In came the herald now, leading along the faithful bard the Muse adored above all others, true, but her gifts were mixed with good and evil both: she stripped him of sight but gave the man the power of stirring, rapturous song. Pontonous brought the bard a silver-studded chair, right amid the feasters, leaning it up against a central column—hung his high clear lyre on a peg above his head and showed him how to reach up with his hands and lift it down. And the herald placed a table by his side with a basket full of bread and cup of wine for him to sip when his spirit craved refreshment. All reached out for the good things that lay at hand and when they'd put aside desire for food and drink, the Muse inspired the bard to sing the famous deeds of fighting heroes—

the song whose fame had reached the skies those days: The Strife Between Odysseus and Achilles, Peleus' Son . how once at the gods' flowing feast the captains clashed in a savage war of words, while Agamemnon, lord of armies, rejoiced at heart that Achaea's bravest men were battling so. For this was the victory sign that Apollo prophesied at his shrine in Pytho when Agamemnon strode across the rocky threshold, asking the oracle for advice— the start of the tidal waves of ruin tumbling down on Troy's and Achaea's forces, both at once, thanks to the will of Zeus who rules the world.

That was the song the famous harper sang but Odysseus, clutching his flaring sea-blue cape in both powerful hands, drew it over his head and buried his handsome face, ashamed his hosts might see him shedding tears. Whenever the rapt bard would pause in the song, he'd lift the cape from his head, wipe off his tears and hoisting his double-handled cup, pour it out to the gods. But soon as the bard would start again, impelled to sing by Phaeacia's lords, who reveled in his tale, again Odysseus hid his face and wept. His weeping went unmarked by all the others; only Alcinous, sitting close beside him, noticed his guest's tears, heard the groan in the man's labored breathing and said at once to the master mariners around him, "Hear me, my lords and captains of Phaeacia! By now we've had our fill of food well-shared and the lyre too, our loyal friend at banquets. Now out we go again and test ourselves in contests, games of every kind—so our guest can tell his friends, when he reaches home, how far we excel the world at boxing, wrestling, jumping, speed of foot."

He forged ahead and the rest fell in behind. The herald hung the ringing lyre back on its peg

and taking Demodocus by the hand, led him from the palace,

guiding him down the same path the island lords

had just pursued, keen to watch the contests.

They reached the meeting grounds

with throngs of people streaming in their trail

as a press of young champions rose for competition.

Topsail and Riptide rose, the helmsman Rowhard too

and Seaman and Sternman, Surf-at-the-Beach and Stroke-Oar,

Breaker and Bowsprit, Racing-the-Wind and Swing-Aboard

and Seagirt the son of Greatfleet, Shipwrightson

and the son of Launcher, Broadsea, rose up too,

a match for murderous Ares, death to men—

in looks and build the best of all Phaeacians

after gallant Laodamas, the Captain of the People.

Laodamas rose with two more sons of great Alcinous,

Halius bred to the sea and Clytoneus famed for ships.

And now the games began, the first event a footrace ...

They toed the line—

and broke flat out from the start with a fast pack flying down the field in a whirl of dust and Clytoneus the prince outstripped them all by far, flashing ahead the length two mules will plow a furrow before he turned for home, leaving the pack behind and raced to reach the crowds.

Next the wrestling, grueling sport. They grappled, locked, and Broadsea, pinning the strongest champions, won the bouts. Next, in the jumping, Seagirt leapt and beat the field. In the discus Rowhard up and outhurled them all by far. And the king's good son Laodamas boxed them to their knees. When all had enjoyed the games to their hearts' content Alcinous' son Laodamas spurred them: "Come, my friends, let's ask our guest if he knows the ropes of any sport. He's no mean man, not with a build like that . Look at his thighs, his legs, and what a pair of arms— his massive neck, his big, rippling strength! Nor is he past his prime, just beaten down by one too many blows.

Nothing worse than the sea, I always say, to crush a man, the strongest man alive."

And Broadsea put in quickly, "Well said, Laodamas, right to the point. Go up to the fellow, challenge him yourself."

On that cue, the noble prince strode up before Odysseus, front and center, asking, "Come, stranger, sir, won't you try your hand at our contests now? If you have skill in any. It's fit and proper for you to know your sports. What greater glory attends a man, while he's alive, than what he wins with his racing feet and striving hands? Come and compete then, throw your cares to the wind! It won't be long, your journey's not far off— your ship's already hauled down to the sea, your crew is set to sail."

"Laodamas," quick to the mark Odysseus countered sharply, "why do you taunt me so with such a challenge? Pains weigh on my spirit now, not your sports— I've suffered much already, struggled hard. But here I sit amid your assembly still, starved for passage home, begging your king, begging all your people."

"Oh I knew it!" Broadsea broke in, mocking him to his face. "I never took you for someone skilled in games, the kind that real men play throughout the world. Not a chance. You're some skipper of profiteers, roving the high seas in his scudding craft, reckoning up his freight with a keen eye out for home-cargo, grabbing the gold he can! You're no athlete. I see that."

With a dark glance wily Odysseus shot back, "Indecent talk, my friend.

You, you're a reckless fool—I see that. So,

the gods don't hand out all their gifts at once,

not build and brains and flowing speech to all.

One man may fail to impress us with his looks

but a god can crown his words with beauty, charm,

and men look on with delight when he speaks out.

Never faltering, filled with winning self-control,

he shines forth at assembly grounds and people gaze

at him like a god when he walks through the streets.

Another man may look like a deathless one on high

but there's not a bit of grace to crown his words.

Just like you, my fine, handsome friend. Not even

a god could improve those lovely looks of yours

but the mind inside is worthless.

Your slander fans the anger in my heart!

I'm no stranger to sports—for all your taunts—

I've held my place in the front ranks, I tell you,

long as I could trust to my youth and striving hands.

But now I'm wrestled down by pain and hardship, look,

I've borne my share of struggles, cleaving my way

through wars of men and pounding waves at sea.

Nevertheless, despite so many blows,

I'll give your games a whirl. Your insults

cut to the quick—you rouse my fighting blood!"

Up he sprang, cloak and all, and seized a discus, huge and heavy, more weighty by far than those the Phaeacians used to hurl and test each other. Wheeling round, he let loose with his great hand and the stone whirred on—and down to ground they went, those lords of the long oars and master mariners cringing under the rock's onrush, soaring lightly out of his grip, flying away past all the other marks, and Queen Athena, built like a man, staked out the spot and cried with a voice of triumph, "Even a blind man, friend, could find your mark by groping round— it's not mixed up in the crowd, it's far in front!

There's nothing to fear in this event—

no one can touch you, much less beat your distance!"

At that the heart of the long-suffering hero laughed, so glad to find a ready friend in the crowd that, lighter in mood, he challenged all Phaeacia's best: "Now go match that, you young pups, and straightaway I'll hurl you another just as far, I swear, or even farther! All the rest of you, anyone with the spine and spirit, step right up and try me—you've incensed me so— at boxing, wrestling, racing; nothing daunts me. Any Phaeacian here except Laodamas himself. The man's my host. Who would fight his friend? He'd have to be good-for-nothing, senseless, yes, to challenge his host and come to grips in games, in a far-off land at that. He'd cut his own legs short. But there are no others I'd deny or think beneath me— I'll take on all contenders, gladly, test them head-to-head! I'm not half bad in the world of games where men compete. Well I know how to handle a fine polished bow, the first to hit my man in a mass of enemies, even with rows of comrades pressing near me, taking aim with our shafts to hit our targets. Philoctetes alone outshot me there at Troy when ranks of Achaean archers bent their bows. Of the rest I'd say that I outclass them all— men still alive, who eat their bread on earth. But I'd never vie with the men of days gone by, not Heracles, not Eurytus of Oechalia—archers who rivaled immortal powers with their bows. That's why noble Eurytus died a sudden death: no old age, creeping upon him in his halls ... Apollo shot him down, enraged that the man had challenged him, the Archer God.

As for spears,

I can fling a spear as far as the next man wings an arrow! Only at sprinting I fear you'd leave me in the dust. I've taken a shameful beating out on heavy seas,

no conditioning there on shipboard day by day. My legs have lost their spring."

He finished. All stood silent, hushed. Only Alcinous found a way to answer. "Stranger, friend—nothing you say among us seems ungracious. You simply want to display the gifts you're born with, stung that a youngster marched up to you in the games, mocking, ridiculing your prowess as no one would who had some sense of fit and proper speech. But come now, hear me out, so you can tell our story to other lords as you sit and feast in your own halls someday, your own wife and your children by your side, remembering there our island prowess here: what skills great Zeus has given us as well, down all the years from our fathers' days till now. We're hardly world-class boxers or wrestlers, I admit, but we can race like the wind, we're champion sailors too, and always dear to our hearts, the feast, the lyre and dance and changes of fresh clothes, our warm baths and beds. So come—all you Phaeacian masters of the dance— now dance away! So our guest can tell his friends, when he reaches home, how far we excel the world in sailing, nimble footwork, dance and song.

Go, someone, quickly, fetch Demodocus now his ringing lyre. It must be hanging somewhere in the palace."

At the king's word the herald sprang to his feet and ran to fetch the ringing lyre from the house. And stewards rose, nine in all, picked from the realm to set the stage for contests: masters-at-arms who leveled the dancing-floor to make a fine broad ring. The herald returned and placed the vibrant lyre now in Demodocus' hands, and the bard moved toward the center, flanked by boys in the flush of youth, skilled dancers who stamped the ground with marvelous pulsing steps

as Odysseus gazed at their flying, flashing feet, his heart aglow with wonder.

A rippling prelude— now the bard struck up an irresistible song: The Love of Ares and Aphrodite Crowned with flowers . how the two had first made love in Hephaestus' mansion, all in secret. Ares had showered her with gifts and showered Hephaestus' marriage bed with shame but a messenger ran to tell the god of fire— Helios, lord of the sun, who'd spied the couple lost in each other's arms and making love. Hephaestus, hearing the heart-wounding story, bustled toward his forge, brooding on his revenge— planted the huge anvil on its block and beat out chains, not to be slipped or broken, all to pin the lovers on the spot. This snare the Firegod forged, ablaze with his rage at War, then limped to the room where the bed of love stood firm and round the posts he poured the chains in a sweeping net with streams of others flowing down from the roofbeam, gossamer-fine as spider webs no man could see, not even a blissful god— the Smith had forged a masterwork of guile. Once he'd spun that cunning trap around his bed he feigned a trip to the well-built town of Lemnos, dearest to him by far of all the towns on earth. But the god of battle kept no blind man's watch. As soon as he saw the Master Craftsman leave he plied his golden reins and arrived at once and entered the famous god of fire's mansion, chafing with lust for Aphrodite crowned with flowers. She'd just returned from her father's palace, mighty Zeus, and now she sat in her rooms as Ares strode right in and grasped her hand with a warm, seductive urging: "Quick, my darling, come, let's go to bed and lose ourselves in love! Your husband's away— by now he must be off in the wilds of Lemnos, consorting with his raucous Sintian friends."

So he pressed

and her heart raced with joy to sleep with War

and off they went to bed and down they lay—

and down around them came those cunning chains

of the crafty god of fire, showering down now

till the couple could not move a limb or lift a finger—

then they knew at last: there was no way out, not now.

But now the glorious crippled Smith was drawing near ...

he'd turned around, miles short of the Lemnos coast,

for the Sungod kept his watch and told Hephaestus all,

so back he rushed to his house, his heart consumed with anguish.

Halting there at the gates, seized with savage rage

he howled a terrible cry, imploring all the gods,

"Father Zeus, look here—

the rest of you happy gods who live forever—

here is a sight to make you laugh, revolt you too!

Just because I am crippled, Zeus's daughter Aphrodite

will always spurn me and love that devastating Ares,

just because of his stunning looks and racer's legs

while I am a weakling, lame from birth, and who's to blame?

Both my parents—who else? If only they'd never bred me!

Just look at the two lovers ... crawled inside my bed,

locked in each other's arms—the sight makes me burn!

But I doubt they'll want to lie that way much longer,

not a moment more—mad as they are for each other.

No, they'll soon tire of bedding down together,

but then my cunning chains will bind them fast

till our Father pays my bride-gifts back in full,

all I handed him for that shameless bitch his daughter,

irresistible beauty—all unbridled too!"

So Hephaestus wailed as the gods came crowding up to his bronze-floored house. Poseidon god of the earthquake came, and Hermes came, the running god of luck, and the Archer, lord Apollo, while modesty kept each goddess to her mansion. The immortals, givers of all good things, stood at the gates, and uncontrollable laughter burst from the happy gods when they saw the god of fire's subtle, cunning work. One would glance at his neighbor, laughing out,

"A bad day for adultery! Slow outstrips the Swift."

"Look how limping Hephaestus conquers War, quickest of all the gods who rule Olympus!"

"The cripple wins by craft."

"The adulterer,

he will pay the price!"

So the gods would banter among themselves but lord Apollo goaded Hermes on: "Tell me, Quicksilver, giver of all good things— even with those unwieldy shackles wrapped around you, how would you like to bed the golden Aphrodite?"

"Oh Apollo, if only!" the giant-killer cried. "Archer, bind me down with triple those endless chains! Let all you gods look on, and all you goddesses too— how I'd love to bed that golden Aphrodite!"

A peal of laughter broke from the deathless ones but not Poseidon, not a smile from him; he kept on begging the famous Smith to loose the god of war, pleading, his words flying, "Let him go! I guarantee you Ares will pay the price, whatever you ask, Hephaestus, whatever's right in the eyes of all the gods."

But the famous crippled Smith appealed in turn, "God of the earthquake, please don't urge this on me. A pledge for a worthless man is a worthless pledge indeed. What if he slips out of his chains—his debts as well? How could I shackle you while all the gods look on?"

But the god of earthquakes reassured the Smith, "Look, Hephaestus, if Ares scuttles off and away, squirming out of his debt, I'll pay the fine myself."

And the famous crippled Smith complied at last: "Now there's an offer I really can't refuse!"

With all his force the god of fire loosed the chains and the two lovers, free of the bonds that overwhelmed them so, sprang up and away at once, and the Wargod sped to Thrace while Love with her telltale laughter sped to Paphos, Cyprus Isle, where her grove and scented altar stand. There the Graces bathed and anointed her with oil, ambrosial oil, the bloom that clings to the gods who never die, and swathed her round in gowns to stop the heart ... an ecstasy—a vision.

That was the song the famous harper sang and Odysseus retished every note as the islanders, the lords of the long oars and master mariners rejoiced.

Next the king asked Halius and Laodamas to dance, the two alone, since none could match that pair. So taking in hand a gleaming sea-blue ball, made by the craftsman Polybus—arching back, one prince would hurl it toward the shadowy clouds as the other leaping high into the air would catch it quickly, nimbly, before his feet hit ground again. Once they'd vied at throwing the ball straight up, they tossed it back and forth in a blur of hands as they danced across the earth that feeds us all, while boys around the ring stamped out the beat and a splendid rhythmic drumming sound arose, and good Odysseus looked at his host, exclaiming, "King Alcinous, shining among your island people, you boasted Phaeacia's dancers are the best— they prove your point—I watch and I'm amazed!"

His praises cheered the hallowed island king who spoke at once to the master mariners around him: "Hear me, my lords and captains of Phaeacia, our guest is a man of real taste, I'd say. Come, let's give him the parting gifts a guest deserves. There are twelve peers of the realm who rule our land, thirteen, counting myself. Let each of us contribute

a fresh cloak and shirt and a bar of precious gold. Gather the gifts together, hurry, so our guest can have them all in hand when he goes to dine, his spirit filled with joy. As for Broadsea, let him make amends, man-to-man, with his words as well as gifts. His first remarks were hardly fit to hear."

All assented and gave their own commands, each noble sent a page to fetch his gifts. And Broadsea volunteered in turn, obliging: "Great Alcinous, shining among our island people, of course I'll make amends to our newfound friend as you request. I'll give the man this sword. It's solid bronze and the hilt has silver studs, the sheath around it ivory freshly carved. Here's a gift our guest will value highly."

He placed the silver-studded sword in Odysseus' hands with a burst of warm words: "Farewell, stranger, sir— if any remark of mine gave you offense, may stormwinds snatch it up and sweep it off! May the gods grant you safe passage home to see your wife— you've been so far from loved ones, suffered so!"

Tactful Odysseus answered him in kind: "And a warm farewell to you, too, my friend. May the gods grant you good fortune— may you never miss this sword, this gift you give with such salutes. You've made amends in full."

With that

he slung the silver-studded sword across his shoulder. As the sun sank, his glittering gifts arrived and proud heralds bore them into the hall where sons of King Alcinous took them over, spread them out before their noble mother's feet— a grand array of gifts. The king in all his majesty led the rest of his peers inside, following in a file and down they sat on rows of high-backed chairs.

The king turned to the queen and urged her, "Come, my dear, bring in an elegant chest, the best you have, and lay inside it a fresh cloak and shirt, your own gifts. Then heat a bronze cauldron over the fire, boil water, so once our guest has bathed and reviewed his gifts— all neatly stacked for sailing, gifts our Phaeacian lords have brought him now— he'll feast in peace and hear the harper's songs. And I will give him this gorgeous golden cup of mine, so he'll remember Alcinous all his days to come when he pours libations out in his own house to Father Zeus and the other gods on high-"

And at that Arete told her serving-women, "Set a great three-legged cauldron over the fire— do it right away!"

And hoisting over the blaze a cauldron, filling it brimful with bathing water, they piled fresh logs beneath and lit them quickly. The fire lapped at the vessel's belly, the water warmed. Meanwhile the queen had a polished chest brought forth from an inner room and laid the priceless gifts inside, the clothes and gold the Phaeacian lords had brought, and added her own gifts, a cloak and a fine shirt, and gave her guest instructions quick and clear: "Now look to the lid yourself and bind it fast with a good tight knot, so no one can rob you on your voyage—drifting into a sweet sleep as the black ship sails you home."

Hearing that, the storm-tossed man secured the lid straightway, he battened it fast with a swift, intricate knot the lady Circe had taught him long ago. And the housekeeper invited him at once to climb into a waiting tub and bathe— a hot, steaming bath ... what a welcome sight to Odysseus' eyes!

He'd been a stranger to comforts such as these since he left the lovely-haired Calypso's house, yet all those years he enjoyed such comforts there, never-ending, as if he were a god . And now, when maids had washed him, rubbed him down with oil and drawn warm fleece and a shirt around his shoulders, he stepped from the bath to join the nobles at their wine. And there stood Nausicaa as he passed. Beside a column that propped the sturdy roof she paused, endowed by the gods with all her beauty, gazing at Odysseus right before her eyes. Wonderstruck, she hailed her guest with a winning flight of words: "Farewell, my friend! And when you are at home, home in your own land, remember me at times. Mainly to me you owe the gift of life."

Odysseus rose to the moment deftly, gently: "Nausicaa, daughter of generous King Alcinous, may Zeus the Thunderer, Hera's husband, grant it so— that I travel home and see the dawn of my return- Even at home I'll pray to you as a deathless goddess all my days to come. You saved my life, dear girl."

And he went and took his seat beside the king. By now they were serving out the portions, mixing wine, and the herald soon approached, leading the faithful bard Demodocus, prized by all the people—seated him in a chair amid the feasters, leaning it against a central column. At once alert Odysseus carved a strip of loin, rich and crisp with fat, from the white-tusked boar that still had much meat left, and called the herald over: "Here, herald, take this choice cut to Demodocus so he can eat his fill—with warm regards from a man who knows what suffering is . From all who walk the earth our bards deserve esteem and awe, for the Muse herself has taught them paths of song. She loves the breed of harpers."

The herald placed the gift in Demodocus' hands and the famous blind bard received it, overjoyed. They reached for the good things that lay outspread and when they'd put aside desire for food and drink, Odysseus, master of many exploits, praised the singer: "I respect you, Demodocus, more than any man alive— surely the Muse has taught you, Zeus's daughter, or god Apollo himself. How true to life, all too true ... you sing the Achaeans' fate, all they did and suffered, all they soldiered through, as if you were there yourself or heard from one who was. But come now, shift your ground. Sing of the wooden horse Epeus built with Athena's help, the cunning trap that good Odysseus brought one day to the heights of Troy, filled with fighting men who laid the city waste. Sing that for me—true to life as it deserves— and I will tell the world at once how freely the Muse gave you the gods' own gift of song."

Stirred now by the Muse, the bard launched out in a fine blaze of song, starting at just the point where the main Achaean force, setting their camps afire, had boarded the oarswept ships and sailed for home but famed Odysseus' men already crouched in hiding— in the heart of Troy's assembly—dark in that horse the Trojans dragged themselves to the city heights. Now it stood there, looming . and round its bulk the Trojans sat debating, clashing, days on end. Three plans split their ranks: either to hack open the hollow vault with ruthless bronze or haul it up to the highest ridge and pitch it down the cliffs or let it stand—a glorious offering made to pacify the gods— and that, that final plan, was bound to win the day. For Troy was fated to perish once the city lodged inside her walls the monstrous wooden horse where the prime of Argive power lay in wait with death and slaughter bearing down on Troy.

And he sang how troops of Achaeans broke from cover, streaming out of the horse's hollow flanks to plunder Troy— he sang how left and right they ravaged the steep city, sang how Odysseus marched right up to Deiphobus' house like the god of war on attack with diehard Menelaus. There, he sang, Odysseus fought the grimmest fight he had ever braved but he won through at last, thanks to Athena's superhuman power.

That was the song the famous harper sang but great Odysseus melted into tears, running down from his eyes to wet his cheeks . as a woman weeps, her arms flung round her darling husband, a man who fell in battle, fighting for town and townsmen, trying to beat the day of doom from home and children. Seeing the man go down, dying, gasping for breath, she clings for dear life, screams and shrills— but the victors, just behind her, digging spear-butts into her back and shoulders, drag her off in bondage, yoked to hard labor, pain, and the most heartbreaking torment wastes her cheeks. So from Odysseus' eyes ran tears of heartbreak now. But his weeping went unmarked by all the others; only Alcinous, sitting close beside him, noticed his guest's tears, heard the groan in the man's labored breathing and said at once to the master mariners around him, "Hear me, my lords and captains of Phaeacia! Let Demodocus rest his ringing lyre now— this song he sings can hardly please us all. Ever since our meal began and the stirring bard launched his song, our guest has never paused in his tears and throbbing sorrow. Clearly grief has overpowered his heart. Break off this song! Let us all enjoy ourselves, the hosts and guest together. Much the warmer way. All these things are performed for him, our honored guest, the royal send-off here and gifts we give in love.

Treat your guest and suppliant like a brother:

anyone with a touch of sense knows that.

So don't be crafty now, my friend, don't hide

the truth I'm after. Fair is fair, speak out!

Come, tell us the name they call you there at home—

your mother, father, townsmen, neighbors round about.

Surely no man in the world is nameless, all told.

Born high, born low, as soon as he sees the light

his parents always name him, once he's born.

And tell me your land, your people, your city too,

so our ships can sail you home—their wits will speed them there.

For we have no steersmen here among Phaeacia's crews

or steering-oars that guide your common craft.

Our ships know in a flash their mates' intentions,

know all ports of call and all the rich green fields.

With wings of the wind they cross the sea's huge gulfs,

shrouded in mist and cloud—no fear in the world of foundering,

fatal shipwreck.

True, there's an old tale I heard my father telling once. Nausithous used to say that lord Poseidon was vexed with us because we escorted all mankind and never came to grief. He said that one day, as a well-built ship of ours sailed home on the misty sea from such a convoy, the god would crush it, yes, and pile a huge mountain round about our port. So the old king foretold ... And as for the god, well, he can do his worst or leave it quite undone, whatever warms his heart.

But come, my friend, tell us your own story now, and tell it truly. Where have your rovings forced you? What lands of men have you seen, what sturdy towns, what men themselves? Who were wild, savage, lawless? Who were friendly to strangers, god-fearing men? Tell me, why do you weep and grieve so sorely when you hear the fate of the Argives, hear the fall of Troy?

That is the gods' work, spinning threads of death

through the lives of mortal men,

and all to make a song for those to come ...

Did one of your kinsmen die before the walls of Troy,

some brave man—a son by marriage? father by marriage?

Next to our own blood kin, our nearest, dearest ties.

Or a friend perhaps, someone close to your heart,

staunch and loyal? No less dear than a brother,

the brother-in-arms who shares our inmost thoughts."

Book IX

In the One-Eyed Giant's Cave

Odysseus, the great teller of tales, launched out on his story:

"Alcinous, majesty, shining among your island people,

what a fine thing it is to listen to such a bard

as we have here—the man sings like a god.

The crown of life, I'd say. There's nothing better

than when deep joy holds sway throughout the realm

and banqueters up and down the palace sit in ranks,

enthralled to hear the bard, and before them all, the tables

heaped with bread and meats, and drawing wine from a mixing-bowl

the steward makes his rounds and keeps the winecups flowing.

This, to my mind, is the best that life can offer.

But now

you're set on probing the bitter pains I've borne, so I'm to weep and grieve, it seems, still more. Well then, what shall I go through first, what shall I save for last?

What pains—the gods have given me my share.

Now let me begin by telling you my name ...

so you may know it well and I in times to come,

if I can escape the fatal day, will be your host,

your sworn friend, though my home is far from here.

I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, known to the world

for every kind of craft—my fame has reached the skies.

Sunny Ithaca is my home. Atop her stands our seamark,

Mount Neriton's leafy ridges shimmering in the wind.

Around her a ring of islands circle side-by-side,

Dulichion, Same, wooded Zacynthus too, but mine

lies low and away, the farthest out to sea,

rearing into the western dusk

while the others face the east and breaking day.

Mine is a rugged land but good for raising sons—

and I myself, I know no sweeter sight on earth

than a man's own native country.

True enough, Calypso the lustrous goddess tried to hold me back, deep in her arching caverns, craving me for a husband. So did Circe, holding me just as warmly in her halls, the bewitching queen of Aeaea keen to have me too. But they never won the heart inside me, never. So nothing is as sweet as a man's own country, his own parents, even though he's settled down in some luxurious house, off in a foreign land and far from those who bore him.

No more. Come, let me tell you about the voyage fraught with hardship Zeus inflicted on me, homeward bound from Troy .

The wind drove me out of Ilium on to Ismarus, the Cicones' stronghold. There I sacked the city, killed the men, but as for the wives and plunder, that rich haul we dragged away from the place— we shared it round so no one, not on my account, would go deprived of his fair share of spoils.

Then I urged them to cut and run, set sail,

but would they listen? Not those mutinous fools;

there was too much wine to swill, too many sheep to slaughter

down along the beach, and shambling longhorn cattle.

And all the while the Cicones sought out other Cicones,

called for help from their neighbors living inland:

a larger force, and stronger soldiers too,

skilled hands at fighting men from chariots,

skilled, when a crisis broke, to fight on foot.

Out of the morning mist they came against us—

packed as the leaves and spears that flower forth in spring—

and Zeus presented us with disaster, me and my comrades

doomed to suffer blow on mortal blow. Lining up,

both armies battled it out against our swift ships,

both raked each other with hurtling bronze lances.

Long as morning rose and the blessed day grew stronger

we stood and fought them off, massed as they were, but then,

when the sun wheeled past the hour for unyoking oxen,

the Cicones broke our lines and beat us down at last.

Out of each ship, six men-at-arms were killed;

the rest of us rowed away from certain doom.

From there we sailed on, glad to escape our death yet sick at heart for the dear companions we had lost. But I would not let our rolling ships set sail until the crews had raised the triple cry, saluting each poor comrade cut down by the fierce Cicones on that plain. Now Zeus who masses the stormclouds hit the fleet with the North Wind—

a howling, demonic gale, shrouding over in thunderheads the earth and sea at once—

and night swept down from the sky and the ships went plunging headlong on, our sails slashed to rags by the hurricane's blast! We struck them—cringing at death we rowed our ships to the nearest shoreline, pulled with all our power. There, for two nights, two days, we lay by, no letup, eating our hearts out, bent with pain and bone-tired.

When Dawn with her lovely locks brought on the third day, then stepping the masts and hoisting white sails high, we lounged at the oarlocks, letting wind and helmsmen keep us true on course ...

And now, at long last, I might have reached my native land unscathed, but just as I doubled Malea's cape, a tide-rip and the North Wind drove me way off course, careering past Cythera.

Nine whole days I was borne along by rough, deadly winds on the fish-infested sea. Then on the tenth our squadron reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, people who eat the lotus, mellow fruit and flower. We disembarked on the coast, drew water there and crewmen snatched a meal by the swift ships. Once we'd had our fill of food and drink I sent a detail ahead, two picked men and a third, a runner, to scout out who might live there—men like us perhaps, who live on bread? So off they went and soon enough they mingled among the natives, Lotus-eaters, Lotus-eaters who had no notion of killing my companions, not at all, they simply gave them the lotus to taste instead ... Any crewmen who ate the lotus, the honey-sweet fruit, lost all desire to send a message back, much less return, their only wish to linger there with the Lotus-eaters, grazing on lotus, all memory of the journey home dissolved forever. But Ibrought them back, back to the hollow ships, and streaming tears—I forced them, hauled them under the rowing benches, lashed them fast and shouted out commands to my other, steady comrades: 'Quick, no time to lose, embark in the racing ships!'— so none could eat the lotus, forget the voyage home. They swung aboard at once, they sat to the oars in ranks and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke.

From there we sailed on, our spirits now at a low ebb, and reached the land of the high and mighty Cyclops,

lawless brutes, who trust so to the everlasting gods they never plant with their own hands or plow the soil. Unsown, unplowed, the earth teems with all they need, wheat, barley and vines, swelled by the rains of Zeus to yield a big full-bodied wine from clustered grapes. They have no meeting place for council, no laws either, no, up on the mountain peaks they live in arching caverns— each a law to himself, ruling his wives and children, not a care in the world for any neighbor.

Now,

a level island stretches flat across the harbor,

not close inshore to the Cyclops' coast, not too far out,

thick with woods where the wild goats breed by hundreds.

No trampling of men to start them from their lairs,

no hunters roughing it out on the woody ridges,

stalking quarry, ever raid their haven.

No flocks browse, no plowlands roll with wheat;

unplowed, unsown forever—empty of humankind—

the island just feeds droves of bleating goats.

For the Cyclops have no ships with crimson prows,

no shipwrights there to build them good trim craft

that could sail them out to foreign ports of call

as most men risk the seas to trade with other men.

Such artisans would have made this island too

a decent place to live in ... No mean spot,

it could bear you any crop you like in season.

The water-meadows along the low foaming shore

run soft and moist, and your vines would never flag.

The land's clear for plowing. Harvest on harvest,

a man could reap a healthy stand of grain—

the subsoil's dark and rich.

There's a snug deep-water harbor there, what's more, no need for mooring-gear, no anchor-stones to heave, no cables to make fast. Just beach your keels, ride out the days till your shipmates' spirit stirs for open sea and a fair wind blows. And last, at the harbor's head there's a spring that rushes fresh from beneath a cave and black poplars flourish round its mouth.

Well,

here we landed, and surely a god steered us in through the pitch-black night. Not that he ever showed himself, with thick fog swirling around the ships, the moon wrapped in clouds and not a glimmer stealing through that gloom. Not one of us glimpsed the island—scanning hard— or the long combers rolling us slowly toward the coast, not till our ships had run their keels ashore. Beaching our vessels smoothly, striking sail, the crews swung out on the low shelving sand and there we fell asleep, awaiting Dawn's first light.

When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more we all turned out, intrigued to tour the island. The local nymphs, the daughters of Zeus himself, flushed mountain-goats so the crews could make their meal. Quickly we fetched our curved bows and hunting spears from the ships and, splitting up into three bands, we started shooting, and soon enough some god had sent us bags of game to warm our hearts. A dozen vessels sailed in my command and to each crew nine goats were shared out and mine alone took ten. Then all day long till the sun went down we sat and feasted well on sides of meat and rounds of heady wine. The good red stock in our vessels' holds had not run out, there was still plenty left; the men had carried off a generous store in jars when we stormed and sacked the Cicones' holy city. Now we stared across at the Cyclops' shore, so near we could even see their smoke, hear their voices, their bleating sheep and goats ... And then when the sun had set and night came on we lay down and slept at the water's shelving edge. When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more I called a muster briskly, commanding all the hands, 'The rest of you stay here, my friends-in-arms.

I'll go across with my own ship and crew and probe the natives living over there. What are they—violent, savage, lawless? or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?'

With that I boarded ship and told the crew to embark at once and cast off cables quickly. They swung aboard, they sat to the oars in ranks and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke. But as soon as we reached the coast I mentioned—no long trip— we spied a cavern just at the shore, gaping above the surf, towering, overgrown with laurel. And here big flocks, sheep and goats, were stalled to spend the nights, and around its mouth a yard was walled up with quarried boulders sunk deep in the earth and enormous pines and oak-trees looming darkly ... Here was a giant's lair, in fact, who always pastured his sheepflocks far afield and never mixed with others. A grim loner, dead set in his own lawless ways. Here was a piece of work, by god, a monster built like no mortal who ever supped on bread, no, like a shaggy peak, I'd say—a man-mountain rearing head and shoulders over the world.

Now then,

I told most of my good trusty crew to wait,

to sit tight by the ship and guard her well

while I picked out my dozen finest fighters

and off I went. But I took a skin of wine along,

the ruddy, irresistible wine that Maron gave me once,

Euanthes' son, a priest of Apollo, lord of Ismarus,

because we'd rescued him, his wife and children,

reverent as we were;

he lived, you see, in Apollo's holy grove.

And so in return he gave me splendid gifts,

he handed me seven bars of well-wrought gold,

a mixing-bowl of solid silver, then this wine ...

He drew it off in generous wine-jars, twelve in all,

all unmixed—and such a bouquet, a drink fit for the gods!

No maid or man of his household knew that secret store, only himself, his loving wife and a single servant. Whenever they'd drink the deep-red mellow vintage, twenty cups of water he'd stir in one of wine and what an aroma wafted from the bowl— what magic, what a godsend— no joy in holding back when that was poured! Filling a great goatskin now, I took this wine, provisions too in a leather sack. A sudden foreboding told my righting spirit I'd soon come up against some giant clad in power like armor-plate— a savage deaf to justice, blind to law.

Our party quickly made its way to his cave but we failed to find our host himself inside; he was off in his pasture, ranging his sleek flocks. So we explored his den, gazing wide-eyed at it all, the large flat racks loaded with drying cheeses, the folds crowded with young lambs and kids, split into three groups—here the spring-born, here mid-yearlings, here the fresh sucklings off to the side—each sort was penned apart. And all his vessels, pails and hammered buckets he used for milking, were brimming full with whey. From the start my comrades pressed me, pleading hard, 'Let's make away with the cheeses, then come back— hurry, drive the lambs and kids from the pens to our swift ship, put out to sea at once!' But I would not give way— and how much better it would have been— not till I saw him, saw what gifts he'd give. But he proved no lovely sight to my companions.

There we built a fire, set our hands on the cheeses, offered some to the gods and ate the bulk ourselves and settled down inside, awaiting his return ... And back he came from pasture, late in the day, herding his flocks home, and lugging a huge load

of good dry logs to fuel his fire at supper. He flung them down in the cave—a jolting crash— we scuttled in panic into the deepest dark recess. And next he drove his sleek flocks into the open vault, all he'd milk at least, but he left the males outside, rams and billy goats out in the high-walled yard. Then to close his door he hoisted overhead a tremendous, massive slab— no twenty-two wagons, rugged and four-wheeled, could budge that boulder off the ground, I tell you, such an immense stone the monster wedged to block his cave! Then down he squatted to milk his sheep and bleating goats, each in order, and put a suckling underneath each dam. And half of the fresh white milk he curdled quickly, set it aside in wicker racks to press for cheese, the other half let stand in pails and buckets, ready at hand to wash his supper down. As soon as he'd briskly finished all his chores he lit his fire and spied us in the blaze and 'Strangers!' he thundered out, 'now who are you? Where did you sail from, over the running sea-lanes? Out on a trading spree or roving the waves like pirates, sea-wolves raiding at will, who risk their lives to plunder other men?'

The hearts inside us shook, terrified by his rumbling voice and monstrous hulk. Nevertheless I found the nerve to answer, firmly, 'Men of Achaea we are and bound now from Troy! Driven far off course by the warring winds, over the vast gulf of the sea—battling home on a strange tack, a route that's off the map, and so we've come to you ... so it must please King Zeus's plotting heart. We're glad to say we're men of Atrides Agamemnon, whose fame is the proudest thing on earth these days, so great a city he sacked, such multitudes he killed! But since we've chanced on you, we're at your knees in hopes of a warm welcome, even a guest-gift,

the sort that hosts give strangers. That's the custom. Respect the gods, my friend. We're suppliants—at your mercy! Zeus of the Strangers guards all guests and suppliants: strangers are sacred—Zeus will avenge their rights!'

'Stranger,' he grumbled back from his brutal heart, 'you must be a fool, stranger, or come from nowhere, telling me to fear the gods or avoid their wrath! We Cyclops never blink at Zeus and Zeus's shield of storm and thunder, or any other blessed god— we've got more force by far. I'd never spare you in fear of Zeus's hatred, you or your comrades here, unless I had the urge. But tell me, where did you moor your sturdy ship when you arrived? Up the coast or close in? I'd just like to know.'

So he laid his trap but he never caught me, no, wise to the world I shot back in my crafty way, 'My ship? Poseidon god of the earthquake smashed my ship, he drove it against the rocks at your island's far cape, dashed it against a cliff as the winds rode us in. I and the men you see escaped a sudden death.'

Not a word in reply to that, the ruthless brute. Lurching up, he lunged out with his hands toward my men and snatching two at once, rapping them on the ground he knocked them dead like pups— their brains gushed out all over, soaked the floor— and ripping them limb from limb to fix his meal he bolted them down like a mountain-lion, left no scrap, devoured entrails, flesh and bones, marrow and all! We flung our arms to Zeus, we wept and cried aloud, looking on at his grisly work—paralyzed, appalled. But once the Cyclops had stuffed his enormous gut with human flesh, washing it down with raw milk, he slept in his cave, stretched out along his flocks. And I with my fighting heart, I thought at first to steal up to him, draw the sharp sword at my hip and stab his chest where the midriff packs the liver— I groped for the fatal spot but a fresh thought held me back. There at a stroke we'd finish off ourselves as well— how could we with our bare hands heave back that slab he set to block his cavern's gaping maw? So we lay there groaning, waiting Dawn's first light.

When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more the monster relit his fire and milked his handsome ewes, each in order, putting a suckling underneath each dam, and as soon as he'd briskly finished all his chores he snatched up two more men and fixed his meal. Well-fed, he drove his fat sheep from the cave, lightly lifting the huge doorslab up and away, then slipped it back in place as a hunter flips the lid of his quiver shut. Piercing whistles—turning his flocks to the hills he left me there, the heart inside me brooding on revenge: how could I pay him back? would Athena give me glory? Here was the plan that struck my mind as best ... the Cyclops' great club: there it lay by the pens, olivewood, full of sap. He'd lopped it off to brandish once it dried. Looking it over, we judged it big enough to be the mast of a pitch-black ship with her twenty oars, a freighter broad in the beam that plows through miles of sea— so long, so thick it bulked before our eyes. Well, flanking it now, I chopped off a fathom's length, pushed it to comrades, told them to plane it down, and they made the club smooth as I bent and shaved the tip to a stabbing point. I turned it over the blazing fire to char it good and hard, then hid it well, buried deep under the dung that littered the cavern's floor in thick wet clumps. And now I ordered my shipmates all to cast lots— who'd brave it out with me to hoist our stake and grind it into his eye when sleep had overcome him? Luck of the draw:

I got the very ones I would have picked myself, four good men, and I in the lead made five ...

Nightfall brought him back, herding his woolly sheep and he quickly drove the sleek flock into the vaulted cavern, rams and all—none left outside in the walled yard— his own idea, perhaps, or a god led him on. Then he hoisted the huge slab to block the door and squatted to milk his sheep and bleating goats, each in order, putting a suckling underneath each dam, and as soon as he'd briskly finished all his chores he snatched up two more men and fixed his meal. But this time I lifted a carved wooden bowl, brimful of my ruddy wine, and went right up to the Cyclops, enticing, 'Here, Cyclops, try this wine—to top off the banquet of human flesh you've bolted down! Judge for yourself what stock our ship had stored. I brought it here to make you a fine libation, hoping you would pity me, Cyclops, send me home, but your rages are insufferable. You barbarian— how can any man on earth come visit you after this? What you've done outrages all that's right!'

At that he seized the bowl and tossed it off and the heady wine pleased him immensely. 'More'— he demanded a second bowl—'a hearty helping! And tell me your name now, quickly, so I can hand my guest a gift to warm his heart. Our soil yields the Cyclops powerful, full-bodied wine and the rains from Zeus build its strength. But this, this is nectar, ambrosia—this flows from heaven!'

So he declared. I poured him another fiery bowl— three bowls I brimmed and three he drank to the last drop, the fool, and then, when the wine was swirling round his brain, I approached my host with a cordial, winning word: 'So, you ask me the name I'm known by, Cyclops?

I will tell you. But you must give me a guest-gift as you've promised. Nobody—that's my name. Nobody— so my mother and father call me, all my friends.'

But he boomed back at me from his ruthless heart, 'Nobody? I'll eat Nobody last of all his friends— I'll eat the others first! That's my gift to you!'

With that

he toppled over, sprawled full-length, flat on his back

and lay there, his massive neck slumping to one side,

and sleep that conquers all overwhelmed him now

as wine came spurting, flooding up from his gullet

with chunks of human flesh—he vomited, blind drunk.

Now, at last, I thrust our stake in a bed of embers

to get it red-hot and rallied all my comrades:

'Courage—no panic, no one hang back now!'

And green as it was, just as the olive stake

was about to catch fire—the glow terrific, yes—

I dragged it from the flames, my men clustering round

as some god breathed enormous courage through us all.

Hoisting high that olive stake with its stabbing point,

straight into the monster's eye they rammed it hard—

I drove my weight on it from above and bored it home

as a shipwright bores his beam with a shipwright's drill

that men below, whipping the strap back and forth, whirl

and the drill keeps twisting faster, never stopping—

So we seized our stake with its fiery tip

and bored it round and round in the giant's eye

till blood came boiling up around that smoking shaft

and the hot blast singed his brow and eyelids round the core

and the broiling eyeball burst—

its crackling roots blazed

and hissed—

as a blacksmith plunges a glowing ax or adze in an ice-cold bath and the metal screeches steam and its temper hardens—that's the iron's strength— so the eye of the Cyclops sizzled round that stake! He loosed a hideous roar, the rock walls echoed round

and we scuttled back in terror. The monster wrenched the spike from his eye and out it came with a red geyser of blood— he flung it aside with frantic hands, and mad with pain he bellowed out for help from his neighbor Cyclops living round about in caves on windswept crags. Hearing his cries, they lumbered up from every side and hulking round his cavern, asked what ailed him: 'What, Polyphemus, what in the world's the trouble? Roaring out in the godsent night to rob us of our sleep. Surely no one's rustling your flocks against your will— surely no one's trying to kill you now by fraud or force!'

'Nobody, friends'—Polyphemus bellowed back from his cave— 'Nobody's killing me now by fraud and not by force.''

7/you're alone,' his friends boomed back at once, 'and nobody's trying to overpower you now—look, it must be a plague sent here by mighty Zeus and there's no escape from that. You'd better pray to your father, Lord Poseidon.'

They lumbered off, but laughter filled my heart to think how nobody's name—my great cunning stroke— had duped them one and all. But the Cyclops there, still groaning, racked with agony, groped around for the huge slab, and heaving it from the doorway, down he sat in the cave's mouth, his arms spread wide, hoping to catch a comrade stealing out with sheep— such a blithering fool he took me for! But I was already plotting ... what was the best way out? how could I find escape from death for my crew, myself as well? My wits kept weaving, weaving cunning schemes— life at stake, monstrous death staring us in the face— till this plan struck my mind as best. That flock, those well-fed rams with their splendid thick fleece, sturdy, handsome beasts sporting their dark weight of wool:

I lashed them abreast, quietly, twisting the willow-twigs the Cyclops slept on—giant, lawless brute—I took them three by three; each ram in the middle bore a man while the two rams either side would shield him well. So three beasts to bear each man, but as for myself? There was one bellwether ram, the prize of all the flock, and clutching him by his back, tucked up under his shaggy belly, there I hung, face upward, both hands locked in his marvelous deep fleece, clinging for dear life, my spirit steeled, enduring ... So we held on, desperate, waiting Dawn's first light.

As soon

as young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more the rams went rumbling out of the cave toward pasture, the ewes kept bleating round the pens, unmilked, their udders about to burst. Their master now, heaving in torment, felt the back of each animal halting before him here, but the idiot never sensed my men were trussed up under their thick fleecy ribs. And last of them all came my great ram now, striding out, weighed down with his dense wool and my deep plots. Stroking him gently, powerful Polyphemus murmured, 'Dear old ram, why last of the flock to quit the cave? In the good old days you'd never lag behind the rest— you with your long marching strides, first by far of the flock to graze the fresh young grasses, first by far to reach the rippling streams, first to turn back home, keen for your fold when night comes on—but now you're last of all. And why? Sick at heart for your master's eye that coward gouged out with his wicked crew?— only after he'd stunned my wits with wine— that, that Nobody ...

who's not escaped his death, I swear, not yet. Oh if only you thought like me, had words like me to tell me where that scoundrel is cringing from my rage! I'd smash him against the ground, I'd spill his brains—

flooding across my cave—and that would ease my heart of the pains that good-for-nothing Nobody made me suffer!'

And with that threat he let my ram go free outside. But soon as we'd got one foot past cave and courtyard, first I loosed myself from the ram, then loosed my men, then quickly, glancing back again and again we drove our flock, good plump beasts with their long sharks, straight to the ship, and a welcome sight we were to loyal comrades—we who'd escaped our deaths— but for all the rest they broke down and wailed. I cut it short, I stopped each shipmate's cries, my head tossing, brows frowning, silent signals to hurry, tumble our fleecy herd on board, launch out on the open sea! They swung aboard, they sat to the oars in rank; and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke. But once offshore as far as a man's shout can carry, I called back to the Cyclops, stinging taunts: 'So, Cyclops, no weak coward it was whose crew you bent to devour there in your vaulted cave—. you with your brute force! Your filthy crimes came down on your own head, you shameless cannibal, daring to eat your guests in your own house— so Zeus and the other gods have paid you back!'

That made the rage of the monster boil over. Ripping off the peak of a towering crag, he heaved it so hard the boulder landed just in front of our dark prow and a huge swell reared up as the rock went plunging under— a tidal wave from the open sea. The sudden backwash drove us landward again, forcing us close inshore but grabbing a long pole, I thrust us off and away, tossing my head for dear life, signaling crews to put their backs in the oars, escape grim death. They threw themselves in the labor, rowed on fast but once we'd plowed the breakers twice as far, again I began to taunt the Cyclops—men around me

trying to check me, calm me, left and right: 'So headstrong—why? Why rile the beast again?'

'That rock he flung in the sea just now, hurling our ship to shore once more—we thought we'd die on the spot!'

'If he'd caught a sound from one of us, just a whisper, he would have crushed our heads and ship timbers with one heave of another flashing,jagged rock!'

'Good god, the brute can throw!'

So they begged

but they could not bring my fighting spirit round. I called back with another burst of anger, 'Cyclops— if any man on the face of the earth should ask you who blinded you, shamed you so—say Odysseus, raider of cities, he gouged out your eye, Laertes' son who makes his home in Ithaca!'

So I vaunted and he groaned back in answer, 'Oh no, no—that prophecy years ago ... it all comes home to me with a vengeance now! We once had a prophet here, a great tall man, Telemus, Eurymus' son, a master at reading signs, who grew old in his trade among his fellow-Cyclops. All this, he warned me, would come to pass someday— that I'd be blinded here at the hands of one Odysseus. But I always looked for a handsome giant man to cross my path, some fighter clad in power like armor-plate, but now, look what a dwarf, a spineless good-for-nothing, stuns me with wine, then gouges out my eye! Come here, Odysseus, let me give you a guest-gift and urge Poseidon the earthquake god to speed you home. I am his son and he claims to be my father, true, and he himself will heal me if he pleases— no other blessed god, no man can do the work!'

'Heal you!'—

here was my parting shot—Would to god I could strip you of life and breath and ship you down to the House of Death as surely as no one will ever heal your eye, not even your earthquake god himself!'

But at that he bellowed out to lord Poseidon, thrusting his arms to the starry skies, and prayed, 'Hear me— Poseidon, god of the sea-blue mane who rocks the earth! If I really am your son and you claim to be my father— come, grant that Odysseus, raider of cities, Laertes' son who makes his home in Ithaca, never reaches home. Or if he's fated to see his people once again and reach his well-built house and his own native country, let him come home late and come a broken man—all shipmates lost, alone in a stranger's ship— and let him find a world of pain at home!'

So he prayed

and the god of the sea-blue mane Poseidon heard his prayer. The monster suddenly hoisted a boulder—far larger— wheeled and heaved it, putting his weight behind it, massive strength, and the boulder crashed close, landing just in the wake of our dark stern, just failing to graze the rudder's bladed edge. A huge swell reared up as the rock went plunging under, yes, and the tidal breaker drove us out to our island's far shore where all my well-decked ships lay moored, clustered, waiting, and huddled round them, crewmen sat in anguish, waiting, chafing for our return. We beached our vessel hard ashore on the sand, we swung out in the frothing surf ourselves, and herding Cyclops' sheep from our deep holds we shared them round so no one, not on my account, would go deprived of his fair share of spoils. But the splendid ram—as we meted out the flocks my friends-in-arms made him my prize of honor, mine alone, and I slaughtered him on the beach and burnt his thighs to Cronus' mighty son,

Zeus of the thundercloud who rules the world.

But my sacrifices failed to move the god:

Zeus was still obsessed with plans to destroy

my entire oarswept fleet and loyal crew of comrades.

Now all day long till the sun went down we sat

and feasted on sides of meat and heady wine.

Then when the sun had set and night came on

we lay down and slept at the water's shelving edge.

When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more

I roused the men straightway, ordering all crews

to man the ships and cast off cables quickly.

They swung aboard at once, they sat to the oars in ranks

and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke.

And from there we sailed on, glad to escape our death

yet sick at heart for the comrades we had lost."

Book X

The Bewitching

Queen of Aeaea

"We reached the Aeolian island next, the home of Aeolus,

Hippotas' son, beloved by the gods who never die—

a great floating island it was, and round it all

huge ramparts rise of indestructible bronze

and sheer rock cliffs shoot up from sea to sky.

The king had sired twelve children within his halls,

six daughters and six sons in the lusty prime of youth,

so he gave his daughters as wives to his six sons.

Seated beside their dear father and doting mother,

with delicacies aplenty spread before them,

they feast on forever ... All day long

the halls breathe the savor of roasted meats

and echo round to the low moan of blowing pipes,

and all night long, each one by his faithful mate,

they sleep under soft-piled rugs on corded bedsteads.

To this city of theirs we came, their splendid palace,

and Aeolus hosted me one entire month, he pressed me for news

of Troy and the Argive ships and how we sailed for home,

and I told him the whole long story, first to last.

And then, when I begged him to send me on my way,

he denied me nothing, he went about my passage.

He gave me a sack, the skin of a full-grown ox,

binding inside the winds that howl from every quarter,

for Zeus had made that king the master of all the winds,

with power to calm them down or rouse them as he pleased.

Aeolus stowed the sack inside my holds, lashed so fast

with a burnished silver cord

not even a slight puff could slip past that knot.

Yet he set the West Wind free to blow us on our way

and waft our squadron home. But his plan was bound to fail,

yes, our own reckless folly swept us on to ruin ...

Nine whole days we sailed, nine nights, nonstop. On the tenth our own land hove into sight at last— we were so close we could see men tending fires. But now an enticing sleep came on me, bone-weary from working the vessel's sheet myself, no letup, never trusting the ropes to any other mate, the faster to journey back to native land. But the crews began to mutter among themselves, sure I was hauling troves of gold and silver home, the gifts of open-hearted Aeolus, Hippotas' son. 'The old story!' One man glanced at another, grumbling. 'Look at our captain's luck—so loved by the world, so prized at every landfall, every port of call.'

'Heaps of lovely plunder he hauls home from Troy, while we who went through slogging just as hard, we go home empty-handed.'

'Now this Aeolus loads him down with treasure. Favoritism, friend to friend!'

'Hurry, let's see what loot is in that sack, how much gold and silver. Break it open—now!'

A fatal plan, but it won my shipmates over. They loosed the sack and all the winds burst out and a sudden squall struck and swept us back to sea, wailing, in tears, far from our own native land. And I woke up with a start, my spirit churning— should I leap over the side and drown at once or grin and bear it, stay among the living? I bore it all, held firm, hiding my face, clinging tight to the decks while heavy squalls blasted our squadron back again to Aeolus' island, shipmates groaning hard.

We disembarked on the coast, drew water there and crewmen snatched a meal by the swift ships. Once we'd had our fill of food and drink I took a shipmate along with me, a herald too, and approached King Aeolus' famous halls and here we found him feasting beside his wife and many children. Reaching the doorposts at the threshold, down we sat but our hosts, amazed to see us, only shouted questions: 'Back again, Odysseus—why? Some blustering god attacked you? Surely we launched you well, we sped you on your way to your own land and house, or any place you pleased.'

So they taunted, and I replied in deep despair, 'A mutinous crew undid me—that and a cruel sleep. Set it to rights, my friends. You have the power!'

So I pleaded—gentle, humble appeals— but our hosts turned silent, hushed ... and the father broke forth with an ultimatum: 'Away from my island—fast—most cursed man alive! It's a crime to host a man or speed him on his way when the blessed deathless gods despise him so. Crawling back like this—

it proves the immortals hate you! Out—get out!'

Groan as I did, his curses drove me from his halls and from there we pulled away with heavy hearts, with the crews' spirit broken under the oars' labor, thanks to our own folly . no favoring wind in sight.

Six whole days we rowed, six nights, nonstop. On the seventh day we raised the Laestrygonian land, Telepylus heights where the craggy fort of Lamus rises. Where shepherd calls to shepherd as one drives in his flocks and the other drives his out and he calls back in answer, where a man who never sleeps could rake in double wages, one for herding cattle, one for pasturing fleecy sheep, the nightfall and the sunrise march so close together. We entered a fine harbor there, all walled around by a great unbroken sweep of sky-scraping cliff and two steep headlands, fronting each other, close around the mouth so the passage in is cramped. Here the rest of my rolling squadron steered, right into the gaping cove and moored tightly, prow by prow. Never a swell there, big or small; a milk-white calm spreads all around the place. But I alone anchored my black ship outside, well clear of the harbor's jaws I tied her fast to a cliff side with a cable. I scaled its rock face to a lookout on its crest but glimpsed no trace of the work of man or beast from there; all I spied was a plume of smoke, drifting off the land. So I sent some crew ahead to learn who lived there— men like us perhaps, who live on bread? Two good mates I chose and a third to run the news. They disembarked and set out on a beaten trail the wagons used for hauling timber down to town from the mountain heights above . and before the walls they met a girl, drawing water, Antiphates' strapping daughter—king of the Laestrygonians.

She'd come down to a clear running spring, Artacia,

where the local people came to fill their pails.

My shipmates clustered round her, asking questions:

who was king of the realm? who ruled the natives here?

She waved at once to her father's high-roofed halls.

They entered the sumptuous palace, found his wife inside—

a woman huge as a mountain crag who filled them all with horror.

Straightaway she summoned royal Antiphates from assembly,

her husband, who prepared my crew a barbarous welcome.

Snatching one of my men, he tore him up for dinner—

the other two sprang free and reached the ships.

But the king let loose a howling through the town

that brought tremendous Laestrygonians swarming up

from every side—hundreds, not like men, like Giants'

Down from the cliffs they flung great rocks a man could hardly hoist

and a ghastly shattering din rose up from all the ships—

men in their death-cries, hulls smashed to splinters—

They speared the crews like fish

and whisked them home to make their grisly meal.

But while they killed them off in the harbor depths

I pulled the sword from beside my hip and hacked away

at the ropes that moored my blue-prowed ship of war

and shouted rapid orders at my shipmates:

'Put your backs in the oars—now row or die!'

In terror of death they ripped the swells—all as one—

and what a joy as we darted out toward open sea,

clear of those beetling cliffs ... my ship alone.

But the rest went down en masse. Our squadron sank.

From there we sailed on, glad to escape our death yet sick at heart for the dear companions we had lost. We reached the Aeaean island next, the home of Circe the nymph with lovely braids, an awesome power too who can speak with human voice, the true sister of murderous-minded Aeetes. Both were bred by the Sun who lights our lives; their mother was Perse, a child the Ocean bore. We brought our ship to port without a sound

as a god eased her into a harbor safe and snug,

and for two days and two nights we lay by there,

eating our hearts out, bent with pain and bone-tired.

When Dawn with her lovely locks brought on the third day,

at last I took my spear and my sharp sword again,

rushed up from the ship to find a lookout point,

hoping to glimpse some sign of human labor,

catch some human voices .

I scaled a commanding crag and, scanning hard,

I could just make out some smoke from Circe's halls,

drifting up from the broad terrain through brush and woods.

Mulling it over, I thought I'd scout the ground—

that fire aglow in the smoke, I saw it, true,

but soon enough this seemed the better plan:

I'd go back to shore and the swift ship first,

feed the men, then send them out for scouting.

I was well on my way down, nearing our ship

when a god took pity on me, wandering all alone;

he sent me a big stag with high branching antlers,

right across my path—the sun's heat forced him down

from his forest range to drink at a river's banks—

just bounding out of the timber when I hit him

square in the backbone, halfway down the spine

and my bronze spear went punching clean through—

he dropped in the dust, groaning, gasping out his breath.

Treading on him, I wrenched my bronze spear from the wound,

left it there on the ground, and snapping off some twigs

and creepers, twisted a rope about a fathom long,

I braided it tight, hand over hand, then lashed

the four hocks of that magnificent beast.

Loaded round my neck I lugged him toward the ship,

trudging, propped on my spear—no way to sling him

over a shoulder, steadying him with one free arm—

the kill was so immense!

I flung him down by the hull and roused the men, going up to them all with a word to lift their spirits: 'Listen to me, my comrades, brothers in hardship— we won't go down to the House of Death, not yet,

not till our day arrives. Up with you, look, there's still some meat and drink in our good ship. Put our minds on food—why die of hunger here?'

My hardy urging brought them round at once. Heads came up from cloaks and there by the barren sea they gazed at the stag, their eyes wide—my noble trophy. But once they'd looked their fill and warmed their hearts, they washed their hands and prepared a splendid meal. Now all day long till the sun went down we sat and feasted on sides of meat and seasoned wine. Then when the sun had set and night came on we lay down and slept at the water's shelving edge. When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more I called a muster quickly, informing all the crew, 'Listen to me, my comrades, brothers in hardship, we can't tell east from west, the dawn from the dusk, nor where the sun that lights our lives goes under earth nor where it rises. We must think of a plan at once, some cunning stroke. I doubt there's one still left. I scaled a commanding crag and from that height surveyed an entire island ringed like a crown by endless wastes of sea. But the land itself lies low, and I did see smoke drifting up from its heart through thick brush and woods.'

My message broke their spirit as they recalled the gruesome work of the Laestrygonian king Antiphates and the hearty cannibal Cyclops thirsting for our blood. They burst into cries, wailing, streaming live tears that gained us nothing—what good can come of grief?

And so, numbering off my band of men-at-arms into two platoons, I assigned them each a leader: I took one and lord Eurylochus the other. We quickly shook lots in a bronze helmet— the lot of brave Eurylochus leapt out first. So he moved off with his two and twenty comrades,

weeping, leaving us behind in tears as well .

Deep in the wooded glens they came on Circe's palace

built of dressed stone on a cleared rise of land.

Mountain wolves and lions were roaming round the grounds—

she'd bewitched them herself, she gave them magic drugs.

But they wouldn't attack my men; they just came pawing

up around them, fawning, swishing their long tails—

eager as hounds that fawn around their master,

coming home from a feast,

who always brings back scraps to calm them down. So they came nuzzling round my men—lions, wolves with big powerful claws—and the men cringed in fear at sight of those strange, ferocious beasts ... But still they paused at her doors, the nymph with lovely braids, Circe—and deep inside they heard her singing, lifting her spellbinding voice as she glided back and forth at her great immortal loom, her enchanting web a shimmering glory only goddesses can weave. Polites, captain of armies, took command, the closest, most devoted man I had: 'Friends, there's someone inside, plying a great loom, and how she sings—enthralling! The whole house is echoing to her song. Goddess or woman—let's call out to her now!'

So he urged and the men called out and hailed her. She opened her gleaming doors at once and stepped forth, inviting them all in, and in they went, all innocence. Only Eurylochus stayed behind—he sensed a trap ... She ushered them in to sit on high-backed chairs, then she mixed them a potion—cheese, barley and pale honey mulled in Pramnian wine— but into the brew she stirred her wicked drugs to wipe from their memories any thought of home. Once they'd drained the bowls she filled, suddenly she struck with her wand, drove them into her pigsties, all of them bristling into swine—with grunts, snouts—even their bodies, yes, and only

the men's minds stayed steadfast as before. So off they went to their pens, sobbing, squealing as Circe flung them acorns, cornel nuts and mast, common fodder for hogs that root and roll in mud.

Back Eurylochus ran to our swift black ship to tell the disaster our poor friends had faced. But try as he might, he couldn't get a word out. Numbing sorrow had stunned the man to silence— tears welled in his eyes, his heart possessed by grief. We assailed him with questions—all at our wits' end— till at last he could recount the fate our friends had met: 'Off we went through the brush, captain, as you commanded. Deep in the wooded glens we came on Circe's palace built of dressed stone on a cleared rise of land. Someone inside was plying a great loom, and how she sang—in a high clear voice! Goddess or woman—we called out and hailed her ... She opened her gleaming doors at once and stepped forth, inviting us all in, and in we went, all innocence. But Istayed behind—I sensed a trap. Suddenly all vanished—blotted out—not one face showed again, though I sat there keeping watch a good long time.'

At that report I slung the hefty bronze blade of my silver-studded sword around my shoulder, slung my bow on too and told our comrade, 'Lead me back by the same way that you came.' But he flung both arms around my knees and pleaded, begging me with his tears and winging words: 'Don't force me back there, captain, king— leave me here on the spot. You will never return yourself, I swear, you'll never bring back a single man alive. Quick, cut and run with the rest of us here— we can still escape the fatal day!'

But I shot back, 'Eurylochus, stay right here, eating, drinking, safe by the black ship. I must be off. Necessity drives me on.'

Leaving the ship and shore, I headed inland, clambering up through hushed, entrancing glades until, as I was nearing the halls of Circe skilled in spells, approaching her palace—Hermes god of the golden wand crossed my path, and he looked for all the world like a young man sporting his first beard, just in the prime and warm pride of youth, and grasped me by the hand and asked me kindly, 'Where are you going now, my unlucky friend— trekking over the hills alone in unfamiliar country? And your men are all in there, in Circe's palace, cooped like swine, hock by jowl in the sties. Have you come to set them free? Well, I warn you, you won't get home yourself, you'll stay right there, trapped with all the rest. But wait, I can save you, free you from that great danger. Look, here is a potent drug. Take it to Circe's halls— its power alone will shield you from the fatal day. Let me tell you of all the witch's subtle craft ... She'll mix you a potion, lace the brew with drugs but she'll be powerless to bewitch you, even so— this magic herb I give will fight her spells. Now here's your plan of action, step by step. The moment Circe strikes with her long thin wand, you draw your sharp sword sheathed at your hip and rush her fast as if to run her through! She'll cower in fear and coax you to her bed— but don't refuse the goddess' bed, not then, not if she's to release your friends and treat you well yourself. But have her swear the binding oath of the blessed gods she'll never plot some new intrigue to harm you, once you lie there naked— never unman you, strip away your courage!'

With that

the giant-killer handed over the magic herb, pulling it from the earth,

and Hermes showed me all its name and nature.

Its root is black and its flower white as milk

and the gods call it moly. Dangerous for a mortal man

to pluck from the soil but not for deathless gods.

All lies within their power.

Now Hermes went his way to the steep heights of Olympus, over the island's woods while I, just approaching the halls of Circe, my heart a heaving storm at every step, paused at her doors, the nymph with lovely braids— I stood and shouted to her there. She heard my voice, she opened the gleaming doors at once and stepped forth, inviting me in, and in I went, all anguish now . She led me in to sit on a silver-studded chair, ornately carved, with a stool to rest my feet. In a golden bowl she mixed a potion for me to drink, stirring her poison in, her heart aswirl with evil. And then she passed it on, I drank it down but it never worked its spell— she struck with her wand and 'Now,' she cried, 'off to your sty, you swine, and wallow with your friends!' But I, I drew my sharp sword sheathed at my hip and rushed her fast as if to run her through— She screamed, slid under my blade, hugged my knees with a flood of warm tears and a burst of winging words: 'Who are you? where are you from? your city? your parents? I'm wonderstruck—you drank my drugs, you're not bewitched! Never has any other man withstood my potion, never, once it's past his lips and he has drunk it down. You have a mind in you no magic can enchant! You must be Odysseus, man of twists and turns— Hermes the giant-killer, god of the golden wand, he always said you'd come,

homeward bound from Troy in your swift black ship. Come, sheathe your sword, let's go to bed together, mount my bed and mix in the magic work of love— we'll breed deep trust between us.'

So she enticed but I fought back, still wary. 'Circe, Circe, how dare you tell me to treat you with any warmth? You who turned my men to swine in your own house and now you hold me here as well—teeming with treachery you lure me to your room to mount your bed, so once I lie there naked you'll unman me, strip away my courage! Mount your bed? Not for all the world. Not until you consent to swear, goddess, a binding oath you'll never plot some new intrigue to harm me!'

Straightaway she began to swear the oath that I required—never, she'd never do me harm—and when she'd finished, then, at last, I mounted Circe's gorgeous bed ...

At the same time her handmaids bustled through the halls, four in all who perform the goddess' household tasks: nymphs, daughters born of the springs and groves and the sacred rivers running down to open sea. One draped the chairs with fine crimson covers over the seats she'd spread with linen cloths below. A second drew up silver tables before the chairs and laid out golden trays to hold the bread. A third mulled heady, heart-warming wine in a silver bowl and set out golden cups. A fourth brought water and lit a blazing fire beneath a massive cauldron. The water heated soon, and once it reached the boil in the glowing bronze she eased me into a tub and bathed me from the cauldron, mixing the hot and cold to suit my taste, showering head and shoulders down until she'd washed away the spirit-numbing exhaustion from my body. The bathing finished, rubbing me sleek with oil, throwing warm fleece and a shirt around my shoulders, she led me in to sit on a silver-studded chair, ornately carved, with a stool to rest my feet. A maid brought water soon in a graceful golden pitcher

and over a silver basin tipped it out so I might rinse my hands, then pulled a gleaming table to my side. A staid housekeeper brought on bread to serve me, appetizers aplenty too, lavish with her bounty. She pressed me to eat. I had no taste for food. I just sat there, mind wandering, far away ... lost in grim forebodings.

As soon as Circe saw me, huddled, not touching my food, immersed in sorrow, she sidled near with a coaxing, winged word: 'Odysseus, why just sit there, struck dumb, eating your heart out, not touching food or drink? Suspect me of still more treachery? Nothing to fear. Haven't I just sworn my solemn, binding oath?'

So she asked, but I protested, 'Circe— how could any man in his right mind endure the taste of food and drink before he'd freed his comrades-in-arms and looked them in the eyes? If you, you really want me to eat and drink, set them free, all my beloved comrades— let me feast my eyes.'

So I demanded. Circe strode on through the halls and out, her wand held high in hand and, flinging open the pens, drove forth my men, who looked like full-grown swine. Facing her, there they stood as she went along the ranks, anointing them one by one with some new magic oil— and look, the bristles grown by the first wicked drug that Circe gave them slipped away from their limbs and they turned men again: younger than ever, taller by far, more handsome to the eye, and yes, they knew me at once and each man grasped my hands and a painful longing for tears overcame us all, a terrible sobbing echoed through the house ... The goddess herself was moved and, standing by me, warmly urged me on—a lustrous goddess now:

'Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, tried and true, go at once to your ship at the water's edge, haul her straight up on the shore first and stow your cargo and running gear in caves, then back you come and bring your trusty crew.'

Her urging won my stubborn spirit over. Down I went to the swift ship at the water's edge, and there on the decks I found my loyal crew consumed with grief and weeping live warm tears. But now, as calves in stalls when cows come home, droves of them herded back from field to farmyard once they've grazed their fill—as all their young calves come frisking out to meet them, bucking out of their pens, lowing nonstop, jostling, rushing round their mothers— so my shipmates there at the sight of my return came pressing round me now, streaming tears, so deeply moved in their hearts they felt as if they'd made it back to their own land, their city, Ithaca's rocky soil where they were bred and reared. And through their tears their words went winging home: 'You're back again, my king! How thrilled we are— as if we'd reached our country, Ithaca, at last! But come, tell us about the fate our comrades met.'

Still I replied with a timely word of comfort: 'Let's haul our ship straight up on the shore first and stow our cargo and running gear in caves. Then hurry, all of you, come along with me to see our friends in the magic halls of Circe, eating and drinking—the feast flows on forever.'

So I said and they jumped to do my bidding. Only Eurylochus tried to hold my shipmates back, his mutinous outburst aimed at one and all: 'Poor fools, where are we running now? Why are we tempting fate?— why stumble blindly down to Circe's halls?

She'll turn us all into pigs or wolves or lions made to guard that palace of hers—by force, I tell you— just as the Cyclops trapped our comrades in his lair with hotheaded Odysseus right beside them all— thanks to this man's rashness they died too!'

So he declared and I had half a mind to draw the sharp sword from beside my hip and slice his head off, tumbling down in the dust, close kin that he was. But comrades checked me, each man trying to calm me, left and right: 'Captain, we'll leave him here if you command, just where he is, to sit and guard the ship. Lead us on to the magic halls of Circe.'

With that,

up from the ship and shore they headed inland. Nor did Eurylochus malinger by the hull; he straggled behind the rest, dreading the sharp blast of my rebuke.

All the while

Circe had bathed my other comrades in her palace,

caring and kindly, rubbed them sleek with oil

and decked them out in fleecy cloaks and shirts.

We found them all together, feasting in her halls.

Once we had recognized each other, gazing face-to-face,

we all broke down and wept—and the house resounded now

and Circe the lustrous one came toward me, pleading,

'Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, man of action,

no more tears now, calm these tides of sorrow.

Well I know what pains you bore on the swarming sea,

what punishment you endured from hostile men on land.

But come now, eat your food and drink your wine

till the same courage fills your chests, now as then,

when you first set sail from native land, from rocky Ithaca!

Now you are burnt-out husks, your spirits haggard, sere,

always brooding over your wanderings long and hard,

your hearts never lifting with any joy—

you've suffered far too much.'

So she enticed and won our battle-hardened spirits over. And there we sat at ease, day in, day out, till a year had run its course, feasting on sides of meat and drafts of heady wine ... But then, when the year was through and the seasons wheeled by and the months waned and the long days came round again, my loyal comrades took me aside and prodded, 'Captain, this is madness!

High time you thought of your own home at last, if it really is your fate to make it back alive and reach your well-built house and native land.'

Their urging brought my stubborn spirit round. So all that day till the sun went down we sat and feasted on sides of meat and heady wine. Then when the sun had set and night came on the men lay down to sleep in the shadowed halls but I went up to that luxurious bed of Circe's, hugged her by the knees

and the goddess heard my winging supplication: 'Circe, now make good a promise you gave me once— it's time to help me home. My heart longs to be home, my comrades' hearts as well. They wear me down, pleading with me whenever you're away.'

So I pressed

and the lustrous goddess answered me in turn: 'Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, old campaigner, stay on no more in my house against your will. But first another journey calls. You must travel down to the House of Death and the awesome one, Persephone, there to consult the ghost of Tiresias, seer of Thebes, the great blind prophet whose mind remains unshaken. Even in death—Persephone has given him wisdom, everlasting vision to him and him alone . the rest of the dead are empty, flitting shades.'

So she said and crushed the heart inside me. I knelt in her bed and wept. I'd no desire to go on living and see the rising light of day. But once I'd had my fill of tears and writhing there, at last I found the words to venture, 'Circe, Circe, who can pilot us on that journey? Who has ever reached the House of Death in a black ship?'

The lustrous goddess answered, never pausing, 'Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, born for exploits, let no lack of a pilot at the helm concern you, no, just step your mast and spread your white sail wide— sit back and the North Wind will speed you on your way. But once your vessel has cut across the Ocean River you will raise a desolate coast and Persephone's Grove, her tall black poplars, willows whose fruit dies young. Beach your vessel hard by the Ocean's churning shore and make your own way down to the moldering House of Death. And there into Acheron, the Flood of Grief, two rivers flow, the torrent River of Fire, the wailing River of Tears that branches off from Styx, the Stream of Hate, and a stark crag looms

where the two rivers thunder down and meet. Once there, go forward, hero. Do as I say now. Dig a trench of about a forearm's depth and length and around it pour libations out to all the dead— first with milk and honey, and then with mellow wine, then water third and last, and sprinkle glistening barley over it all, and vow again and again to all the dead, to the drifting, listless spirits of their ghosts, that once you return to Ithaca you will slaughter a barren heifer in your halls, the best you have, and load a pyre with treasures—and to Tiresias, alone, apart, you will offer a sleek black ram, the pride of all your herds. And once your prayers have invoked the nations of the dead in their dim glory, slaughter a ram and black ewe, turning both their heads toward Erebus, but turn your head away, looking toward the Ocean River. Suddenly then the countless shades

of the dead and gone will surge around you there. But order your men at once to flay the sheep that lie before you, killed by your ruthless blade, and burn them both, and then say prayers to the gods, to the almighty god of death and dread Persephone. But you—draw your sharp sword from beside your hip, sit down on alert there, and never let the ghosts of the shambling, shiftless dead come near that blood till you have questioned Tiresias yourself. Soon, soon the great seer will appear before you, captain of armies: he will tell you the way to go, the stages of your voyage, how you can cross the swarming sea and reach home at last.'

And with those words Dawn rose on her golden throne and Circe dressed me quickly in sea-cloak and shirt while the queen slipped on a loose, glistening robe, filmy, a joy to the eye, and round her waist she ran a brocaded golden belt and over her head a scarf to shield her brow. And I strode on through the halls to stir my men, hovering over each with a winning word: 'Up now! No more lazing away in sleep, we must set sail— Queen Circe has shown the way.'

I brought them round, my hardy friends-in-arms, but not even from there could I get them safely off without a loss ... There was a man, Elpenor, the youngest in our ranks, none too brave in battle, none too sound in mind. He'd strayed from his mates in Circe's magic halls and keen for the cool night air, sodden with wine he'd bedded down on her roofs. But roused by the shouts and tread of marching men, he leapt up with a start at dawn but still so dazed he forgot to climb back down again by the long ladder— headfirst from the roof he plunged, his neck snapped from the backbone, his soul flew down to Death.

Once on our way, I gave the men their orders: 'You think we are headed home, our own dear land? Well, Circe sets us a rather different course ... down to the House of Death and the awesome one, Persephone, there to consult the ghost of Tiresias, seer of Thebes.'

So I said, and it broke my shipmates' hearts. They sank down on the ground, moaning, tore their hair. But it gained us nothing—what good can come of grief?

Back to the swift ship at the water's edge we went, our spirits deep in anguish, faces wet with tears. But Circe got to the dark hull before us, tethered a ram and black ewe close by— slipping past unseen. Who can glimpse a god who wants to be invisible gliding here and there?"

Book XI

The Kingdom of the Dead

"Now down we came to the ship at the water's edge,

we hauled and launched her into the sunlit breakers first,

stepped the mast in the black craft and set our sail

and loaded the sheep aboard, the ram and ewe,

then we ourselves embarked, streaming tears,

our hearts weighed down with anguish .

But Circe the awesome nymph with lovely braids

who speaks with human voice, sent us a hardy shipmate,

yes, a fresh following wind ruffling up in our wake,

bellying out our sail to drive our blue prow on as we,

securing the running gear from stem to stern, sat back

while the wind and helmsman kept her true on course.

The sail stretched taut as she cut the sea all day

and the sun sank and the roads of the world grew dark.

And she made the outer limits, the Ocean River's bounds where Cimmerian people have their homes—their realm and city shrouded in mist and cloud. The eye of the Sun can never flash his rays through the dark and bring them light, not when he climbs the starry skies or when he wheels back down from the heights to touch the earth once more— an endless, deadly night overhangs those wretched men. There, gaining that point, we beached our craft and herding out the sheep, we picked our way by the Ocean's banks until we gained the place that Circe made our goal.

Here at the spot Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims fast, and I, drawing my sharp sword from beside my hip, dug a trench of about a forearm's depth and length and around it poured libations out to all the dead, first with milk and honey, and then with mellow wine, then water third and last, and sprinkled glistening barley over it all, and time and again I vowed to all the dead, to the drifting, listless spirits of their ghosts, that once I returned to Ithaca I would slaughter a barren heifer in my halls, the best I had, and load a pyre with treasures—and to Tiresias, alone, apart, I would offer a sleek black ram, the pride of all my herds. And once my vows and prayers had invoked the nations of the dead, I took the victims, over the trench I cut their throats and the dark blood flowed in—and up out of Erebus they came, flocking toward me now, the ghosts of the dead and gone ... Brides and unwed youths and old men who had suffered much and girls with their tender hearts freshly scarred by sorrow and great armies of battle dead, stabbed by bronze spears, men of war still wrapped in bloody armor—thousands swarming around the trench from every side— unearthly cries—blanching terror gripped me! I ordered the men at once to flay the sheep that lay before us, killed by my ruthless blade,

and burn them both, and then say prayers to the gods, to the almighty god of death and dread Persephone. But I, the sharp sword drawn from beside my hip, sat down on alert there and never let the ghosts of the shambling, shiftless dead come near that blood till I had questioned Tiresias myself.

But first

the ghost of Elpenor, my companion, came toward me. He'd not been buried under the wide ways of earth, not yet, we'd left his body in Circe's house, unwept, unburied—this other labor pressed us. But I wept to see him now, pity touched my heart and I called out a winged word to him there: 'Elpenor, how did you travel down to the world of darkness? Faster on foot, I see, than I in my black ship.'

My comrade groaned as he offered me an answer: 'Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, old campaigner, the doom of an angry god, and god knows how much wine— they were my ruin, captain ... I'd bedded down on the roof of Circe's house but never thought to climb back down again by the long ladder— headfirst from the roof I plunged, my neck snapped from the backbone, my soul flew down to Death. Now, I beg you by those you left behind, so far from here, your wife, your father who bred and reared you as a boy, and Telemachus, left at home in your halls, your only son. Well I know when you leave this lodging of the dead that you and your ship will put ashore again at the island of Aeaea—then and there, my lord, remember me, I beg you! Don't sail off and desert me, left behind unwept, unburied, don't, or my curse may draw god's fury on your head. No, burn me in full armor, all my harness, heap my mound by the churning gray surf— a man whose luck ran out— so even men to come will learn my story.

Perform my rites, and plant on my tomb that oar I swung with mates when I rowed among the living.'

'All this, my unlucky friend,' I reassured him, 'I will do for you. I won't forget a thing.'

So we sat

and faced each other, trading our bleak parting words, I on my side, holding my sword above the blood, he across from me there, my comrade's phantom dragging out his story.

But look, the ghost of my mother came, my mother, dead and gone now ... Anticleia—daughter of that great heart Autolycus— whom I had left alive when I sailed for sacred Troy. I broke into tears to see her here, but filled with pity, even throbbing with grief, I would not let her ghost approach the blood till I had questioned Tiresias myself.

At last he came. The shade of the famous Theban prophet, holding a golden scepter, knew me at once and hailed me: 'Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, master of exploits, man of pain, what now, what brings you here, forsaking the light of day to see this joyless kingdom of the dead? Stand back from the trench—put up your sharp sword so I can drink the blood and tell you all the truth.'

Moving back, I thrust my silver-studded sword deep in its sheath, and once he had drunk the dark blood the words came ringing from the prophet in his power: 'A sweet smooth journey home, renowned Odysseus, that is what you seek,

but a god will make it hard for you—I know— you will never escape the one who shakes the earth, quaking with anger at you still, still enraged because you blinded the Cyclops, his dear son. Even so, you and your crew may still reach home, suffering all the way, if you only have the power

to curb their wild desire and curb your own, what's more,

from the day your good trim vessel first puts in

at Thrinacia Island, flees the cruel blue sea.

There you will find them grazing,

herds and fat flocks, the cattle of Helios,

god of the sun who sees all, hears all things.

Leave the beasts unharmed, your mind set on home,

and you all may still reach Ithaca—bent with hardship,

true—but harm them in any way, and I can see it now:

your ship destroyed, your men destroyed as well.

And even if you escape, you'll come home late

and come a broken man—all shipmates lost,

alone in a stranger's ship—

and you will find a world of pain at home,

crude, arrogant men devouring all your goods,

courting your noble wife, offering gifts to win her.

No doubt you will pay them back in blood when you come home!

But once you have killed those suitors in your halls—

by stealth or in open fight with slashing bronze—

go forth once more, you must ...

carry your well-planed oar until you come

to a race of people who know nothing of the sea,

whose food is never seasoned with salt, strangers all

to ships with their crimson prows and long slim oars,

wings that make ships fly. And here is your sign—

unmistakable, clear, so clear you cannot miss it:

When another traveler falls in with you and calls

that weight across your shoulder a fan to winnow grain,

then plant your bladed, balanced oar in the earth

and sacrifice fine beasts to the lord god of the sea,

Poseidon—a ram, a bull and a ramping wild boar—

then journey home and render noble offerings up

to the deathless gods who rule the vaulting skies,

to all the gods in order.

And at last your own death will steal upon you ... a gentle, painless death, far from the sea it comes to take you down, borne down with the years in ripe old age with all your people there in blessed peace around you.

All that I have told you will come true.'

'Oh Tiresias,' I replied as the prophet finished, 'surely the gods have spun this out as fate, the gods themselves. But tell me one thing more, and tell me clearly. I see the ghost of my long-lost mother here before me. Dead, crouching close to the blood in silence, she cannot bear to look me in the eyes— her own son—or speak a word to me. How, lord, can I make her know me for the man I am?'

'One rule there is,' the famous seer explained, 'and simple for me to say and you to learn. Any one of the ghosts you let approach the blood will speak the truth to you. Anyone you refuse will turn and fade away.'

And with those words, now that his prophecies had closed, the awesome shade of lord Tiresias strode back to the House of Death. But I kept watch there, steadfast till my mother approached and drank the dark, clouding blood. She knew me at once and wailed out in grief and her words came winging toward me, flying home: 'Oh my son—what brings you down to the world of death and darkness? You are still alive! It's hard for the living to catch a glimpse of this ... Great rivers flow between us, terrible waters, the Ocean first of all—no one could ever ford that stream on foot, only aboard some sturdy craft. Have you just come from Troy, wandering long years with your men and ship? Not yet returned to Ithaca? You've still not seen your wife inside your halls?'

'Mother,'

I replied, 'I had to venture down to the House of Death, to consult the shade of Tiresias, seer of Thebes. Never yet have I neared Achaea, never once set foot on native ground,

always wandering—endless hardship from that day

I first set sail with King Agamemnon bound for Troy, the stallion-land, to fight the Trojans there. But tell me about yourself and spare me nothing. What form of death overcame you, what laid you low, some long slow illness? Or did Artemis showering arrows come with her painless shafts and bring you down? Tell me of father, tell of the son I left behind: do my royal rights still lie in their safekeeping? Or does some stranger hold the throne by now because men think that I'll come home no more? Please, tell me about my wife, her turn of mind, her thoughts ... still standing fast beside our son, still guarding our great estates, secure as ever now? Or has she wed some other countryman at last, the finest prince among them?'

'Surely, surely,' my noble mother answered quickly, 'she's still waiting there in your halls, poor woman, suffering so, her life an endless hardship like your own . wasting away the nights, weeping away the days. No one has taken over your royal rights, not yet. Telemachus still holds your great estates in peace, he attends the public banquets shared with all, the feasts a man of justice should enjoy, for every lord invites him. As for your father, he keeps to his own farm—he never goes to town— with no bed for him there, no blankets, glossy throws; all winter long he sleeps in the lodge with servants, in the ashes by the fire, his body wrapped in rags. But when summer comes and the bumper crops of harvest, any spot on the rising ground of his vineyard rows he makes his bed, heaped high with fallen leaves, and there he lies in anguish . with his old age bearing hard upon him, too, and his grief grows as he longs for your return. And I with the same grief, I died and met my fate. No sharp-eyed Huntress showering arrows through the halls approached and brought me down with painless shafts,

nor did some hateful illness strike me, that so often devastates the body, drains our limbs of power. No, it was my longing for you, my shining Odysseus— you and your quickness, you and your gentle ways— that tore away my life that had been sweet.'

And I, my mind in turmoil, how I longed to embrace my mother's spirit, dead as she was! Three times I rushed toward her, desperate to hold her, three times she fluttered through my fingers, sifting away like a shadow, dissolving like a dream, and each time the grief cut to the heart, sharper, yes, and I, I cried out to her, words winging into the darkness: 'Mother—why not wait for me? How I long to hold you!— so even here, in the House of Death, we can fling our loving arms around each other, take some joy in the tears that numb the heart. Or is this just some wraith that great Persephone sends my way to make me ache with sorrow all the more?'

My noble mother answered me at once: 'My son, my son, the unluckiest man alive! This is no deception sent by Queen Persephone, this is just the way of mortals when we die. Sinews no longer bind the flesh and bones together— the fire in all its fury burns the body down to ashes once life slips from the white bones, and the spirit, rustling, flitters away ... flown like a dream. But you must long for the daylight. Go, quickly. Remember all these things so one day you can tell them to your wife.'

And so we both confided, trading parting words, and there slowly came a grand array of women, all sent before me now by august Persephone, and all were wives and daughters once of princes. They swarmed in a flock around the dark blood while I searched for a way to question each alone,

and the more I thought, the more this seemed the best: Drawing forth the long sharp sword from beside my hip, I would not let them drink the dark blood, all in a rush, and so they waited, coming forward one after another. Each declared her lineage, and I explored them all.

And the first I saw there? Tyro, born of kings, who said her father was that great lord Salmoneus, said that she was the wife of Cretheus, Aeolus' son. And once she fell in love with the river god, Enipeus, far the clearest river flowing across the earth, and so she'd haunt Enipeus' glinting streams, till taking his shape one day the god who girds the earth and makes it tremble bedded her where the swirling river rushes out to sea, and a surging wave reared up, high as a mountain, dark, arching over to hide the god and mortal girl together. Loosing her virgin belt, he lapped her round in sleep and when the god had consummated his work of love he took her by the hand and hailed her warmly: 'Rejoice in our love, my lady! And when this year has run its course you will give birth to glorious children— bedding down with the gods is never barren, futile— and you must tend them, breed and rear them well. Now home you go, and restrain yourself, I say, never breathe your lover's name but know— I am Poseidon, god who rocks the earth!'

With that he dove back in the heaving waves and she conceived for the god and bore him Pelias, Neleus, and both grew up to be stalwart aides of Zeus almighty, both men alike. Pelias lived on the plains of Iolcos, rich in sheepflocks, Neleus lived in sandy Pylos. And the noble queen bore sons to Cretheus too: Aeson, Pheres and Amythaon, exultant charioteer.

And after Tyro I saw Asopus' daughter Antiope, proud she'd spent a night in the arms of Zeus himself

and borne the god twin sons, Amphion and Zethus, the first to build the footings of seven-gated Thebes, her bastions too, for lacking ramparts none could live in a place so vast, so open—strong as both men were.

And I saw Alcmena next, Amphitryon's wife, who slept in the clasp of Zeus and merged in love and brought forth Heracles, rugged will and lion heart. And I saw Megara too, magnanimous Creon's daughter wed to the stalwart Heracles, the hero never daunted.

And I saw the mother of Oedipus, beautiful Epicaste. What a monstrous thing she did, in all innocence— she married her own son . who'd killed his father, then he married her! But the gods soon made it known to all mankind. So he in growing pain ruled on in beloved Thebes, lording Cadmus' people—thanks to the gods' brutal plan— while she went down to Death who guards the massive gates. Lashing a noose to a steep rafter, there she hanged aloft, strangling in all her anguish, leaving her son to bear the world of horror a mother's Furies bring to life.

And I saw magnificent Chloris, the one whom Neleus wooed and won with a hoard of splendid gifts, so dazzled by her beauty years ago ... the youngest daughter of Iasus' son Amphion, the great Minyan king who ruled Orchomenos once. She was his queen in Pylos, she bore him shining sons, Nestor and Chromius, Periclymenus too, good prince. And after her sons she bore a daughter, majestic Pero, the marvel of her time, courted by all the young lords round about. But Neleus would not give her to any suitor, none but the man who might drive home the herds that powerful Iphiclus had stolen. Lurching, broad in the brow, those longhorned beasts, and no small task to round them up from Phylace.

Only the valiant seer Melampus volunteered—

he would drive them home—

but a god's iron sentence bound him fast:

barbarous herdsmen dragged him off in chains.

Yet when the months and days had run their course

and the year wheeled round and the seasons came again,

then mighty Iphiclus loosed the prophet's shackles,

once he had told him all the gods' decrees.

And so the will of Zeus was done at last.

And I saw Leda next, Tyndareus' wife, who'd borne the king two sons, intrepid twins, Castor, breaker of horses, and the hardy boxer Polydeuces, both buried now in the life-giving earth though still alive. Even under the earth Zeus grants them that distinction: one day alive, the next day dead, each twin by turns, they both hold honors equal to the gods'.

And I saw Iphimedeia next, Aloeus' wife, who claimed she lay in the Sea-lord's loving waves and gave the god two sons, but they did not live long, Otus staunch as a god and far-famed Ephialtes. They were the tallest men the fertile earth has borne, the handsomest too, by far, aside from renowned Orion. Nine yards across they measured, even at nine years old, nine fathoms tall they towered. They even threatened the deathless gods they'd storm Olympus' heights with the pounding rush and grinding shock of battle. They were wild to pile Ossa upon Olympus, then on Ossa Pelion dense with timber—their toeholds up the heavens. And they'd have won the day if they had reached peak strength but Apollo the son of Zeus, whom sleek-haired Leto bore, laid both low before their beards had sprouted, covering cheek and chin with a fresh crop of down.

Phaedra and Procris too I saw, and lovely Ariadne, daughter of Minos, that harsh king. One day Theseus tried

to spirit her off from Crete to Athens' sacred heights, but he got no joy from her. Artemis killed her first on wave-washed Dia's shores, accused by Dionysus.

And I saw Clymene, Maera and loathsome Eriphyle— bribed with a golden necklace to lure her lawful husband to his death ... But the whole cortege I could never tally, never name, not all the daughters and wives of great men I saw there. Long before that, the godsent night would ebb away. But the time has come for sleep, either with friends aboard your swift ship or here in your own house. My passage home will rest with the gods and you."

Odysseus paused ... They all fell silent, hushed, his story holding them spellbound down the shadowed halls till the white-armed queen Arete suddenly burst out, "Phaeacians! How does this man impress you now, his looks, his build, the balanced mind inside him? The stranger is my guest but each of you princes shares the honor here. So let's not be too hasty to send him on his way, and don't scrimp on his gifts. His need is great, great as the riches piled up in your houses, thanks to the gods' good will."

Following her,

the old revered Echeneus added his support, the eldest lord on the island of Phaeacia: "Friends, the words of our considerate queen— they never miss the mark or fail our expectations. So do as Arete says, though on Alcinous here depend all words and action."

"And so it will be"— Alcinous stepped in grandly—"sure as I am alive and rule our island men who love their oars! Our guest, much as he longs for passage home, must stay and wait it out here till tomorrow, till I can collect his whole array of parting gifts.

His send-off rests with every noble here but with me most of all: I hold the reins of power in the realm."

Odysseus, deft and tactful, echoed back, "Alcinous, majesty, shining among your island people, if you would urge me now to stay here one whole year then speed me home weighed down with lordly gifts, I'd gladly have it so. Better by far, I'd say. The fuller my arms on landing there at home, the more respected, well-received I'd be by all who saw me sailing back to Ithaca."

"Ah Odysseus," Alcinous replied, "one look at you and we know that you are no one who would cheat us— no fraud, such as the dark soil breeds and spreads across the face of the earth these days. Crowds of vagabonds frame their lies so tightly none can test them. But you, what grace you give your words, and what good sense within! You have told your story with all a singer's skill, the miseries you endured, your great Achaeans too. But come now, tell me truly: your godlike comrades— did you see any heroes down in the House of Death, any who sailed with you and met their doom at Troy? The night's still young, I'd say the night is endless. For us in the palace now, it's hardly time for sleep. Keep telling us your adventures—they are wonderful. I could hold out here till Dawn's first light if only you could bear, here in our halls, to tell the tale of all the pains you suffered."

So the man of countless exploits carried on: "Alcinous, majesty, shining among your island people, there is a time for many words, a time for sleep as well. But if you insist on hearing more, I'd never stint on telling my own tale and those more painful still, the griefs of my comrades, dead in the war's wake, who escaped the battle-cries of Trojan armies

only to die in blood at journey's end— thanks to a vicious woman's will.

Now then,

no sooner had Queen Persephone driven off

the ghosts of lovely women, scattering left and right,

than forward marched the shade of Atreus' son Agamemnon,

fraught with grief and flanked by all his comrades,

troops of his men-at-arms who died beside him,

who met their fate in lord Aegisthus' halls.

He knew me at once, as soon as he drank the blood,

and wailed out, shrilly; tears sprang to his eyes,

he thrust his arms toward me, keen to embrace me there—

no use—the great force was gone, the strength lost forever,

now, that filled his rippling limbs in the old days.

I wept at the sight, my heart went out to the man,

my words too, in a winging flight of pity:

'Famous Atrides, lord of men Agamemnon!

What fatal stroke of destiny brought you down?

Wrecked in the ships when lord Poseidon roused

some punishing blast of stormwinds, gust on gust?

Or did ranks of enemies mow you down on land

as you tried to raid and cut off herds and flocks

or fought to win their city, take their women?'

The field marshal's ghost replied at once: 'Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, mastermind of war, I was not wrecked in the ships when lord Poseidon roused some punishing blast of stormwinds, gust on gust, nor did ranks of enemies mow me down on land— Aegisthus hatched my doom and my destruction, he killed me, he with my own accursed wife . he invited me to his palace, sat me down to feast then cut me down as a man cuts down some ox at the trough! So I died—a wretched, ignominious death—and round me all my comrades killed, no mercy, one after another, just like white-tusked boars butchered in some rich lord of power's halls

for a wedding, banquet or groaning public feast.

You in your day have witnessed hundreds slaughtered,

killed in single combat or killed in pitched battle, true,

but if you'd laid eyes on this it would have wrenched your heart-

how we sprawled by the mixing-bowl and loaded tables there,

throughout the palace, the whole floor awash with blood.

But the death-shriek of Cassandra, Priam's daughter—

most pitiful thing I heard! My treacherous queen,

Clytemnestra, killed her over my body, yes, and I,

lifting my fists, beat them down on the ground,

dying, dying, writhing around the sword.

But she, that whore, she turned her back on me,

well on my way to Death—she even lacked the heart

to seal my eyes with her hand or close my jaws.

So,

there's nothing more deadly, bestial than a woman set on works like these—what a monstrous thing she plotted, slaughtered her own lawful husband! Why, I expected, at least, some welcome home from all my children, all my household slaves when I came sailing back again ... But she— the queen hell-bent on outrage—bathes in shame not only herself but the whole breed of womankind, even the honest ones to come, forever down the years!'

So he declared and I cried out, 'How terrible! Zeus from the very start, the thunder king has hated the race of Atreus with a vengeance— his trustiest weapon women's twisted wiles. What armies of us died for the sake of Helen . Clytemnestra schemed your death while you were worlds away!'

'True, true,' Agamemnon's ghost kept pressing on, 'so even your own wife—never indulge her too far. Never reveal the whole truth, whatever you may know; just tell her a part of it, be sure to hide the rest. Not that you, Odysseus, will be murdered by your wife.

She's much too steady, her feelings run too deep,

Icarius' daughter Penelope, that wise woman.

She was a young bride, I well remember .

we left her behind when we went off to war,

with an infant boy she nestled at her breast.

That boy must sit and be counted with the men now—

happy man! His beloved father will come sailing home

and see his son, and he will embrace his father,

that is only right. But my wife—she never

even let me feast my eyes on my own son;

she killed me first, his father!

I tell you this—bear it in mind, you must—

when you reach your homeland steer your ship

into port in secret, never out in the open ...

the time for trusting women's gone forever!

Enough. Come, tell me this, and be precise. Have you heard news of my son? Where's he living now? Perhaps in Orchomenos, perhaps in sandy Pylos or off in the Spartan plains with Menelaus? He's not dead yet, my Prince Orestes, no, he's somewhere on the earth.'

So he probed

but I cut it short: 'Atrides, why ask me that? I know nothing, whether he's dead or alive. It's wrong to lead you on with idle words.'

So we stood there, trading heartsick stories, deep in grief, as the tears streamed down our faces. But now there came the ghosts of Peleus' son Achilles, Patroclus, fearless Antilochus—and Great Ajax too, the first in stature, first in build and bearing of all the Argives after Peleus' matchless son. The ghost of the splendid runner knew me at once and hailed me with a flight of mournful questions: 'Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, man of tactics, reckless friend, what next?

What greater feat can that cunning head contrive?

What daring brought you down to the House of Death?—

where the senseless, burnt-out wraiths of mortals make their home.'

The voice of his spirit paused, and I was quick to answer: 'Achilles, son of Peleus, greatest of the Achaeans, I had to consult Tiresias, driven here by hopes he would help me journey home to rocky Ithaca. Never yet have I neared Achaea, never once set foot on native ground ... my life is endless trouble.

But you, Achilles, there's not a man in the world more blest than you— there never has been, never will be one. Time was, when you were alive, we Argives honored you as a god, and now down here, I see, you lord it over the dead in all your power. So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles.'

I reassured the ghost, but he broke out, protesting, 'No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus! By god, I'd rather slave on earth for another man— some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive— than rule down here over all the breathless dead. But come, tell me the news about my gallant son. Did he make his way to the wars, did the boy become a champion—yes or no? Tell me of noble Peleus, any word you've heard— still holding pride of place among his Myrmidon hordes, or do they despise the man in Hellas and in Phthia because old age has lamed his arms and legs? For I no longer stand in the light of day— the man I was—comrade-in-arms to help my father as once I helped our armies, killing the best fighters Troy could field in the wide world up there . Oh to arrive at father's house—the man I was, for one brief day—I'd make my fury and my hands,

invincible hands, a thing of terror to all those men who abuse the king with force and wrest away his honor!'

So he grieved but I tried to lend him heart: 'About noble Peleus I can tell you nothing, but about your own dear son, Neoptolemus, I can report the whole story, as you wish. I myself, in my trim ship, I brought him out of Scyros to join the Argives under arms. And dug in around Troy, debating battle-tactics, he always spoke up first, and always on the mark— godlike Nestor and I alone excelled the boy. Yes, and when our armies fought on the plain of Troy he'd never hang back with the main force of men— he'd always charge ahead, giving ground to no one in his fury, and scores of men he killed in bloody combat. How could I list them all, name them all, now, the fighting ranks he leveled, battling for the Argives? But what a soldier he laid low with a bronze sword: the hero Eurypylus, Telephus' son, and round him troops of his own Cetean comrades slaughtered, lured to war by the bribe his mother took. The only man I saw to put Eurypylus in the shade was Memnon, son of the Morning. Again, when our champions climbed inside the horse that Epeus built with labor, and I held full command to spring our packed ambush open or keep it sealed, all our lords and captains were wiping off their tears, knees shaking beneath each man—but not your son. Never once did I see his glowing skin go pale; he never flicked a tear from his cheeks, no, he kept on begging me there to let him burst from the horse, kept gripping his hilted sword, his heavy bronze-tipped javelin, keen to loose his fighting fury against the Trojans. Then, once we'd sacked King Priam's craggy city, laden with his fair share and princely prize

he boarded his own ship, his body all unscarred. Not a wound from a flying spear or a sharp sword, cut-and-thrust close up—the common marks of war. Random, raging Ares plays no favorites.'

So I said and

off he went, the ghost of the great runner, Aeacus' grandson loping with long strides across the fields of asphodel, triumphant in all I had told him of his son, his gallant, glorious son.

Now the rest of the ghosts, the dead and gone came swarming up around me—deep in sorrow there, each asking about the grief that touched him most. Only the ghost of Great Ajax, son of Telamon, kept his distance, blazing with anger at me still for the victory I had won by the ships that time I pressed my claim for the arms of Prince Achilles. His queenly mother had set them up as prizes, Pallas and captive Trojans served as judges. Would to god I'd never won such trophies! All for them the earth closed over Ajax, that proud hero Ajax ... greatest in build, greatest in works of war of all the Argives after Peleus' matchless son. I cried out to him now, I tried to win him over: 'Ajax, son of noble Telamon, still determined, even in death, not once to forget that rage you train on me for those accursed arms? The gods set up that prize to plague the Achaeans— so great a tower of strength we lost when you went down! For your death we grieved as we did for Achilles' death— we grieved incessantly, true, and none's to blame but Zeus, who hated Achaea's fighting spearmen so intensely, Zeus sealed your doom. Come closer, king, and listen to my story. Conquer your rage, your blazing, headstrong pride!'

So I cried out but Ajax answered not a word. He stalked off toward Erebus, into the dark to join the other lost, departed dead. Yet now, despite his anger, he might have spoken to me, or I to him, but the heart inside me stirred with some desire to see the ghosts of others dead and gone.

And I saw Minos there, illustrious son of Zeus, firmly enthroned, holding his golden scepter, judging all the dead ...

Some on their feet, some seated, all clustering round the king of justice, pleading for his verdicts reached in the House of Death with its all-embracing gates.

I next caught sight of Orion, that huge hunter, rounding up on the fields of asphodel those wild beasts the man in life cut down on the lonely mountain-slopes, brandishing in his hands the bronze-studded club that time can never shatter.

I saw Tityus too, son of the mighty goddess Earth—sprawling there on the ground, spread over nine acres—two vultures hunched on either side of him, digging into his liver, beaking deep in the blood-sac, and he with his frantic hands could never beat them off, for he had once dragged off the famous consort of Zeus in all her glory, Leto, threading her way toward Pytho's ridge, over the lovely dancing-rings of Panopeus.

And I saw Tantalus too, bearing endless torture. He stood erect in a pool as the water lapped his chin— parched, he burned to drink, but he could not reach the surface, no, time and again the old man stooped, craving a sip, time and again the water vanished, swallowed down, laying bare the caked black earth at his feet— some spirit drank it dry. And over his head leafy trees dangled their fruit from high aloft, pomegranates and pears, and apples glowing red,

succulent figs and olives swelling sleek and dark, but soon as the old man would strain to clutch them fast a gust would toss them up to the lowering dark clouds.

And I saw Sisyphus too, bound to his own torture, grappling his monstrous boulder with both arms working, heaving, hands struggling, legs driving, he kept on thrusting the rock uphill toward the brink, but just as it teetered, set to topple over—

time and again the immense weight of the thing would wheel it back and the ruthless boulder would bound and tumble down to the plain again— so once again he would heave, would struggle to thrust it up, sweat drenching his body, dust swirling above his head.

And next I caught a glimpse of powerful Heracles— his ghost, I mean: the man himself delights in the grand feasts of the deathless gods on high, wed to Hebe, famed for her lithe, alluring ankles, the daughter of mighty Zeus and Hera shod in gold. Around him cries of the dead rang out like cries of birds, scattering left and right in horror as on he came like night, naked bow in his grip, an arrow grooved on the bowstring, glaring round him fiercely, forever poised to shoot. A terror too, that sword-belt sweeping across his chest, a baldric of solid gold emblazoned with awesome work ... bears and ramping boars and lions with wild, fiery eyes, and wars, routs and battles, massacres, butchered men. May the craftsman who forged that masterpiece— whose skills could conjure up a belt like that— never forge another!

Heracles knew me at once, at first glance, and hailed me with a winging burst of pity: 'Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus famed for exploits, luckless man, you too? Braving out a fate as harsh as the fate I bore, alive in the light of day? Son of Zeus that I was, my torments never ended, forced to slave for a man not half the man I was:

he saddled me with the worst heartbreaking labors. Why, he sent me down here once, to retrieve the hound that guards the dead—no harder task for me, he thought— but I dragged the great beast up from the underworld to earth and Hermes and gleaming-eyed Athena blazed the way!'

With that he turned and back he went to the House of Death but I held fast in place, hoping others might still come, shades of famous heroes, men who died in the old days and ghosts of an even older age I longed to see, Theseus and Pirithous, the gods' own radiant sons. But before I could, the dead came surging round me, hordes of them, thousands raising unearthly cries, and blanching terror gripped me—panicked now that Queen Persephone might send up from Death some monstrous head, some Gorgon's staring face! I rushed back to my ship, commanded all hands to take to the decks and cast off cables quickly. They swung aboard at once, they sat to the oars in ranks and a strong tide of the Ocean River swept her on downstream, sped by our rowing first, then by a fresh fair wind."

Book XII

The Cattle of the Sun

"Now when our ship had left the Ocean River rolling in her wake and launched out into open sea with its long swells to reach the island of Aeaea—east where the Dawn forever young has home and dancing-rings and the Sun his risings— heading in we beached our craft on the sands, the crews swung out on the low sloping shore and there we fell asleep, awaiting Dawn's first light.

As soon as Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone again I dispatched some men to Circe's halls to bring the dead Elpenor's body. We cut logs in haste and out on the island's sharpest jutting headland held his funeral rites in sorrow, streaming tears. Once we'd burned the dead man and the dead man's armor, heaping his grave-mound, hauling a stone that coped it well,

we planted his balanced oar aloft to crown his tomb.

And so we saw to his rites, each step in turn. Nor did our coming back from Death escape Circe— she hurried toward us, decked in rich regalia, handmaids following close with trays of bread and meats galore and glinting ruddy wine. And the lustrous goddess, standing in our midst, hailed us warmly: 'Ah my darling, reckless friends! You who ventured down to the House of Death alive, doomed to die twice over—others die just once. Come, take some food and drink some wine, rest here the livelong day and then, tomorrow at daybreak, you must sail. But I will set you a course and chart each seamark, so neither on sea nor land will some new trap ensnare you in trouble, make you suffer more.'

Her foresight won our fighting spirits over. So all that day till the sun went down we sat and feasted on sides of meat and heady wine, and then when the sun had set and night came on the men lay down to sleep by the ship's stern-cables. But Circe, taking me by the hand, drew me away from all my shipmates there and sat me down and lying beside me probed me for details. I told her the whole story, start to finish, then the queenly goddess laid my course: 'Your descent to the dead is over, true, but listen closely to what I tell you now and god himself will bring it back to mind. First you will raise the island of the Sirens, those creatures who spellbind any man alive, whoever comes their way. Whoever draws too close, off guard, and catches the Sirens' voices in the air— no sailing home for him, no wife rising to meet him, no happy children beaming up at their father's face. The high, thrilling song of the Sirens will transfix him,

lolling there in their meadow, round them heaps of corpses, rotting away, rags of skin shriveling on their bones ... Race straight past that coast! Soften some beeswax and stop your shipmates' ears so none can hear, none of the crew, but if you are bent on hearing, have them tie you hand and foot in the swift ship, erect at the mast-block, lashed by ropes to the mast so you can hear the Sirens' song to your heart's content. But if you plead, commanding your men to set you free, then they must lash you faster, rope on rope.

But once your crew has rowed you past the Sirens a choice of routes is yours. I cannot advise you which to take, or lead you through it all— you must decide for yourself— but I can tell you the ways of either course. On one side beetling cliffs shoot up, and against them pound the huge roaring breakers of blue-eyed Amphitrite— the Clashing Rocks they're called by all the blissful gods. Not even birds can escape them, no, not even the doves that veer and fly ambrosia home to Father Zeus: even of those the sheer Rocks always pick off one and Father wings one more to keep the number up. No ship of men has ever approached and slipped past— always some disaster—big timbers and sailors' corpses whirled away by the waves and lethal blasts of fire. One ship alone, one deep-sea craft sailed clear, the Argo, sung by the world, when heading home from Aeetes' shores. And she would have crashed against those giant rocks and sunk at once if Hera, for love of Jason, had not sped her through.

On the other side loom two enormous crags . One thrusts into the vaulting sky its jagged peak, hooded round with a dark cloud that never leaves— no clear bright air can ever bathe its crown, not even in summer's heat or harvest-time. No man on earth could scale it, mount its crest,

not even with twenty hands and twenty feet for climbing, the rock's so smooth, like dressed and burnished stone. And halfway up that cliffside stands a fog-bound cavern gaping west toward Erebus, realm of death and darkness— past it, great Odysseus, you should steer your ship. No rugged young archer could hit that yawning cave with a winged arrow shot from off the decks. Scylla lurks inside it—the yelping horror, yelping, no louder than any suckling pup, but she's a grisly monster, I assure you. No one could look on her with any joy, not even a god who meets her face-to-face ... She has twelve legs, all writhing, dangling down and six long swaying necks, a hideous head on each, each head barbed with a triple row of fangs, thickset, packed tight—armed to the hilt with black death! Holed up in the cavern's bowels from her waist down she shoots out her heads, out of that terrifying pit, angling right from her nest, wildly sweeping the reefs for dolphins, dogfish or any bigger quarry she can drag from the thousands Amphitrite spawns in groaning seas. No mariners yet can boast they've raced their ship past Scylla's lair without some mortal blow— with each of her six heads she snatches up a man from the dark-prowed craft and whisks him off.

The other crag is lower—you will see, Odysseus— though both lie side-by-side, an arrow-shot apart. Atop it a great fig-tree rises, shaggy with leaves; beneath it awesome Charybdis gulps the dark water down. Three times a day she vomits it up, three times she gulps it down, that terror! Don't be there when the whirlpool swallows down— not even the earthquake god could save you from disaster. No, hug Scylla's crag—sail on past her—top speed! Better by far to lose six men and keep your ship than lose your entire crew.'

'Yes, yes,

but tell me the truth now, goddess,' I protested.

'Deadly Charybdis—can't I possibly cut and run from her and still fight Scylla off when Scylla strikes my men?'

'So stubborn!' the lovely goddess countered. 'Hell-bent yet again on battle and feats of arms? Can't you bow to the deathless gods themselves? Scylla's no mortal, she's an immortal devastation, terrible, savage, wild, no fighting her, no defense— just flee the creature, that's the only way. Waste any time, arming for battle beside her rock, I fear she'll lunge out again with all of her six heads and seize as many men. No, row for your lives, invoke Brute Force, I tell you, Scylla's mother— she spawned her to scourge mankind, she can stop the monster's next attack!

Then you will make the island of Thrinacia ... where herds of the Sungod's cattle graze, and fat sheep and seven herds of oxen, as many sheepflocks, rich and woolly, fifty head in each. No breeding swells their number, nor do they ever die. And goddesses herd them on, nymphs with glinting hair, Phaethousa, Lampetie, born to the Sungod Helios by radiant Neaera. Their queenly mother bred and reared them both, then settled them on the island of Thrinacia— their homeland seas away— to guard their father's sheep and longhorn cattle. Leave the beasts unharmed, your mind set on home, and you all may still reach Ithaca—bent with hardship, true—but harm them in any way, and I can see it now: your ship destroyed, your men destroyed as well! And even if you escape, you'll come home late, all shipmates lost, and come a broken man.'

At those words Dawn rose on her golden throne and lustrous Circe made her way back up the island. I went straight to my ship, commanding all hands to take to the decks and cast off cables quickly.

They swung aboard at once, they sat to the oars in ranks

and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke.

And Circe the nymph with glossy braids, the awesome one

who speaks with human voice, sent us a hardy shipmate,

yes, a fresh following wind ruffling up in our wake,

bellying out our sail to drive our blue prow on as we,

securing the running gear from stem to stern, sat back

while the wind and helmsman kept her true on course.

At last, and sore at heart, I told my shipmates,

'Friends . it's wrong for only one or two

to know the revelations that lovely Circe

made to me alone. I'll tell you all,

so we can die with our eyes wide open now

or escape our fate and certain death together.

First, she warns, we must steer clear of the Sirens,

their enchanting song, their meadow starred with flowers.

I alone was to hear their voices, so she said,

but you must bind me with tight chafing ropes

so I cannot move a muscle, bound to the spot,

erect at the mast-block, lashed by ropes to the mast.

And if I plead, commanding you to set me free,

then lash me faster, rope on pressing rope.'

So I informed my shipmates point by point, all the while our trim ship was speeding toward the Sirens' island, driven on by the brisk wind. But then—the wind fell in an instant, all glazed to a dead calm ... a mysterious power hushed the heaving swells. The oarsmen leapt to their feet, struck the sail, stowed it deep in the hold and sat to the oarlocks, thrashing with polished oars, frothing the water white. Now with a sharp sword I sliced an ample wheel of beeswax down into pieces, kneaded them in my two strong hands and the wax soon grew soft, worked by my strength and Helios' burning rays, the sun at high noon, and I stopped the ears of my comrades one by one. They bound me hand and foot in the tight ship—

erect at the mast-block, lashed by ropes to the mast— and rowed and churned the whitecaps stroke on stroke. We were just offshore as far as a man's shout can carry, scudding close, when the Sirens sensed at once a ship was racing past and burst into their high, thrilling song: 'Come closer, famous Odysseus—Achaea's pride and glory— moor your ship on our coast so you can hear our song! Never has any sailor passed our shores in his black craft until he has heard the honeyed voices pouring from our lips, and once he hears to his heart's content sails on, a wiser man. We know all the pains that Achaeans and Trojans once endured on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so— all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!'

So they sent their ravishing voices out across the air and the heart inside me throbbed to listen longer. I signaled the crew with frowns to set me free— they flung themselves at the oars and rowed on harder, Perimedes and Eurylochus springing up at once to bind me faster with rope on chafing rope. But once we'd left the Sirens fading in our wake, once we could hear their song no more, their urgent call— my steadfast crew was quick to remove the wax I'd used to seal their ears and loosed the bonds that lashed me.

We'd scarcely put that island astern when suddenly I saw smoke and heavy breakers, heard their booming thunder. The men were terrified—oarblades flew from their grip, clattering down to splash in the vessel's wash. She lay there, dead in the water ... no hands to tug the blades that drove her on. But I strode down the decks to rouse my crewmen, halting beside each one with a bracing, winning word: 'Friends, we're hardly strangers at meeting danger— and this danger is no worse than what we faced when Cyclops penned us up in his vaulted cave with crushing force! But even from there my courage, my presence of mind and tactics saved us all,

and we will live to remember this someday, I have no doubt. Up now, follow my orders, all of us work as one! You men at the thwarts— lay on with your oars and strike the heaving swells, trusting that Zeus will pull us through these straits alive. You, helmsman, here's your order—burn it in your mind— the steering-oar of our rolling ship is in your hands. Keep her clear of that smoke and surging breakers, head for those crags or she'll catch you off guard, she'll yaw over there—you'll plunge us all in ruin!'

So I shouted. They snapped to each command. No mention of Scylla—how to fight that nightmare?— for fear the men would panic, desert their oars and huddle down and stow themselves away. But now I cleared my mind of Circe's orders— cramping my style, urging me not to arm at all. I donned my heroic armor, seized long spears in both my hands and marched out on the half-deck, forward, hoping from there to catch the first glimpse of Scylla, ghoul of the cliffs, swooping to kill my men. But nowhere could I make her out—and my eyes ached, scanning that mist-bound rock face top to bottom.

Now wailing in fear, we rowed on up those straits, Scylla to starboard, dreaded Charybdis off to port, her horrible whirlpool gulping the sea-surge down, down but when she spewed it up—like a cauldron over a raging fire— all her churning depths would seethe and heave—exploding spray showering down to splatter" the peaks of both crags at once! But when she swallowed the sea-surge down her gaping maw the whole abyss lay bare and the rocks around her roared, terrible, deafening—

bedrock showed down deep, boiling

black with sand—

and ashen terror gripped the men. But now, fearing death, all eyes fixed on Charybdis— now Scylla snatched six men from our hollow ship,

the toughest, strongest hands I had, and glancing backward over the decks, searching for my crew I could see their hands and feet already hoisted, flailing, high, higher, over my head, look— wailing down at me, comrades riven in agony, shrieking out my name for one last time! Just as an angler poised on a jutting rock flings his treacherous bait in the offshore swell, whips his long rod—hook sheathed in an oxhorn lure— and whisks up little fish he flips on the beach-break, writhing, gasping out their lives . so now they writhed, gasping as Scylla swung them up her cliff, and there at her cavern's mouth she bolted them down raw— screaming out, flinging their arms toward me, lost in that mortal struggle ... Of all the pitiful things I've had to witness, suffering, searching out the pathways of the sea, this wrenched my heart the most.

But now, at last, putting the Rocks, Scylla and dread Charybdis far astern, we quickly reached the good green island of the Sun where Helios, lord Hyperion, keeps his fine cattle, broad in the brow, and flocks of purebred sheep. Still aboard my black ship in the open sea I could hear the lowing cattle driven home, the bleating sheep. And I was struck once more by the words of the blind Theban prophet, Tiresias, and Aeaean Circe too: time and again they told me to shun this island of the Sun, the joy of man. So I warned my shipmates gravely, sick at heart, 'Listen to me, my comrades, brothers in hardship, let me tell you the dire prophecies of Tiresias and Aeaean Circe too: time and again they told me to shun this island of the Sun, the joy of man. Here, they warned, the worst disaster awaits us. Row straight past these shores—race our black ship on!'

So I said, and the warnings broke their hearts. But Eurylochus waded in at once—with mutiny on his mind: 'You're a hard man, Odysseus. Your fighting spirit's stronger than ours, your stamina never fails. You must be made of iron head to foot. Look, your crew's half-dead with labor, starved for sleep, and you forbid us to set foot on land, this island here, washed by the waves, where we might catch a decent meal again. Drained as we are, night falling fast, you'd have us desert this haven and blunder off, into the mist-bound seas? Out of the night come winds that shatter vessels— how can a man escape his headlong death if suddenly, out of nowhere, a cyclone hits, bred by the South or stormy West Wind? They're the gales that tear a ship to splinters—the gods, our masters, willing or not, it seems. No, let's give way to the dark night, set out our supper here. Sit tight by our swift ship and then at daybreak board and launch her, make for open sea!'

So Eurylochus urged, and shipmates cheered. Then I knew some power was brewing trouble for us, so I let fly with an anxious plea: 'Eurylochus, I'm one against all—the upper hand is yours. But swear me a binding oath, all here, that if we come on a herd of cattle or fine flock of sheep, not one man among us—blind in his reckless ways— will slaughter an ox or ram. Just eat in peace, content with the food immortal Circe gave us.'

They quickly swore the oath that I required and once they had vowed they'd never harm the herds, they moored our sturdy ship in the deep narrow harbor, close to a fresh spring, and all hands disembarked and adeptly set about the evening meal. Once they'd put aside desire for food and drink, they recalled our dear companions, wept for the men that Scylla plucked from the hollow ship and ate alive, and a welcome sleep came on them in their tears.

But then,

at the night's third watch, the stars just wheeling down, Zeus who marshals the stormclouds loosed a ripping wind, a howling, demonic gale, shrouding over in thunderheads the earth and sea at once—and night swept down from the sky. When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more we hauled our craft ashore, securing her in a vaulted cave where nymphs have lovely dancing-rings and hold their sessions. There I called a muster, warning my shipmates yet again, 'Friends, we've food and drink aplenty aboard the ship— keep hands off all these herds or we will pay the price! The cattle, the sleek flocks, belong to an awesome master, Helios, god of the sun who sees all, hears all things.'

So I warned, and my headstrong men complied. But for one whole month the South Wind blew nonstop, no other wind came up, none but the South, Southeast. As long as our food and ruddy wine held out, the crew, eager to save their lives, kept hands off the herds. But then, when supplies aboard had all run dry, when the men turned to hunting, forced to range for quarry with twisted hooks: for fish, birds, anything they could lay their hands on— hunger racked their bellies—I struck inland, up the island, there to pray to the gods. If only one might show me some way home! Crossing into the heartland, clear of the crew, I rinsed my hands in a sheltered spot, a windbreak, but soon as I'd prayed to all the gods who rule Olympus, down on my eyes they poured a sweet, sound sleep ... as Eurylochus opened up his fatal plan to friends: 'Listen to me, my comrades, brothers in hardship. All ways of dying are hateful to us poor mortals, true, but to die of hunger, starve to death— that's the worst of all. So up with you now, let's drive off the pick of Helios' sleek herds, slaughter them to the gods who rule the skies up there. If we ever make it home to Ithaca, native ground, erect at once a glorious temple to the Sungod, line the walls with hoards of dazzling gifts! But if the Sun, inflamed for his longhorn cattle, means to wreck our ship and the other gods pitch in— I'd rather die at sea, with one deep gulp of death, than die by inches on this desolate island here!'

So he urged, and shipmates cheered again. At once they drove off the Sungod's finest cattle— close at hand, not far from the blue-prowed ship they grazed, those splendid beasts with their broad brows and curving horns. Surrounding them in a ring, they lifted prayers to the gods, plucking fresh green leaves from a tall oak for the rite, since white strewing-barley was long gone in the ship. Once they'd prayed, slaughtered and skinned the cattle, they cut the thighbones out, they wrapped them round in fat, a double fold sliced clean and topped with strips of flesh. And since they had no wine to anoint the glowing victims, they made libations with water, broiling all the innards, and once they'd burned the bones and tasted the organs— hacked the rest into pieces, piercing them with spits.

That moment soothing slumber fell from my eyes and down I went to our ship at the water's edge but on my way, nearing the long beaked craft, the smoky savor of roasts came floating up around me ... I groaned in anguish, crying out to the deathless gods: 'Father Zeus! the rest of you blissful gods who never die— you with your fatal sleep, you lulled me into disaster. Left on their own, look what a monstrous thing my crew concocted!'

Quick as a flash with her flaring robes Lampetie sped the news to the Sun on high that we had killed his herds, and Helios burst out in rage to all the immortals: 'Father Zeus! the rest of you blissful gods who never die— punish them all, that crew of Laertes' son Odysseus— what an outrage! They, they killed my cattle,

the great joy of my heart . day in, day out, when I climbed the starry skies and when I wheeled back down from the heights to touch the earth once more. Unless they pay me back in blood for the butchery of my herds, down I go to the House of Death and blaze among the dead!'

But Zeus who marshals the thunderheads insisted, 'Sun, you keep on shining among the deathless gods and mortal men across the good green earth. And as for the guilty ones, why, soon enough on the wine-dark sea I'll hit their racing ship with a white-hot bolt, I'll tear it into splinters.'

—Or so I heard from the lovely nymph Calypso, who heard it herself, she said, from Hermes, god of guides.

As soon as I reached our ship at the water's edge I took the men to task, upbraiding each in turn, but how to set things right? We couldn't find a way. The cattle were dead already ... and the gods soon showed us all some fateful signs— the hides began to crawl, the meat, both raw and roasted, bellowed out on the spits, and we heard a noise like the moan of lowing oxen.

Yet six more days my eager companions feasted on the cattle of the Sun, the pick of the herds they'd driven off, but then, when Cronian Zeus brought on the seventh day, the wind in its ceaseless raging dropped at last, and stepping the mast at once, hoisting the white sail we boarded ship and launched her, made for open sea.

But once we'd left that island in our wake— no land at all in sight, nothing but sea and sky— then Zeus the son of Cronus mounted a thunderhead above our hollow ship and the deep went black beneath it. Nor did the craft scud on much longer. All of a sudden killer-squalls attacked us, screaming out of the west,

a murderous blast shearing the two forestays off so the mast toppled backward, its running tackle spilling into the bilge. The mast itself went crashing into the stern, it struck the helmsman's head and crushed his skull to pulp and down from his deck the man flipped like a diver— his hardy life spirit left his bones behind. Then, then in the same breath Zeus hit the craft with a lightning-bolt and thunder. Round she spun, reeling under the impact, filled with reeking brimstone, shipmates pitching out of her, bobbing round like seahawks swept along by the whitecaps past the trim black hull— and the god cut short their journey home forever.

But I went lurching along our battered hulk till the sea-surge ripped the plankings from the keel and the waves swirled it away, stripped bare, and snapped the mast from the decks—but a backstay made of bulls-hide still held fast, and with this I lashed the mast and keel together, made them one, riding my makeshift raft as the wretched galewinds bore me on and on.

At last the West Wind quit its wild rage but the South came on at once to hound me even more, making me double back my route toward cruel Charybdis. All night long I was rushed back, and then at break of day I reached the crag of Scylla and dire Charybdis' vortex right when the dreadful whirlpool gulped the salt sea down. But heaving myself aloft to clutch at the fig-tree's height, like a bat I clung to its trunk for dear life—not a chance for a good firm foothold there, no clambering up it either, the roots too far to reach, the boughs too high overhead, huge swaying branches that overshadowed Charybdis. But I held on, dead set ... waiting for her to vomit my mast and keel back up again— Oh how I ached for both! and back they came, late but at last, at just the hour a judge at court, who's settled the countless suits of brash young claimants, rises, the day's work done, and turns home for supper— that's when the timbers reared back up from Charybdis. I let go—I plunged with my hands and feet flailing, crashing into the waves beside those great beams and scrambling aboard them fast I rowed hard with my hands right through the straits ... And the father of men and gods did not let Scylla see me, else I'd have died on the spot—no escape from death.

I drifted along nine days. On the tenth, at night, the gods cast me up on Ogygia, Calypso's island, home of the dangerous nymph with glossy braids who speaks with human voice, and she took me in, she loved me . Why cover the same ground again? Just yesterday, here at hall, I told you all the rest, you and your gracious wife. It goes against my grain to repeat a tale told once, and told so clearly."

Book XIII

Ithaca at Last

His tale was over now. The Phaeacians all fell silent, hushed, his story holding them spellbound down the shadowed halls until Alcinous found the poise to say, "Odysseus, now that you have come to my bronze-floored house, my vaulted roofs, I know you won't be driven off your course, nothing can hold you back— however much you've suffered, you'll sail home. Here, friends, here's a command for one and all, you who frequent my palace day and night and drink the shining wine of kings and enjoy the harper's songs. The robes and hammered gold and a haul of other gifts you lords of our island council brought our guest— all lie packed in his polished sea-chest now. Come, each of us add a sumptuous tripod, add a cauldron!

Then recover our costs with levies on the people: it's hard to afford such bounty man by man."

The king's instructions met with warm applause and home they went to sleep, each in his own house. When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more they hurried down to the ship with handsome bronze gifts, and striding along the decks, the ardent King Alcinous stowed them under the benches, shipshape, so nothing could foul the crewmen tugging at their oars. Then back the party went to Alcinous' house and shared a royal feast.

The majestic king slaughtered an ox for them to Cronus' mighty son, Zeus of the thundercloud, whose power rules the world. They burned the thighs and fell to the lordly banquet, reveling there, while in their midst the inspired bard struck up a song, Demodocus, prized by all the people. True, but time and again Odysseus turned his face toward the radiant sun, anxious for it to set, yearning now to be gone and home once more ... As a man aches for his evening meal when all day long his brace of wine-dark oxen have dragged the bolted plowshare down a fallow field—how welcome the setting sun to him, the going home to supper, yes, though his knees buckle, struggling home at last. So welcome now to Odysseus the setting light of day, and he lost no time as he pressed Phaeacia's men who love their oars, addressing his host, Alcinous, first and foremost: "Alcinous, majesty, shining among your island people, make your libations, launch me safely on my way— to one and all, farewell! All is now made good, my heart's desire, your convoy home, your precious, loving gifts, and may the gods of Olympus bless them for me! May I find an unswerving wife when I reach home, and loved ones hale, unharmed! And you, my friends

remaining here in your kingdom now, may you delight in your loyal wives and children! May the gods rain down all kinds of fortune on your lives, misfortune never harbor in your homeland!"

All burst into applause, urging passage home for their parting guest, his farewell rang so true. Hallowed King Alcinous briskly called his herald: "Come, Pontonous! Mix the wine in the bowl, pour rounds to all our banqueters in the house, so we, with a prayer to mighty Zeus the Father, can sail our new friend home to native land."

Pontonous mixed the heady, honeyed wine and hovering closely, poured full rounds for all. And from where they sat they tipped libations out to the happy gods who rule the vaulting skies. Then King Odysseus rose up from his seat and placing his two-eared cup in Arete's hands, addressed the queen with parting wishes on the wing: "Your health, my queen, through all your days to come— until old age and death, that visit all mankind, pay you a visit too. Now I am on my way, but you, may you take joy in this house of yours, in your children, your people, in Alcinous the king!"

With that the great Odysseus strode across the threshold. And King Alcinous sent the herald off with the guest to lead him down to the swift ship and foaming surf. And Arete sent her serving-women, one to carry a sea-cloak, washed and fresh, a shirt as well, another assigned to bear the sturdy chest and a third to take the bread and ruddy wine.

When they reached the ship at the water's edge the royal escorts took charge of the gifts at once and stores of food and wine, stowed them deep in the holds, and then for their guest they spread out rug and sheets

on the half-deck, clear astern on the ship's hull

so he might sleep there soundly, undisturbed.

And last, Odysseus climbed aboard himself

and down he lay, all quiet,

as crewmen sat to the oarlocks, each in line.

They slipped the cable free of the drilled stone post

and soon as they swung back and the blades tossed up the spray

an irresistible sleep fell deeply on his eyes, the sweetest,

soundest oblivion, still as the sleep of death itself ...

And the ship like a four-horse team careering down the plain,

all breaking as one with the whiplash cracking smartly,

leaping with hoofs high to run the course in no time—

so the stern hove high and plunged with the seething rollers

crashing dark in her wake as on she surged unwavering,

never flagging, no, not even a darting hawk,

the quickest thing on wings, could keep her pace

as on she ran, cutting the swells at top speed,

bearing a man equipped with the gods' own wisdom,

one who had suffered twenty years of torment, sick at heart,

cleaving his way through wars of men and pounding waves at sea

but now he slept in peace, the memory of his struggles

laid to rest.

And then, that hour the star rose up, the clearest, brightest star, that always heralds the newborn light of day, the deep-sea-going ship made landfall on the island ... Ithaca, at last.

There on the coast a haven lies, named for Phorcys, the old god of the deep—with two jutting headlands, sheared off at the seaward side but shelving toward the bay, that break the great waves whipped by the gales outside so within the harbor ships can ride unmoored whenever they come in mooring range of shore. At the harbor's head a branching olive stands with a welcome cave nearby it, dank with sea-mist, sacred to nymphs of the springs we call the Naiads. There are mixing-bowls inside and double-handled jars, crafted of stone, and bees store up their honey in the hollows.

There are long stone looms as well, where the nymphs weave out their webs from clouds of sea-blue wool—a marvelous sight— and a wellspring flows forever. The cave has two ways in, one facing the North Wind, a pathway down for mortals; the other, facing the South, belongs to the gods, no man may go that way ... it is the path for all the deathless powers.

Here at this bay the Phaeacian crew put in— they'd known it long before—driving the ship so hard she ran up onto the beach for a good half her length, such way the oarsmen's brawny arms had made. Up from the benches, swinging down to land, first they lifted Odysseus off the decks— linen and lustrous carpet too—and laid him down on the sand asleep, still dead to the world, then hoisted out the treasures proud Phaeacians, urged by open-hearted Pallas, had lavished on him, setting out for home. They heaped them all by the olive's trunk, in a neat pile, clear of the road for fear some passerby might spot and steal Odysseus' hoard before he could awaken. Then pushing off, they pulled for home themselves.

But now Poseidon, god of the earthquake, never once forgetting the first threats he leveled at the hero, probed almighty Zeus to learn his plans in full: "Zeus, Father, I will lose all my honor now among the immortals, now there are mortal men who show me no respect—Phaeacians, too, born of my own loins! I said myself that Odysseus would suffer long and hard before he made it home, but I never dreamed of blocking his return, not absolutely at least, once you had pledged your word and bowed your head. But now they've swept him across the sea in their swift ship, they've set him down in Ithaca, sound asleep, and loaded the man with boundless gifts—bronze and hoards of gold and robes—

aye, more plunder than he could ever have won from Troy if Odysseus had returned intact with his fair share!"

"Incredible," Zeus who marshals the thunderheads replied. "Earth-shaker, you with your massive power, why moaning so? The gods don't disrespect you. What a stir there'd be if they flung abuse at the oldest, noblest of them all. Those mortals? If any man, so lost in his strength and prowess, pays you no respect—just pay him back. The power is always yours. Do what you like. Whatever warms your heart."

"King of the dark cloud," the earthquake god agreed, "I'd like to avenge myself at once, as you advise, but I've always feared your wrath and shied away. But now I'll crush that fine Phaeacian cutter out on the misty sea, now on her homeward run from the latest convoy. They will learn at last to cease and desist from escorting every man alive— I'll pile a huge mountain round about their port!"

"Wait, dear brother," Zeus who collects the clouds had second thoughts. "Here's what seems best to me. As the people all lean down from the city heights to watch her speeding home, strike her into a rock that looks like a racing vessel, just offshore— amaze all men with a marvel for the ages. Then pile your huge mountain round about their port."

Hearing that from Zeus, the god of the earthquake sped to Scheria now, the Phaeacians' island home, and waited there till the ship came sweeping in, scudding lightly along—and surging close abreast, the earthquake god with one flat stroke of his hand struck her to stone, rooted her to the ocean floor and made for open sea.

The Phaeacians, aghast, those lords of the long oars, the master mariners

traded startled glances, sudden outcries: "Look—who's pinned our swift ship to the sea?"

"Just racing for home!"

"Just hove into plain view!"

They might well wonder, blind to what had happened, till Alcinous rose and made things all too clear: "Oh no—my father's prophecy years ago ... it all comes home to me with a vengeance now! He'd say Poseidon was vexed with us because we escorted all mankind and never came to grief. He said that one day, as a well-built ship of ours sailed home on the misty sea from such a convoy, the god would crush it, yes, and pile a huge mountain round about our port. So the old king foretold. Now, look, it all comes true! Hurry, friends, do as I say, let us all comply: stop our convoys home for every castaway chancing on our city! As for Poseidon, sacrifice twelve bulls to the god at once— the pick of the herds. Perhaps he'll pity us, pile no looming mountain ridge around our port."

The people, terrified, prepared the bulls at once. So all of Phaeacia's island lords and captains, milling round the altar, lifted prayers to Poseidon, master of the sea ...

That very moment great Odysseus woke from sleep on native ground at last— he'd been away for years—but failed to know the land, for the goddess Pallas Athena, Zeus's daughter, showered mist over all, so under cover she might change his appearance head to foot as she told him every peril he'd meet at home— keep him from being known by wife, townsmen, friends, till the suitors paid the price for all their outrage. And so to the king himself all Ithaca looked strange .

the winding beaten paths, the coves where ships can ride,

the steep rock face of the cliffs and the tall leafy trees.

He sprang to his feet and, scanning his own native country,

groaned, slapped his thighs with his flat palms

and Odysseus cried in anguish:

"Man of misery, whose land have I lit on now?

What are they here—violent, savage, lawless?

or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?

Where can I take this heap of treasure now

and where in the world do I wander off myself?

If only the trove had stayed among the Phaeacians there

and I had made my way to some other mighty king

who would have hosted me well and sent me home!

But now I don't know where to stow all this,

and I can't leave it here, inviting any bandit

to rob me blind.

So damn those lords and captains, those Phaeacians! Not entirely honest or upright, were they? Sweeping me off to this, this no-man's-land, and they, they swore they'd sail me home to sunny Ithaca—well, they never kept their word. Zeus of the Suppliants pay them back—he keeps an eye on the world of men and punishes all transgressors!

Come, quickly,

I'll inspect my treasure and count it up myself. Did they make off with anything in their ship?"

With that he counted up the gorgeous tripods, cauldrons, bars of gold and the lovely woven robes. Not a stitch was missing from the lot. But still he wept for his native country, trailing down the shore where the wash of sea on shingle ebbs and flows, his homesick heart in turmoil. But now Athena appeared and came toward him. She looked like a young man ... a shepherd boy yet elegant too, with all the gifts that grace the sons of kings, with a well-cut cloak falling in folds across her shoulders, sandals under her shining feet, a hunting spear in hand.

Odysseus, overjoyed at the sight, went up to meet her, joining her now with salutations on the wing: "Greetings, friend! Since you are the first I've come on in this harbor, treat me kindly— no cruelty, please. Save these treasures, save me too. I pray to you like a god, I fall before your knees and ask your mercy! And tell me this for a fact—I need to know— where on earth am I? what land? who lives here? Is it one of the sunny islands or some jutting shore of the good green mainland slanting down to sea?"

Athena answered, her eyes brightening now, "You must be a fool, stranger, or come from nowhere, if you really have to ask what land this is. Trust me, it's not so nameless after all. It's known the world around, to all who live to the east and rising sun and to all who face the western mists and darkness. It's a rugged land, too cramped for driving horses, but though it's far from broad, it's hardly poor. There's plenty of grain for bread, grapes for wine, the rains never fail and the dewfall's healthy. Good country for goats, good for cattle too— there's stand on stand of timber and water runs in streambeds through the year.

So,

stranger, the name of Ithaca's reached as far as Troy, and Troy, they say, is a long hard sail from Greece."

Ithaca. .. Heart racing, Odysseus that great exile filled with joy to hear Athena, daughter of storming Zeus, pronounce that name. He stood on native ground at last and he replied with a winging word to Pallas, not with a word of truth—he choked it back, always invoking the cunning in his heart: "Ithaca ... yes, I seem to have heard of Ithaca, even on Crete's broad island far across the sea,

and now I've reached it myself, with all this loot,

but I left behind an equal measure for my children.

I'm a fugitive now, you see. I killed Idomeneus' son,

Orsilochus, lightning on his legs, a man who beat

all runners alive on that long island—what a racer!

He tried to rob me of all the spoil I'd won at Troy,

the plunder I went to hell and back to capture, true,

cleaving my way through wars of men and waves at sea—

and just because I refused to please his father,

serve under him at Troy. I led my own command.

So now with a friend I lay in wait by the road,

I killed him just loping in from the fields—

with one quick stroke of my bronze spear

in the dead of night, the heavens pitch-black ...

no one could see us, spot me tearing out his life

with a weapon honed for action. Once I'd cut him down

I made for a ship and begged the Phoenician crew for mercy,

paying those decent hands a hearty share of plunder—

asked them to take me on and land me down in Pylos,

there or lovely Elis, where Epeans rule in power.

But a heavy galewind blew them way off course,

much against their will—

they'd no desire to cheat me. Driven afar,

we reached this island here at the midnight hour,

rowing for dear life, we made it into your harbor—

not a thought of supper, much as we all craved food,

we dropped from the decks and lay down, just like that!

A welcome sleep came over my weary bones at once,

while the crew hoisted up my loot from the holds

and set it down on the sand near where I slept.

They reembarked, now homeward bound for Sidon,

their own noble city, leaving me here behind,

homesick in my heart ."

As his story ended, goddess Athena, gray eyes gleaming, broke into a smile and stroked him with her hand, and now she appeared a woman beautiful, tall and skilled at weaving lovely things. Her words went flying straight toward Odysseus: "Any man—any god who met you—would have to be some champion lying cheat to get past you for all-round craft and guile! You terrible man, foxy, ingenious, never tired of twists and tricks— so, not even here, on native soil, would you give up those wily tales that warm the cockles of your heart! Come, enough of this now. We're both old hands at the arts of intrigue. Here among mortal men you're far the best at tactics, spinning yarns, and I am famous among the gods for wisdom, cunning wiles, too.

Ah, but you never recognized me, did you?

Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus—who always

stands beside you, shields you in every exploit:

thanks to me the Phaeacians all embraced you warmly.

And now I am here once more, to weave a scheme with you

and to hide the treasure-trove Phaeacia's nobles

lavished on you then—I willed it, planned it so

when you set out for home—and to tell you all

the trials you must suffer in your palace ...

Endure them all. You must. You have no choice.

And to no one—no man, no woman, not a soul—

reveal that you are the wanderer home at last.

No, in silence you must bear a world of pain,

subject yourself to the cruel abuse of men."

"Ah goddess," the cool tactician countered, "you're so hard for a mortal man to know on sight, however shrewd he is—the shapes you take are endless! But I do know this: you were kind to me in the war years, so long as we men of Achaea soldiered on at Troy. But once we'd sacked King Priam's craggy city, boarded ship, and a god dispersed the fleet, from then on, daughter of Zeus, I never saw you, never glimpsed you striding along my decks to ward off some disaster. No, I wandered on, my heart forever torn to pieces inside my chest

till the gods released me from my miseries at last,

that day in the fertile kingdom of Phaeacia when

you cheered me with words, in person, led me to their city.

But now I beg you by your almighty Father's name ...

for I can't believe I've reached my sunny Ithaca,

I must be roaming around one more exotic land—

you're mocking me, I know it, telling me tales

to make me lose my way. Tell me the truth now,

have I really reached the land I love?"

"Always the same, your wary turn of mind," Athena exclaimed, her glances flashing warmly. "That's why I can't forsake you in your troubles— you are so winning, so worldly-wise, so self-possessed! Anyone else, come back from wandering long and hard, would have hurried home at once, delighted to see his children and his wife. Oh, but not you, it's not your pleasure to probe for news of them— you must put your wife to the proof yourself! But she, she waits in your halls, as always, her life an endless hardship . wasting away the nights, weeping away the days. I never had doubts myself, no, I knew down deep that you would return at last, with all your shipmates lost. But I could not bring myself to fight my Father's brother, Poseidon, quaking with anger at you, still enraged because you blinded the Cyclops, his dear son. But come, let me show you Ithaca's setting, I'll convince you. This haven—look around— it's named for Phorcys, the old god of the deep, and here at the harbor's head the branching olive stands with the welcome cave nearby it, dank with sea-mist, sacred to nymphs of the springs we call the Naiads. Here, under its arching vault, time and again you'd offer the nymphs a generous sacrifice to bring success! And the slopes above you, look, Mount Neriton decked in forests!"

At those words

the goddess scattered the mist and the country stood out clear

and the great man who had borne so much rejoiced at last,

thrilled to see his Ithaca—kissed the good green earth

and raised his hands to the nymphs and prayed at once,

"Nymphs of the springs, Naiads, daughters of Zeus,

I never dreamed I would see you yet again ...

Now rejoice in my loving prayers—and later,

just like the old days, I will give you gifts

if Athena, Zeus's daughter, Queen of Armies

comes to my rescue, grants this fighter life

and brings my son to manhood!"

"Courage!"— goddess Athena answered, eyes afire— "Free your mind of all that anguish now. Come, quick, let's bury your treasures here in some recess of this haunted hallowed cave where they'll be safe and sound, then we'll make plans so we can win the day."

With that

the goddess swept into the cavern's shadowed vault, searching for hiding-places far inside its depths while Odysseus hauled his treasures closer up, the gold, durable bronze and finespun robes, the Phaeacians' parting gifts. Once he'd stowed them well away, the goddess, Pallas Athena, daughter of storming Zeus, sealed the mouth of the cavern with a stone.

Then down they sat by the sacred olive's trunk to plot the death of the high and mighty suitors. The bright-eyed goddess Athena led the way: "Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, old campaigner, think how to lay your hands on all those brazen suitors, lording it over your house now, three whole years, courting your noble wife, offering gifts to win her. But she, forever broken-hearted for your return, builds up each man's hopes—

dangling promises, dropping hints to each— but all the while with something else in mind."

"God help me!" the man of intrigue broke out: "Clearly I might have died the same ignoble death as Agamemnon, bled white in my own house too, if you had never revealed this to me now, goddess, blow-by-blow.

Come, weave us a scheme so I can pay them back! You stand beside me, fire me with daring, fierce as the day we ripped Troy's glittering crown of towers down. Stand by me—furious now as then, my bright-eyed one— and I would fight three hundred men, great goddess, with you to brace me, comrade-in-arms in battle!"

Gray eyes ablaze, the goddess urged him on: "Surely I'll stand beside you, not forget you, not when the day arrives for us to do our work. Those men who court your wife and waste your goods? I have a feeling some will splatter your ample floors with all their blood and brains. Up now, quickly. First I will transform you—no one must know you. I will shrivel the supple skin on your lithe limbs, strip the russet curls from your head and deck you out in rags you'd hate to see some other mortal wear; I'll dim the fire in your eyes, so shining once— until you seem appalling to all those suitors, even your wife and son you left behind at home. But you, you make your way to the swineherd first, in charge of your pigs, and true to you as always, loyal friend to your son, to Penelope, so self-possessed. You'll find him posted beside his swine, grubbing round by Raven's Rock and the spring called Arethusa, rooting for feed that makes pigs sleek and fat, the nuts they love, the dark pools they drink. Wait there, sit with him, ask him all he knows. I'm off to Sparta, where the women are a wonder, to call Telemachus home, your own dear son, Odysseus.

He's journeyed to Lacedaemon's rolling hills to see Menelaus, questing for news of you, hoping to learn if you are still alive."

Shrewd Odysseus answered her at once: "Why not tell him the truth? You know it all. Or is he too—like father, like son—condemned to hardship, roving over the barren salt sea while strangers devour our livelihood right here?"

But the bright-eyed goddess reassured him firmly: "No need for anguish, trust me, not for himI escorted your son myself so he might make his name by sailing there. Nor is he saddled down with any troubles now. He sits at ease in the halls of Menelaus, bathed in endless bounty ... True enough, some young lords in a black cutter lurk in ambush, poised to kill the prince before he reaches home, but I have my doubts they will. Sooner the earth will swallow down a few of those young gallants who eat you out of house and home these days!"

No more words, not now— Athena stroked Odysseus with her wand. She shriveled the supple skin on his lithe limbs, stripped the russet curls from his head, covered his body top to toe with the wrinkled hide of an old man and dimmed the fire in his eyes, so shining once. She turned his shirt and cloak into squalid rags, ripped and filthy, smeared with grime and soot. She flung over this the long pelt of a bounding deer, rubbed bare, and gave him a staff and beggar's sack, torn and tattered, slung from a fraying rope.

All plans made, they went their separate ways—Athena setting off to bring Telemachus home from hallowed Lacedaemon.

Book XIV

The Loyal

Swineherd

So up from the haven now Odysseus climbed a rugged path through timber along high ground—Athena had shown the way— to reach the swineherd's place, that fine loyal man who of all the household hands Odysseus ever had cared the most for his master's worldly goods.

Sitting at the door of his lodge he found him, there in his farmstead, high-walled, broad and large, with its long view on its cleared rise of ground . The swineherd made those walls with his own hands to enclose the pigs of his master gone for years. Alone, apart from his queen or old Laertes, he'd built them up of quarried blocks of stone and coped them well with a fence of wild pear.

Outside he'd driven stakes in a long-line stockade, a ring of thickset palings split from an oak's dark heart. Within the yard he'd built twelve sties, side-by-side, to bed his pigs, and in each one fifty brood-sows slept aground, penned and kept for breeding. The boars slept outside, but far fewer of them, thanks to the lordly suitors' feasts that kept on thinning the herd and kept the swineherd stepping, sending to town each day the best fat hog in sight. By now they were down to three hundred and sixty head. But guarding them all the time were dogs like savage beasts, a pack of four, reared by the swineherd, foreman of men. The man himself was fitting sandals to his feet, carving away at an oxhide, dark and supple. As for his men, three were off with their pigs, herding them here or there. Under orders he'd sent a fourth to town, with hog in tow for the gorging suitors to slaughter off and glut themselves with pork.

Suddenly—those snarling dogs spotted Odysseus, charged him fast—a shatter of barks—but Odysseus sank to the ground at once, he knew the trick: the staff dropped from his hand but here and now, on his own farm, he might have taken a shameful mauling. Yes, but the swineherd, quick to move, dashed for the gate, flinging his oxhide down, rushed the dogs with curses, scattered them left and right with flying rocks and warned his master, "Lucky to be alive, old man— a moment more, my pack would have torn you limb from limb! Then you'd have covered me with shame. As if the gods had never given me blows and groans aplenty ... Here I sit, my heart aching, broken for him, my master, my great king—fattening up his own hogs for other men to eat, while he, starving for food, I wager, wanders the earth, a beggar adrift in strangers' cities, foreign-speaking lands, if he's still alive, that is, still sees the rising sun. Come, follow me into my place, old man, so you,

at least, can eat your fill of bread and wine. Then you can tell me where you're from and all the pains you've weathered."

On that note the loyal swineherd led the way to his shelter, showed his guest inside and sat Odysseus down on brush and twigs he piled up for the visitor, flinging over these the skin of a shaggy wild goat, broad and soft, the swineherd's own good bedding. The king, delighted to be so well received, thanked the man at once: "My host—may Zeus and the other gods give you your hearts desire for the royal welcome you have shown me here!"

And you replied, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd, "It's wrong, my friend, to send any stranger packing— even one who arrives in worse shape than you. Every stranger and beggar comes from Zeus and whatever scrap they get from the likes of us, they'll find it welcome. That's the best we can do, we servants, always cowed by our high and mighty masters, especially our young lords ... But my old master? The gods, they must have blocked his journey home. He'd have treated me well, he would, with a house, a plot of land and a wife you'd gladly prize. Goods that a kind lord will give a household hand who labors for him, hard, whose work the gods have sped, just as they speed the work I labor at all day. My master, I tell you, would have repaid me well if he'd grown old right here. But now he's dead ... If only Helen and all her kind had died out too, brought to her knees, just as she cut the legs from under troops of men! My king among them, he went off to the stallion-land of Troy to fight the Trojans, save Agamemnon's honor!"

Enough—

he brusquely cinched his belt around his shirt, strode out to the pens, crammed with droves of pigs,

picked out two, bundled them in and slaughtered both,

singed them, sliced them down, skewered them through

and roasting all to a turn, set them before Odysseus,

sizzling hot on the spits.

Then coating the meat with white barley groats

and mixing honeyed wine in a carved wooden bowl,

he sat down across from his guest, inviting warmly,

"Eat up now, my friend. It's all we slaves have got,

scrawny pork, while the suitors eat the fatted hogs—

no fear of the gods in their hard hearts, no mercy!

Trust me, the blessed gods have no love for crime.

They honor justice, honor the decent acts of men.

Even cutthroat bandits who raid foreign parts—

and Zeus grants them a healthy share of plunder,

ships filled to the brim, and back they head for home—

even their dark hearts are stalked by the dread of vengeance.

But the suitors know, they've caught some godsent rumor

of master's grisly death! That's why they have no mind

to do their courting fairly or go back home in peace.

No, at their royal ease they devour all his goods,

those brazen rascals never spare a scrap!

Not a day or a night goes by, sent down by Zeus,

but they butcher victims, never stopping at one or two,

and drain his wine as if there's no tomorrow—

swilling the last drop ...

Believe me, my master's wealth was vast!

No other prince on earth could match his riches,

not on the loamy mainland or here at home in Ithaca—

no twenty men in the world could equal his great treasures!

Let me count them off for you. A dozen herds of cattle

back on the mainland, just as many head of sheep,

as many droves of pigs and goatflocks ranging free;

hired hands or his own herdsmen keep them grazing there.

Here in Ithaca, goatflocks, eleven in all, scatter

to graze the island, out at the wild end,

and trusty goatherds watch their every move.

And each herdsman, day after day, it never ends,

drives in a beast for the suitors—best in sight, a sheep or well-fed goat. While I tend to these pigs, I guard them, pick the best for those carousers and send it to the slaughter!"

His voice rose while the stranger ate his meat and drank his wine, ravenous, bolting it all down in silence . brooding on ways to serve the suitors right. But once he'd supped and refreshed himself with food, he filled the wooden bowl he'd been drinking from, brimmed it with wine and passed it to his host who received the offer gladly, spirit cheered as the stranger probed him now with winging words: "Friend, who was the man who bought you with his goods, the master of such vast riches, powerful as you say? You tell me he died defending Agamemnon's honor? What's his name? I just might know such a man . Zeus would know, and the other deathless gods, if I ever saw him, if I bring you any news. I've roamed the whole earth over."

And the good swineherd answered, foreman of men, "Old friend, no wanderer landing here with news of him is likely to win his wife and dear son over. Random drifters, hungry for bed and board, lie through their teeth and swallow back the truth. Why, any tramp washed up on Ithaca's shores scurries right to my mistress, babbling lies, and she ushers him in, kindly, pressing for details, and the warm tears of grief come trickling down her cheeks, the loyal wife's way when her husband's died abroad. Even you, old codger, could rig up some fine tale— and soon enough, I'd say,

if they gave you shirt and clothing for your pains. My master? Well, no doubt the dogs and wheeling birds have ripped the skin from his ribs by now, his life is through— or fish have picked him clean at sea, and the man's bones

lie piled up on the mainland, buried deep in sand .

he's dead and gone. Aye, leaving a broken heart

for loved ones left behind, for me most of all.

Never another master kind as he!

I'll never find one—no matter where I go,

not even if I went back to mother and father,

the house where I was born and my parents reared me once.

Ah, but much as I grieve for them, much as I long

to lay my eyes on them, set foot on the old soil,

it's longing for him, him that wrings my heart—

Odysseus, lost and gone!

That man, old friend, far away as he is ...

I can scarcely bear to say his name aloud,

so deeply he loved me, cared for me, so deeply.

Worlds away as he is, I call him Master, Brother!"

"My friend," the great Odysseus, long in exile, answered, "since you are dead certain, since you still insist he's never coming back, still the soul of denial, I won't simply say it—on my oath I swear Odysseus is on his way! Reward for such good news? Let me have it the moment he sets foot in his own house, dress me in shirt and cloak, in handsome clothes. Before then, poor as I am, I wouldn't take a thing. I hate that man like the very Gates of Death who, ground down by poverty, stoops to peddling lies. I swear by Zeus, the first of all the gods, by this table of hospitality here, my host, by Odysseus' hearth where I have come for help: all will come to pass, I swear, exactly as I say. True, this very month—just as the old moon dies and the new moon rises into life—Odysseus will return! He will come home and take revenge on any man who offends his wedded wife and princely son!"

"Good news," you replied, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd, "but I will never pay a reward for that, old friend— Odysseus, he'll never come home again. Never ... Drink your wine, sit back, let's talk of other things. Don't remind me of all this. The heart inside me breaks when anyone mentions my dear master. That oath of yours, we'll let it pass—

Odysseus,

oh come back!—

just as Iwish, I and Penelope, old Laertes too, Telemachus too, the godlike boy. How I grieve for him now, I can't stop—Odysseus' son, Telemachus. The gods reared him up like a fine young tree and I often said, 'In the ranks of men he'll match his father, his own dear father—amazing in build and looks, that boy!' But all of a sudden a god wrecks his sense of balance— god or man, no matter—off he's gone to catch some news of his father, down to holy Pylos. And now those gallant suitors lie in wait for him, sailing home, to tear the royal line of Arcesius out of Ithaca, root and branch, good name and all! Enough. Let him pass too—whether he's trapped or the hand of Zeus will pull him through alive.

Come,

old soldier, tell me the story of your troubles,

tell me truly, too, I'd like to know it well ...

Who are you? where are you from? your city? your parents?

What sort of vessel brought you? Why did the sailors

land you here in Ithaca? Who did they say they are?

I hardly think you came this way on foot."

The great teller of tales returned at length, "My story—the whole truth—I'm glad to tell it all. If only the two of us had food and mellow wine to last us long, here in your shelter now, for us to sup on, undisturbed, while others take the work of the world in hand, I could easily spend all year and never reach the end

of my endless story, all the heartbreaking trials I struggled through. The gods willed it so ...

I hail from Crete's broad land, I'm proud to say, and I am a rich man's son. And many other sons he brought up in his palace, born in wedlock, sprung of his lawful wife. Unlike my mother. She was a slave, a concubine he'd purchased, yes, but he treated me on a par with all his true-born sons— Castor, Hylax' son. I'm proud to boast his blood, that man revered like a god throughout all Crete those days, for wealth, power and all his glorious offspring. But the deadly spirits soon swept him down to the House of Death, and his high and mighty sons carved up his lands and then cast lots for the parts and gave me just a pittance, a paltry house as well. But I won myself a wife from wealthy, landed people, thanks to my own strong points. I was no fool and never shirked a fight.

But now my heyday's gone— I've had my share of blows. Yet look hard at the husk and you'll still see, I think, the grain that gave it life. By heaven, Ares gave me courage, Athena too, to break the ranks of men wide open, once, in the old days, whenever I picked my troops and formed an ambush, plotting attacks to spring against our foes— no hint of death could daunt my fighting spirit! Far out of the front I'd charge and spear my man, I'd cut down any enemy soldier backing off. Such was I in battle, true, but I had no love for working the land, the chores of households either, the labor that raises crops of shining children. No, it was always oarswept ships that thrilled my heart, and wars, and the long polished spears and arrows, dreadful gear that makes the next man cringe. I loved them all—god planted that love inside me. Each man delights in the work that suits him best.

Why, long before we Achaeans ever camped at Troy, nine commands I led in our deep-sea-going ships, raiding foreign men, and a fine haul reached my hands. I helped myself to the lion's share and still more came by lot. And my house grew by leaps and bounds, I walked among the Cretans, honored, feared as well.

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