typing_rust

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A small typing test program in Rust

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Jaglekon <58274093+Jaglekon@users.noreply.github.com>2026-09-26 22:27 UTC

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Added file: assets/oddyssey.txt+4321 additions@@ -0,0 +1,10230 @@
+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 while trying to save his
+own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could
+not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in
+eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them
+from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, oh
+daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them.
+
+So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely
+home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his
+wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him
+into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by, there
+came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to Ithaca;
+even then, however, when he was among his own people, his troubles were
+not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him
+except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not
+let him get home.
+
+Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world's end,
+and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East. He had
+gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was enjoying
+himself at his festival; but the other gods met in the house of
+Olympian Jove, and the sire of gods and men spoke first. At that moment
+he was thinking of Aegisthus, who had been killed by Agamemnon's son
+Orestes; so he said to the other gods:
+
+"See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing
+but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs make love to
+Agamemnon's wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon, though he knew
+it would be the death of him; for I sent Mercury to warn him not to do
+either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his
+revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home. Mercury told him
+this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has paid for
+everything in full."
+
+Then Minerva said, "Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, it served
+Aegisthus right, and so it would any one else who does as he did; but
+Aegisthus is neither here nor there; it is for Ulysses that my heart
+bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt island,
+far away, poor man, from all his friends. It is an island covered with
+forest, in the very middle of the sea, and a goddess lives there,
+daughter of the magician Atlas, who looks after the bottom of the
+ocean, and carries the great columns that keep heaven and earth
+asunder. This daughter of Atlas has got hold of poor unhappy Ulysses,
+and keeps trying by every kind of blandishment to make him forget his
+home, so that he is tired of life, and thinks of nothing but how he may
+once more see the smoke of his own chimneys. You, sir, take no heed of
+this, and yet when Ulysses was before Troy did he not propitiate you
+with many a burnt sacrifice? Why then should you keep on being so angry
+with him?"
+
+And Jove said, "My child, what are you talking about? How can I forget
+Ulysses than whom there is no more capable man on earth, nor more
+liberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in heaven? Bear
+in mind, however, that Neptune is still furious with Ulysses for having
+blinded an eye of Polyphemus king of the Cyclopes. Polyphemus is son to
+Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter to the sea-king Phorcys;
+therefore though he will not kill Ulysses outright, he torments him by
+preventing him from getting home. Still, let us lay our heads together
+and see how we can help him to return; Neptune will then be pacified,
+for if we are all of a mind he can hardly stand out against us."
+
+And Minerva said, "Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, if, then, the
+gods now mean that Ulysses should get home, we should first send
+Mercury to the Ogygian island to tell Calypso that we have made up our
+minds and that he is to return. In the meantime I will go to Ithaca, to
+put heart into Ulysses' son Telemachus; I will embolden him to call the
+Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother
+Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I
+will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear
+anything about the return of his dear father—for this will make people
+speak well of him."
+
+So saying she bound on her glittering golden sandals, imperishable,
+with which she can fly like the wind over land or sea; she grasped the
+redoubtable bronze-shod spear, so stout and sturdy and strong,
+wherewith she quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased her, and
+down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus, whereon forthwith
+she was in Ithaca, at the gateway of Ulysses' house, disguised as a
+visitor, Mentes, chief of the Taphians, and she held a bronze spear in
+her hand. There she found the lordly suitors seated on hides of the
+oxen which they had killed and eaten, and playing draughts in front of
+the house. Men-servants and pages were bustling about to wait upon
+them, some mixing wine with water in the mixing-bowls, some cleaning
+down the tables with wet sponges and laying them out again, and some
+cutting up great quantities of meat.
+
+Telemachus saw her long before any one else did. He was sitting moodily
+among the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how he would
+send them flying out of the house, if he were to come to his own again
+and be honoured as in days gone by. Thus brooding as he sat among them,
+he caught sight of Minerva and went straight to the gate, for he was
+vexed that a stranger should be kept waiting for admittance. He took
+her right hand in his own, and bade her give him her spear. "Welcome,"
+said he, "to our house, and when you have partaken of food you shall
+tell us what you have come for."
+
+He led the way as he spoke, and Minerva followed him. When they were
+within he took her spear and set it in the spear-stand against a strong
+bearing-post along with the many other spears of his unhappy father,
+and he conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he threw a
+cloth of damask. There was a footstool also for her feet, and he set
+another seat near her for himself, away from the suitors, that she
+might not be annoyed while eating by their noise and insolence, and
+that he might ask her more freely about his father.
+
+A maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer and
+poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands, and she
+drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them bread,
+and offered them many good things of what there was in the house, the
+carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and set cups of gold
+by their side, and a manservant brought them wine and poured it out for
+them.
+
+
+Then the suitors came in and took their places on the benches and
+seats. Forthwith men servants poured water over their hands, maids
+went round with the bread-baskets, pages filled the mixing-bowls with
+wine and water, and they laid their hands upon the good things that
+were before them. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink they
+wanted music and dancing, which are the crowning embellishments of a
+banquet, so a servant brought a lyre to Phemius, whom they compelled
+perforce to sing to them. As soon as he touched his lyre and began to
+sing Telemachus spoke low to Minerva, with his head close to hers that
+no man might hear.
+
+"I hope, sir," said he, "that you will not be offended with what I am
+going to say. Singing comes cheap to those who do not pay for it, and
+all this is done at the cost of one whose bones lie rotting in some
+wilderness or grinding to powder in the surf. If these men were to see
+my father come back to Ithaca they would pray for longer legs rather
+than a longer purse, for money would not serve them; but he, alas, has
+fallen on an ill fate, and even when people do sometimes say that he is
+coming, we no longer heed them; we shall never see him again. And now,
+sir, tell me and tell me true, who you are and where you come from.
+Tell me of your town and parents, what manner of ship you came in, how
+your crew brought you to Ithaca, and of what nation they declared
+themselves to be—for you cannot have come by land. Tell me also truly,
+for I want to know, are you a stranger to this house, or have you been
+here in my father's time? In the old days we had many visitors for my
+father went about much himself."
+
+And Minerva answered, "I will tell you truly and particularly all about
+it. I am Mentes, son of Anchialus, and I am King of the Taphians. I
+have come here with my ship and crew, on a voyage to men of a foreign
+tongue being bound for Temesa with a cargo of iron, and I shall bring
+back copper. As for my ship, it lies over yonder off the open country
+away from the town, in the harbour Rheithron under the wooded mountain
+Neritum. Our fathers were friends before us, as old Laertes will tell
+you, if you will go and ask him. They say, however, that he never comes
+to town now, and lives by himself in the country, faring hardly, with
+an old woman to look after him and get his dinner for him, when he
+comes in tired from pottering about his vineyard. They told me your
+father was at home again, and that was why I came, but it seems the
+gods are still keeping him back, for he is not dead yet not on the
+mainland. It is more likely he is on some sea-girt island in mid ocean,
+or a prisoner among savages who are detaining him against his will. I
+am no prophet, and know very little about omens, but I speak as it is
+borne in upon me from heaven, and assure you that he will not be away
+much longer; for he is a man of such resource that even though he were
+in chains of iron he would find some means of getting home again. But
+tell me, and tell me true, can Ulysses really have such a fine looking
+fellow for a son? You are indeed wonderfully like him about the head
+and eyes, for we were close friends before he set sail for Troy where
+the flower of all the Argives went also. Since that time we have never
+either of us seen the other."
+
+"My mother," answered Telemachus, "tells me I am son to Ulysses, but it
+is a wise child that knows his own father. Would that I were son to one
+who had grown old upon his own estates, for, since you ask me, there is
+no more ill-starred man under heaven than he who they tell me is my
+father."
+
+And Minerva said, "There is no fear of your race dying out yet, while
+Penelope has such a fine son as you are. But tell me, and tell me true,
+what is the meaning of all this feasting, and who are these people?
+What is it all about? Have you some banquet, or is there a wedding in
+the family—for no one seems to be bringing any provisions of his own?
+And the guests—how atrociously they are behaving; what riot they make
+over the whole house; it is enough to disgust any respectable person
+who comes near them."
+
+"Sir," said Telemachus, "as regards your question, so long as my father
+was here it was well with us and with the house, but the gods in their
+displeasure have willed it otherwise, and have hidden him away more
+closely than mortal man was ever yet hidden. I could have borne it
+better even though he were dead, if he had fallen with his men before
+Troy, or had died with friends around him when the days of his fighting
+were done; for then the Achaeans would have built a mound over his
+ashes, and I should myself have been heir to his renown; but now the
+storm-winds have spirited him away we know not whither; he is gone
+without leaving so much as a trace behind him, and I inherit nothing
+but dismay. Nor does the matter end simply with grief for the loss of
+my father; heaven has laid sorrows upon me of yet another kind; for the
+chiefs from all our islands, Dulichium, Same, and the woodland island
+of Zacynthus, as also all the principal men of Ithaca itself, are
+eating up my house under the pretext of paying their court to my
+mother, who will neither point blank say that she will not marry, nor
+yet bring matters to an end; so they are making havoc of my estate, and
+before long will do so also with myself."
+
+"Is that so?" exclaimed Minerva, "then you do indeed want Ulysses home
+again. Give him his helmet, shield, and a couple of lances, and if he
+is the man he was when I first knew him in our house, drinking and
+making merry, he would soon lay his hands about these rascally suitors,
+were he to stand once more upon his own threshold. He was then coming
+from Ephyra, where he had been to beg poison for his arrows from Ilus,
+son of Mermerus. Ilus feared the ever-living gods and would not give
+him any, but my father let him have some, for he was very fond of him.
+If Ulysses is the man he then was these suitors will have a short
+shrift and a sorry wedding.
+
+"But there! It rests with heaven to determine whether he is to return,
+and take his revenge in his own house or no; I would, however, urge you
+to set about trying to get rid of these suitors at once. Take my
+advice, call the Achaean heroes in assembly to-morrow morning—lay your
+case before them, and call heaven to bear you witness. Bid the suitors
+take themselves off, each to his own place, and if your mother's mind
+is set on marrying again, let her go back to her father, who will find
+her a husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts that so dear
+a daughter may expect. As for yourself, let me prevail upon you to take
+the best ship you can get, with a crew of twenty men, and go in quest
+of your father who has so long been missing. Some one may tell you
+something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some
+heaven-sent message may direct you. First go to Pylos and ask Nestor;
+thence go on to Sparta and visit Menelaus, for he got home last of all
+the Achaeans; if you hear that your father is alive and on his way
+home, you can put up with the waste these suitors will make for yet
+another twelve months. If on the other hand you hear of his death, come
+home at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due pomp, build a
+barrow to his memory, and make your mother marry again. Then, having
+done all this, think it well over in your mind how, by fair means or
+foul, you may kill these suitors in your own house. You are too old to
+plead infancy any longer; have you not heard how people are singing
+Orestes' praises for having killed his father's murderer Aegisthus? You
+are a fine, smart looking fellow; show your mettle, then, and make
+yourself a name in story. Now, however, I must go back to my ship and
+to my crew, who will be impatient if I keep them waiting longer; think
+the matter over for yourself, and remember what I have said to you."
+
+"Sir," answered Telemachus, "it has been very kind of you to talk to me
+in this way, as though I were your own son, and I will do all you tell
+me; I know you want to be getting on with your voyage, but stay a
+little longer till you have taken a bath and refreshed yourself. I will
+then give you a present, and you shall go on your way rejoicing; I will
+give you one of great beauty and value—a keepsake such as only dear
+friends give to one another."
+
+Minerva answered, "Do not try to keep me, for I would be on my way at
+once. As for any present you may be disposed to make me, keep it till I
+come again, and I will take it home with me. You shall give me a very
+good one, and I will give you one of no less value in return."
+
+With these words she flew away like a bird into the air, but she had
+given Telemachus courage, and had made him think more than ever about
+his father. He felt the change, wondered at it, and knew that the
+stranger had been a god, so he went straight to where the suitors were
+sitting.
+
+Phemius was still singing, and his hearers sat rapt in silence as he
+told the sad tale of the return from Troy, and the ills Minerva had
+laid upon the Achaeans. Penelope, daughter of Icarius, heard his song
+from her room upstairs, and came down by the great staircase, not
+alone, but attended by two of her handmaids. When she reached the
+suitors she stood by one of the bearing posts that supported the roof
+of the cloisters with a staid maiden on either side of her. She held a
+veil, moreover, before her face, and was weeping bitterly.
+
+"Phemius," she cried, "you know many another feat of gods and heroes,
+such as poets love to celebrate. Sing the suitors some one of these,
+and let them drink their wine in silence, but cease this sad tale, for
+it breaks my sorrowful heart, and reminds me of my lost husband whom I
+mourn ever without ceasing, and whose name was great over all Hellas
+and middle Argos."
+
+"Mother," answered Telemachus, "let the bard sing what he has a mind
+to; bards do not make the ills they sing of; it is Jove, not they, who
+makes them, and who sends weal or woe upon mankind according to his own
+good pleasure. This fellow means no harm by singing the ill-fated
+return of the Danaans, for people always applaud the latest songs most
+warmly. Make up your mind to it and bear it; Ulysses is not the only
+man who never came back from Troy, but many another went down as well
+as he. Go, then, within the house and busy yourself with your daily
+duties, your loom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants; for
+speech is man's matter, and mine above all others —for it is I who am
+master here."
+
+She went wondering back into the house, and laid her son's saying in
+her heart. Then, going upstairs with her handmaids into her room, she
+mourned her dear husband till Minerva shed sweet sleep over her eyes.
+But the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered cloisters, and
+prayed each one that he might be her bed fellow.
+
+Then Telemachus spoke, "Shameless," he cried, "and insolent suitors,
+let us feast at our pleasure now, and let there be no brawling, for it
+is a rare thing to hear a man with such a divine voice as Phemius has;
+but in the morning meet me in full assembly that I may give you formal
+notice to depart, and feast at one another's houses, turn and turn
+about, at your own cost. If on the other hand you choose to persist in
+spunging upon one man, heaven help me, but Jove shall reckon with you
+in full, and when you fall in my father's house there shall be no man
+to avenge you."
+
+The suitors bit their lips as they heard him, and marvelled at the
+boldness of his speech. Then, Antinous, son of Eupeithes, said, "The
+gods seem to have given you lessons in bluster and tall talking; may
+Jove never grant you to be chief in Ithaca as your father was before
+you."
+
+Telemachus answered, "Antinous, do not chide with me, but, god willing,
+I will be chief too if I can. Is this the worst fate you can think of
+for me? It is no bad thing to be a chief, for it brings both riches and
+honour. Still, now that Ulysses is dead there are many great men in
+Ithaca both old and young, and some other may take the lead among them;
+nevertheless I will be chief in my own house, and will rule those whom
+Ulysses has won for me."
+
+Then Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered, "It rests with heaven to
+decide who shall be chief among us, but you shall be master in your own
+house and over your own possessions; no one while there is a man in
+Ithaca shall do you violence nor rob you. And now, my good fellow, I
+want to know about this stranger. What country does he come from? Of
+what family is he, and where is his estate? Has he brought you news
+about the return of your father, or was he on business of his own? He
+seemed a well to do man, but he hurried off so suddenly that he was
+gone in a moment before we could get to know him."
+
+"My father is dead and gone," answered Telemachus, "and even if some
+rumour reaches me I put no more faith in it now. My mother does indeed
+sometimes send for a soothsayer and question him, but I give his
+prophecyings no heed. As for the stranger, he was Mentes, son of
+Anchialus, chief of the Taphians, an old friend of my father's." But in
+his heart he knew that it had been the goddess.
+
+The suitors then returned to their singing and dancing until the
+evening; but when night fell upon their pleasuring they went home to
+bed each in his own abode. Telemachus's room was high up in a tower
+that looked on to the outer court; hither, then, he hied, brooding and
+full of thought. A good old woman, Euryclea, daughter of Ops, the son
+of Pisenor, went before him with a couple of blazing torches. Laertes
+had bought her with his own money when she was quite young; he gave the
+worth of twenty oxen for her, and shewed as much respect to her in his
+household as he did to his own wedded wife, but he did not take her to
+his bed for he feared his wife's resentment. She it was who now
+lighted Telemachus to his room, and she loved him better than any of
+the other women in the house did, for she had nursed him when he was a
+baby. He opened the door of his bed room and sat down upon the bed; as
+he took off his shirt he gave it to the good old woman, who folded it
+tidily up, and hung it for him over a peg by his bed side, after which
+she went out, pulled the door to by a silver catch, and drew the bolt
+home by means of the strap. But Telemachus as he lay covered with a
+woollen fleece kept thinking all night through of his intended voyage
+and of the counsel that Minerva had given him.
+
+Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared Telemachus
+rose and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely feet,
+girded his sword about his shoulder, and left his room looking like an
+immortal god. He at once sent the criers round to call the people in
+assembly, so they called them and the people gathered thereon; then,
+when they were got together, he went to the place of assembly spear in
+hand—not alone, for his two hounds went with him. Minerva endowed him
+with a presence of such divine comeliness that all marvelled at him as
+he went by, and when he took his place in his father's seat even the
+oldest councillors made way for him.
+
+Aegyptius, a man bent double with age, and of infinite experience, was
+the first to speak. His son Antiphus had gone with Ulysses to Ilius,
+land of noble steeds, but the savage Cyclops had killed him when they
+were all shut up in the cave, and had cooked his last dinner for him.
+He had three sons left, of whom two still worked on their father's
+land, while the third, Eurynomus, was one of the suitors; nevertheless
+their father could not get over the loss of Antiphus, and was still
+weeping for him when he began his speech.
+
+"Men of Ithaca," he said, "hear my words. From the day Ulysses left us
+there has been no meeting of our councillors until now; who then can it
+be, whether old or young, that finds it so necessary to convene us? Has
+he got wind of some host approaching, and does he wish to warn us, or
+would he speak upon some other matter of public moment? I am sure he is
+an excellent person, and I hope Jove will grant him his heart's
+desire."
+
+Telemachus took this speech as of good omen and rose at once, for he
+was bursting with what he had to say. He stood in the middle of the
+assembly and the good herald Pisenor brought him his staff. Then,
+turning to Aegyptius, "Sir," said he, "it is I, as you will shortly
+learn, who have convened you, for it is I who am the most aggrieved. I
+have not got wind of any host approaching about which I would warn you,
+nor is there any matter of public moment on which I would speak. My
+grievance is purely personal, and turns on two great misfortunes which
+have fallen upon my house. The first of these is the loss of my
+excellent father, who was chief among all you here present, and was
+like a father to every one of you; the second is much more serious, and
+ere long will be the utter ruin of my estate. The sons of all the chief
+men among you are pestering my mother to marry them against her will.
+They are afraid to go to her father Icarius, asking him to choose the
+one he likes best, and to provide marriage gifts for his daughter, but
+day by day they keep hanging about my father's house, sacrificing our
+oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much
+as a thought to the quantity of wine they drink. No estate can stand
+such recklessness; we have now no Ulysses to ward off harm from our
+doors, and I cannot hold my own against them. I shall never all my days
+be as good a man as he was, still I would indeed defend myself if I had
+power to do so, for I cannot stand such treatment any longer; my house
+is being disgraced and ruined. Have respect, therefore, to your own
+consciences and to public opinion. Fear, too, the wrath of heaven, lest
+the gods should be displeased and turn upon you. I pray you by Jove and
+Themis, who is the beginning and the end of councils, [do not hold
+back, my friends, and leave me singlehanded—unless it be that my
+brave father Ulysses did some wrong to the Achaeans which you would now
+avenge on me, by aiding and abetting these suitors. Moreover, if I am
+to be eaten out of house and home at all, I had rather you did the
+eating yourselves, for I could then take action against you to some
+purpose, and serve you with notices from house to house till I got paid
+in full, whereas now I have no remedy."
+
+With this Telemachus dashed his staff to the ground and burst into
+tears. Every one was very sorry for him, but they all sat still and no
+one ventured to make him an angry answer, save only Antinous, who spoke
+thus:
+
+"Telemachus, insolent braggart that you are, how dare you try to throw
+the blame upon us suitors? It is your mother's fault not ours, for she
+is a very artful woman. This three years past, and close on four, she
+had been driving us out of our minds, by encouraging each one of us,
+and sending him messages without meaning one word of what she says. And
+then there was that other trick she played us. She set up a great
+tambour frame in her room, and began to work on an enormous piece of
+fine needlework. 'Sweet hearts,' said she, 'Ulysses is indeed dead,
+still do not press me to marry again immediately, wait—for I would not
+have skill in needlework perish unrecorded—till I have completed a pall
+for the hero Laertes, to be in readiness against the time when death
+shall take him. He is very rich, and the women of the place will talk
+if he is laid out without a pall.'
+
+"This was what she said, and we assented; whereon we could see her
+working on her great web all day long, but at night she would unpick
+the stitches again by torchlight. She fooled us in this way for three
+years and we never found her out, but as time wore on and she was now
+in her fourth year, one of her maids who knew what she was doing told
+us, and we caught her in the act of undoing her work, so she had to
+finish it whether she would or no. The suitors, therefore, make you
+this answer, that both you and the Achaeans may understand—'Send your
+mother away, and bid her marry the man of her own and of her father's
+choice'; for I do not know what will happen if she goes on plaguing us
+much longer with the airs she gives herself on the score of the
+accomplishments Minerva has taught her, and because she is so clever.
+We never yet heard of such a woman; we know all about Tyro, Alcmena,
+Mycene, and the famous women of old, but they were nothing to your
+mother any one of them. It was not fair of her to treat us in that way,
+and as long as she continues in the mind with which heaven has now
+endowed her, so long shall we go on eating up your estate; and I do not
+see why she should change, for she gets all the honour and glory, and
+it is you who pay for it, not she. Understand, then, that we will not
+go back to our lands, neither here nor elsewhere, till she has made her
+choice and married some one or other of us."
+
+Telemachus answered, "Antinous, how can I drive the mother who bore me
+from my father's house? My father is abroad and we do not know whether
+he is alive or dead. It will be hard on me if I have to pay Icarius the
+large sum which I must give him if I insist on sending his daughter
+back to him. Not only will he deal rigorously with me, but heaven will
+also punish me; for my mother when she leaves the house will call on
+the Erinyes to avenge her; besides, it would not be a creditable thing
+to do, and I will have nothing to say to it. If you choose to take
+offence at this, leave the house and feast elsewhere at one another's
+houses at your own cost turn and turn about. If, on the other hand, you
+elect to persist in spunging upon one man, heaven help me, but Jove
+shall reckon with you in full, and when you fall in my father's house
+there shall be no man to avenge you."
+
+As he spoke Jove sent two eagles from the top of the mountain, and they
+flew on and on with the wind, sailing side by side in their own lordly
+flight. When they were right over the middle of the assembly they
+wheeled and circled about, beating the air with their wings and glaring
+death into the eyes of them that were below; then, fighting fiercely
+and tearing at one another, they flew off towards the right over the
+town. The people wondered as they saw them, and asked each other what
+all this might be; whereon Halitherses, who was the best prophet and
+reader of omens among them, spoke to them plainly and in all honesty,
+saying:
+
+"Hear me, men of Ithaca, and I speak more particularly to the suitors,
+for I see mischief brewing for them. Ulysses is not going to be away
+much longer; indeed he is close at hand to deal out death and
+destruction, not on them alone, but on many another of us who live in
+Ithaca. Let us then be wise in time, and put a stop to this wickedness
+before he comes. Let the suitors do so of their own accord; it will be
+better for them, for I am not prophesying without due knowledge;
+everything has happened to Ulysses as I foretold when the Argives set
+out for Troy, and he with them. I said that after going through much
+hardship and losing all his men he should come home again in the
+twentieth year and that no one would know him; and now all this is
+coming true."
+
+Eurymachus son of Polybus then said, "Go home, old man, and prophesy to
+your own children, or it may be worse for them. I can read these omens
+myself much better than you can; birds are always flying about in the
+sunshine somewhere or other, but they seldom mean anything. Ulysses has
+died in a far country, and it is a pity you are not dead along with
+him, instead of prating here about omens and adding fuel to the anger
+of Telemachus which is fierce enough as it is. I suppose you think he
+will give you something for your family, but I tell you—and it shall
+surely be—when an old man like you, who should know better, talks a
+young one over till he becomes troublesome, in the first place his
+young friend will only fare so much the worse—he will take nothing by
+it, for the suitors will prevent this—and in the next, we will lay a
+heavier fine, sir, upon yourself than you will at all like paying, for
+it will bear hardly upon you. As for Telemachus, I warn him in the
+presence of you all to send his mother back to her father, who will
+find her a husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts so dear
+a daughter may expect. Till then we shall go on harassing him with our
+suit; for we fear no man, and care neither for him, with all his fine
+speeches, nor for any fortune-telling of yours. You may preach as much
+as you please, but we shall only hate you the more. We shall go back
+and continue to eat up Telemachus's estate without paying him, till
+such time as his mother leaves off tormenting us by keeping us day
+after day on the tiptoe of expectation, each vying with the other in
+his suit for a prize of such rare perfection. Besides we cannot go
+after the other women whom we should marry in due course, but for the
+way in which she treats us."
+
+Then Telemachus said, "Eurymachus, and you other suitors, I shall say
+no more, and entreat you no further, for the gods and the people of
+Ithaca now know my story. Give me, then, a ship and a crew of twenty
+men to take me hither and thither, and I will go to Sparta and to Pylos
+in quest of my father who has so long been missing. Some one may tell
+me something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some
+heaven-sent message may direct me. If I can hear of him as alive and on
+his way home I will put up with the waste you suitors will make for yet
+another twelve months. If on the other hand I hear of his death, I will
+return at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due pomp, build a
+barrow to his memory, and make my mother marry again."
+
+With these words he sat down, and Mentor who had been a friend of
+Ulysses, and had been left in charge of everything with full authority
+over the servants, rose to speak. He, then, plainly and in all honesty
+addressed them thus:
+
+"Hear me, men of Ithaca, I hope that you may never have a kind and
+well-disposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern you equitably; I
+hope that all your chiefs henceforward may be cruel and unjust, for
+there is not one of you but has forgotten Ulysses, who ruled you as
+though he were your father. I am not half so angry with the suitors,
+for if they choose to do violence in the naughtiness of their hearts,
+and wager their heads that Ulysses will not return, they can take the
+high hand and eat up his estate, but as for you others I am shocked at
+the way in which you all sit still without even trying to stop such
+scandalous goings on—which you could do if you chose, for you are many
+and they are few."
+
+Leiocritus, son of Evenor, answered him saying, "Mentor, what folly is
+all this, that you should set the people to stay us? It is a hard thing
+for one man to fight with many about his victuals. Even though Ulysses
+himself were to set upon us while we are feasting in his house, and do
+his best to oust us, his wife, who wants him back so very badly, would
+have small cause for rejoicing, and his blood would be upon his own
+head if he fought against such great odds. There is no sense in what
+you have been saying. Now, therefore, do you people go about your
+business, and let his father's old friends, Mentor and Halitherses,
+speed this boy on his journey, if he goes at all—which I do not think
+he will, for he is more likely to stay where he is till some one comes
+and tells him something."
+
+On this he broke up the assembly, and every man went back to his own
+abode, while the suitors returned to the house of Ulysses.
+
+Then Telemachus went all alone by the sea side, washed his hands in the
+grey waves, and prayed to Minerva.
+
+"Hear me," he cried, "you god who visited me yesterday, and bade me
+sail the seas in search of my father who has so long been missing. I
+would obey you, but the Achaeans, and more particularly the wicked
+suitors, are hindering me that I cannot do so."
+
+As he thus prayed, Minerva came close up to him in the likeness and
+with the voice of Mentor. "Telemachus," said she, "if you are made of
+the same stuff as your father you will be neither fool nor coward
+henceforward, for Ulysses never broke his word nor left his work half
+done. If, then, you take after him, your voyage will not be fruitless,
+but unless you have the blood of Ulysses and of Penelope in your veins
+I see no likelihood of your succeeding. Sons are seldom as good men as
+their fathers; they are generally worse, not better; still, as you are
+not going to be either fool or coward henceforward, and are not
+entirely without some share of your father's wise discernment, I look
+with hope upon your undertaking. But mind you never make common cause
+with any of those foolish suitors, for they have neither sense nor
+virtue, and give no thought to death and to the doom that will shortly
+fall on one and all of them, so that they shall perish on the same day.
+As for your voyage, it shall not be long delayed; your father was such
+an old friend of mine that I will find you a ship, and will come with
+you myself. Now, however, return home, and go about among the suitors;
+begin getting provisions ready for your voyage; see everything well
+stowed, the wine in jars, and the barley meal, which is the staff of
+life, in leathern bags, while I go round the town and beat up
+volunteers at once. There are many ships in Ithaca both old and new; I
+will run my eye over them for you and will choose the best; we will get
+her ready and will put out to sea without delay."
+
+Thus spoke Minerva daughter of Jove, and Telemachus lost no time in
+doing as the goddess told him. He went moodily home, and found the
+suitors flaying goats and singeing pigs in the outer court. Antinous
+came up to him at once and laughed as he took his hand in his own,
+saying, "Telemachus, my fine fire-eater, bear no more ill blood neither
+in word nor deed, but eat and drink with us as you used to do. The
+Achaeans will find you in everything—a ship and a picked crew to
+boot—so that you can set sail for Pylos at once and get news of your
+noble father."
+
+"Antinous," answered Telemachus, "I cannot eat in peace, nor take
+pleasure of any kind with such men as you are. Was it not enough that
+you should waste so much good property of mine while I was yet a boy?
+Now that I am older and know more about it, I am also stronger, and
+whether here among this people, or by going to Pylos, I will do you all
+the harm I can. I shall go, and my going will not be in vain—though,
+thanks to you suitors, I have neither ship nor crew of my own, and must
+be passenger not captain."
+
+As he spoke he snatched his hand from that of Antinous. Meanwhile the
+others went on getting dinner ready about the buildings, jeering at
+him tauntingly as they did so.
+
+"Telemachus," said one youngster, "means to be the death of us; I
+suppose he thinks he can bring friends to help him from Pylos, or again
+from Sparta, where he seems bent on going. Or will he go to Ephyra as
+well, for poison to put in our wine and kill us?"
+
+Another said, "Perhaps if Telemachus goes on board ship, he will be
+like his father and perish far from his friends. In this case we should
+have plenty to do, for we could then divide up his property amongst us:
+as for the house we can let his mother and the man who marries her have
+that."
+
+This was how they talked. But Telemachus went down into the lofty and
+spacious store-room where his father's treasure of gold and bronze lay
+heaped up upon the floor, and where the linen and spare clothes were
+kept in open chests. Here, too, there was a store of fragrant olive
+oil, while casks of old, well-ripened wine, unblended and fit for a god
+to drink, were ranged against the wall in case Ulysses should come home
+again after all. The room was closed with well-made doors opening in
+the middle; moreover the faithful old house-keeper Euryclea, daughter
+of Ops the son of Pisenor, was in charge of everything both night and
+day. Telemachus called her to the store-room and said:
+
+"Nurse, draw me off some of the best wine you have, after what you are
+keeping for my father's own drinking, in case, poor man, he should
+escape death, and find his way home again after all. Let me have twelve
+jars, and see that they all have lids; also fill me some well-sewn
+leathern bags with barley meal—about twenty measures in all. Get these
+things put together at once, and say nothing about it. I will take
+everything away this evening as soon as my mother has gone upstairs for
+the night. I am going to Sparta and to Pylos to see if I can hear
+anything about the return of my dear father."
+
+When Euryclea heard this she began to cry, and spoke fondly to him,
+saying, "My dear child, what ever can have put such notion as that into
+your head? Where in the world do you want to go to—you, who are the one
+hope of the house? Your poor father is dead and gone in some foreign
+country nobody knows where, and as soon as your back is turned these
+wicked ones here will be scheming to get you put out of the way, and
+will share all your possessions among themselves; stay where you are
+among your own people, and do not go wandering and worrying your life
+out on the barren ocean."
+
+"Fear not, nurse," answered Telemachus, "my scheme is not without
+heaven's sanction; but swear that you will say nothing about all this
+to my mother, till I have been away some ten or twelve days, unless she
+hears of my having gone, and asks you; for I do not want her to spoil
+her beauty by crying."
+
+The old woman swore most solemnly that she would not, and when she had
+completed her oath, she began drawing off the wine into jars, and
+getting the barley meal into the bags, while Telemachus went back to
+the suitors.
+
+Then Minerva bethought her of another matter. She took his shape, and
+went round the town to each one of the crew, telling them to meet at
+the ship by sundown. She went also to Noemon son of Phronius, and asked
+him to let her have a ship—which he was very ready to do. When the sun
+had set and darkness was over all the land, she got the ship into the
+water, put all the tackle on board her that ships generally carry, and
+stationed her at the end of the harbour. Presently the crew came up,
+and the goddess spoke encouragingly to each of them.
+
+Furthermore she went to the house of Ulysses, and threw the suitors
+into a deep slumber. She caused their drink to fuddle them, and made
+them drop their cups from their hands, so that instead of sitting over
+their wine, they went back into the town to sleep, with their eyes
+heavy and full of drowsiness. Then she took the form and voice of
+Mentor, and called Telemachus to come outside.
+
+"Telemachus," said she, "the men are on board and at their oars,
+waiting for you to give your orders, so make haste and let us be off."
+
+On this she led the way, while Telemachus followed in her steps. When
+they got to the ship they found the crew waiting by the water side, and
+Telemachus said, "Now my men, help me to get the stores on board; they
+are all put together in the cloister, and my mother does not know
+anything about it, nor any of the maid servants except one."
+
+With these words he led the way and the others followed after. When
+they had brought the things as he told them, Telemachus went on board,
+Minerva going before him and taking her seat in the stern of the
+vessel, while Telemachus sat beside her. Then the men loosed the
+hawsers and took their places on the benches. Minerva sent them a fair
+wind from the West, that whistled over the deep blue waves whereon
+Telemachus told them to catch hold of the ropes and hoist sail, and
+they did as he told them. They set the mast in its socket in the cross
+plank, raised it, and made it fast with the forestays; then they
+hoisted their white sails aloft with ropes of twisted ox hide. As the
+sail bellied out with the wind, the ship flew through the deep blue
+water, and the foam hissed against her bows as she sped onward. Then
+they made all fast throughout the ship, filled the mixing bowls to the
+brim, and made drink offerings to the immortal gods that are from
+everlasting, but more particularly to the grey-eyed daughter of Jove.
+
+Thus, then, the ship sped on her way through the watches of the night
+from dark till dawn.
+
+but as the sun was rising from the fair sea into the firmament of
+heaven to shed light on mortals and immortals, they reached Pylos the
+city of Neleus. Now the people of Pylos were gathered on the sea shore
+to offer sacrifice of black bulls to Neptune lord of the Earthquake.
+There were nine guilds with five hundred men in each, and there were
+nine bulls to each guild. As they were eating the inward meats and
+burning the thigh bones [on the embers in the name of Neptune,
+Telemachus and his crew arrived, furled their sails, brought their ship
+to anchor, and went ashore.
+
+Minerva led the way and Telemachus followed her. Presently she said,
+"Telemachus, you must not be in the least shy or nervous; you have
+taken this voyage to try and find out where your father is buried and
+how he came by his end; so go straight up to Nestor that we may see
+what he has got to tell us. Beg of him to speak the truth, and he will
+tell no lies, for he is an excellent person."
+
+"But how, Mentor," replied Telemachus, "dare I go up to Nestor, and how
+am I to address him? I have never yet been used to holding long
+conversations with people, and am ashamed to begin questioning one who
+is so much older than myself."
+
+"Some things, Telemachus," answered Minerva, "will be suggested to you
+by your own instinct, and heaven will prompt you further; for I am
+assured that the gods have been with you from the time of your birth
+until now."
+
+She then went quickly on, and Telemachus followed in her steps till
+they reached the place where the guilds of the Pylian people were
+assembled. There they found Nestor sitting with his sons, while his
+company round him were busy getting dinner ready, and putting pieces of
+meat on to the spits while other pieces were cooking. When they saw
+the strangers they crowded round them, took them by the hand and bade
+them take their places. Nestor's son Pisistratus at once offered his
+hand to each of them, and seated them on some soft sheepskins that were
+lying on the sands near his father and his brother Thrasymedes. Then he
+gave them their portions of the inward meats and poured wine for them
+into a golden cup, handing it to Minerva first, and saluting her at the
+same time.
+
+"Offer a prayer, sir," said he, "to King Neptune, for it is his feast
+that you are joining; when you have duly prayed and made your drink
+offering, pass the cup to your friend that he may do so also. I doubt
+not that he too lifts his hands in prayer, for man cannot live without
+God in the world. Still he is younger than you are, and is much of an
+age with myself, so I will give you the precedence."
+
+As he spoke he handed her the cup. Minerva thought it very right and
+proper of him to have given it to herself first; she accordingly
+began praying heartily to Neptune. "O thou," she cried, "that
+encirclest the earth, vouchsafe to grant the prayers of thy servants
+that call upon thee. More especially we pray thee send down thy grace
+on Nestor and on his sons; thereafter also make the rest of the Pylian
+people some handsome return for the goodly hecatomb they are offering
+you. Lastly, grant Telemachus and myself a happy issue, in respect of
+the matter that has brought us in our ship to Pylos."
+
+When she had thus made an end of praying, she handed the cup to
+Telemachus and he prayed likewise. By and by, when the outer meats were
+roasted and had been taken off the spits, the carvers gave every man
+his portion and they all made an excellent dinner. As soon as they had
+had enough to eat and drink, Nestor, knight of Gerene, began to speak.
+
+"Now," said he, "that our guests have done their dinner, it will be
+best to ask them who they are. Who, then, sir strangers, are you, and
+from what port have you sailed? Are you traders? or do you sail the
+seas as rovers with your hand against every man, and every man's hand
+against you?"
+
+Telemachus answered boldly, for Minerva had given him courage to ask
+about his father and get himself a good name.
+
+"Nestor," said he, "son of Neleus, honour to the Achaean name, you ask
+whence we come, and I will tell you. We come from Ithaca under
+Neritum, and the matter about which I would speak is of private not
+public import. I seek news of my unhappy father Ulysses, who is said to
+have sacked the town of Troy in company with yourself. We know what
+fate befell each one of the other heroes who fought at Troy, but as
+regards Ulysses heaven has hidden from us the knowledge even that he is
+dead at all, for no one can certify us in what place he perished, nor
+say whether he fell in battle on the mainland, or was lost at sea amid
+the waves of Amphitrite. Therefore I am suppliant at your knees, if
+haply you may be pleased to tell me of his melancholy end, whether you
+saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some other traveller, for
+he was a man born to trouble. Do not soften things out of any pity for
+me, but tell me in all plainness exactly what you saw. If my brave
+father Ulysses ever did you loyal service, either by word or deed, when
+you Achaeans were harassed among the Trojans, bear it in mind now as in
+my favour and tell me truly all."
+
+"My friend," answered Nestor, "you recall a time of much sorrow to my
+mind, for the brave Achaeans suffered much both at sea, while
+privateering under Achilles, and when fighting before the great city of
+king Priam. Our best men all of them fell there—Ajax, Achilles,
+Patroclus peer of gods in counsel, and my own dear son Antilochus, a
+man singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant. But we suffered much
+more than this; what mortal tongue indeed could tell the whole story?
+Though you were to stay here and question me for five years, or even
+six, I could not tell you all that the Achaeans suffered, and you would
+turn homeward weary of my tale before it ended. Nine long years did we
+try every kind of stratagem, but the hand of heaven was against us;
+during all this time there was no one who could compare with your
+father in subtlety—if indeed you are his son—I can hardly believe my
+eyes—and you talk just like him too—no one would say that people of
+such different ages could speak so much alike. He and I never had any
+kind of difference from first to last neither in camp nor council, but
+in singleness of heart and purpose we advised the Argives how all might
+be ordered for the best.
+
+"When, however, we had sacked the city of Priam, and were setting sail
+in our ships as heaven had dispersed us, then Jove saw fit to vex the
+Argives on their homeward voyage; for they had not all been either wise
+or understanding, and hence many came to a bad end through the
+displeasure of Jove's daughter Minerva, who brought about a quarrel
+between the two sons of Atreus.
+
+"The sons of Atreus called a meeting which was not as it should be, for
+it was sunset and the Achaeans were heavy with wine. When they
+explained why they had called the people together, it seemed that
+Menelaus was for sailing homeward at once, and this displeased
+Agamemnon, who thought that we should wait till we had offered
+hecatombs to appease the anger of Minerva. Fool that he was, he might
+have known that he would not prevail with her, for when the gods have
+made up their minds they do not change them lightly. So the two stood
+bandying hard words, whereon the Achaeans sprang to their feet with a
+cry that rent the air, and were of two minds as to what they should do.
+
+"That night we rested and nursed our anger, for Jove was hatching
+mischief against us. But in the morning some of us drew our ships into
+the water and put our goods with our women on board, while the rest,
+about half in number, stayed behind with Agamemnon. We—the other
+half—embarked and sailed; and the ships went well, for heaven had
+smoothed the sea. When we reached Tenedos we offered sacrifices to the
+gods, for we were longing to get home; cruel Jove, however, did not yet
+mean that we should do so, and raised a second quarrel in the course of
+which some among us turned their ships back again, and sailed away
+under Ulysses to make their peace with Agamemnon; but I, and all the
+ships that were with me pressed forward, for I saw that mischief was
+brewing. The son of Tydeus went on also with me, and his crews with
+him. Later on Menelaus joined us at Lesbos, and found us making up our
+minds about our course—for we did not know whether to go outside Chios
+by the island of Psyra, keeping this to our left, or inside Chios, over
+against the stormy headland of Mimas. So we asked heaven for a sign,
+and were shown one to the effect that we should be soonest out of
+danger if we headed our ships across the open sea to Euboea. This we
+therefore did, and a fair wind sprang up which gave us a quick passage
+during the night to Geraestus, where we offered many sacrifices to
+Neptune for having helped us so far on our way. Four days later Diomed
+and his men stationed their ships in Argos, but I held on for Pylos,
+and the wind never fell light from the day when heaven first made it
+fair for me.
+
+"Therefore, my dear young friend, I returned without hearing anything
+about the others. I know neither who got home safely nor who were lost
+but, as in duty bound, I will give you without reserve the reports that
+have reached me since I have been here in my own house. They say the
+Myrmidons returned home safely under Achilles' son Neoptolemus; so also
+did the valiant son of Poias, Philoctetes. Idomeneus, again, lost no
+men at sea, and all his followers who escaped death in the field got
+safe home with him to Crete. No matter how far out of the world you
+live, you will have heard of Agamemnon and the bad end he came to at
+the hands of Aegisthus—and a fearful reckoning did Aegisthus presently
+pay. See what a good thing it is for a man to leave a son behind him to
+do as Orestes did, who killed false Aegisthus the murderer of his noble
+father. You too, then—for you are a tall smart-looking fellow—show your
+mettle and make yourself a name in story."
+
+"Nestor son of Neleus," answered Telemachus, "honour to the Achaean
+name, the Achaeans applaud Orestes and his name will live through all
+time for he has avenged his father nobly. Would that heaven might grant
+me to do like vengeance on the insolence of the wicked suitors, who are
+ill treating me and plotting my ruin; but the gods have no such
+happiness in store for me and for my father, so we must bear it as best
+we may."
+
+"My friend," said Nestor, "now that you remind me, I remember to have
+heard that your mother has many suitors, who are ill disposed towards
+you and are making havoc of your estate. Do you submit to this tamely,
+or are public feeling and the voice of heaven against you? Who knows
+but what Ulysses may come back after all, and pay these scoundrels in
+full, either single-handed or with a force of Achaeans behind him? If
+Minerva were to take as great a liking to you as she did to Ulysses
+when we were fighting before Troy (for I never yet saw the gods so
+openly fond of any one as Minerva then was of your father), if she
+would take as good care of you as she did of him, these wooers would
+soon some of them forget their wooing."
+
+Telemachus answered, "I can expect nothing of the kind; it would be far
+too much to hope for. I dare not let myself think of it. Even though
+the gods themselves willed it no such good fortune could befall me."
+
+On this Minerva said, "Telemachus, what are you talking about? Heaven
+has a long arm if it is minded to save a man; and if it were me, I
+should not care how much I suffered before getting home, provided I
+could be safe when I was once there. I would rather this, than get home
+quickly, and then be killed in my own house as Agamemnon was by the
+treachery of Aegisthus and his wife. Still, death is certain, and when
+a man's hour is come, not even the gods can save him, no matter how
+fond they are of him."
+
+"Mentor," answered Telemachus, "do not let us talk about it any more.
+There is no chance of my father's ever coming back; the gods have long
+since counselled his destruction. There is something else, however,
+about which I should like to ask Nestor, for he knows much more than
+any one else does. They say he has reigned for three generations so
+that it is like talking to an immortal. Tell me, therefore, Nestor, and
+tell me true; how did Agamemnon come to die in that way? What was
+Menelaus doing? And how came false Aegisthus to kill so far better a
+man than himself? Was Menelaus away from Achaean Argos, voyaging
+elsewhither among mankind, that Aegisthus took heart and killed
+Agamemnon?"
+
+"I will tell you truly," answered Nestor, "and indeed you have yourself
+divined how it all happened. If Menelaus when he got back from Troy had
+found Aegisthus still alive in his house, there would have been no
+barrow heaped up for him, not even when he was dead, but he would have
+been thrown outside the city to dogs and vultures, and not a woman
+would have mourned him, for he had done a deed of great wickedness; but
+we were over there, fighting hard at Troy, and Aegisthus, who was
+taking his ease quietly in the heart of Argos, cajoled Agamemnon's wife
+Clytemnestra with incessant flattery.
+
+"At first she would have nothing to do with his wicked scheme, for she
+was of a good natural disposition; moreover there was a bard with
+her, to whom Agamemnon had given strict orders on setting out for Troy,
+that he was to keep guard over his wife; but when heaven had counselled
+her destruction, Aegisthus carried this bard off to a desert island and
+left him there for crows and seagulls to batten upon—after which she
+went willingly enough to the house of Aegisthus. Then he offered many
+burnt sacrifices to the gods, and decorated many temples with
+tapestries and gilding, for he had succeeded far beyond his
+expectations.
+
+"Meanwhile Menelaus and I were on our way home from Troy, on good terms
+with one another. When we got to Sunium, which is the point of Athens,
+Apollo with his painless shafts killed Phrontis the steersman of
+Menelaus' ship (and never man knew better how to handle a vessel in
+rough weather) so that he died then and there with the helm in his
+hand, and Menelaus, though very anxious to press forward, had to wait
+in order to bury his comrade and give him his due funeral rites.
+Presently, when he too could put to sea again, and had sailed on as far
+as the Malean heads, Jove counselled evil against him and made it blow
+hard till the waves ran mountains high. Here he divided his fleet and
+took the one half towards Crete where the Cydonians dwell round about
+the waters of the river Iardanus. There is a high headland hereabouts
+stretching out into the sea from a place called Gortyn, and all along
+this part of the coast as far as Phaestus the sea runs high when there
+is a south wind blowing, but after Phaestus the coast is more
+protected, for a small headland can make a great shelter. Here this
+part of the fleet was driven on to the rocks and wrecked; but the crews
+just managed to save themselves. As for the other five ships, they were
+taken by winds and seas to Egypt, where Menelaus gathered much gold and
+substance among people of an alien speech. Meanwhile Aegisthus here at
+home plotted his evil deed. For seven years after he had killed
+Agamemnon he ruled in Mycene, and the people were obedient under him,
+but in the eighth year Orestes came back from Athens to be his bane,
+and killed the murderer of his father. Then he celebrated the funeral
+rites of his mother and of false Aegisthus by a banquet to the people
+of Argos, and on that very day Menelaus came home, with as much
+treasure as his ships could carry.
+
+"Take my advice then, and do not go travelling about for long so far
+from home, nor leave your property with such dangerous people in your
+house; they will eat up everything you have among them, and you will
+have been on a fool's errand. Still, I should advise you by all means
+to go and visit Menelaus, who has lately come off a voyage among such
+distant peoples as no man could ever hope to get back from, when the
+winds had once carried him so far out of his reckoning; even birds
+cannot fly the distance in a twelve-month, so vast and terrible are the
+seas that they must cross. Go to him, therefore, by sea, and take your
+own men with you; or if you would rather travel by land you can have a
+chariot, you can have horses, and here are my sons who can escort you
+to Lacedaemon where Menelaus lives. Beg of him to speak the truth, and
+he will tell you no lies, for he is an excellent person."
+
+As he spoke the sun set and it came on dark, whereon Minerva said,
+"Sir, all that you have said is well; now, however, order the tongues
+of the victims to be cut, and mix wine that we may make drink-offerings
+to Neptune, and the other immortals, and then go to bed, for it is bed
+time. People should go away early and not keep late hours at a
+religious festival."
+
+Thus spoke the daughter of Jove, and they obeyed her saying. Men
+servants poured water over the hands of the guests, while pages filled
+the mixing-bowls with wine and water, and handed it round after giving
+every man his drink offering; then they threw the tongues of the
+victims into the fire, and stood up to make their drink offerings. When
+they had made their offerings and had drunk each as much as he was
+minded, Minerva and Telemachus were for going on board their ship, but
+Nestor caught them up at once and stayed them.
+
+"Heaven and the immortal gods," he exclaimed, "forbid that you should
+leave my house to go on board of a ship. Do you think I am so poor and
+short of clothes, or that I have so few cloaks and as to be unable to
+find comfortable beds both for myself and for my guests? Let me tell
+you I have store both of rugs and cloaks, and shall not permit the son
+of my old friend Ulysses to camp down on the deck of a ship—not while I
+live—nor yet will my sons after me, but they will keep open house as I
+have done."
+
+Then Minerva answered, "Sir, you have spoken well, and it will be much
+better that Telemachus should do as you have said; he, therefore, shall
+return with you and sleep at your house, but I must go back to give
+orders to my crew, and keep them in good heart. I am the only older
+person among them; the rest are all young men of Telemachus' own age,
+who have taken this voyage out of friendship; so I must return to the
+ship and sleep there. Moreover to-morrow I must go to the Cauconians
+where I have a large sum of money long owing to me. As for Telemachus,
+now that he is your guest, send him to Lacedaemon in a chariot, and let
+one of your sons go with him. Be pleased to also provide him with your
+best and fleetest horses."
+
+When she had thus spoken, she flew away in the form of an eagle, and
+all marvelled as they beheld it. Nestor was astonished, and took
+Telemachus by the hand. "My friend," said he, "I see that you are going
+to be a great hero some day, since the gods wait upon you thus while
+you are still so young. This can have been none other of those who
+dwell in heaven than Jove's redoubtable daughter, the Trito-born, who
+shewed such favour towards your brave father among the Argives. Holy
+queen," he continued, "vouchsafe to send down thy grace upon myself, my
+good wife, and my children. In return, I will offer you in sacrifice a
+broad-browed heifer of a year old, unbroken, and never yet brought by
+man under the yoke. I will gild her horns, and will offer her up to you
+in sacrifice."
+
+Thus did he pray, and Minerva heard his prayer. He then led the way to
+his own house, followed by his sons and sons in law. When they had got
+there and had taken their places on the benches and seats, he mixed
+them a bowl of sweet wine that was eleven years old when the
+housekeeper took the lid off the jar that held it. As he mixed the
+wine, he prayed much and made drink offerings to Minerva, daughter of
+Aegis-bearing Jove. Then, when they had made their drink offerings and
+had drunk each as much as he was minded, the others went home to bed
+each in his own abode; but Nestor put Telemachus to sleep in the room
+that was over the gateway along with Pisistratus, who was the only
+unmarried son now left him. As for himself, he slept in an inner room
+of the house, with the queen his wife by his side.
+
+Now when the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Nestor left
+his couch and took his seat on the benches of white and polished marble
+that stood in front of his house. Here aforetime sat Neleus, peer of
+gods in counsel, but he was now dead, and had gone to the house of
+Hades; so Nestor sat in his seat sceptre in hand, as guardian of the
+public weal. His sons as they left their rooms gathered round him,
+Echephron, Stratius, Perseus, Aretus, and Thrasymedes; the sixth son
+was Pisistratus, and when Telemachus joined them they made him sit with
+them. Nestor then addressed them.
+
+"My sons," said he, "make haste to do as I shall bid you. I wish first
+and foremost to propitiate the great goddess Minerva, who manifested
+herself visibly to me during yesterday's festivities. Go, then, one or
+other of you to the plain, tell the stockman to look me out a heifer,
+and come on here with it at once. Another must go to Telemachus' ship,
+and invite all the crew, leaving two men only in charge of the vessel.
+Some one else will run and fetch Laerceus the goldsmith to gild the
+horns of the heifer. The rest, stay all of you where you are; tell the
+maids in the house to prepare an excellent dinner, and to fetch seats,
+and logs of wood for a burnt offering. Tell them also to bring me some
+clear spring water."
+
+On this they hurried off on their several errands. The heifer was
+brought in from the plain, and Telemachus's crew came from the ship;
+the goldsmith brought the anvil, hammer, and tongs, with which he
+worked his gold, and Minerva herself came to accept the sacrifice.
+Nestor gave out the gold, and the smith gilded the horns of the heifer
+that the goddess might have pleasure in their beauty. Then Stratius and
+Echephron brought her in by the horns; Aretus fetched water from the
+house in a ewer that had a flower pattern on it, and in his other hand
+he held a basket of barley meal; sturdy Thrasymedes stood by with a
+sharp axe, ready to strike the heifer, while Perseus held a bucket.
+Then Nestor began with washing his hands and sprinkling the barley
+meal, and he offered many a prayer to Minerva as he threw a lock from
+the heifer's head upon the fire.
+
+When they had done praying and sprinkling the barley meal Thrasymedes
+dealt his blow, and brought the heifer down with a stroke that cut
+through the tendons at the base of her neck, whereon the daughters and
+daughters in law of Nestor, and his venerable wife Eurydice (she was
+eldest daughter to Clymenus) screamed with delight. Then they lifted
+the heifer's head from off the ground, and Pisistratus cut her throat.
+When she had done bleeding and was quite dead, they cut her up. They
+cut out the thigh bones all in due course, wrapped them round in two
+layers of fat, and set some pieces of raw meat on the top of them; then
+Nestor laid them upon the wood fire and poured wine over them, while
+the young men stood near him with five-pronged spits in their hands.
+When the thighs were burned and they had tasted the inward meats, they
+cut the rest of the meat up small, put the pieces on the spits and
+toasted them over the fire.
+
+Meanwhile lovely Polycaste, Nestor's youngest daughter, washed
+Telemachus. When she had washed him and anointed him with oil, she
+brought him a fair mantle and shirt, and he looked like a god as he
+came from the bath and took his seat by the side of Nestor. When the
+outer meats were done they drew them off the spits and sat down to
+dinner where they were waited upon by some worthy henchmen, who kept
+pouring them out their wine in cups of gold. As soon as they had had
+enough to eat and drink Nestor said, "Sons, put Telemachus's horses to
+the chariot that he may start at once."
+
+Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said, and yoked the
+fleet horses to the chariot. The housekeeper packed them up a provision
+of bread, wine, and sweet meats fit for the sons of princes. Then
+Telemachus got into the chariot, while Pisistratus gathered up the
+reins and took his seat beside him. He lashed the horses on and they
+flew forward nothing loth into the open country, leaving the high
+citadel of Pylos behind them. All that day did they travel, swaying the
+yoke upon their necks till the sun went down and darkness was over all
+the land. Then they reached Pherae where Diocles lived, who was son to
+Ortilochus and grandson to Alpheus. Here they passed the night and
+Diocles entertained them hospitably. When the child of morning,
+rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, they again yoked their horses and drove
+out through the gateway under the echoing gatehouse. Pisistratus
+lashed the horses on and they flew forward nothing loth; presently they
+came to the corn lands of the open country, and in the course of time
+completed their journey, so well did their steeds take them.
+
+Now when the sun had set and darkness was over the land,
+
+they reached the low lying city of Lacedaemon, where they drove
+straight to the abode of Menelaus [and found him in his own house,
+feasting with his many clansmen in honour of the wedding of his son,
+and also of his daughter, whom he was marrying to the son of that
+valiant warrior Achilles. He had given his consent and promised her to
+him while he was still at Troy, and now the gods were bringing the
+marriage about; so he was sending her with chariots and horses to the
+city of the Myrmidons over whom Achilles' son was reigning. For his
+only son he had found a bride from Sparta, the daughter of Alector.
+This son, Megapenthes, was born to him of a bondwoman, for heaven
+vouchsafed Helen no more children after she had borne Hermione, who was
+fair as golden Venus herself.
+
+So the neighbours and kinsmen of Menelaus were feasting and making
+merry in his house. There was a bard also to sing to them and play his
+lyre, while two tumblers went about performing in the midst of them
+when the man struck up with his tune.
+
+Telemachus and the son of Nestor stayed their horses at the gate,
+whereon Eteoneus servant to Menelaus came out, and as soon as he saw
+them ran hurrying back into the house to tell his Master. He went close
+up to him and said, "Menelaus, there are some strangers come here, two
+men, who look like sons of Jove. What are we to do? Shall we take their
+horses out, or tell them to find friends elsewhere as they best can?"
+
+Menelaus was very angry and said, "Eteoneus, son of Boethous, you never
+used to be a fool, but now you talk like a simpleton. Take their horses
+out, of course, and show the strangers in that they may have supper;
+you and I have staid often enough at other people's houses before we
+got back here, where heaven grant that we may rest in peace
+henceforward."
+
+So Eteoneus bustled back and bade the other servants come with him.
+They took their sweating steeds from under the yoke, made them fast to
+the mangers, and gave them a feed of oats and barley mixed. Then they
+leaned the chariot against the end wall of the courtyard, and led the
+way into the house. Telemachus and Pisistratus were astonished when
+they saw it, for its splendour was as that of the sun and moon; then,
+when they had admired everything to their heart's content, they went
+into the bath room and washed themselves.
+
+When the servants had washed them and anointed them with oil, they
+brought them woollen cloaks and shirts, and the two took their seats by
+the side of Menelaus. A maid-servant brought them water in a beautiful
+golden ewer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their
+hands; and she drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought
+them bread, and offered them many good things of what there was in the
+house, while the carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and
+set cups of gold by their side.
+
+Menelaus then greeted them saying, "Fall to, and welcome; when you have
+done supper I shall ask who you are, for the lineage of such men as you
+cannot have been lost. You must be descended from a line of
+sceptre-bearing kings, for poor people do not have such sons as you
+are."
+
+On this he handed them a piece of fat roast loin, which had been set
+near him as being a prime part, and they laid their hands on the good
+things that were before them; as soon as they had had enough to eat and
+drink, Telemachus said to the son of Nestor, with his head so close
+that no one might hear, "Look, Pisistratus, man after my own heart, see
+the gleam of bronze and gold—of amber, ivory, and silver. Everything
+is so splendid that it is like seeing the palace of Olympian Jove. I am
+lost in admiration."
+
+Menelaus overheard him and said, "No one, my sons, can hold his own
+with Jove, for his house and everything about him is immortal; but
+among mortal men—well, there may be another who has as much wealth as I
+have, or there may not; but at all events I have travelled much and
+have undergone much hardship, for it was nearly eight years before I
+could get home with my fleet. I went to Cyprus, Phoenicia and the
+Egyptians; I went also to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the
+Erembians, and to Libya where the lambs have horns as soon as they are
+born, and the sheep lamb down three times a year. Every one in that
+country, whether master or man, has plenty of cheese, meat, and good
+milk, for the ewes yield all the year round. But while I was travelling
+and getting great riches among these people, my brother was secretly
+and shockingly murdered through the perfidy of his wicked wife, so that
+I have no pleasure in being lord of all this wealth. Whoever your
+parents may be they must have told you about all this, and of my heavy
+loss in the ruin of a stately mansion fully and magnificently
+furnished. Would that I had only a third of what I now have so that I
+had stayed at home, and all those were living who perished on the plain
+of Troy, far from Argos. I often grieve, as I sit here in my house, for
+one and all of them. At times I cry aloud for sorrow, but presently I
+leave off again, for crying is cold comfort and one soon tires of it.
+Yet grieve for these as I may, I do so for one man more than for them
+all. I cannot even think of him without loathing both food and sleep,
+so miserable does he make me, for no one of all the Achaeans worked so
+hard or risked so much as he did. He took nothing by it, and has left a
+legacy of sorrow to myself, for he has been gone a long time, and we
+know not whether he is alive or dead. His old father, his
+long-suffering wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus, whom he left
+behind him an infant in arms, are plunged in grief on his account."
+
+Thus spoke Menelaus, and the heart of Telemachus yearned as he
+bethought him of his father. Tears fell from his eyes as he heard him
+thus mentioned, so that he held his cloak before his face with both
+hands. When Menelaus saw this he doubted whether to let him choose his
+own time for speaking, or to ask him at once and find what it was all
+about.
+
+While he was thus in two minds Helen came down from her high vaulted
+and perfumed room, looking as lovely as Diana herself. Adraste brought
+her a seat, Alcippe a soft woollen rug while Phylo fetched her the
+silver work-box which Alcandra wife of Polybus had given her. Polybus
+lived in Egyptian Thebes, which is the richest city in the whole world;
+he gave Menelaus two baths, both of pure silver, two tripods, and ten
+talents of gold; besides all this, his wife gave Helen some beautiful
+presents, to wit, a golden distaff, and a silver work box that ran on
+wheels, with a gold band round the top of it. Phylo now placed this by
+her side, full of fine spun yarn, and a distaff charged with violet
+coloured wool was laid upon the top of it. Then Helen took her seat,
+put her feet upon the footstool, and began to question her husband.
+
+"Do we know, Menelaus," said she, "the names of these strangers who
+have come to visit us? Shall I guess right or wrong?—but I cannot help
+saying what I think. Never yet have I seen either man or woman so like
+somebody else (indeed when I look at him I hardly know what to think)
+as this young man is like Telemachus, whom Ulysses left as a baby
+behind him, when you Achaeans went to Troy with battle in your hearts,
+on account of my most shameless self."
+
+"My dear wife," replied Menelaus, "I see the likeness just as you do.
+His hands and feet are just like Ulysses; so is his hair, with the
+shape of his head and the expression of his eyes. Moreover, when I was
+talking about Ulysses, and saying how much he had suffered on my
+account, tears fell from his eyes, and he hid his face in his mantle."
+
+Then Pisistratus said, "Menelaus, son of Atreus, you are right in
+thinking that this young man is Telemachus, but he is very modest, and
+is ashamed to come here and begin opening up discourse with one whose
+conversation is so divinely interesting as your own. My father, Nestor,
+sent me to escort him hither, for he wanted to know whether you could
+give him any counsel or suggestion. A son has always trouble at home
+when his father has gone away leaving him without supporters; and this
+is how Telemachus is now placed, for his father is absent, and there is
+no one among his own people to stand by him."
+
+"Bless my heart," replied Menelaus, "then I am receiving a visit from
+the son of a very dear friend, who suffered much hardship for my sake.
+I had always hoped to entertain him with most marked distinction when
+heaven had granted us a safe return from beyond the seas. I should have
+founded a city for him in Argos, and built him a house. I should have
+made him leave Ithaca with his goods, his son, and all his people, and
+should have sacked for them some one of the neighbouring cities that
+are subject to me. We should thus have seen one another continually,
+and nothing but death could have interrupted so close and happy an
+intercourse. I suppose, however, that heaven grudged us such great good
+fortune, for it has prevented the poor fellow from ever getting home at
+all."
+
+Thus did he speak, and his words set them all a weeping. Helen wept,
+Telemachus wept, and so did Menelaus, nor could Pisistratus keep his
+eyes from filling, when he remembered his dear brother Antilochus whom
+the son of bright Dawn had killed. Thereon he said to Menelaus,
+
+"Sir, my father Nestor, when we used to talk about you at home, told me
+you were a person of rare and excellent understanding. If, then, it be
+possible, do as I would urge you. I am not fond of crying while I am
+getting my supper. Morning will come in due course, and in the forenoon
+I care not how much I cry for those that are dead and gone. This is all
+we can do for the poor things. We can only shave our heads for them and
+wring the tears from our cheeks. I had a brother who died at Troy; he
+was by no means the worst man there; you are sure to have known him—his
+name was Antilochus; I never set eyes upon him myself, but they say
+that he was singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant."
+
+"Your discretion, my friend," answered Menelaus, "is beyond your years.
+It is plain you take after your father. One can soon see when a man is
+son to one whom heaven has blessed both as regards wife and
+offspring—and it has blessed Nestor from first to last all his days,
+giving him a green old age in his own house, with sons about him who
+are both well disposed and valiant. We will put an end therefore to all
+this weeping, and attend to our supper again. Let water be poured over
+our hands. Telemachus and I can talk with one another fully in the
+morning."
+
+On this Asphalion, one of the servants, poured water over their hands
+and they laid their hands on the good things that were before them.
+
+Then Jove's daughter Helen bethought her of another matter. She drugged
+the wine with an herb that banishes all care, sorrow, and ill humour.
+Whoever drinks wine thus drugged cannot shed a single tear all the rest
+of the day, not even though his father and mother both of them drop
+down dead, or he sees a brother or a son hewn in pieces before his very
+eyes. This drug, of such sovereign power and virtue, had been given to
+Helen by Polydamna wife of Thon, a woman of Egypt, where there grow all
+sorts of herbs, some good to put into the mixing bowl and others
+poisonous. Moreover, every one in the whole country is a skilled
+physician, for they are of the race of Paeeon. When Helen had put this
+drug in the bowl, and had told the servants to serve the wine round,
+she said:
+
+"Menelaus, son of Atreus, and you my good friends, sons of honourable
+men (which is as Jove wills, for he is the giver both of good and evil,
+and can do what he chooses), feast here as you will, and listen while I
+tell you a tale in season. I cannot indeed name every single one of the
+exploits of Ulysses, but I can say what he did when he was before Troy,
+and you Achaeans were in all sorts of difficulties. He covered himself
+with wounds and bruises, dressed himself all in rags, and entered the
+enemy's city looking like a menial or a beggar, and quite different
+from what he did when he was among his own people. In this disguise he
+entered the city of Troy, and no one said anything to him. I alone
+recognised him and began to question him, but he was too cunning for
+me. When, however, I had washed and anointed him and had given him
+clothes, and after I had sworn a solemn oath not to betray him to the
+Trojans till he had got safely back to his own camp and to the ships,
+he told me all that the Achaeans meant to do. He killed many Trojans
+and got much information before he reached the Argive camp, for all
+which things the Trojan women made lamentation, but for my own part I
+was glad, for my heart was beginning to yearn after my home, and I was
+unhappy about the wrong that Venus had done me in taking me over there,
+away from my country, my girl, and my lawful wedded husband, who is
+indeed by no means deficient either in person or understanding."
+
+Then Menelaus said, "All that you have been saying, my dear wife, is
+true. I have travelled much, and have had much to do with heroes, but I
+have never seen such another man as Ulysses. What endurance too, and
+what courage he displayed within the wooden horse, wherein all the
+bravest of the Argives were lying in wait to bring death and
+destruction upon the Trojans. At that moment you came up to us; some
+god who wished well to the Trojans must have set you on to it and you
+had Deiphobus with you. Three times did you go all round our hiding
+place and pat it; you called our chiefs each by his own name, and
+mimicked all our wives—Diomed, Ulysses, and I from our seats inside
+heard what a noise you made. Diomed and I could not make up our minds
+whether to spring out then and there, or to answer you from inside, but
+Ulysses held us all in check, so we sat quite still, all except
+Anticlus, who was beginning to answer you, when Ulysses clapped his two
+brawny hands over his mouth, and kept them there. It was this that
+saved us all, for he muzzled Anticlus till Minerva took you away
+again."
+
+"How sad," exclaimed Telemachus, "that all this was of no avail to save
+him, nor yet his own iron courage. But now, sir, be pleased to send us
+all to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon of sleep."
+
+On this Helen told the maid servants to set beds in the room that was
+in the gatehouse, and to make them with good red rugs, and spread
+coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for the guests to
+wear. So the maids went out, carrying a torch, and made the beds, to
+which a man-servant presently conducted the strangers. Thus, then, did
+Telemachus and Pisistratus sleep there in the forecourt, while the son
+of Atreus lay in an inner room with lovely Helen by his side.
+
+When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Menelaus rose
+and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely feet, girded
+his sword about his shoulders, and left his room looking like an
+immortal god. Then, taking a seat near Telemachus he said:
+
+"And what, Telemachus, has led you to take this long sea voyage to
+Lacedaemon? Are you on public, or private business? Tell me all about
+it."
+
+"I have come, sir," replied Telemachus, "to see if you can tell me
+anything about my father. I am being eaten out of house and home; my
+fair estate is being wasted, and my house is full of miscreants who
+keep killing great numbers of my sheep and oxen, on the pretence of
+paying their addresses to my mother. Therefore, I am suppliant at your
+knees if haply you may tell me about my father's melancholy end,
+whether you saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some other
+traveller; for he was a man born to trouble. Do not soften things out
+of any pity for myself, but tell me in all plainness exactly what you
+saw. If my brave father Ulysses ever did you loyal service either by
+word or deed, when you Achaeans were harassed by the Trojans, bear it
+in mind now as in my favour and tell me truly all."
+
+Menelaus on hearing this was very much shocked. "So," he exclaimed,
+"these cowards would usurp a brave man's bed? A hind might as well lay
+her new born young in the lair of a lion, and then go off to feed in
+the forest or in some grassy dell: the lion when he comes back to his
+lair will make short work with the pair of them—and so will Ulysses
+with these suitors. By father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, if Ulysses is
+still the man that he was when he wrestled with Philomeleides in
+Lesbos, and threw him so heavily that all the Achaeans cheered him—if
+he is still such and were to come near these suitors, they would have a
+short shrift and a sorry wedding. As regards your questions, however, I
+will not prevaricate nor deceive you, but will tell you without
+concealment all that the old man of the sea told me.
+
+"I was trying to come on here, but the gods detained me in Egypt, for
+my hecatombs had not given them full satisfaction, and the gods are
+very strict about having their dues. Now off Egypt, about as far as a
+ship can sail in a day with a good stiff breeze behind her, there is an
+island called Pharos—it has a good harbour from which vessels can get
+out into open sea when they have taken in water—and here the gods
+becalmed me twenty days without so much as a breath of fair wind to
+help me forward. We should have run clean out of provisions and my men
+would have starved, if a goddess had not taken pity upon me and saved
+me in the person of Idothea, daughter to Proteus, the old man of the
+sea, for she had taken a great fancy to me.
+
+"She came to me one day when I was by myself, as I often was, for the
+men used to go with their barbed hooks, all over the island in the hope
+of catching a fish or two to save them from the pangs of hunger.
+'Stranger,' said she, 'it seems to me that you like starving in this
+way—at any rate it does not greatly trouble you, for you stick here day
+after day, without even trying to get away though your men are dying by
+inches.'
+
+"'Let me tell you,' said I, 'whichever of the goddesses you may happen
+to be, that I am not staying here of my own accord, but must have
+offended the gods that live in heaven. Tell me, therefore, for the gods
+know everything, which of the immortals it is that is hindering me in
+this way, and tell me also how I may sail the sea so as to reach my
+home.'
+
+"'Stranger,' replied she, 'I will make it all quite clear to you. There
+is an old immortal who lives under the sea hereabouts and whose name is
+Proteus. He is an Egyptian, and people say he is my father; he is
+Neptune's head man and knows every inch of ground all over the bottom
+of the sea. If you can snare him and hold him tight, he will tell you
+about your voyage, what courses you are to take, and how you are to
+sail the sea so as to reach your home. He will also tell you, if you so
+will, all that has been going on at your house both good and bad, while
+you have been away on your long and dangerous journey.'
+
+"'Can you show me,' said I, 'some stratagem by means of which I may
+catch this old god without his suspecting it and finding me out? For a
+god is not easily caught—not by a mortal man.'
+
+"'Stranger,' said she, 'I will make it all quite clear to you. About
+the time when the sun shall have reached mid heaven, the old man of the
+sea comes up from under the waves, heralded by the West wind that furs
+the water over his head. As soon as he has come up he lies down, and
+goes to sleep in a great sea cave, where the seals—Halosydne's chickens
+as they call them—come up also from the grey sea, and go to sleep in
+shoals all round him; and a very strong and fish-like smell do they
+bring with them. Early to-morrow morning I will take you to this
+place and will lay you in ambush. Pick out, therefore, the three best
+men you have in your fleet, and I will tell you all the tricks that the
+old man will play you.
+
+"'First he will look over all his seals, and count them; then, when he
+has seen them and tallied them on his five fingers, he will go to sleep
+among them, as a shepherd among his sheep. The moment you see that he
+is asleep seize him; put forth all your strength and hold him fast, for
+he will do his very utmost to get away from you. He will turn himself
+into every kind of creature that goes upon the earth, and will become
+also both fire and water; but you must hold him fast and grip him
+tighter and tighter, till he begins to talk to you and comes back to
+what he was when you saw him go to sleep; then you may slacken your
+hold and let him go; and you can ask him which of the gods it is that
+is angry with you, and what you must do to reach your home over the
+seas.'
+
+"Having so said she dived under the waves, whereon I turned back to the
+place where my ships were ranged upon the shore; and my heart was
+clouded with care as I went along. When I reached my ship we got supper
+ready, for night was falling, and camped down upon the beach.
+
+"When the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, I took the
+three men on whose prowess of all kinds I could most rely, and went
+along by the sea-side, praying heartily to heaven. Meanwhile the
+goddess fetched me up four seal skins from the bottom of the sea, all
+of them just skinned, for she meant playing a trick upon her father.
+Then she dug four pits for us to lie in, and sat down to wait till we
+should come up. When we were close to her, she made us lie down in the
+pits one after the other, and threw a seal skin over each of us. Our
+ambuscade would have been intolerable, for the stench of the fishy
+seals was most distressing—who would go to bed with a sea monster if
+he could help it?—but here, too, the goddess helped us, and thought of
+something that gave us great relief, for she put some ambrosia under
+each man's nostrils, which was so fragrant that it killed the smell of
+the seals.
+
+"We waited the whole morning and made the best of it, watching the
+seals come up in hundreds to bask upon the sea shore, till at noon the
+old man of the sea came up too, and when he had found his fat seals he
+went over them and counted them. We were among the first he counted,
+and he never suspected any guile, but laid himself down to sleep as
+soon as he had done counting. Then we rushed upon him with a shout and
+seized him; on which he began at once with his old tricks, and changed
+himself first into a lion with a great mane; then all of a sudden he
+became a dragon, a leopard, a wild boar; the next moment he was running
+water, and then again directly he was a tree, but we stuck to him and
+never lost hold, till at last the cunning old creature became
+distressed, and said, 'Which of the gods was it, Son of Atreus, that
+hatched this plot with you for snaring me and seizing me against my
+will? What do you want?'
+
+"'You know that yourself, old man,' I answered, 'you will gain nothing
+by trying to put me off. It is because I have been kept so long in this
+island, and see no sign of my being able to get away. I am losing all
+heart; tell me, then, for you gods know everything, which of the
+immortals it is that is hindering me, and tell me also how I may sail
+the sea so as to reach my home?'
+
+"Then,' he said, 'if you would finish your voyage and get home quickly,
+you must offer sacrifices to Jove and to the rest of the gods before
+embarking; for it is decreed that you shall not get back to your
+friends, and to your own house, till you have returned to the
+heaven-fed stream of Egypt, and offered holy hecatombs to the immortal
+gods that reign in heaven. When you have done this they will let you
+finish your voyage.'
+
+"I was broken hearted when I heard that I must go back all that long
+and terrible voyage to Egypt; nevertheless, I answered, 'I will do
+all, old man, that you have laid upon me; but now tell me, and tell me
+true, whether all the Achaeans whom Nestor and I left behind us when we
+set sail from Troy have got home safely, or whether any one of them
+came to a bad end either on board his own ship or among his friends
+when the days of his fighting were done.'
+
+"'Son of Atreus,' he answered, 'why ask me? You had better not know
+what I can tell you, for your eyes will surely fill when you have heard
+my story. Many of those about whom you ask are dead and gone, but many
+still remain, and only two of the chief men among the Achaeans perished
+during their return home. As for what happened on the field of
+battle—you were there yourself. A third Achaean leader is still at sea,
+alive, but hindered from returning. Ajax was wrecked, for Neptune drove
+him on to the great rocks of Gyrae; nevertheless, he let him get safe
+out of the water, and in spite of all Minerva's hatred he would have
+escaped death, if he had not ruined himself by boasting. He said the
+gods could not drown him even though they had tried to do so, and when
+Neptune heard this large talk, he seized his trident in his two brawny
+hands, and split the rock of Gyrae in two pieces. The base remained
+where it was, but the part on which Ajax was sitting fell headlong into
+the sea and carried Ajax with it; so he drank salt water and was
+drowned.
+
+"'Your brother and his ships escaped, for Juno protected him, but when
+he was just about to reach the high promontory of Malea, he was caught
+by a heavy gale which carried him out to sea again sorely against his
+will, and drove him to the foreland where Thyestes used to dwell, but
+where Aegisthus was then living. By and by, however, it seemed as
+though he was to return safely after all, for the gods backed the wind
+into its old quarter and they reached home; whereon Agamemnon kissed
+his native soil, and shed tears of joy at finding himself in his own
+country.
+
+"'Now there was a watchman whom Aegisthus kept always on the watch, and
+to whom he had promised two talents of gold. This man had been looking
+out for a whole year to make sure that Agamemnon did not give him the
+slip and prepare war; when, therefore, this man saw Agamemnon go by, he
+went and told Aegisthus, who at once began to lay a plot for him. He
+picked twenty of his bravest warriors and placed them in ambuscade on
+one side the cloister, while on the opposite side he prepared a
+banquet. Then he sent his chariots and horsemen to Agamemnon, and
+invited him to the feast, but he meant foul play. He got him there, all
+unsuspicious of the doom that was awaiting him, and killed him when the
+banquet was over as though he were butchering an ox in the shambles;
+not one of Agamemnon's followers was left alive, nor yet one of
+Aegisthus', but they were all killed there in the cloisters.'
+
+"Thus spoke Proteus, and I was broken hearted as I heard him. I sat
+down upon the sands and wept; I felt as though I could no longer bear
+to live nor look upon the light of the sun. Presently, when I had had
+my fill of weeping and writhing upon the ground, the old man of the sea
+said, 'Son of Atreus, do not waste any more time in crying so bitterly;
+it can do no manner of good; find your way home as fast as ever you
+can, for Aegisthus may be still alive, and even though Orestes has been
+beforehand with you in killing him, you may yet come in for his
+funeral.'
+
+"On this I took comfort in spite of all my sorrow, and said, 'I know,
+then, about these two; tell me, therefore, about the third man of whom
+you spoke; is he still alive, but at sea, and unable to get home? or is
+he dead? Tell me, no matter how much it may grieve me.'
+
+"'The third man,' he answered, 'is Ulysses who dwells in Ithaca. I can
+see him in an island sorrowing bitterly in the house of the nymph
+Calypso, who is keeping him prisoner, and he cannot reach his home for
+he has no ships nor sailors to take him over the sea. As for your own
+end, Menelaus, you shall not die in Argos, but the gods will take you
+to the Elysian plain, which is at the ends of the world. There
+fair-haired Rhadamanthus reigns, and men lead an easier life than any
+where else in the world, for in Elysium there falls not rain, nor hail,
+nor snow, but Oceanus breathes ever with a West wind that sings softly
+from the sea, and gives fresh life to all men. This will happen to you
+because you have married Helen, and are Jove's son-in-law.'
+
+"As he spoke he dived under the waves, whereon I turned back to the
+ships with my companions, and my heart was clouded with care as I went
+along. When we reached the ships we got supper ready, for night was
+falling, and camped down upon the beach. When the child of morning,
+rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, we drew our ships into the water, and put
+our masts and sails within them; then we went on board ourselves, took
+our seats on the benches, and smote the grey sea with our oars. I again
+stationed my ships in the heaven-fed stream of Egypt, and offered
+hecatombs that were full and sufficient. When I had thus appeased
+heaven's anger, I raised a barrow to the memory of Agamemnon that his
+name might live for ever, after which I had a quick passage home, for
+the gods sent me a fair wind.
+
+"And now for yourself—stay here some ten or twelve days longer, and I
+will then speed you on your way. I will make you a noble present of a
+chariot and three horses. I will also give you a beautiful chalice that
+so long as you live you may think of me whenever you make a
+drink-offering to the immortal gods."
+
+"Son of Atreus," replied Telemachus, "do not press me to stay longer; I
+should be contented to remain with you for another twelve months; I
+find your conversation so delightful that I should never once wish
+myself at home with my parents; but my crew whom I have left at Pylos
+are already impatient, and you are detaining me from them. As for any
+present you may be disposed to make me, I had rather that it should be
+a piece of plate. I will take no horses back with me to Ithaca, but
+will leave them to adorn your own stables, for you have much flat
+ground in your kingdom where lotus thrives, as also meadow-sweet and
+wheat and barley, and oats with their white and spreading ears; whereas
+in Ithaca we have neither open fields nor racecourses, and the country
+is more fit for goats than horses, and I like it the better for that.
+None of our islands have much level ground, suitable for horses, and
+Ithaca least of all."
+
+Menelaus smiled and took Telemachus's hand within his own. "What you
+say," said he, "shows that you come of good family. I both can, and
+will, make this exchange for you, by giving you the finest and most
+precious piece of plate in all my house. It is a mixing bowl by
+Vulcan's own hand, of pure silver, except the rim, which is inlaid with
+gold. Phaedimus, king of the Sidonians, gave it me in the course of a
+visit which I paid him when I returned thither on my homeward journey.
+I will make you a present of it."
+
+Thus did they converse [and guests kept coming to the king's house.
+They brought sheep and wine, while their wives had put up bread for
+them to take with them; so they were busy cooking their dinners in the
+courts.
+
+Meanwhile the suitors were throwing discs or aiming with spears at a
+mark on the levelled ground in front of Ulysses' house, and were
+behaving with all their old insolence. Antinous and Eurymachus, who
+were their ringleaders and much the foremost among them all, were
+sitting together when Noemon son of Phronius came up and said to
+Antinous,
+
+"Have we any idea, Antinous, on what day Telemachus returns from Pylos?
+He has a ship of mine, and I want it, to cross over to Elis: I have
+twelve brood mares there with yearling mule foals by their side not yet
+broken in, and I want to bring one of them over here and break him."
+
+They were astounded when they heard this, for they had made sure that
+Telemachus had not gone to the city of Neleus. They thought he was only
+away somewhere on the farms, and was with the sheep, or with the
+swineherd; so Antinous said, "When did he go? Tell me truly, and what
+young men did he take with him? Were they freemen or his own
+bondsmen—for he might manage that too? Tell me also, did you let him
+have the ship of your own free will because he asked you, or did he
+take it without your leave?"
+
+"I lent it him," answered Noemon, "what else could I do when a man of
+his position said he was in a difficulty, and asked me to oblige him? I
+could not possibly refuse. As for those who went with him they were the
+best young men we have, and I saw Mentor go on board as captain—or some
+god who was exactly like him. I cannot understand it, for I saw Mentor
+here myself yesterday morning, and yet he was then setting out for
+Pylos."
+
+Noemon then went back to his father's house, but Antinous and
+Eurymachus were very angry. They told the others to leave off playing,
+and to come and sit down along with themselves. When they came,
+Antinous son of Eupeithes spoke in anger. His heart was black with
+rage, and his eyes flashed fire as he said:
+
+"Good heavens, this voyage of Telemachus is a very serious matter; we
+had made sure that it would come to nothing, but the young fellow has
+got away in spite of us, and with a picked crew too. He will be giving
+us trouble presently; may Jove take him before he is full grown. Find
+me a ship, therefore, with a crew of twenty men, and I will lie in wait
+for him in the straits between Ithaca and Samos; he will then rue the
+day that he set out to try and get news of his father."
+
+Thus did he speak, and the others applauded his saying; they then all
+of them went inside the buildings.
+
+It was not long ere Penelope came to know what the suitors were
+plotting; for a man servant, Medon, overheard them from outside the
+outer court as they were laying their schemes within, and went to tell
+his mistress. As he crossed the threshold of her room Penelope said:
+"Medon, what have the suitors sent you here for? Is it to tell the
+maids to leave their master's business and cook dinner for them? I wish
+they may neither woo nor dine henceforward, neither here nor anywhere
+else, but let this be the very last time, for the waste you all make of
+my son's estate. Did not your fathers tell you when you were children,
+how good Ulysses had been to them—never doing anything high-handed, nor
+speaking harshly to anybody? Kings may say things sometimes, and they
+may take a fancy to one man and dislike another, but Ulysses never did
+an unjust thing by anybody—which shows what bad hearts you have, and
+that there is no such thing as gratitude left in this world."
+
+Then Medon said, "I wish, Madam, that this were all; but they are
+plotting something much more dreadful now—may heaven frustrate their
+design. They are going to try and murder Telemachus as he is coming
+home from Pylos and Lacedaemon, where he has been to get news of his
+father."
+
+Then Penelope's heart sank within her, and for a long time she was
+speechless; her eyes filled with tears, and she could find no
+utterance. At last, however, she said, "Why did my son leave me? What
+business had he to go sailing off in ships that make long voyages over
+the ocean like sea-horses? Does he want to die without leaving any one
+behind him to keep up his name?"
+
+"I do not know," answered Medon, "whether some god set him on to it, or
+whether he went on his own impulse to see if he could find out if his
+father was dead, or alive and on his way home."
+
+Then he went downstairs again, leaving Penelope in an agony of grief.
+There were plenty of seats in the house, but she had no heart for
+sitting on any one of them; she could only fling herself on the floor
+of her own room and cry; whereon all the maids in the house, both old
+and young, gathered round her and began to cry too, till at last in a
+transport of sorrow she exclaimed,
+
+"My dears, heaven has been pleased to try me with more affliction than
+any other woman of my age and country. First I lost my brave and
+lion-hearted husband, who had every good quality under heaven, and
+whose name was great over all Hellas and middle Argos, and now my
+darling son is at the mercy of the winds and waves, without my having
+heard one word about his leaving home. You hussies, there was not one
+of you would so much as think of giving me a call out of my bed, though
+you all of you very well knew when he was starting. If I had known he
+meant taking this voyage, he would have had to give it up, no matter
+how much he was bent upon it, or leave me a corpse behind him—one or
+other. Now, however, go some of you and call old Dolius, who was given
+me by my father on my marriage, and who is my gardener. Bid him go at
+once and tell everything to Laertes, who may be able to hit on some
+plan for enlisting public sympathy on our side, as against those who
+are trying to exterminate his own race and that of Ulysses."
+
+Then the dear old nurse Euryclea said, "You may kill me, Madam, or let
+me live on in your house, whichever you please, but I will tell you the
+real truth. I knew all about it, and gave him everything he wanted in
+the way of bread and wine, but he made me take my solemn oath that I
+would not tell you anything for some ten or twelve days, unless you
+asked or happened to hear of his having gone, for he did not want you
+to spoil your beauty by crying. And now, Madam, wash your face, change
+your dress, and go upstairs with your maids to offer prayers to
+Minerva, daughter of Aegis-bearing Jove, for she can save him even
+though he be in the jaws of death. Do not trouble Laertes: he has
+trouble enough already. Besides, I cannot think that the gods hate the
+race of the son of Arceisius so much, but there will be a son left to
+come up after him, and inherit both the house and the fair fields that
+lie far all round it."
+
+With these words she made her mistress leave off crying, and dried the
+tears from her eyes. Penelope washed her face, changed her dress, and
+went upstairs with her maids. She then put some bruised barley into a
+basket and began praying to Minerva.
+
+"Hear me," she cried, "Daughter of Aegis-bearing Jove, unweariable. If
+ever Ulysses while he was here burned you fat thigh bones of sheep or
+heifer, bear it in mind now as in my favour, and save my darling son
+from the villainy of the suitors."
+
+She cried aloud as she spoke, and the goddess heard her prayer;
+meanwhile the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered cloister,
+and one of them said:
+
+"The queen is preparing for her marriage with one or other of us.
+Little does she dream that her son has now been doomed to die."
+
+This was what they said, but they did not know what was going to
+happen. Then Antinous said, "Comrades, let there be no loud talking,
+lest some of it get carried inside. Let us be up and do that in
+silence, about which we are all of a mind."
+
+He then chose twenty men, and they went down to their ship and to the
+sea side; they drew the vessel into the water and got her mast and
+sails inside her; they bound the oars to the thole-pins with twisted
+thongs of leather, all in due course, and spread the white sails aloft,
+while their fine servants brought them their armour. Then they made the
+ship fast a little way out, came on shore again, got their suppers, and
+waited till night should fall.
+
+But Penelope lay in her own room upstairs unable to eat or drink, and
+wondering whether her brave son would escape, or be overpowered by the
+wicked suitors. Like a lioness caught in the toils with huntsmen
+hemming her in on every side she thought and thought till she sank into
+a slumber, and lay on her bed bereft of thought and motion.
+
+Then Minerva bethought her of another matter, and made a vision in the
+likeness of Penelope's sister Iphthime daughter of Icarius who had
+married Eumelus and lived in Pherae. She told the vision to go to the
+house of Ulysses, and to make Penelope leave off crying, so it came
+into her room by the hole through which the thong went for pulling the
+door to, and hovered over her head saying,
+
+"You are asleep, Penelope: the gods who live at ease will not suffer
+you to weep and be so sad. Your son has done them no wrong, so he will
+yet come back to you."
+
+Penelope, who was sleeping sweetly at the gates of dreamland, answered,
+"Sister, why have you come here? You do not come very often, but I
+suppose that is because you live such a long way off. Am I, then, to
+leave off crying and refrain from all the sad thoughts that torture me?
+I, who have lost my brave and lion-hearted husband, who had every good
+quality under heaven, and whose name was great over all Hellas and
+middle Argos; and now my darling son has gone off on board of a ship—a
+foolish fellow who has never been used to roughing it, nor to going
+about among gatherings of men. I am even more anxious about him than
+about my husband; I am all in a tremble when I think of him, lest
+something should happen to him, either from the people among whom he
+has gone, or by sea, for he has many enemies who are plotting against
+him, and are bent on killing him before he can return home."
+
+Then the vision said, "Take heart, and be not so much dismayed. There
+is one gone with him whom many a man would be glad enough to have stand
+by his side, I mean Minerva; it is she who has compassion upon you, and
+who has sent me to bear you this message."
+
+"Then," said Penelope, "if you are a god or have been sent here by
+divine commission, tell me also about that other unhappy one—is he
+still alive, or is he already dead and in the house of Hades?"
+
+And the vision said, "I shall not tell you for certain whether he is
+alive or dead, and there is no use in idle conversation."
+
+Then it vanished through the thong-hole of the door and was dissipated
+into thin air; but Penelope rose from her sleep refreshed and
+comforted, so vivid had been her dream.
+
+Meantime the suitors went on board and sailed their ways over the sea,
+intent on murdering Telemachus. Now there is a rocky islet called
+Asteris, of no great size, in mid channel between Ithaca and Samos, and
+there is a harbour on either side of it where a ship can lie. Here then
+the Achaeans placed themselves in ambush.
+
+And now, as Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonus—harbinger of light
+alike to mortals and immortals—the gods met in council and with them,
+Jove the lord of thunder, who is their king. Thereon Minerva began to
+tell them of the many sufferings of Ulysses, for she pitied him away
+there in the house of the nymph Calypso.
+
+"Father Jove," said she, "and all you other gods that live in
+everlasting bliss, I hope there may never be such a thing as a kind and
+well-disposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern equitably. I hope
+they will be all henceforth cruel and unjust, for there is not one of
+his subjects but has forgotten Ulysses, who ruled them as though he
+were their father. There he is, lying in great pain in an island where
+dwells the nymph Calypso, who will not let him go; and he cannot get
+back to his own country, for he can find neither ships nor sailors to
+take him over the sea. Furthermore, wicked people are now trying to
+murder his only son Telemachus, who is coming home from Pylos and
+Lacedaemon, where he has been to see if he can get news of his father."
+
+"What, my dear, are you talking about?" replied her father, "did you
+not send him there yourself, because you thought it would help Ulysses
+to get home and punish the suitors? Besides, you are perfectly able to
+protect Telemachus, and to see him safely home again, while the suitors
+have to come hurry-skurrying back without having killed him."
+
+When he had thus spoken, he said to his son Mercury, "Mercury, you are
+our messenger, go therefore and tell Calypso we have decreed that poor
+Ulysses is to return home. He is to be convoyed neither by gods nor
+men, but after a perilous voyage of twenty days upon a raft he is to
+reach fertile Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians, who are near of
+kin to the gods, and will honour him as though he were one of
+ourselves. They will send him in a ship to his own country, and will
+give him more bronze and gold and raiment than he would have brought
+back from Troy, if he had had all his prize money and had got home
+without disaster. This is how we have settled that he shall return to
+his country and his friends."
+
+Thus he spoke, and Mercury, guide and guardian, slayer of Argus, did as
+he was told. Forthwith he bound on his glittering golden sandals with
+which he could fly like the wind over land and sea. He took the wand
+with which he seals men's eyes in sleep or wakes them just as he
+pleases, and flew holding it in his hand over Pieria; then he swooped
+down through the firmament till he reached the level of the sea, whose
+waves he skimmed like a cormorant that flies fishing every hole and
+corner of the ocean, and drenching its thick plumage in the spray. He
+flew and flew over many a weary wave, but when at last he got to the
+island which was his journey's end, he left the sea and went on by land
+till he came to the cave where the nymph Calypso lived.
+
+He found her at home. There was a large fire burning on the hearth, and
+one could smell from far the fragrant reek of burning cedar and sandal
+wood. As for herself, she was busy at her loom, shooting her golden
+shuttle through the warp and singing beautifully. Round her cave there
+was a thick wood of alder, poplar, and sweet smelling cypress trees,
+wherein all kinds of great birds had built their nests—owls, hawks, and
+chattering sea-crows that occupy their business in the waters. A vine
+loaded with grapes was trained and grew luxuriantly about the mouth of
+the cave; there were also four running rills of water in channels cut
+pretty close together, and turned hither and thither so as to irrigate
+the beds of violets and luscious herbage over which they flowed.
+Even a god could not help being charmed with such a lovely spot, so
+Mercury stood still and looked at it; but when he had admired it
+sufficiently he went inside the cave.
+
+Calypso knew him at once—for the gods all know each other, no matter
+how far they live from one another—but Ulysses was not within; he was
+on the sea-shore as usual, looking out upon the barren ocean with tears
+in his eyes, groaning and breaking his heart for sorrow. Calypso gave
+Mercury a seat and said: "Why have you come to see me,
+Mercury—honoured, and ever welcome—for you do not visit me often? Say
+what you want; I will do it for you at once if I can, and if it can be
+done at all; but come inside, and let me set refreshment before you."
+
+As she spoke she drew a table loaded with ambrosia beside him and mixed
+him some red nectar, so Mercury ate and drank till he had had enough,
+and then said:
+
+"We are speaking god and goddess to one another, and you ask me why I
+have come here, and I will tell you truly as you would have me do. Jove
+sent me; it was no doing of mine; who could possibly want to come all
+this way over the sea where there are no cities full of people to offer
+me sacrifices or choice hecatombs? Nevertheless I had to come, for none
+of us other gods can cross Jove, nor transgress his orders. He says
+that you have here the most ill-starred of all those who fought nine
+years before the city of King Priam and sailed home in the tenth year
+after having sacked it. On their way home they sinned against
+Minerva, who raised both wind and waves against them, so that all his
+brave companions perished, and he alone was carried hither by wind and
+tide. Jove says that you are to let this man go at once, for it is
+decreed that he shall not perish here, far from his own people, but
+shall return to his house and country and see his friends again."
+
+Calypso trembled with rage when she heard this, "You gods," she
+exclaimed, "ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You are always jealous
+and hate seeing a goddess take a fancy to a mortal man, and live with
+him in open matrimony. So when rosy-fingered Dawn made love to Orion,
+you precious gods were all of you furious till Diana went and killed
+him in Ortygia. So again when Ceres fell in love with Iasion, and
+yielded to him in a thrice-ploughed fallow field, Jove came to hear of
+it before so very long and killed Iasion with his thunderbolts. And now
+you are angry with me too because I have a man here. I found the poor
+creature sitting all alone astride of a keel, for Jove had struck his
+ship with lightning and sunk it in mid ocean, so that all his crew were
+drowned, while he himself was driven by wind and waves on to my island.
+I got fond of him and cherished him, and had set my heart on making him
+immortal, so that he should never grow old all his days; still I cannot
+cross Jove, nor bring his counsels to nothing; therefore, if he insists
+upon it, let the man go beyond the seas again; but I cannot send him
+anywhere myself for I have neither ships nor men who can take him.
+Nevertheless I will readily give him such advice, in all good faith, as
+will be likely to bring him safely to his own country."
+
+"Then send him away," said Mercury, "or Jove will be angry with you and
+punish you".
+
+On this he took his leave, and Calypso went out to look for Ulysses,
+for she had heard Jove's message. She found him sitting upon the beach
+with his eyes ever filled with tears, and dying of sheer home sickness;
+for he had got tired of Calypso, and though he was forced to sleep with
+her in the cave by night, it was she, not he, that would have it so. As
+for the day time, he spent it on the rocks and on the sea shore,
+weeping, crying aloud for his despair, and always looking out upon the
+sea. Calypso then went close up to him said:
+
+"My poor fellow, you shall not stay here grieving and fretting your
+life out any longer. I am going to send you away of my own free will;
+so go, cut some beams of wood, and make yourself a large raft with an
+upper deck that it may carry you safely over the sea. I will put bread,
+wine, and water on board to save you from starving. I will also give
+you clothes, and will send you a fair wind to take you home, if the
+gods in heaven so will it—for they know more about these things, and
+can settle them better than I can."
+
+Ulysses shuddered as he heard her. "Now goddess," he answered, "there
+is something behind all this; you cannot be really meaning to help me
+home when you bid me do such a dreadful thing as put to sea on a raft.
+Not even a well found ship with a fair wind could venture on such a
+distant voyage: nothing that you can say or do shall make me go on
+board a raft unless you first solemnly swear that you mean me no
+mischief."
+
+Calypso smiled at this and caressed him with her hand: "You know a
+great deal," said she, "but you are quite wrong here. May heaven above
+and earth below be my witnesses, with the waters of the river Styx—and
+this is the most solemn oath which a blessed god can take—that I mean
+you no sort of harm, and am only advising you to do exactly what I
+should do myself in your place. I am dealing with you quite
+straightforwardly; my heart is not made of iron, and I am very sorry
+for you."
+
+When she had thus spoken she led the way rapidly before him, and
+Ulysses followed in her steps; so the pair, goddess and man, went on
+and on till they came to Calypso's cave, where Ulysses took the seat
+that Mercury had just left. Calypso set meat and drink before him of
+the food that mortals eat; but her maids brought ambrosia and nectar
+for herself, and they laid their hands on the good things that were
+before them. When they had satisfied themselves with meat and drink,
+Calypso spoke, saying:
+
+"Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, so you would start home to your own
+land at once? Good luck go with you, but if you could only know how
+much suffering is in store for you before you get back to your own
+country, you would stay where you are, keep house along with me, and
+let me make you immortal, no matter how anxious you may be to see this
+wife of yours, of whom you are thinking all the time day after day; yet
+I flatter myself that I am no whit less tall or well-looking than she
+is, for it is not to be expected that a mortal woman should compare in
+beauty with an immortal."
+
+"Goddess," replied Ulysses, "do not be angry with me about this. I am
+quite aware that my wife Penelope is nothing like so tall or so
+beautiful as yourself. She is only a woman, whereas you are an
+immortal. Nevertheless, I want to get home, and can think of nothing
+else. If some god wrecks me when I am on the sea, I will bear it and
+make the best of it. I have had infinite trouble both by land and sea
+already, so let this go with the rest."
+
+Presently the sun set and it became dark, whereon the pair retired into
+the inner part of the cave and went to bed.
+
+When the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Ulysses put on
+his shirt and cloak, while the goddess wore a dress of a light gossamer
+fabric, very fine and graceful, with a beautiful golden girdle about
+her waist and a veil to cover her head. She at once set herself to
+think how she could speed Ulysses on his way. So she gave him a great
+bronze axe that suited his hands; it was sharpened on both sides, and
+had a beautiful olive-wood handle fitted firmly on to it. She also gave
+him a sharp adze, and then led the way to the far end of the island
+where the largest trees grew—alder, poplar and pine, that reached the
+sky—very dry and well seasoned, so as to sail light for him in the
+water. Then, when she had shown him where the best trees grew,
+Calypso went home, leaving him to cut them, which he soon finished
+doing. He cut down twenty trees in all and adzed them smooth, squaring
+them by rule in good workmanlike fashion. Meanwhile Calypso came back
+with some augers, so he bored holes with them and fitted the timbers
+together with bolts and rivets. He made the raft as broad as a skilled
+shipwright makes the beam of a large vessel, and he fixed a deck on top
+of the ribs, and ran a gunwale all round it. He also made a mast with a
+yard arm, and a rudder to steer with. He fenced the raft all round with
+wicker hurdles as a protection against the waves, and then he threw on
+a quantity of wood. By and by Calypso brought him some linen to make
+the sails, and he made these too, excellently, making them fast with
+braces and sheets. Last of all, with the help of levers, he drew the
+raft down into the water.
+
+In four days he had completed the whole work, and on the fifth Calypso
+sent him from the island after washing him and giving him some clean
+clothes. She gave him a goat skin full of black wine, and another
+larger one of water; she also gave him a wallet full of provisions, and
+found him in much good meat. Moreover, she made the wind fair and warm
+for him, and gladly did Ulysses spread his sail before it, while he sat
+and guided the raft skilfully by means of the rudder. He never closed
+his eyes, but kept them fixed on the Pleiads, on late-setting Bootes,
+and on the Bear—which men also call the wain, and which turns round and
+round where it is, facing Orion, and alone never dipping into the
+stream of Oceanus—for Calypso had told him to keep this to his left.
+Days seven and ten did he sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth the
+dim outlines of the mountains on the nearest part of the Phaeacian
+coast appeared, rising like a shield on the horizon.
+
+But King Neptune, who was returning from the Ethiopians, caught sight
+of Ulysses a long way off, from the mountains of the Solymi. He could
+see him sailing upon the sea, and it made him very angry, so he wagged
+his head and muttered to himself, saying, "Good heavens, so the gods
+have been changing their minds about Ulysses while I was away in
+Ethiopia, and now he is close to the land of the Phaeacians, where it
+is decreed that he shall escape from the calamities that have befallen
+him. Still, he shall have plenty of hardship yet before he has done
+with it."
+
+Thereon he gathered his clouds together, grasped his trident, stirred
+it round in the sea, and roused the rage of every wind that blows till
+earth, sea, and sky were hidden in cloud, and night sprang forth out of
+the heavens. Winds from East, South, North, and West fell upon him all
+at the same time, and a tremendous sea got up, so that Ulysses' heart
+began to fail him. "Alas," he said to himself in his dismay, "what ever
+will become of me? I am afraid Calypso was right when she said I should
+have trouble by sea before I got back home. It is all coming true. How
+black is Jove making heaven with his clouds, and what a sea the winds
+are raising from every quarter at once. I am now safe to perish. Blest
+and thrice blest were those Danaans who fell before Troy in the cause
+of the sons of Atreus. Would that I had been killed on the day when the
+Trojans were pressing me so sorely about the dead body of Achilles, for
+then I should have had due burial and the Achaeans would have honoured
+my name; but now it seems that I shall come to a most pitiable end."
+
+As he spoke a sea broke over him with such terrific fury that the raft
+reeled again, and he was carried overboard a long way off. He let go
+the helm, and the force of the hurricane was so great that it broke the
+mast half way up, and both sail and yard went over into the sea. For a
+long time Ulysses was under water, and it was all he could do to rise
+to the surface again, for the clothes Calypso had given him weighed him
+down; but at last he got his head above water and spat out the bitter
+brine that was running down his face in streams. In spite of all this,
+however, he did not lose sight of his raft, but swam as fast as he
+could towards it, got hold of it, and climbed on board again so as to
+escape drowning. The sea took the raft and tossed it about as Autumn
+winds whirl thistledown round and round upon a road. It was as though
+the South, North, East, and West winds were all playing battledore and
+shuttlecock with it at once.
+
+When he was in this plight, Ino daughter of Cadmus, also called
+Leucothea, saw him. She had formerly been a mere mortal, but had been
+since raised to the rank of a marine goddess. Seeing in what great
+distress Ulysses now was, she had compassion upon him, and, rising like
+a sea-gull from the waves, took her seat upon the raft.
+
+"My poor good man," said she, "why is Neptune so furiously angry with
+you? He is giving you a great deal of trouble, but for all his bluster
+he will not kill you. You seem to be a sensible person, do then as I
+bid you; strip, leave your raft to drive before the wind, and swim to
+the Phaeacian coast where better luck awaits you. And here, take my
+veil and put it round your chest; it is enchanted, and you can come to
+no harm so long as you wear it. As soon as you touch land take it off,
+throw it back as far as you can into the sea, and then go away again."
+With these words she took off her veil and gave it him. Then she dived
+down again like a sea-gull and vanished beneath the dark blue waters.
+
+But Ulysses did not know what to think. "Alas," he said to himself in
+his dismay, "this is only some one or other of the gods who is luring
+me to ruin by advising me to quit my raft. At any rate I will not do so
+at present, for the land where she said I should be quit of all
+troubles seemed to be still a good way off. I know what I will do—I am
+sure it will be best—no matter what happens I will stick to the raft as
+long as her timbers hold together, but when the sea breaks her up I
+will swim for it; I do not see how I can do any better than this."
+
+While he was thus in two minds, Neptune sent a terrible great wave that
+seemed to rear itself above his head till it broke right over the raft,
+which then went to pieces as though it were a heap of dry chaff tossed
+about by a whirlwind. Ulysses got astride of one plank and rode upon it
+as if he were on horseback; he then took off the clothes Calypso had
+given him, bound Ino's veil under his arms, and plunged into the
+sea—meaning to swim on shore. King Neptune watched him as he did so,
+and wagged his head, muttering to himself and saying, "There now, swim
+up and down as you best can till you fall in with well-to-do people. I
+do not think you will be able to say that I have let you off too
+lightly." On this he lashed his horses and drove to Aegae where his
+palace is.
+
+But Minerva resolved to help Ulysses, so she bound the ways of all the
+winds except one, and made them lie quite still; but she roused a good
+stiff breeze from the North that should lay the waters till Ulysses
+reached the land of the Phaeacians where he would be safe.
+
+Thereon he floated about for two nights and two days in the water, with
+a heavy swell on the sea and death staring him in the face; but when
+the third day broke, the wind fell and there was a dead calm without so
+much as a breath of air stirring. As he rose on the swell he looked
+eagerly ahead, and could see land quite near. Then, as children rejoice
+when their dear father begins to get better after having for a long
+time borne sore affliction sent him by some angry spirit, but the gods
+deliver him from evil, so was Ulysses thankful when he again saw land
+and trees, and swam on with all his strength that he might once more
+set foot upon dry ground. When, however, he got within earshot, he
+began to hear the surf thundering up against the rocks, for the swell
+still broke against them with a terrific roar. Everything was enveloped
+in spray; there were no harbours where a ship might ride, nor shelter
+of any kind, but only headlands, low-lying rocks, and mountain tops.
+
+Ulysses' heart now began to fail him, and he said despairingly to
+himself, "Alas, Jove has let me see land after swimming so far that I
+had given up all hope, but I can find no landing place, for the coast
+is rocky and surf-beaten, the rocks are smooth and rise sheer from the
+sea, with deep water close under them so that I cannot climb out for
+want of foot hold. I am afraid some great wave will lift me off my legs
+and dash me against the rocks as I leave the water—which would give me
+a sorry landing. If, on the other hand, I swim further in search of
+some shelving beach or harbour, a hurricane may carry me out to sea
+again sorely against my will, or heaven may send some great monster of
+the deep to attack me; for Amphitrite breeds many such, and I know that
+Neptune is very angry with me."
+
+While he was thus in two minds a wave caught him and took him with such
+force against the rocks that he would have been smashed and torn to
+pieces if Minerva had not shown him what to do. He caught hold of the
+rock with both hands and clung to it groaning with pain till the wave
+retired, so he was saved that time; but presently the wave came on
+again and carried him back with it far into the sea—tearing his hands
+as the suckers of a polypus are torn when some one plucks it from its
+bed, and the stones come up along with it—even so did the rocks tear
+the skin from his strong hands, and then the wave drew him deep down
+under the water.
+
+Here poor Ulysses would have certainly perished even in spite of his
+own destiny, if Minerva had not helped him to keep his wits about him.
+He swam seaward again, beyond reach of the surf that was beating
+against the land, and at the same time he kept looking towards the
+shore to see if he could find some haven, or a spit that should take
+the waves aslant. By and by, as he swam on, he came to the mouth of a
+river, and here he thought would be the best place, for there were no
+rocks, and it afforded shelter from the wind. He felt that there was a
+current, so he prayed inwardly and said:
+
+"Hear me, O King, whoever you may be, and save me from the anger of the
+sea-god Neptune, for I approach you prayerfully. Any one who has lost
+his way has at all times a claim even upon the gods, wherefore in my
+distress I draw near to your stream, and cling to the knees of your
+riverhood. Have mercy upon me, O king, for I declare myself your
+suppliant."
+
+Then the god staid his stream and stilled the waves, making all calm
+before him, and bringing him safely into the mouth of the river. Here
+at last Ulysses' knees and strong hands failed him, for the sea had
+completely broken him. His body was all swollen, and his mouth and
+nostrils ran down like a river with sea-water, so that he could neither
+breathe nor speak, and lay swooning from sheer exhaustion; presently,
+when he had got his breath and came to himself again, he took off the
+scarf that Ino had given him and threw it back into the salt stream
+of the river, whereon Ino received it into her hands from the wave that
+bore it towards her. Then he left the river, laid himself down among
+the rushes, and kissed the bounteous earth.
+
+"Alas," he cried to himself in his dismay, "what ever will become of
+me, and how is it all to end? If I stay here upon the river bed through
+the long watches of the night, I am so exhausted that the bitter cold
+and damp may make an end of me—for towards sunrise there will be a keen
+wind blowing from off the river. If, on the other hand, I climb the
+hill side, find shelter in the woods, and sleep in some thicket, I may
+escape the cold and have a good night's rest, but some savage beast may
+take advantage of me and devour me."
+
+In the end he deemed it best to take to the woods, and he found one
+upon some high ground not far from the water. There he crept beneath
+two shoots of olive that grew from a single stock—the one an ungrafted
+sucker, while the other had been grafted. No wind, however squally,
+could break through the cover they afforded, nor could the sun's rays
+pierce them, nor the rain get through them, so closely did they grow
+into one another. Ulysses crept under these and began to make himself a
+bed to lie on, for there was a great litter of dead leaves lying
+about—enough to make a covering for two or three men even in hard
+winter weather. He was glad enough to see this, so he laid himself down
+and heaped the leaves all round him. Then, as one who lives alone in
+the country, far from any neighbor, hides a brand as fire-seed in the
+ashes to save himself from having to get a light elsewhere, even so did
+Ulysses cover himself up with leaves; and Minerva shed a sweet sleep
+upon his eyes, closed his eyelids, and made him lose all memories of
+his sorrows.
+
+So here Ulysses slept, overcome by sleep and toil; but Minerva went off
+to the country and city of the Phaeacians—a people who used to live in
+the fair town of Hypereia, near the lawless Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes
+were stronger than they and plundered them, so their king Nausithous
+moved them thence and settled them in Scheria, far from all other
+people. He surrounded the city with a wall, built houses and temples,
+and divided the lands among his people; but he was dead and gone to the
+house of Hades, and King Alcinous, whose counsels were inspired of
+heaven, was now reigning. To his house, then, did Minerva hie in
+furtherance of the return of Ulysses.
+
+She went straight to the beautifully decorated bedroom in which there
+slept a girl who was as lovely as a goddess, Nausicaa, daughter to King
+Alcinous. Two maid servants were sleeping near her, both very pretty,
+one on either side of the doorway, which was closed with well made
+folding doors. Minerva took the form of the famous sea captain Dymas's
+daughter, who was a bosom friend of Nausicaa and just her own age;
+then, coming up to the girl's bedside like a breath of wind, she
+hovered over her head and said:
+
+"Nausicaa, what can your mother have been about, to have such a lazy
+daughter? Here are your clothes all lying in disorder, yet you are
+going to be married almost immediately, and should not only be well
+dressed yourself, but should find good clothes for those who attend
+you. This is the way to get yourself a good name, and to make your
+father and mother proud of you. Suppose, then, that we make tomorrow a
+washing day, and start at daybreak. I will come and help you so that
+you may have everything ready as soon as possible, for all the best
+young men among your own people are courting you, and you are not going
+to remain a maid much longer. Ask your father, therefore, to have a
+waggon and mules ready for us at daybreak, to take the rugs, robes, and
+girdles, and you can ride, too, which will be much pleasanter for you
+than walking, for the washing-cisterns are some way from the town."
+
+When she had said this Minerva went away to Olympus, which they say is
+the everlasting home of the gods. Here no wind beats roughly, and
+neither rain nor snow can fall; but it abides in everlasting sunshine
+and in a great peacefulness of light, wherein the blessed gods are
+illumined for ever and ever. This was the place to which the goddess
+went when she had given instructions to the girl.
+
+By and by morning came and woke Nausicaa, who began wondering about her
+dream; she therefore went to the other end of the house to tell her
+father and mother all about it, and found them in their own room. Her
+mother was sitting by the fireside spinning her purple yarn with her
+maids around her, and she happened to catch her father just as he was
+going out to attend a meeting of the town council, which the Phaeacian
+aldermen had convened. She stopped him and said:
+
+"Papa dear, could you manage to let me have a good big waggon? I want
+to take all our dirty clothes to the river and wash them. You are the
+chief man here, so it is only right that you should have a clean shirt
+when you attend meetings of the council. Moreover, you have five sons
+at home, two of them married, while the other three are good looking
+bachelors; you know they always like to have clean linen when they go
+to a dance, and I have been thinking about all this."
+
+She did not say a word about her own wedding, for she did not like to,
+but her father knew and said, "You shall have the mules, my love, and
+whatever else you have a mind for. Be off with you, and the men shall
+get you a good strong waggon with a body to it that will hold all your
+clothes."
+
+On this he gave his orders to the servants, who got the waggon out,
+harnessed the mules, and put them to, while the girl brought the
+clothes down from the linen room and placed them on the waggon. Her
+mother prepared her a basket of provisions with all sorts of good
+things, and a goat skin full of wine; the girl now got into the waggon,
+and her mother gave her also a golden cruse of oil, that she and her
+women might anoint themselves. Then she took the whip and reins and
+lashed the mules on, whereon they set off, and their hoofs clattered on
+the road. They pulled without flagging, and carried not only Nausicaa
+and her wash of clothes, but the maids also who were with her.
+
+When they reached the water side they went to the washing cisterns,
+through which there ran at all times enough pure water to wash any
+quantity of linen, no matter how dirty. Here they unharnessed the mules
+and turned them out to feed on the sweet juicy herbage that grew by the
+water side. They took the clothes out of the waggon, put them in the
+water, and vied with one another in treading them in the pits to get
+the dirt out. After they had washed them and got them quite clean, they
+laid them out by the sea side, where the waves had raised a high beach
+of shingle, and set about washing themselves and anointing themselves
+with olive oil. Then they got their dinner by the side of the stream,
+and waited for the sun to finish drying the clothes. When they had done
+dinner they threw off the veils that covered their heads and began to
+play at ball, while Nausicaa sang for them. As the huntress Diana goes
+forth upon the mountains of Taygetus or Erymanthus to hunt wild boars
+or deer, and the wood nymphs, daughters of Aegis-bearing Jove, take
+their sport along with her (then is Leto proud at seeing her daughter
+stand a full head taller than the others, and eclipse the loveliest
+amid a whole bevy of beauties), even so did the girl outshine her
+handmaids.
+
+When it was time for them to start home, and they were folding the
+clothes and putting them into the waggon, Minerva began to consider how
+Ulysses should wake up and see the handsome girl who was to conduct him
+to the city of the Phaeacians. The girl, therefore, threw a ball at one
+of the maids, which missed her and fell into deep water. On this they
+all shouted, and the noise they made woke Ulysses, who sat up in his
+bed of leaves and began to wonder what it might all be.
+
+"Alas," said he to himself, "what kind of people have I come amongst?
+Are they cruel, savage, and uncivilised, or hospitable and humane? I
+seem to hear the voices of young women, and they sound like those of
+the nymphs that haunt mountain tops, or springs of rivers and meadows
+of green grass. At any rate I am among a race of men and women. Let me
+try if I cannot manage to get a look at them."
+
+As he said this he crept from under his bush, and broke off a bough
+covered with thick leaves to hide his nakedness. He looked like some
+lion of the wilderness that stalks about exulting in his strength and
+defying both wind and rain; his eyes glare as he prowls in quest of
+oxen, sheep, or deer, for he is famished, and will dare break even into
+a well fenced homestead, trying to get at the sheep—even such did
+Ulysses seem to the young women, as he drew near to them all naked as
+he was, for he was in great want. On seeing one so unkempt and so
+begrimed with salt water, the others scampered off along the spits that
+jutted out into the sea, but the daughter of Alcinous stood firm, for
+Minerva put courage into her heart and took away all fear from her. She
+stood right in front of Ulysses, and he doubted whether he should go up
+to her, throw himself at her feet, and embrace her knees as a
+suppliant, or stay where he was and entreat her to give him some
+clothes and show him the way to the town. In the end he deemed it best
+to entreat her from a distance in case the girl should take offence at
+his coming near enough to clasp her knees, so he addressed her in
+honeyed and persuasive language.
+
+"O queen," he said, "I implore your aid—but tell me, are you a goddess
+or are you a mortal woman? If you are a goddess and dwell in heaven, I
+can only conjecture that you are Jove's daughter Diana, for your face
+and figure resemble none but hers; if on the other hand you are a
+mortal and live on earth, thrice happy are your father and
+mother—thrice happy, too, are your brothers and sisters; how proud and
+delighted they must feel when they see so fair a scion as yourself
+going out to a dance; most happy, however, of all will he be whose
+wedding gifts have been the richest, and who takes you to his own home.
+I never yet saw any one so beautiful, neither man nor woman, and am
+lost in admiration as I behold you. I can only compare you to a young
+palm tree which I saw when I was at Delos growing near the altar of
+Apollo—for I was there, too, with much people after me, when I was on
+that journey which has been the source of all my troubles. Never yet
+did such a young plant shoot out of the ground as that was, and I
+admired and wondered at it exactly as I now admire and wonder at
+yourself. I dare not clasp your knees, but I am in great distress;
+yesterday made the twentieth day that I had been tossing about upon the
+sea. The winds and waves have taken me all the way from the Ogygian
+island, and now fate has flung me upon this coast that I may endure
+still further suffering; for I do not think that I have yet come to the
+end of it, but rather that heaven has still much evil in store for me.
+
+"And now, O queen, have pity upon me, for you are the first person I
+have met, and I know no one else in this country. Show me the way to
+your town, and let me have anything that you may have brought hither to
+wrap your clothes in. May heaven grant you in all things your heart's
+desire—husband, house, and a happy, peaceful home; for there is nothing
+better in this world than that man and wife should be of one mind in a
+house. It discomfits their enemies, makes the hearts of their friends
+glad, and they themselves know more about it than any one."
+
+To this Nausicaa answered, "Stranger, you appear to be a sensible,
+well-disposed person. There is no accounting for luck; Jove gives
+prosperity to rich and poor just as he chooses, so you must take what
+he has seen fit to send you, and make the best of it. Now, however,
+that you have come to this our country, you shall not want for clothes
+nor for anything else that a foreigner in distress may reasonably look
+for. I will show you the way to the town, and will tell you the name of
+our people; we are called Phaeacians, and I am daughter to Alcinous, in
+whom the whole power of the state is vested."
+
+Then she called her maids and said, "Stay where you are, you girls. Can
+you not see a man without running away from him? Do you take him for a
+robber or a murderer? Neither he nor any one else can come here to do
+us Phaeacians any harm, for we are dear to the gods, and live apart on
+a land's end that juts into the sounding sea, and have nothing to do
+with any other people. This is only some poor man who has lost his way,
+and we must be kind to him, for strangers and foreigners in distress
+are under Jove's protection, and will take what they can get and be
+thankful; so, girls, give the poor fellow something to eat and drink,
+and wash him in the stream at some place that is sheltered from the
+wind."
+
+On this the maids left off running away and began calling one another
+back. They made Ulysses sit down in the shelter as Nausicaa had told
+them, and brought him a shirt and cloak. They also brought him the
+little golden cruse of oil, and told him to go and wash in the stream.
+But Ulysses said, "Young women, please to stand a little on one side
+that I may wash the brine from my shoulders and anoint myself with oil,
+for it is long enough since my skin has had a drop of oil upon it. I
+cannot wash as long as you all keep standing there. I am ashamed to
+strip before a number of good looking young women."
+
+Then they stood on one side and went to tell the girl, while Ulysses
+washed himself in the stream and scrubbed the brine from his back and
+from his broad shoulders. When he had thoroughly washed himself, and
+had got the brine out of his hair, he anointed himself with oil, and
+put on the clothes which the girl had given him; Minerva then made him
+look taller and stronger than before, she also made the hair grow thick
+on the top of his head, and flow down in curls like hyacinth blossoms;
+she glorified him about the head and shoulders as a skilful workman who
+has studied art of all kinds under Vulcan and Minerva enriches a piece
+of silver plate by gilding it—and his work is full of beauty. Then he
+went and sat down a little way off upon the beach, looking quite young
+and handsome, and the girl gazed on him with admiration; then she said
+to her maids:
+
+"Hush, my dears, for I want to say something. I believe the gods who
+live in heaven have sent this man to the Phaeacians. When I first saw
+him I thought him plain, but now his appearance is like that of the
+gods who dwell in heaven. I should like my future husband to be just
+such another as he is, if he would only stay here and not want to go
+away. However, give him something to eat and drink."
+
+They did as they were told, and set food before Ulysses, who ate and
+drank ravenously, for it was long since he had had food of any kind.
+Meanwhile, Nausicaa bethought her of another matter. She got the linen
+folded and placed in the waggon, she then yoked the mules, and, as she
+took her seat, she called Ulysses:
+
+"Stranger," said she, "rise and let us be going back to the town; I
+will introduce you at the house of my excellent father, where I can
+tell you that you will meet all the best people among the Phaeacians.
+But be sure and do as I bid you, for you seem to be a sensible person.
+As long as we are going past the fields and farm lands, follow briskly
+behind the waggon along with the maids and I will lead the way myself.
+Presently, however, we shall come to the town, where you will find a
+high wall running all round it, and a good harbour on either side with
+a narrow entrance into the city, and the ships will be drawn up by the
+road side, for every one has a place where his own ship can lie. You
+will see the market place with a temple of Neptune in the middle of it,
+and paved with large stones bedded in the earth. Here people deal in
+ship's gear of all kinds, such as cables and sails, and here, too, are
+the places where oars are made, for the Phaeacians are not a nation of
+archers; they know nothing about bows and arrows, but are a sea-faring
+folk, and pride themselves on their masts, oars, and ships, with which
+they travel far over the sea.
+
+"I am afraid of the gossip and scandal that may be set on foot against
+me later on; for the people here are very ill-natured, and some low
+fellow, if he met us, might say, 'Who is this fine-looking stranger
+that is going about with Nausicaa? Where did she find him? I suppose
+she is going to marry him. Perhaps he is a vagabond sailor whom she has
+taken from some foreign vessel, for we have no neighbours; or some god
+has at last come down from heaven in answer to her prayers, and she is
+going to live with him all the rest of her life. It would be a good
+thing if she would take herself off and find a husband somewhere else,
+for she will not look at one of the many excellent young Phaeacians who
+are in love with her.' This is the kind of disparaging remark that
+would be made about me, and I could not complain, for I should myself
+be scandalised at seeing any other girl do the like, and go about with
+men in spite of everybody, while her father and mother were still
+alive, and without having been married in the face of all the world.
+
+"If, therefore, you want my father to give you an escort and to help
+you home, do as I bid you; you will see a beautiful grove of poplars by
+the road side dedicated to Minerva; it has a well in it and a meadow
+all round it. Here my father has a field of rich garden ground, about
+as far from the town as a man's voice will carry. Sit down there and
+wait for a while till the rest of us can get into the town and reach my
+father's house. Then, when you think we must have done this, come into
+the town and ask the way to the house of my father Alcinous. You will
+have no difficulty in finding it; any child will point it out to you,
+for no one else in the whole town has anything like such a fine house
+as he has. When you have got past the gates and through the outer
+court, go right across the inner court till you come to my mother. You
+will find her sitting by the fire and spinning her purple wool by
+firelight. It is a fine sight to see her as she leans back against one
+of the bearing-posts with her maids all ranged behind her. Close to her
+seat stands that of my father, on which he sits and topes like an
+immortal god. Never mind him, but go up to my mother, and lay your
+hands upon her knees if you would get home quickly. If you can gain her
+over, you may hope to see your own country again, no matter how distant
+it may be."
+
+So saying she lashed the mules with her whip and they left the river.
+The mules drew well, and their hoofs went up and down upon the road.
+She was careful not to go too fast for Ulysses and the maids who were
+following on foot along with the waggon, so she plied her whip with
+judgement. As the sun was going down they came to the sacred grove of
+Minerva, and there Ulysses sat down and prayed to the mighty daughter
+of Jove.
+
+"Hear me," he cried, "daughter of Aegis-bearing Jove, unweariable, hear
+me now, for you gave no heed to my prayers when Neptune was wrecking
+me. Now, therefore, have pity upon me and grant that I may find friends
+and be hospitably received by the Phaeacians."
+
+Thus did he pray, and Minerva heard his prayer, but she would not show
+herself to him openly, for she was afraid of her uncle Neptune, who was
+still furious in his endeavors to prevent Ulysses from getting home.
+
+Thus, then, did Ulysses wait and pray; but the girl drove on to the
+town. When she reached her father's house she drew up at the gateway,
+and her brothers—comely as the gods—gathered round her, took the mules
+out of the waggon, and carried the clothes into the house, while she
+went to her own room, where an old servant, Eurymedusa of Apeira, lit
+the fire for her. This old woman had been brought by sea from Apeira,
+and had been chosen as a prize for Alcinous because he was king over
+the Phaeacians, and the people obeyed him as though he were a god.
+She had been nurse to Nausicaa, and had now lit the fire for her, and
+brought her supper for her into her own room.
+
+Presently Ulysses got up to go towards the town; and Minerva shed a
+thick mist all round him to hide him in case any of the proud
+Phaeacians who met him should be rude to him, or ask him who he was.
+Then, as he was just entering the town, she came towards him in the
+likeness of a little girl carrying a pitcher. She stood right in front
+of him, and Ulysses said:
+
+"My dear, will you be so kind as to show me the house of king Alcinous?
+I am an unfortunate foreigner in distress, and do not know one in your
+town and country."
+
+Then Minerva said, "Yes, father stranger, I will show you the house you
+want, for Alcinous lives quite close to my own father. I will go before
+you and show the way, but say not a word as you go, and do not look at
+any man, nor ask him questions; for the people here cannot abide
+strangers, and do not like men who come from some other place. They are
+a sea-faring folk, and sail the seas by the grace of Neptune in ships
+that glide along like thought, or as a bird in the air."
+
+On this she led the way, and Ulysses followed in her steps; but not one
+of the Phaeacians could see him as he passed through the city in the
+midst of them; for the great goddess Minerva in her good will towards
+him had hidden him in a thick cloud of darkness. He admired their
+harbours, ships, places of assembly, and the lofty walls of the city,
+which, with the palisade on top of them, were very striking, and when
+they reached the king's house Minerva said:
+
+"This is the house, father stranger, which you would have me show you.
+You will find a number of great people sitting at table, but do not be
+afraid; go straight in, for the bolder a man is the more likely he is
+to carry his point, even though he is a stranger. First find the queen.
+Her name is Arete, and she comes of the same family as her husband
+Alcinous. They both descend originally from Neptune, who was father to
+Nausithous by Periboea, a woman of great beauty. Periboea was the
+youngest daughter of Eurymedon, who at one time reigned over the
+giants, but he ruined his ill-fated people and lost his own life to
+boot.
+
+"Neptune, however, lay with his daughter, and she had a son by him, the
+great Nausithous, who reigned over the Phaeacians. Nausithous had two
+sons Rhexenor and Alcinous; Apollo killed the first of them while he
+was still a bridegroom and without male issue; but he left a daughter
+Arete, whom Alcinous married, and honours as no other woman is honoured
+of all those that keep house along with their husbands.
+
+"Thus she both was, and still is, respected beyond measure by her
+children, by Alcinous himself, and by the whole people, who look upon
+her as a goddess, and greet her whenever she goes about the city, for
+she is a thoroughly good woman both in head and heart, and when any
+women are friends of hers, she will help their husbands also to settle
+their disputes. If you can gain her good will, you may have every hope
+of seeing your friends again, and getting safely back to your home and
+country."
+
+Then Minerva left Scheria and went away over the sea. She went to
+Marathon and to the spacious streets of Athens, where she entered the
+abode of Erechtheus; but Ulysses went on to the house of Alcinous, and
+he pondered much as he paused a while before reaching the threshold of
+bronze, for the splendour of the palace was like that of the sun or
+moon. The walls on either side were of bronze from end to end, and the
+cornice was of blue enamel. The doors were gold, and hung on pillars of
+silver that rose from a floor of bronze, while the lintel was silver
+and the hook of the door was of gold.
+
+On either side there stood gold and silver mastiffs which Vulcan, with
+his consummate skill, had fashioned expressly to keep watch over the
+palace of king Alcinous; so they were immortal and could never grow
+old. Seats were ranged all along the wall, here and there from one end
+to the other, with coverings of fine woven work which the women of the
+house had made. Here the chief persons of the Phaeacians used to sit
+and eat and drink, for there was abundance at all seasons; and there
+were golden figures of young men with lighted torches in their hands,
+raised on pedestals, to give light by night to those who were at table.
+There are fifty maid servants in the house, some of whom are always
+grinding rich yellow grain at the mill, while others work at the loom,
+or sit and spin, and their shuttles go backwards and forwards like the
+fluttering of aspen leaves, while the linen is so closely woven that it
+will turn oil. As the Phaeacians are the best sailors in the world, so
+their women excel all others in weaving, for Minerva has taught them
+all manner of useful arts, and they are very intelligent.
+
+Outside the gate of the outer court there is a large garden of about
+four acres with a wall all round it. It is full of beautiful
+trees—pears, pomegranates, and the most delicious apples. There are
+luscious figs also, and olives in full growth. The fruits never rot nor
+fail all the year round, neither winter nor summer, for the air is so
+soft that a new crop ripens before the old has dropped. Pear grows on
+pear, apple on apple, and fig on fig, and so also with the grapes, for
+there is an excellent vineyard: on the level ground of a part of this,
+the grapes are being made into raisins; in another part they are being
+gathered; some are being trodden in the wine tubs, others further on
+have shed their blossom and are beginning to show fruit, others again
+are just changing colour. In the furthest part of the ground there are
+beautifully arranged beds of flowers that are in bloom all the year
+round. Two streams go through it, the one turned in ducts throughout
+the whole garden, while the other is carried under the ground of the
+outer court to the house itself, and the town's people draw water from
+it. Such, then, were the splendours with which the gods had endowed the
+house of king Alcinous.
+
+So here Ulysses stood for a while and looked about him, but when he had
+looked long enough he crossed the threshold and went within the
+precincts of the house. There he found all the chief people among the
+Phaeacians making their drink offerings to Mercury, which they always
+did the last thing before going away for the night. He went straight
+through the court, still hidden by the cloak of darkness in which
+Minerva had enveloped him, till he reached Arete and King Alcinous;
+then he laid his hands upon the knees of the queen, and at that moment
+the miraculous darkness fell away from him and he became visible. Every
+one was speechless with surprise at seeing a man there, but Ulysses
+began at once with his petition.
+
+"Queen Arete," he exclaimed, "daughter of great Rhexenor, in my
+distress I humbly pray you, as also your husband and these your guests
+(whom may heaven prosper with long life and happiness, and may they
+leave their possessions to their children, and all the honours
+conferred upon them by the state) to help me home to my own country as
+soon as possible; for I have been long in trouble and away from my
+friends."
+
+Then he sat down on the hearth among the ashes and they all held their
+peace, till presently the old hero Echeneus, who was an excellent
+speaker and an elder among the Phaeacians, plainly and in all honesty
+addressed them thus:
+
+"Alcinous," said he, "it is not creditable to you that a stranger
+should be seen sitting among the ashes of your hearth; every one is
+waiting to hear what you are about to say; tell him, then, to rise and
+take a seat on a stool inlaid with silver, and bid your servants mix
+some wine and water that we may make a drink offering to Jove the lord
+of thunder, who takes all well disposed suppliants under his
+protection; and let the housekeeper give him some supper, of whatever
+there may be in the house."
+
+When Alcinous heard this he took Ulysses by the hand, raised him from
+the hearth, and bade him take the seat of Laodamas, who had been
+sitting beside him, and was his favourite son. A maid servant then
+brought him water in a beautiful golden ewer and poured it into a
+silver basin for him to wash his hands, and she drew a clean table
+beside him; an upper servant brought him bread and offered him many
+good things of what there was in the house, and Ulysses ate and drank.
+Then Alcinous said to one of the servants, "Pontonous, mix a cup of
+wine and hand it round that we may make drink-offerings to Jove the
+lord of thunder, who is the protector of all well-disposed suppliants."
+
+Pontonous then mixed wine and water, and handed it round after giving
+every man his drink-offering. When they had made their offerings, and
+had drunk each as much as he was minded, Alcinous said:
+
+"Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, hear my words. You
+have had your supper, so now go home to bed. To-morrow morning I shall
+invite a still larger number of aldermen, and will give a sacrificial
+banquet in honour of our guest; we can then discuss the question of his
+escort, and consider how we may at once send him back rejoicing to his
+own country without trouble or inconvenience to himself, no matter how
+distant it may be. We must see that he comes to no harm while on his
+homeward journey, but when he is once at home he will have to take the
+luck he was born with for better or worse like other people. It is
+possible, however, that the stranger is one of the immortals who has
+come down from heaven to visit us; but in this case the gods are
+departing from their usual practice, for hitherto they have made
+themselves perfectly clear to us when we have been offering them
+hecatombs. They come and sit at our feasts just like one of our selves,
+and if any solitary wayfarer happens to stumble upon some one or other
+of them, they affect no concealment, for we are as near of kin to the
+gods as the Cyclopes and the savage giants are."
+
+Then Ulysses said: "Pray, Alcinous, do not take any such notion into
+your head. I have nothing of the immortal about me, neither in body nor
+mind, and most resemble those among you who are the most afflicted.
+Indeed, were I to tell you all that heaven has seen fit to lay upon me,
+you would say that I was still worse off than they are. Nevertheless,
+let me sup in spite of sorrow, for an empty stomach is a very
+importunate thing, and thrusts itself on a man's notice no matter how
+dire is his distress. I am in great trouble, yet it insists that I
+shall eat and drink, bids me lay aside all memory of my sorrows and
+dwell only on the due replenishing of itself. As for yourselves, do as
+you propose, and at break of day set about helping me to get home. I
+shall be content to die if I may first once more behold my property, my
+bondsmen, and all the greatness of my house."
+
+Thus did he speak. Every one approved his saying, and agreed that he
+should have his escort inasmuch as he had spoken reasonably. Then when
+they had made their drink offerings, and had drunk each as much as he
+was minded they went home to bed every man in his own abode, leaving
+Ulysses in the cloister with Arete and Alcinous while the servants were
+taking the things away after supper. Arete was the first to speak, for
+she recognised the shirt, cloak, and good clothes that Ulysses was
+wearing, as the work of herself and of her maids; so she said,
+"Stranger, before we go any further, there is a question I should like
+to ask you. Who, and whence are you, and who gave you those clothes?
+Did you not say you had come here from beyond the sea?"
+
+And Ulysses answered, "It would be a long story Madam, were I to relate
+in full the tale of my misfortunes, for the hand of heaven has been
+laid heavy upon me; but as regards your question, there is an island
+far away in the sea which is called 'the Ogygian.' Here dwells the
+cunning and powerful goddess Calypso, daughter of Atlas. She lives by
+herself far from all neighbours human or divine. Fortune, however,
+brought me to her hearth all desolate and alone, for Jove struck my
+ship with his thunderbolts, and broke it up in mid-ocean. My brave
+comrades were drowned every man of them, but I stuck to the keel and
+was carried hither and thither for the space of nine days, till at last
+during the darkness of the tenth night the gods brought me to the
+Ogygian island where the great goddess Calypso lives. She took me in
+and treated me with the utmost kindness; indeed she wanted to make me
+immortal that I might never grow old, but she could not persuade me to
+let her do so.
+
+"I stayed with Calypso seven years straight on end, and watered the
+good clothes she gave me with my tears during the whole time; but at
+last when the eighth year came round she bade me depart of her own free
+will, either because Jove had told her she must, or because she had
+changed her mind. She sent me from her island on a raft, which she
+provisioned with abundance of bread and wine. Moreover she gave me good
+stout clothing, and sent me a wind that blew both warm and fair. Days
+seven and ten did I sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth I caught
+sight of the first outlines of the mountains upon your coast—and glad
+indeed was I to set eyes upon them. Nevertheless there was still much
+trouble in store for me, for at this point Neptune would let me go no
+further, and raised a great storm against me; the sea was so terribly
+high that I could no longer keep to my raft, which went to pieces under
+the fury of the gale, and I had to swim for it, till wind and current
+brought me to your shores.
+
+"There I tried to land, but could not, for it was a bad place and the
+waves dashed me against the rocks, so I again took to the sea and swam
+on till I came to a river that seemed the most likely landing place,
+for there were no rocks and it was sheltered from the wind. Here, then,
+I got out of the water and gathered my senses together again. Night was
+coming on, so I left the river, and went into a thicket, where I
+covered myself all over with leaves, and presently heaven sent me off
+into a very deep sleep. Sick and sorry as I was I slept among the
+leaves all night, and through the next day till afternoon, when I woke
+as the sun was westering, and saw your daughter's maid servants playing
+upon the beach, and your daughter among them looking like a goddess. I
+besought her aid, and she proved to be of an excellent disposition,
+much more so than could be expected from so young a person—for young
+people are apt to be thoughtless. She gave me plenty of bread and wine,
+and when she had had me washed in the river she also gave me the
+clothes in which you see me. Now, therefore, though it has pained me to
+do so, I have told you the whole truth."
+
+Then Alcinous said, "Stranger, it was very wrong of my daughter not to
+bring you on at once to my house along with the maids, seeing that she
+was the first person whose aid you asked."
+
+"Pray do not scold her," replied Ulysses; "she is not to blame. She did
+tell me to follow along with the maids, but I was ashamed and afraid,
+for I thought you might perhaps be displeased if you saw me. Every
+human being is sometimes a little suspicious and irritable."
+
+"Stranger," replied Alcinous, "I am not the kind of man to get angry
+about nothing; it is always better to be reasonable; but by Father
+Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, now that I see what kind of person you are,
+and how much you think as I do, I wish you would stay here, marry my
+daughter, and become my son-in-law. If you will stay I will give you a
+house and an estate, but no one (heaven forbid) shall keep you here
+against your own wish, and that you may be sure of this I will attend
+tomorrow to the matter of your escort. You can sleep during the whole
+voyage if you like, and the men shall sail you over smooth waters
+either to your own home, or wherever you please, even though it be a
+long way further off than Euboea, which those of my people who saw it
+when they took yellow-haired Rhadamanthus to see Tityus the son of
+Gaia, tell me is the furthest of any place—and yet they did the whole
+voyage in a single day without distressing themselves, and came back
+again afterwards. You will thus see how much my ships excel all others,
+and what magnificent oarsmen my sailors are."
+
+Then was Ulysses glad and prayed aloud saying, "Father Jove, grant that
+Alcinous may do all as he has said, for so he will win an imperishable
+name among mankind, and at the same time I shall return to my country."
+
+Thus did they converse. Then Arete told her maids to set a bed in the
+room that was in the gatehouse, and make it with good red rugs, and to
+spread coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for Ulysses to
+wear. The maids thereon went out with torches in their hands, and when
+they had made the bed they came up to Ulysses and said, "Rise, sir
+stranger, and come with us for your bed is ready," and glad indeed was
+he to go to his rest.
+
+So Ulysses slept in a bed placed in a room over the echoing gateway;
+but Alcinous lay in the inner part of the house, with the queen his
+wife by his side.
+
+Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Alcinous
+and Ulysses both rose, and Alcinous led the way to the Phaeacian place
+of assembly, which was near the ships. When they got there they sat
+down side by side on a seat of polished stone, while Minerva took the
+form of one of Alcinous' servants, and went round the town in order to
+help Ulysses to get home. She went up to the citizens, man by man, and
+said, "Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, come to the
+assembly all of you and listen to the stranger who has just come off a
+long voyage to the house of King Alcinous; he looks like an immortal
+god."
+
+With these words she made them all want to come, and they flocked to
+the assembly till seats and standing room were alike crowded. Every one
+was struck with the appearance of Ulysses, for Minerva had beautified
+him about the head and shoulders, making him look taller and stouter
+than he really was, that he might impress the Phaeacians favourably as
+being a very remarkable man, and might come off well in the many trials
+of skill to which they would challenge him. Then, when they were got
+together, Alcinous spoke:
+
+"Hear me," said he, "aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians,
+that I may speak even as I am minded. This stranger, whoever he may be,
+has found his way to my house from somewhere or other either East or
+West. He wants an escort and wishes to have the matter settled. Let us
+then get one ready for him, as we have done for others before him;
+indeed, no one who ever yet came to my house has been able to complain
+of me for not speeding on his way soon enough. Let us draw a ship into
+the sea—one that has never yet made a voyage—and man her with two and
+fifty of our smartest young sailors. Then when you have made fast your
+oars each by his own seat, leave the ship and come to my house to
+prepare a feast. I will find you in everything. I am giving these
+instructions to the young men who will form the crew, for as regards
+you aldermen and town councillors, you will join me in entertaining our
+guest in the cloisters. I can take no excuses, and we will have
+Demodocus to sing to us; for there is no bard like him whatever he may
+choose to sing about."
+
+Alcinous then led the way, and the others followed after, while a
+servant went to fetch Demodocus. The fifty-two picked oarsmen went to
+the sea shore as they had been told, and when they got there they drew
+the ship into the water, got her mast and sails inside her, bound the
+oars to the thole-pins with twisted thongs of leather, all in due
+course, and spread the white sails aloft. They moored the vessel a
+little way out from land, and then came on shore and went to the house
+of King Alcinous. The out houses, yards, and all the precincts were
+filled with crowds of men in great multitudes both old and young; and
+Alcinous killed them a dozen sheep, eight full grown pigs, and two
+oxen. These they skinned and dressed so as to provide a magnificent
+banquet.
+
+A servant presently led in the famous bard Demodocus, whom the muse had
+dearly loved, but to whom she had given both good and evil, for though
+she had endowed him with a divine gift of song, she had robbed him of
+his eyesight. Pontonous set a seat for him among the guests, leaning it
+up against a bearing-post. He hung the lyre for him on a peg over his
+head, and showed him where he was to feel for it with his hands. He
+also set a fair table with a basket of victuals by his side, and a cup
+of wine from which he might drink whenever he was so disposed.
+
+The company then laid their hands upon the good things that were before
+them, but as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, the muse
+inspired Demodocus to sing the feats of heroes, and more especially a
+matter that was then in the mouths of all men, to wit, the quarrel
+between Ulysses and Achilles, and the fierce words that they heaped on
+one another as they sat together at a banquet. But Agamemnon was glad
+when he heard his chieftains quarrelling with one another, for Apollo
+had foretold him this at Pytho when he crossed the stone floor to
+consult the oracle. Here was the beginning of the evil that by the will
+of Jove fell both upon Danaans and Trojans.
+
+Thus sang the bard, but Ulysses drew his purple mantle over his head
+and covered his face, for he was ashamed to let the Phaeacians see that
+he was weeping. When the bard left off singing he wiped the tears from
+his eyes, uncovered his face, and, taking his cup, made a
+drink-offering to the gods; but when the Phaeacians pressed Demodocus
+to sing further, for they delighted in his lays, then Ulysses again
+drew his mantle over his head and wept bitterly. No one noticed his
+distress except Alcinous, who was sitting near him, and heard the heavy
+sighs that he was heaving. So he at once said, "Aldermen and town
+councillors of the Phaeacians, we have had enough now, both of the
+feast, and of the minstrelsy that is its due accompaniment; let us
+proceed therefore to the athletic sports, so that our guest on his
+return home may be able to tell his friends how much we surpass all
+other nations as boxers, wrestlers, jumpers, and runners."
+
+With these words he led the way, and the others followed after. A
+servant hung Demodocus's lyre on its peg for him, led him out of the
+cloister, and set him on the same way as that along which all the chief
+men of the Phaeacians were going to see the sports; a crowd of several
+thousands of people followed them, and there were many excellent
+competitors for all the prizes. Acroneos, Ocyalus, Elatreus, Nauteus,
+Prymneus, Anchialus, Eretmeus, Ponteus, Proreus, Thoon, Anabesineus,
+and Amphialus son of Polyneus son of Tecton. There was also Euryalus
+son of Naubolus, who was like Mars himself, and was the best looking
+man among the Phaeacians except Laodamas. Three sons of Alcinous,
+Laodamas, Halios, and Clytoneus, competed also.
+
+The foot races came first. The course was set out for them from the
+starting post, and they raised a dust upon the plain as they all flew
+forward at the same moment. Clytoneus came in first by a long way; he
+left every one else behind him by the length of the furrow that a
+couple of mules can plough in a fallow field. They then turned to the
+painful art of wrestling, and here Euryalus proved to be the best man.
+Amphialus excelled all the others in jumping, while at throwing the
+disc there was no one who could approach Elatreus. Alcinous's son
+Laodamas was the best boxer, and he it was who presently said, when
+they had all been diverted with the games, "Let us ask the stranger
+whether he excels in any of these sports; he seems very powerfully
+built; his thighs, calves, hands, and neck are of prodigious strength,
+nor is he at all old, but he has suffered much lately, and there is
+nothing like the sea for making havoc with a man, no matter how strong
+he is."
+
+"You are quite right, Laodamas," replied Euryalus, "go up to your guest
+and speak to him about it yourself."
+
+When Laodamas heard this he made his way into the middle of the crowd
+and said to Ulysses, "I hope, Sir, that you will enter yourself for
+some one or other of our competitions if you are skilled in any of
+them—and you must have gone in for many a one before now. There is
+nothing that does any one so much credit all his life long as the
+showing himself a proper man with his hands and feet. Have a try
+therefore at something, and banish all sorrow from your mind. Your
+return home will not be long delayed, for the ship is already drawn
+into the water, and the crew is found."
+
+Ulysses answered, "Laodamas, why do you taunt me in this way? my mind
+is set rather on cares than contests; I have been through infinite
+trouble, and am come among you now as a suppliant, praying your king
+and people to further me on my return home."
+
+Then Euryalus reviled him outright and said, "I gather, then, that you
+are unskilled in any of the many sports that men generally delight in.
+I suppose you are one of those grasping traders that go about in ships
+as captains or merchants, and who think of nothing but of their outward
+freights and homeward cargoes. There does not seem to be much of the
+athlete about you."
+
+"For shame, Sir," answered Ulysses, fiercely, "you are an insolent
+fellow—so true is it that the gods do not grace all men alike in
+speech, person, and understanding. One man may be of weak presence, but
+heaven has adorned this with such a good conversation that he charms
+every one who sees him; his honeyed moderation carries his hearers with
+him so that he is leader in all assemblies of his fellows, and wherever
+he goes he is looked up to. Another may be as handsome as a god, but
+his good looks are not crowned with discretion. This is your case. No
+god could make a finer looking fellow than you are, but you are a fool.
+Your ill-judged remarks have made me exceedingly angry, and you are
+quite mistaken, for I excel in a great many athletic exercises; indeed,
+so long as I had youth and strength, I was among the first athletes of
+the age. Now, however, I am worn out by labour and sorrow, for I have
+gone through much both on the field of battle and by the waves of the
+weary sea; still, in spite of all this I will compete, for your taunts
+have stung me to the quick."
+
+So he hurried up without even taking his cloak off, and seized a disc,
+larger, more massive and much heavier than those used by the Phaeacians
+when disc-throwing among themselves. Then, swinging it back, he threw
+it from his brawny hand, and it made a humming sound in the air as he
+did so. The Phaeacians quailed beneath the rushing of its flight as it
+sped gracefully from his hand, and flew beyond any mark that had been
+made yet. Minerva, in the form of a man, came and marked the place
+where it had fallen. "A blind man, Sir," said she, "could easily tell
+your mark by groping for it—it is so far ahead of any other. You may
+make your mind easy about this contest, for no Phaeacian can come near
+to such a throw as yours."
+
+Ulysses was glad when he found he had a friend among the lookers-on, so
+he began to speak more pleasantly. "Young men," said he, "come up to
+that throw if you can, and I will throw another disc as heavy or even
+heavier. If anyone wants to have a bout with me let him come on, for I
+am exceedingly angry; I will box, wrestle, or run, I do not care what
+it is, with any man of you all except Laodamas, but not with him
+because I am his guest, and one cannot compete with one's own personal
+friend. At least I do not think it a prudent or a sensible thing for a
+guest to challenge his host's family at any game, especially when he is
+in a foreign country. He will cut the ground from under his own feet if
+he does; but I make no exception as regards any one else, for I want to
+have the matter out and know which is the best man. I am a good hand at
+every kind of athletic sport known among mankind. I am an excellent
+archer. In battle I am always the first to bring a man down with my
+arrow, no matter how many more are taking aim at him alongside of me.
+Philoctetes was the only man who could shoot better than I could when
+we Achaeans were before Troy and in practice. I far excel every one
+else in the whole world, of those who still eat bread upon the face of
+the earth, but I should not like to shoot against the mighty dead, such
+as Hercules, or Eurytus the Oechalian—men who could shoot against the
+gods themselves. This in fact was how Eurytus came prematurely by his
+end, for Apollo was angry with him and killed him because he challenged
+him as an archer. I can throw a dart farther than any one else can
+shoot an arrow. Running is the only point in respect of which I am
+afraid some of the Phaeacians might beat me, for I have been brought
+down very low at sea; my provisions ran short, and therefore I am still
+weak."
+
+They all held their peace except King Alcinous, who began, "Sir, we
+have had much pleasure in hearing all that you have told us, from which
+I understand that you are willing to show your prowess, as having been
+displeased with some insolent remarks that have been made to you by one
+of our athletes, and which could never have been uttered by any one who
+knows how to talk with propriety. I hope you will apprehend my meaning,
+and will explain to any one of your chief men who may be dining with
+yourself and your family when you get home, that we have an hereditary
+aptitude for accomplishments of all kinds. We are not particularly
+remarkable for our boxing, nor yet as wrestlers, but we are singularly
+fleet of foot and are excellent sailors. We are extremely fond of good
+dinners, music, and dancing; we also like frequent changes of linen,
+warm baths, and good beds, so now, please, some of you who are the best
+dancers set about dancing, that our guest on his return home may be
+able to tell his friends how much we surpass all other nations as
+sailors, runners, dancers, and minstrels. Demodocus has left his lyre
+at my house, so run some one or other of you and fetch it for him."
+
+On this a servant hurried off to bring the lyre from the king's house,
+and the nine men who had been chosen as stewards stood forward. It was
+their business to manage everything connected with the sports, so they
+made the ground smooth and marked a wide space for the dancers.
+Presently the servant came back with Demodocus's lyre, and he took his
+place in the midst of them, whereon the best young dancers in the town
+began to foot and trip it so nimbly that Ulysses was delighted with the
+merry twinkling of their feet.
+
+Meanwhile the bard began to sing the loves of Mars and Venus, and how
+they first began their intrigue in the house of Vulcan. Mars made Venus
+many presents, and defiled King Vulcan's marriage bed, so the sun, who
+saw what they were about, told Vulcan. Vulcan was very angry when he
+heard such dreadful news, so he went to his smithy brooding mischief,
+got his great anvil into its place, and began to forge some chains
+which none could either unloose or break, so that they might stay there
+in that place. When he had finished his snare he went into his
+bedroom and festooned the bed-posts all over with chains like cobwebs;
+he also let many hang down from the great beam of the ceiling. Not even
+a god could see them so fine and subtle were they. As soon as he had
+spread the chains all over the bed, he made as though he were setting
+out for the fair state of Lemnos, which of all places in the world was
+the one he was most fond of. But Mars kept no blind look out, and as
+soon as he saw him start, hurried off to his house, burning with love
+for Venus.
+
+Now Venus was just come in from a visit to her father Jove, and was
+about sitting down when Mars came inside the house, and said as he took
+her hand in his own, "Let us go to the couch of Vulcan: he is not at
+home, but is gone off to Lemnos among the Sintians, whose speech is
+barbarous."
+
+She was nothing loth, so they went to the couch to take their rest,
+whereon they were caught in the toils which cunning Vulcan had spread
+for them, and could neither get up nor stir hand or foot, but found too
+late that they were in a trap. Then Vulcan came up to them, for he had
+turned back before reaching Lemnos, when his scout the sun told him
+what was going on. He was in a furious passion, and stood in the
+vestibule making a dreadful noise as he shouted to all the gods.
+
+"Father Jove," he cried, "and all you other blessed gods who live for
+ever, come here and see the ridiculous and disgraceful sight that I
+will show you. Jove's daughter Venus is always dishonouring me because
+I am lame. She is in love with Mars, who is handsome and clean built,
+whereas I am a cripple—but my parents are to blame for that, not I;
+they ought never to have begotten me. Come and see the pair together
+asleep on my bed. It makes me furious to look at them. They are very
+fond of one another, but I do not think they will lie there longer than
+they can help, nor do I think that they will sleep much; there,
+however, they shall stay till her father has repaid me the sum I gave
+him for his baggage of a daughter, who is fair but not honest."
+
+On this the gods gathered to the house of Vulcan. Earth-encircling
+Neptune came, and Mercury the bringer of luck, and King Apollo, but the
+goddesses staid at home all of them for shame. Then the givers of all
+good things stood in the doorway, and the blessed gods roared with
+inextinguishable laughter, as they saw how cunning Vulcan had been,
+whereon one would turn towards his neighbour saying:
+
+"Ill deeds do not prosper, and the weak confound the strong. See how
+limping Vulcan, lame as he is, has caught Mars who is the fleetest god
+in heaven; and now Mars will be cast in heavy damages."
+
+Thus did they converse, but King Apollo said to Mercury, "Messenger
+Mercury, giver of good things, you would not care how strong the chains
+were, would you, if you could sleep with Venus?"
+
+"King Apollo," answered Mercury, "I only wish I might get the chance,
+though there were three times as many chains—and you might look on, all
+of you, gods and goddesses, but I would sleep with her if I could."
+
+The immortal gods burst out laughing as they heard him, but Neptune
+took it all seriously, and kept on imploring Vulcan to set Mars free
+again. "Let him go," he cried, "and I will undertake, as you require,
+that he shall pay you all the damages that are held reasonable among
+the immortal gods."
+
+"Do not," replied Vulcan, "ask me to do this; a bad man's bond is bad
+security; what remedy could I enforce against you if Mars should go
+away and leave his debts behind him along with his chains?"
+
+"Vulcan," said Neptune, "if Mars goes away without paying his damages,
+I will pay you myself." So Vulcan answered, "In this case I cannot and
+must not refuse you."
+
+Thereon he loosed the bonds that bound them, and as soon as they were
+free they scampered off, Mars to Thrace and laughter-loving Venus to
+Cyprus and to Paphos, where is her grove and her altar fragrant with
+burnt offerings. Here the Graces bathed her, and anointed her with oil
+of ambrosia such as the immortal gods make use of, and they clothed her
+in raiment of the most enchanting beauty.
+
+Thus sang the bard, and both Ulysses and the seafaring Phaeacians were
+charmed as they heard him.
+
+Then Alcinous told Laodamas and Halius to dance alone, for there was no
+one to compete with them. So they took a red ball which Polybus had
+made for them, and one of them bent himself backwards and threw it up
+towards the clouds, while the other jumped from off the ground and
+caught it with ease before it came down again. When they had done
+throwing the ball straight up into the air they began to dance, and at
+the same time kept on throwing it backwards and forwards to one
+another, while all the young men in the ring applauded and made a great
+stamping with their feet. Then Ulysses said:
+
+"King Alcinous, you said your people were the nimblest dancers in the
+world, and indeed they have proved themselves to be so. I was
+astonished as I saw them."
+
+The king was delighted at this, and exclaimed to the Phaeacians,
+"Aldermen and town councillors, our guest seems to be a person of
+singular judgement; let us give him such proof of our hospitality as he
+may reasonably expect. There are twelve chief men among you, and
+counting myself there are thirteen; contribute, each of you, a clean
+cloak, a shirt, and a talent of fine gold; let us give him all this in
+a lump down at once, so that when he gets his supper he may do so with
+a light heart. As for Euryalus he will have to make a formal apology
+and a present too, for he has been rude."
+
+Thus did he speak. The others all of them applauded his saying, and
+sent their servants to fetch the presents. Then Euryalus said, "King
+Alcinous, I will give the stranger all the satisfaction you require. He
+shall have my sword, which is of bronze, all but the hilt, which is of
+silver. I will also give him the scabbard of newly sawn ivory into
+which it fits. It will be worth a great deal to him."
+
+As he spoke he placed the sword in the hands of Ulysses and said, "Good
+luck to you, father stranger; if anything has been said amiss may the
+winds blow it away with them, and may heaven grant you a safe return,
+for I understand you have been long away from home, and have gone
+through much hardship."
+
+To which Ulysses answered, "Good luck to you too my friend, and may the
+gods grant you every happiness. I hope you will not miss the sword you
+have given me along with your apology."
+
+With these words he girded the sword about his shoulders and towards
+sundown the presents began to make their appearance, as the servants of
+the donors kept bringing them to the house of King Alcinous; here his
+sons received them, and placed them under their mother's charge. Then
+Alcinous led the way to the house and bade his guests take their seats.
+
+"Wife," said he, turning to Queen Arete, "Go, fetch the best chest we
+have, and put a clean cloak and shirt in it. Also, set a copper on the
+fire and heat some water; our guest will take a warm bath; see also to
+the careful packing of the presents that the noble Phaeacians have made
+him; he will thus better enjoy both his supper and the singing that
+will follow. I shall myself give him this golden goblet—which is of
+exquisite workmanship—that he may be reminded of me for the rest of his
+life whenever he makes a drink offering to Jove, or to any of the
+gods."
+
+Then Arete told her maids to set a large tripod upon the fire as fast
+as they could, whereon they set a tripod full of bath water on to a
+clear fire; they threw on sticks to make it blaze, and the water became
+hot as the flame played about the belly of the tripod. Meanwhile
+Arete brought a magnificent chest from her own room, and inside it she
+packed all the beautiful presents of gold and raiment which the
+Phaeacians had brought. Lastly she added a cloak and a good shirt from
+Alcinous, and said to Ulysses:
+
+"See to the lid yourself, and have the whole bound round at once, for
+fear any one should rob you by the way when you are asleep in your
+ship."
+
+When Ulysses heard this he put the lid on the chest and made it fast
+with a bond that Circe had taught him. He had done so before an upper
+servant told him to come to the bath and wash himself. He was very glad
+of a warm bath, for he had had no one to wait upon him ever since he
+left the house of Calypso, who as long as he remained with her had
+taken as good care of him as though he had been a god. When the
+servants had done washing and anointing him with oil, and had given him
+a clean cloak and shirt, he left the bath room and joined the guests
+who were sitting over their wine. Lovely Nausicaa stood by one of the
+bearing-posts supporting the roof of the cloister, and admired him as
+she saw him pass. "Farewell stranger," said she, "do not forget me when
+you are safe at home again, for it is to me first that you owe a ransom
+for having saved your life."
+
+And Ulysses said, "Nausicaa, daughter of great Alcinous, may Jove the
+mighty husband of Juno, grant that I may reach my home; so shall I
+bless you as my guardian angel all my days, for it was you who saved
+me."
+
+When he had said this, he seated himself beside Alcinous. Supper was
+then served, and the wine was mixed for drinking. A servant led in the
+favourite bard Demodocus, and set him in the midst of the company, near
+one of the bearing-posts supporting the cloister, that he might lean
+against it. Then Ulysses cut off a piece of roast pork with plenty of
+fat (for there was abundance left on the joint) and said to a servant,
+"Take this piece of pork over to Demodocus and tell him to eat it; for
+all the pain his lays may cause me I will salute him none the less;
+bards are honoured and respected throughout the world, for the muse
+teaches them their songs and loves them."
+
+The servant carried the pork in his fingers over to Demodocus, who took
+it and was very much pleased. They then laid their hands on the good
+things that were before them, and as soon as they had had to eat and
+drink, Ulysses said to Demodocus, "Demodocus, there is no one in the
+world whom I admire more than I do you. You must have studied under the
+Muse, Jove's daughter, and under Apollo, so accurately do you sing the
+return of the Achaeans with all their sufferings and adventures. If you
+were not there yourself, you must have heard it all from some one who
+was. Now, however, change your song and tell us of the wooden horse
+which Epeus made with the assistance of Minerva, and which Ulysses got
+by stratagem into the fort of Troy after freighting it with the men who
+afterwards sacked the city. If you will sing this tale aright I will
+tell all the world how magnificently heaven has endowed you."
+
+The bard inspired of heaven took up the story at the point where some
+of the Argives set fire to their tents and sailed away while others,
+hidden within the horse, were waiting with Ulysses in the Trojan
+place of assembly. For the Trojans themselves had drawn the horse into
+their fortress, and it stood there while they sat in council round it,
+and were in three minds as to what they should do. Some were for
+breaking it up then and there; others would have it dragged to the top
+of the rock on which the fortress stood, and then thrown down the
+precipice; while yet others were for letting it remain as an offering
+and propitiation for the gods. And this was how they settled it in the
+end, for the city was doomed when it took in that horse, within which
+were all the bravest of the Argives waiting to bring death and
+destruction on the Trojans. Anon he sang how the sons of the Achaeans
+issued from the horse, and sacked the town, breaking out from their
+ambuscade. He sang how they overran the city hither and thither and
+ravaged it, and how Ulysses went raging like Mars along with Menelaus
+to the house of Deiphobus. It was there that the fight raged most
+furiously, nevertheless by Minerva's help he was victorious.
+
+All this he told, but Ulysses was overcome as he heard him, and his
+cheeks were wet with tears. He wept as a woman weeps when she throws
+herself on the body of her husband who has fallen before his own city
+and people, fighting bravely in defence of his home and children. She
+screams aloud and flings her arms about him as he lies gasping for
+breath and dying, but her enemies beat her from behind about the back
+and shoulders, and carry her off into slavery, to a life of labour and
+sorrow, and the beauty fades from her cheeks—even so piteously did
+Ulysses weep, but none of those present perceived his tears except
+Alcinous, who was sitting near him, and could hear the sobs and sighs
+that he was heaving. The king, therefore, at once rose and said:
+
+"Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, let Demodocus cease
+his song, for there are those present who do not seem to like it. From
+the moment that we had done supper and Demodocus began to sing, our
+guest has been all the time groaning and lamenting. He is evidently in
+great trouble, so let the bard leave off, that we may all enjoy
+ourselves, hosts and guest alike. This will be much more as it should
+be, for all these festivities, with the escort and the presents that we
+are making with so much good will are wholly in his honour, and any one
+with even a moderate amount of right feeling knows that he ought to
+treat a guest and a suppliant as though he were his own brother.
+
+"Therefore, Sir, do you on your part affect no more concealment nor
+reserve in the matter about which I shall ask you; it will be more
+polite in you to give me a plain answer; tell me the name by which your
+father and mother over yonder used to call you, and by which you were
+known among your neighbours and fellow-citizens. There is no one,
+neither rich nor poor, who is absolutely without any name whatever, for
+people's fathers and mothers give them names as soon as they are born.
+Tell me also your country, nation, and city, that our ships may shape
+their purpose accordingly and take you there. For the Phaeacians have
+no pilots; their vessels have no rudders as those of other nations
+have, but the ships themselves understand what it is that we are
+thinking about and want; they know all the cities and countries in the
+whole world, and can traverse the sea just as well even when it is
+covered with mist and cloud, so that there is no danger of being
+wrecked or coming to any harm. Still I do remember hearing my father
+say that Neptune was angry with us for being too easy-going in the
+matter of giving people escorts. He said that one of these days he
+should wreck a ship of ours as it was returning from having escorted
+some one, and bury our city under a high mountain. This is what my
+father used to say, but whether the god will carry out his threat or no
+is a matter which he will decide for himself.
+
+"And now, tell me and tell me true. Where have you been wandering, and
+in what countries have you travelled? Tell us of the peoples
+themselves, and of their cities—who were hostile, savage and
+uncivilised, and who, on the other hand, hospitable and humane. Tell us
+also why you are made so unhappy on hearing about the return of the
+Argive Danaans from Troy. The gods arranged all this, and sent them
+their misfortunes in order that future generations might have something
+to sing about. Did you lose some brave kinsman of your wife's when you
+were before Troy? a son-in-law or father-in-law—which are the nearest
+relations a man has outside his own flesh and blood? or was it some
+brave and kindly-natured comrade—for a good friend is as dear to a man
+as his own brother?"
+
+And Ulysses answered, "King Alcinous, it is a good thing to hear a bard
+with such a divine voice as this man has. There is nothing better or
+more delightful than when a whole people make merry together, with the
+guests sitting orderly to listen, while the table is loaded with bread
+and meats, and the cup-bearer draws wine and fills his cup for every
+man. This is indeed as fair a sight as a man can see. Now, however,
+since you are inclined to ask the story of my sorrows, and rekindle my
+own sad memories in respect of them, I do not know how to begin, nor
+yet how to continue and conclude my tale, for the hand of heaven has
+been laid heavily upon me.
+
+"Firstly, then, I will tell you my name that you too may know it, and
+one day, if I outlive this time of sorrow, may become my guests though
+I live so far away from all of you. I am Ulysses son of Laertes,
+renowned among mankind for all manner of subtlety, so that my fame
+ascends to heaven. I live in Ithaca, where there is a high mountain
+called Neritum, covered with forests; and not far from it there is a
+group of islands very near to one another—Dulichium, Same, and the
+wooded island of Zacynthus. It lies squat on the horizon, all highest
+up in the sea towards the sunset, while the others lie away from it
+towards dawn. It is a rugged island, but it breeds brave men, and my
+eyes know none that they better love to look upon. The goddess Calypso
+kept me with her in her cave, and wanted me to marry her, as did also
+the cunning Aeaean goddess Circe; but they could neither of them
+persuade me, for there is nothing dearer to a man than his own country
+and his parents, and however splendid a home he may have in a foreign
+country, if it be far from father or mother, he does not care about it.
+Now, however, I will tell you of the many hazardous adventures which by
+Jove's will I met with on my return from Troy.
+
+"When I had set sail thence the wind took me first to Ismarus, which is
+the city of the Cicons. There I sacked the town and put the people to
+the sword. We took their wives and also much booty, which we divided
+equitably amongst us, so that none might have reason to complain. I
+then said that we had better make off at once, but my men very
+foolishly would not obey me, so they staid there drinking much wine and
+killing great numbers of sheep and oxen on the sea shore. Meanwhile the
+Cicons cried out for help to other Cicons who lived inland. These were
+more in number, and stronger, and they were more skilled in the art of
+war, for they could fight, either from chariots or on foot as the
+occasion served; in the morning, therefore, they came as thick as
+leaves and bloom in summer, and the hand of heaven was against us, so
+that we were hard pressed. They set the battle in array near the ships,
+and the hosts aimed their bronze-shod spears at one another. So long
+as the day waxed and it was still morning, we held our own against
+them, though they were more in number than we; but as the sun went
+down, towards the time when men loose their oxen, the Cicons got the
+better of us, and we lost half a dozen men from every ship we had; so
+we got away with those that were left.
+
+"Thence we sailed onward with sorrow in our hearts, but glad to have
+escaped death though we had lost our comrades, nor did we leave till we
+had thrice invoked each one of the poor fellows who had perished by the
+hands of the Cicons. Then Jove raised the North wind against us till it
+blew a hurricane, so that land and sky were hidden in thick clouds, and
+night sprang forth out of the heavens. We let the ships run before the
+gale, but the force of the wind tore our sails to tatters, so we took
+them down for fear of shipwreck, and rowed our hardest towards the
+land. There we lay two days and two nights suffering much alike from
+toil and distress of mind, but on the morning of the third day we again
+raised our masts, set sail, and took our places, letting the wind and
+steersmen direct our ship. I should have got home at that time unharmed
+had not the North wind and the currents been against me as I was
+doubling Cape Malea, and set me off my course hard by the island of
+Cythera.
+
+"I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of nine days upon the
+sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who
+live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take
+in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near
+the ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company to
+see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had a
+third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the
+Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus,
+which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about
+home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to
+them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters
+without thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they
+wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under
+the benches. Then I told the rest to go on board at once, lest any of
+them should taste of the lotus and leave off wanting to get home, so
+they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars.
+
+"We sailed hence, always in much distress, till we came to the land of
+the lawless and inhuman Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes neither plant nor
+plough, but trust in providence, and live on such wheat, barley, and
+grapes as grow wild without any kind of tillage, and their wild grapes
+yield them wine as the sun and the rain may grow them. They have no
+laws nor assemblies of the people, but live in caves on the tops of
+high mountains; each is lord and master in his family, and they take no
+account of their neighbours.
+
+"Now off their harbour there lies a wooded and fertile island not quite
+close to the land of the Cyclopes, but still not far. It is over-run
+with wild goats, that breed there in great numbers and are never
+disturbed by foot of man; for sportsmen—who as a rule will suffer so
+much hardship in forest or among mountain precipices—do not go there,
+nor yet again is it ever ploughed or fed down, but it lies a wilderness
+untilled and unsown from year to year, and has no living thing upon it
+but only goats. For the Cyclopes have no ships, nor yet shipwrights who
+could make ships for them; they cannot therefore go from city to city,
+or sail over the sea to one another's country as people who have ships
+can do; if they had had these they would have colonised the island,
+for it is a very good one, and would yield everything in due season.
+There are meadows that in some places come right down to the sea shore,
+well watered and full of luscious grass; grapes would do there
+excellently; there is level land for ploughing, and it would always
+yield heavily at harvest time, for the soil is deep. There is a good
+harbour where no cables are wanted, nor yet anchors, nor need a ship be
+moored, but all one has to do is to beach one's vessel and stay there
+till the wind becomes fair for putting out to sea again. At the head of
+the harbour there is a spring of clear water coming out of a cave, and
+there are poplars growing all round it.
+
+"Here we entered, but so dark was the night that some god must have
+brought us in, for there was nothing whatever to be seen. A thick mist
+hung all round our ships; the moon was hidden behind a mass of clouds
+so that no one could have seen the island if he had looked for it, nor
+were there any breakers to tell us we were close in shore before we
+found ourselves upon the land itself; when, however, we had beached the
+ships, we took down the sails, went ashore and camped upon the beach
+till daybreak.
+
+"When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, we admired the
+island and wandered all over it, while the nymphs Jove's daughters
+roused the wild goats that we might get some meat for our dinner. On
+this we fetched our spears and bows and arrows from the ships, and
+dividing ourselves into three bands began to shoot the goats. Heaven
+sent us excellent sport; I had twelve ships with me, and each ship got
+nine goats, while my own ship had ten; thus through the livelong day to
+the going down of the sun we ate and drank our fill, and we had plenty
+of wine left, for each one of us had taken many jars full when we
+sacked the city of the Cicons, and this had not yet run out. While we
+were feasting we kept turning our eyes towards the land of the
+Cyclopes, which was hard by, and saw the smoke of their stubble fires.
+We could almost fancy we heard their voices and the bleating of their
+sheep and goats, but when the sun went down and it came on dark, we
+camped down upon the beach, and next morning I called a council.
+
+"'Stay here, my brave fellows,' said I, 'all the rest of you, while I
+go with my ship and exploit these people myself: I want to see if they
+are uncivilised savages, or a hospitable and humane race.'
+
+"I went on board, bidding my men to do so also and loose the hawsers;
+so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars. When
+we got to the land, which was not far, there, on the face of a cliff
+near the sea, we saw a great cave overhung with laurels. It was a
+station for a great many sheep and goats, and outside there was a large
+yard, with a high wall round it made of stones built into the ground
+and of trees both pine and oak. This was the abode of a huge monster
+who was then away from home shepherding his flocks. He would have
+nothing to do with other people, but led the life of an outlaw. He was
+a horrid creature, not like a human being at all, but resembling rather
+some crag that stands out boldly against the sky on the top of a high
+mountain.
+
+"I told my men to draw the ship ashore, and stay where they were, all
+but the twelve best among them, who were to go along with myself. I
+also took a goatskin of sweet black wine which had been given me by
+Maron, son of Euanthes, who was priest of Apollo the patron god of
+Ismarus, and lived within the wooded precincts of the temple. When we
+were sacking the city we respected him, and spared his life, as also
+his wife and child; so he made me some presents of great value—seven
+talents of fine gold, and a bowl of silver, with twelve jars of sweet
+wine, unblended, and of the most exquisite flavour. Not a man nor maid
+in the house knew about it, but only himself, his wife, and one
+housekeeper: when he drank it he mixed twenty parts of water to one of
+wine, and yet the fragrance from the mixing-bowl was so exquisite that
+it was impossible to refrain from drinking. I filled a large skin with
+this wine, and took a wallet full of provisions with me, for my mind
+misgave me that I might have to deal with some savage who would be of
+great strength, and would respect neither right nor law.
+
+"We soon reached his cave, but he was out shepherding, so we went
+inside and took stock of all that we could see. His cheese-racks were
+loaded with cheeses, and he had more lambs and kids than his pens could
+hold. They were kept in separate flocks; first there were the hoggets,
+then the oldest of the younger lambs and lastly the very young ones
+all kept apart from one another; as for his dairy, all the vessels,
+bowls, and milk pails into which he milked, were swimming with whey.
+When they saw all this, my men begged me to let them first steal some
+cheeses, and make off with them to the ship; they would then return,
+drive down the lambs and kids, put them on board and sail away with
+them. It would have been indeed better if we had done so but I would
+not listen to them, for I wanted to see the owner himself, in the hope
+that he might give me a present. When, however, we saw him my poor men
+found him ill to deal with.
+
+"We lit a fire, offered some of the cheeses in sacrifice, ate others of
+them, and then sat waiting till the Cyclops should come in with his
+sheep. When he came, he brought in with him a huge load of dry firewood
+to light the fire for his supper, and this he flung with such a noise
+on to the floor of his cave that we hid ourselves for fear at the far
+end of the cavern. Meanwhile he drove all the ewes inside, as well as
+the she-goats that he was going to milk, leaving the males, both rams
+and he-goats, outside in the yards. Then he rolled a huge stone to the
+mouth of the cave—so huge that two and twenty strong four-wheeled
+waggons would not be enough to draw it from its place against the
+doorway. When he had so done he sat down and milked his ewes and goats,
+all in due course, and then let each of them have her own young. He
+curdled half the milk and set it aside in wicker strainers, but the
+other half he poured into bowls that he might drink it for his supper.
+When he had got through with all his work, he lit the fire, and then
+caught sight of us, whereon he said:
+
+"'Strangers, who are you? Where do sail from? Are you traders, or do
+you sail the sea as rovers, with your hands against every man, and
+every man's hand against you?'
+
+"We were frightened out of our senses by his loud voice and monstrous
+form, but I managed to say, 'We are Achaeans on our way home from Troy,
+but by the will of Jove, and stress of weather, we have been driven far
+out of our course. We are the people of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, who
+has won infinite renown throughout the whole world, by sacking so great
+a city and killing so many people. We therefore humbly pray you to show
+us some hospitality, and otherwise make us such presents as visitors
+may reasonably expect. May your excellency fear the wrath of heaven,
+for we are your suppliants, and Jove takes all respectable travellers
+under his protection, for he is the avenger of all suppliants and
+foreigners in distress.'
+
+"To this he gave me but a pitiless answer, 'Stranger,' said he, 'you
+are a fool, or else you know nothing of this country. Talk to me,
+indeed, about fearing the gods or shunning their anger? We Cyclopes do
+not care about Jove or any of your blessed gods, for we are ever so
+much stronger than they. I shall not spare either yourself or your
+companions out of any regard for Jove, unless I am in the humour for
+doing so. And now tell me where you made your ship fast when you came
+on shore. Was it round the point, or is she lying straight off the
+land?'
+
+"He said this to draw me out, but I was too cunning to be caught in
+that way, so I answered with a lie; 'Neptune,' said I, 'sent my ship on
+to the rocks at the far end of your country, and wrecked it. We were
+driven on to them from the open sea, but I and those who are with me
+escaped the jaws of death.'
+
+"The cruel wretch vouchsafed me not one word of answer, but with a
+sudden clutch he gripped up two of my men at once and dashed them down
+upon the ground as though they had been puppies. Their brains were shed
+upon the ground, and the earth was wet with their blood. Then he tore
+them limb from limb and supped upon them. He gobbled them up like a
+lion in the wilderness, flesh, bones, marrow, and entrails, without
+leaving anything uneaten. As for us, we wept and lifted up our hands to
+heaven on seeing such a horrid sight, for we did not know what else to
+do; but when the Cyclops had filled his huge paunch, and had washed
+down his meal of human flesh with a drink of neat milk, he stretched
+himself full length upon the ground among his sheep, and went to sleep.
+I was at first inclined to seize my sword, draw it, and drive it into
+his vitals, but I reflected that if I did we should all certainly be
+lost, for we should never be able to shift the stone which the monster
+had put in front of the door. So we stayed sobbing and sighing where we
+were till morning came.
+
+"When the child of morning, rosy-fingered dawn, appeared, he again lit
+his fire, milked his goats and ewes, all quite rightly, and then let
+each have her own young one; as soon as he had got through with all his
+work, he clutched up two more of my men, and began eating them for his
+morning's meal. Presently, with the utmost ease, he rolled the stone
+away from the door and drove out his sheep, but he at once put it back
+again—as easily as though he were merely clapping the lid on to a
+quiver full of arrows. As soon as he had done so he shouted, and cried
+'Shoo, shoo,' after his sheep to drive them on to the mountain; so I
+was left to scheme some way of taking my revenge and covering myself
+with glory.
+
+"In the end I deemed it would be the best plan to do as follows: The
+Cyclops had a great club which was lying near one of the sheep pens; it
+was of green olive wood, and he had cut it intending to use it for a
+staff as soon as it should be dry. It was so huge that we could only
+compare it to the mast of a twenty-oared merchant vessel of large
+burden, and able to venture out into open sea. I went up to this club
+and cut off about six feet of it; I then gave this piece to the men and
+told them to fine it evenly off at one end, which they proceeded to do,
+and lastly I brought it to a point myself, charring the end in the fire
+to make it harder. When I had done this I hid it under dung, which was
+lying about all over the cave, and told the men to cast lots which of
+them should venture along with myself to lift it and bore it into the
+monster's eye while he was asleep. The lot fell upon the very four whom
+I should have chosen, and I myself made five. In the evening the wretch
+came back from shepherding, and drove his flocks into the cave—this
+time driving them all inside, and not leaving any in the yards; I
+suppose some fancy must have taken him, or a god must have prompted him
+to do so. As soon as he had put the stone back to its place against the
+door, he sat down, milked his ewes and his goats all quite rightly, and
+then let each have her own young one; when he had got through with all
+this work, he gripped up two more of my men, and made his supper off
+them. So I went up to him with an ivy-wood bowl of black wine in my
+hands:
+
+"'Look here, Cyclops,' said I, you have been eating a great deal of
+man's flesh, so take this and drink some wine, that you may see what
+kind of liquor we had on board my ship. I was bringing it to you as a
+drink-offering, in the hope that you would take compassion upon me and
+further me on my way home, whereas all you do is to go on ramping and
+raving most intolerably. You ought to be ashamed of yourself; how can
+you expect people to come see you any more if you treat them in this
+way?'
+
+"He then took the cup and drank. He was so delighted with the taste of
+the wine that he begged me for another bowl full. 'Be so kind,' he
+said, 'as to give me some more, and tell me your name at once. I want
+to make you a present that you will be glad to have. We have wine even
+in this country, for our soil grows grapes and the sun ripens them, but
+this drinks like Nectar and Ambrosia all in one.'
+
+"I then gave him some more; three times did I fill the bowl for him,
+and three times did he drain it without thought or heed; then, when I
+saw that the wine had got into his head, I said to him as plausibly as
+I could: 'Cyclops, you ask my name and I will tell it you; give me,
+therefore, the present you promised me; my name is Noman; this is what
+my father and mother and my friends have always called me.'
+
+"But the cruel wretch said, 'Then I will eat all Noman's comrades
+before Noman himself, and will keep Noman for the last. This is the
+present that I will make him.'
+
+"As he spoke he reeled, and fell sprawling face upwards on the ground.
+His great neck hung heavily backwards and a deep sleep took hold upon
+him. Presently he turned sick, and threw up both wine and the gobbets
+of human flesh on which he had been gorging, for he was very drunk.
+Then I thrust the beam of wood far into the embers to heat it, and
+encouraged my men lest any of them should turn faint-hearted. When the
+wood, green though it was, was about to blaze, I drew it out of the
+fire glowing with heat, and my men gathered round me, for heaven had
+filled their hearts with courage. We drove the sharp end of the beam
+into the monster's eye, and bearing upon it with all my weight I kept
+turning it round and round as though I were boring a hole in a ship's
+plank with an auger, which two men with a wheel and strap can keep on
+turning as long as they choose. Even thus did we bore the red hot beam
+into his eye, till the boiling blood bubbled all over it as we worked
+it round and round, so that the steam from the burning eyeball scalded
+his eyelids and eyebrows, and the roots of the eye sputtered in the
+fire. As a blacksmith plunges an axe or hatchet into cold water to
+temper it—for it is this that gives strength to the iron—and it makes a
+great hiss as he does so, even thus did the Cyclops' eye hiss round the
+beam of olive wood, and his hideous yells made the cave ring again. We
+ran away in a fright, but he plucked the beam all besmirched with gore
+from his eye, and hurled it from him in a frenzy of rage and pain,
+shouting as he did so to the other Cyclopes who lived on the bleak
+headlands near him; so they gathered from all quarters round his cave
+when they heard him crying, and asked what was the matter with him.
+
+"'What ails you, Polyphemus,' said they, 'that you make such a noise,
+breaking the stillness of the night, and preventing us from being able
+to sleep? Surely no man is carrying off your sheep? Surely no man is
+trying to kill you either by fraud or by force?'
+
+"But Polyphemus shouted to them from inside the cave, 'Noman is killing
+me by fraud; no man is killing me by force.'
+
+"'Then,' said they, 'if no man is attacking you, you must be ill; when
+Jove makes people ill, there is no help for it, and you had better pray
+to your father Neptune.'
+
+"Then they went away, and I laughed inwardly at the success of my
+clever stratagem, but the Cyclops, groaning and in an agony of pain,
+felt about with his hands till he found the stone and took it from the
+door; then he sat in the doorway and stretched his hands in front of it
+to catch anyone going out with the sheep, for he thought I might be
+foolish enough to attempt this.
+
+"As for myself I kept on puzzling to think how I could best save my own
+life and those of my companions; I schemed and schemed, as one who
+knows that his life depends upon it, for the danger was very great. In
+the end I deemed that this plan would be the best; the male sheep were
+well grown, and carried a heavy black fleece, so I bound them
+noiselessly in threes together, with some of the withies on which the
+wicked monster used to sleep. There was to be a man under the middle
+sheep, and the two on either side were to cover him, so that there were
+three sheep to each man. As for myself there was a ram finer than any
+of the others, so I caught hold of him by the back, esconced myself in
+the thick wool under his belly, and hung on patiently to his fleece,
+face upwards, keeping a firm hold on it all the time.
+
+"Thus, then, did we wait in great fear of mind till morning came, but
+when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, the male sheep
+hurried out to feed, while the ewes remained bleating about the pens
+waiting to be milked, for their udders were full to bursting; but their
+master in spite of all his pain felt the backs of all the sheep as they
+stood upright, without being sharp enough to find out that the men were
+underneath their bellies. As the ram was going out, last of all, heavy
+with its fleece and with the weight of my crafty self, Polyphemus laid
+hold of it and said:
+
+"'My good ram, what is it that makes you the last to leave my cave this
+morning? You are not wont to let the ewes go before you, but lead the
+mob with a run whether to flowery mead or bubbling fountain, and are
+the first to come home again at night; but now you lag last of all. Is
+it because you know your master has lost his eye, and are sorry because
+that wicked Noman and his horrid crew has got him down in his drink and
+blinded him? But I will have his life yet. If you could understand and
+talk, you would tell me where the wretch is hiding, and I would dash
+his brains upon the ground till they flew all over the cave. I should
+thus have some satisfaction for the harm this no-good Noman has done
+me.'
+
+"As he spoke he drove the ram outside, but when we were a little way
+out from the cave and yards, I first got from under the ram's belly,
+and then freed my comrades; as for the sheep, which were very fat, by
+constantly heading them in the right direction we managed to drive them
+down to the ship. The crew rejoiced greatly at seeing those of us who
+had escaped death, but wept for the others whom the Cyclops had killed.
+However, I made signs to them by nodding and frowning that they were to
+hush their crying, and told them to get all the sheep on board at once
+and put out to sea; so they went aboard, took their places, and smote
+the grey sea with their oars. Then, when I had got as far out as my
+voice would reach, I began to jeer at the Cyclops.
+
+"'Cyclops,' said I, 'you should have taken better measure of your man
+before eating up his comrades in your cave. You wretch, eat up your
+visitors in your own house? You might have known that your sin would
+find you out, and now Jove and the other gods have punished you.'
+
+"He got more and more furious as he heard me, so he tore the top from
+off a high mountain, and flung it just in front of my ship so that it
+was within a little of hitting the end of the rudder. The sea quaked
+as the rock fell into it, and the wash of the wave it raised carried us
+back towards the mainland, and forced us towards the shore. But I
+snatched up a long pole and kept the ship off, making signs to my men
+by nodding my head, that they must row for their lives, whereon they
+laid out with a will. When we had got twice as far as we were before, I
+was for jeering at the Cyclops again, but the men begged and prayed of
+me to hold my tongue.
+
+"'Do not,' they exclaimed, 'be mad enough to provoke this savage
+creature further; he has thrown one rock at us already which drove us
+back again to the mainland, and we made sure it had been the death of
+us; if he had then heard any further sound of voices he would have
+pounded our heads and our ship's timbers into a jelly with the rugged
+rocks he would have heaved at us, for he can throw them a long way.'
+
+"But I would not listen to them, and shouted out to him in my rage,
+'Cyclops, if any one asks you who it was that put your eye out and
+spoiled your beauty, say it was the valiant warrior Ulysses, son of
+Laertes, who lives in Ithaca.'
+
+"On this he groaned, and cried out, 'Alas, alas, then the old prophecy
+about me is coming true. There was a prophet here, at one time, a man
+both brave and of great stature, Telemus son of Eurymus, who was an
+excellent seer, and did all the prophesying for the Cyclopes till he
+grew old; he told me that all this would happen to me some day, and
+said I should lose my sight by the hand of Ulysses. I have been all
+along expecting some one of imposing presence and superhuman strength,
+whereas he turns out to be a little insignificant weakling, who has
+managed to blind my eye by taking advantage of me in my drink; come
+here, then, Ulysses, that I may make you presents to show my
+hospitality, and urge Neptune to help you forward on your journey—for
+Neptune and I are father and son. He, if he so will, shall heal me,
+which no one else neither god nor man can do.'
+
+"Then I said, 'I wish I could be as sure of killing you outright and
+sending you down to the house of Hades, as I am that it will take more
+than Neptune to cure that eye of yours.'
+
+"On this he lifted up his hands to the firmament of heaven and prayed,
+saying, 'Hear me, great Neptune; if I am indeed your own true begotten
+son, grant that Ulysses may never reach his home alive; or if he must
+get back to his friends at last, let him do so late and in sore plight
+after losing all his men [let him reach his home in another man's ship
+and find trouble in his house.'
+
+"Thus did he pray, and Neptune heard his prayer. Then he picked up a
+rock much larger than the first, swung it aloft and hurled it with
+prodigious force. It fell just short of the ship, but was within a
+little of hitting the end of the rudder. The sea quaked as the rock
+fell into it, and the wash of the wave it raised drove us onwards on
+our way towards the shore of the island.
+
+"When at last we got to the island where we had left the rest of our
+ships, we found our comrades lamenting us, and anxiously awaiting our
+return. We ran our vessel upon the sands and got out of her on to the
+sea shore; we also landed the Cyclops' sheep, and divided them
+equitably amongst us so that none might have reason to complain. As for
+the ram, my companions agreed that I should have it as an extra share;
+so I sacrificed it on the sea shore, and burned its thigh bones to
+Jove, who is the lord of all. But he heeded not my sacrifice, and only
+thought how he might destroy both my ships and my comrades.
+
+"Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we feasted
+our fill on meat and drink, but when the sun went down and it came on
+dark, we camped upon the beach. When the child of morning rosy-fingered
+Dawn appeared, I bade my men on board and loose the hawsers. Then they
+took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars; so we sailed
+on with sorrow in our hearts, but glad to have escaped death though we
+had lost our comrades.
+
+"Thence we went on to the Aeolian island where lives Aeolus son of
+Hippotas, dear to the immortal gods. It is an island that floats (as it
+were) upon the sea, iron bound with a wall that girds it. Now, Aeolus
+has six daughters and six lusty sons, so he made the sons marry the
+daughters, and they all live with their dear father and mother,
+feasting and enjoying every conceivable kind of luxury. All day long
+the atmosphere of the house is loaded with the savour of roasting meats
+till it groans again, yard and all; but by night they sleep on their
+well made bedsteads, each with his own wife between the blankets. These
+were the people among whom we had now come.
+
+"Aeolus entertained me for a whole month asking me questions all the
+time about Troy, the Argive fleet, and the return of the Achaeans. I
+told him exactly how everything had happened, and when I said I must
+go, and asked him to further me on my way, he made no sort of
+difficulty, but set about doing so at once. Moreover, he flayed me a
+prime ox-hide to hold the ways of the roaring winds, which he shut up
+in the hide as in a sack—for Jove had made him captain over the winds,
+and he could stir or still each one of them according to his own
+pleasure. He put the sack in the ship and bound the mouth so tightly
+with a silver thread that not even a breath of a side-wind could blow
+from any quarter. The West wind which was fair for us did he alone let
+blow as it chose; but it all came to nothing, for we were lost through
+our own folly.
+
+"Nine days and nine nights did we sail, and on the tenth day our native
+land showed on the horizon. We got so close in that we could see the
+stubble fires burning, and I, being then dead beat, fell into a light
+sleep, for I had never let the rudder out of my own hands, that we
+might get home the faster. On this the men fell to talking among
+themselves, and said I was bringing back gold and silver in the sack
+that Aeolus had given me. 'Bless my heart,' would one turn to his
+neighbour, saying, 'how this man gets honoured and makes friends to
+whatever city or country he may go. See what fine prizes he is taking
+home from Troy, while we, who have travelled just as far as he has,
+come back with hands as empty as we set out with—and now Aeolus has
+given him ever so much more. Quick—let us see what it all is, and how
+much gold and silver there is in the sack he gave him.'
+
+"Thus they talked and evil counsels prevailed. They loosed the sack,
+whereupon the wind flew howling forth and raised a storm that carried
+us weeping out to sea and away from our own country. Then I awoke, and
+knew not whether to throw myself into the sea or to live on and make
+the best of it; but I bore it, covered myself up, and lay down in the
+ship, while the men lamented bitterly as the fierce winds bore our
+fleet back to the Aeolian island.
+
+"When we reached it we went ashore to take in water, and dined hard by
+the ships. Immediately after dinner I took a herald and one of my men
+and went straight to the house of Aeolus, where I found him feasting
+with his wife and family; so we sat down as suppliants on the
+threshold. They were astounded when they saw us and said, 'Ulysses,
+what brings you here? What god has been ill-treating you? We took great
+pains to further you on your way home to Ithaca, or wherever it was
+that you wanted to go to.'
+
+"Thus did they speak, but I answered sorrowfully, 'My men have undone
+me; they, and cruel sleep, have ruined me. My friends, mend me this
+mischief, for you can if you will.'
+
+"I spoke as movingly as I could, but they said nothing, till their
+father answered, 'Vilest of mankind, get you gone at once out of the
+island; him whom heaven hates will I in no wise help. Be off, for you
+come here as one abhorred of heaven.' And with these words he sent me
+sorrowing from his door.
+
+"Thence we sailed sadly on till the men were worn out with long and
+fruitless rowing, for there was no longer any wind to help them. Six
+days, night and day did we toil, and on the seventh day we reached the
+rocky stronghold of Lamus—Telepylus, the city of the Laestrygonians,
+where the shepherd who is driving in his sheep and goats [to be milked
+salutes him who is driving out his flock [to feed and this last
+answers the salute. In that country a man who could do without sleep
+might earn double wages, one as a herdsman of cattle, and another as a
+shepherd, for they work much the same by night as they do by day.
+
+"When we reached the harbour we found it land-locked under steep
+cliffs, with a narrow entrance between two headlands. My captains took
+all their ships inside, and made them fast close to one another, for
+there was never so much as a breath of wind inside, but it was always
+dead calm. I kept my own ship outside, and moored it to a rock at the
+very end of the point; then I climbed a high rock to reconnoitre, but
+could see no sign neither of man nor cattle, only some smoke rising
+from the ground. So I sent two of my company with an attendant to find
+out what sort of people the inhabitants were.
+
+"The men when they got on shore followed a level road by which the
+people draw their firewood from the mountains into the town, till
+presently they met a young woman who had come outside to fetch water,
+and who was daughter to a Laestrygonian named Antiphates. She was going
+to the fountain Artacia from which the people bring in their water, and
+when my men had come close up to her, they asked her who the king of
+that country might be, and over what kind of people he ruled; so she
+directed them to her father's house, but when they got there they found
+his wife to be a giantess as huge as a mountain, and they were
+horrified at the sight of her.
+
+"She at once called her husband Antiphates from the place of assembly,
+and forthwith he set about killing my men. He snatched up one of them,
+and began to make his dinner off him then and there, whereon the other
+two ran back to the ships as fast as ever they could. But Antiphates
+raised a hue-and-cry after them, and thousands of sturdy Laestrygonians
+sprang up from every quarter—ogres, not men. They threw vast rocks at
+us from the cliffs as though they had been mere stones, and I heard the
+horrid sound of the ships crunching up against one another, and the
+death cries of my men, as the Laestrygonians speared them like fishes
+and took them home to eat them. While they were thus killing my men
+within the harbour I drew my sword, cut the cable of my own ship, and
+told my men to row with all their might if they too would not fare like
+the rest; so they laid out for their lives, and we were thankful enough
+when we got into open water out of reach of the rocks they hurled at
+us. As for the others there was not one of them left.
+
+"Thence we sailed sadly on, glad to have escaped death, though we had
+lost our comrades, and came to the Aeaean island, where Circe lives—a
+great and cunning goddess who is own sister to the magician Aeetes—for
+they are both children of the sun by Perse, who is daughter to Oceanus.
+We brought our ship into a safe harbour without a word, for some god
+guided us thither, and having landed we lay there for two days and two
+nights, worn out in body and mind. When the morning of the third day
+came I took my spear and my sword, and went away from the ship to
+reconnoitre, and see if I could discover signs of human handiwork, or
+hear the sound of voices. Climbing to the top of a high look-out I
+espied the smoke of Circe's house rising upwards amid a dense forest of
+trees, and when I saw this I doubted whether, having seen the smoke, I
+would not go on at once and find out more, but in the end I deemed it
+best to go back to the ship, give the men their dinners, and send some
+of them instead of going myself.
+
+"When I had nearly got back to the ship some god took pity upon my
+solitude, and sent a fine antlered stag right into the middle of my
+path. He was coming down his pasture in the forest to drink of the
+river, for the heat of the sun drove him, and as he passed I struck him
+in the middle of the back; the bronze point of the spear went clean
+through him, and he lay groaning in the dust until the life went out of
+him. Then I set my foot upon him, drew my spear from the wound, and
+laid it down; I also gathered rough grass and rushes and twisted them
+into a fathom or so of good stout rope, with which I bound the four
+feet of the noble creature together; having so done I hung him round my
+neck and walked back to the ship leaning upon my spear, for the stag
+was much too big for me to be able to carry him on my shoulder,
+steadying him with one hand. As I threw him down in front of the ship,
+I called the men and spoke cheeringly man by man to each of them. 'Look
+here my friends,' said I, 'we are not going to die so much before our
+time after all, and at any rate we will not starve so long as we have
+got something to eat and drink on board.' On this they uncovered their
+heads upon the sea shore and admired the stag, for he was indeed a
+splendid fellow. Then, when they had feasted their eyes upon him
+sufficiently, they washed their hands and began to cook him for dinner.
+
+"Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we stayed
+there eating and drinking our fill, but when the sun went down and it
+came on dark, we camped upon the sea shore. When the child of morning,
+rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I called a council and said, 'My friends,
+we are in very great difficulties; listen therefore to me. We have no
+idea where the sun either sets or rises, so that we do not even know
+East from West. I see no way out of it; nevertheless, we must try and
+find one. We are certainly on an island, for I went as high as I could
+this morning, and saw the sea reaching all round it to the horizon; it
+lies low, but towards the middle I saw smoke rising from out of a thick
+forest of trees.'
+
+"Their hearts sank as they heard me, for they remembered how they had
+been treated by the Laestrygonian Antiphates, and by the savage ogre
+Polyphemus. They wept bitterly in their dismay, but there was nothing
+to be got by crying, so I divided them into two companies and set a
+captain over each; I gave one company to Eurylochus, while I took
+command of the other myself. Then we cast lots in a helmet, and the lot
+fell upon Eurylochus; so he set out with his twenty-two men, and they
+wept, as also did we who were left behind.
+
+"When they reached Circe's house they found it built of cut stones, on
+a site that could be seen from far, in the middle of the forest. There
+were wild mountain wolves and lions prowling all round it—poor
+bewitched creatures whom she had tamed by her enchantments and drugged
+into subjection. They did not attack my men, but wagged their great
+tails, fawned upon them, and rubbed their noses lovingly against
+them. As hounds crowd round their master when they see him coming
+from dinner—for they know he will bring them something—even so did
+these wolves and lions with their great claws fawn upon my men, but the
+men were terribly frightened at seeing such strange creatures.
+Presently they reached the gates of the goddess's house, and as they
+stood there they could hear Circe within, singing most beautifully as
+she worked at her loom, making a web so fine, so soft, and of such
+dazzling colours as no one but a goddess could weave. On this Polites,
+whom I valued and trusted more than any other of my men, said, 'There
+is some one inside working at a loom and singing most beautifully; the
+whole place resounds with it, let us call her and see whether she is
+woman or goddess.'
+
+"They called her and she came down, unfastened the door, and bade them
+enter. They, thinking no evil, followed her, all except Eurylochus, who
+suspected mischief and staid outside. When she had got them into her
+house, she set them upon benches and seats and mixed them a mess with
+cheese, honey, meal, and Pramnian wine, but she drugged it with wicked
+poisons to make them forget their homes, and when they had drunk she
+turned them into pigs by a stroke of her wand, and shut them up in her
+pig-styes. They were like pigs—head, hair, and all, and they grunted
+just as pigs do; but their senses were the same as before, and they
+remembered everything.
+
+"Thus then were they shut up squealing, and Circe threw them some
+acorns and beech masts such as pigs eat, but Eurylochus hurried back to
+tell me about the sad fate of our comrades. He was so overcome with
+dismay that though he tried to speak he could find no words to do so;
+his eyes filled with tears and he could only sob and sigh, till at last
+we forced his story out of him, and he told us what had happened to the
+others.
+
+"'We went,' said he, 'as you told us, through the forest, and in the
+middle of it there was a fine house built with cut stones in a place
+that could be seen from far. There we found a woman, or else she was a
+goddess, working at her loom and singing sweetly; so the men shouted to
+her and called her, whereon she at once came down, opened the door, and
+invited us in. The others did not suspect any mischief so they followed
+her into the house, but I staid where I was, for I thought there might
+be some treachery. From that moment I saw them no more, for not one of
+them ever came out, though I sat a long time watching for them.'
+
+"Then I took my sword of bronze and slung it over my shoulders; I also
+took my bow, and told Eurylochus to come back with me and shew me the
+way. But he laid hold of me with both his hands and spoke piteously,
+saying, 'Sir, do not force me to go with you, but let me stay here, for
+I know you will not bring one of them back with you, nor even return
+alive yourself; let us rather see if we cannot escape at any rate with
+the few that are left us, for we may still save our lives.'
+
+"'Stay where you are, then,' answered I, 'eating and drinking at the
+ship, but I must go, for I am most urgently bound to do so.'
+
+"With this I left the ship and went up inland. When I got through the
+charmed grove, and was near the great house of the enchantress Circe, I
+met Mercury with his golden wand, disguised as a young man in the
+hey-day of his youth and beauty with the down just coming upon his
+face. He came up to me and took my hand within his own, saying, 'My
+poor unhappy man, whither are you going over this mountain top, alone
+and without knowing the way? Your men are shut up in Circe's pigstyes,
+like so many wild boars in their lairs. You surely do not fancy that
+you can set them free? I can tell you that you will never get back and
+will have to stay there with the rest of them. But never mind, I will
+protect you and get you out of your difficulty. Take this herb, which
+is one of great virtue, and keep it about you when you go to Circe's
+house, it will be a talisman to you against every kind of mischief.
+
+"'And I will tell you of all the wicked witchcraft that Circe will try
+to practice upon you. She will mix a mess for you to drink, and she
+will drug the meal with which she makes it, but she will not be able to
+charm you, for the virtue of the herb that I shall give you will
+prevent her spells from working. I will tell you all about it. When
+Circe strikes you with her wand, draw your sword and spring upon her as
+though you were going to kill her. She will then be frightened, and
+will desire you to go to bed with her; on this you must not point blank
+refuse her, for you want her to set your companions free, and to take
+good care also of yourself, but you must make her swear solemnly by all
+the blessed gods that she will plot no further mischief against you, or
+else when she has got you naked she will unman you and make you fit for
+nothing.'
+
+"As he spoke he pulled the herb out of the ground and shewed me what it
+was like. The root was black, while the flower was as white as milk;
+the gods call it Moly, and mortal men cannot uproot it, but the gods
+can do whatever they like.
+
+"Then Mercury went back to high Olympus passing over the wooded island;
+but I fared onward to the house of Circe, and my heart was clouded with
+care as I walked along. When I got to the gates I stood there and
+called the goddess, and as soon as she heard me she came down, opened
+the door, and asked me to come in; so I followed her—much troubled in
+my mind. She set me on a richly decorated seat inlaid with silver,
+there was a footstool also under my feet, and she mixed a mess in a
+golden goblet for me to drink; but she drugged it, for she meant me
+mischief. When she had given it me, and I had drunk it without its
+charming me, she struck me with her wand. 'There now,' she cried, 'be
+off to the pigstye, and make your lair with the rest of them.'
+
+"But I rushed at her with my sword drawn as though I would kill her,
+whereon she fell with a loud scream, clasped my knees, and spoke
+piteously, saying, 'Who and whence are you? from what place and people
+have you come? How can it be that my drugs have no power to charm you?
+Never yet was any man able to stand so much as a taste of the herb I
+gave you; you must be spell-proof; surely you can be none other than
+the bold hero Ulysses, who Mercury always said would come here some day
+with his ship while on his way home from Troy; so be it then; sheathe
+your sword and let us go to bed, that we may make friends and learn to
+trust each other.'
+
+"And I answered, 'Circe, how can you expect me to be friendly with you
+when you have just been turning all my men into pigs? And now that you
+have got me here myself, you mean me mischief when you ask me to go to
+bed with you, and will unman me and make me fit for nothing. I shall
+certainly not consent to go to bed with you unless you will first take
+your solemn oath to plot no further harm against me.'
+
+"So she swore at once as I had told her, and when she had completed her
+oath then I went to bed with her.
+
+"Meanwhile her four servants, who are her housemaids, set about their
+work. They are the children of the groves and fountains, and of the
+holy waters that run down into the sea. One of them spread a fair
+purple cloth over a seat, and laid a carpet underneath it. Another
+brought tables of silver up to the seats, and set them with baskets of
+gold. A third mixed some sweet wine with water in a silver bowl and put
+golden cups upon the tables, while the fourth brought in water and set
+it to boil in a large cauldron over a good fire which she had lighted.
+When the water in the cauldron was boiling, she poured cold into it
+till it was just as I liked it, and then she set me in a bath and began
+washing me from the cauldron about the head and shoulders, to take the
+tire and stiffness out of my limbs. As soon as she had done washing me
+and anointing me with oil, she arrayed me in a good cloak and shirt and
+led me to a richly decorated seat inlaid with silver; there was a
+footstool also under my feet. A maid servant then brought me water in a
+beautiful golden ewer and poured it into a silver basin for me to wash
+my hands, and she drew a clean table beside me; an upper servant
+brought me bread and offered me many things of what there was in the
+house, and then Circe bade me eat, but I would not, and sat without
+heeding what was before me, still moody and suspicious.
+
+"When Circe saw me sitting there without eating, and in great grief,
+she came to me and said, 'Ulysses, why do you sit like that as though
+you were dumb, gnawing at your own heart, and refusing both meat and
+drink? Is it that you are still suspicious? You ought not to be, for I
+have already sworn solemnly that I will not hurt you.'
+
+"And I said, 'Circe, no man with any sense of what is right can think
+of either eating or drinking in your house until you have set his
+friends free and let him see them. If you want me to eat and drink, you
+must free my men and bring them to me that I may see them with my own
+eyes.'
+
+"When I had said this she went straight through the court with her wand
+in her hand and opened the pigstye doors. My men came out like so many
+prime hogs and stood looking at her, but she went about among them and
+anointed each with a second drug, whereon the bristles that the bad
+drug had given them fell off, and they became men again, younger than
+they were before, and much taller and better looking. They knew me at
+once, seized me each of them by the hand, and wept for joy till the
+whole house was filled with the sound of their halloa-ballooing, and
+Circe herself was so sorry for them that she came up to me and said,
+'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, go back at once to the sea where you
+have left your ship, and first draw it on to the land. Then, hide all
+your ship's gear and property in some cave, and come back here with
+your men.'
+
+"I agreed to this, so I went back to the sea shore, and found the men
+at the ship weeping and wailing most piteously. When they saw me the
+silly blubbering fellows began frisking round me as calves break out
+and gambol round their mothers, when they see them coming home to be
+milked after they have been feeding all day, and the homestead resounds
+with their lowing. They seemed as glad to see me as though they had got
+back to their own rugged Ithaca, where they had been born and bred.
+'Sir,' said the affectionate creatures, 'we are as glad to see you back
+as though we had got safe home to Ithaca; but tell us all about the
+fate of our comrades.'
+
+"I spoke comfortingly to them and said, 'We must draw our ship on to
+the land, and hide the ship's gear with all our property in some cave;
+then come with me all of you as fast as you can to Circe's house, where
+you will find your comrades eating and drinking in the midst of great
+abundance.'
+
+"On this the men would have come with me at once, but Eurylochus tried
+to hold them back and said, 'Alas, poor wretches that we are, what will
+become of us? Rush not on your ruin by going to the house of Circe, who
+will turn us all into pigs or wolves or lions, and we shall have to
+keep guard over her house. Remember how the Cyclops treated us when our
+comrades went inside his cave, and Ulysses with them. It was all
+through his sheer folly that those men lost their lives.'
+
+"When I heard him I was in two minds whether or no to draw the keen
+blade that hung by my sturdy thigh and cut his head off in spite of his
+being a near relation of my own; but the men interceded for him and
+said, 'Sir, if it may so be, let this fellow stay here and mind the
+ship, but take the rest of us with you to Circe's house.'
+
+"On this we all went inland, and Eurylochus was not left behind after
+all, but came on too, for he was frightened by the severe reprimand
+that I had given him.
+
+"Meanwhile Circe had been seeing that the men who had been left behind
+were washed and anointed with olive oil; she had also given them
+woollen cloaks and shirts, and when we came we found them all
+comfortably at dinner in her house. As soon as the men saw each other
+face to face and knew one another, they wept for joy and cried aloud
+till the whole palace rang again. Thereon Circe came up to me and said,
+'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, tell your men to leave off crying; I
+know how much you have all of you suffered at sea, and how ill you have
+fared among cruel savages on the mainland, but that is over now, so
+stay here, and eat and drink till you are once more as strong and
+hearty as you were when you left Ithaca; for at present you are
+weakened both in body and mind; you keep all the time thinking of the
+hardships you have suffered during your travels, so that you have no
+more cheerfulness left in you.'
+
+"Thus did she speak and we assented. We stayed with Circe for a whole
+twelvemonth feasting upon an untold quantity both of meat and wine. But
+when the year had passed in the waning of moons and the long days had
+come round, my men called me apart and said, 'Sir, it is time you began
+to think about going home, if so be you are to be spared to see your
+house and native country at all.'
+
+"Thus did they speak and I assented. Thereon through the livelong day
+to the going down of the sun we feasted our fill on meat and wine, but
+when the sun went down and it came on dark the men laid themselves down
+to sleep in the covered cloisters. I, however, after I had got into bed
+with Circe, besought her by her knees, and the goddess listened to what
+I had got to say. 'Circe,' said I, 'please to keep the promise you made
+me about furthering me on my homeward voyage. I want to get back and so
+do my men, they are always pestering me with their complaints as soon
+as ever your back is turned.'
+
+"And the goddess answered, 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, you shall
+none of you stay here any longer if you do not want to, but there is
+another journey which you have got to take before you can sail
+homewards. You must go to the house of Hades and of dread Proserpine to
+consult the ghost of the blind Theban prophet Teiresias, whose reason
+is still unshaken. To him alone has Proserpine left his understanding
+even in death, but the other ghosts flit about aimlessly.'
+
+"I was dismayed when I heard this. I sat up in bed and wept, and would
+gladly have lived no longer to see the light of the sun, but presently
+when I was tired of weeping and tossing myself about, I said, 'And who
+shall guide me upon this voyage—for the house of Hades is a port that
+no ship can reach.'
+
+"'You will want no guide,' she answered; 'raise your mast, set your
+white sails, sit quite still, and the North Wind will blow you there of
+itself. When your ship has traversed the waters of Oceanus, you will
+reach the fertile shore of Proserpine's country with its groves of tall
+poplars and willows that shed their fruit untimely; here beach your
+ship upon the shore of Oceanus, and go straight on to the dark abode of
+Hades. You will find it near the place where the rivers Pyriphlegethon
+and Cocytus (which is a branch of the river Styx) flow into Acheron,
+and you will see a rock near it, just where the two roaring rivers run
+into one another.
+
+"'When you have reached this spot, as I now tell you, dig a trench a
+cubit or so in length, breadth, and depth, and pour into it as a
+drink-offering to all the dead, first, honey mixed with milk, then
+wine, and in the third place water—sprinkling white barley meal over
+the whole. Moreover you must offer many prayers to the poor feeble
+ghosts, and promise them that when you get back to Ithaca you will
+sacrifice a barren heifer to them, the best you have, and will load the
+pyre with good things. More particularly you must promise that
+Teiresias shall have a black sheep all to himself, the finest in all
+your flocks.
+
+"'When you shall have thus besought the ghosts with your prayers, offer
+them a ram and a black ewe, bending their heads towards Erebus; but
+yourself turn away from them as though you would make towards the
+river. On this, many dead men's ghosts will come to you, and you must
+tell your men to skin the two sheep that you have just killed, and
+offer them as a burnt sacrifice with prayers to Hades and to
+Proserpine. Then draw your sword and sit there, so as to prevent any
+other poor ghost from coming near the spilt blood before Teiresias
+shall have answered your questions. The seer will presently come to
+you, and will tell you about your voyage—what stages you are to make,
+and how you are to sail the sea so as to reach your home.'
+
+"It was day-break by the time she had done speaking, so she dressed me
+in my shirt and cloak. As for herself she threw a beautiful light
+gossamer fabric over her shoulders, fastening it with a golden girdle
+round her waist, and she covered her head with a mantle. Then I went
+about among the men everywhere all over the house, and spoke kindly to
+each of them man by man: 'You must not lie sleeping here any longer,'
+said I to them, 'we must be going, for Circe has told me all about it.'
+And on this they did as I bade them.
+
+"Even so, however, I did not get them away without misadventure. We had
+with us a certain youth named Elpenor, not very remarkable for sense or
+courage, who had got drunk and was lying on the house-top away from the
+rest of the men, to sleep off his liquor in the cool. When he heard the
+noise of the men bustling about, he jumped up on a sudden and forgot
+all about coming down by the main staircase, so he tumbled right off
+the roof and broke his neck, and his soul went down to the house of
+Hades.
+
+"When I had got the men together I said to them, 'You think you are
+about to start home again, but Circe has explained to me that instead
+of this, we have got to go to the house of Hades and Proserpine to
+consult the ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias.'
+
+"The men were broken-hearted as they heard me, and threw themselves on
+the ground groaning and tearing their hair, but they did not mend
+matters by crying. When we reached the sea shore, weeping and lamenting
+our fate, Circe brought the ram and the ewe, and we made them fast hard
+by the ship. She passed through the midst of us without our knowing it,
+for who can see the comings and goings of a god, if the god does not
+wish to be seen?
+
+"Then, when we had got down to the sea shore we drew our ship into the
+water and got her mast

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