The Odyssey
you were a person of rare and excellent understanding. If, then, it be
possible, do as I would urge you. I am not fond of crying while I am
getting my supper. Morning will come in due course, and in the forenoon
I care not how much I cry for those that are dead and gone. This is all
we can do for the poor things. We can only shave our heads for them and
wring the tears from our cheeks. I had a brother who died at Troy; he
was by no means the worst man there; you are sure to have known him—his
name was Antilochus; I never set eyes upon him myself, but they say
that he was singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant.”
“Your discretion, my friend,” answered Menelaus, “is beyond your years.
It is plain you take after your father. One can soon see when a man is
son to one whom heaven has blessed both as regards wife and
offspring—and it has blessed Nestor from first to last all his days,
giving him a green old age in his own house, with sons about him who
are both well disposed and valiant. We will put an end therefore to all
this weeping, and attend to our supper again. Let water be poured over
our hands. Telemachus and I can talk with one another fully in the
morning.”
On this Asphalion, one of the servants, poured water over their hands
and they laid their hands on the good things that were before them.
Then Jove’s daughter Helen bethought her of another matter. She drugged
the wine with an herb that banishes all care, sorrow, and ill humour.
Whoever drinks wine thus drugged cannot shed a single tear all the rest
of the day, not even though his father and mother both of them drop
down dead, or he sees a brother or a son hewn in pieces before his very
eyes. This drug, of such sovereign power and virtue, had been given to
Helen by Polydamna wife of Thon, a woman of Egypt, where there grow all
sorts of herbs, some good to put into the mixing bowl and others
poisonous. Moreover, every one in the whole country is a skilled
physician, for they are of the race of Paeeon. When Helen had put this
drug in the bowl, and had told the servants to serve the wine round,
she said:
“Menelaus, son of Atreus, and you my good friends, sons of honourable
men (which is as Jove wills, for he is the giver both of good and evil,
and can do what he chooses), feast here as you will, and listen while I
tell you a tale in season. I cannot indeed name every single one of the
exploits of Ulysses, but I can say what he did when he was before Troy,
and you Achaeans were in all sorts of difficulties. He covered himself
with wounds and bruises, dressed himself all in rags, and entered the
enemy’s city looking like a menial or a beggar, and quite different
from what he did when he was among his own people. In this disguise he
entered the city of Troy, and no one said anything to him. I alone
recognised him and began to question him, but he was too cunning for
me. When, however, I had washed and anointed him and had given him
clothes, and after I had sworn a solemn oath not to betray him to the
Trojans till he had got safely back to his own camp and to the ships,
he told me all that the Achaeans meant to do. He killed many Trojans
and got much information before he reached the Argive camp, for all
which things the Trojan women made lamentation, but for my own part I
was glad, for my heart was beginning to yearn after my home, and I was
unhappy about the wrong that Venus had done me in taking me over there,
away from my country, my girl, and my lawful wedded husband, who is
indeed by no means deficient either in person or understanding.”
Then Menelaus said, “All that you have been saying, my dear wife, is
true. I have travelled much, and have had much to do with heroes, but I
have never seen such another man as Ulysses. What endurance too, and
what courage he displayed within the wooden horse, wherein all the
bravest of the Argives were lying in wait to bring death and
destruction upon the Trojans.43 At that moment you came up to us; some
god who wished well to the Trojans must have set you on to it and you
had Deiphobus with you. Three times did you go all round our hiding
place and pat it; you called our chiefs each by his own name, and
mimicked all our wives—Diomed, Ulysses, and I from our seats inside
heard what a noise you made. Diomed and I could not make up our minds
whether to spring out then and there, or to answer you from inside, but
Ulysses held us all in check, so we sat quite still, all except
Anticlus, who was beginning to answer you, when Ulysses clapped his two
brawny hands over his mouth, and kept them there. It was this that
saved us all, for he muzzled Anticlus till Minerva took you away
again.”
“How sad,” exclaimed Telemachus, “that all this was of no avail to save
him, nor yet his own iron courage. But now, sir, be pleased to send us
all to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon of sleep.”
On this Helen told the maid servants to set beds in the room that was
in the gatehouse, and to make them with good red rugs, and spread
coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for the guests to
wear. So the maids went out, carrying a torch, and made the beds, to
which a man-servant presently conducted the strangers. Thus, then, did
Telemachus and Pisistratus sleep there in the forecourt, while the son
of Atreus lay in an inner room with lovely Helen by his side.
When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Menelaus rose
and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely feet, girded
his sword about his shoulders, and left his room looking like an
immortal god. Then, taking a seat near Telemachus he said:
“And what, Telemachus, has led you to take this long sea voyage to
Lacedaemon? Are you on public, or private business? Tell me all about
it.”
“I have come, sir,” replied Telemachus, “to see if you can tell me
anything about my father. I am being eaten out of house and home; my
fair estate is being wasted, and my house is full of miscreants who
keep killing great numbers of my sheep and oxen, on the pretence of
paying their addresses to my mother. Therefore, I am suppliant at your
knees if haply you may tell me about my father’s melancholy end,
whether you saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some other
traveller; for he was a man born to trouble. Do not soften things out
of any pity for myself, but tell me in all plainness exactly what you
saw. If my brave father Ulysses ever did you loyal service either by
word or deed, when you Achaeans were harassed by the Trojans, bear it
in mind now as in my favour and tell me truly all.”
Menelaus on hearing this was very much shocked. “So,” he exclaimed,
“these cowards would usurp a brave man’s bed? A hind might as well lay
her new born young in the lair of a lion, and then go off to feed in
the forest or in some grassy dell: the lion when he comes back to his
lair will make short work with the pair of them—and so will Ulysses
with these suitors. By father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, if Ulysses is
still the man that he was when he wrestled with Philomeleides in
Lesbos, and threw him so heavily that all the Achaeans cheered him—if
he is still such and were to come near these suitors, they would have a
short shrift and a sorry wedding. As regards your questions, however, I
will not prevaricate nor deceive you, but will tell you without
concealment all that the old man of the sea told me.
“I was trying to come on here, but the gods detained me in Egypt, for
my hecatombs had not given them full satisfaction, and the gods are
very strict about having their dues. Now off Egypt, about as far as a
ship can sail in a day with a good stiff breeze behind her, there is an
island called Pharos—it has a good harbour from which vessels can get
out into open sea when they have taken in water—and here the gods
becalmed me twenty days without so much as a breath of fair wind to
help me forward. We should have run clean out of provisions and my men
would have starved, if a goddess had not taken pity upon me and saved
me in the person of Idothea, daughter to Proteus, the old man of the
sea, for she had taken a great fancy to me.
“She came to me one day when I was by myself, as I often was, for the
men used to go with their barbed hooks, all over the island in the hope
of catching a fish or two to save them from the pangs of hunger.
‘Stranger,’ said she, ‘it seems to me that you like starving in this
way—at any rate it does not greatly trouble you, for you stick here day
after day, without even trying to get away though your men are dying by
inches.’
“‘Let me tell you,’ said I, ‘whichever of the goddesses you may happen
to be, that I am not staying here of my own accord, but must have
offended the gods that live in heaven. Tell me, therefore, for the gods
know everything, which of the immortals it is that is hindering me in
this way, and tell me also how I may sail the sea so as to reach my
home.’
“‘Stranger,’ replied she, ‘I will make it all quite clear to you. There
is an old immortal who lives under the sea hereabouts and whose name is
Proteus. He is an Egyptian, and people say he is my father; he is
Neptune’s head man and knows every inch of ground all over the bottom
of the sea. If you can snare him and hold him tight, he will tell you
about your voyage, what courses you are to take, and how you are to
sail the sea so as to reach your home. He will also tell you, if you so
will, all that has been going on at your house both good and bad, while
you have been away on your long and dangerous journey.’
“‘Can you show me,’ said I, ‘some stratagem by means of which I may
catch this old god without his suspecting it and finding me out? For a
god is not easily caught—not by a mortal man.’
“‘Stranger,’ said she, ‘I will make it all quite clear to you. About
the time when the sun shall have reached mid heaven, the old man of the
sea comes up from under the waves, heralded by the West wind that furs
the water over his head. As soon as he has come up he lies down, and
goes to sleep in a great sea cave, where the seals—Halosydne’s chickens
as they call them—come up also from the grey sea, and go to sleep in
shoals all round him; and a very strong and fish-like smell do they
bring with them. 44 Early to-morrow morning I will take you to this
place and will lay you in ambush. Pick out, therefore, the three best
men you have in your fleet, and I will tell you all the tricks that the
old man will play you.
“‘First he will look over all his seals, and count them; then, when he
has seen them and tallied them on his five fingers, he will go to sleep
among them, as a shepherd among his sheep. The moment you see that he
is asleep seize him; put forth all your strength and hold him fast, for
he will do his very utmost to get away from you. He will turn himself
into every kind of creature that goes upon the earth, and will become
also both fire and water; but you must hold him fast and grip him
tighter and tighter, till he begins to talk to you and comes back to
what he was when you saw him go to sleep; then you may slacken your
hold and let him go; and you can ask him which of the gods it is that
is angry with you, and what you must do to reach your home over the
seas.’
“Having so said she dived under the waves, whereon I turned back to the
place where my ships were ranged upon the shore; and my heart was
clouded with care as I went along. When I reached my ship we got supper
ready, for night was falling, and camped down upon the beach.
“When the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, I took the
three men on whose prowess of all kinds I could most rely, and went
along by the sea-side, praying heartily to heaven. Meanwhile the
goddess fetched me up four seal skins from the bottom of the sea, all