The Odysseys of Homer, together with the shorter poems · Homer
ANOTHER ARGUMENT
Then sat they on The sacred olive’s root, consulting how To act th’ insulting Wooers’ overthrow; When Pallas said: “Examine now the means That best may lay hands on the impudence Of those proud Wooers, that have now three years Thy roof’s rule sway’d, and been bold offerers Of suit and gifts to thy renownéd wife, Who for thy absence all her desolate life Dissolves in tears till thy desir’d return; Yet all her Wooers, while she thus doth mourn, She holds in hope, and ev’ry one affords (In fore-sent message) promise; but her words Bear other utt’rance than her heart approves.” “O Gods,” said Ithacus, “it now behoves My fate to end me in the ill decease That Agamemnon underwent, unless You tell me, and in time; their close intents. Advise then means to the reveng’d events We both resolve on. Be thyself so kind To stand close to me, and but such a mind Breathe in my bosom, as when th’ Ilion tow’rs We tore in cinders. O if equal pow’rs Thou wouldst enflame amidst my nerves as then, I could encounter with three hundred men, Thy only self, great Goddess, had to friend, In those brave ardors thou wert wont t’ extend!”
“I will be strongly with thee,” answer’d she, “Nor must thou fail, but do thy part with me. When both whose pow’rs combine, I hope the bloods And brains of some of these that waste thy goods Shall strew thy goodly pavements. Join we then: I first will render thee unknown to men, And on thy solid lineaments make dry Thy now smooth skin; thy bright-brown curls imply In hoary mattings; thy broad shoulders clothe In such a cloak as ev’ry eye shall lothe; Thy bright eyes blear and wrinkle; and so change Thy form at all parts, that thou shalt be strange To all the Wooers, thy young son, and wife. But to thy herdsman first present thy life, That guards thy swine, and wisheth well to thee, That loves thy son and wife Penelopé. Thy search shall find him set aside his herd, That are with taste-delighting acorns rear’d, And drink the dark-deep water of the spring, Bright Arethusa, the most nourishing Raiser of herds. There stay, and, taking seat Aside thy herdsman, of the whole state treat Of home-occurrents, while I make access To fair-dame-breeding Sparta for regress Of lov’d Telemachus, who went in quest Of thy lov’d fame, and liv’d the welcome guest Of Menelaus.”
The much-knower said: “Why wouldst not thou, in whose grave breast is bred The art to order all acts, tell in this His error to him? Let those years of his Amids the rude seas wander, and sustain The woes there raging, while unworthy men Devour his fortunes?” “Let not care extend Thy heart for him,” said she, “myself did send His person in thy search; to set his worth, By good fame blown, to such a distance forth. Nor suffers he in any least degree The grief you fear, but all variety That Plenty can yield in her quiet’st fare, In Menelaus’ court, doth sit and share. In whose return from home, the Wooers yet Lay bloody ambush, and a ship have set To sea, to intercept his life before He touch again his birth’s attempted shore. All which, my thoughts say, they shall never do, But rather, that the earth shall overgo Some one at least of these love-making men, By which thy goods so much impair sustain.” Thus using certain secret words to him, She touch’d him with her rod; and ev’ry limb Was hid all-over with a wither’d skin; His bright eyes blear’d; his brow-curls white and thin; And all things did an agéd man present. Then, for his own weeds, shirt and coat, all-rent, Tann’d, and all-sootiéd with noisome smoke, She put him on; and, over all, a cloke Made of a stag’s huge hide, of which was worn The hair quite off; a scrip, all-patch’d and torn, Hung by a cord, oft broke and knit again; And with a staff did his old limbs sustain. Thus having both consulted of th’ event, They parted both; and forth to Sparta went The gray-eyed Goddess, to see all things done That appertain’d to wise Ulysses’ son.
THE END OF THE THIRTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS. [1] _Γερούσιος οι͒νος, quod pro honorario senibus datur._ And because the word so Englished hath no other to express it, sounding well, and helping our language, it is here used. [2] Intending in chief the senators, with every man’s addition of gift. [3] _Εὐήνορα χαλκὸν, bene honestos faciens æs._ [4] The Phæacians were descended originally from Neptune. [5] _Αμϕικαλύπτω, superinjicio aliquid tanquam tegmen seu operimentum._ [6] Minerva like a shepherd (such as kings’ sons used at those times to be) appears to Ulysses. [7] _Λυπρὸς, velut tristis, jejunaque naturâ._ [8] _Επίκλοπος, furandi avidus._ [9] _Σχέτλιε, ποικλομη̑τα, varia et multiplicia habens consilia._ Ulysses meets amids the field His swain Eumæus: who doth yield Kind guest-rites to him, and relate Occurrents of his wrong’d estate.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.