The Odyssey
Immediately afterwards Ulysses came inside, looking like a poor
miserable old beggar, leaning on his staff and with his clothes all in
rags. He sat down upon the threshold of ash-wood just inside the doors
leading from the outer to the inner court, and against a bearing-post
of cypress-wood which the carpenter had skilfully planed, and had made
to join truly with rule and line. Telemachus took a whole loaf from the
bread-basket, with as much meat as he could hold in his two hands, and
said to Eumaeus, “Take this to the stranger, and tell him to go the
round of the suitors, and beg from them; a beggar must not be
shamefaced.”
So Eumaeus went up to him and said, “Stranger, Telemachus sends you
this, and says you are to go the round of the suitors begging, for
beggars must not be shamefaced.”
Ulysses answered, “May King Jove grant all happiness to Telemachus, and
fulfil the desire of his heart.”
Then with both hands he took what Telemachus had sent him, and laid it
on the dirty old wallet at his feet. He went on eating it while the
bard was singing, and had just finished his dinner as he left off. The
suitors applauded the bard, whereon Minerva went up to Ulysses and
prompted him to beg pieces of bread from each one of the suitors, that
he might see what kind of people they were, and tell the good from the
bad; but come what might she was not going to save a single one of
them. Ulysses, therefore, went on his round, going from left to right,
and stretched out his hands to beg as though he were a real beggar.
Some of them pitied him, and were curious about him, asking one another
who he was and where he came from; whereon the goatherd Melanthius
said, “Suitors of my noble mistress, I can tell you something about
him, for I have seen him before. The swineherd brought him here, but I
know nothing about the man himself, nor where he comes from.”
On this Antinous began to abuse the swineherd. “You precious idiot,” he
cried, “what have you brought this man to town for? Have we not tramps
and beggars enough already to pester us as we sit at meat? Do you think
it a small thing that such people gather here to waste your master’s
property—and must you needs bring this man as well?”
And Eumaeus answered, “Antinous, your birth is good but your words
evil. It was no doing of mine that he came here. Who is likely to
invite a stranger from a foreign country, unless it be one of those who
can do public service as a seer, a healer of hurts, a carpenter, or a
bard who can charm us with his singing? Such men are welcome all the
world over, but no one is likely to ask a beggar who will only worry
him. You are always harder on Ulysses’ servants than any of the other
suitors are, and above all on me, but I do not care so long as
Telemachus and Penelope are alive and here.”
But Telemachus said, “Hush, do not answer him; Antinous has the
bitterest tongue of all the suitors, and he makes the others worse.”
Then turning to Antinous he said, “Antinous, you take as much care of
my interests as though I were your son. Why should you want to see this
stranger turned out of the house? Heaven forbid; take something and
give it him yourself; I do not grudge it; I bid you take it. Never mind
my mother, nor any of the other servants in the house; but I know you
will not do what I say, for you are more fond of eating things yourself
than of giving them to other people.”
“What do you mean, Telemachus,” replied Antinous, “by this swaggering
talk? If all the suitors were to give him as much as I will, he would
not come here again for another three months.”
As he spoke he drew the stool on which he rested his dainty feet from
under the table, and made as though he would throw it at Ulysses, but
the other suitors all gave him something, and filled his wallet with
bread and meat; he was about, therefore, to go back to the threshold
and eat what the suitors had given him, but he first went up to
Antinous and said:
“Sir, give me something; you are not, surely, the poorest man here; you
seem to be a chief, foremost among them all; therefore you should be
the better giver, and I will tell far and wide of your bounty. I too
was a rich man once, and had a fine house of my own; in those days I
gave to many a tramp such as I now am, no matter who he might be nor
what he wanted. I had any number of servants, and all the other things
which people have who live well and are accounted wealthy, but it
pleased Jove to take all away from me. He sent me with a band of roving
robbers to Egypt; it was a long voyage and I was undone by it. I
stationed my ships in the river Aegyptus, and bade my men stay by them
and keep guard over them, while I sent out scouts to reconnoitre from
every point of vantage.
“But the men disobeyed my orders, took to their own devices, and
ravaged the land of the Egyptians, killing the men, and taking their
wives and children captives. The alarm was soon carried to the city,
and when they heard the war-cry, the people came out at daybreak till
the plain was filled with soldiers horse and foot, and with the gleam
of armour. Then Jove spread panic among my men, and they would no
longer face the enemy, for they found themselves surrounded. The
Egyptians killed many of us, and took the rest alive to do forced
labour for them; as for myself, they gave me to a friend who met them,
to take to Cyprus, Dmetor by name, son of Iasus, who was a great man in
Cyprus. Thence I am come hither in a state of great misery.”
Then Antinous said, “What god can have sent such a pestilence to plague
us during our dinner? Get out, into the open part of the court,145 or I
will give you Egypt and Cyprus over again for your insolence and
importunity; you have begged of all the others, and they have given you
lavishly, for they have abundance round them, and it is easy to be free
with other people’s property when there is plenty of it.”
On this Ulysses began to move off, and said, “Your looks, my fine sir,
are better than your breeding; if you were in your own house you would
not spare a poor man so much as a pinch of salt, for though you are in
another man’s, and surrounded with abundance, you cannot find it in you
to give him even a piece of bread.”
This made Antinous very angry, and he scowled at him saying, “You shall
pay for this before you get clear of the court.” With these words he
threw a footstool at him, and hit him on the right shoulder blade near
the top of his back. Ulysses stood firm as a rock and the blow did not
even stagger him, but he shook his head in silence as he brooded on his
revenge. Then he went back to the threshold and sat down there, laying
his well filled wallet at his feet.
“Listen to me,” he cried, “you suitors of Queen Penelope, that I may
speak even as I am minded. A man knows neither ache nor pain if he gets
hit while fighting for his money, or for his sheep or his cattle; and
even so Antinous has hit me while in the service of my miserable belly,
which is always getting people into trouble. Still, if the poor have
gods and avenging deities at all, I pray them that Antinous may come to
a bad end before his marriage.”
“Sit where you are, and eat your victuals in silence, or be off
elsewhere,” shouted Antinous. “If you say more I will have you dragged
hand and foot through the courts, and the servants shall flay you
alive.”
The other suitors were much displeased at this, and one of the young
men said, “Antinous, you did ill in striking that poor wretch of a
tramp: it will be worse for you if he should turn out to be some
god—and we know the gods go about disguised in all sorts of ways as
people from foreign countries, and travel about the world to see who do
amiss and who righteously.”146
Thus said the suitors, but Antinous paid them no heed. Meanwhile
Telemachus was furious about the blow that had been given to his
father, and though no tear fell from him, he shook his head in silence
and brooded on his revenge.
Now when Penelope heard that the beggar had been struck in the
banqueting-cloister, she said before her maids, “Would that Apollo
would so strike you, Antinous,” and her waiting woman Eurynome
answered, “If our prayers were answered not one of the suitors would
ever again see the sun rise.” Then Penelope said, “Nurse,147 I hate
every single one of them, for they mean nothing but mischief, but I
hate Antinous like the darkness of death itself. A poor unfortunate
tramp has come begging about the house for sheer want. Every one else
has given him something to put in his wallet, but Antinous has hit him
on the right shoulder-blade with a footstool.”
Thus did she talk with her maids as she sat in her own room, and in the
meantime Ulysses was getting his dinner. Then she called for the
swineherd and said, “Eumaeus, go and tell the stranger to come here, I
want to see him and ask him some questions. He seems to have travelled
much, and he may have seen or heard something of my unhappy husband.”
To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, “If these Achaeans, Madam,
would only keep quiet, you would be charmed with the history of his
adventures. I had him three days and three nights with me in my hut,
which was the first place he reached after running away from his ship,
and he has not yet completed the story of his misfortunes. If he had
been the most heaven-taught minstrel in the whole world, on whose lips
all hearers hang entranced, I could not have been more charmed as I sat
in my hut and listened to him. He says there is an old friendship
between his house and that of Ulysses, and that he comes from Crete
where the descendants of Minos live, after having been driven hither
and thither by every kind of misfortune; he also declares that he has
heard of Ulysses as being alive and near at hand among the
Thesprotians, and that he is bringing great wealth home with him.”
“Call him here, then,” said Penelope, “that I too may hear his story.
As for the suitors, let them take their pleasure indoors or out as they
will, for they have nothing to fret about. Their corn and wine remain
unwasted in their houses with none but servants to consume them, while
they keep hanging about our house day after day sacrificing our oxen,
sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much as a
thought to the quantity of wine they drink. No estate can stand such
recklessness, for we have now no Ulysses to protect us. If he were to
come again, he and his son would soon have their revenge.”
As she spoke Telemachus sneezed so loudly that the whole house
resounded with it. Penelope laughed when she heard this, and said to
Eumaeus, “Go and call the stranger; did you not hear how my son sneezed
just as I was speaking? This can only mean that all the suitors are
going to be killed, and that not one of them shall escape. Furthermore
I say, and lay my saying to your heart: if I am satisfied that the
stranger is speaking the truth I shall give him a shirt and cloak of
good wear.”
When Eumaeus heard this he went straight to Ulysses and said, “Father
stranger, my mistress Penelope, mother of Telemachus, has sent for you;
she is in great grief, but she wishes to hear anything you can tell her
about her husband, and if she is satisfied that you are speaking the
truth, she will give you a shirt and cloak, which are the very things
that you are most in want of. As for bread, you can get enough of that
to fill your belly, by begging about the town, and letting those give
that will.”
“I will tell Penelope,” answered Ulysses, “nothing but what is strictly
true. I know all about her husband, and have been partner with him in
affliction, but I am afraid of passing through this crowd of cruel
suitors, for their pride and insolence reach heaven. Just now,