The Odyssey: Book 1

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

By now,
all the survivors, all who avoided headlong death
were safe at home, escaped the wars and waves.

But one man alone...
his heart set on his wife and his return—Calypso,
the bewitching nymph, the lustrous goddess, held him back,
deep in her arching caverns, craving him for a husband.

Recalling Aegisthus, Zeus harangued the immortal powers:
"Ah how shameless—the way these mortals blame the gods.
From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes,
but they themselves, with their own reckless ways,
compound their pains beyond their proper share..."

But my heart breaks for Odysseus,
that seasoned veteran cursed by fate so long

Atlas' daughter it is who holds Odysseus captive,
luckless man—despite his tears, forever trying
to spellbind his heart with suave, seductive words
and wipe all thought of Ithaca from his mind.

Olympian Zeus,
have you no care for him in your lofty heart?

While I myself go down to Ithaca, rouse his son
to a braver pitch, inspire his heart with courage
to summon the flowing-haired Achaeans to full assembly,
speak his mind to all those suitors, slaughtering on and on
his droves of sheep and shambling longhorn cattle.

So Athena vowed
and under her feet she fastened the supple sandals,
ever-glowing gold, that wing her over the waves
and boundless earth with the rush of gusting winds.

And down she swept from Olympus' craggy peaks
and lit on Ithaca, standing tall at Odysseus' gates,
the threshold of his court.

He could almost see his magnificent father, here...
in the mind's eye—if only he might drop from the clouds
and drive these suitors all in a rout throughout the halls
and regain his pride of place and rule his own domains!

A staid housekeeper brought on bread to serve them,
appetizers aplenty too, lavish with her bounty.

A herald placed an ornate lyre in Phemius' hands,
the bard who always performed among them there;
they forced the man to sing.

It's easy for them, all right,
they feed on another's goods and go scot-free—
a man whose white bones lie strewn in the rain somewhere,
rotting away on land or rolling down the ocean's salty swells.

You're truly Odysseus' son? You've sprung up so!
Uncanny resemblance...the head, and the fine eyes—
I see him now.

What's this banqueting, this crowd carousing here?

Well, my friend,
seeing you want to probe and press the question,
once this house was rich, no doubt, beyond reproach
when the man you mentioned still lived here, at home.

"Shameful!"—
brimming with indignation, Pallas Athena broke out.

Oh how much you need Odysseus, gone so long—
how he'd lay hands on all these brazen suitors!

If only he would appear, now,
at his house's outer gates and take his stand,
armed with his helmet, shield and pair of spears,
as strong as the man I glimpsed that first time
in our own house, drinking wine and reveling there

But now I must go back to my swift trim ship
and all my shipmates, chafing there, I'm sure,
waiting for my return.

"Oh stranger,"
heedful Telemachus replied; "indeed I will.
You've counseled me with so much kindness now,
like a father to a son. I won't forget a word..."

But break off this song—
the unendurable song that always rends the heart inside me...
the unforgettable grief, it wounds me most of all!

"Why, mother,"
poised Telemachus put in sharply, "why deny
our devoted bard the chance to entertain us
any way the spirit stirs him on?..."

Tend to your own tasks,
the distaff and the loom, and keep the women
working hard as well.

But the suitors broke into uproar through the shadowed halls,
all of them lifting prayers to lie beside her, share her bed,
until discreet Telemachus took command...

You suitors
who plague my mother, you, you insolent, overweening...
for this evening let us dine and take our pleasure,
no more shouting now.

See to your feasting elsewhere,
devour your own possessions, house to house by turns.
But if you decide the fare is better, richer here,
destroying one man's goods and going scot-free,
all right then, carve away!

Telemachus,
off to his bedroom built in the fine courtyard—
a commanding, lofty room set well apart—
retired too, his spirit swarming with misgivings.

He spread the doors of his snug, well-made room,
sat down on the bed and pulled his soft shirt off,
tossed it into the old woman's conscientious hands,
and after folding it neatly, patting it smooth,
she hung it up on a peg beside his corded bed...