by Homer
Gods grant you the most, whatever your heart wants,
now that you stopped that craving beggar from roaming
the land.” “We’ll shortly pack him off to the mainland
to King Ekhetos, that mangler and killer of all men.”
Godlike Odysseus smiled at this omen-like prayer.
Then Antinoos laid out the oversize belly,
swollen with fat and blood. Amphinomos carried
a pair of loaves from a basket and placed them before him.
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He toasted him, raising a golden goblet and saying,
“Fatherly stranger, be well. May all of your future
luck be good, though now you have plenty of hardship.”
Long-suffering, godlike Odysseus answered,
“Amphinomos, truly you strike me as knowing and tactful.
So was your father—I heard tell of his good name—
Nisos, a man from Doulikhion, wealthy and fearless.
You’re his son, I’m told, and resemble the man in your good tact.
Nothing Frailer Than Human Joy
♦ “So now I’ll talk to you plainly. Listen and take heed.
Of all the breathing and crawling things on the broad earth,
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nothing fed by the land is feebler than mankind.
People suppose they’ll suffer no harm in the future
while Gods make them excel and their knee-joints are lively.
But then when the blissful Gods bring them a bad end,
they suffer against their will, trying to bear up.
So men’s minds on the earth are such as the Father
of men and Gods brings them clearly on that day.
I too might well have been blessed among people at one time.
But often I acted recklessly. Yielding to power
and force I relied for help on my Father and brothers.
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A Warning to Leave
“So I say now let no man ever be lawless.
Quietly take from the Gods whatever they might give.
I’ve watched the suitors here, reckless and scheming,
wasting resources and badly treating a man’s wife.
That man will not be away from his country and good friends
much longer—I tell you he’s close. May a Power
take you home before then. I hope you won’t face him
the hour he arrives back home in the land of his fathers.
It won’t be bloodless, I think, when he parts with suitors,
once that man is walking under his own roof.”
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He stopped and poured for the Gods. He drank of the honeyed
wine himself then placed the cup in the hands of the people’s
marshal while Amphinomos moved through the great hall,
his head sadly drooping, heart filled with foreboding.
He’d hardly escape his doom: Athene had bound him
too to be downed by a spear from Telemakhos’s strong hand.
For now he sat again on the chair he got up from.
Another Showing of the Queen
Then the glow-eyed Goddess Athene was moving
the heart of Ikarios’s daughter, mind-full Penelopeia:
she’d show herself to the suitors in order to open
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♦ their hearts. She’d make herself esteemed by Odysseus
more than before—by both her son and her husband.
She called with a silly laugh to the housekeeper saying,
“Eurunome, how my heart is longing—never before this!—
to show myself to the suitors, though they are hateful.
I’ll talk to Telemakhos too: my son would do better
than joining all the swaggering suitors so often.
They talk to him nicely but plan to murder him later.”
All of Her Beauty Lost
The housekeeper answered her now, Eurunome told her,
“Truly my child, you said all that in the right way.
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Go and talk to your child, keep nothing in hiding.
First you should bathe and rub your face with a rich oil.
Don’t go down as you are. Your cheeks have been sullied
with tears and it’s no good thing to be sorrowful always.
Now your child’s reaching the age you have prayed for
most to the Gods—you see him growing a good beard.”
But thought-full Penelopeia answered by saying,
“Don’t press all this, Eurunome, for all of your caring.
Bathe my body and rub my face with a rich oil?
Not since the Gods holding Olumpos ravaged my beauty
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the day my godlike Odysseus left in his hollow
ship. But tell Autonoe now and Hippodameia
to join me and stand beside me there in the great hall.
I won’t go alone to those men. That could be shameful.”
She spoke that way and the old one went through the great hall
to tell the women there to go to their lady.
Beauty upon Beauty
First the glow-eyed Goddess Athene had new plans.
She poured a honeyed sleep on Ikarios’s daughter.
The lady leaned backward, all of her body relaxing
soon on her couch. Meanwhile shining Athene
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gave her ambrosial charms to awe the Akhaians:
she brightened her beautiful face first with a deathless
oil used by stunningly crowned Aphrodite,
anointing and anxious to go and dance with the Graces.
She made her taller too, a fullness to gaze at.
She caused her body to shine like ivory new-sawn.
Done with that work, the glowing Goddess departed.
A Longing for Gentle Death
White-armed handmaids came to her now from the great hall.
With voices nearby the lady was freed from her honeyed
sleep and rubbed her cheeks. She said to the handmaids,
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“A balmlike sleep enclosed me, for all of my sorrow.
If only sacred Artemis now would hurriedly bring me
such balmlike death! With no more grief in my spirit
I’d stop wasting my life in longing for one dear
husband with all his prowess, the best of Akhaians.”
Upbraiding the Son
She spoke that way then walked downstairs from her glowing
room and not alone: two handmaids had joined her.
Closer now to the suitors, the goddess-like woman
stood by a strong support of the well-built roof-beams,
holding a shiny veil in front of her two cheeks.
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Loyal maids were close to her left side and right side.
The suitors’ knees wilted. Hearts lustful and spellbound,
they all prayed to lie in bed with her close by.
But first she spoke to Telemakhos—there was her dear son.
“Telemakhos: now your head and heart are steady no longer.
Even before as a child you acted more shrewdly.
Now you’re tall, you’ve reached a measure of manhood—
indeed someone might say you were born to a rich man,
watching you grow so handsome, a stranger would say so—
yet your heart and head aren’t right any longer.
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Look at the act that took place now in our great hall,
how you allowed a guest to be badly mistreated.
What if a stranger who sat down here in our own house
were gravely harmed this day, roughed up and dragged out?
Outrage and shame among men would fall on your own self.”
No One to Help
Telemakhos promptly gave her a sensible answer.
“Mother, I won’t be vexed because of your anger.
&nb
sp; I see it all in my heart, I know about each thing,
the best and the meanest. I was boyish before this.
But truly I cannot fathom everything wisely.
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Men have addled me, sitting on that side and this side,
their minds on evil. I have no one to help me.
At least this brawl between the stranger and Iros
ended wrong for some suitors: our guest was the stronger.
Longing for the Gods
“I pray to Zeus, our Father, Athene and Apollo
the suitors be overpowered now in the same way,
lolling heads in our hall—men in the courtyard,
men in the house—the joints of everyone loosened
just like Iros, plopped outside at the courtyard
gate with his head lolling. He looks like a drunkard:
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he cannot stand up straight on his feet and he cannot
go home, wherever he lives, his joints are so loosened.”
Grand Flattery
After the two of them spoke that way with each other,
Eurumakhos had some words for Penelopeia.
“Ikarios’s daughter, mind-full Penelopeia,
if every Akhaian in Ieson’s Argo could see you,
far more suitors would crowd your household tomorrow,
dining and wooing. You’re the best of our women
in fullness of beauty, and poised ideas are inside you.”
Longing for Her Husband
But thought-full Penelopeia answered by saying,
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“The deathless Gods, Eurumakhos, ravaged my goodness,
beauty and body that day the Argives boarded
for Troy, my husband Odysseus going among them.
If only he came back home and cared for my life here!
My name would be greater then, my face would be fairer.
But now I’m laden with all the harm some Power has let loose.
Counsel Years Ago
“The day Odysseus left the land of his fathers,
he held my right wrist in his hand and he told me,
♦ ‘Ah my woman: I doubt the well-greaved Akhaians
will all come back from Troy without being wounded.
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Trojans they say are men ready for battling,
hurling spears, drawing bows for their arrows,
leaping on fast-footed horses—those that can shortly
make for a winner in great fights that are close-matched.
So I don’t know if a God will return me; I could be taken
there at Troy. But care for everything right here.
Remember my Father and Mother too in the great hall.
You do so now but do so more when I’m far off.
In time when you see our child growing a good beard,
marry the man you choose and abandon your household.’
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“The man spoke to me so. Now everything’s happened.
The night will come when a hateful marriage will face me,
doomed as I am. When Zeus took all of my gladness
dreadful pain came into my heart and spirit.
Your way was never the way of suitors before this.
Wanting to court for themselves a woman of good name,
a rich man’s daughter, they truly strived with each other,
gathered and brought their fatted sheep and their oxen.
They dined the friends of the bride, offered outstanding
presents and never devoured her goods without paying.”
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Her words made long-suffering, godlike Odysseus
glad: she’d wheedle gifts while charming their spirits
with gentle words, her mind elsewhere and plotting.
Presents for a Queen
The son of Eupeithes, Antinoos, answered her once more:
“Ikarios’s daughter, mind-full Penelopeia!
If any Akhaian wants to offer you presents,
take them: it’s not good grace to deny what you’re given.
We won’t leave though, not for our land or another,
before you marry a man here, the best of Akhaians.”
Antinoos spoke that way and the suitors were well-pleased.
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Every man dispatched a herald to bring gifts.
Antinoos’s helper brought a large, finely embroidered
robe with a dozen linking brooches of pure gold,
each one fitted with catches gracefully rounded.
A richly crafted necklace came from Eurumakhos quickly,
gold and beaded with amber, bright as the sunlight.
The squires of Eurudamas brought in earrings with pendants
with trios of mulberry clusters, graceful and shining.
Then for his lord Peisandros, son of Poluktor,
a helper came with a stunningly beautiful necklace.
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Akhaians brought her one fine present after another.
The lady, the brightest of women, went to her upstairs
room with her handmaids carrying beautiful bride-gifts.
