The Odyssey - Book 1 Reading

The Odyssey of Homer, Book 1, Athena Visits Telemachus Tell me, Muse, the story of that resourceful man who was driven to wander far and wide after he had sacked the holy citadel of Troy. He saw the cities of many people, and he learned their ways. He suffered great anguish on the high seas in his struggles to preserve his life and bring his comrades home. But he failed to save those comrades, in spite of all his efforts. It was their own transgression that brought them to their doom, for in their folly they devoured the oxen of Hyperion, the sun god, and he saw to it that they would never return. Tell us this story, goddess daughter of Zeus, beginning at whatever point you will. All the survivors of the war had reached their homes by now, and so put the perils of battle to rest. Odysseus alone was prevented from returning to the home and wife he yearned for by that powerful goddess, the nymph Calypso, who longed for him to marry her and kept him in her vaulted cave. Not even when the rolling seasons brought in the year which the gods had chosen for his homecoming to Ithaca was he clear of his troubles and safe among his friends. Yet all the gods pitied him, except Poseidon. He pursued the heroic Odysseus with relentless malice till the day when he reached his own country. Poseidon, however, was now gone on a visit to the distant Ethiopians in the most remote part of the world, half of whom live where the sun goes down and half where he rises. He had gone to accept a sacrifice of bulls and rams, and there he sat and enjoyed the pleasures of the feast. Meanwhile, the rest of the gods had assembled in the palace of Olympian Zeus, where a number of men and gods opened a discussion among them. He had been thinking of the handsome Aegisthus, whom Agamemnon's far-famed son Orestes killed, and it was with Aegisthus in mind that Zeus now addressed the immortals. "What a lamentable thing it is that men should blame the gods and regard us as the source of their troubles, when it is their own transgressions which bring them suffering that was not their destiny." "Consider Aegisthus. It was not his destiny to steal Agamemnon's wife and murder her husband when he came home." "He knew the result would be utter disaster, since we ourselves had sent Hermes, the keen-eyed giant slayer, to warn him neither to kill the man nor to court his wife." "For Orestes, as Hermes told him, was bound to avenge Agamemnon as soon as he grew up and thought with longing of his home." "Yet, with all his friendly counsel, Hermes failed to dissuade him, and now Aegisthus has paid the final price for all his sins." The goddess of the flashing eyes, Athena, answered him at once: "Father of ours, son of Kronos, king of kings, Aegisthus' end is just what he deserved." "May all who act as he did share his fate." "It is for Odysseus that my heart is wrung, the wise and unlucky Odysseus." "Who has been parted so long from all his friends, and is pining on a lonely island far away in the middle of the seas." "The island is well wooded, and a goddess lives there, the child of the malevolent Atlas, who knows the depth of all the seas and supports the great columns that hold earth and sky apart." "It is his daughter who is keeping the unhappy man from home, grieving." "Day after day she does her best to banish Ithaca from his memory, so that she may take him back to her home." "And Odysseus, who would give anything for the mere sight of the smoke rising up from his own land, can only yearn for death." "Yet your Olympian heart is quite unmoved. Tell me, did the sacrifices he made you by the Argives' ships on the plains of Troy find no favour in your sight?" "Why are you at odds with Odysseus, Zeus?" "Nonsense, my child," replied the gatherer of the clouds. "How could I ever forget the admirable Odysseus? He is not only the wisest man alive, but has been the most generous in offerings to the immortals who live in the wide heaven." "It is Poseidon, sustainer of the earth, who is so implacable towards him, on account of the Cyclops, godlike Polyphemus, the most powerful of the Cyclopes, whom Odysseus blinded." "His mother was the Nymph Thusa, daughter of Phocas, lord of the salt sea waves. It was Poseidon who gave her this child when he slept with her in her cavern hollowed by the sea." "That is why, ever since Polyphemus was blinded, Poseidon the Earthshaker has kept Odysseus in exile, though he stops short of killing him." "But come now, let all of us here together contrive a plan to bring him home. Poseidon will relent, for he will not be able to struggle on alone against the united will of the immortal gods." Bright-eyed Athena answered him, "Father of ours, son of Kronos, king of kings, if it is now the pleasure of the blessed gods that the wise Odysseus shall return to Ithaca, let us send our messenger, Hermes the giant-killer, to the isle of Agygia, so that he can immediately tell Calypso, the nymph with the plaited tresses, of our unalterable decision that the patient Odysseus must now set out for home." "Meanwhile, I myself will go to Ithaca to instill more spirit into Odysseus' son and encourage him to call the Lord, to call the long-haired Achaeans to an assembly and speak his mind to that crowd of suitors who spend their time in the wholesale slaughter of his jostling sheep and his shambling cattle with their twisted horns. After that, I shall send him to Sparta and to Sandy Pylos to seek news of his father's return. It is possible that he may hear of him and so win the praise of men." This said, Athena bound on her feet her lovely sandals of untarnishable gold, the speed of the wind over the water or the unending land, and seized her heavy spear with its point of sharpened bronze, the huge, long spear with which she breaks the ranks of noble warriors when she, the daughter of the mighty father, is angry with them. She flashed down from the heights of Olympus, and on reaching Ithaca, she took her stand on the threshold of the court in front of Odysseus' house. And to look like a visitor, she assumed the appearance of a family friend, the Taphian chieftain Mentes, bronze spear in hand. She found the insolent suitors sitting in front of the door on hides of oxen they themselves had slaughtered, playing with counters. Their squires and pages were busy round them, some blending wine and water in the mixing bowls, and others carving meat in lavish portions and wiping down the tables with sponges before they set them ready. The first to see her was Telemachus, the godlike youth, who was sitting disconsolate among the suitors, imagining how his noble father might come back out of the blue, drive the suitors headlong from the house, and so regain his royal honours, and reign over his house once more. Full of these visions, he caught sight of Athena, and set off at once for the porch, ashamed that a stranger should be kept standing at the gates. He went straight up to his visitor, grasped his right hand, took his bronze spear, and gave him cordial greetings. "Welcome, friend," he said. "You can tell us what has brought you here, when you have had some food." With this he led the way, and Pallas Athena followed. Once inside the lofty hall, he took her spear and put it by one of the great pillars in a wooden rack among the many spears of the patient Odysseus. He then conducted her to a beautiful carved chair, over which he spread a linen cloth, and seated her there with a stool for her feet. For himself he drew up an ornate easy-chair, well away from the crowd of suitors, for fear that his guest might take offence at the uproar, and finding himself in such ill-mannered company, turn with distaste from his meal. Moreover, he wished to question him about his absent father. Presently a maid came with water in a fine golden jug, and poured it out over a silver basin for them to rinse their hands. She then drew a polished table to their side, and the faithful housekeeper brought some bread and set it by them with a choice of delicacies, helping them liberally to all she could offer. Meanwhile a steward served them plates of various meats he had selected from his board, and put gold cups beside them, which a steward filled with wine as he passed on his frequent rounds. The suitors came swaggering in, and sat down in rows on the seats and chairs. Their squires poured water on their hands, and the maids put piles of bread and bowls beside them, while the pages filled the mixing bowls to the brim with wine. They helped themselves to the good things spread before them, and when all had satisfied their hunger and thirst, the suitors turned their thoughts to other activities, music and dancing, which add to the pleasures of a banquet. A herald brought a beautiful lyre and handed it to Phemius, the minstrel whom they had forced into their service. He had just struck the first notes for some delightful song, when Telemachus spoke to bright-eyed Athena, with his head close to hers, so that the others could not hear. "Friend, will you be angry if I say something?" "How easy it is for that gang over there to think of nothing but music and dancing!" songs. They are living free off another man, a man whose white bones are rotting in the rain upon some distant land or rolling in the salt sea waves. One glimpse of him in Ithaca and they'd pray for a faster pair of legs rather than gold or rich clothes. But as it is, he has come to some dreadful end. No one on earth can bring us a spark of comfort by telling us that he'll come back. The day for that is gone forever. But tell me honestly who you are and where you come from. What is your native town? Who are your parents? And since you certainly cannot have come on foot, what kind of vessel brought you here? How did the crew come to land you in Ithaca? And who did they claim to be? And tell me the truth. I'd like to know. Is this your first visit to Ithaca or has my father received you before? He used to entertain in our house just as often as he visited abroad. I will tell you everything honestly, answered the bright-eyed goddess Athena. My father was the wise prince Anchialus. My own name is Mentes and I am chieftain of the seafaring Taphians. As for my arrival in Ithaca, I came with my own ship and crew across the wine-dark sea. We are bound for the foreign port of Temisa with a cargo of gleaming iron, which we mean to trade for bronze. My ship is not berthed near the city, but over there by the open country in Rythron Cove under the woods of Nihon. As for our families, the ties between them go a long way back, as the old lord Laertes would tell you if you went and asked him. For I gather that he no longer comes to the town, but lives a miserable existence on his distant farm with an old woman servant, who puts his food and drink before him when he has tired himself out by dragging himself up and down his vineyard on the hill. The reason for my presence here is this. I actually heard that he was home. I mean your father. But the gods must be hindering his return, because the good Odysseus is not dead, but alive somewhere on this earth. He must be on some distant island out in the sea, in the hands of enemies, savages no doubt, who keep him there by force. Now I am no seer or soothsayer, but I will venture on a prophecy to you which the immortal gods put into my mind. I am certain that you will come. Your father will not be exiled much longer from the land he loves so well. Not even if he is kept in iron chains. He will think of a way to return. He is endlessly resourceful. But are you really Odysseus's son? How you have grown! You certainly have his head and fine eyes. The likeness is startling to one who met him as often as I did, though that was before he and the other great men of Argos all set out for Troy in their hollow ships. From that day to this, Odysseus and I have never set eyes on each other. "My friend," answered the courteous Telemachus, "I will be honest, too. My mother certainly says I am Odysseus's son. But for myself, I cannot tell. No man can be certain of his parentage. If only I were the son of some lucky man overtaken by old age among his own belongings. As it is, and since you ask me, the man whose son they say I am is the most unfortunate man that ever lived." "And yet," said the goddess of the flashing eyes, "with Penelope for your mother, I cannot think that your house is doomed to an inglorious state." "But here is another matter I should like you to explain. What is the banquet for? Who are all these people? How are you concerned? Is it a private dinner or a wedding feast? Obviously these men have not brought their own food. At any rate, these banqueters in your house strike me as domineering and insolent. Any decent man would be disgusted at the sight of such disgraceful behavior." "My friend," the courteous Telemachus replied, "I am sorry, but you may well ask. There was a time when this house was, by way of being prosperous and respectable, when Odysseus was still among us. But since then the gods have had other and more sinister designs. And they have served him as they never served a man before. They have made him vanish. His death itself, if he had fallen among his men at Troy or died in friendly arms at home with all his fighting done, would have caused me less distress. For in that case, the whole Achaean nation would have joined in building him a mound and he would have left a great name for his son to inherit. But there was to be no famous end for him. The storm fiends have snatched him away. He has gone where he cannot be seen or found, and to me has left nothing but sorrow and tears. Nor is it only on his account that I am sighing and grieving. The gods have gone on piling other troubles on my head. Of all the island chieftains in Dulicium, in Same, and in wooded Zakynthos, all the nobles in rocky Ithaca, there is not one that isn't courting my mother and wasting my property. As for her, though she hates the idea of remarrying, she cannot bring herself to take the final step of rejecting all the suitors, or accepting one of them. Meanwhile they are eating me out of house and home, and they will very soon destroy me too. Halas Athena was moved. "How disgraceful!" she cried. "Oh, how you miss your father! How much you need him to lay his hands on this dissolute mob!" If only he could show himself at this moment at the palace gates, with his helmet, his shield, and his two spears, just as he was when I first saw him, drinking and in happy mood in our house, that time he came up from a fire after a long visit to Mermyrus' son Elos. He had sailed there in search of a deadly poison to smear on the bronze tips of his arrows, and Elos, a god-fearing man, refused to supply him. But my father, who loved him dearly, gave it to him. Yes, if only Odysseus, as he then was, could confront these suitors, there'd be a quick death and a sorry wedding for them all. Such matters, of course, lie in the lap of the gods. They must decide whether or not he is to come back and settle accounts in his palace. Meanwhile, I do urge you to find some way of ridding the house of these suitors, and listen carefully to what I suggest. Tomorrow morning, call the Achaean lords to assembly and announce your decision to them all, asking the gods to witness what you say. Tell the suitors to leave and go home. As for your mother, if she is set on marrying, let her go back to her father's house. He is a man of consequence, and the family will arrange a marriage and see that she has a generous dowry, as is only right for a beloved daughter. For yourself, here is my advice: it is sound, and I hope you will take it. Choose your best ship, man her with twenty oarsmen, and set out to inquire after your long-absent father. Someone may be able to tell you about him, or you may pick up one of those rumors from Zeus that so often turn out to be true. Go to Pylos first, and question the excellent Nestor. Then on to Sparta to see auburn-haired Menelaus. Ask the bronze-armed Achaeans to reach home. If you hear that your father is alive and on his way back, you should reconcile yourself to a year more of this wastage. But if you hear that he is dead and gone, return to your own country, build a mound with all the proper funeral rites, and give your mother in marriage to a new husband. This settled and done, you must think of some way of destroying this mob in your house, either by cunning or an open fight. You are no longer a child. You must break away from it and put childish thoughts away. Have you not heard what a name Orestes made for himself in the world, when he killed the cunning Aegisthus for murdering his noble father? You my friend, and what a tall and splendid young man you have grown, must be as brave as Orestes. Then future generations will sing your praises. But my crew must be tired of waiting for me, and I must now go to my good ship. I leave the matter in your hands. Think over what I have said. "Sir," said the thoughtful Telemachus, "you have spoken to me out of the kindness of your heart like a father talking to his son, and I shall never forget your words. Though you are anxious to be on your way, stay a little longer so that you can bathe and refresh yourself. Then you can go to your ship in a happy frame of mind, taking with you as a keepsake from myself something precious and beautiful, the sort of present that one gives to a guest who has become a friend." "No," said the Bright-eyed Goddess, "I am eager to be on my way. Do not detain me now. As for the gift you kindly suggest, let me take it home with me on my way back. Make it the best you can find, and you won't lose by the exchange." The Goddess spoke, and the next moment she was gone, vanishing like a bird through a hole in the roof. In Telemachus' heart she had implanted spirit and daring, and had brought the image of his father to his mind even more strongly than before. He felt the change and was overcome with awe, for he realized a god had been with him. Then, godlike himself, he rejoined the suitors. He found them listening in silence to a song which their famous bard was singing to them about the Achaeans' return from Troy, and the disasters that Pallas Athena made them suffer. room upstairs, Penelope, the gracious daughter of Icarius, took in the words of his stirring ballad and came down from her quarters by the steep staircase, not alone, but with two waiting women in attendance. When she came near her suitors, the great lady drew a fold of her shining veil across her cheeks and took her stand by a pillar of the massive roof with one of her faithful maids on either side. Then, bursting into tears, she broke in on the inspired minstrel. Phemius, she said, with your knowledge of the ballads that poets have made about the deeds of men or gods, you could enchant us with many other tales rather than this. Choose one of those now for your audience here and let them drink their wine in peace, but give us no more of your present song. It is too sad. It never fails to ring my heart. For in that catastrophe, no one was dealt a heavier blow than I, who pass my days in mourning for the best of husbands, the man whose name rings through the land from Hellas to the heart of Argos. But the prudent Telemachus intervened. Mother, he said, why grudge our loyal bard the right to entertain us as the spirit moves him? Surely it is not the poets who are responsible for what happens, but Zeus himself, who deals with each of us toilers on earth. As he sees fit, we cannot blame Phemius if he chooses to sing of the Danaeans' tragic fate, for it is always the latest song that an audience applauds the most. You must be brave and nerve yourself to listen, for Odysseus is not the only one who has never returned from Troy. Troy was the end of many another man. So go to your quarters now and attend to your own work, the loom and the spindle, and tell the servants to get on with theirs, making decisions must be men's concern, and mine in particular, for I am master in this house. Penelope was taken aback, but she retired to her own apartment, where she took her son's sensible words to heart. Attended by her maids, she went upstairs to her bedroom, and there she wept for Odysseus, her beloved husband, till bright-eyed Athena closed her eyes in sweet sleep. In a shadowy hall, the suitors burst into uproar, and each man voiced a prayer that he might sleep with her. But the thoughtful Telemachus called them to order. Gentlemen, he cried, from you who caught my mother, this is sheer insolence. For the moment, let us dine and enjoy ourselves, but quietly, for it is a lovely thing to listen to a minstrel such as we have here, with a voice like a god's. But in the morning, I propose that we all take our places, and that we may be able to enjoy ourselves, and that we may be able to enjoy places in assembly, so that I can announce my demand that you quit my palace. Yes, you can feast yourselves somewhere else, and eat your provisions in each other's homes. But if you think it is sound a scheme to destroy one man's estate, and not make restitution, then eat your fill, while I pray that Zeus will bring a day of reckoning, when in this house I will destroy you, and not make restitution. It amazed them all that Telemachus should have the audacity to adopt this tone, and they could only bite their lips. But at last, Antonus, Epithes' son, spoke up in answer. It is obvious that the gods are teaching you this bold and haughty way of speaking. Being your father's son, you are heir to this island realm. Heaven grant that you may never be its king. Antonus, the prudent Telemachus answered, it may disappoint you to learn that I would gladly accept that office from the hands of Zeus. Perhaps you argue that nothing worse could happen to a man. I, on the contrary, maintain that it is no bad thing to be a king, to see one's house enriched and one's authority enhanced. However, the Achaeans are not short of princes. Young and old they swarm and sea-gird Ithaca. And since the great Odysseus is dead, let one of them succeed him. But I intend at least to be master of my own house and the servants whom my royal father won for me in war. This time it was Eurymachus, son of Polybus, who answered him. Telemachus, the gods must of course decide who is to be our king and sea-gird Ithaca. But by all means, keep your own belongings and rule your own house. I pray that no one comes and lays violent hands on your property, as long as there are people in Ithaca. But my dear Telemachus, do tell us something about that guest of yours. Where did the man come from? What account does he give of his country? Who might his people be? And what is his native land? Does he bring news of your father's coming? Or is he here on business of his own? He looked distinguished, but he jumped up and was gone so suddenly that he gave no one time to get to know him. Eurymachus, the sensible Telemachus replied, it is certain that my father will never come back. So I no longer believe any rumors whatever their source, nor have I any use for the skill of such diviners as my mother may call in for consultation. As for my guest, he is an old friend of my father from Tafos. He introduced himself as Mentes, the son of wise Anchialus, and chieftain of the seafaring Tafians. That is what Telemachus said, but in his heart he knew her for an immortal goddess. Telemachus, busy with his thoughts, retired to his own bedroom, a lofty chamber in the fine courtyard with a clear view on every side. He was escorted by the faithful Eurycleia, who carried a blazing torch. This Eurycleia was the daughter of Ops and granddaughter of Pisonor, the son of the queen of Tafos. Laertes had procured her at his own cost long ago, when she was still a girl, the price of twenty oxen. He had treated her in his home with all the respect due to a loyal wife, though for fear of his wife's displeasure he had not slept with her. It was she who now served as torchbearer to his grandson, and she who of all the household women loved him most, for she had nursed him as a child. Telemachus threw open the door of his solid built room, sat down on the bed, and took off his soft tunic, which he put in the wise old woman's hands. After folding it and smoothing it out, she hung it on a peg by the wooden bedstead and withdrew from the bedroom, pulling the door too by the silver handle, and shooting the bolt home by means of its leather thong. And there all the night long, under his woolen blanket, Telemachus lay, planning in his mind the journey that Athena had suggested. The End.