"The Odyssey" by Homer, Books 8–13

Our guest and new friend—nameless to me still—comes to my house after long wandering in Dawn lands, or among the Sunset races. Now he appeals to me for conveyance home.

Inept at combat, am I? Not entirely. Give me a smooth bow; I can handle it, and I might well be first to hit my man amid a swarm of enemies, though archers in company around me drew together.

The goddesses stayed home for shame; but these munificences ranged there in the doorway, and irrepressible among them all arose the laughter of the happy gods.

O majesty, model of all your folk, your promise was to show me peerless dancers

Here are twelve princes of the kingdom—lords paramount, and I who make thirteen; let each one bring a laundered cloak and tunic, and add one bar of honorable gold.

He turned to give the broadsword to Odysseus, facing him, saying blithely: “Sir, my best wishes, my respects; if I offended, I hope the seawinds blow it out of mind.

And soon a call came from the Bathing Mistress who led him to a hip-bath, warm and clear—a happy sight, and rare in his immersions after he left Kalypso’s home—where, surely, the luxuries of a god were ever his.

For when the Trojans pulled it in, themselves, up to the citadel, they sat nearby with long-drawn-out and hapless argument

Let everyone be easy, host and guest; there’s more decorum in a smiling banquet!

We had prepared here, on our friend’s behalf, safe conduct in a ship, and gifts to cheer him, holding that any man with a grain of wit will treat a decent suppliant like a brother.

Some kin of yours, then, died at Ilion, some first rate man, by marriage near to you, next your own blood most dear? Or some companion of congenial mind and valor?

Now Zeus the lord of cloud roused in the north a storm against the ships, and driving veils of squall moved down like night on land and sea.

Nine days I drifted on the teeming sea before dangerous high winds.

We cried aloud, lifting our hands to Zeus, powerless, looking on at this, appalled; but Kyklops went on filling up his belly with manflesh and great gulps of whey

Come back, Odysseus, and I’ll treat you well, praying the god of earthquake to befriend you—his son I am, for he by his avowal fathered me, and, if he will, he may heal me of this black wound

Down in the bilge I lay, pulling my sea cloak over my head, while the rough gale blew the ships and rueful crews clear back to Aiolia.

Here, then, we found a curious bay with mountain walls of stone to left and right, and reaching far inland,—a narrow entrance opening from the sea where cliffs converged as though to touch and close.

Black prow by prow those hulls were made fast in a limpid calm without a ripple, stillness all around them.

But working with dry lips to speak a word he could not, being so shaken; blinding tears welled in his eyes; foreboding filled his heart.

Thus to assuage the nations of the dead I pledged these rites, then slashed the lamb and ewe, letting their black blood stream into the wellpit.

Son of great Laertes, Odysseus, master mariner and soldier, bad luck shadowed me, and no kindly power; ignoble death I drank with so much wine.

Though you survive alone, bereft of all companions, lost for years, under strange sail shall you come home, to find your own house filled with trouble

I bit my lip, rising perplexed, with longing to embrace her, and tried three times, putting my arms around her, but she went sifting through my hands, impalpable as shadows are, and wavering like a dream.

I saw the mother of Oidipous, Epikaste, whose great unwitting deed it was to marry her own son.

And I saw Leda, wife of Tyndareus, upon whom Tyndareus had sired twins indomitable: Kastor, tamer of horses, and Polydeukes, best in the boxing ring.

“Alkinoos, king and admiration of men, even a year’s delay, if you should urge it, in loading gifts and furnishing for sea—I too could wish it; better far that I return with some largesse of wealth about me—I shall be thought more worthy of love and courtesy by every man who greets me home in Ithaka.”

Other and sadder tales there are to tell, of my companions, of some who came through all the Trojan spears, clangor and groan of war, only to find a brutal death at home—and a bad wife behind it.

I cannot help him under the sun’s rays, cannot be that man I was on Troy’s wide seaboard, in those days when I made bastion for the Argives and put an army’s best men in the dust.

Aias, dear son of royal Telamon, you would not then forget, even in death, your fury with me over those accurst calamitous arms?

He made me hunt this place one time to get the watchdog of the dead: no more perilous task, he thought, could be

I should have met, then, god-begotten Theseus and Peirithoos, whom both I longed to see, but first came shades in thousands, rustling in a pandemonium of whispers, blown together

The girls unhitched the mules, and sent them down along the eddying stream to crop sweet grass.

Live in felicity, and make this palace lovely for your children, your countrymen, and your king, Alkinoos.

But if some mortal captain, overcome by his own pride of strength, cuts or defies you, are you not always free to take reprisal?

The landscape then looked strange, unearthly strange to the Lord Odysseus: paths by hill and shore, glimpses of harbors, cliffs, and summer trees.

No one would use this ground for training horses, it is too broken, has no breadth of meadow; but there is nothing meager about the soil, the yield of grain is wondrous, and wine, too, with drenching rains and dewfall.

Whoever gets around you must be sharp and guileful as a snake; even a god might bow to you in ways of dissimulation.

But after we had sacked the shrines of Priam and put to sea, God scattered the Akhaians; I never saw you after that, never knew you aboard with me, to act as shield in grievous times—not till you gave me comfort in the rich hinterland of the Phaiakians and were yourself my guide into that city.

We go to make a cache now, in the cave, to keep your treasure hid.

Now then, their colloquy at an end, they went their ways