The Odyssey - Homer (good e books to read txt) 📗

chine, which menials brought
Roasted, and placed beside the king in sign
Of honor, this he laid before his guests.
And they put forth their hands and banqueted;
And when the calls of hunger and of thirst
At length were stilled, Telemachus inclined
His head toward Nestor’s son, that no one else
Might listen to his words, and thus he said:⁠—

“See, son of Nestor, my beloved friend,
In all these echoing rooms the sheen of brass,
Of gold, of amber, and of ivory;
Such is the palace of Olympian Jove
Within its walls. How many things are here
Of priceless worth! I wonder as I gaze.”

The fair-haired Menelaus heard him speak,
And thus accosted both with winged words:⁠—

“Dear sons, no mortal man may vie with Jove,
Whose palace and possessions never know
Decay, but other men may vie or not
In wealth with me. ’Twas after suffering
And wandering long that in my fleet I brought
My wealth with me, and landed on this coast
In the eighth year. For I had roamed afar
To Cyprus and to Phoenicè, and where
The Egyptians dwell, and Ethiopia’s sons,
And the Sidonians, and the Erembian race,
And to the coast of Lybia, where the lambs
Are yeaned with budding horns. There do the ewes
Thrice in the circle of the year bring forth
Their young. There both the master of the herd
And herdsman know no lack of cheese, or flesh,
Or of sweet milk; for there the herds yield milk
The whole year round. While I was roaming thus,
And gathering store of wealth, another slew
My brother, unforewarned, and through the fraud
Of his own guilty consort. Therefore small
Is the content I find in bearing rule
O’er these possessions. Ye have doubtless heard
This from your parents, be they who they may;
For much have I endured, and I have lost
A palace, a most noble dwelling-place,
Full of things rare and precious. Even now
Would I possessed within my palace here
But the third part of these; and would that they
Were yet alive who perished on the plain
Of Troy afar from Argos and its steeds!
Yet while I grieve and while I mourn them all,
Here, sitting in my palace, I by turns
Indulge my heart in weeping, and by turns
I pause, for with continual sorrow comes
A weariness of spirit. Yet, in truth,
For none of all those warriors, though their fate
Afflicts me sorely, do I so much grieve
As for one hero. When I think of him,
The feast and couch are joyless, since, of all
The Achaian chiefs, none brought so much to pass
As did Ulysses, both in what he wrought
And what he suffered. Great calamities
Fell to his lot in life, and to my own
Grief for his sake that cannot be consoled.
Long has he been divided from his friends,
And whether he be living now or dead
We know not. Old Laertes, the sage queen
Penelope, and young Telemachus,
Whom, when he went to war he left newborn
At home, are sorrowing somewhere for his sake.”

He spake, and woke anew the young man’s grief
For his lost father. From his eyelids fell
Tears at the hearing of his father’s name,
And with both hands he held before his eyes
The purple mantle. Menelaus saw
His tears, and pondered, doubting which were best⁠—
To let the stranger of his own accord
Speak of his father, or to question him
At first, and then to tell him all he knew.

As thus he pondered, Helen, like in form
To Dian of the golden distaff, left
Her high-roofed chamber, where the air was sweet
With perfumes, and approached. Adrasta placed
A seat for her of costly workmanship;
Alcippè brought a mat of soft light wool,
And Phylo with a silver basket came,
Given by Alcandra, wife of Polybus,
Who dwelt at Thebes, in Egypt, and whose house
Was rich in things of price. Two silver baths
He gave to Menelaus, tripods two,
And talents ten of gold. His wife bestowed
Beautiful gifts on Helen⁠—one of gold,
A distaff; one a silver basket edged
With gold and round in form. This Phylo brought
Heaped with spun yarn and placed before the queen;
Upon it lay the distaff, wrapped in wool
Of color like the violet. Helen there
Sat down, a footstool at her feet, and straight
Questioned with earnest words her husband thus:⁠—

“Say, Menelaus, foster-child of Jove,
Is it yet known what lineage these men claim⁠—
These visitants? And what I now shall say,
Will it be false or true? Yet must I speak.
Woman or man I think I never saw
So like another as this youth, on whom
I look with deep astonishment, is like
Telemachus, the son whom our great chief
Ulysses left at home a tender babe
When ye Achaians for my guilty sake
Went forth to wage the bloody war with Troy.”

And fair-haired Menelaus answered her:⁠—
“Yea, wife, so deem I as it seems to thee.
Such are his feet, his hands, the cast of the eye,
His head, the hair upon his brow. Just now,
In speaking of Ulysses, as I told
How he had toiled and suffered for my sake,
The stranger held the purple cloak before
His eyes, and from the lids dropped bitter tears.”

Peisistratus, the son of Nestor, spake
In answer: “Menelaus, foster-child
Of Jove and son of Atreus! sovereign king!
He is, as thou hast said, that hero’s son;
But he is modest, and he deems that ill
It would become him, on arriving here,
If he should venture in discourse while thou
Art present, in whose voice we take delight
As if it were the utterance of a god.
The knight Gerenian Nestor sent me forth
To guide him hither⁠—for he earnestly
Desired to see thee, that thou mightest give
Counsel in what he yet should say or do.
For bitterly a son, who finds at home
No others to befriend him, must lament
The absence of a father. So it is
With young Telemachus; for far away
His father is, and in the land are none
Who have the power to shelter him from wrong.”

The fair-haired Menelaus answered thus:⁠—
“O wonder! Then the son of one most dear,
Who for my sake so oft has braved and borne
The conflicts of the battlefield, hath come
Beneath my roof. I thought that I should greet
His father with a warmer welcome here
Than any other of the Argive race,
When Jove the Olympian Thunderer should grant
A safe return to us across the deep
In our good ships. I would have founded here
For him a city in Argos, and have built
Dwellings, and would have brought from Ithaca
Him and his son, and all his