The Iliad and the Odyssey (Classics of World Literature) (78 page)

The person but the wisdom; and that sire

Complete himself that hath a son entire.

Jove did not only his full fate adorn,

When he was wedded, but when he was born.

As now Saturnius, through his life’s whole date,

Hath Nestor’s bliss raised to as steep a state,

Both in his age to keep in peace his house,

And to have children wise and valorous.

But let us not forget our rear feast thus.

Let some give water here. Telemachus!

The morning shall yield time to you and me

To do what fits, and reason mutually.’

This said, the careful servant of the king,

Asphalion, pour’d on th’ issue of the spring

And all to ready feast set ready hand.

But Helen now on new device did stand,

Infusing straight a medicine to their wine,

That drowning cares and angers, did decline

All thought of ill. Who drunk her cup could shed

All that day not a tear, no not if dead

That day his father or his mother were,

Not if his brother, child, or chiefest dear,

He should see murder’d then before his face.

Such useful medicines, only borne in grace

Of what was good, would Helen ever have.

And this juice to her Polydamna gave

The wife of Thoön, an Egyptian born,

Whose rich earth herbs of medicine do adorn

In great abundance. Many healthful are,

And many baneful. Every man is there

A good physician out of Nature’s grace,

For all the nation sprung of Paeon’s race.

When Helen then her medicine had infus’d,

She bad pour wine to it, and this speech us’d:

‘Atrides, and these good men’s sons, great Jove

Makes good and ill one after other move,

In all things earthly; for he can do all.

The woes past, therefore, he so late let fall,

The comforts he affords us let us take;

Feast and, with fit discourses, merry make.

Nor will I other use. As then our blood

Griev’d for Ulysses since he was so good,

Since he was good, let us delight to hear

How good he was, and what his sufferings were –

Though every fight and every suffering deed

Patient Ulysses underwent, exceed

My woman’s pow
’
r to number or to name.

But what he did and suffer’d, when he came

Amongst the Trojans, where ye Grecians all

Took part with suf
f
’
rance, I in part can call

To your kind memories – how with ghastly wounds

Himself he mangled, and the Trojan bounds,

Thrust thick with enemies, adventur’d on,

His royal shoulders having cast upon

Base abject weeds, and enter’d like a slave.

Then, beggar-like, he did of all men crave,

And such a wretch was, as the whole Greek fleet

Brought not besides. And thus through every street

He crept discovering, of no one man known.

And yet through all this difference, I alone

Smoked his true person, talk’d with him; but he

Fled me with wiles still. Nor could we agree,

Till I disclaim’d him quite; and so (as mov’d

With womanly remorse of one that prov’d

So wretched an estate, whate’er he were)

Won him to take my house. And yet ev’n there,

Till freely I, to make him doubtless, swore

A powerful oath, to let him reach the shore

Of ships and tents before Troy understood,

I could not force on him his proper good.

But then I bath’d and sooth’d him, and he then

Confess’d, and told me all; and, having slain

A number of the Trojan guards, retired,

And reach’d the fleet, for sleight and force admired.

Their husbands’ deaths by him the Trojan wives

Shriek’d for; but I made triumphs for their lives,

For then my heart conceiv’d, that once again

I should reach home; and yet did still retain

Woe for the slaughters Venus made for me,

When both my husband, my Hermione,

And bridal room, she robb’d of so much right,

And drew me from my country with her sleight,

Though nothing under heaven I here did need,

That could my fancy or my beauty feed.’

Her husband said: ‘Wife! What you please to tell

Is true at all parts, and becomes you well;

And I myself, that now may say have seen

The minds and manners of a world of men,

And groat heroës, measuring many a ground,

Have never, by these eyes that light me, found

One with a bosom so to be belov
’
d,

As that in which th’ accomplish’d spirit mov’d

Of patient Ulysses. What, brave man,

He both did act and suffer, when he won

The town of Ilion, in the brave-built horse,

When all we chief states of the Grecian force

Were hous’d together, bringing death and fate

Amongst the Trojans, you, wife, may relate;

For you, at last, came to us; god, that would

The Trojans’ glory give, gave charge you should

Approach the engine; and Deiphobus,

The godlike, follow’d. Thrice ye circled us

With full survey of it; and often tried

The hollow crafts that in it were implied.

When all the voices of their wives in it

You took on you with voice so like and fit,

And every man by name so visited,

That I, Ulysses, and king Diomed,

(Set in the midst, and hearing how you call’d

Tydides and mysel
f
) as half appall’d

With your remorseful plaints, would passing fain

Have broke own silence, rather than again

Endure, respectless, their so moving cries.

But Ithacus our strongest fantasies

Contain’d within us from the slenderest noise,

And every man there sat without a voice.

Anticlus only would have answer’d thee,

But his speech Ithacus incessantly

With strong hand held in, till, Minerva’s call

Charging thee off, Ulysses sav’d us all.’

Telemachus replied: ‘Much greater is

My grief, for hearing this high praise of his.

For all this doth not his sad death divert,

Nor can, though in him swell’d an iron heart.

Prepare, and lead then, if you please, to rest:

Sleep, that we hear not, will content us best.’

Then Argive Helen made her handmaid go,

And put fair bedding in the portico,

Lax purple blankets on rugs warm and soft,

And cast an arras coverlet aloft.

They torches took, made haste, and made the bed;

When both the guests were to their lodgings led

Within a portico without the house.

Atrides, and his large-train-wearing spouse,

The excellent of women, for the way,

In a retired receit, together lay.

The morn arose; the king rose, and put on

His royal weeds, his sharp sword hung upon

His ample shoulders, forth his chamber went,

And did the person of a god present.

Telemachus accosts him, who begun

Speech of his journey’s proposition:

‘And what, my young Ulyssean heroë,

Provoked thee on the broad back of the sea

To visit Lacedaemon the divine?

Speak truth: some public good, or only thine?’

‘I come,’ said he, ‘to hear if any fame

Breath’d of my father to thy notice came.

My house is sack’d, my fat works of the field

Are all destroy’d; my house doth nothing yield

But enemies, that kill my harmless sheep

And sinewy oxen, nor will ever keep

Their steels without them. And these men are they

That woo my mother, most inhumanly

Committing injury on injury.

To thy knees therefore I am come, t’ attend

Relation of the sad and wretched end

My erring father felt, if witness’d by

Your own eyes, or the certain news that fly

From others’ knowledges. For, more than is

The usual heap of human miseries,

His mother bore him to. Vouchsafe me then,

Without all ruth of what I can sustain,

The plain and simple truth of all you know.

Let me beseech so much, if ever vow

Was made, and put in good effect to you,

At Troy, where suf
f
’
rance bred you so much smart,

Upon my father good Ulysses’ part,

And quit it now to me (himself in youth)

Unfolding only the unclosed truth.’

He, deeply sighing, answer’d him: ‘O shame,

That such poor vassals should affect the fame

To share the joys of such a worthy’s bed!

As when a hind, her calves late farrowed,

To give suck enters the bold lion’s den,

He roots of hills and herby vallies then

For food (there feeding) hunting, but at length

Returning to his cavern, gives his strength

The lives of both the mother and her brood

In deaths indecent: so the wooers’ blood

Must pay Ulysses’ pow
’
rs as sharp an end.

O would to Jove, Apollo, and thy friend

The wise Minerva, that thy father were

As once he was, when he his spirits did rear

Against Philomelides, in a fight

Perform’d in well-built Lesbos, where downright

He strook the earth with him, and gat a shout

Of all the Grecians! O, if now full out

He were as then, and with the wooers cop’d,

Short-liv’d they all were, and their nuptials hop’d

Would prove as desperate. But, for thy demand

Enforc’d with prayers, I’ll let thee understand

The truth directly, nor decline a thought,

Much less deceive or soothe thy search in ought.

But what the old and still-true-spoken god,

That from the sea breathes oracles abroad,

Disclos’d to me, to thee I’ll all impart,

Nor hide one word from thy solicitous heart.

I was in Egypt, where a mighty time

The gods detain
’
d me, though my natural clime

I never so desir’d, because their homes

I did not greet with perfect hecatombs.

For they will put men evermore in mind,

How much their masterly commandments bind.

There is, besides, a certain island, call’d

Pharos, that with the high-wav’d sea is wall’d,

Just against Egypt, and so much remote

As in a whole day, with a fore-gale smote,

A hollow ship can sail. And this isle bears

A port most portly, where sea-passengers

Put in still for fresh water, and away

To sea again. Yet here the gods did stay

My fleet full twenty days; the winds, that are

Masters at sea, no prosp’rous puff would spare

To put us off; and all my victuals here

Had quite corrupted, as my men’s minds were,

Had not a certain goddess giv
’
n regard,

And pitied me in an estate so hard;

And ’twas Idothea, honour’d Proteus’ seed,

That old seafarer. Her mind I made bleed

With my compassion, when (walk’d all alone,

From all my soldiers, that were ever gone

About the isle on fishing with hooks bent –

Hunger their bellies on her errand sent)

She came close to me, spake, and thus began:

“Of all men thou art the most foolish man,

Or slack in business, or stay’st here of choice,

And dost in all thy suf
f
’
rances rejoice,

That thus long liv’st detain’d here, and no end

Canst give thy tarriance? Thou dost much offend

The minds of all thy fellows.” I replied:

“Whoever thou art of the deified,

I must affirm, that no way with my will

I make abode here; but, it seems, some ill

The gods, inhabiting broad heav’n, sustain

Against my getting off. Inform me then,

For godheads all things know, what god is he

That stays my passage from the fishy sea?”

“Stranger,” said she, “I’ll tell thee true: there lives

An old seafarer in these seas, that gives

A true solution of all secrets here,

Who deathless Proteus is, th’ Egyptian peer,

Who can the deeps of all the seas exquire,

Who Neptune’s priest is, and, they say, the sire

That did beget me. Him if any way

Thou couldst inveigle, he would clear display

Thy course from hence, and how far off doth lie

Thy voyage’s whole scope through Neptune’s sky,

Informing thee, O god-preserv
’
d, beside,

If thy desires would so be satisfied,

Whatever good or ill hath got event,

In all the time thy long and hard course spent

Since thy departure from thy house.” This said,

Again I answer’d: “Make the sleights display’d

Thy father useth, lest his foresight see,

Or his foreknowledge taking note of me,

He flies the fixt place of his us’d abode.

’Tis hard for man to countermine with god.”

She straight replied: “I’ll utter truth in all:

When heaven’s supremest height the sun doth skall,

The old Sea-tell-truth leaves the deeps, and hides

Amidst a black storm, when the West wind chides,

In caves still sleeping. Round about him sleep

(With short feet swimming forth the foamy deep)

The sea-calves, lovely Halosydnes call’d,

From whom a noisome odour is exhal’d,

Got from the whirlpools, on whose earth they lie.

Here, when the morn illustrates all the sky,

I’ll guide, and seat thee in the fittest place

For the performance thou hast now in chace.

In mean time, reach thy fleet, and choose out three

Of best exploit, to go as aids to thee.

But now I’ll show thee all the old god’s sleights

He first will number, and take all the sights