The Odyssey
roughly the Return occupies eight Books, and Penelope and the Suitors
sixteen.
I believe this to be substantially correct.
Lastly, to deal with a very unimportant point, I observe that the
Leipsic Teubner edition of 894 makes Books ii. and iii. end with a
comma. Stops are things of such far more recent date than the
“Odyssey,” that there does not seem much use in adhering to the text in
so small a matter; still, from a spirit of mere conservatism, I have
preferred to do so. Why [Greek] at the beginnings of Books ii. and
viii., and [Greek], at the beginning of Book vii. should have initial
capitals in an edition far too careful to admit a supposition of
inadvertence, when [Greek] at the beginning of Books vi. and xiii., and
[Greek] at the beginning of Book xvii. have no initial capitals, I
cannot determine. No other Books of the “Odyssey” have initial capitals
except the three mentioned unless the first word of the Book is a
proper name.
S. BUTLER.
_July_ 25, 1900.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
Butler’s Translation of the “Odyssey” appeared originally in 1900, and
The Authoress of the Odyssey in 1897. In the preface to the new edition
of “The Authoress”, which is published simultaneously with this new
edition of the Translation, I have given some account of the genesis of
the two books.
The size of the original page has been reduced so as to make both books
uniform with Butler’s other works; and, fortunately, it has been
possible, by using a smaller type, to get the same number of words into
each page, so that the references remain good, and, with the exception
of a few minor alterations and rearrangements now to be enumerated so
far as they affect the Translation, the new editions are faithful
reprints of the original editions, with misprints and obvious errors
corrected—no attempt having been made to edit them or to bring them up
to date.
(a) The Index has been revised.
(b) Owing to the reduction in the size of the page it has been
necessary to shorten some of the headlines, and here advantage has been
taken of various corrections of and additions to the headlines and
shoulder-notes made by Butler in his own copies of the two books.
(c) For the most part each of the illustrations now occupies a page,
whereas in the original editions they generally appeared two on the
page. It has been necessary to reduce the plan of the House of Ulysses.
On page 153 of “The Authoress” Butler says: “No great poet would
compare his hero to a paunch full of blood and fat, cooking before the
fire (xx, 24-28).” This passage is not given in the abridged Story of
the “Odyssey” at the beginning of the book, but in the Translation it
occurs in these words:
“Thus he chided with his heart, and checked it into endurance, but he
tossed about as one who turns a paunch full of blood and fat in front
of a hot fire, doing it first on one side then on the other, that he
may get it cooked as soon as possible; even so did he turn himself
about from side to side, thinking all the time how, single-handed as he
was, he should contrive to kill so large a body of men as the wicked
suitors.”
It looks as though in the interval between the publication of “The
Authoress” (1897) and of the Translation (1900) Butler had changed his
mind; for in the first case the comparison is between Ulysses and a
paunch full, etc., and in the second it is between Ulysses and a man
who turns a paunch full, etc. The second comparison is perhaps one
which a great poet might make.
In seeing the works through the press I have had the invaluable
assistance of Mr. A. T. Bartholomew of the University Library,
Cambridge, and of Mr. Donald S. Robertson, Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge. To both these friends I give my most cordial thanks for the
care and skill exercised by them. Mr. Robertson has found time for the
labour of checking and correcting all the quotations from and
references to the “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” and I believe that it could
not have been better performed. It was, I know, a pleasure for him; and
it would have been a pleasure also for Butler if he could have known
that his work was being shepherded by the son of his old friend, Mr. H.
R. Robertson, who more than half a century ago was a fellow-student
with him at Cary’s School of Art in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury.
HENRY FESTING JONES.
120 MAIDA VALE, W.9.
4th _December_, 1921.
THE ODYSSEY
BOOK I
THE GODS IN COUNCIL—MINERVA’S VISIT TO ITHACA—THE CHALLENGE FROM
TELEMACHUS TO THE SUITORS.
Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide
after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit,
and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was
acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his
own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could
not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in
eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them
from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, oh
daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them.
So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely
home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his
wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him
into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by, there
came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to Ithaca;
even then, however, when he was among his own people, his troubles were
not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him
except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not
let him get home.
Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world’s end,
and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East.1 He had
gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was enjoying
himself at his festival; but the other gods met in the house of
Olympian Jove, and the sire of gods and men spoke first. At that moment
he was thinking of Aegisthus, who had been killed by Agamemnon’s son
Orestes; so he said to the other gods:
“See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing
but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs make love to
Agamemnon’s wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon, though he knew
it would be the death of him; for I sent Mercury to warn him not to do
either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his
revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home. Mercury told him
this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has paid for
everything in full.”
Then Minerva said, “Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, it served
Aegisthus right, and so it would any one else who does as he did; but
Aegisthus is neither here nor there; it is for Ulysses that my heart
bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt island,
far away, poor man, from all his friends. It is an island covered with
forest, in the very middle of the sea, and a goddess lives there,
daughter of the magician Atlas, who looks after the bottom of the
ocean, and carries the great columns that keep heaven and earth
asunder. This daughter of Atlas has got hold of poor unhappy Ulysses,
and keeps trying by every kind of blandishment to make him forget his
home, so that he is tired of life, and thinks of nothing but how he may
once more see the smoke of his own chimneys. You, sir, take no heed of
this, and yet when Ulysses was before Troy did he not propitiate you
with many a burnt sacrifice? Why then should you keep on being so angry
with him?”
And Jove said, “My child, what are you talking about? How can I forget
Ulysses than whom there is no more capable man on earth, nor more
liberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in heaven? Bear
in mind, however, that Neptune is still furious with Ulysses for having
blinded an eye of Polyphemus king of the Cyclopes. Polyphemus is son to
Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter to the sea-king Phorcys;
therefore though he will not kill Ulysses outright, he torments him by
preventing him from getting home. Still, let us lay our heads together
and see how we can help him to return; Neptune will then be pacified,
for if we are all of a mind he can hardly stand out against us.”
And Minerva said, “Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, if, then, the
gods now mean that Ulysses should get home, we should first send
Mercury to the Ogygian island to tell Calypso that we have made up our
minds and that he is to return. In the meantime I will go to Ithaca, to
put heart into Ulysses’ son Telemachus; I will embolden him to call the
Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother
Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I
will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear
anything about the return of his dear father—for this will make people
speak well of him.”
So saying she bound on her glittering golden sandals, imperishable,
with which she can fly like the wind over land or sea; she grasped the
redoubtable bronze-shod spear, so stout and sturdy and strong,
wherewith she quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased her, and
down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus, whereon forthwith
she was in Ithaca, at the gateway of Ulysses’ house, disguised as a
visitor, Mentes, chief of the Taphians, and she held a bronze spear in
her hand. There she found the lordly suitors seated on hides of the
oxen which they had killed and eaten, and playing draughts in front of
the house. Men-servants and pages were bustling about to wait upon
them, some mixing wine with water in the mixing-bowls, some cleaning
down the tables with wet sponges and laying them out again, and some
cutting up great quantities of meat.
Telemachus saw her long before any one else did. He was sitting moodily
among the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how he would
send them flying out of the house, if he were to come to his own again
and be honoured as in days gone by. Thus brooding as he sat among them,
he caught sight of Minerva and went straight to the gate, for he was
vexed that a stranger should be kept waiting for admittance. He took
her right hand in his own, and bade her give him her spear. “Welcome,”
said he, “to our house, and when you have partaken of food you shall
tell us what you have come for.”
He led the way as he spoke, and Minerva followed him. When they were
within he took her spear and set it in the spear-stand against a strong
bearing-post along with the many other spears of his unhappy father,
and he conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he threw a
cloth of damask. There was a footstool also for her feet,2 and he set
another seat near her for himself, away from the suitors, that she
might not be annoyed while eating by their noise and insolence, and
that he might ask her more freely about his father.
A maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer and
poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands, and she
drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them bread,
and offered them many good things of what there was in the house, the
carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and set cups of gold
by their side, and a manservant brought them wine and poured it out for
them.
Then the suitors came in and took their places on the benches and
seats.3 Forthwith men servants poured water over their hands, maids
went round with the bread-baskets, pages filled the mixing-bowls with
wine and water, and they laid their hands upon the good things that
were before them. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink they