Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece

by Gustav Schwab

  “I am alarmed at the very idea,” Telemachus replied. “How can I take this man home with me—old and weak as he is? It will be better for you to keep him here a while longer. I shall send him a tunic, a mantle, sandals, and a sword, and food enough so that you and your helpers need not share your stores with him. But he must not appear before the suitors, for they are so insolent that even a powerful man could not prevail against them.”

  Odysseus expressed his amazement at the fact that the suitors dared defy the son of the house. “Can it be,” he asked Telemachus, “that your people hate you? Or have you a quarrel with your brothers? Or do you let those men oppress you of your own free will? If I were as young as you and the son of Odysseus, I should rather let myself be knocked senseless or die in my own house than passively watch such goings on!”

  Telemachus answered quietly: “The people do not hate me, and I have no brothers. I am an only son. But many men from the surrounding islands and from Ithaca itself are wooing my mother and regard me as their enemy. She has been evading them, but they stay, and soon I shall have nothing left to my name.” Then he turned to the swineherd and said: “And now do me the favor of going to the city and telling my mother that I have returned. But do not let the suitors hear you!”

  “Would it not be better for me to go by way of your grandfather Laertes?” Eumaeus asked. “They say that since you left for Pylos, he has neither eaten nor drunk, and has not even gone out to watch over the work done in his fields. He just sits there overcome with grief and grows feebler every day.”

  “In spite of that I cannot let you go the long way around,” said Telemachus. “My mother must be the first to hear of my homecoming. She will send a servant to bring the news to my grandfather.” And he urged the old man out of the hut. Eumaeus bound his sandals to his feet, took a lance in his hand, and hastened away.

  ODYSSEUS REVEALS HIMSELF TO HIS SON

  Pallas Athene had only waited for Eumaeus to leave the hut. The instant he was gone she appeared on the threshold in the form of a tall, beautiful woman. She did not reveal herself to Telemachus, but only to his father and the dogs, who did not bark but whined and ran to the other side of the court. The goddess motioned to Odysseus. He understood what she wanted and went outside. She met him at the wall and said: “Odysseus, you need no longer conceal your true self from your son. It will be better if both of you go to the city together to bring doom to the suitors. I shall not fail to join you, for I burn with eagerness to punish those scoundrels.” So said the goddess and touched the beggar with her golden staff. And a miracle took place. He grew taller, his face became smooth and tanned, and his hair and beard were thick and curled. A fine tunic and mantle clothed his strong, bronzed limbs. When she had brought about this change, the goddess vanished.

  Odysseus reentered the hut, and his son gazed at him in amazement. Then he turned away his face, for he thought he was in the presence of a god, and said: “Stranger, you look very different now than before! You have other clothing, and your very features have changed. You must be one of the immortals! Let me bring you an offering and implore your favor.”

  “I am no god,” Odysseus replied. “Look at me, Telemachus! Do you not recognize your own father, for whom you have grieved so many years?” And as he spoke the tears gushed from his eyes. He hastened toward his son and clasped him in his arms.

  But Telemachus found it difficult to believe the truth. “No, no,” he cried. “You are not Odysseus, my father! A god is tricking me only to plunge me deeper into despair. How could a mortal bring about such a change in his appearance with his own mortal powers?”

  “Do not be so astonished, dear Telemachus,” said Odysseus. “It is really I who have returned to my country after an absence of twenty years—I and none other. It was Athene who transformed me, first into a stooping old beggar, and then back into a strong man. For the gods find it easy to make a man seem noble or base.” So said Odysseus and seated himself. And now Telemachus took courage and put his arms around his father. Both father and son were stirred by the long years of sorrow they had suffered, and they lamented as loudly as parent birds whose unfledged young have been stolen from the nest. When they had wept their fill, Telemachus at last asked his father on what ship he had come home. Odysseus told him the story and then said: “And now that I am here, my son, Athene wants us to take counsel as to the best way to revenge ourselves on our foes. Name the suitors to me so that I may know how many of them there are and whether the two of us are enough to cope with them, or whether we should look around for allies.”

  “Your glorious deeds have been told me over and over, father,” Telemachus answered. “I know that you are both strong and wise. Nevertheless, we two could never prevail against the suitors. It is not as if there were ten or even twenty of them. There are many more: fifty-two of the boldest young men from Dulichium alone, and six servants to boot; twenty-four from Same; twenty from Zacynthus, and twelve from Ithaca. And then there is Medon, the herald, a singer, and two cooks. So, if it is at all possible, let us try to get others to help us.”

  “Do not forget,” Odysseus replied, “that Athene and Zeus have allied themselves to our cause, and that once the fight breaks out in my palace, they will not let us wait long for their help. Now my plan is this. You must return to the city tomorrow and take your place among the suitors as though nothing had happened. By Athene’s touch I shall again assume the shape of a beggar, and the swineherd will conduct me to the palace. No matter what they do to me there, even if they throw things at me and drag me across the threshold, you must curb your heart and bear it. You may try to calm them with words, but they will not listen to you. At a sign from me you shall take all the weapons hanging in the great hall and hide them in one of the upper chambers of the house. If the suitors notice they are gone and ask about them, say you have had them removed because soot from the hearth has dimmed the gleam they had when Odysseus still used them. Leave out only two swords, two spears, and two oxhide shields for us to fight with when our enemies, in the blind confusion the gods will send upon them, try to attack us. For the rest, no one must know that Odysseus has returned, not Laertes, not the swineherd, and not even Penelope, your mother. In the meantime I shall test the servants and find out who still honors and fears me, and who has forgotten me and does not reverence you.”

  “Dear father,” said Telemachus, “I shall certainly do just as you say. But I do not think testing the servants will help us. It will take too long. It will be easy enough, of course, to find out about the women in the palace, but as for the men on your farms, let us leave that for the time when you are again king in your own palace.” Odysseus agreed with his son and rejoiced in his clear-headed thinking.

  THE CITY AND THE PALACE

  In the meanwhile the ship which had brought Telemachus and his companions home from Pylos had run into port, and a herald had been sent on ahead to the palace to tell Penelope of her son’s return. The swineherd arrived with the same news, and the two met in the king’s house. The herald was first to speak. He said aloud to the queen in the presence of her tirewomen: “Your son, O queen, has returned.” But Eumaeus spoke to her alone, without eavesdroppers, and repeated what his young master had said; he also begged her to send on the good news to his grandfather Laertes. As soon as the swineherd had delivered his message he hastened home to his herd. Some of Penelope’s handmaids reported the brief words of the herald to the suitors, and they gathered dejectedly outside the gates and seated themselves on the polished stones to take counsel with one another. Eurymachus opened the assembly. “We surely would never have believed that this boy would carry out his purpose and accomplish this journey,” he said. “Let us quickly prepare a swift-sailing ship and send a message to our friends who are lying in ambush, so that they wait no longer but return.”

  While Eurymachus was speaking, Amphinomus, another suitor, had looked toward the harbor which was easily visible from the forecourt of the palace. And there he saw the ship with
those suitors who had gone to lie in ambush coming in with full sails. “We need not send a message,” he cried. “There they are! Either a god has told them of the return of Telemachus, or they have been pursuing his ship and could not catch up with him.”

  All the suitors rose and hurried down to the shore. Then, together with those who had just arrived, they went to the market place where they held an assembly. Antinous, leader of the party which had set out for the strait, defended himself and his comrades. “It was not our fault that he got away,” he said. “We had spies watching from the hills the livelong day, and after sunset we did not stay ashore but crossed and recrossed the strait, thinking only of capturing Telemachus and putting an end to his life. One of the immortals must have guided him, for we did not even catch sight of his ship! But to make up for this failure, we must destroy him here, in the city, for the boy is growing too clever and will soon be too much for us. In the end he will make the people rebellious too. If they find out that we have lain in ambush to murder him, they will drive us out of the country. Rather than have that happen, let us get him out of the way, divide up his possessions among us, and leave the palace to his mother and her husband-to-be. But if my plan does not appeal to you, if you want him to live and keep his estates, then let us stop using up his stores. Let each one of us go to his home and from there woo the queen with gifts, and let her choose the one who is most generous, or the one whom Fortune favors.”

  When he had finished, there was a long silence. Finally Amphinomus, son of Nisus, the noblest among the suitors, whose wisdom and courteousness had commended him even to Penelope, rose and stated his opinion to the gathering. “My friends,” he said, “I do not think we should murder Telemachus. It is a terrible crime to kill the last descendant of a kingly line. At any rate, let us first ask the gods about this. If Zeus favors the enterprise, I myself shall be willing to kill him, but if the immortals do not consent, I counsel you to give up the plan.”

  The suitors agreed to do as he had advised. They postponed carrying out their scheme and returned to the palace. But this time, too, Medon, the herald, who kept secret faith with Penelope, had eavesdropped at their meeting and told the queen everything he had heard. Instantly she veiled herself and hastened down into the great hall, where she addressed the originator of the plot in a voice trembling with emotion. “Antinous,” she cried, “Ithaca is wrong in regarding you as the wisest among your countrymen. You are not really wise. You are deaf to the words of the wretched, to whom even Zeus gives ear, and insolent enough to conspire against the life of my son Telemachus. Have you forgotten that your father once fled to our house as a suppliant, because he was being hunted for having practiced piracy on our allies? His pursuers wanted to kill him, but Odysseus held them back and quieted their rage. And now you, in thanks for the help given your father, waste the goods of Odysseus, woo his wife, and want to murder his only son! You would do better to keep your companions from impious actions!”

  Before Antinous could reply, Eurymachus broke in. “Have no fears for your son, Penelope,” he said. “As long as I live, no man shall dare lay hands on him. When I was a child, Odysseus sometimes took me on his knee and gave me tidbits. And so his son is dearest to me of all men. He need not be afraid of death, at least not of death at the hands of the suitors. But if the gods want him to die, their will cannot be evaded.” So said that false man with the kindliest face in the world, but his heart was black with hatred.

  Penelope returned to her chamber, threw herself on her couch, and wept for her husband until Athene shed sleep on her eyes.

  TELEMACHUS, ODYSSEUS, AND EUMAEUS REACH THE CITY

  That evening, when the swineherd returned to his hut, he found Odysseus and Telemachus occupied in preparing a pig for the evening meal. Since Athene had again turned the hero into a ragged beggar, Eumaeus did not recognize him. “Have you come at last?” Telemachus called to him as soon as he had crossed the threshold. “And what news have you brought from Ithaca? Are the suitors still lying in wait for me, or have they given up and left their hiding-place?” Eumaeus told him of the ship he had seen returning, and Telemachus smiled knowingly at his father, but so that the swineherd did not notice it. Then the three of them ate and lay down to sleep.

  The next morning Telemachus prepared to go to the city and said to Eumaeus: “Old man, I must look after my mother now. I want you to take this poor stranger to the city so that he may beg his food from house to house. I cannot possibly assume the burdens of the whole world. I have enough troubles of my own. If the old man is offended at this, so much the worse for him!”

  Odysseus, who was pleasantly surprised at his son’s ability to to dissemble, answered in the swineherd’s stead: “Young man, I myself do not wish to remain here any longer. A beggar is always better off in a town than in the country. Just you go, and when I have warmed myself a little at the fire, and the sun is higher in heaven, your servant here shall guide me to the city.”

  Telemachus hastened on his way. It was still fairly early in the morning when he reached the palace, and the suitors had not yet appeared. He leaned his lance against a pillar at the entrance and crossed the stone threshold of the great hall. Here Euryclea was just spreading the chairs with soft fleeces. When she saw the youth, she ran toward him with tears of joy and welcomed him home. The other servants too kissed his head and shoulders. And now Penelope came down from her chamber, slim as Artemis and lovely as Aphrodite. “Have you come back to me, dear son?” she cried, clasping him in her arms and kissing his eyes. “I despaired of seeing you again ever since I knew you had left for Pylos. But tell me—what did you find out about your father?”

  “O mother,” said Telemachus mournfully, though it was very difficult for him to conceal his true feelings, “I have only just escaped death myself. Do not revive my grief for my father the moment I enter this house. Go to the bath, put on festal garments, and pledge hecatombs to the gods when they have granted us revenge. I myself must go to the market place to bring home a stranger who accompanied me on my voyage and whom I left with a friend until I should call for him.”

  Penelope did as her son had said, while he took his spear in hand and went toward the market place with his dogs at his heels. Athene had shed such grace about him that the citizens marvelled at his beauty; the suitors overwhelmed him with flattering words, though in their hearts they brooded on their wicked plans. But Telemachus did not stay with them. He joined three of his father’s old friends, Mentor, Antiphus, and Halitherses, and told them as much as he was allowed to. And now Peiraeus brought to him Theoclymenus, the soothsayer, and Telemachus greeted both. Peiraeus at once begged him to send servants to his house to fetch the presents Menelaus had given Telemachus in parting. But Telemachus said: “The gifts are safer in your house, for I do not know what turn my affairs will take. If the suitors murder me and divide up my possessions, then I should like you to have those beautiful things rather than they. But if I succeed in punishing and destroying them, why then, come gayly and bring the treasures to your glad friend.”

  So saying, Telemachus took Theoclymenus by the hand and led him toward the palace. There both had a refreshing bath and ate the morning meal in Penelope’s company. Then she sat at her spindle and said sadly to her son: “There is really no reason why I should not return to my lonely chamber and wet my couch with tears, as I have done all these years, for it seems you will tell me nothing you have heard about your father.”

  “Dear mother,” Telemachus said to her, “I shall gladly tell you all I have heard and only wish it were news that could be of comfort to you. Old Nestor received me well in Pylos, but he knew nothing at all of my father. So he sent me to Sparta with his son. There I was entertained by Menelaus and Helen, for whose sake the Argives and Trojans suffered so much and so long. There I learned the scant bit which Proteus, the sea-god, had told Menelaus. It was that he had seen Odysseus sorrowing on the island of Ogygia, where Calypso is keeping him in her grotto against his will. He has ne
ither a ship nor oarsmen to take him home.”

  When Theoclymenus, the soothsayer, saw that Penelope was deeply moved by these words, he interrupted his young host and said: “He does not know everything, O queen! Listen to my prediction: Odysseus is already in his native land, waiting or prowling about secretly and plotting the death of your suitors. This I know from the flight of birds, and I told your son the moment I saw the omen.”

  “May your prediction come true!” said Penelope with a sigh. “I shall not fail to give you rich rewards.”

  While these three were talking, the suitors were amusing themselves in the court as usual. They threw the discus and hurled the javelin until the herald summoned them to the midday meal. Eumaeus and his guest had, in the meantime, set out for the city. Odysseus had slung his beggar’s scrip across his shoulder, and the swineherd had put a staff in his hand. Soon they came to the city well which the ancestors of Odysseus had walled in with stone. All about it was a grove of poplars, and the water gushed forth in a clear stream. Here they met the goatherd Melantheus with two of his helpers, driving the best goats in his herd to the city as food for the wooers.

  When Melantheus saw Eumaeus and his companion, he began to revile them both. “There you are!” he exclaimed. “Birds of a feather flock together! There is one scoundrel leading another. Where are you taking that hungry beggar, swineherd? To the city, to go from door to door, lazily begging a crust? If you handed him over to me, he could sweep out the pens and carry young shoots to the kids. Who knows but that he might fatten up a bit on a diet of goat cheese? But he has, of course, learned nothing and can do nothing but beg to fill his belly.” So he spoke and kicked the beggar in the hip. But Odysseus did not stumble. He did, to be sure, turn over in his mind whether to strike this insolent fellow over the head so hard that he would never rise again. But he curbed his anger and suffered the insult without a word.