<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=410314" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Odyssey: Book 1</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tell me, o muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide<br>after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit,<br>and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was<br>acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save<br>his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he<br>could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer<br>folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god<br>prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all<br>these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may<br>know them.<br>So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got<br>safely home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to<br>his wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got<br>him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by,<br>there came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to<br>Ithaca; even then, however, when he was among his own people, his<br>troubles were not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to<br>pity him except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing<br>and would not let him get home.<br>Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world's<br>end, and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East.<br>He had gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was<br>enjoying himself at his festival; but the other gods met in the<br>house of Olympian Jove, and the sire of gods and men spoke first. At<br>that moment he was thinking of Aegisthus, who had been killed by<br>Agamemnon's son Orestes; so he said to the other gods:<br>"See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all<br>nothing but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs make<br>love to Agamemnon's wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon, though<br>he knew it would be the death of him; for I sent Mercury to warn him<br>not to do either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to<br>take his revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home. Mercury<br>told him this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has<br>paid for everything in full."<br>Then Minerva said, "Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, it<br>served Aegisthus right, and so it would any one else who does as he<br>did; but Aegisthus is neither here nor there; it is for Ulysses that<br>my heart bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely<br>sea-girt island, far away, poor man, from all his friends. It is an<br>island covered with forest, in the very middle of the sea, and a<br>goddess lives there, daughter of the magician Atlas, who looks after<br>the bottom of the ocean, and carries the great columns that keep<br>heaven and earth asunder. This daughter of Atlas has got hold of<br>poor unhappy Ulysses, and keeps trying by every kind of blandishment<br>to make him forget his home, so that he is tired of life, and thinks<br>of nothing but how he may once more see the smoke of his own chimneys.<br>You, sir, take no heed of this, and yet when Ulysses was before Troy<br>did he not propitiate you with many a burnt sacrifice? Why then should<br>you keep on being so angry with him?"<br>And Jove said, "My child, what are you talking about? How can I<br>forget Ulysses than whom there is no more capable man on earth, nor<br>more liberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in<br>heaven? Bear in mind, however, that Neptune is still furious with<br>Ulysses for having blinded an eye of Polyphemus king of the<br>Cyclopes. Polyphemus is son to Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter<br>to the sea-king Phorcys; therefore though he will not kill Ulysses<br>outright, he torments him by preventing him from getting home.<br>Still, let us lay our heads together and see how we can help him to<br>return; Neptune will then be pacified, for if we are all of a mind<br>he can hardly stand out against us."<br>And Minerva said, "Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, if, then,<br>the gods now mean that Ulysses should get home, we should first send<br>Mercury to the Ogygian island to tell Calypso that we have made up our<br>minds and that he is to return. In the meantime I will go to Ithaca,<br>to put heart into Ulysses' son Telemachus; I will embolden him to call<br>the Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother<br>Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I<br>will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear<br>anything about the return of his dear father- for this will make<br>people speak well of him."<br>So saying she bound on her glittering golden sandals,<br>imperishable, with which she can fly like the wind over land or sea;<br>she grasped the redoubtable bronze-shod spear, so stout and sturdy and<br>strong, wherewith she quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased<br>her, and down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus,<br>whereon forthwith she was in Ithaca, at the gateway of Ulysses' house,<br>disguised as a visitor, Mentes, chief of the Taphians, and she held<br>a bronze spear in her hand. There she found the lordly suitors<br>seated on hides of the oxen which they had killed and eaten, and<br>playing draughts in front of the house. Men-servants and pages were<br>bustling about to wait upon them, some mixing wine with water in the<br>mixing-bowls, some cleaning down the tables with wet sponges and<br>laying them out again, and some cutting up great quantities of meat.<br>Telemachus saw her long before any one else did. He was sitting<br>moodily among the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how<br>he would send them flying out of the house, if he were to come to<br>his own again and be honoured as in days gone by. Thus brooding as<br>he sat among them, he caught sight of Minerva and went straight to the<br>gate, for he was vexed that a stranger should be kept waiting for<br>admittance. He took her right hand in his own, and bade her give him<br>her spear. "Welcome," said he, "to our house, and when you have<br>partaken of food you shall tell us what you have come for."<br>He led the way as he spoke, and Minerva followed him. When they were<br>within he took her spear and set it in the spear- stand against a<br>strong bearing-post along with the many other spears of his unhappy<br>father, and he conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he<br>threw a cloth of damask. There was a footstool also for her feet,<br>and he set another seat near her for himself, away from the suitors,<br>that she might not be annoyed while eating by their noise and<br>insolence, and that he might ask her more freely about his father.<br>A maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer<br>and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands, and<br>she drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them<br>bread, and offered them many good things of what there was in the<br>house, the carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and set<br>cups of gold by their side, and a man-servant brought them wine and<br>poured it out for them.<br>Then the suitors came in and took their places on the benches and<br>seats. Forthwith men servants poured water over their hands, maids<br>went round with the bread-baskets, pages filled the mixing-bowls<br>with wine and water, and they laid their hands upon the good things<br>that were before them. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink<br>they wanted music and dancing, which are the crowning embellishments<br>of a banquet, so a servant brought a lyre to Phemius, whom they<br>compelled perforce to sing to them. As soon as he touched his lyre and<br>began to sing Telemachus spoke low to Minerva, with his head close<br>to hers that no man might hear.<br>"I hope, sir," said he, "that you will not be offended with what I<br>am going to say. Singing comes cheap to those who do not pay for it,<br>and all this is done at the cost of one whose bones lie rotting in<br>some wilderness or grinding to powder in the surf. If these men were<br>to see my father come back to Ithaca they would pray for longer legs<br>rather than a longer purse, for money would not serve them; but he,<br>alas, has fallen on an ill fate, and even when people do sometimes say<br>that he is coming, we no longer heed them; we shall never see him<br>again. And now, sir, tell me and tell me true, who you are and where<br>you come from. Tell me of your town and parents, what manner of ship<br>you came in, how your crew brought you to Ithaca, and of what nation<br>they declared themselves to be- for you cannot have come by land. Tell<br>me also truly, for I want to know, are you a stranger to this house,<br>or have you been here in my father's time? In the old days we had many<br>visitors for my father went about much himself."<br>And Minerva answered, "I will tell you truly and particularly all<br>about it. I am Mentes, son of Anchialus, and I am King of the<br>Taphians. I have come here with my ship and crew, on a voyage to men<br>of a foreign tongue being bound for Temesa with a cargo of iron, and I<br>shall bring back copper. As for my ship, it lies over yonder off the<br>open country away from the town, in the harbour Rheithron under the<br>wooded mountain Neritum. Our fathers were friends before us, as old<br>Laertes will tell you, if you will go and ask him. They say,<br>however, that he never comes to town now, and lives by himself in<br>the country, faring hardly, with an old woman to look after him and<br>get his dinner for him, when he comes in tired from pottering about<br>his vineyard. They told me your father was at home again, and that was<br>why I came, but it seems the gods are still keeping him back, for he<br>is not dead yet not on the mainland. It is more likely he is on some<br>sea-girt island in mid ocean, or a prisoner among savages who are<br>detaining him against his will I am no prophet, and know very little<br>about omens, but I speak as it is borne in upon me from heaven, and<br>assure you that he will not be away much longer; for he is a man of<br>such resource that even though he were in chains of iron he would find<br>some means of getting home again. But tell me, and tell me true, can<br>Ulysses really have such a fine looking fellow for a son? You are<br>indeed wonderfully like him about the head and eyes, for we were close<br>friends before he set sail for Troy where the flower of all the<br>Argives went also. Since that time we have never either of us seen the<br>other."<br>"My mother," answered Telemachus, tells me I am son to Ulysses,<br>but it is a wise child that knows his own father. Would that I were<br>son to one who had grown old upon his own estates, for, since you<br>ask me, there is no more ill-starred man under heaven than he who they<br>tell me is my father."<br>And Minerva said, "There is no fear of your race dying out yet,<br>while Penelope has such a fine son as you are. But tell me, and tell<br>me true, what is the meaning of all this feasting, and who are these<br>people? What is it all about? Have you some banquet, or is there a<br>wedding in the family- for no one seems to be bringing any<br>provisions of his own? And the guests- how atrociously they are<br>behaving; what riot they make over the whole house; it is enough to<br>disgust any respectable person who comes near them."<br>"Sir," said Telemachus, "as regards your question, so long as my<br>father was here it was well with us and with the house, but the gods<br>in their displeasure have willed it otherwise, and have hidden him<br>away more closely than mortal man was ever yet hidden. I could have<br>borne it better even though he were dead, if he had fallen with his<br>men before Troy, or had died with friends around him when the days<br>of his fighting were done; for then the Achaeans would have built a<br>mound over his ashes, and I should myself have been heir to his<br>renown; but now the storm-winds have spirited him away we know not<br>wither; he is gone without leaving so much as a trace behind him,<br>and I inherit nothing but dismay. Nor does the matter end simply<br>with grief for the loss of my father; heaven has laid sorrows upon<br>me of yet another kind; for the chiefs from all our islands,<br>Dulichium, Same, and the woodland island of Zacynthus, as also all the<br>principal men of Ithaca itself, are eating up my house under the<br>pretext of paying their court to my mother, who will neither point<br>blank say that she will not marry, nor yet bring matters to an end; so<br>they are making havoc of my estate, and before long will do so also<br>with myself."<br>"Is that so?" exclaimed Minerva, "then you do indeed want Ulysses<br>home again. Give him his helmet, shield, and a couple lances, and if<br>he is the man he was when I first knew him in our house, drinking<br>and making merry, he would soon lay his hands about these rascally<br>suitors, were he to stand once more upon his own threshold. He was<br>then coming from Ephyra, where he had been to beg poison for his<br>arrows from Ilus, son of Mermerus. Ilus feared the ever-living gods<br>and would not give him any, but my father let him have some, for he<br>was very fond of him. If Ulysses is the man he then was these<br>suitors will have a short shrift and a sorry wedding.<br>"But there! It rests with heaven to determine whether he is to<br>return, and take his revenge in his own house or no; I would, however,<br>urge you to set about trying to get rid of these suitors at once. Take<br>my advice, call the Achaean heroes in assembly to-morrow -lay your<br>case before them, and call heaven to bear you witness. Bid the suitors<br>take themselves off, each to his own place, and if your mother's<br>mind is set on marrying again, let her go back to her father, who will<br>find her a husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts that so<br>dear a daughter may expect. As for yourself, let me prevail upon you<br>to take the best ship you can get, with a crew of twenty men, and go<br>in quest of your father who has so long been missing. Some one may<br>tell you something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some<br>heaven-sent message may direct you. First go to Pylos and ask<br>Nestor; thence go on to Sparta and visit Menelaus, for he got home<br>last of all the Achaeans; if you hear that your father is alive and on<br>his way home, you can put up with the waste these suitors will make<br>for yet another twelve months. If on the other hand you hear of his<br>death, come home at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due<br>pomp, build a barrow to his memory, and make your mother marry<br>again. Then, having done all this, think it well over in your mind<br>how, by fair means or foul, you may kill these suitors in your own<br>house. You are too old to plead infancy any longer; have you not heard<br>how people are singing Orestes' praises for having killed his father's<br>murderer Aegisthus? You are a fine, smart looking fellow; show your<br>mettle, then, and make yourself a name in story. Now, however, I<br>must go back to my ship and to my crew, who will be impatient if I<br>keep them waiting longer; think the matter over for yourself, and<br>remember what I have said to you."<br>"Sir," answered Telemachus, "it has been very kind of you to talk to<br>me in this way, as though I were your own son, and I will do all you<br>tell me; I know you want to be getting on with your voyage, but stay a<br>little longer till you have taken a bath and refreshed yourself. I<br>will then give you a present, and you shall go on your way<br>rejoicing; I will give you one of great beauty and value- a keepsake<br>such as only dear friends give to one another."<br>Minerva answered, "Do not try to keep me, for I would be on my way<br>at once. As for any present you may be disposed to make me, keep it<br>till I come again, and I will take it home with me. You shall give<br>me a very good one, and I will give you one of no less value in<br>return."<br>With these words she flew away like a bird into the air, but she had<br>given Telemachus courage, and had made him think more than ever<br>about his father. He felt the change, wondered at it, and knew that<br>the stranger had been a god, so he went straight to where the<br>suitors were sitting.<br>Phemius was still singing, and his hearers sat rapt in silence as he<br>told the sad tale of the return from Troy, and the ills Minerva had<br>laid upon the Achaeans. Penelope, daughter of Icarius, heard his<br>song from her room upstairs, and came down by the great staircase, not<br>alone, but attended by two of her handmaids. When she reached the<br>suitors she stood by one of the bearing posts that supported the<br>roof of the cloisters with a staid maiden on either side of her. She<br>held a veil, moreover, before her face, and was weeping bitterly.<br>"Phemius," she cried, "you know many another feat of gods and<br>heroes, such as poets love to celebrate. Sing the suitors some one<br>of these, and let them drink their wine in silence, but cease this sad<br>tale, for it breaks my sorrowful heart, and reminds me of my lost<br>husband whom I mourn ever without ceasing, and whose name was great<br>over all Hellas and middle Argos."<br>"Mother," answered Telemachus, "let the bard sing what he has a mind<br>to; bards do not make the ills they sing of; it is Jove, not they, who<br>makes them, and who sends weal or woe upon mankind according to his<br>own good pleasure. This fellow means no harm by singing the<br>ill-fated return of the Danaans, for people always applaud the<br>latest songs most warmly. Make up your mind to it and bear it; Ulysses<br>is not the only man who never came back from Troy, but many another<br>went down as well as he. Go, then, within the house and busy<br>yourself with your daily duties, your loom, your distaff, and the<br>ordering of your servants; for speech is man's matter, and mine<br>above all others- for it is I who am master here."<br>She went wondering back into the house, and laid her son's saying in<br>her heart. Then, going upstairs with her handmaids into her room,<br>she mourned her dear husband till Minerva shed sweet sleep over her<br>eyes. But the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered cloisters,<br>and prayed each one that he might be her bed fellow.<br>Then Telemachus spoke, "Shameless," he cried, "and insolent suitors,<br>let us feast at our pleasure now, and let there be no brawling, for it<br>is a rare thing to hear a man with such a divine voice as Phemius has;<br>but in the morning meet me in full assembly that I may give you formal<br>notice to depart, and feast at one another's houses, turn and turn<br>about, at your own cost. If on the other hand you choose to persist in<br>spunging upon one man, heaven help me, but Jove shall reckon with<br>you in full, and when you fall in my father's house there shall be<br>no man to avenge you."<br>The suitors bit their lips as they heard him, and marvelled at the<br>boldness of his speech. Then, Antinous, son of Eupeithes, said, "The<br>gods seem to have given you lessons in bluster and tall talking; may<br>Jove never grant you to be chief in Ithaca as your father was before<br>you."<br>Telemachus answered, "Antinous, do not chide with me, but, god<br>willing, I will be chief too if I can. Is this the worst fate you<br>can think of for me? It is no bad thing to be a chief, for it brings<br>both riches and honour. Still, now that Ulysses is dead there are many<br>great men in Ithaca both old and young, and some other may take the<br>lead among them; nevertheless I will be chief in my own house, and<br>will rule those whom Ulysses has won for me."<br>Then Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered, "It rests with heaven<br>to decide who shall be chief among us, but you shall be master in your<br>own house and over your own possessions; no one while there is a man<br>in Ithaca shall do you violence nor rob you. And now, my good<br>fellow, I want to know about this stranger. What country does he<br>come from? Of what family is he, and where is his estate? Has he<br>brought you news about the return of your father, or was he on<br>business of his own? He seemed a well-to-do man, but he hurried off so<br>suddenly that he was gone in a moment before we could get to know<br>him."<br>"My father is dead and gone," answered Telemachus, "and even if some<br>rumour reaches me I put no more faith in it now. My mother does indeed<br>sometimes send for a soothsayer and question him, but I give his<br>prophecyings no heed. As for the stranger, he was Mentes, son of<br>Anchialus, chief of the Taphians, an old friend of my father's." But<br>in his heart he knew that it had been the goddess.<br>The suitors then returned to their singing and dancing until the<br>evening; but when night fell upon their pleasuring they went home to<br>bed each in his own abode. Telemachus's room was high up in a tower<br>that looked on to the outer court; hither, then, he hied, brooding and<br>full of thought. A good old woman, Euryclea, daughter of Ops, the<br>son of Pisenor, went before him with a couple of blazing torches.<br>Laertes had bought her with his own money when she was quite young; he<br>gave the worth of twenty oxen for her, and shewed as much respect to<br>her in his household as he did to his own wedded wife, but he did<br>not take her to his bed for he feared his wife's resentment. She it<br>was who now lighted Telemachus to his room, and she loved him better<br>than any of the other women in the house did, for she had nursed him<br>when he was a baby. He opened the door of his bed room and sat down<br>upon the bed; as he took off his shirt he gave it to the good old<br>woman, who folded it tidily up, and hung it for him over a peg by<br>his bed side, after which she went out, pulled the door to by a silver<br>catch, and drew the bolt home by means of the strap. But Telemachus as<br>he lay covered with a woollen fleece kept thinking all night through<br>of his intended voyage of the counsel that Minerva had given him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Homer">Homer</a>, translated by Samuel Butler<div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=410314" data-title="The Odyssey: Book 1 de Homer" data-description="Tell me, o muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide/after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit,/and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was/acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea ..."></div> </div> </div>

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