The Odyssey: Book 16

You rarely visit the farm and men these days,
always keeping to town, as if it cheered you
to see them there, that infernal crowd of suitors!

Then my mother's wavering, always torn two ways
whether to stay with me and care for the household,
true to her husband's bed, the people's voice as well,
or leave at long last with the best man in Achaea
who courts her in the halls, who offers her the most.

"You're right, my friend," sober Telemachus agreed.

It's light work for the gods who rule the skies
to exalt a mortal man or bring him low.

Come, give me the full tally of these suitors—
I must know their numbers, gauge their strength.

"Father,"
clear-headed Telemachus countered quickly,
"all my life I've heard of your great fame—
a brave man in war and a deep mind in counsel—
but what you say dumbfounds me, staggers imagination!
How on earth could two men fight so many and so strong?..."

Telemachus answered shrewdly, full of poise,
"Two great champions, those you name, it's true.
Off in the clouds they sit
and they lord it over gods and mortal men."

When you're in your cups a quarrel might break out,
you'd wound each other, shame your feasting here
and cast a pall on your courting.

You and I alone will assess the women's mood
and we might test a few of the serving-men as well
where are the ones who still respect us both,
who hold us in awe?

I'm hardly a flighty, weak-willed boy these days.

Friends, what a fine piece of work he's carried off!
Telemachus—what insolence—and we thought his little jaunt
would come to grief!

Eupithes' son Antinous rose and harangued them all:
"What a blow! See how the gods have saved this boy
from bloody death? And our lookouts all day long,
stationed atop the windy heights, kept watch..."

So here at home we'll plot his certain death:
he must never slip through our hands again,
that boy—while he still lives,
I swear we'll never bring our venture off.

Strike first, I say, and kill him!—
clear of town, in the fields or on the road.
Then we'll seize his estates and worldly goods,
carve them up between us, share and share alike.

If you find it offensive, if you want him
living on—in full command of his patrimony—
gather here no more then, living the life of kings,
consuming all his wealth.

If the decrees of mighty Zeus commend the work,
I'll kill the prince myself and spur on all the rest.
If the gods are against it, then I say hold back!

But now an inspiration took the discreet Penelope
to face her suitors, brutal, reckless men.

You, Antinous! Violent, vicious, scheming—
you, they say, are the best man your age in Ithaca,
best for eloquence, counsel. You're nothing of the sort!

Disabuse yourself of all these worries now.
That man is not alive—
he never will be, he never can be born—
who'll lift a hand against Telemachus, your son,
not while I walk the land and I can see the light.

My spear, since time and again Odysseus dandled me
on his knees, the great raider of cities fed me
roasted meat and held the red wine to my lips.