The Odyssey: Book 11

Brides and unwed youths and old men who had suffered much
and girls with their tender hearts freshly scarred by sorrow
and great armies of battle dead, stabbed by bronze spears,
men of war still wrapped in bloody armor—thousands
swarming around the trench from every side—
unearthly cries—blanching terror gripped me!

When another traveler falls in with you and calls
that weight across your shoulder a fan to winnow grain,
then plant your bladed, balanced oar in the earth
and sacrifice fine beasts to the lord god of the sea...

Or is this just
some wraith that great Persephone sends my way
to make me ache with sorrow all the more?

Sinews no longer bind the flesh and bones together—
the fire in all its fury burns the body down to ashes
once life slips from the white bones, and the spirit,
rustling, flitters away flown like a dream.

And so we both confided, trading parting words,
and there slowly came a grand array of women,
all sent before me now by august Persephone,
and all were wives and daughters once of princes.

Each declared her lineage, and I explored them all.

And once she fell in love with the river god, Enipeus,
far the clearest river flowing across the earth,
and so she'd haunt Enipeus' glinting streams,
till taking his shape one day
the god who girds the earth and makes it tremble
bedded her where the swirling river rushes out to sea...

With that he dove back in the heaving waves
and she conceived for the god and bore him Pelias, Neleus,
and both grew up to be stalwart aides of Zeus almighty
both men alike.

And after Tyro I saw Asopus' daughter Antiope,
proud she'd spent a night in the arms of Zeus himself
and borne the god twin sons, Amphion and Zethus,
the first to build the footings of seven-gated Thebes,
her bastions too, for lacking ramparts none could live
in a place so vast, so open—strong as both men were.

And I saw Megara too, magnanimous Creon's daughter
wed to the stalwart Heracles, the hero never daunted.

And I saw magnificent Chloris, the one whom Neleus
wooed and won with a hoard of splendid gifts,
so dazzled by her beauty years ago...

And I saw Leda next, Tyndareus' wife,
who'd borne the king two sons, intrepid twins,
Castor, breaker of horses, and the hardy boxer Polydeuces,
both buried now in the life-giving earth though still alive.

And I saw Clymene, Maera and loathsome Eriphyle—
bribed with a golden necklace
to lure her lawful husband to his death.

But the whole cortege I could never tally, never name,
not all the daughters and wives of great men I saw there.

So let's not be too hasty to send him on his way,
and don't scrimp on his gifts.

Crowds of vagabonds
frame their lies so tightly none can test them.

But if you insist on hearing more, I'd never stint
on telling my own tale and those more painful still...

So I died—a wretched, ignominious death—and round me
all my comrades killed, no mercy, one after another,
just like white-tusked boars
butchered in some rich lord of power's halls
for a wedding, banquet or groaning public feast.

So,
there's nothing more deadly, bestial than a woman
set on works like these—what a monstrous thing
she plotted, slaughtered her own lawful husband!

What greater feat can that cunning head contrive?

Oh to arrive at father's house—the man I was,
for one brief day—I'd make my fury and my hands,
invincible hands, a thing of terror to all those men
who abuse the king with force and wrest away his honor!

So I said and,
off he went, the ghost of the great runner, Aeacus' grandson
loping with long strides across the fields of asphodel,
triumphant in all I had told him of his son,
his gallant, glorious son.

For your death we grieved as we did for Achilles' death—
we grieved incessantly, true, and none's to blame
but Zeus, who hated Achaea's fighting spearmen
so intensely, Zeus sealed your doom.

And I saw Minos there, illustrious son of Zeus,
firmly enthroned, holding his golden scepter,
judging all the dead.

A terror too, that sword-belt sweeping across his chest,
a baldric of solid gold emblazoned with awesome work...
bears and ramping boars and lions with wild, fiery eyes,
and wars, routs and battles, massacres, butchered men.