The Odyssey: Book 19

Look, look there—
all the sides of the hall, the handsome crossbeams,
pinewood rafters, the tall columns towering—
all glow in my eyes like flaming fire!

Close to the fire her women drew her favorite chair
with its whorls of silver and ivory, inlaid rings.

You still here?—
you pest, slinking around the house all night,
leering up at the women?

Get out, you tramp—be glad of the food you got—
or we'll sling a torch at you, rout you out at once!

So I pay no heed to strangers, suppliants at my door,
not even heralds out on their public errands here—
I yearn for Odysseus, always, my heart pines away
They rush the marriage on, and I spin out my wiles.

Then, when the wheeling seasons brought the fourth year on
and the months waned and the long days came round once more,
then, thanks to my maids—the shameless, reckless creatures—
the suitors caught me in the act, denounced me harshly.

My parents urge me to tie the knot
and my son is galled as they squander his estate—
he sees it all.

"Ah good woman,"
Odysseus, the great master of subtlety, returned,
"how hard it is to speak, after so much time..."

King Odysseus...
he was wearing a heavy woolen cape, sea-purple
in double folds, with a golden brooch to clasp it,
twin sheaths for the pins, on the face a work of art:
a hound clenching a dappled fawn in its front paws
slashing it as it writhed.

Round-shouldered he was, swarthy, curly-haired.

And anyone who offends our guest beyond endurance—
he defeats himself; he's doomed to failure here,
no matter how raucously he raves and blusters on.

Of all the women who serve your household here,
not one will touch my feet. Unless, perhaps,
there is some old retainer, the soul of trust,
someone who's borne as much as I have borne...
I wouldn't mind if she would touch my feet.

And because you shrink from their taunts, their wicked barbs,
you will not let them wash you.

Then and there
a great boar lay in wait, in a thicket lair so dense
that the sodden gusty winds could never pierce it,
nor could the sun's sharp rays invade its depths
nor a downpour drench it through and through,
so dense, so dark, and piled with fallen leaves.

The sons of Autolycus, working over Odysseus,
skillfully binding up his open wound—
the gallant, godlike prince—
chanted an old spell that stanched the blood
and quickly bore him home to their father's palace.

The sons of Autolycus, working over Odysseus,
skillfully binding up his open wound—
the gallant, godlike prince—
chanted an old spell that stanched the blood
and quickly bore him home to their father's palace.

My friend, I have only one more question for you,
something slight, now the hour draws on for welcome sleep—
for those who can yield to sweet repose, that is,
heartsick as they are.

"Ah my friend," seasoned Penelope dissented,
"dreams are hard to unravel, wayward, drifting things—
not all we glimpse in them will come to pass..."

"Ah my friend," seasoned Penelope dissented,
"dreams are hard to unravel, wayward, drifting things—
not all we glimpse in them will come to pass..."

Two gates there are for our evanescent dreams,
one is made of ivory, the other made of horn.