The Odyssey

Then to the sports his sons the king commands, Each blooming youth before the monarch stands, In dance unmatch’d! A wondrous ball is brought (The work of Polypus, divinely wrought); This youth with strength enormous bids it fly, And bending backward whirls it to the sky; His brother, springing with an active bound, At distance intercepts it from the ground. The ball dismissed, in dance they skim the strand, Turn and return, and scarce imprint the sand. The assembly gazes with astonished eyes, And sends in shouts applauses to the skies.

Pleas’d with his people’s fame, the monarch hears, And thus benevolent accosts the peers: “Since wisdom’s sacred guidance he pursues, Give to the stranger-guest a stranger’s dues: Twelve princes in our realm dominion share, O’er whom supreme, imperial power I bear; Bring gold, a pledge of love: a talent bring, A vest, a robe, and imitate your king. Be swift to give: that he this night may share The social feast of joy, with joy sincere. And thou, Euryalus, redeem thy wrong; A generous heart repairs a slanderous tongue.”

The assenting peers, obedient to the king, In haste their heralds send the gifts to bring. Then thus Euryalus: “O prince, whose sway Rules this bless’d realm, repentant I obey; Be his this sword, whose blade of brass displays A ruddy gleam; whose hilt a silver blaze; Whose ivory sheath, inwrought with curious pride, Adds graceful terror to the wearer’s side.”

He said, and to his hand the sword consign’d: “And if (he cried) my words affect thy mind, Far from thy mind those words, ye whirlwinds, bear, And scatter them, ye storms, in empty air! Crown, O ye heavens, with joy his peaceful hours, And grant him to his spouse, and native shores.”

He said, and o’er his shoulder flung the blade. Now o’er the earth ascends the evening shade: The precious gifts the illustrious heralds bear, And to the court the embodied peers repair. Before the queen Alcinous’ sons unfold The vests, the robes, and heaps of shining gold; Then to the radiant thrones they move in state: Aloft, the king in pomp imperial sate.

Thence to the queen: “O partner of our reign, O sole beloved! command thy menial train A polish’d chest and stately robes to bear, And healing waters for the bath prepare; That, bathed, our guest may bid his sorrows cease, Hear the sweet song, and taste the feast in peace. A bowl that flames with gold, of wondrous frame, Ourself we give, memorial of our name; To raise in offerings to almighty Jove, And every god that treads the courts above.”

Instant the queen, observant of the king, Commands her train a spacious vase to bring, The spacious vase with ample streams suffice, Heap the high wood, and bid the flames arise. The flames climb round it with a fierce embrace, The fuming waters bubble o’er the blaze. Herself the chest prepares; in order roll’d The robes, the vests are ranged, and heaps of gold And adding a rich dress inwrought with art, A gift expressive of her bounteous heart. Thus spoke to Ithacus: “To guard with bands Insolvable these gifts, thy care demands; Lest, in thy slumbers on the watery main, The hand of rapine make our bounty vain.”

Then bending with full force around he roll’d A labyrinth of bands in fold on fold, Closed with Circaean art. A train attends Around the bath: the bath the king ascends (Untasted joy, since that disastrous hour, He sail’d ill-fated from Calypso’s bower); Where, happy as the gods that range the sky, He feasted every sense with every joy. He bathes; the damsels with officious toil, Shed sweets, shed unguents, in a shower of oil; Then o’er his limbs a gorgeous robe he spreads, And to the feast magnificently treads. Full where the dome its shining valves expands, Nausicaa blooming as a goddess stands; With wondering eyes the hero she survey’d, And graceful thus began the royal maid:

“O royal maid! (Ulysses straight returns) Whose worth the splendours of thy race adorns, So may dread Jove (whose arm in vengeance forms The writhen bolt, and blackens heaven with storms), Restore me safe, through weary wanderings toss’d, To my dear country’s ever-pleasing coast, As while the spirit in this bosom glows, To thee, my goddess, I address my vows; My life, thy gift I boast!” He said, and sate Fast by Alcinous on a throne of state.

Now each partakes the feast, the wine prepares, Portions the food, and each his portion shares. The bard a herald guides; the gazing throng Pay low obeisance as he moves along: Beneath a sculptur’d arch he sits enthroned, The peers encircling form an awful round. Then, from the chine, Ulysses carves with art Delicious food, an honorary part: “This, let the master of the lyre receive, A pledge of love! ’tis all a wretch can give. Lives there a man beneath the spacious skies Who sacred honours to the bard denies? The Muse the bard inspires, exalts his mind; The muse indulgent loves the harmonious kind.”

When now the rage of hunger was allay’d, Thus to the lyrist wise Ulysses said: “O more than man! thy soul the muse inspires, Or Phœbus animates with all his fires; For who, by Phœbus uninform’d, could know The woe of Greece, and sing so well the woe? Just to the tale, as present at the fray, Or taught the labours of the dreadful day: The song recalls past horrors to my eyes, And bids proud Ilion from her ashes rise. Once more harmonious strike the sounding string, The Epaean fabric, framed by Pallas, sing: How stern Ulysses, furious to destroy, With latent heroes sack’d imperial Troy. If faithful thou record the tale of Fame, The god himself inspires thy breast with flame And mine shall be the task henceforth to raise In every land thy monument of praise.”

Full of the god he raised his lofty strain: How the Greeks rush’d tumultuous to the main; How blazing tents illumined half the skies, While from the shores the winged navy flies; How e’en in Ilion’s walls, in deathful bands, Came the stern Greeks by Troy’s assisting hands: All Troy up-heaved the steed; of differing mind, Various the Trojans counsell’d: part consign’d The monster to the sword, part sentence gave To plunge it headlong in the whelming wave; The unwise award to lodge it in the towers, An offering sacred to the immortal powers: The unwise prevail, they lodge it in the walls, And by the gods’ decree proud Ilion falls: Destruction enters in the treacherous wood, And vengeful slaughter, fierce for human blood.

He sung the Greeks stern-issuing from the steed, How Ilion burns, how all her fathers bleed; How to thy dome, Deiphobus! ascends The Spartan king; how Ithacus attends (Horrid as Mars); and how with dire alarms He fights—subdues, for Pallas strings his arms

Thus while he sung, Ulysses’ griefs renew, Tears bathe his cheeks, and tears the ground bedew As some fond matron views in mortal fight Her husband falling in his country’s right; Frantic through clashing swords she runs, she flies, As ghastly pale he groans, and faints and dies; Close to his breast she grovels on the ground, And bathes with floods of tears the gaping wound; She cries, she shrieks: the fierce insulting foe Relentless mocks her violence of woe: To chains condemn’d, as wildly she deplores; A widow, and a slave on foreign shores.

So from the sluices of Ulysses’ eyes Fast fell the tears, and sighs succeeded sighs: Conceal’d he grieved: the king observed alone The silent tear, and heard the secret groan; Then to the bard aloud: “O cease to sing, Dumb be thy voice, and mute the tuneful string; To every note his tears responsive flow, And his great heart heaves with tumultuous woe; Thy lay too deeply moves: then cease the lay, And o’er the banquet every heart be gay: This social right demands: for him the sails, Floating in air, invite the impelling gales: His are the gifts of love: the wise and good Receive the stranger as a brother’s blood.

“But, friend, discover faithful what I crave; Artful concealment ill becomes the brave: Say what thy birth, and what the name you bore, Imposed by parents in the natal hour? (For from the natal hour distinctive names, One common right, the great and lowly claims:) Say from what city, from what regions toss’d, And what inhabitants those regions boast? So shalt thou instant reach the realm assign’d, In wondrous ships, self-moved, instinct with mind; No helm secures their course, no pilot guides; Like man intelligent, they plough the tides, Conscious of every coast, and every bay, That lies beneath the sun’s all-seeing ray; Though clouds and darkness veil the encumber’d sky, Fearless through darkness and through clouds they fly; Though tempests rage, though rolls the swelling main, The seas may roll, the tempests rage in vain; E’en the stern god that o’er the waves presides, Safe as they pass, and safe repass the tides, With fury burns; while careless they convey Promiscuous every guest to every bay, These ears have heard my royal sire disclose A dreadful story, big with future woes; How Neptune raged, and how, by his command, Firm rooted in a surge a ship should stand A monument of wrath; how mound on mound Should bury these proud towers beneath the ground. But this the gods may frustrate or fulfil, As suits the purpose of the Eternal Will. But say through what waste regions hast thou stray’d What customs noted, and what coasts survey’d; Possess’d by wild barbarians fierce in arms, Or men whose bosom tender pity warms?

Say why the fate of Troy awaked thy cares, Why heaved thy bosom, and why flowed thy tears? Just are the ways of Heaven: from Heaven proceed The woes of man; Heaven doom’d the Greeks to bleed, A theme of future song! Say, then, if slain Some dear-loved brother press’d the Phrygian plain? Or bled some friend, who bore a brother’s part, And claim’d by merit, not by blood, the heart?”