My country-earth; since I have long been left
To labours, and to errors, barr’d from end,
And far from benefit of any friend,”
He said no more, but left them dumb with that,
Went to the hearth, and in the ashes sat,
Aside the fire. At last their silence brake,
And Echinëus, th’ old heroë, spake;
A man that all Phæacians pass’d in years,
And in persuasive eloquence all the peers,
Knew much, and us’d it well; and thus spake he:
“Alcinous! It shews not decently,
Nor doth your honour what you see admit,
That this your guest should thus abjectly sit,
His chair the earth, the hearth his cushion,
Ashes as if appos’d for food. A throne,
Adorn’d with due rites, stands you more in hand
To see his person plac’d in, and command
That instantly your heralds fill-in wine,
That to the God that doth in lightnings shine
We may do sacrifice; for he is there,
Where these his rev’rend suppliants appear.
Let what you have within be brought abroad,
To sup the stranger. All these would have show’d
This fit respect to him, but that they stay
For your precedence, that should grace the way.”
When this had added to the well-inclin’d
And sacred order of Alcinous’ mind,
Then of the great-in-wit the hand he seis’d,
And from the ashes his fair person rais’d,
Advanc’d him to a well-adornéd throne,
And from his seat rais’d his most lovéd son,
Laodamas, that next himself was set,
To give him place. The handmaid then did get
An ewer of gold, with water fill’d, which plac’d
Upon a caldron, all with silver grac’d,
She pour’d out on their hands. And then was spread
A table, which the butler set with bread,
As others serv’d with other food the board,
In all the choice the present could afford.
Ulysses meat and wine took; and then thus
The king the herald call’d: “Pontonous!
Serve wine through all the house, that all may pay
Rites to the Lightner, who is still in way
With humble suppliants, and them pursues
With all benign and hospitable dues.”
Pontonous gave act to all he will’d,
And honey-sweetness-giving-minds wine fill’d, 6
Disposing it in cups for all to drink.
All having drunk what either’s heart could think
Fit for due sacrifice, Alcinous said:
“Hear me, ye dukes that the Phæacians lead,
And you our counsellors, that I may now
Discharge the charge my mind suggests to you,
For this our guest: Feast past, and this night’s sleep,
Next morn, our senate summon’d, we will keep
Justs, sacred to the Gods, and this our guest
Receive in solemn court with fitting feast;
Then think of his return, that, under hand
Of our deduction, his natural land
(Without more toil or care, and with delight,
And that soon giv’n him, how far-hence dissite
Soever it can be) he may ascend;
And in the mean time without wrong attend,
Or other want, fit means to that ascent. 7
What, after, austere Fates shall make th’ event
Of his life’s thread, now spinning, and began
When his pain’d mother freed his root of man,
He must endure in all kinds. If some God
Perhaps abides with us in his abode,
And other things will think upon than we,
The Gods’ wills stand, who ever yet were free
Of their appearance to us, when to them
We offer’d hecatombs of fit esteem,
And would at feast sit with us, ev’n where we
Order’d our session. They would likewise be
Encount’rers of us, when in way alone
About his fit affairs went any one.
Nor let them cloak themselves in any care
To do us comfort, we as near them are,
As are the Cyclops, or the impious race 8
Of earthy giants, that would heav’n outface.”
Ulysses answer’d: “Let some other doubt
Employ your thoughts than what your words give out,
Which intimate a kind of doubt that I
Should shadow in this shape a Deity.
I bear no such least semblance, or in wit,
Virtue, or person. What may well befit
One of those mortals, whom you chiefly know
Bears up and down the burthen of the woe
Appropriate to poor man, give that to me;
Of whose moans I sit in the most degree,
And might say more, sustaining griefs that all
The Gods consent to; no one ‘twixt their fall
And my unpitied shoulders letting down
The least diversion. Be the grace then shown,
To let me taste your free-giv’n food in peace.
Through greatest grief the belly must have ease;
Worse than an envious belly nothing is.
It will command his strict necessities,
Of men most griev’d in body or in mind,
That are in health, and will not give their kind
A desp’rate wound. When most with cause I grieve,
It bids me still, Eat, man, and drink, and live;
And this makes all forgot. Whatever ill
I ever bear, it ever bids me fill.
But this ease is but forc’d, and will not last,
Till what the mind likes be as well embrac’d;
And therefore let me wish you would partake
In your late purpose; when the morn shall make
Her next appearance, deign me but the grace,
Unhappy man, that I may once embrace
My country-earth. Though I be still thrust at
By ancient ills, yet make me but see that.
And then let life go, when withal I see
My high-roof’d large house, lands, and family.”
This all approv’d; and each will’d ev’ry one,
Since he hath said so fairly, set him gone.
Feast past and sacrifice, to sleep all vow
Their eyes at either’s house. Ulysses now
Was left here with Alcinous, and his Queen,
The all-lov’d Arete. The handmaids then
The vessel of the banquet took away.
When Arete set eye on his array;
Knew both his out and under weed, which she
Made with her maids; and mus’d by what means he
Obtain’d their wearing; which she made request
To know, and wings gave to these speeches: “Guest!
First let me ask, what, and from whence you are?
And then, who grac’d you with the weeds you wear?
Said you not lately, you had err’d at seas,
And thence arriv’d here?” Laertiades
To this thus answer’d: “’Tis a pain, O Queen,
Still to be op’ning wounds wrought deep, and green,
Of which the Gods have
open’d store in me;
Yet your will must be serv’d. Far hence, at sea,
There lies an isle, that bears Ogygia’s name,
Where Atlas’ daughter, the ingenious dame,
Fair-hair’d Calypso lives; a Goddess grave,
And with whom men nor Gods society have;
Yet I, past man unhappy, liv’d alone,
By Heav’n’s wrath forc’d, her house-companion.
For Jove had with a fervent lightning cleft
My ship in twain, and far at black sea left
Me and my soldiers; all whose lives I lost.
I in mine arms the keel took, and was tost
Nine days together up from wave to wave.
The tenth grim night, the angry Deities drave
Me and my wrack on th’ isle, in which doth dwell
Dreadful Calypso; who exactly well
Receiv’d and nourish’d me, and promise made
To make me deathless, nor should age invade
My pow’rs with his deserts through all my days.
All mov’d not me, and therefore, on her stays,
Sev’n years she made me lie; and there spent I
The long time, steeping in the misery
Of ceaseless tears the garments I did wear,
From her fair hand. The eighth revolvéd year
(Or by her chang’d mind, or by charge of Jove)
She gave provok’d way to my wish’d remove,
And in a many-jointed ship, with wine
Dainty in savour, bread, and weeds divine,
Sign’d, with a harmless and sweet wind, my pass.
Then sev’nteen days at sea I homeward was,
And by the eighteenth the dark hills appear’d
That your earth thrusts up. Much my heart was cheer’d,
Unhappy man, for that was but a beam,
To show I yet had agonies extreme
To put in suff’’rance, which th’ Earth-shaker sent,
Crossing my way with tempests violent,
Unmeasur’d seas up-lifting, nor would give
The billows leave to let my vessel live
The least time quiet, that ev’n sigh’d to bear
Their bitter outrage, which, at last, did tear
Her sides in pieces, set on by the winds.
I yet through-swum the waves that your shore binds,
Till wind and water threw me up to it;
When, coming forth, a ruthless billow smit
Against huge rocks, and an accessless shore,
My mangl’d body. Back again I bore,
And swum till I was fall’n upon a flood,
Whose shores, methought, on good advantage stood
For my receipt, rock-free, and fenc’d from wind;
And this I put for, gath’ring up my mind.
Then the divine night came, and treading earth,
Close by the flood that had from Jove her birth,
Within a thicket I repos’d; when round
I ruffled up fall’n leaves in heap; and found,
Let fall from heav’n, a sleep interminate.
And here my heart, long time excruciate,
Amongst the leaves I rested all that night,
Ev’n till the morning and meridian light.
The sun declining then, delightsome sleep
No longer laid my temples in his steep,
But forth I went, and on the shore might see
Your daughter’s maids play. Like a Deity
She shin’d above them; and I pray’d to her,
And she in disposition did prefer
Noblesse, and wisdom, no more low than might
Become the goodness of a Goddess’ height.
Nor would you therefore hope, suppos’d distrest
As I was then, and old, to find the least
Of any grace from her, being younger far.
With young folks Wisdom makes her commerce rare.
Yet she in all abundance did bestow
Both wine, that makes the blood in humans grow, 9
And food, and bath’d me in the flood, and gave
The weeds to me which now ye see me have.
This through my griefs I tell you, and ’tis true.”
Alcinous answer’d: “Guest! my daughter knew
Least of what most you give her; nor became
The course she took, to let with ev’ry dame
Your person lackey; nor hath with them brought
Yourself home too; which first you had besought.”
“O blame her not,” said he, “heroical lord,
Nor let me hear against her worth a word.
She faultless is, and wish’d I would have gone
With all her women home, but I alone
Would venture my receipt here, having fear
And rev’rend awe of accidents that were
Of likely issue; both your wrath to move,
And to inflame the common people’s love
Of speaking ill, to which they soon give place.
We men are all a most suspicious race.”
“My guest,” said he, “I use not to be stirr’d
To wrath too rashly; and where are preferr’d
To men’s conceits things that may both ways fail,
The noblest ever should the most prevail.
Would Jove our Father, Pallas, and the Sun,
That, were you still as now, and could but run
One fate with me, you would my daughter wed,
And be my son-in-law, still vow’d to lead
Your rest of life here! I a house would give,
And household goods, so freely you would live,
Confin’d with us. But ‘gainst your will shall none
Contain you here, since that were violence done
To Jove our Father. For your passage home,
That you may well know we can overcome
So great a voyage, thus it shall succeed:
To-morrow shall our men take all their heed,
While you securely sleep, to see the seas
In calmest temper, and, if that will please,
Show you your country and your house ere night,
Though far beyond Eubœa be that sight.
And this Eubœa, as our subjects say
That have been there and seen, is far away,
Farthest from us of all the parts they know;
And made the trial when they help’d to row
The gold-lock’d Rhadamanth, to give him view
Of earth-born Tityus; whom their speeds did show
In that far-off Eubœa, the same day
They set from hence; and home made good their way
With ease again, and him they did convey.
Which I report to you, to let you see
How swift my ships are, and how matchlessly
My young Phæacians with their oars prevail,
To beat the sea through, and assist a sail.”
This cheer’d Ulysses, who in private pray’d:
“I would to Jove our Father, what he said,
He could perform at all parts; he should then
Be glorified for ever, and I gain
My natural country.” This discourse they had;
When fair-arm’d Arete her handmaids bad
A bed make in the portico, and ply
With clothes, the cov’ring tapestry,
The blankets purple; well-napp’d waistcoats too,
To wear for more warmth. What these had to do,
&n
bsp; They torches took and did. The bed purvey’d,
They mov’d Ulysses for his rest, and said:
“Come guest, your bed is fit, now frame to rest.”
Motion of sleep was gracious to their guest;
Which now he took profoundly, being laid
Within a loop-hole tow’r, where was convey’d
The sounding portico. The King took rest
In a retir’d part of the house; where drest
The Queen her self a bed, and trundlebed,
And by her lord repos’d her rev’rend head.
FINIS LIBRI SEPTIMI HOM. ODYSS.
ENDNOTES.
1 Hac fuit illius sæculi simplicitas: nam vel fraternus quoque amor tantus fuit, ut libenter hanc redeunti charissimæ sorori operam præstiterint. Spond.
2 Νέες ώκει̑αι ὡσεὶ πτερὸν ἠὲ νόημα, naves veloces veluti penna, atque cogitatio.
3 For the more perspicuity of this pedigree, I have here set down the diagram, as Spondanus hath it. Neptune begat Nausithous of Peribœa. By Nausithous, Rhexenor, Alcinous, were begot. By Rhexenor, Arete, the wife of her uncle Alcinous.
4 The honour of Arete (or virtue) alleg.
5 Casts so thick a shade — πυκινός spissus.
6 The word that bears this long epithet is translated only dulce: which signifies more, Μελίϕρονα οι͒νον ἐκίρνα Vinum quod melleâ dulcedine animum perfundit, et oblectat.
7 Ascent to his country’s shore.
8 Eustathius will have this comparison of the Phæacians with the Giants and Cyclops to proceed out of the inveterate virulency of Antinous to the Cyclops; who were cause (as is before said) of their remove from their country; and with great endeavour labours the approbation of it; but (under his peace) from the purpose: for the sense of the Poet is clear, that the Cyclops and Giants being in part the issue of the Gods, and yet afterward their defiers, (as Polyp. hereafter dares profess) Antinous (out of bold and manly reason, even to the face of one that might have been a God, for the past manly appearance he made there) would tell him, and the rest in him, that if they graced those Cyclops with their open appearance, that, though descended from them, durst yet deny them, they might much more do them the honour of their open presence that adored them.
9 Αἴθοψ οι͒νος, Vinum calefaciendi vim habens.
THE EIGHTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
THE ARGUMENT
The Peers of the Phæacian State
A Council call, to consolate
Ulysses with all means for home.
The Council to a banquet come,
Invited by the King. Which done,
The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman Page 123
