THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER

S >> S. H. BUTCHER, M.A. >> THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER

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DAYS 8-12-32 (Book v).

These days are occupied by Odysseus in making and launching
a raft; on the twelfth day from the beginning of the action
he leaves Calypso's isle. He sails for eighteen days, and
on the eighteenth day of his voyage (the twenty-ninth from
the beginning of the action), he sees Scheria. Poseidon
raises a storm against him, and it is not till the
thirty-second day from that in which Athene visited
Telemachus, that he lands in Scheria, the country of the
Phaeacians. Here he is again in fairy land. A rough, but
perfectly recognisable form of the Phaeacian myth, is found
in an Indian collection of marchen (already referred to) of
the twelfth century A.D. Here the Phaeacians are the
Vidyidhiris, and their old enemies the Cyclopes, are the
Rakshashas, a sort of giants. The Indian Odysseus, who
seeks the city of gold, passes by the home of an Indian
Aeolus, Satyavrata. His later adventures are confused, and
the Greek version retains only the more graceful fancies of
the marchen.

DAY 33 (Book vi).

Odysseus meets Nausicaa, daughter of Alcinous, the
Phaeacian King, and by her aid, and that of Athene, is
favourably received at the palace, and tells how he came
from Calypso's island. His name is still unknown to his
hosts.

DAY 34 (Books vii, viii, ix, x, xi, xii).

The Phaeacians and Odysseus display their skill in sports.
Nausicaa bids Odysseus farewell. Odysseus recounts to
Alcinous, and Arete, the Queen, those adventures in the two
years between the fall of Troy and his captivity in the
island of Calypso, which we have already described (pp.
xiii-xvii).

DAY 35 (Book xiii).

Odysseus is conveyed to Ithaca, in the evening, on one of
the magical barques of the Phaeacians.

DAY 36 (Books xiii, xiv, xv).

He wakens in Ithaca, which he does not at first recognise
He learns from Athene, for the first time, that the wooers
beset his house. She disguises him as an old man, and bids
him go to the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus, who is loyal to
his absent lord. Athene then goes to Lacedaemon, to bring
back Telemachus, who has now resided there for a month.
Odysseus won the heart of Eumaeus, who of course did not
recognise him, and slept in the swineherd's hut, while
Athene was waking Telemachus, in Lacedaemon, and bidding
him 'be mindful of his return.'

DAY 37 (Book xv).

Is spent by Odysseus in the swineherd's hut. Telemachus
reaches Pherae, half-way to Pylos.

DAY 38 (Book xv).

Telemachus reaches Pylos, but does not visit Nestor. To
save time he goes at once on board ship, taking with him an
unfortunate outlaw, Theoclymenus, a second-sighted man, or
the family of Melampus, in which the gift of prophecy was
hereditary. The ship passed the Elian coast at night, and
evaded the ambush of the wooers. Meanwhile Odysseus was
sitting up almost till dawn, listening to the history of
Eumaeus, the swineherd.

DAY 39 (Books xv, xvi).

Telemachus reaches the Isle of Ithaca, sends his ship to
the city, but himself, by advice of Athene, makes for the
hut of Eumaeus, where he meets, but naturally does not
recognise, his disguised father. He sends Eumaeus to
Penelope with news of his arrival, and then Athene reveals
Odysseus to Telemachus. The two plot the death of the
wooers. Odysseus bids Telemachus remove, on a favourable
opportunity, the arms which were disposed as trophies on
the walls of the hall at home. (There is a slight
discrepancy between the words of this advice and the manner
in which it is afterwards executed.) During this interview,
the ship of Telemachus, the wooers who had been in ambush,
and Eumaeus, all reached the town of Ithaca. In the evening
Eumaeus returned to his hut, where Athene had again
disguised Odysseus.

DAY 40 (Books xvii, xviii, xix, xx).

The story is now hastening to its close, and many events
are crowded into the fortieth day. Telemachus goes from the
swineherd's hut to the city, and calls his guest,
Theoclymenus, to the palace. The second-sighted man
prophesies of the near revenge of Odysseus. In the
afternoon, Odysseus (still disguised) and Eumaeus reach the
city, the dog Argos recognises the hero, and dies. Odysseus
goes begging through his own hall, and is struck by
Antinous, the proudest of the wooers. Late in the day
Eumaeus goes home, and Odysseus fights with the braggart
beggar Irus. Still later, Penelope appears among the
wooers, and receives presents from them. When the wooers
have withdrawn, Odysseus and Telemachus remove the weapons
from the hall to the armoury. Afterwards Odysseus has an
interview with Penelope (who does not recognise him), but
he is recognised by his old nurse Eurycleia. Penelope
mentions her purpose to wed the man who on the following
day, the feast of the Archer-god Apollo, shall draw the bow
of Odysseus, and send an arrow through the holes in twelve
axe-blades, set up in a row. Thus the poet shows that
Odysseus has arrived in Ithaca not a day too soon. Odysseus
is comforted by a vision of Athene, and

DAY 41 (Books xx, xxi, xxii, xxiii).

by the ominous prayer uttered by a weary woman grinding at
the mill. The swineherd and the disloyal Melanthius arrive
at the palace. The wooers defer the plot to kill
Telemachus, as the day is holy to Apollo. Odysseus is led
up from his seat near the door to a place beside Telemachus
at the chief's table. The wooers mock Telemachus, and the
second-sighted Theoclymenus sees the ominous shroud of
death covering their bodies, and the walls dripping with
blood. He leaves the doomed company. In the trial of the
bow, none of the wooers can draw it; meanwhile Odysseus has
declared himself to the neatherd and the swineherd. The
former bars and fastens the outer gates of the court, the
latter bids Eurycleia bar the doors of the womens' chambers
which lead out of the hall. Odysseus now gets the bow into
his hands, strings it, sends the arrow through the
axe-blades, and then leaping on the threshold of stone,
deals his shafts among the wooers. Telemachus, the
neatherd, and Eumaeus, aiding him, he slaughters all the
crew, despite the treachery of Melanthius. The paramours of
the wooers are hanged, and Odysseus, after some delay, is
recognised by Penelope.

DAY 42 (Books xxiii, xxiv).

This day is occupied with the recognition of Odysseus by
his aged father Laertes, and with the futile attempt of the
kinsfolk of the wooers to avenge them on Odysseus. Athene
reconciles the feud, and the toils of Odysseus are
accomplished.

The reader has now before him a chronologically arranged
sketch of the action of the Odyssey. It is, perhaps,
apparent, even from this bare outline, that the composition
is elaborate and artistic, that the threads of the plot are
skilfully separated and combined. The germ of the whole
epic is probably the popular tale, known all over the
world, of the warrior who, on his return from a long
expedition, has great difficulty in making his prudent wife
recognise him. The incident occurs as a detached story in
China, and in most European countries it is told of a
crusader. 'We may suppose it to be older than the legend of
Troy, and to have gravitated into the cycle of that legend.
The years of the hero's absence are then filled up with
adventures (the Cyclops, Circe, the Phaeacians, the Sirens,
the descent into hell) which exist as scattered tales, or
are woven into the more elaborate epics of Gaels, Aztecs,
Hindoos, Tartars, South-Sea Islanders, Finns, Russians,
Scandinavians, and Eskimo. The whole is surrounded with the
atmosphere of the kingly age of Greece, and the result is
the Odyssey, with that unity of plot and variety of
character which must have been given by one masterly
constructive genius. The date at which the poet of the
Odyssey lived may be approximately determined by his
consistent descriptions of a peculiar and definite
condition of society, which had ceased to exist in the
ninth century B.C., and of a stage of art in which
Phoenician and Assyrian influences predominated. (Die Kunst
bei Homer. Brunn.) As to the mode of composition, it would
not be difficult to show that at least the a priori Wolfian
arguments against the early use of writing for literary
purposes have no longer the cogency which they were once
thought to possess. But this is matter for a separate
investigation.

The Odyssey

Book I

In a Council of the Gods, Poseidon absent, Pallas procureth
an order for the restitution of Odysseus; and appearing to
his son Telemachus, in human shape, adviseth him to
complain of the Wooers before the Council of the people,
and then go to Pylos and Sparta to inquire about his
father.

Tell me, Muse, of that man, so ready at need, who wandered
far and wide, after he had sacked the sacred citadel of
Troy, and many were the men whose towns he saw and whose
mind he learnt, yea, and many the woes he suffered in his
heart upon the deep, striving to win his own life and the
return of his company. Nay, but even so he saved not his
company, though he desired it sore. For through the
blindness of their own hearts they perished, fools, who
devoured the oxen of Helios Hyperion: but the god took from
them their day of returning. Of these things, goddess,
daughter of Zeus, whencesoever thou hast heard thereof,
declare thou even unto us.

Now all the rest, as many as fled from sheer destruction,
were at home, and had escaped both war and sea, but
Odysseus only, craving for his wife and for his homeward
path, the lady nymph Calypso held, that fair goddess, in
her hollow caves, longing to have him for her lord. But
when now the year had come in the courses of the seasons,
wherein the gods had ordained that he should return home to
Ithaca, not even there was he quit of labours, not even
among his own; but all the gods had pity on him save
Poseidon, who raged continually against godlike Odysseus,
till he came to his own country. Howbeit Poseidon had now
departed for the distant Ethiopians, the Ethiopians that
are sundered in twain, the uttermost of men, abiding some
where Hyperion sinks and some where he rises. There he
looked to receive his hecatomb of bulls and rams, there he
made merry sitting at the feast, but the other gods were
gathered in the halls of Olympian Zeus. Then among them the
father of gods and men began to speak, for he bethought him
in his heart of noble Aegisthus, whom the son of Agamemnon,
far-famed Orestes, slew. Thinking upon him he spake out
among the Immortals:

'Lo you now, how vainly mortal men do blame the gods! For
of us they say comes evil, whereas they even of themselves,
through the blindness of their own hearts, have sorrows
beyond that which is ordained. Even as of late Aegisthus,
beyond that which was ordained, took to him the wedded wife
of the son of Atreus, and killed her lord on his return,
and that with sheer doom before his eyes, since we had
warned him by the embassy of Hermes the keen-sighted, the
slayer of Argos, that he should neither kill the man, nor
woo his wife. For the son of Atreus shall be avenged at the
hand of Orestes, so soon as he shall come to man's estate
and long for his own country. So spake Hermes, yet he
prevailed not on the heart of Aegisthus, for all his good
will; but now hath he paid one price for all.'

And the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him, saying: 'O
father, our father Cronides, throned in the highest; that
man assuredly lies in a death that is his due; so perish
likewise all who work such deeds! But my heart is rent for
wise Odysseus, that hapless one, who far from his friends
this long while suffereth affliction in a seagirt isle,
where is the navel of the sea, a woodland isle, and therein
a goddess hath her habitation, the daughter of the wizard
Atlas, who knows the depths of every sea, and himself
upholds the tall pillars which keep earth and sky asunder.
His daughter it is that holds the hapless man in sorrow:
and ever with soft and guileful tales she is wooing him to
forgetfulness of Ithaca. But Odysseus yearning to see if it
were but the smoke leap upwards from his own land, hath a
desire to die. As for thee, thine heart regardeth it not at
all, Olympian! What! did not Odysseus by the ships of the
Argives make thee free offering of sacrifice in the wide
Trojan land? Wherefore wast thou then so wroth with him, O
Zeus?'

And Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered her, and said, 'My
child, what word hath escaped the door of thy lips? Yea,
how should I forget divine Odysseus, who in understanding
is beyond mortals and beyond all men hath done sacrifice to
the deathless gods, who keep the wide heaven? Nay, but it
is Poseidon, the girdler of the earth, that hath been wroth
continually with quenchless anger for the Cyclops' sake
whom he blinded of his eye, even godlike Polyphemus whose
power is mightiest amongst all the Cyclopes. His mother was
the nymph Thoosa, daughter of Phorcys, lord of the
unharvested sea, and in the hollow caves she lay with
Poseidon. From that day forth Poseidon the earth-shaker
doth not indeed slay Odysseus, but driveth him wandering
from his own country. But come, let us here one and all
take good counsel as touching his returning, that he may be
got home; so shall Poseidon let go his displeasure, for he
will in no wise be able to strive alone against all, in
despite of all the deathless gods.'

Then the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him, and said:
'O father, our father Cronides, throned in the highest, if
indeed this thing is now well pleasing to the blessed gods,
that wise Odysseus should return to his own home, let us
then speed Hermes the Messenger, the slayer of Argos, to
the island of Ogygia. There with all speed let him declare
to the lady of the braided tresses our unerring counsel,
even the return of the patient Odysseus, that so he may
come to his home. But as for me I will go to Ithaca that I
may rouse his son yet the more, planting might in his
heart, to call an assembly of the long-haired Achaeans and
speak out to all the wooers who slaughter continually the
sheep of his thronging flocks, and his kine with trailing
feet and shambling gait. And I will guide him to Sparta and
to sandy Pylos to seek tidings of his dear father's return,
if peradventure he may hear thereof and that so he may be
had in good report among men.'

She spake and bound beneath her feet her lovely golden
sandals that wax not old, and bare her alike over the wet
sea and over the limitless land, swift as the breath of the
wind. And she seized her doughty spear, shod with sharp
bronze, weighty and huge and strong, wherewith she quells
the ranks of heroes with whomsoever she is wroth, the
daughter of the mighty sire. Then from the heights of
Olympus she came glancing down, and she stood in the land
of Ithaca, at the entry of the gate of Odysseus, on the
threshold of the courtyard, holding in her hand the spear
of bronze, in the semblance of a stranger, Mentes the
captain of the Taphians. And there she found the lordly
wooers: now they were taking their pleasure at draughts in
front of the doors, sitting on hides of oxen, which
themselves had slain. And of the henchmen and the ready
squires, some were mixing for them wine and water in bowls,
and some again were washing the tables with porous sponges
and were setting them forth, and others were carving flesh
in plenty.

And godlike Telemachus was far the first to descry her, for
he was sitting with a heavy heart among the wooers dreaming
on his good father, if haply he might come somewhence, and
make a scattering of the wooers there throughout the
palace, and himself get honour and bear rule among his own
possessions. Thinking thereupon, as he sat among wooers, he
saw Athene--and he went straight to the outer porch, for he
thought it blame in his heart that a stranger should stand
long at the gates: and halting nigh her he clasped her
right hand and took from her the spear of bronze, and
uttered his voice and spake unto her winged words:

'Hail, stranger, with us thou shalt be kindly entreated,
and thereafter, when thou hast tasted meat, thou shalt tell
us that whereof thou hast need.'

Therewith he led the way, and Pallas Athene followed. And
when they were now within the lofty house, he set her spear
that he bore against a tall pillar, within the polished
spear-stand, where stood many spears besides, even those of
Odysseus of the hardy heart; and he led the goddess and
seated her on a goodly carven chair, and spread a linen
cloth thereunder, and beneath was a footstool for the feet.
For himself he placed an inlaid seat hard by, apart from
the company of the wooers, lest the stranger should be
disquieted by the noise and should have a loathing for the
meal, being come among overweening men, and also that he
might ask him about his father that was gone from his home.

Then a handmaid bare water for the washing of hands in a
goodly golden ewer, and poured it forth over a silver basin
to wash withal, and drew to their side a polished table.
And a grave dame bare wheaten bread and set it by them, and
laid on the board many dainties, giving freely of such
things as she had by her. And a carver lifted and placed by
them platters of divers kinds of flesh, and nigh them he
set golden bowls, and a henchman walked to and fro pouring
out to them the wine.

Then in came the lordly wooers; and they sat them down in
rows on chairs, and on high seats, and henchmen poured
water on their hands, and maidservants piled wheaten bread
by them in baskets, and pages crowned the bowls with drink;
and they stretched forth their hands upon the good cheer
spread before them. Now when the wooers had put from them
the desire of meat and drink, they minded them of other
things, even of the song and dance: for these are the crown
of the feast. And a henchman placed a beauteous lyre in the
hands of Phemius, who was minstrel to the wooers despite
his will. Yea and as he touched the lyre he lifted up his
voice in sweet songs.{*}

{* Or, according to the ordinary interpretation of [Greek]:
So he touched the chords in prelude to his sweet singing.}

But Telemachus spake unto grey-eyed Athene, holding his
head close to her that those others might not hear: 'Dear
stranger, wilt thou of a truth be wroth at the word that I
shall say? Yonder men verily care for such things as these,
the lyre and song, lightly, as they that devour the
livelihood of another without atonement, of that man whose
white bones, it may be, lie wasting in the rain upon the
mainland, or the billow rolls them in the brine. Were but
these men to see him returned to Ithaca, they all would
pray rather for greater speed of foot than for gain of gold
and raiment. But now he hath perished, even so, an evil
doom, and for us is no comfort, no, not though any of
earthly men should say that he will come again. Gone is the
day of his returning! But come declare me this, and tell me
all plainly: Who art thou of the sons of men, and whence?
Where is thy city, where are they that begat thee? Say, on
what manner of ship didst thou come, and how did sailors
bring thee to Ithaca, and who did they avow themselves to
be, for in nowise do I deem that thou camest hither by
land. And herein tell me true, that I may know for a
surety whether thou art a newcomer, or whether thou art a
guest of the house, seeing that many were the strangers
that came to our home, for that HE too had voyaged much
among men.'

Then the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him: 'Yea now,
I will plainly tell thee all. I avow me to be Mentes, son
of wise Anchialus, and I bear rule among the Taphians,
lovers of the oar. And now am I come to shore, as thou
seest, with ship and crew, sailing over the wine-dark sea,
unto men of strange speech, even to Temesa, {*} in quest of
copper, and my cargo is shining iron. And there my ship is
lying toward the upland, away from the city, in the harbour
of Rheithron beneath wooded Neion: and we declare ourselves
to be friends one of the other, and of houses friendly,
from of old. Nay, if thou wouldest be assured, go ask the
old man, the hero Laertes, who they say no more comes to
the city, but far away toward the upland suffers
affliction, with an ancient woman for his handmaid, who
sets by him meat and drink, whensoever weariness takes hold
of his limbs, as he creeps along the knoll of his vineyard
plot. And now am I come; for verily they said that HE, thy
father, was among his people; but lo, the gods withhold him
from his way. For goodly Odysseus hath not yet perished on
the earth; but still, methinks, he lives and is kept on the
wide deep in a seagirt isle, and hard men constrain him,
wild folk that hold him, it may be, sore against his will.
But now of a truth will I utter my word of prophecy, as the
Immortals bring it into my heart and as I deem it will be
accomplished, though no soothsayer am I, nor skilled in the
signs of birds. Henceforth indeed for no long while shall
he be far from his own dear country, not though bonds of
iron bind him; he will advise him of a way to return, for
he is a man of many devices. But come, declare me this, and
tell me all plainly, whether indeed, so tall as thou art,
thou art sprung from the loins of Odysseus. Thy head surely
and they beauteous eyes are wondrous like to his, since
full many a time have we held converse together ere he
embarked for Troy, whither the others, aye the bravest of
the Argives, went in hollow ships. From that day forth
neither have I seen Odysseus, nor he me.'

{* Tamasia, in the mountainous centre of Cyprus.}

Then wise Telemachus answered her, and said: 'Yea, sir, now
will I plainly tell thee all. My mother verily saith that I
am his; for myself I know not, for never man yet knew of
himself his own descent. O that I had been the son of some
blessed man, whom old age overtook among his own
possessions! But now of him that is the most hapless of
mortal men, his son they say that I am, since thou dost
question me hereof.'

Then the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, spake unto him, and
said: 'Surely no nameless lineage have the gods ordained
for thee in days to come, since Penelope bore thee so
goodly a man. But come, declare me this, and tell it all
plainly. What feast, nay, what rout is this? What hast thou
to do therewith? Is it a clan drinking, or a wedding feast,
for here we have no banquet where each man brings his
share? In such wise, flown with insolence, do they seem to
me to revel wantonly through the house: and well might any
man be wroth to see so many deeds of shame, whatso wise man
came among them.'

Then wise Telemachus answered her, and said: 'Sir,
forasmuch as thou questionest me of these things and
inquirest thereof, our house was once like to have been
rich and honourable, while yet that man was among his
people. But now the gods willed it otherwise, in evil
purpose, who have made him pass utterly out of sight as no
man ever before. Truly I would not even for his death make
so great sorrow, had he fallen among his fellows in the
land of the Trojans, or in the arms of his friends when he
had wound up the clew of war. Then would the whole Achaean
host have builded him a barrow, and even for his son would
he have won great glory in the after days. But now the
spirits of the storm have swept him away inglorious. He is
gone, lost to sight and hearsay, but for me hath he left
anguish and lamentation; nor henceforth is it for him alone
that I mourn and weep, since the gods have wrought for me
other sore distress. For all the noblest that are princes
in the isles, in Dulichium and Same and wooded Zacynthus,
and as many as lord it in rocky Ithaca, all these woo my
mother and waste my house. But as for her she neither
refuseth the hated bridal, nor hath the heart to make an
end: so they devour and minish my house, and ere long will
they make havoc likewise of myself.'

Then in heavy displeasure spake unto him Pallas Athene:
'God help thee! thou art surely sore in need of Odysseus
that is afar, to stretch forth his hands upon the shameless
wooers. If he could but come now and stand at the entering
in of the gate, with helmet and shield and lances twain, as
mighty a man as when first I marked him in our house
drinking and making merry what time he came up out of
Ephyra from Ilus son of Mermerus! For even thither had
Odysseus gone on his swift ship to seek a deadly drug, that
he might have wherewithal to smear his bronze-shod arrows:
but Ilus would in nowise give it to him, for he had in awe
the everliving gods. But my father gave it him, for he bare
him wondrous love. O that Odysseus might in such strength
consort with the wooers: so should they all have swift fate
and bitter wedlock! Howbeit these things surely lie on the
knees of the gods, whether he shall return or not, and take
vengeance in his halls. But I charge thee to take counsel
how thou mayest thrust forth the wooers from the hall. Come
now, mark and take heed unto my words. On the morrow call
the Achaean lords to the assembly, and declare thy saying
to all, and take the gods to witness. As for the wooers bid
them scatter them each one to his own, and for thy mother,
if her heart is moved to marriage, let her go back to the
hall of that mighty man her father, and her kinsfolk will
furnish a wedding feast, and array the gifts of wooing
exceeding many, all that should go back with a daughter
dearly beloved. And to thyself I will give a word of wise
counsel, if perchance thou wilt hearken. Fit out a ship,
the best thou hast, with twenty oarsmen, and go to inquire
concerning thy father that is long afar, if perchance any
man shall tell thee aught, or if thou mayest hear the voice
from Zeus, which chiefly brings tidings to men. Get thee
first to Pylos and inquire of goodly Nestor, and from
thence to Sparta to Menelaus of the fair hair, for he came
home the last of the mail-coated Achaeans. If thou shalt
hear news of the life and the returning of thy father, then
verily thou mayest endure the wasting for yet a year. But
if thou shalt hear that he is dead and gone, return then to
thine own dear country and pile his mound, and over it pay
burial rites, full many as is due, and give thy mother to a
husband. But when thou hast done this and made an end,
thereafter take counsel in thy mind and heart, how thou
mayest slay the wooers in thy halls, whether by guile or
openly; for thou shouldest not carry childish thoughts,
being no longer of years thereto. Or hast thou not heard
what renown the goodly Orestes gat him among all men in
that he slew the slayer of his father, guileful Aegisthus,
who killed his famous sire? And thou, too, my friend, for I
see that thou art very comely and tall, be valiant, that
even men unborn may praise thee. But I will now go down to
the swift ship and to my men, who methinks chafe much at
tarrying for me; and do thou thyself take heed and give ear
unto my words.'

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