The Odyssey
his lyre and set them all longing for sweet song and stately dance. The
house re-echoed with the sound of men and women dancing, and the people
outside said, “I suppose the queen has been getting married at last.
She ought to be ashamed of herself for not continuing to protect her
husband’s property until he comes home.”182
This was what they said, but they did not know what it was that had
been happening. The upper servant Eurynome washed and anointed Ulysses
in his own house and gave him a shirt and cloak, while Minerva made him
look taller and stronger than before; she also made the hair grow thick
on the top of his head, and flow down in curls like hyacinth blossoms;
she glorified him about the head and shoulders just as a skilful
workman who has studied art of all kinds under Vulcan or Minerva—and
his work is full of beauty—enriches a piece of silver plate by gilding
it. He came from the bath looking like one of the immortals, and sat
down opposite his wife on the seat he had left. “My dear,” said he,
“heaven has endowed you with a heart more unyielding than woman ever
yet had. No other woman could bear to keep away from her husband when
he had come back to her after twenty years of absence, and after having
gone through so much. But come, nurse, get a bed ready for me; I will
sleep alone, for this woman has a heart as hard as iron.”
“My dear,” answered Penelope, “I have no wish to set myself up, nor to
depreciate you; but I am not struck by your appearance, for I very well
remember what kind of a man you were when you set sail from Ithaca.
Nevertheless, Euryclea, take his bed outside the bed chamber that he
himself built. Bring the bed outside this room, and put bedding upon it
with fleeces, good coverlets, and blankets.”
She said this to try him, but Ulysses was very angry and said, “Wife, I
am much displeased at what you have just been saying. Who has been
taking my bed from the place in which I left it? He must have found it
a hard task, no matter how skilled a workman he was, unless some god
came and helped him to shift it. There is no man living, however strong
and in his prime, who could move it from its place, for it is a
marvellous curiosity which I made with my very own hands. There was a
young olive growing within the precincts of the house, in full vigour,
and about as thick as a bearing-post. I built my room round this with
strong walls of stone and a roof to cover them, and I made the doors
strong and well-fitting. Then I cut off the top boughs of the olive
tree and left the stump standing. This I dressed roughly from the root
upwards and then worked with carpenter’s tools well and skilfully,
straightening my work by drawing a line on the wood, and making it into
a bed-prop. I then bored a hole down the middle, and made it the
centre-post of my bed, at which I worked till I had finished it,
inlaying it with gold and silver; after this I stretched a hide of
crimson leather from one side of it to the other. So you see I know all
about it, and I desire to learn whether it is still there, or whether
any one has been removing it by cutting down the olive tree at its
roots.”
When she heard the sure proofs Ulysses now gave her, she fairly broke
down. She flew weeping to his side, flung her arms about his neck, and
kissed him. “Do not be angry with me Ulysses,” she cried, “you, who are
the wisest of mankind. We have suffered, both of us. Heaven has denied
us the happiness of spending our youth, and of growing old, together;
do not then be aggrieved or take it amiss that I did not embrace you
thus as soon as I saw you. I have been shuddering all the time through
fear that someone might come here and deceive me with a lying story;
for there are many very wicked people going about. Jove’s daughter
Helen would never have yielded herself to a man from a foreign country,
if she had known that the sons of Achaeans would come after her and
bring her back. Heaven put it in her heart to do wrong, and she gave no
thought to that sin, which has been the source of all our sorrows. Now,
however, that you have convinced me by showing that you know all about
our bed (which no human being has ever seen but you and I and a single
maidservant, the daughter of Actor, who was given me by my father on my
marriage, and who keeps the doors of our room) hard of belief though I
have been I can mistrust no longer.”
Then Ulysses in his turn melted, and wept as he clasped his dear and
faithful wife to his bosom. As the sight of land is welcome to men who
are swimming towards the shore, when Neptune has wrecked their ship
with the fury of his winds and waves; a few alone reach the land, and
these, covered with brine, are thankful when they find themselves on
firm ground and out of danger—even so was her husband welcome to her as
she looked upon him, and she could not tear her two fair arms from
about his neck. Indeed they would have gone on indulging their sorrow
till rosy-fingered morn appeared, had not Minerva determined otherwise,
and held night back in the far west, while she would not suffer Dawn to
leave Oceanus, nor to yoke the two steeds Lampus and Phaethon that bear
her onward to break the day upon mankind.
At last, however, Ulysses said, “Wife, we have not yet reached the end
of our troubles. I have an unknown amount of toil still to undergo. It
is long and difficult, but I must go through with it, for thus the
shade of Teiresias prophesied concerning me, on the day when I went
down into Hades to ask about my return and that of my companions. But
now let us go to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon
of sleep.”
“You shall go to bed as soon as you please,” replied Penelope, “now
that the gods have sent you home to your own good house and to your
country. But as heaven has put it in your mind to speak of it, tell me
about the task that lies before you. I shall have to hear about it
later, so it is better that I should be told at once.”
“My dear,” answered Ulysses, “why should you press me to tell you?
Still, I will not conceal it from you, though you will not like it. I
do not like it myself, for Teiresias bade me travel far and wide,
carrying an oar, till I came to a country where the people have never
heard of the sea, and do not even mix salt with their food. They know
nothing about ships, nor oars that are as the wings of a ship. He gave
me this certain token which I will not hide from you. He said that a
wayfarer should meet me and ask me whether it was a winnowing shovel
that I had on my shoulder. On this, I was to fix my oar in the ground
and sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune; after which I was
to go home and offer hecatombs to all the gods in heaven, one after the
other. As for myself, he said that death should come to me from the
sea, and that my life should ebb away very gently when I was full of
years and peace of mind, and my people should bless me. All this, he
said, should surely come to pass.”
And Penelope said, “If the gods are going to vouchsafe you a happier
time in your old age, you may hope then to have some respite from
misfortune.”
Thus did they converse. Meanwhile Eurynome and the nurse took torches
and made the bed ready with soft coverlets; as soon as they had laid
them, the nurse went back into the house to go to her rest, leaving the
bed chamber woman Eurynome183 to show Ulysses and Penelope to bed by
torch light. When she had conducted them to their room she went back,
and they then came joyfully to the rites of their own old bed.
Telemachus, Philoetius, and the swineherd now left off dancing, and
made the women leave off also. They then laid themselves down to sleep
in the cloisters.
When Ulysses and Penelope had had their fill of love they fell talking
with one another. She told him how much she had had to bear in seeing
the house filled with a crowd of wicked suitors who had killed so many
sheep and oxen on her account, and had drunk so many casks of wine.
Ulysses in his turn told her what he had suffered, and how much trouble
he had himself given to other people. He told her everything, and she
was so delighted to listen that she never went to sleep till he had
ended his whole story.
He began with his victory over the Cicons, and how he thence reached
the fertile land of the Lotus-eaters. He told her all about the Cyclops
and how he had punished him for having so ruthlessly eaten his brave
comrades; how he then went on to Aeolus, who received him hospitably
and furthered him on his way, but even so he was not to reach home, for
to his great grief a hurricane carried him out to sea again; how he
went on to the Laestrygonian city Telepylos, where the people destroyed
all his ships with their crews, save himself and his own ship only.
Then he told of cunning Circe and her craft, and how he sailed to the
chill house of Hades, to consult the ghost of the Theban prophet
Teiresias, and how he saw his old comrades in arms, and his mother who
bore him and brought him up when he was a child; how he then heard the
wondrous singing of the Sirens, and went on to the wandering rocks and
terrible Charybdis and to Scylla, whom no man had ever yet passed in
safety; how his men then ate the cattle of the sun-god, and how Jove
therefore struck the ship with his thunderbolts, so that all his men
perished together, himself alone being left alive; how at last he
reached the Ogygian island and the nymph Calypso, who kept him there in
a cave, and fed him, and wanted him to marry her, in which case she
intended making him immortal so that he should never grow old, but she
could not persuade him to let her do so; and how after much suffering
he had found his way to the Phaeacians, who had treated him as though
he had been a god, and sent him back in a ship to his own country after
having given him gold, bronze, and raiment in great abundance. This was
the last thing about which he told her, for here a deep sleep took hold
upon him and eased the burden of his sorrows.
Then Minerva bethought her of another matter. When she deemed that
Ulysses had had both of his wife and of repose, she bade gold-enthroned
Dawn rise out of Oceanus that she might shed light upon mankind. On
this, Ulysses rose from his comfortable bed and said to Penelope,
“Wife, we have both of us had our full share of troubles, you, here, in
lamenting my absence, and I in being prevented from getting home though
I was longing all the time to do so. Now, however, that we have at last
come together, take care of the property that is in the house. As for
the sheep and goats which the wicked suitors have eaten, I will take
many myself by force from other people, and will compel the Achaeans to
make good the rest till they shall have filled all my yards. I am now
going to the wooded lands out in the country to see my father who has
so long been grieved on my account, and to yourself I will give these
instructions, though you have little need of them. At sunrise it will
at once get abroad that I have been killing the suitors; go upstairs,
therefore,184 and stay there with your women. See nobody and ask no
questions.”185
As he spoke he girded on his armour. Then he roused Telemachus,
Philoetius, and Eumaeus, and told them all to put on their armour also.
This they did, and armed themselves. When they had done so, they opened
the gates and sallied forth, Ulysses leading the way. It was now
daylight, but Minerva nevertheless concealed them in darkness and led
them quickly out of the town.
BOOK XXIV
THE GHOSTS OF THE SUITORS IN HADES—ULYSSES AND HIS MEN GO TO THE HOUSE
OF LAERTES—THE PEOPLE OF ITHACA COME OUT TO ATTACK ULYSSES, BUT MINERVA
CONCLUDES A PEACE.
Then Mercury of Cyllene summoned the ghosts of the suitors, and in his