with all his haste
Inform’d Ægisthus. He an instant train
Laid for his slaughter: Twenty chosen men
Of his plebeians he in ambush laid;
His other men he charg’d to see purvey’d
A feast; and forth, with horse and chariots grac’d,
He rode t’ invite him, but in heart embrac’d
Horrible welcomes, and to death did bring,
With treach’rous slaughter, the unwary king,
Receiv’d him at a feast, and, like an ox
Slain at his manger, gave him bits and knocks.
No one left of Atrides’ train, nor one
Sav’d to Ægisthus, but himself alone,
All strew’d together there the bloody court.’
This said, my soul he sunk with his report,
Flat on the sands I fell, tears spent their store,
I light abhorr’d, my heart would live no more.
When dry of tears, and tir’d of tumbling there,
Th’ old Tell-truth thus my daunted spirits did cheer:
‘No more spend tears nor time, O Atreus’ son,
With ceaseless weeping never wish was won,
Use uttermost assay to reach thy home,
And all unwares upon the murderer come,
For torture, taking him thyself alive;
Or let Orestes, that should far out-strive
Thee in fit vengeance, quickly quit the light
Of such a dark soul, and do thou the rite
Of burial to him with a funeral feast.’

With these last words I fortified my breast,
In which again a gen’rous spring began
Of fitting comfort, as I was a man;
But, as a brother, I must ever mourn.
Yet forth I went, and told him the return
Of these I knew; but he had nam’d a third,
Held on the broad sea, still with life inspir’d,
Whom I besought to know, though likewise dead,
And I must mourn alike. He answeréd:
‘He is Laertes’ son; whom I beheld
In nymph Calypso’s palace, who compell’d
His stay with her, and, since he could not see
His country earth, he mourn’d incessantly.
For he had neither ship instruct with oars,
Nor men to fetch him from those stranger shores.
Where leave we him, and to thy self descend,
Whom not in Argos Fate nor Death shall end,
But the immortal ends of all the earth,
So rul’d by them that order death by birth,
The fields Elysian, Fate to thee will give;
Where Rhadamanthus rules, and where men live
A never-troubled life, where snow, nor show’rs,
Nor irksome Winter spends his fruitless pow’rs,
But from the ocean Zephyr still resumes
A constant breath, that all the fields perfumes.
Which, since thou marriedst Helen, are thy hire,
And Jove himself is by her side thy sire.’
This said; he div’d the deepsome wat’ry heaps;
I and my tried men took us to our ships,
And worlds of thoughts I varied with my steps.
Arriv’d and shipp’d, the silent solemn night
And sleep bereft us of our visual light.
At morn, masts, sails, rear’d, we sat, left the shores,
And beat the foamy ocean with our oars.
Again then we the Jove-fall’n flood did fetch,
As far as Ægypt; where we did beseech
The Gods with hecatombs; whose angers ceast,
I tomb’d my brother that I might be blest.
All rites perform’d, all haste I made for home,
And all the prosp’rous winds about were come,
I had the passport now of ev’ry God,
And here clos’d all these labours’ period.
Here stay then till th’ eleventh or twelfth day’s light,
And I’ll dismiss thee well, gifts exquisite
Preparing for thee, chariot, horses three,
A cup of curious frame to serve for thee
To serve th’ immortal Gods with sacrifice,
Mindful of me while all suns light thy skies.”
He answer’d: “Stay me not too long time here,
Though I could sit attending all the year.
Nor should my house, nor parents, with desire,
Take my affections from you, so on fire
With love to hear you are my thoughts; but so
My Pylian friends I shall afflict with woe
Who mourn ev’n this stay. Whatsoever be
The gifts your grace is to bestow on me,
Vouchsafe them such as I may bear and save
For your sake ever. Horse, I list not have,
To keep in Ithaca, but leave them here,
To your soil’s dainties, where the broad fields bear
Sweet cypers grass, where men-fed lote doth flow,
Where wheat-like spelt, and wheat itself, doth grow,
Where barley, white, and spreading like a tree;
But Ithaca hath neither ground to be,
For any length it comprehends, a race
To try a horse’s speed, nor any place
To make him fat in; fitter far to feed
A cliff-bred goat, than raise or please a steed.
Of all isles, Ithaca doth least provide
Or meads to feed a horse, or ways to ride.”
He, smiling, said: “Of good blood art thou, son.
What speech, so young! What observatión
Hast thou made of the world! I well am pleas’d
To change my gifts to thee, as being confess’d
Unfit indeed, my store is such I may.
Of all my house-gifts then, that up I lay
For treasure there, I will bestow on thee
The fairest, and of greatest price to me.
I will bestow on thee a rich carv’d cup,
Of silver all, but all the brims wrought up
With finest gold; it was the only thing
That the heroical Sidonian king
Presented to me, when we were to part
At his receipt of me, and ’twas the art
Of that great Artist that of heav’n is free;
And yet ev’n this will I bestow on thee.”
This speech thus ended, guests came, and did bring
Muttons, for presents, to the God-like king,
And spirit-prompting wine, that strenuous makes.
Their riband-wreathed wives brought fruit and cakes.
Thus in this house did these their feast apply;
And in Ulysses’ house activity
The Wooers practis’d; tossing of the spear,
The stone, and hurling; thus delighted, where
They exercis’d such insolence before,
Ev’n in the court that wealthy pavements wore
Antinous did still their strifes decide,
And he that was in person deified
Eurymachus; both ring-leaders of all,
For in their virtues they were principal.
These by Noëmon, son to Phronius,
Were sided now, who made the question thus:
“Antinous! Does any friend here know,
When this Telemachus returns, or no,
From sandy Pylos? He made bold to take
My ship with him; of which, I now should make
Fit use myself, and sail in her as far
As spacious Elis, where of mine there are
Twelve delicate mares, and under their sides go
Laborious mules, that yet did never know
The yoke, nor labour; some of which should bear
The taming now, if I could fetch them there.”
This speech the rest admir’d, nor dream’d that he
Neleïan Pylos ever thought to see,
But was at field about his flocks’ survey,
Or thought his herdsmen held him so away.
Eupitheus son, Antinous, then replied:
“When went he, or with what train dignified?
Of his selected Ithacensian youth?
Prest men, or bond men, were they? Tell the truth.
Could he effect this? Let me truly know.
To gain thy vessel did he violence show,
And us’d her ’gainst thy will? or had her free,
When fitting question he had made with thee?”
Noëmon answer’d: “I did freely give
My vessel to him. Who deserves to live
That would do other, when such men as he
Did in distress ask? He should churlish be
That would deny him. Of our youth the best
Amongst the people, to the interest
His charge did challenge in them, giving way,
With all the tribute all their pow’rs could pay.
Their captain, as he took the ship, I knew,
Who Mentor was, or God. A Deity’s shew
Mask’d in his likeness. But, to think ’twas he,
I much admire, for I did clearly see,
But yester-morning, God-like Mentor here;
Yet th’ other ev’ning he took shipping there,
And went for Pylos.” Thus went he for home,
And left the rest with envy overcome;
Who sat, and pastime left. Eupitheus son,
Sad, and with rage his entrails overrun,
His eyes like flames, thus interpos’d his speech:
“Strange thing! An action of how proud a reach
Is here committed by Telemachus!
A boy, a child, and we, a sort of us,
Vow’d ’gainst his voyage, yet admit it thus!
With ship and choice youth of our people too!
But let him on, and all his mischief do,
Jove shall convert upon himself his pow’rs,
Before their ill presum’d he brings on ours.
Provide me then a ship, and twenty men
To give her manage, that, against again
He turns for home, on th’ Ithacensian seas,
Or cliffy Samian, I may interprease,
Way-lay, and take him, and make all his craft
Sail with his ruin for his father saft.”
This all applauded, and gave charge to do,
Rose, and to greet Ulysses’ house did go.
But long time past not, ere Penelope
Had notice of their far-fetch’d treachery.
Medon the herald told her, who had heard
Without the hall how they within conferr’d,
And hasted straight to tell it to the queen,
Who, from the entry having Medon seen,
Prevents him thus: “Now herald, what affair
Intend the famous Wooers, in your repair?
To tell Ulysses’ maids that they must cease
From doing our work, and their banquets dress?
I would to heav’n, that, leaving wooing me,
Nor ever troubling other company,
Here might the last feast be, and most extreme,
That ever any shall address for them.
They never meet but to consent in spoil,
And reap the free fruits of another’s toil.
O did they never, when they children were,
What to their fathers was Ulysses, hear?
Who never did ’gainst anyone proceed
With unjust usage, or in word or deed?
’Tis yet with other kings another right,
One to pursue with love, another spite;
He still yet just, nor would, though might, devour,
Nor to the worst did ever taste of pow’r.
But their unrul’d acts show their minds’ estate.
Good turns receiv’d once, thanks grow out of date.”
Medon, the learn’d in wisdom, answer’d her:
“I wish, O queen, that their ingratitudes were
Their worst ill towards you; but worse by far,
And much more deadly, their endeavours are,
Which Jove will fail them in. Telemachus
Their purpose is, as he returns to us,
To give their sharp steels in a cruel death;
Who now is gone to learn, if fame can breathe
News of his sire, and will the Pylian shore,
And sacred Sparta, in his search explore.”
This news dissolv’d to her both knees and heart,
Long silence held her ere one word would part,
Her eyes stood full of tears, her small soft voice
All late use lost; that yet at last had choice
Of wonted words, which briefly thus she us’d:
“Why left my son his mother? Why refus’d
His wit the solid shore, to try the seas,
And put in ships the trust of his distress,
That are at sea to men unbridled horse,
And run, past rule, their far-engagéd course,
Amidst a moisture past all mean unstaid?
No need compell’d this. Did he it, afraid
To live and leave posterity his name?”
“I know not,” he replied, “if th’ humour came
From current of his own instinct, or flow’d
From others’ instigations; but he vow’d
Attempt to Pylos, or to see descried
His sire’s return, or know what death he died.”
This said, he took him to Ulysses’ house
After the Wooers; the Ulyssean spouse,
Run through with woes, let Torture seize her mind,
Nor in her choice of state chairs stood inclin’d
To take her seat, but th’ abject threshold chose
Of her fair chamber for her loath’d repose,
And mourn’d most wretch-like. Round about her fell
Her handmaids, join’d in a continuate yell.
From ev’ry corner of the palace, all
Of all degrees tun’d to her comfort’s fall
Their own dejections; to whom her complaint
She thus enforc’d: “The Gods, beyond constraint
Of any measure, urge these tears on me;
Nor was there ever dame of my degree
So past degree griev’d. First, a lord so good,
That had such hardy spirits in his blood,
That all the virtues was adorn’d withall,
That all the Greeks did their superior call,
To part with thus, and lose! And now a son,
So worthily belov’d, a course to run
Beyond my knowledge; whom rude tempests have
Made far from home his most inglorious grave!
Unhappy wenches, that no one of all
(Though in the reach of ev’ry one must fall
His taking ship) sustain’d the careful mind,
To call me from my bed, who this design’d
And most vow’d course in him had either stay’d,
How much soever hasted, or dead laid
He should have left me. Many a man I have,
That would have call’d old Dolius my slave,
(That keeps my orchard, whom my father gave
At my departure) to have run, and told
Laertes this; to try if he could hold
From running through the people, and from tears,
In telling them of these vow’d murderers;
That both divine Ulysses’ hope, and his,
Resolv’d to end in their conspiracies.”
His nurse then, Euryclea, made reply:
“Dear sov’reign, let me with your own hands die,
Or cast me off here, I’ll not keep from thee
One word of what I know. He trusted me
With all his purpose, and I gave him all
The bread and wine for which he pleas’d to call.
But then a mighty oath he made me swear,
Not to report it to your royal ear
Before the twelfth day either should appear,
Or you should ask me when you heard him gone.
Impair not then your beauties with your moan,
But wash, and put untear-stain’d garments on,
Ascend your chamber with your ladies here,
And pray the seed of goat-nurs’d Jupiter,
Divine Athenia, to preserve your son,
And she will save him from confusión,
Th’ old king, to whom your hopes stand so inclin’d
For his grave counsels, you perhaps may find
Unfit affected, for his age’s sake.
But heav’n-kings wax not old, and therefore make
Fit pray’rs to them; for my thoughts never will
Believe the heav’nly Pow’rs conceit so ill
The seed of righteous Arcesiades,
To end it utterly, but still will please
In some place evermore some one of them
To save, and deck him with a diadem,
Give him possession of erected tow’rs,
And far-stretch’d fields, crown’d all of fruits and flowr’s.”
This eas’d her heart, and dried her humorous eyes,
When having wash’d, and weeds of sacrifice
Pure, and unstain’d with her distrustful tears,
Put on, with all her women-ministers
Up to a chamber of most height she rose,
And cakes of salt and barley did impose
Within a wicker basket; all which broke
In decent order, thus she did invoke:
“Great Virgin of the goat-preservéd God,
If ever the inhabited abode
Of wise Ulysses held the fatted thighs
Of sheep and oxen, made thy sacrifice
By his devotion, hear me, nor forget
His pious services, but safe see set
His dear son on these shores, and banish hence
These Wooers past all mean in insolence.”
This said, she shriek’d, and Pallas heard her pray’r.
The Wooers broke with tumult all the air
About the shady house; and one of them,
Whose pride his youth had made the more extreme,
Said: “Now the many-wooer-honour’d queen
Will surely satiate her delayful spleen,
And one of us in instant nuptials take.
Poor dame, she dreams not, what design we make
Upon the life and slaughter of her son.”
So said he; but so said was not so done;
Whose arrogant spirit in a vaunt so vain
Antinous chid, and said: “For shame, contain
These braving speeches. Who can tell who hears?
Are we not now in reach of others’ ears?
If our intentions please us, let us call
Our spirits up to them, and let speeches fall.
By watchful danger men must silent go.
What we resolve on, let’s not say, but do.”
This said, he choos’d out twenty men, that bore
Best reckoning with him, and to ship and shore
All hasted, reach’d the ship, launch’d, rais’d the mast,
Put sails in, and with leather loops made fast
The oars; sails hoisted, arms their men did bring,
All giving speed and form to ev’rything.
Then to the high deeps their rigg’d vessel driven,
They supp’d, expecting the approaching even.
Mean space, Penelope her chamber kept
And bed, and neither eat, nor drank, nor slept,
Her strong thoughts wrought so on her blameless son,
Still in contention, if he should be done
To death, or ‘scape the impious Wooers’ design.
Look how a lion, whom men-troops combine
To hunt, and close him in a crafty ring,
Much varied thought conceives, and fear doth sting
For urgent danger; so far’d she, till sleep
All juncture of her joints and nerves did steep
In his dissolving humour. When, at rest,
Pallas her favours varied, when addrest
An idol, that Iphthima did present
In structure of her ev’ry lineament,[5]
Great-soul’d Icarius’ daughter, whom for spouse
Eumelus took, that kept in Pheris’ house.
This to divine Ulysses’ house she sent,
To try her best mean how she might content
Mournful Penelope, and make relent
The strict addiction in her to deplore.
This idol, like a worm, that less or more[6]
Contracts or strains her, did itself convey,
Beyond the wards or windings of the key,
Into the chamber, and, above her head
Her seat assuming, thus she comforted
Distress’d Penelope: “Doth sleep thus seize
Thy pow’rs, affected with so much dis-ease?
The Gods, that nothing troubles, will not see
Thy tears nor griefs, in any least degree,
Sustain’d with cause, for they will guard thy son
Safe to his wish’d and native mansión.
Since he is no offender of their states,
And they to such are firmer than their fates.”
The wise Penelope receiv’d her thus,
Bound with a slumber most delicious,
And in the port of dreams: “O sister, why
Repair you hither, since so far off lie
Your house and household? You were never here
Before this hour, and would you now give cheer
To my so many woes and miseries,
Affecting fitly all the faculties
My soul and mind hold, having lost before
A husband, that of all the virtues bore
The palm amongst the Greeks, and whose renown
So ample was that Fame the sound hath blown
Through Greece and Argos to her very heart?
And now again, a son, that did convert
My whole pow’rs to his love, by ship is gone;
A tender plant, that yet was never grown
To labour’s taste, nor the commerce of men;
For whom more than my husband I complain,
And lest he should at any suff’rance touch
(Or in the sea, or by the men so much
Estrang’d to him that must his consorts be)
Fear and chill tremblings shake each joint of me.
Besides, his danger sets on foes profess’d
To way-lay his return, that have address’d
Plots for his death.” The scarce-discernéd Dream,
Said: “Be of comfort, nor fears so extreme
Let thus dismay thee; thou hast such a mate
Attending thee, as some at any rate
Would wish to purchase, for her pow’r is great;
Minerva pities thy delights’ defeat,
Whose grace hath sent me to foretell thee these.”
“If thou,” said she, “be of the Goddesses,
And heardst her tell thee these, thou mayst as well
From her tell all things else. Deign then to tell,
If yet the man to all misfortunes born,
My husband, lives, and sees the sun adorn
The darksome earth, or hides his wretched head
In Pluto’s house, and lives amongst the dead?”
“I will not,” she replied, “my breath exhale
In one continued and perpetual tale,
Lives he or dies he. ’Tis a filthy use,
To be in vain and idle speech profuse.”
This said, she, through the key-hole of the door,
Vanish’d again into the open blore.
Icarius’ daughter started from her sleep,
And Joy’s fresh humour her lov’d breast did steep,
When now so clear, in that first watch of night,
She saw the seen Dream vanish from her sight.
The Wooers’ ship the sea’s moist waves did ply,
And thought the prince a haughty death should die.
There lies a certain island in the sea,
Twixt rocky Samos and rough Ithaca,
That cliffy is itself, and nothing great,
Yet holds convenient havens that two ways let
Ships in and out, call’d Asteris; and there
The Wooers hop’d to make their massacre.

 FINIS LIBRI QUARTI HOM. ODYSS.

 [1] _Αακεδαἰμονα κητὠσσαν_ which is expounded _Spartam amplam,_ or
 _πεγἀλην magnam;_ where _κητὠεσσαν_ signifies properly _plurima cete
 nutrientem._

 [2] _Μολπης ἐ ἄρχοντες Cantum auspicantes:_ of which place, the
 critics affirm that _saltatores motu suo indicant cantori quo genere
 cantus saltaturi forent._ The rapture of Eteoneus at sight of
 Telemachus and Pisistratus.

 [3] Telemachus to Pisistratus, in observation of the house, not so
 much that he heartily admired it, as to please Menelaus, who he knew
 heard, though he seemed desirous he should not hear.

 [4] Helen counterfeited the wives’ voices of those kings of Greece
 that were in the wooden horse, and calls their husbands.

 [5] _Δἐμας, membrorum structura._

 [6] _Παρἁ κληîδος ἱμἀντα. Ιμἀς, affectus curculionis significat quod
 longior et gracilior evaserit._




THE FIFTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS

 THE ARGUMENT

A second Court on Jove attends;
Who Hermes to Calypso sends,
Commanding her to clear the ways
Ulysses sought; and she obeys.
When Neptune saw Ulysses free,
And so in safety plough the sea,
Enrag’d, he ruffles up the waves,
And splits his ship. Leucothea saves
His person yet, as being a Dame
Whose Godhead govern’d in the frame
Of those seas’ tempers. But the mean,
By which she curbs dread Neptune’s spleen,
Is made a jewel, which she takes
From off her head, and that she makes
Ulysses on his bosom wear,
About his neck, she ties it there,
And, when he is with waves beset,
Bids wear it as an amulet,
Commanding him, that not before
He touch’d upon Phæacia’s shore,
He should not part with it, but then
Return it to the sea again,
And cast it from him. He performs;
Yet, after this, bides bitter storms,
And in the rocks sees death engrav’d,
But on Phæacia’s shore is sav’d.

 ANOTHER ARGUMENT

E.
Ulysses builds
A ship; and gains
The glassy fields;
Pays Neptune pains.

Aurora rose from high-born Tithon’s bed,
That men and Gods might be illustrated,
And then the Deities sat. Imperial Jove,
That makes the horrid murmur beat above,
Took place past all, whose height for ever springs,
And from whom flowers th’ eternal pow’r of things.
Then Pallas, mindful of Ulysses, told
The many cares that in Calypso’s hold
He still sustain’d, when he had felt before
So much affliction, and such dangers more.
“O Father,” said she, “and ye Ever-blest,
Give never king hereafter interest
In any aid of yours, by serving you,
By being gentle, human, just, but grow
Rude, and for ever scornful of your rights,
All justice ord’ring by their appetites,
Since he, that rul’d as it in right behov’d,
That all his subjects as his children lov’d,
Finds you so thoughtless of him and his birth.
Thus men begin to say, ye rule in earth,
And grudge at what ye let him undergo,
Who yet the least part of his suff’rance know:
Thrall’d in an island, shipwrack’d in his tears,
And, in the fancies that Calypso bears,
Bound from his birthright, all his shipping gone,
And of his soldiers not retaining one.
And now his most-lov’d son’s life doth inflame
Their slaught’rous envies; since his father’s fame
He puts in pursuit, and is gone as far
As sacred Pylos, and the singular
Dame-breeding Sparta.” This, with this reply,
The Cloud-assembler answer’d: “What words fly
Thine own remembrance, daughter? Hast not thou
The counsel giv’n thyself, that told thee how
Ulysses shall with his return address
His Wooers wrong? And, for the safe access
His son shall make to his innative port,
Do thou direct it, in as curious sort
As thy wit serves thee; it obeys thy pow’rs;
And in their ship return the speedless Wooers.”
Then turn’d he to his issue Mercury,
And said: “Thou hast made good our ambassy
To th’ other Statists, to the Nymph then now,
On whose fair head a tuft of gold doth grow,
Bear our true-spoken counsel, for retreat
Of patient Ulysses; who shall get
No aid from us, nor any mortal man,
But in a patch’d-up skiff (built as he can,[1]
And suff’ring woes enough) the twentieth day
At fruitful Scheria let him breathe his way,
With the Phæacians, that half Deities live,
Who like a God will honour him, and give
His wisdom clothes, and ship, and brass, and gold,
More than for gain of Troy he ever told;
Where, at the whole division of the prey,
If he a saver were, or got away
Without a wound, if he should grudge, ’twas well.
But th’ end shall crown all; therefore Fate will deal
So well with him, to let him land, and see
His native earth, friends, house, and family.”
Thus charg’d he; nor Argicides denied,
But to his feet his fair wing’d shoes he tied,
Ambrosian, golden, that in his command
Put either sea, or the unmeasur’d land,
With pace as speedy as a puft of wind.
Then up his rod went, with which he declin’d
The eyes of any waker, when he pleas’d,
And any sleeper, when he wish’d, diseas’d.
This took; he stoop’d Pieria, and thence
Glid through the air, and Neptune’s confluence
Kiss’d as he flew, and check’d the waves as light
As any sea-mew in her fishing flight,
Her thick wings sousing in the savory seas.
Like her, he pass’d a world of wilderness;
But when the far-off isle he touch’d, he went
Up from the blue sea to the continent,
And reach’d the ample cavern of the Queen,
Whom he within found, without seldom seen.
A sun-like fire upon the hearth did flame,
The matter precious, and divine the frame,
Of cedar cleft and incense was the pile,
That breath’d an odour round about the isle.
Herself was seated in an inner room,
Whom sweetly sing he heard, and at her loom,
About a curious web, whose yarn she threw
In with a golden shittle. A grove grew
In endless spring about her cavern round,
With odorous cypress, pines, and poplars, crown’d,
Where hawks, sea-owls, and long-tongued bittours bred,
And other birds their shady pinions spread;
All fowls maritimal; none roosted there,
But those whose labours in the waters were.
A vine did all the hollow cave embrace,
Still green, yet still ripe bunches gave it grace.
Four fountains, one against another, pour’d
Their silver streams; and meadows all enflower’d
With sweet balm-gentle, and blue-violets hid,
That deck’d the soft breasts of each fragrant mead.
Should anyone, though he immortal were,
Arrive and see the sacred objects there,
He would admire them, and be over-joy’d;
And so stood Hermes’ ravish’d pow’rs employ’d,
But having all admir’d, he enter’d on
The ample cave, nor could be seen unknown
Of great Calypso (for all Deities are
Prompt in each other’s knowledge, though so far
Sever’d in dwellings) but he could not see
Ulysses there within; without was he,
Set sad ashore, where ’twas his use to view
Th’ unquiet sea, sigh’d, wept, and empty drew
His heart of comfort. Plac’d here in her throne,
That beams cast up to admiratión,
Divine Calypso question’d Hermes thus:
“For what cause, dear, and much-esteem’d by us,
Thou golden-rod-adorned Mercury,
Arriv’st thou here? Thou hast not us’d t’ apply
Thy passage this way. Say, whatever be
Thy heart’s desire, my mind commands it thee,
If in my means it lie, or pow’r of fact.
But first, what hospitable rites exact,
Come yet more near, and take.” This said, she set
A table forth, and furnish’d it with meat,
Such as the Gods taste; and serv’d in with it
Vermilion nectar. When with banquet fit
He had confirm’d his spirits, he thus exprest
His cause of coming: “Thou hast made request,
Goddess of Goddesses, to understand
My cause of touch here; which thou shalt command,
And know with truth: Jove caus’d my course to thee
Against my will, for who would willingly
Lackey along so vast a lake of brine,
Near to no city that the Pow’rs divine
Receives with solemn rites and hecatombs?
But Jove’s will ever all law overcomes,
No other God can cross or make it void;
And he affirms, that one the most annoy’d
With woes and toils of all those men that fought
For Priam’s city, and to end hath brought
Nine years in the contention, is with thee.
For in the tenth year, when roy victory
Was won to give the Greeks the spoil of Troy,
Return they did profess, but not enjoy,
Since Pallas they incens’d, and she the waves
By all the winds’ pow’r, that blew ope their graves.
And there they rested. Only this poor one
This coast both winds and waves have cast upon;
Whom now forthwith he wills thee to dismiss,
Affirming that th’ unalter’d Destinies
Not only have decreed he shall not die
Apart his friends, but of necessity
Enjoy their sights before those fatal hours,
His country earth reach, and erected tow’rs.”
This struck a love-check’d horror through her pow’rs,
When, naming him, she this reply did give:
“Insatiate are ye Gods, past all that live,
In all things you affect; which still converts
Your pow’rs to envies. It afflicts your hearts,
That any Goddess should, as you obtain
The use of earthly dames, enjoy the men,
And most in open marriage. So ye far’d,
When the delicious-finger’d Morning shar’d
Orion’s bed; you easy-living States
Could never satisfy your emulous hates,
Till in Ortygia the precise-liv’d Dame,
Gold-thron’d Diana, on him rudely came,
And with her swift shafts slew him. And such pains,
When rich-hair’d Ceres pleas’d to give the reins
To her affections, and the grace did yield
Of love and bed, amidst a three-cropp’d field,
To her Iasion, he paid angry Jove,
Who lost no long time notice of their love,
But with a glowing lightning was his death.
And now your envies labour underneath
A mortal’s choice of mine; whose life I took
To lib’ral safety, when his ship Jove strook,
With red-hot flashes, piece-meal in the seas,
And all his friends and soldiers succourless
Perish’d but he. Him, cast upon this coast
With blasts and billows, I, in life giv’n lost,
Preserv’d alone, lov’d, nourish’d, and did vow
To make him deathless, and yet never grow
Crooked, or worn with age, his whole life long.
But since no reason may be made so strong
To strive with Jove’s will, or to make it vain,
No not if all the other Gods should strain
Their pow’rs against it, let his will be law,
So he afford him fit means to withdraw,
As he commands him, to the raging main.
But means from me he never shall obtain,
For my means yield nor men, nor ship, nor oars,
To set him off from my so envied shores.
But if my counsel and good will can aid
His safe pass home, my best shall be assay’d.”
“Vouchsafe it so,” said heav’n’s ambassador,
“And deign it quickly. By all means abhor
T’ incense Jove’s wrath against thee, that with grace
He may hereafter all thy wish embrace.”
Thus took the Argus-killing God his wings.
And since the rev’rend Nymph these awful things
Receiv’d from Jove, she to Ulysses went;
Whom she ashore found, drown’d in discontent,
His eyes kept never dry he did so mourn,
And waste his dear age for his wish’d return;
Which still without the cave he us’d to do,
Because he could not please the Goddess so,
At night yet, forc’d, together took their rest,
The willing Goddess and th’ unwilling Guest;
But he all day in rocks, and on the shore,
The vex’d sea view’d, and did his fate deplore.
Him, now, the Goddess coming near bespake:
“Unhappy man, no more discomfort take
For my constraint of thee, nor waste thine age,
I now will passing freely disengage
Thy irksome stay here. Come then, fell thee wood,
And build a ship, to save thee from the flood.
I’ll furnish thee with fresh wave, bread, and wine
Ruddy and sweet, that will the piner pine,[2]
Put garments on thee, give the winds foreright,
That ev’ry way thy home-bent appetite
May safe attain to it; if so it please
At all parts all the heav’n-hous’d Deities,
That more in pow’r are, more in skill, than I,
And more can judge what fits humanity.”
He stood amaz’d at this strange change in her,
And said: “O Goddess! Thy intents prefer
Some other project than my parting hence,
Commanding things of too high consequence
For my performance, that myself should build
A ship of pow’r, my home-assays to shield
Against the great sea of such dread to pass;
Which not the best-built ship that ever was
Will pass exulting, when such winds, as Jove
Can thunder up, their trims and tacklings prove.
But could I build one, I would ne’er aboard,
Thy will oppos’d, nor, won, without thy word,
Giv’n in the great oath of the Gods to me,
Not to beguile me in the least degree.”
The Goddess smil’d, held hard his hand, and said:
“O y’ are a shrewd one, and so habited
In taking heed thou know’st not what it is
To be unwary, nor use words amiss.
How hast thou charm’d me, were I ne’er so sly!
Let earth know then, and heav’n, so broad, so high,
And th’ under-sunk waves of th’ infernal stream,
(Which is an oath, as terribly supreme,
As any God swears) that I had no thought
But stood with what I spake, nor would have wrought,
Nor counsell’d, any act against thy good;
But ever diligently weigh’d, and stood
On those points in persuading thee, that I
Would use myself in such extremity.
For my mind simple is, and innocent,
Not giv’n by cruel sleights to circumvent,
Nor bear I in my breast a heart of steel,
But with the suff’rer willing suff’rance feel.”
This said, the Grace of Goddesses led home,
He trac’d her steps; and, to the cavern come,
In that rich throne, whence Mercury arose,
He sat. The Nymph herself did then appose,
For food and bev’rage, to him all best meat
And drink, that mortals use to taste and eat.
Then sat she opposite, and for her feast
Was nectar and ambrosia addrest
By handmaids to her. Both, what was prepar’d,
Did freely fall to. Having fitly far’d,
The Nymph Calypso this discourse began:
“Jove-bred Ulysses! Many-witted man!
Still is thy home so wish’d? So soon, away?
Be still of cheer, for all the worst I say.
But, if thy soul knew what a sum of woes,
For thee to cast up, thy stern Fates impose,
Ere to thy country earth thy hopes attain,
Undoubtedly thy choice would here remain,
Keep house with me, and be a liver ever.
Which, methinks, should thy house and thee dissever,
Though for thy wife there thou art set on fire,
And all thy days are spent in her desire;
And though it be no boast in me to say
In form and mind I match her ev’ry way.
Nor can it fit a mortal dame’s compare,
T’ affect those terms with us that deathless are.”
The great-in-counsels made her this reply:
“Renown’d, and to be rev’renc’d, Deity!
Let it not move thee, that so much I vow
My comforts to my wife; though well I know
All cause myself why wise Penelope
In wit is far inferior to thee,
In feature, stature, all the parts of show,
She being a mortal, an immortal thou,
Old ever growing, and yet never old.
Yet her desire shall all my days see told,
Adding the sight of my returning day,
And natural home. If any God shall lay
His hand upon me as I pass the seas,
I’ll bear the worst of what his hand shall please,
As having giv’n me such a mind as shall
The more still rise the more his hand lets fall.
In wars and waves my suff’rings were not small.
I now have suffer’d much, as much before,
Hereafter let as much result, and more.”
This said, the sun set, and earth shadows gave;
When these two (in an in-room of the cave,
Left to themselves) left love no rites undone.
The early Morn up, up he rose, put on
His in and out weed. She herself enchaces
Amidst a white robe, full of all the Graces,
Ample, and pleated thick like fishy scales;
A golden girdle then her waist impales;
Her head a veil decks; and abroad they come.
And now began Ulysses to go home.
A great axe first she gave, that two ways cut,
In which a fair well-polish’d helm was put,
That from an olive bough receiv’d his frame.
A plainer then. Then led she, till they came
To lofty woods that did the isle confine.
The fir-tree, poplar, and heav’n-scaling pine,
Had there their offspring. Of which, those that were
Of driest matter, and grew longest there,
He choos’d for lighter sail. This place thus shown,
The Nymph turn’d home. He fell to felling down,
And twenty trees he stoop’d in little space,
Plain’d, used his plumb, did all with artful grace.
In mean time did Calypso wimbles bring.
He bor’d, clos’d, nail’d, and order’d ev’ry thing,
And look how much a ship-wright will allow
A ship of burden (one that best doth know
What fits his art) so large a keel he cast,
Wrought up her decks, and hatches, side-boards, mast,
With willow watlings arm’d her to resist
The billows’ outrage, added all she miss’d,
Sail-yards, and stern for guide. The Nymph then brought
Linen for sails, which with dispatch he wrought,
Gables, and halsters, tacklings. All the frame
In four days’ space to full perfection came.[3]
The fifth day, they dismiss’d him from the shore,
Weeds neat, and odorous, gave him, victuals store,
Wine, strong waters, and a prosp’rous wind,
To which, Ulysses, fit-to-be-divin’d,
His sails expos’d, and hoiséd. Off he gat;
And cheerful was he. At the stern he sat,
And steer’d right artfully. Nor sleep could seize
His eye-lids. He beheld the Pleiades;
The Bear, surnam’d the Wain, that round doth move
About Orion, and keeps still above
The billowy ocean; the slow-setting star
Bootes call’d, by some the Waggoner.
Calypso warn’d him he his course should steer
Still to his left hand. Seventeen days did clear
The cloudy night’s command in his moist way,
And by the eighteenth light he might display
The shady hills of the Phæacian shore,
For which, as to his next abode, he bore.
The country did a pretty figure yield,
And look’d from off the dark seas like a shield.
Imperious Neptune, making his retreat
From th’ Æthiopian earth, and taking seat
Upon the mountains of the Solymi,
From thence, far off discov’ring, did descry
Ulysses his fields ploughing. All on fire
The sight straight set his heart, and made desire
Of wreak run over, it did boil so high.
When, his head nodding; “O impiety,”
He cried out, “now the Gods’ inconstancy
Is most apparent, alt’ring their designs
Since I the Æthiops saw, and here confines
To this Ulysses’ fate his misery.
The great mark, on which all his hopes rely,
Lies in Phæacia. But I hope he shall
Feel woe at height, ere that dead calm befall.”
This said; he, begging, gather’d clouds from land,[4]
Frighted the seas up, snatch’d into his hand
His horrid trident, and aloft did toss,
Of all the winds, all storms he could engross,
All earth took into sea with clouds, grim Night
Fell tumbling headlong from the cope of light,
The East and South winds justled in the air,
The violent Zephyr, and North making-fair,
Roll’d up the waves before them. And then bent
Ulysses’ knees, then all his spirit was spent.
In which despair, he thus spake: “Woe is me!
What was I born to, man of misery!
Fear tells me now, that, all the Goddess said,
Truth’s self will author, that Fate would be paid
Grief’s whole sum due from me, at sea, before
I reach’d the dear touch of my country’s shore.
With what clouds Jove heav’n’s heighten’d forehead binds!
How tyrannize the wraths of all the winds!
How all the tops he bottoms with the deeps,
And in the bottoms all the tops he steeps!
Thus dreadful is the presence of our death.
Thrice four times blest were they that sunk beneath
Their fates at Troy, and did to nought contend
But to renown Atrides with their end!
I would to God, my hour of death and fate
That day had held the’ pow’r to terminate,
When show’rs of darts my life bore undepress’d
About divine Æacides deceas’d!
Then had I been allotted to have died,
By all the Greeks with fun’rals glorified,
(Whence death, encouraging good life, had grown)
Where now I die, by no man mourn’d nor known.”
This spoke, a huge wave took him by the head,
And hurl’d him o’er board; ship and all it laid
Inverted quite amidst the waves, but he
Far off from her sprawl’d, strow’d about the sea,
His stern still holding broken off, his mast
Burst in the midst, so horrible a blast
Of mix’d winds struck it. Sails and sail-yards fell
Amongst the billows; and himself did dwell
A long time under water, nor could get
In haste his head out, wave with wave so met
In his depression; and his garments too,
Giv’n by Calypso, gave him much to do,
Hind’ring his swimming; yet he left not so
His drenchéd vessel, for the overthrow
Of her nor him, but gat at length again,
Wrastling with Neptune, hold of her; and then
Sat in her bulk, insulting over death,
Which, with the salt stream prest to stop his breath,
He ’scap’d, and gave the sea again to give
To other men. His ship so striv’d to live,
Floating at random, cuff’d from wave to wave.
As you have seen the North wind when he drave
In autumn heaps of thorn-fed grasshoppers
Hither and thither, one heap this way bears,
Another that, and makes them often meet
in his confus’d gales; so Ulysses’ fleet
The winds hurl’d up and down; now Boreas
Toss’d it to Notus, Notus gave it pass
To Eurus, Eurus Zephyr made pursue
The horrid tennis. This sport call’d the view
Of Cadmus’ daughter, with the narrow heel,
Ino Leucothea, that first did feel
A mortal dame’s desires, and had a tongue,
But now had th’ honour to be nam’d among
The marine Godheads. She with pity saw
Ulysses justled thus from flaw to flaw,
And, like a cormorant in form and flight,
Rose from a whirl-pool, on the ship did light,
And thus bespake him: “Why is Neptune thus
In thy pursuit extremely furious,
Oppressing thee with such a world of ill,
Ev’n to thy death? He must not serve his will,
Though ’tis his study. Let me then advise
As my thoughts serve; thou shalt not be unwise
To leave thy weeds and ship to the commands
Of these rude winds, and work out with thy hands
Pass to Phæacia, where thy austere Fate
Is to pursue thee with no more such hate.
Take here this tablet, with this riband strung,
And see it still about thy bosom hung;
By whose eternal virtue never fear
To suffer thus again, nor perish here.
But when thou touchest with thy hand the shore,
Then take it from thy neck, nor wear it more,
But cast it far off from the continent,
And then thy person far ashore present.
Thus gave she him the tablet; and again,
Turn’d to a cormorant, div’d, past sight, the main.
Patient Ulysses sigh’d at this, and stuck
In the conceit of such fair-spoken luck,
And said: “Alas! I must suspect ev’n this,
Lest any other of the Deities
Add sleight to Neptune’s force, to counsel me
To leave my vessel, and so far off see
The shore I aim at. Not with thoughts too clear
Will I obey her, but to me appear
These counsels best: As long as I perceive
My ship not quite dissolv’d, I will not leave
The help she may afford me, but abide,
And suffer all woes till the worst be tried.
When she is split, I’ll swim. No miracle can,
Past near and clear means, move a knowing man.”
While this discourse employ’d him, Neptune rais’d
A huge, a high, and horrid sea, that seiz’d
Him and his ship, and toss’d them through the lake.
As when the violent winds together take
Heaps of dry chaff, and hurl them ev’ry way;
So his long wood-stack Neptune strook astray
Then did Ulysses mount on rib, perforce,
Like to a rider of a running horse,
To stay himself a time, while he might shift
His drenched weeds, that were Calypso’s gift.
When putting straight Leucothea’s amulet
About his neck, he all his forces set
To swim, and cast him prostrate to the seas.
When pow’rful Neptune saw the ruthless prease
Of perils siege him thus, he mov’d his head,
And this betwixt him and his heart he said:
“So, now feel ills enow, and struggle so,
Till to your Jove-lov’d islanders you row.
But my mind says, you will not so avoid
This last task too, but be with suff’rance cloy’d.”
This said, his rich-man’d horse he mov’d, and reach’d
His house at Ægas. But Minerva fetch’d
The winds from sea, and all their ways but one
Barr’d to their passage; the bleak North alone
She set to blow, the rest she charg’d to keep
Their rages in, and bind themselves in sleep.
But Boreas still flew high to break the seas,
Till Jove-bred Ithacus the more with ease
The navigation-skill’d Phæacian states
Might make his refuge, Death and angry Fates
At length escaping. Two nights, yet, and days
He spent in wrastling with the sable seas;
In which space, often did his heart propose
Death to his eyes. But when Aurora rose,
And threw the third light from her orient hair,
The winds grew calm, and clear was all the air,
Not one breath stirring. Then he might descry,
Rais’d by the high seas, clear, and land was nigh.
And then, look how to good sons that esteem
Their father’s life dear, (after pains extreme,
Felt in some sickness, that hath held him long
Down to his bed, and with affections strong
Wasted his body, made his life his load,
As being inflicted by some angry God)
When on their pray’rs they see descend at length
Health from the heav’ns, clad all in spirit and strength,
The sight is precious; so, since here should end
Ulysses’ toils, which therein should extend
Health to his country, held to him his sire
And on which long for him disease did tire,
And then, besides, for his own sake to see
The shores, the woods so near, such joy had he,
As those good sons for their recover’d sire.
Then labour’d feet and all parts to aspire
To that wish’d continent; which when as near
He came, as Clamour might inform an ear,
He heard a sound beat from the sea-bred rocks,
Against which gave a huge sea horrid shocks,
That belch’d upon the firm land weeds and foam,
With which were all things hid there, where no room
Of fit capacity was for any port,
Nor from the sea for any man’s resort,
The shores, the rocks, the cliff’s, so prominent were.
“O,” said Ulysses then, “now Jupiter
Hath giv’n me sight of an unhop’d for shore,
Though I have wrought these seas so long, so sore.
Of rest yet no place shows the slend’rest prints,
The rugged shore so bristled is with flints,
Against which ev’ry way the waves so flock,
And all the shore shows as one eminent rock,
So near which ’tis so deep, that not a sand
Is there for any tired foot to stand,
Nor fly his death-fast-following miseries,
Lest, if he land, upon him foreright flies
A churlish wave, to crush him ’gainst a cliff,
Worse than vain rend’ring all his landing strife.
And should I swim to seek a hav’n elsewhere,
Or land less way-beat, I may justly fear
I shall be taken with a gale again,
And cast a huge way off into the main;
And there the great Earth-shaker (having seen
My so near landing, and again his spleen
Forcing me to him) will some whale send out,
(Of which a horrid number here about
His Amphitrite breeds) to swallow me.
I well have prov’d, with what malignity
He treads my steps.” While this discourse he held,
A curs’d surge ’gainst a cutting rock impell’d
His naked body, which it gash’d and tore,
And had his bones broke, if but one sea more
Had cast him on it. But She prompted him,
That never fail’d, and bade him no more swim
Still off and on, but boldly force the shore,
And hug the rock that him so rudely tore;
Which he with both hands sigh’d and clasp’d, till past
The billow’s rage was; when ’scap’d, back so fast
The rock repuls’d it, that it reft his hold,
Sucking him from it, and far back he roll’d
And as the polypus that (forc’d from home
Amidst the soft sea, and near rough land come
For shelter ’gainst the storms that beat on her
At open sea, as she abroad doth err)
A deal of gravel, and sharp little stones,
Needfully gathers in her hollow bones;
So he forc’d hither by the sharper ill,
Shunning the smoother, where he best hop’d, still
The worst succeeded; for the cruel friend,
To which he cling’d for succour, off did rend
From his broad hands the soaken flesh so sore
That off he fell, and could sustain no more.
Quite under water fell he; and, past fate,
Hapless Ulysses there had lost the state
He held in life, if, still the grey-eyed Maid
His wisdom prompting, he had not assay’d
Another course, and ceas’d t’ attempt that shore,
Swimming, and casting round his eye t’ explore
Some other shelter. Then the mouth he found
Of fair Callicoe’s flood, whose shores were crown’d
With most apt succours: rocks so smooth they seem’d
Polish’d of purpose; land that quite redeem’d
With breathless coverts th’ others’ blasted shores.
The flood he knew, and thus in heart implores:
“King of this river, hear! Whatever name
Makes thee invok’d, to thee I humbly frame
My flight from Neptune’s furies. Rev’rend is
To all the ever-living Deities
What erring man soever seeks their aid.
To thy both flood and knees a man dismay’d
With varied suff’rance sues. Yield then some rest
To him that is thy suppliant profest.”
This, though but spoke in thought, the Godhead heard,
Her current straight stay’d, and her thick waves clear’d
Before him, smooth’d her waters, and, just where
He pray’d half-drown’d, entirely sav’d him there.
Then forth he came, his both knees falt’ring, both
His strong hands hanging down, and all with froth
His cheeks and nosthrils flowing, voice and breath
Spent to all use, and down he sunk to death.
The sea had soak’d his heart through; all his veins
His toils had rack’d t’ a labouring woman’s pains.[5]
Dead weary was he. But when breath did find
A pass reciprocal, and in his mind
His spirit was recollected, up he rose,
And from his neck did th’ amulet unloose,
That Ino gave him; which he hurl’d from him
To sea. It sounding fell, and back did swim
With th’ ebbing waters, till it straight arriv’d
Where Ino’s fair hand it again receiv’d.
Then kiss’d he th’ humble earth; and on he goes,
Till bulrushes show’d place for his repose,
Where laid, he sigh’d, and thus said to his soul:
“O me, what strange perplexities control
The whole skill of thy pow’rs in this event!
What feel I? If till care-nurse night be spent
I watch amidst the flood, the sea’s chill breath,
And vegetant dews, I fear will be my death,
So low brought with my labours. Towards day
A passing sharp air ever breathes at sea.
If I the pitch of this next mountain scale,
And shady wood, and in some thicket fall
Into the hands of Sleep, though there the cold
May well be check’d, and healthful slumbers hold
Her sweet hand on my pow’rs, all care allay’d,
Yet there will beasts devour me. Best appaid
Doth that course make me yet; for there, some strife,
Strength, and my spirit, may make me make for life;
Which, though impair’d, may yet be fresh applied,
Where peril possible of escape is tried.
But he that fights with heav’n, or with the sea,
To indiscretion adds impiety.”
Thus to the woods he hasted; which he found
Not far from sea, but on far-seeing ground,
Where two twin underwoods he enter’d on,
With olive-trees and oil-trees overgrown;
Through which the moist force of the loud-voic’d wind
Did never beat, nor ever Phœbus shin’d,
Nor show’r beat through, they grew so one in one,
And had, by turns, their pow’r t’ exclude the sun.
Here enter’d our Ulysses; and a bed
Of leaves huge, and of huge abundance, spread
With all his speed. Large he made it, for there
For two or three men ample cov’rings were,
Such as might shield them from the winter’s worst,
Though steel it breathed, and blew as it would burst.[6]
Patient Ulysses joy’d, that ever day
Show’d such a shelter. In the midst he lay,
Store of leaves heaping high on ev’ry side.
And as in some out-field a man doth hide
A kindled brand, to keep the seed of fire,
No neighbour dwelling near, and his desire
Serv’d with self store, he else would ask of none,
But of his fore-spent sparks rakes th’ ashes on;
So this out-place Ulysses thus receives,
And thus nak’d virtue’s seed lies hid in leaves.
Yet Pallas made him sleep as soon as men
Whom delicacies all their flatt’ries deign,
And all that all his labours could comprise
Quickly concluded in his closed eyes.

 FINIS LIBRI QUINTI HOM. ODYSS.

 [1] _᾽Επἱ σχεδἰης πογυδἐσμον, in rate multis vinculis ligatus._

 [2] The piner—Hunger.

 [3] This four day days’ work (you will say) is too much for one man:
 and Pliny affirms, that Hiero (a king of Sicily) in five-and forty
 days built two hundred and twenty ships, rigged them, and put to sea
 with them.

 [4] _Συναγεἰρω—Mendicando colligo._

 [5] _Ὤιδεε_ of _ὠδἰνω ἁ partu doleo._

 [6] A metaphorical hyperbole, expressing the winter’s extremity of
 sharpness.




THE SIXTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS

 THE ARGUMENT

Minerva in a vision stands
Before Nausicaa: and commands
She to the flood her weeds should bear;
For now her nuptial day was near.
Nausicaa her charge obeys,
And then with other virgins plays.
Their sports make wak’d Ulysses rise;
Walk to them, and beseech supplies
Of food and clothes. His naked sight
Puts th’ other maids, afraid, to flight;
Nausicaa only boldly stays,
And gladly his desire obeys.
He, furnish’d with her favour’s shown,
Attends her and the rest to town.

 ANOTHER ARGUMENT

_Ζη̑τα._
Here olive leaves
T’ hide shame began,
The maid receives
The naked man.

The much-sustaining, patient, heav’nly man,
Whom Toil and Sleep had worn so weak and wan,[1]
Thus won his rest. In mean space Pallas went
To the Phæacian city, and descent
That first did broad Hyperia’s lands divide,
Near the vast Cyclops, men of monstrous pride,
That prey’d on those Hyperians, since they were
Of greater pow’r; and therefore longer there
Divine Nausithous dwelt not, but arose,
And did for Scheria all his pow’rs dispose;
Far from ingenious art-inventing men
But there did he erect a city then,
First drew a wall round, then he houses builds,
And then a temple to the Gods, the fields
Lastly dividing. But he, stoop’d by Fate,
Div’d to th’ infernals; and Alcinous sate
In his command, a man the Gods did teach
Commanding counsels. His house held the reach
Of grey Minerva’s project, to provide
That great-soul’d Ithacus might be supplied
With all things fitting his return. She went
Up to the chamber, where the fair descent
Of great Alcinous slept; a maid, whose parts
In wit and beauty wore divine deserts.
Well-deck’d her chamber was; of which the door
Did seem to lighten, such a gloss it bore
Betwixt the posts, and now flew ope to find
The Goddess entry. Like a puft of wind
She reach’d the virgin bed; neat which there lay
Two maids, to whom the Graces did convey
Figure and manners. But above the head
Of bright Nausicaa did Pallas tread
The subtle air, and put the person on
Of Dymas’ daughter, from comparison
Exempt in business naval. Like his seed
Minerva look’d now; whom one year did breed[2]
With bright Nausicaa, and who had gain’d
Grace in her love, yet on her thus complain’d:
“Nausicaa! Why bred thy mother one
So negligent in rites so stood upon
By other virgins? Thy fair garments lie
Neglected by thee, yet thy nuptials nigh;
When rich in all attire both thou shouldst be,
And garments give to others honouring thee,
That lead thee to the temple. Thy good name
Grows amongst men for these things; they inflame
Father and rev’rend mother with delight.
Come, when the Day takes any wink from Night,
Let’s to the river, and repurify
Thy wedding garments. My society
Shall freely serve thee for thy speedier aid,
Because thou shalt no mote stand on the maid.
The best of all Phæacia woo thy grace,
Where thou wert bred, and ow’st thyself a race.
Up, and stir up to thee thy honour’d sire,
To give thee mules and coach, thee and thy tire,
Veils, girdles, mantles, early to the flood
To bear in state. It suits thy high-born blood,
And far more fits thee, than to foot so far,
For far from town thou know’st the bath-founts are.”
This said, away blue-eyed Minerva went
Up to Olympus, the firm continent
That bears in endless being the Deified kind,
That’s neither sous’d with show’rs, nor shook with wind,
Nor chill’d with snow, but where Serenity flies
Exempt from clouds, and ever-beamy skies
Circle the glitt’ring hill, and all their days
Give the delights of blesséd Deity praise.
And hither Pallas flew, and left the maid,
When she had all that might excite her said.
Straight rose the lovely Morn, that up did raise
Fair-veil’d Nausicaa, whose dream her praise
To admiration took; who no time spent
To give the rapture of her vision vent
To her lov’d parents, whom she found within.
Her mother set at fire, who had to spin
A rock, whose tincture with sea-purple shin’d;
Her maids about her. But she chanc’d to find
Her father going abroad, to council call’d
By his grave Senate. And to him exhal’d
Her smother’d bosom was: “Lov’d sire,” said she,[3]
“Will you not now command a coach for me,
Stately and cómplete, fit for me to bear
To wash at flood the weeds I cannot wear
Before repurified? Yourself it fits
To wear fair weeds, as ev’ry man that sits
In place of council. And five sons you have,
Two wed, three bachelors, that must be brave
In ev’ry day’s shift, that they may go dance;
For these three last with these things must advance
Their states in marriage, and who else but I,
Their sister, should their dancing rites supply?”
This gen’ral cause she show’d, and would not name
Her mind of nuptials to her sire, for shame.
He understood her yet, and thus replied:
“Daughter! nor these, nor any grace beside,
I either will deny thee, or defer,
Mules, nor a coach, of state and circular,
Fitting at all parts. Go, my servants shall
Serves thy desires, and thy command in all.”
The servants then commanded soon obey’d,
Fetch’d coach, and mules join’d in it. Then the Maid
Brought from the chamber her rich weeds, and laid
All up in coach; in which her mother plac’d
A maund of victuals, varied well in taste,
And other junkets. Wine she likewise fill’d
Within a goat-skin bottle, and distill’d
Sweet and moist oil into a golden cruse,
Both for her daughter’s, and her handmaid’s, use,
To soften their bright bodies, when they rose
Cleans’d from their cold baths. Up to coach then goes
Th’ observéd Maid, takes both the scourge and reins,
And to her side her handmaid straight attains.
Nor these alone, but other virgins, grac’d
The nuptial chariot. The whole bevy plac’d,
Nausicaa scourg’d to make the coach-mules run,
That neigh’d, and pac’d their usual speed, and soon
Both maids and weeds brought to the river-side,
Where baths for all the year their use supplied,
Whose waters were so pure they would not stain,
But still ran fair forth, and did more remain
Apt to purge stains, for that purg’d stain within,
Which by the water’s pure store was not seen.
These, here arriv’d, the mules uncoach’d, and drave
Up to the gulfy river’s shore, that gave
Sweet grass to them. The maids from coach then took
Their clothes, and steep’d them in the sable brook:
Then put them into springs, and trod them clean
With cleanly feet; adventuring wagers then
Who should have soonest and most cleanly done.
When having thoroughly cleans’d, they spread them on
The flood’s shore, all in order. And then, where
The waves the pebbles wash’d, and ground was clear,
They bath’d themselves, and all with glitt’ring oil
Smooth’d their white skins; refreshing then their toil
With pleasant dinner, by the river-side;
Yet still watch’d when the sun their clothes had dried.
Till which time, having din’d, Nausicaa
With other virgins did at stool-ball play,
Their shoulder-reaching head-tires laying by.
Nausicaa, with the wrists of ivory,
The liking stroke struck, singing first a song,
As custom order’d, and amidst the throng
Made such a show, and so past all was seen,
As when the chaste-born, arrow-loving, Queen,
Along the mountains gliding, either over
Spartan Taygetus, whose tops far discover,
Or Eurymanthus, in the wild boar’s chace,
Or swift-hov’d hart, and with her Jove’s fair race,
The field Nymphs, sporting; amongst whom, to see
How far Diana had priority,
Though all were fair, for fairness yet of all,
As both by head and forehead being more tall,
Latona triumph’d, since the dullest sight
Might eas’ly judge whom her pains brought to light;
Nausicaa so, whom never husband tam’d,
Above them all in all the beauties flam’d.
But when they now made homewards, and array’d,
Ord’ring their weeds disorder’d as they play’d,
Mules and coach ready, then Minerva thought
What means to wake Ulysses might be wrought,
That he might see this lovely-sighted maid,
Whom she intended should become his aid,
Bring him to town, and his return advance.
Her mean was this, though thought a stool-ball chance:[4]
The queen now, for the upstroke, struck the ball
Quite wide off th’ other maids, and made it fall
Amidst the whirlpools. At which out shriek’d all,
And with the shriek did wise Ulysses wake;
Who, sitting up, was doubtful who should make
That sudden outcry, and in mind thus striv’d:
“On what a people am I now arriv’d?
At civil hospitable men, that fear
The Gods? Or dwell injurious mortals here?
Unjust, and churlish? Like the female cry
Of youth it sounds. What are they? Nymphs bred high
On tops of hills, or in the founts of floods,
In herby marshes, or in leafy woods?
Or are they high-spoke men I now am near?
I’ll prove, and see.” With this, the wary peer
Crept forth the thicket, and an olive bough
Broke with his broad hand, which he did bestow
In covert of his nakedness, and then
Put hasty head out. Look how from his den
A mountain lion looks, that, all embrued
With drops of trees, and weather-beaten-hued,
Bold of his strength, goes on, and in his eye
A burning furnace glows, all bent to prey
On sheep,

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