The Odyssey by Homer. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. Read by Grace Bowman.
Part One. The Adventures of Odysseus. In the opening verses, Homer addresses the muse of epic poetry. He asks her help in telling the tale of Odysseus.
Sing in me, muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer harried for years on end after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy. he saw the town lands and learned the minds of many distant men and weathered many bitter nights and days in his deep heart at sea while he fought only to save his life to bring his shipmates home but not by will nor valour could he save them for their own recklessness destroyed them all children and fools they killed and feasted on the cattle of lord helios the sun and he who moves all day through the heaven took from their eyes the dawn of their return of these adventures Muse, daughter of Zeus, tell us in our time, lift the great song again. Sailing from Troy.
Ten years after the Trojan War, Odysseus departs from the goddess Calypso's island. He arrives in Phaeacia, ruled by Alcinous. Alcinous offers a ship to Odysseus and asks him to tell of his adventures.
I am Laertes'son, Odysseus. Men hold me formidable for guile and peace and war. This fame has gone abroad to the sky's rim.
My home is on the peak sea mark of Ithaca, under Mount Neon's wind-blown robe of leaves, in sight of other islands, Dilichium, Same, Wooded Zacanthus, Ithaca, being most lofty in that coastal sea, and northwest, while the rest lie east and south. A rocky isle, but good for a boy's training. I shall not see on earth a place more dear, though I've been detained long by Calypso, loveliest among goddesses, who held me in her smooth cave speech.
to be her heart's desire. As Circe of Aeaea, the enchantress, desired me, and detained me in her hall, but in my heart I never gave consent. Where shall a man find sweetness to surpass his own home and his parents?
In far lands he shall not, though he find a house of gold. What of my sailing, then, from Troy? What of those years of rough adventure weathered under Zeus?
That wind that carried west from Ilium brought me to Ismaris. on the far shore a strong point on the coast of the saconis i stormed that place and killed the men who fought plunder we took and we enslaved the women to make division equal shares to all but on the spot i told them back and quickly out to sea again my men were mutinous on stores of wine sheep after sheep they butchered by the surf and shambling cattle feasting while fugitives went inland running to call to arms the main force of the Succonies. This was an army trained to fight on horseback or where the ground required on foot.
They came with dawn over that terrain like the leaves and blades of spring. So doom appeared to us, dark word of Zeus for us our evil days. My men stood up and made a fight of it, backed on the ships with lances kept in play from bright morning through the blaze of noon holding our beach.
although so far outnumbered but when the sun passed toward unyoking time then the achans one by one gave way six benches were left empty on every ship that evening when we pulled away from death and this new grief we bore with us to see our precious lives we had but not our friends no ship made sail next day until some shipmate had raised a cry three times for each poor ghost unfleshed by the ciconies on that field the lotus eaters now zeus the lord of cloud roused in the north a storm against the ships and driving veils of squall moved down like night on land and sea the boughs went plunging at the gusts sails crapped and lashed out strips in the big wind we saw death in that fury dropped the yards on ship the oars and pulled for the nearest lee then two long days and nights we lay off shore worn out and sick at heart tasting our grief until a third dawn came with ringlets shining then we pulled up our masts hauled sail and rested letting the steersman and the breeze take over i might have made it safely home that time but as i came round malay the current took me out to sea and from the north a fresh gale drove me on past scythra nine days i drifted on the teeming sea before dangerous high winds Upon the tenth we came to the coastline of the lotus eaters who live upon that flower. We landed there to take on water. all ship's companies mustered alongside for the day midday meal then i sent out two picked men and a runner to learn what race of men the land sustained they fell in soon enough with the lotus eaters who showed no will to do us harm only offering this sweet lotus to our friends but those who ate this honeyed plant the lotus never cared to report nor to return they longed to stay forever browsing on that native bloom forgetful of their homeland i drove them all three whaling to the ships and tied them down under their rowing benches and called to the rest all hands aboard come clear the beach and no one taste the lotus or you lose your hope of home filing into their places by the rowlocks my oarsmen dipped their long oars in the surf and we moved out again on our seafaring the cyclops in the next land we found were cyclopes giants Louts without a law to bless them.
In ignorance, leaving the fruitage of the earth in mystery to the immortal gods, they neither plow nor sow by hand, nor till the ground, though grain, wild weed, and barley grows untended, and wine grapes and clusters ripen in heaven's rains. Cyclopes have no muster and no meeting, no consultation, or old tribal ways. But each one dwells in his own mountain cave, dealing out rough justice to wife and child. indifferent to what the others do as we rowed on and nearer to the mainland at one end of the bay we saw a cavern yawning above the water screened with laurel and many rams and goats about the place inside a sheepfold made from slabs of stone earthfast between tall trunks of pine and rugged towering oak trees a prodigious man slept in this cave alone and took his flocks to graze a field remote from all companions knowing none but savage ways a brute so huge he seemed no man at all, of those who eat good wheat and bread, but he seemed rather a shaggy mountain reared in solitude. We beached there, and I told the crew to stand by, and I keep watch over the ship.
As for myself, I took my twelve best fighters and went ahead. I had a goatskin full of that sweet liquor that Uanthes'son Meron had given me. He kept Apollo's holy grove at Ismaris.
For kindness we showed him there. and showed his wife and child he gave me seven shining golden talents perfectly formed a solid silver wine bowl and then this liquor twelve two handled jars of brandy pure and fiery not a slave in marin's household knew this drink only he his wife and the storeroom mistress knew and they would put one cupful ruby-colored honey smooth in twenty more of water but still the sweet scent hovered like a fume over the wine bowl no man turned away when cups of this came round a wine-skin full i brought along and victuals in a bag for in my bones i knew some towering brute would be upon us soon all outward power a wild man ignorant of civility we climbed then briskly to the cave but cyclops had gone afield to pasture his fat sheep so we looked around at everything inside a drying rack that sagged with cheeses and pens crowded with lambs and kids each in its own class or each in its class firstlings apart from midlings and the dew drops or newborn lambkins penned apart from both and vessels of way were brimming there bowls of earthenware and pails for milking my men came pressing round me pleading you Why not take these cheeses and get them stowed, come back, throw open all the pens, and make a run for it? We'll drive the kids and lambs aboard, we say, put out again on good salt water.
Ah, how sound that was, yet I refused. I wished to see the caveman, what he had to offer. No pretty sight, it turned out, for my friends. We lit a fire and burnt an offering. We took some cheese to eat and sat in silence around the embers, waiting.
When he came, he had a load of dry boughs on his shoulder to stoke his fire at suppertime. He dumped it with a great crash into that hollow cave. We all scattered fast to the far wall.
Then over the broad cavern floor, he ushered the ewes he meant to milk. He left his rams and he goats in the yard outside and swung high overhead a slab of solid rock to close the cave. dozen four-wheeled wagons with heaving wagon teams could not have stirred the tonnage of that rock from where he wedged it over the door sill. Next, he took his seed and milked his bleeding ewes a practice job he made of it giving each ewe her suckling thickened its milk then into curds and whey sieved out the curds to drip in the withy baskets and poured the whey to stand in bowls cooling until he drank it for his supper when all these chores were done he poked the fire heaping on brushwood in the glare he saw us strangers he said who are you and where from What brings you here by seaways of fair traffic, or are you wandering rogues who cast your lives like dice and ravage other folk by sea?
We felt a pressure on our hearts in dread of that deep rumble and that mighty man, but all the same I spoke up in reply. We are from Troy, Achaeans, blown off course by shifting gales in the great south sea, homeward bound, but taking routes and ways uncommon, so the will of Zeus would have it. We served under Agamemnon, son of Atreus. The whole world knows what city he laid waste, what armies he destroyed. It was our luck to come here, and here we stand beholden for your help, or any gifts you give, as custom is to honor strangers.
We would entreat you, great sir, have care for the gods'courtesy. Zeus will avenge the unoffending guest. He answered this from his brute chest, unmoved.
You are a ninny. Or else you come from the other end of nowhere, telling me, mind the gods. We Cyclopes care not a whistle for your thundering Zeus or all the gods in bliss. We have more force by far. I would not let you go for fear of Zeus, you or your friends, unless I had a whim to.
Tell me, where was it now you left your ship? Around the point or down the shore, I wonder? He thought he'd find out, but I saw through this and answered with a ready lie. My ship? Poseidon, lord who sets the earth atremble, broke it up on the rocks at your land's end.
A wind from seaward served him, drove us there. We're survivors, these good men and I. Neither reply nor pity came from him. But in one stroke he clutched at my companions and caught two in his hands like squirming puppies to beat their brains out, splattering the floor. Then he dismembered them and made his meal gaping and crunching like a mountain lion.
Everything. innards, flesh, and marrow bones. We cried aloud, lifting our hands to Zeus, powerless, looking on at this, appalled. But Cyclops went on, filling up his belly with man-flesh and great gulps of whey.
Then he lay down like a mast among his sheep, my heart beat high now for the chance of action, and drawing the sharp sword from my hip, I went along his flank to stab him where the midriff holds the liver. I touched the spot when sudden fear stayed me. If I killed him, we perished there as well, for we could never move his pondering doorway slab aside. So we were left to groan and wait for morning. When the dawn with fingertips of rose lit up the world, the cyclops built a fire, and milked his handsome ewes all in due order, putting the sucklings to the mothers, and then his chores being all dispatched, he caught another brace of men to make his breakfast, and whisked away his great door slab to let his sheep go through.
But he, behind, reset the stone as one would cap a quiver. There was a din of whistling as the cyclops rounded his flock to higher ground. Then the stillness. And now I pondered how to hurt him worse.
But if Athena granted what I prayed for, here are the means I thought would serve my turn. A club or staff lay there along the fold, an olive tree, felled green and left to season. for Cyclops'hand, and it was like a mast, a lugger of twenty oars, broad in the beam, a deep, sea-going craft might carry, so long, so big around, it seemed.
Now I chopped out a six-foot section of this pole, and let it set down before my men who scraped it, and set it down before my men who scraped it, and when they had it smooth, who hewed it again to make a stake with pointed end, I held this in the fire's heart, and turned it, toughening it, then hid it well back in the cavern under one of the dung piles in profusion there. Now came the time to toss for it. Who ventured along with me?
Whose hand could bear to thrust and grind that spike in Cyclops's eye when mild sleep had mastered him? As luck would have it, the men I would have chosen won the toss. Four strong men, and I made five as captain. Thank As evening came, the shepherd with his flock, his woolly flock, the rams as well, this time, entered the cave. By some shepherding whim, or God's bidding, none were left outside.
He hefted his great boulder into place, and sat down to milk the bleeding ewes in proper order, put the lambs to suck, and swiftly ran through his evening chores. Then he caught two more men and feasted on them. My moment was at hand.
I went forward holding the ivy bowl of my dark drink, looking up, saying, Cyclops, try some wine. Here's liquor to wash down your scraps of men. Taste it and see the kinds of drink we carried under our planks. I meant it for an offering if you would help us home, but you're mad, unbearable, a bloody monster.
After this, will any other traveler come to see you? He seized and drained the bowl, and it went down so fiery and smooth he called for more. Give me another. Thank you kindly.
Tell me, how are you called? I'll make a gift that will please you. Even cyclopes know the wine grapes grow out of the grassland and loam in heaven's rain. But here's a bit of nectar and ambrosia. Three bowls I brought him, and he poured them down.
I saw the fuddle and flush come over him. Then I sang out in cordial tones, Cyclops. You ask my honorable name? Remember, the gift you promised me, and I shall tell you.
My name is Nobody. Father, or mother, father, and friends, everyone calls me Nobody. And he said, Nobody's my meat then, after I eat his friends.
Others come first. There's a noble gift now. Even as he spoke, he reeled and tumbled backward.
his great head lolling to one side and sleep took him like any creature drunk hiccoughing he dribbled streams of liquor and bits of men now by the gods i drove my big hand spiked deep in the embers charring it again and cheered my men along with battle talk to keep their courage up no quitting now the pike of olive green though it had been reddened and glowed as if about to catch i drew it from the coals and my four fellows gave me a hand lugging it near the cyclops as more than natural force nerved them straight forward they sprinted lifted it and rammed it deep in his crater eye and leaned on it turning it as a shipwright turns a drill in planking having men below to swing the two-handled strap that spins it in the groove so with our brand we bored that great eye socket while blood ran out around the red-hot bar eyelid and lash were seared the pierced ball hissing, hissed and broiling. The roots popped. In a smithy one sees a white hot axe head or an adze plunged and rung in a cold tub screeching steam, the way they make soft iron hail and hard, just so. The eyeball hissed around the spike.
The cyclops bellowed and the rock roared around him and we fell back in fear. Clawing his face, he tugged the bloody spike out of his eye and threw it away. and wild hands went groping then he set up a howl for cyclopes who lived in caves on the windy peaks near by some heard him and they came by divers ways to clump around outside and call what ails you polyphemus why do you cry so sore in the starry night you will not let us sleep sure man no man's driving off your flock no man's tricked you ruined you Out of the cave, the mammoth Polyphemus roared in answer, Nobody!
Nobody's tricked me! Nobody's ruined me! To this rough shout they made a sage reply, Ah, well, if nobody's played you foul there in your lonely bed, we're no use in pain given by great Zeus.
Let it be your father Poseidon, Lord, to whom you pray. So saying, they trailed away, and I was filled with laughter to see how like a charm the name deceived them. Now Cyclops, wheezing as the pain came on him, tumbled to wrench away the great doorstone, and squatted on the breach with his arms thrown wide for any silly beast or man who bolted, hoping somehow I might be such a fool.
But I kept thinking how to win the game. Dust sat there huge. How could we slip away? I drew on all my wits and ran through tactics. reasoning as a man will for dear life until a trick came and it pleased me well cyclops rams were handsome fat with heavy fleeces a dark violet three abreast i tied them silently together twining cords of willow from the ogre's bed then slung a man under each middle one to ride there safely shielded left and right so three sheep could convey each man i took the wooliest ram the choices of the flock and hung myself under his kinky belly pulled up tight with fingers twisted deep in sheepskin ringlets for an iron grip so breathing hard we waited until morning when dawn spread out her finger tips of rose the rams began to stir moving for pasture and peals of bleeding echoed round the pens, where dams with udders full called for milking.
Blinded and sick with pain from head, a head wound, his head wound, the master stroked each ram, then let it pass. But my men, riding on the pictorial fleece, the giant's blind hands blundering never found. The last of them, my ram, the leader, came, weighted by wool, and me, with my meditations. The cyclops patted him, and then he said, Sweet! Cousin, ram, why lag behind the rest in this night cave?
You never linger so, but graze before them all and go far to crop sweet grass and take your stately way leading along the streams until evening. You run to be the first in the fold. Why now, so far behind? Can you be grieving over your master's eye, that carrion rogue and his cursed companions burnt it out when he had conquered my wits with wine?
Nobody will not get out alive, I swear. oh had you brain and voice to tell where he may be now dodging all my fury bashed by this hand and bashed on that rock wall his brains would strew the floor and i would have rest from the outrage nobody worked upon me he sent us into the open then close by i dropped and rolled clear of the ram's belly going this way and that to untie the men with many glances back we rounded up his fat stiff-legged sheep to take aboard and drove them down to where the good ship lay We saw as we came near our fellows'faces shining. Then we saw them turn to grief, telling those who had not fled from death.
I hushed them, jerking head and eyebrows up, and in a low voice told them, Load this herd, move fast, and put the ship's head to the breakers. They all pitched in at loading, then embarked and struck out their oars into the sea. Far out, as far offshore as shouted words could carry, I sent back a few to the adversary.
Oh, Cyclops, would you feast on my companions? Puny am I, in a caveman's hands. How do you like the beating we gave you?
You damned cannibal, eater of guests under your roof. Zeus and the gods have paid you. The blind thing in his doubled fury broke a hilltop in his hands and heaved it after us.
Ahead of our black... prow it struck and sank whelmed in spewing geyser a giant wave that washed the ship astern foremost back to shore i got the longest boat hook out and stood fending us off with furious nods to all who put their backs into a racing stroke row row or perish but so the long oars bent kicking the foam sternward making head until we drew away and twice as far now When I cupped my hands, I heard the crew in low voices protesting. God sakes, Captain, why bait the beast again?
Let him alone. That tidal wave he made on the first throw all but beached us, all but stove us in. Give him our bearing with your trumpeting, and he'll get a range to lob a boulder. Aye, he'll smash our timbers and our heads together. I would not heed them in my glorying spirit, but let anger flare and yelled.
cyclops if ever a mortal man inquire how you were put to shame and blinded tell him odysseus raider of cities took your eye laertes son whose home homes on ithaca at this he gave a mighty sob and rumbled now comes the weird upon me spoken of old a wizard grand and wondrous lived there telmas son of eurymus great length of days he had in wizardry among the cyclopes and these things he foretold for time to come, my great eye lost, and at Odysseus's hands. Always I had in mind some giant, armed and giant force, would come against me here, but this, but you, small, puny, and twiggy, you put me down with wine, you blinded me. Come back, Odysseus, I'll treat you well, praying the god of earthquake to befriend you. His son I am, for he, by his avowal, fathered me. And if he will, he may heal me of this black wound, he and no other of all the happy gods or mortal men.
Few words I shouted in reply to him. If I could take your life, I would take your time away and hurl you down to hell. The god of earthquake could not heal you there. At this he stretched his hands out in darkness toward the sky of stars and prayed, Poseidon, O hear me, lord blue girdler of the islands, if I am thine indeed, and thou art father, grant that Odysseus, raider of cities, never see his home.
Laertes'son, I mean, who kept his hall on Ithaca. Should destiny intend that he see his roof again, among his family and his father's land? Far be that day, and dark be the years between. Let him lose all companions, and return under strange sail to bitter days at home.
In these words he prayed, and the god heard him. Now he laid his hands upon a bigger stone, and wheeled around, titanic for the cast, to let fly in the black proud vessel's track. But it fell short just after the steering oar, and whelming seas rose giant above the stone to bear us on toward the island. There we ran in and we saw the squadron waiting, the trim ships drawn up side by side, and all our troubled friends who waited, looking seaward. We beached her.
grinding keel in the soft sand and waded in ourselves on the sandy beach. Then we unloaded all the Cyclops'flock to make division share and share alike. Only my fighters voted that my ram, the prize of all, should go to me.
I slew him by the seaside and burnt his long thigh bones to Zeus beyond the storm cloud, Cronus'son, who ruled the world. But Zeus disdained my offering. destruction for my ships he had in store and death for those who sailed them my companions now all day long the sun went down and we made our feast on mutton and sweet wine till after sunset in the gathering dark we went to sleep above the wash of ripples when the young dawn with finger-tips of rose touched the world i roused my men gave orders to man the ships cast off the mooring lines and filing in to sit beside the rowlocks oarsmen in line dipped oars in the gray sea So we moved out, and in the vast offing, having our precious lives, but not our friends. The land of the dead. Odysseus and his men sail to Aeolia, where Aeolus, king of the winds, sends Odysseus on his way with a gift, a sack containing all the winds except the favorable west wind.
When they are near home, Odysseus's men open the sack. letting loose a storm that drives them back to Aeolia. Aeolus casts them out, having decided that they are detested by the gods. They sail for seven days and arrive in the land of the Lastergonians, a race of cannibals.
These creatures destroy all of Odysseus'ships except the one he is sailing in. Odysseus and his reduced crew escape and reach Aeia, the island ruled by the sorceress goddess Circe. She transforms half the men into swine. Protected by a magic herb, Odysseus demands that Circe change his men back into human form. Before Odysseus departs from the island a year later, Circe informs him that in order to reach home, he must journey to the land of the dead, Hades, and consult the blind prophet, Tiresias.
We bore down on the ship at the sea's edge and launched her on the salt, mortal sea, stepping our mast and spar in the black ship. embarked the ram and ewe and went aboard in tears with bitter and sore dread upon us but now a breeze came up for us astern a canvas bellying land breeze hail shipmate sent by the singing nymph with sun-bright hair so we made fast the braces took our thwarts and let the wind and steersmen work the ship with full sail spread all day above our coursing till the sun dipped and all the ways grew dark upon the fathomless fathomless and unresting sea. By night our ship ran onward toward the oceans born, the realm and region of the men of winter, hidden in the mists, midst and cloud. Never the flaming eye of Helios lights on those men at morning, when he climbs the sky of stars, nor in the descending earthward out of heaven, ruinous night being rove over those wretches.
we made land put ram and you ashore and took our way along the ocean stream to find the place foretold for us by circe there perimedes and eurylochus pinioned the sacred beasts with my drawn blade i spade Spaded up the votive pit and poured libations round the unnumbered dead. Sweet milk and honey, then sweet wine, at last clear water, and I scattered barley down. Then I addressed the blurred and breathless dead, vowing to slaughter my best heifer for them, before she calved at home in Ithaca, and burned the choice bits on the altar fire.
As for Tiresias, I swore to sacrifice a black lamb, handsomest, among all our flock, thus to assuage the nations of the dead. I pleaded these rites, then slashed the lamb and you, letting their black blood stream into the well-pit. Now the souls gathered, stirring out of Erebus. Brides and young men, and men grown old in pain, and tender girls whose hearts were new to grief, many were there, too.
torn by brazen lance-heads, battle-slinged, bearing still their bloody gear. From every side they came, and sought the pit with rustling cries, and I grew sick with fear, but presently gave command to my officers to flay those sheep, the bronze cut down, and make burnt offerings of flesh to the gods below, to sovereign death, to pale Persephone. Meanwhile I crouched with my drawn sword to keep the surging phantoms from the bloody pit till I should know the presence of Tiresias.
One shade came first, Alpenor of our company, who lay unburied, still on the wide earth as we had left him, dead in Circe's hall, untouched, unmourned, when other cares compelled us. Now when I saw him there, I wept for pity and called out to him, How is this Alpenor? How could you journey to the western gloom swifter of foot than I in the black lugger?
He sighed and answered, Son of great Laertes, Odysseus, master mariner and soldier, bad luck shadowed me and no kindly power. Ignoble death I drank with so much wine. I slept on Circe's roof, then could not see the long, steep, backward ladder coming down and fell that height. My neck bone buckled under, snapped, and my spirit found this well of dark.
Now hear the grace I pray for in the name of those back in the world, not here, your wife and father, he who gave you bread in childhood and your own child, your only son Telemachus long ago left at home. When you make sail and put these lodgings of dim death behind, will you more ship? You will more ship, I know, upon Aeaea Island.
There, O my Lord, remember me, I pray. Do not abandon me, unwept, unburied, to tempt the God's wrath while you sail for home. but fire my corpse and all my gear i had and build a cairn for me above the breakers an unknown sailor's mark for men to come heap up the mound there and implant it upon the oar i pulled in life with my companions he ceased and i replied unhappy spirit i promise you the borrow and the burial so we conversed and grimly at a distance with my long sword between guarding the blood while the faint image of the lad spoke on Now came the soul of Antiklea, dead. My mother, daughter of Autocleus, dead now though living when I took ship for holy Troy.
Seeing this ghost I grieved, but held her off through pang and pang of tears, till I should know the presence of Tiresias. Soon from the dark that prince of Thebes came forward, bearing a golden staff, and he addressed me. Son of Laertes and gods of old, Odysseus. Master of landways and seaways, why leave the blazing sun, O man of woe, to see the cold, dead, and joyless region? Stand clear and put up your sword.
Let me taste but taste of blood, and I shall speak true. At this I stepped aside, and in the scabbard let my long sword ring home to the pommel silver. As he bent down to the somber blood, then spoke the prince of those with gift of speech. Great Captain!
A fair wind and the honey lights of home are all you seek, but anguish lies ahead. The god who thunders on the land prepares it, not to be shaken from your track, implacable, in rancor for the sun, whose eye you blinded. One narrow strait may take you through his blows, denial of yourself, restraint of shipmates. When you make landfall on Thranacia, first and quit the violet sea, dark on the land, you'll find that Raising herds of Helios, by whom all things are seen, all speech is known.
avoid those kine hold fast to your intent and hard seafaring brings you all to ithaca but if you raid the beeves i see destruction for a ship and crew though you survive alone bereft of all companions lost for years under strange sail you shall come home to find your own house filled with trouble insolent men eating your livestock as they court your lady ay you shall make those men atone in blood but after you have dealt out death in open combat or by stealth to all the suitors go over land on foot take an oar until one day you come where men have lived with meat unsalted never known the sea nor sea-going ships with crimson bows and oars that fledge light hulls for dipping flight the spot will soon be plain to you and i can tell you how some passer-by will say what winnowing fan is that upon your shoulder halt and implant your smooth oar in the turf and make fair sacrifice to lord poseidon A ram, a bull, a great buck boar, turn back and carry out pure head of combs at home, to all wide heavens lords, the undying gods, to each in order. Then a seaborne death soft as this hand of mist will come upon you, when you are wearied out with rich old age, your country folk in blessed peace around you, and all this shall be just as I foretold. The Sirens Sirens Odysseus returns to Circe's island.
The goddess reveals his course to him and gives him advice on how to avoid the dangers he will face. The sirens who lure sailors to their destruction, the wandering rocks, sea rocks that destroy even birds in flight, the perils of the sea monster Scylla, and nearby the whirlpool Charybdis, and the kettle of the sun god, which Tiresias, has warned Odysseus not to harm. As Circe spoke, dawn mounted her golden throne and on the first rays Circe left me taking her way like a great goddess up the island. I made straight for the ship, roused up the men to get aboard and cast off at the stern. They scrambled to their places by the rolocks and all in line dipped oars in the gray sea.
But soon an offshore breeze blew to our liking. A canvas-bellying breeze, a lusty shipmate sent by the singing nymph with sun-bright hair. So we made fast the braces. and we rested letting the wind and steersmen work the ship the crew being now silent before me i addressed them sore at heart dear friends more than one man or two should know these things circe foresaw for us and shared with me so let me tell her forecast then we die with our eyes open if we are going to die or know what death we baffle if we can sirens weaving a haunting song over the sea we are to shun she said and their green shore all sweet with clover yet she urged that i alone should listen to their song therefore you are to tie me up tight as a splint erect along the mast lashed to the mast and if i shout and beg to be untied take more turns of the rope to muffle me i rather dwelt on this part of the forecast while our good ship made time bound outward down the wind for strange island of the sirens scylla and charybdis but scarcely had that island faded in blue air than i saw smoke and white water with sound of waves and tumult a sound the men heard and it terrified them oars flew from their hands the blades went knocking and along wild alongside till the ship lost way with no oar-blades to drive her through the water well i walked up and down bowed astern trying to put heart into them standing over every oarsman saying gently friends Have we never been in danger before this? More fearsome is it now than when Cyclops penned us in his cave?
What power he had! Did I not keep my nerve and use my wits to find a way out for us? Now I say, by hook or crook, this peril, too, shall be something that we remember.
Heads up, lads. We must obey the orders as I give them. Get the oarshafts in your hands, and Lay back, hard on your benches. Hit these breaking seas.
Zeus, help us pull away before we flounder. You, at the tiller, listen and take in all that I say. The rudders are your duty. Keep her out of the comers and the smoke.
Steer for that headland. Watch the drift or we fetch up in the smother and you drown us. That was all and it brought them round to action.
But as I sent them on toward Scylla, I told them nothing, as they could do nothing. They would have dropped their oars again in panic to roll for cover under the decking. Circe's bidding against arms had slipped my mind, so I tied on my cuirass and took up two heavy spears, then made my way along the foredeck, thinking to see her first from there, the monster of the gray rock harboring torment for my friends.
I strained my eyes upon the cliffside veiled in cloud, but nowhere could I catch sight of her. And all this time in travail, sobbing, gaining on the current, we rode into the straight, scylla to port, and on our starboard beam, charybdis, dire gorge of the salt sea-tide. By heaven, when she vomited, all the sea was like a cauldron seething over intense fire, when the mixture suddenly heaves and rises. The shot spume soared to the landside heights and fell like rain.
but when she swallowed the sea-water down we saw the funnel of maelstrom heard the rock bellowing all around and dark sand raged on the bottom far below my men all blanched against the gloom our eyes were fixed upon the yawning mouth in fear of being devoured then sylla made her strike whisking six of my best men from the ship i happened to glance aft at ship and oarsmen and caught sight of their arms and legs dangling high overhead. Voices came down to me in anguish calling my name for the last time. A man surf casting on a point of rock for bass or mackerel whipping his long rod to drop the sinker and bait far out will hook a fish and rip it from the surface to dangle wriggling through the air.
So these were born aloft in spasms toward the cliff. She ate them as they shrieked there, in her den, in the dire grapple reaching still for me, and deathly pity ran me through at that sight, far the worst I've ever suffered, questing the passes of the strange sea. We rode on. The rocks were now behind, Charybdis too, and Scylla dropped astern. The Kettle of the Sun God.
In the small hours of the third watch, when stars that shone out in the first dusk of evening had gone down to their setting, a giant wind blew from heaven, and clouds driven by Zeus shrouded land and sea in a night of storm. So, just as dawn with fingertips of rose touched the windy world, we dragged our ship to cover in a grotto a sea cave where nymphs had chairs of rock and sanded floors. I mustered the crew. and said, old shipmates, our stores are in the ship's hold, food and drink, the cattle here are not for our provision, or we pay dearly for it. Fierce the God is who cherishes these heifers and these sheep, Helios, and no man avoids his eyes.
To this my fighters nodded, yes, but now we had a month of onshore gales, blowing day in, day out. south winds or south by east, as long as the bread and good wine remained to keep my men up and appease their craving, they would not touch the cattle. But in the end, when all the barley in the ship was gone, hunger drove them to scour the wild shore with angling hooks for fishing and sea fowl, whatever fell into their hands and lean days wore their bellies thin. The storms continued.
So one day I withdrew to the interior to pray to the gods in solitude for hope that one might show some way of salvation. Slipping away, I struck across the island to a shelter spot out of the driving gale. I washed my hands there and made supplication to the gods who own Olympus.
All the gods, but they, for answer, only closed my eyes under slow drops of sleep. Now on the shore, Eurylochus made his insidious plea. Comrades, he said, you've gone through everything. Listen to what I say. All deaths are hateful to us mortal wretches, but famine is the most pitiful, the worst end that a man can come to.
Will you fight it? Come, we'll cut out the noblest of these cattle for sacrifice to the God who owns the sky and once at home in the old country of Ithaca. If ever that day comes, we'll build a costly temple and adorn it with every beauty for the Lord of noon. But if he flares up over his heifers lost, wishing our ship destroyed, and if the gods make cause with him, why, then I say, better open your lungs to a big sea once for all than waste to skin and bones on a lonely island. This, you're a locust, or thus you're a locust.
And they murmured, I. Trooping away at once to round up the heifers, now, that day tranquil cattle, with broad brows, were gazing near, and soon the men drew up around their chosen beasts in ceremony. They plucked the leaves that shone on a tall oak, having no barley meal to strew the victims, performed the prayers and ritual, knifed the kine, and flayed.
flayed each carcass cutting thigh bones free to wrap in double folds of fat these offerings with strips of meat were laid upon the fire then as they had no wine they made libation with clear spring water broiling the entrails first and when the bones were burnt and tripes shared they spitted the carved meat just then My slumber left me in a rush. My eyes opened and I went down seaward path. No sooner had I caught sight of our black hull than savory odors of burnt fat eddied around me.
Grief took hold of me and I cried aloud. Oh, Father Zeus and gods of bliss forever, you made me sleep away this day in mischief. Oh, cruel drowsing in the evil hour. Here they sat in a great work they contrived. Lampisha in her long gown meanwhile.
had borne swift word to the overlord of noon they have killed your kine and lord helios burst into angry speech amid them the immortals father zeus and gods in bliss forever punish odysseus's men so overweening now they have killed my peaceful kine my joy at morning when i climbed the sky of stars and evening when i when i bore westward from heaven restitution or penalty they shall pay and pay in full or i go down forever to light the dead men in the underworld then zeus who drives the storm-cloud made reply peace helios shine on among the gods shine over mortals in the fields of grain let me throw down one white hot bolt and make splinters of their ship in the wine-dark sea calypso later told me of this exchange as she declared that hermes had told her well when i reached the sea-cave and the ship i faced each man and had it out but where could any remedy be found there was none the silken beeves of helios were dead the gods moreover had made queer signs appear cowhides began to crawl and beef both raw and roasted loathed like kine upon the spits now six full days my gallant crew could feast upon the prime beef they marked for slaughter from Helios'herd, and Zeus, son of Kronos, added one fine morning. All the gales had ceased, blown out, and with an offshore breeze we launched again, stepping mast and sail, to make for the open sea. A stern of us, the island coastline faded and no land showed anywhere but only sea and heaven, when Zeus, Kronion, piled a thunderhead above ship.
while gloom spread on the ocean we held our course but briefly then the squall struck whining from the west with gale force breaking both forestays the mast came toppling aft along the ship's length so the running rigging showered into the belge on the after deck the mast had hit the steersman a slant blow bashing the skull in knocking him overside as the brave soul fled the body like a diver with crack on crack of thunder zeus let fly a bolt against the ship a direct hit so that she bucked in reeking fumes of sulphur and all the men were flung into the sea they came up around the wreck bobbing awhile like petrels on the waves no more seafaring homeward for these no sweet day of return the god had turned his face from them i clamoured fore and aft my hulk until a comer split her keel from ribs and the big timber floated free the mast too broke away a backstay floated dangling from it stout rawhide rope and i used this for lashing mast and keel together these i straddled riding the frightful storm nor had i yet seen the worst of it for now the west wind dropp'd and a seat south-east gale came on one more twist of the knife, taking me north again straight for Charybdis. All that night I drifted. and in the sunrise sure enough i lay off silla mountain and charybdis deep there as the whirlpool drank the tide a billow tossed me and i sprang for the great fig tree catching on like a bat under a bough nowhere had i to stand no way of climbing the root and bole being far below and far above my head the branches and their leaves massed overshadowing charybdis pool but i clung grimly Thinking my mast and keel would come back to the surface when she spouted, and ah, how long with what desire I waited, till at the twilight hour when one hears and judges plea in the marketplace, all day being contentious, between contentious men, goes home to supper, the long poles, at last, reared from the sea.
Now I let go with hands and feet plunging straight into the loom, the foam beside the timbers. Pulled astride and rowed hard with my hands to pass Scylla. Never could I have passed her had not the father of gods and men this time kept me from her eyes.
Once through the strait, nine days, I drifted in the open sea before I made shore, buoyed up by the gods upon Aegegia Isle. The dangerous nymph Calypso lives and sings there in her beauty, and she received me, loved me. But why tell the same tale that I told last night in the hall to you and your lady? Those adventures made a long evening, and I do not hold with tiresome repetition of a story.