The Odyssey: Book 15

Athena went to remind the hero's princely son
of his journey home and spur him on his way.

Quickly, press Menelaus, lord of the warcry,
to speed you home at once, if you want to find
your irreproachable mother still inside your house.

That's the man a guest will remember all his days:
the lavish host who showers him with kindness.

And the warlord placed the two-eared cup
in his hands while stalwart Megapenthes carried in
the glittering silver bowl and set it down before him.

Ready Eteoneus carved and passed the meat,
the son of illustrious Menelaus poured their wine.

"Oh if only,"
pensive Telemachus burst out in thanks to Helen,
"Zeus the thundering lord of Hera makes it so—
even at home I'll pray to you as a deathless goddess!"

Muster all your men
before I get home and break the news to father.

With that man's overbearing spirit—I know it,
know it all too well—he'll never let you go,
he'll come down here and summon you himself.

But then he was made to go abroad to foreign parts,
fleeing his native land and hot-blooded Neleus—
most imperious man alive—who'd commandeered
his vast estate and held it down by force
for one entire year.

"Friend," he said in a winging supplication,
"since I find you burning offerings here,
I beg you by these rites and the god you pray to,
then by your own life and the lives of all the men
who travel with you—tell me truly, don't hold back,
who are you? where are you from? your city? your parents?"

"Of course, stranger," the forthright prince responded,
"I will tell you everything, clearly as I can..."

Fleeing death at their hands, a dismal fate,
I am a fugitive now,
doomed to wander across this mortal world.

Why, I'd even mix with those overweening suitors—
would they spare me a plateful? Look at all they have!

Thanks to Hermes the guide, who gives all work
of our hands the grace and fame that it deserves,
no one alive can match me at household chores:
building a good fire, splitting kindling neatly,
carving, roasting meat and pouring rounds of wine...
anything menials do to serve their noble masters.

You who stopped my pain, my endless, homesick roving.
Tramping about the world—there's nothing worse for a man.

"Imagine that," his canny master said,
"you must have been just a little fellow, Eumaeus,
when you were swept so far from home and parents.
Come, tell me the whole story, truly too..."

Over the years, you know,
a man finds solace even in old sorrows, true, a man
who's weathered many blows and wandered many miles.

The famous sea-dogs,
sharp bargainers too, the holds of their black ship
brimful with a hoard of flashy baubles.

Now,
my father kept a Phoenician woman in his house,
beautiful, tall and skilled at weaving lovely things,
and her rascal countrymen lusted to seduce her, yes,
and lost no time—she was washing clothes when one of them
waylaid her beside their ship, in a long deep embrace
that can break a woman's will, even the best alive.

But I'll mention someone else you might just visit:
Eurymachus, wise Polybus' fine, upstanding son.