The Odyssey: The Fitzgerald Translation Read online

  So every day she wove on the great loom—

  but every night by torchlight she unwove it;

  and so for three years she deceived the Akhaians.

  But when the seasons brought the fourth around,

  one of her maids, who knew the secret, told us;

  we found her unraveling the splendid shroud.

  She had to finish then, although she hated it.

  Now here is the suitors’ answer—

  you and all the Akhaians, mark it well:

  dismiss your mother from the house, or make her marry

  the man her father names and she prefers.

  Does she intend to keep us dangling forever?

  She may rely too long on Athena’s gifts—

  talent in handicraft and a clever mind;

  so cunning—history cannot show the like

  among the ringleted ladies of Akhaia,

  Mykene with her coronet, Alkmene, Tyro.

  Wits like Penelope’s never were before,

  but this time—well, she made poor use of them.

  For here are suitors eating up your property

  as long as she holds out—a plan some god

  put in her mind. She makes a name for herself,

  but you can feel the loss it means for you.

  Our own affairs can wait; we’ll never go anywhere else,

  until she takes an Akhaian to her liking.”

  But clear-headed Telémakhos replied:

  “Antínoös, can I banish against her will

  the mother who bore me and took care of me?

  My father is either dead or far away,

  but dearly I should pay for this

  at Ikarios’ hands, if ever I sent her back.

  The powers of darkness would requite it, too,

  my mother’s parting curse would call hell’s furies

  to punish me, along with the scorn of men.

  No: I can never give the word for this.

  But if your hearts are capable of shame,

  leave my great hall, and take your dinner elsewhere,

  consume your own stores. Turn and turn about,

  use one another’s houses. If you choose

  to slaughter one man’s livestock and pay nothing,

  this is rapine; and by the eternal gods

  I beg Zeus you shall get what you deserve:

  a slaughter here, and nothing paid for it!”

  Now Zeus who views the wide world sent a sign to him,

  launching a pair of eagles from a mountain crest

  in gliding flight down the soft blowing wind,

  wing-tip to wing-tip quivering taut, companions,

  till high above the assembly of many voices

  they wheeled, their dense wings beating, and in havoc

  dropped on the heads of the crowd—a deathly omen—

  wielding their talons, tearing cheeks and throats;

  then veered away on the right hand through the city.

  Astonished, gaping after the birds, the men

  felt their hearts flood, foreboding things to come.

  And now they heard the old lord Halithersês,

  son of Mastor, keenest among the old

  at reading birdflight into accurate speech;

  in his anxiety for them, he rose and said:

  “Hear me, Ithakans! Hear what I have to say,

  and may I hope to open the suitors’ eyes

  to the black wave towering over them. Odysseus

  will not be absent from his family long:

  he is already near, carrying in him

  a bloody doom for all these men, and sorrow

  for many more on our high seamark, Ithaka.

  Let us think how to stop it; let the suitors

  drop their suit; they had better, without delay.

  I am old enough to know a sign when I see one,

  and I say all has come to pass for Odysseus

  as I foretold when the Argives massed on Troy,

  and he, the great tactician, joined the rest.

  My forecast was that after nineteen years,

  many blows weathered, all his shipmates lost,

  himself unrecognized by anyone,

  he would come home. I see this all fulfilled.”

  But Pólybos’ son, Eurýmakhos, retorted:

  “Old man, go tell the omens for your children

  at home, and try to keep them out of trouble.

  I am more fit to interpret this than you are.

  Bird life aplenty is found in the sunny air,

  not all of it significant. As for Odysseus,

  he perished far from home. You should have perished with

  him—

  then we’d be spared this nonsense in assembly,

  as good as telling Telémakhos to rage on;

  do you think you can gamble on a gift from him?

  Here is what I foretell, and it’s quite certain:

  if you, with what you know of ancient lore,

  encourage bitterness in this young man,

  it means, for him, only the more frustration—

  he can do nothing whatever with two eagles—

  and as for you, old man, we’ll fix a penalty

  that you will groan to pay.

  Before the whole assembly I advise Telémakhos

  to send his mother to her father’s house;

  let them arrange her wedding there, and fix

  a portion suitable for a valued daughter.

  Until he does this, courtship is our business,

  vexing though it may be; we fear no one,

  certainly not Telémakhos, with his talk;

  and we care nothing for your divining, uncle,

  useless talk; you win more hatred by it.

  We’ll share his meat, no thanks or fee to him,

  as long as she delays and maddens us.

  It is a long, long time we have been waiting

  in rivalry for this beauty. We could have gone

  elsewhere and found ourselves very decent wives.”

  Clear-headed Telémakhos replied to this:

  “Eurýmakhos, and noble suitors all,

  I am finished with appeals and argument.

  The gods know, and the Akhaians know, these things.

  But give me a fast ship and a crew of twenty

  who will see me through a voyage, out and back.

  I’ll go to sandy Pylos, then to Sparta,

  for news of Father since he sailed from Troy—

  some traveller’s tale, perhaps, or rumored fame

  issued from Zeus himself into the world.

  If he’s alive, and beating his way home,

  I might hold out for another weary year;

  but if they tell me that he’s dead and gone,

  then I can come back to my own dear country

  and raise a mound for him, and burn his gear,

  with all the funeral honors that befit him,

  and give my mother to another husband.”

  The boy sat down in silence. Next to stand

  was Mentor, comrade in arms of the prince Odysseus,

  an old man now. Odysseus left him authority

  over his house and slaves, to guard them well.

  In his concern, he spoke to the assembly:

  “Hear me, Ithakans! Hear what I have to say.

  Let no man holding scepter as a king

  be thoughtful, mild, kindly, or virtuous;

  let him be cruel, and practice evil ways;

  it is so clear that no one here remembers

  how like a gentle father Odysseus ruled you.

  I find it less revolting that the suitors

  carry their malice into violent acts;

  at least they stake their lives

  when they go pillaging the house of Odysseus—

  their lives upon it, he will not come again.

  What sickens me is to see the whole community

  sitting still, and never
a voice or a hand raised

  against them—a mere handful compared with you.”

  Leókritos, Euenor’s son, replied to him:

  “Mentor, what mischief are you raking up?

  Will this crowd risk the sword’s edge over a dinner?

  Suppose Odysseus himself indeed

  came in and found the suitors at his table:

  he might be hot to drive them out. What then?

  Never would he enjoy his wife again—

  the wife who loves him well; he’d only bring down

  abject death on himself against those odds.

  Madness, to talk of fighting in either case.

  Now let all present go about their business!

  Halithersês and Mentor will speed the traveller;

  they can help him: they were his father’s friends.

  I rather think he will be sitting here

  a long time yet, waiting for news on Ithaka;

  that seafaring he spoke of is beyond him.”

  On this note they were quick to end their parley.

  The assembly broke up; everyone went home—

  the suitors home to Odysseus’ house again.

  But Telémakhos walked down along the shore

  and washed his hands in the foam of the grey sea,

  then said this prayer:

  “O god of yesterday,

  guest in our house, who told me to take ship

  on the hazy sea for news of my lost father,

  listen to me, be near me:

  the Akhaians only wait, or hope to hinder me,

  the damned insolent suitors most of all.”

  Athena was nearby and came to him,

  putting on Mentor’s figure and his tone,

  the warm voice in a lucid flight of words:

  “You’ll never be fainthearted or a fool,

  Telémakhos, if you have your father’s spirit;

  he finished what he cared to say,

  and what he took in hand he brought to pass.

  The sea routes will yield their distances

  to his true son, Penélopê’s true son,—

  I doubt another’s luck would hold so far.

  The son is rare who measures with his father,

  and one in a thousand is a better man,

  but you will have the sap and wit

  and prudence—for you get that from Odysseus—

  to give you a fair chance of winning through.

  So never mind the suitors and their ways,

  there is no judgment in them, neither do they

  know anything of death and the black terror

  close upon them—doom’s day on them all.

  You need not linger over going to sea.

  I sailed beside your father in the old days,

  I’ll find a ship for you, and help you sail her.

  So go on home, as if to join the suitors,

  but get provisions ready in containers—

  wine in two-handled jugs and barley meal,

  the staying power of oarsmen,

  in skin bags, watertight. I’ll go the rounds

  and call a crew of volunteers together.

  Hundreds of ships are beached on sea-girt Ithaka;

  let me but choose the soundest, old or new,

  we’ll rig her and take her out on the broad sea.”

  This was the divine speech Telémakhos heard

  from Athena, Zeus’s daughter. He stayed no longer,

  but took his heartache home,

  and found the robust suitors there at work,

  skinning goats and roasting pigs in the courtyard.

  Antínoös came straight over, laughing at him,

  and took him by the hand with a bold greeting:

  “High-handed Telémakhos, control your temper!

  Come on, get over it, no more grim thoughts,

  but feast and drink with me, the way you used to.

  The Akhaians will attend to all you ask for—

  ship, crew, and crossing to the holy land

  of Pylos, for the news about your father.”

  Telémakhos replied with no confusion:

  “Antínoös, I cannot see myself again

  taking a quiet dinner in this company.

  Isn’t it enough that you could strip my house

  under my very nose when I was young?

  Now that I know, being grown, what others say,

  I understand it all, and my heart is full.

  I’ll bring black doom upon you if I can—

  either in Pylos, if I go, or in this country.

  And I will go, go all the way, if only

  as someone’s passenger. I have no ship,

  no oarsmen: and it suits you that I have none.”

  Calmly he drew his hand from Antínoös’ hand.

  At this the suitors, while they dressed their meat,

  began to exchange loud mocking talk about him.

  One young toplofty gallant set the tone:

  “Well, think of that!

  Telémakhos has a mind to murder us.

  He’s going to lead avengers out of Pylos,

  or Sparta, maybe; oh, he’s wild to do it.

  Or else he’ll try the fat land of Ephyra—

  he can get poison there, and bring it home,

  doctor the wine jar and dispatch us all.”

  Another took the cue:

  “Well now, who knows?

  He might be lost at sea, just like Odysseus,

  knocking around in a ship, far from his friends.

  And what a lot of trouble that would give us,

  making the right division of his things!

  We’d keep his house as dowry for his mother—

  his mother and the man who marries her.”

  That was the drift of it. Telémakhos

  went on through to the storeroom of his father,

  a great vault where gold and bronze lay piled

  along with chests of clothes, and fragrant oil.

  And there were jars of earthenware in rows

  holding an old wine,

  mellow, unmixed, and rare; cool stood the jars

  against the wall, kept for whatever day

  Odysseus, worn by hardships, might come home.

  The double folding doors were tightly locked

  and guarded, night and day, by the serving woman,

  Eurykleia, grand-daughter of Peisênor,

  in all her duty vigilant and shrewd.

  Telémakhos called her to the storeroom, saying:

  “Nurse, get a few two-handled travelling jugs

  filled up with wine—the second best, not that

  you keep for your unlucky lord and king,

  hoping he may have slipped away from death

  and may yet come again—royal Odysseus.

  Twelve amphorai will do; seal them up tight.

  And pour out barley into leather bags—

  twenty bushels of barley meal ground fine.

  Now keep this to yourself! Collect these things,

  and after dark, when mother has retired

  and gone upstairs to bed, I’ll come for them.

  I sail to sandy Pylos, then to Sparta,

  to see what news there is of Father’s voyage.”

  His loving nurse Eurýkleia gave a cry,

  and tears sprang to her eyes as she wailed softly:

  “Dear child, whatever put this in your head?

  Why do you want to go so far in the world—

  and you our only darling? Lord Odysseus

  died in some strange place, far from his homeland.

  Think how, when you have turned your back, these men

  will plot to kill you and share all your things!

  Stay with your own, dear, do. Why should you suffer

  hardship and homelessness on the wild sea?”

  But seeing all clear, Telémakhos replied:

  “Take heart, Nurse, there’s a god behind this plan.
r />   And you must swear to keep it from my mother,

  until the eleventh day, or twelfth, or till

  she misses me, or hears that I am gone.

  She must not tear her lovely skin lamenting.”

  So the old woman vowed by all the gods,

  and vowed again, to carry out his wishes;

  then she filled up the amphorai with wine

  and sifted barley meal into leather bags.

  Telémakhos rejoined the suitors.

  Meanwhile

  the goddess with grey eyes had other business:

  disguised as Telémakhos, she roamed the town

  taking each likely man aside and telling him:

  “Meet us at nightfall at the ship!” Indeed,

  she asked Noêmon, Phronios’ wealthy son,

  to lend her a fast ship, and he complied.

  Now when at sundown shadows crossed the lanes

  she dragged the cutter to the sea and launched it,

  fitted out with tough seagoing gear,

  and tied it up, away at the harbor’s edge.

  The crewmen gathered, sent there by the goddess.

  Then it occurred to the grey-eyed goddess Athena

  to pass inside the house of the hero Odysseus,

  showering a sweet drowsiness on the suitors,

  whom she had presently wandering in their wine;

  and soon, as they could hold their cups no longer,

  they straggled off to find their beds in town,

  eyes heavy-lidded, laden down with sleep.

  Then to Telémakhos the grey-eyed goddess

  appeared again with Mentor’s form and voice,

  calling him out of the lofty emptied hall:

  “Telémakhos, your crew of fighting men

  is ready at the oars, and waiting for you;

  come on, no point in holding up the sailing.”

  And Pallas Athena turned like the wind, running