The Odyssey - 04

the land. Then they reached Pherae where Diocles lived, who was son to
Ortilochus and grandson to Alpheus. Here they passed the night and
Diocles entertained them hospitably. When the child of morning,
rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, they again yoked their horses and drove
out through the gateway under the echoing gatehouse.34 Pisistratus
lashed the horses on and they flew forward nothing loth; presently they
came to the corn lands of the open country, and in the course of time
completed their journey, so well did their steeds take them.35
Now when the sun had set and darkness was over the land,


BOOK IV

THE VISIT TO KING MENELAUS, WHO TELLS HIS STORY—MEANWHILE THE SUITORS
IN ITHACA PLOT AGAINST TELEMACHUS.

they reached the low lying city of Lacedaemon, where they drove
straight to the abode of Menelaus36 [and found him in his own house,
feasting with his many clansmen in honour of the wedding of his son,
and also of his daughter, whom he was marrying to the son of that
valiant warrior Achilles. He had given his consent and promised her to
him while he was still at Troy, and now the gods were bringing the
marriage about; so he was sending her with chariots and horses to the
city of the Myrmidons over whom Achilles’ son was reigning. For his
only son he had found a bride from Sparta,37 the daughter of Alector.
This son, Megapenthes, was born to him of a bondwoman, for heaven
vouchsafed Helen no more children after she had borne Hermione, who was
fair as golden Venus herself.
So the neighbours and kinsmen of Menelaus were feasting and making
merry in his house. There was a bard also to sing to them and play his
lyre, while two tumblers went about performing in the midst of them
when the man struck up with his tune.38
Telemachus and the son of Nestor stayed their horses at the gate,
whereon Eteoneus servant to Menelaus came out, and as soon as he saw
them ran hurrying back into the house to tell his Master. He went close
up to him and said, “Menelaus, there are some strangers come here, two
men, who look like sons of Jove. What are we to do? Shall we take their
horses out, or tell them to find friends elsewhere as they best can?”
Menelaus was very angry and said, “Eteoneus, son of Boethous, you never
used to be a fool, but now you talk like a simpleton. Take their horses
out, of course, and show the strangers in that they may have supper;
you and I have staid often enough at other people’s houses before we
got back here, where heaven grant that we may rest in peace
henceforward.”
So Eteoneus bustled back and bade the other servants come with him.
They took their sweating steeds from under the yoke, made them fast to
the mangers, and gave them a feed of oats and barley mixed. Then they
leaned the chariot against the end wall of the courtyard, and led the
way into the house. Telemachus and Pisistratus were astonished when
they saw it, for its splendour was as that of the sun and moon; then,
when they had admired everything to their heart’s content, they went
into the bath room and washed themselves.
When the servants had washed them and anointed them with oil, they
brought them woollen cloaks and shirts, and the two took their seats by
the side of Menelaus. A maid-servant brought them water in a beautiful
golden ewer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their
hands; and she drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought
them bread, and offered them many good things of what there was in the
house, while the carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and
set cups of gold by their side.
Menelaus then greeted them saying, “Fall to, and welcome; when you have
done supper I shall ask who you are, for the lineage of such men as you
cannot have been lost. You must be descended from a line of
sceptre-bearing kings, for poor people do not have such sons as you
are.”
On this he handed them39 a piece of fat roast loin, which had been set
near him as being a prime part, and they laid their hands on the good
things that were before them; as soon as they had had enough to eat and
drink, Telemachus said to the son of Nestor, with his head so close
that no one might hear, “Look, Pisistratus, man after my own heart, see
the gleam of bronze and gold—of amber,40 ivory, and silver. Everything
is so splendid that it is like seeing the palace of Olympian Jove. I am
lost in admiration.”
Menelaus overheard him and said, “No one, my sons, can hold his own
with Jove, for his house and everything about him is immortal; but
among mortal men—well, there may be another who has as much wealth as I
have, or there may not; but at all events I have travelled much and
have undergone much hardship, for it was nearly eight years before I
could get home with my fleet. I went to Cyprus, Phoenicia and the
Egyptians; I went also to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the
Erembians, and to Libya where the lambs have horns as soon as they are
born, and the sheep lamb down three times a year. Every one in that
country, whether master or man, has plenty of cheese, meat, and good
milk, for the ewes yield all the year round. But while I was travelling
and getting great riches among these people, my brother was secretly
and shockingly murdered through the perfidy of his wicked wife, so that
I have no pleasure in being lord of all this wealth. Whoever your
parents may be they must have told you about all this, and of my heavy
loss in the ruin41 of a stately mansion fully and magnificently
furnished. Would that I had only a third of what I now have so that I
had stayed at home, and all those were living who perished on the plain
of Troy, far from Argos. I often grieve, as I sit here in my house, for
one and all of them. At times I cry aloud for sorrow, but presently I
leave off again, for crying is cold comfort and one soon tires of it.
Yet grieve for these as I may, I do so for one man more than for them
all. I cannot even think of him without loathing both food and sleep,
so miserable does he make me, for no one of all the Achaeans worked so
hard or risked so much as he did. He took nothing by it, and has left a
legacy of sorrow to myself, for he has been gone a long time, and we
know not whether he is alive or dead. His old father, his
long-suffering wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus, whom he left
behind him an infant in arms, are plunged in grief on his account.”
Thus spoke Menelaus, and the heart of Telemachus yearned as he
bethought him of his father. Tears fell from his eyes as he heard him
thus mentioned, so that he held his cloak before his face with both
hands. When Menelaus saw this he doubted whether to let him choose his
own time for speaking, or to ask him at once and find what it was all
about.
While he was thus in two minds Helen came down from her high vaulted
and perfumed room, looking as lovely as Diana herself. Adraste brought
her a seat, Alcippe a soft woollen rug while Phylo fetched her the
silver work-box which Alcandra wife of Polybus had given her. Polybus
lived in Egyptian Thebes, which is the richest city in the whole world;
he gave Menelaus two baths, both of pure silver, two tripods, and ten
talents of gold; besides all this, his wife gave Helen some beautiful
presents, to wit, a golden distaff, and a silver work box that ran on
wheels, with a gold band round the top of it. Phylo now placed this by
her side, full of fine spun yarn, and a distaff charged with violet
coloured wool was laid upon the top of it. Then Helen took her seat,
put her feet upon the footstool, and began to question her husband.42
“Do we know, Menelaus,” said she, “the names of these strangers who
have come to visit us? Shall I guess right or wrong?—but I cannot help
saying what I think. Never yet have I seen either man or woman so like
somebody else (indeed when I look at him I hardly know what to think)
as this young man is like Telemachus, whom Ulysses left as a baby
behind him, when you Achaeans went to Troy with battle in your hearts,
on account of my most shameless self.”
“My dear wife,” replied Menelaus, “I see the likeness just as you do.
His hands and feet are just like Ulysses; so is his hair, with the
shape of his head and the expression of his eyes. Moreover, when I was
talking about Ulysses, and saying how much he had suffered on my
account, tears fell from his eyes, and he hid his face in his mantle.”
Then Pisistratus said, “Menelaus, son of Atreus, you are right in
thinking that this young man is Telemachus, but he is very modest, and
is ashamed to come here and begin opening up discourse with one whose
conversation is so divinely interesting as your own. My father, Nestor,
sent me to escort him hither, for he wanted to know whether you could
give him any counsel or suggestion. A son has always trouble at home
when his father has gone away leaving him without supporters; and this
is how Telemachus is now placed, for his father is absent, and there is
no one among his own people to stand by him.”
“Bless my heart,” replied Menelaus, “then I am receiving a visit from
the son of a very dear friend, who suffered much hardship for my sake.
I had always hoped to entertain him with most marked distinction when
heaven had granted us a safe return from beyond the seas. I should have
founded a city for him in Argos, and built him a house. I should have
made him leave Ithaca with his goods, his son, and all his people, and
should have sacked for them some one of the neighbouring cities that
are subject to me. We should thus have seen one another continually,
and nothing but death could have interrupted so close and happy an
intercourse. I suppose, however, that heaven grudged us such great good
fortune, for it has prevented the poor fellow from ever getting home at
all.”
Thus did he speak, and his words set them all a weeping. Helen wept,
Telemachus wept, and so did Menelaus, nor could Pisistratus keep his
eyes from filling, when he remembered his dear brother Antilochus whom
the son of bright Dawn had killed. Thereon he said to Menelaus,
“Sir, my father Nestor, when we used to talk about you at home, told me
you were a person of rare and excellent understanding. If, then, it be
possible, do as I would urge you. I am not fond of crying while I am
getting my supper. Morning will come in due course, and in the forenoon
I care not how much I cry for those that are dead and gone. This is all
we can do for the poor things. We can only shave our heads for them and
wring the tears from our cheeks. I had a brother who died at Troy; he
was by no means the worst man there; you are sure to have known him—his
name was Antilochus; I never set eyes upon him myself, but they say
that he was singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant.”
“Your discretion, my friend,” answered Menelaus, “is beyond your years.
It is plain you take after your father. One can soon see when a man is
son to one whom heaven has blessed both as regards wife and
offspring—and it has blessed Nestor from first to last all his days,
giving him a green old age in his own house, with sons about him who
are both well disposed and valiant. We will put an end therefore to all
this weeping, and attend to our supper again. Let water be poured over
our hands. Telemachus and I can talk with one another fully in the
morning.”
On this Asphalion, one of the servants, poured water over their hands
and they laid their hands on the good things that were before them.
Then Jove’s daughter Helen bethought her of another matter. She drugged
the wine with an herb that banishes all care, sorrow, and ill humour.
Whoever drinks wine thus drugged cannot shed a single tear all the rest
of the day, not even though his father and mother both of them drop
down dead, or he sees a brother or a son hewn in pieces before his very
eyes. This drug, of such sovereign power and virtue, had been given to
Helen by Polydamna wife of Thon, a woman of Egypt, where there grow all
sorts of herbs, some good to put into the mixing bowl and others
poisonous. Moreover, every one in the whole country is a skilled
physician, for they are of the race of Paeeon. When Helen had put this
drug in the bowl, and had told the servants to serve the wine round,
she said:
“Menelaus, son of Atreus, and you my good friends, sons of honourable
men (which is as Jove wills, for he is the giver both of good and evil,
and can do what he chooses), feast here as you will, and listen while I
tell you a tale in season. I cannot indeed name every single one of the
exploits of Ulysses, but I can say what he did when he was before Troy,
and you Achaeans were in all sorts of difficulties. He covered himself
with wounds and bruises, dressed himself all in rags, and entered the
enemy’s city looking like a menial or a beggar, and quite different
from what he did when he was among his own people. In this disguise he
entered the city of Troy, and no one said anything to him. I alone
recognised him and began to question him, but he was too cunning for
me. When, however, I had washed and anointed him and had given him
clothes, and after I had sworn a solemn oath not to betray him to the
Trojans till he had got safely back to his own camp and to the ships,
he told me all that the Achaeans meant to do. He killed many Trojans
and got much information before he reached the Argive camp, for all
which things the Trojan women made lamentation, but for my own part I
was glad, for my heart was beginning to yearn after my home, and I was
unhappy about the wrong that Venus had done me in taking me over there,
away from my country, my girl, and my lawful wedded husband, who is
indeed by no means deficient either in person or understanding.”
Then Menelaus said, “All that you have been saying, my dear wife, is
true. I have travelled much, and have had much to do with heroes, but I
have never seen such another man as Ulysses. What endurance too, and
what courage he displayed within the wooden horse, wherein all the
bravest of the Argives were lying in wait to bring death and
destruction upon the Trojans.43 At that moment you came up to us; some
god who wished well to the Trojans must have set you on to it and you
had Deiphobus with you. Three times did you go all round our hiding
place and pat it; you called our chiefs each by his own name, and
mimicked all our wives—Diomed, Ulysses, and I from our seats inside
heard what a noise you made. Diomed and I could not make up our minds
whether to spring out then and there, or to answer you from inside, but
Ulysses held us all in check, so we sat quite still, all except
Anticlus, who was beginning to answer you, when Ulysses clapped his two
brawny hands over his mouth, and kept them there. It was this that
saved us all, for he muzzled Anticlus till Minerva took you away
again.”
“How sad,” exclaimed Telemachus, “that all this was of no avail to save
him, nor yet his own iron courage. But now, sir, be pleased to send us
all to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon of sleep.”
On this Helen told the maid servants to set beds in the room that was
in the gatehouse, and to make them with good red rugs, and spread
coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for the guests to
wear. So the maids went out, carrying a torch, and made the beds, to
which a man-servant presently conducted the strangers. Thus, then, did
Telemachus and Pisistratus sleep there in the forecourt, while the son
of Atreus lay in an inner room with lovely Helen by his side.
When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Menelaus rose
and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely feet, girded
his sword about his shoulders, and left his room looking like an
immortal god. Then, taking a seat near Telemachus he said:
“And what, Telemachus, has led you to take this long sea voyage to
Lacedaemon? Are you on public, or private business? Tell me all about
it.”
“I have come, sir,” replied Telemachus, “to see if you can tell me
anything about my father. I am being eaten out of house and home; my
fair estate is being wasted, and my house is full of miscreants who
keep killing great numbers of my sheep and oxen, on the pretence of
paying their addresses to my mother. Therefore, I am suppliant at your
knees if haply you may tell me about my father’s melancholy end,
whether you saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some other
traveller; for he was a man born to trouble. Do not soften things out
of any pity for myself, but tell me in all plainness exactly what you
saw. If my brave father Ulysses ever did you loyal service either by
word or deed, when you Achaeans were harassed by the Trojans, bear it
in mind now as in my favour and tell me truly all.”
Menelaus on hearing this was very much shocked. “So,” he exclaimed,
“these cowards would usurp a brave man’s bed? A hind might as well lay
her new born young in the lair of a lion, and then go off to feed in
the forest or in some grassy dell: the lion when he comes back to his
lair will make short work with the pair of them—and so will Ulysses
with these suitors. By father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, if Ulysses is
still the man that he was when he wrestled with Philomeleides in
Lesbos, and threw him so heavily that all the Achaeans cheered him—if
he is still such and were to come near these suitors, they would have a
short shrift and a sorry wedding. As regards your questions, however, I
will not prevaricate nor deceive you, but will tell you without
concealment all that the old man of the sea told me.
“I was trying to come on here, but the gods detained me in Egypt, for
my hecatombs had not given them full satisfaction, and the gods are
very strict about having their dues. Now off Egypt, about as far as a
ship can sail in a day with a good stiff breeze behind her, there is an
island called Pharos—it has a good harbour from which vessels can get
out into open sea when they have taken in water—and here the gods
becalmed me twenty days without so much as a breath of fair wind to
help me forward. We should have run clean out of provisions and my men
would have starved, if a goddess had not taken pity upon me and saved
me in the person of Idothea, daughter to Proteus, the old man of the
sea, for she had taken a great fancy to me.
“She came to me one day when I was by myself, as I often was, for the
men used to go with their barbed hooks, all over the island in the hope
of catching a fish or two to save them from the pangs of hunger.
‘Stranger,’ said she, ‘it seems to me that you like starving in this
way—at any rate it does not greatly trouble you, for you stick here day
after day, without even trying to get away though your men are dying by
inches.’
“‘Let me tell you,’ said I, ‘whichever of the goddesses you may happen
to be, that I am not staying here of my own accord, but must have
offended the gods that live in heaven. Tell me, therefore, for the gods
know everything, which of the immortals it is that is hindering me in
this way, and tell me also how I may sail the sea so as to reach my
home.’
“‘Stranger,’ replied she, ‘I will make it all quite clear to you. There
is an old immortal who lives under the sea hereabouts and whose name is
Proteus. He is an Egyptian, and people say he is my father; he is
Neptune’s head man and knows every inch of ground all over the bottom
of the sea. If you can snare him and hold him tight, he will tell you
about your voyage, what courses you are to take, and how you are to
sail the sea so as to reach your home. He will also tell you, if you so
will, all that has been going on at your house both good and bad, while
you have been away on your long and dangerous journey.’
“‘Can you show me,’ said I, ‘some stratagem by means of which I may
catch this old god without his suspecting it and finding me out? For a
god is not easily caught—not by a mortal man.’
“‘Stranger,’ said she, ‘I will make it all quite clear to you. About
the time when the sun shall have reached mid heaven, the old man of the
sea comes up from under the waves, heralded by the West wind that furs
the water over his head. As soon as he has come up he lies down, and
goes to sleep in a great sea cave, where the seals—Halosydne’s chickens
as they call them—come up also from the grey sea, and go to sleep in
shoals all round him; and a very strong and fish-like smell do they
bring with them. 44 Early to-morrow morning I will take you to this
place and will lay you in ambush. Pick out, therefore, the three best
men you have in your fleet, and I will tell you all the tricks that the
old man will play you.
“‘First he will look over all his seals, and count them; then, when he
has seen them and tallied them on his five fingers, he will go to sleep
among them, as a shepherd among his sheep. The moment you see that he
is asleep seize him; put forth all your strength and hold him fast, for
he will do his very utmost to get away from you. He will turn himself
into every kind of creature that goes upon the earth, and will become
also both fire and water; but you must hold him fast and grip him
tighter and tighter, till he begins to talk to you and comes back to
what he was when you saw him go to sleep; then you may slacken your
hold and let him go; and you can ask him which of the gods it is that
is angry with you, and what you must do to reach your home over the
seas.’
“Having so said she dived under the waves, whereon I turned back to the
place where my ships were ranged upon the shore; and my heart was
clouded with care as I went along. When I reached my ship we got supper
ready, for night was falling, and camped down upon the beach.
“When the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, I took the
three men on whose prowess of all kinds I could most rely, and went
along by the sea-side, praying heartily to heaven. Meanwhile the
goddess fetched me up four seal skins from the bottom of the sea, all
of them just skinned, for she meant playing a trick upon her father.
Then she dug four pits for us to lie in, and sat down to wait till we
should come up. When we were close to her, she made us lie down in the
pits one after the other, and threw a seal skin over each of us. Our
ambuscade would have been intolerable, for the stench of the fishy
seals was most distressing45—who would go to bed with a sea monster if
he could help it?—but here, too, the goddess helped us, and thought of
something that gave us great relief, for she put some ambrosia under
each man’s nostrils, which was so fragrant that it killed the smell of
the seals.46
“We waited the whole morning and made the best of it, watching the
seals come up in hundreds to bask upon the sea shore, till at noon the
old man of the sea came up too, and when he had found his fat seals he
went over them and counted them. We were among the first he counted,
and he never suspected any guile, but laid himself down to sleep as
soon as he had done counting. Then we rushed upon him with a shout and
seized him; on which he began at once with his old tricks, and changed
himself first into a lion with a great mane; then all of a sudden he
became a dragon, a leopard, a wild boar; the next moment he was running
water, and then again directly he was a tree, but we stuck to him and
never lost hold, till at last the cunning old creature became
distressed, and said, ‘Which of the gods was it, Son of Atreus, that
hatched this plot with you for snaring me and seizing me against my
will? What do you want?’
“‘You know that yourself, old man,’ I answered, ‘you will gain nothing
by trying to put me off. It is because I have been kept so long in this
island, and see no sign of my being able to get away. I am losing all
heart; tell me, then, for you gods know everything, which of the
immortals it is that is hindering me, and tell me also how I may sail
the sea so as to reach my home?’
“Then,’ he said, ‘if you would finish your voyage and get home quickly,
you must offer sacrifices to Jove and to the rest of the gods before
embarking; for it is decreed that you shall not get back to your
friends, and to your own house, till you have returned to the
heaven-fed stream of Egypt, and offered holy hecatombs to the immortal
gods that reign in heaven. When you have done this they will let you
finish your voyage.’
“I was broken hearted when I heard that I must go back all that long
and terrible voyage to Egypt;47 nevertheless, I answered, ‘I will do
all, old man, that you have laid upon me; but now tell me, and tell me
true, whether all the Achaeans whom Nestor and I left behind us when we
set sail from Troy have got home safely, or whether any one of them
came to a bad end either on board his own ship or among his friends
when the days of his fighting were done.’
“‘Son of Atreus,’ he answered, ‘why ask me? You had better not know
what I can tell you, for your eyes will surely fill when you have heard
my story. Many of those about whom you ask are dead and gone, but many
still remain, and only two of the chief men among the Achaeans perished
during their return home. As for what happened on the field of
battle—you were there yourself. A third Achaean leader is still at sea,
alive, but hindered from returning. Ajax was wrecked, for Neptune drove
him on to the great rocks of Gyrae; nevertheless, he let him get safe
out of the water, and in spite of all Minerva’s hatred he would have
escaped death, if he had not ruined himself by boasting. He said the
gods could not drown him even though they had tried to do so, and when
Neptune heard this large talk, he seized his trident in his two brawny
hands, and split the rock of Gyrae in two pieces. The base remained
where it was, but the part on which Ajax was sitting fell headlong into
the sea and carried Ajax with it; so he drank salt water and was
drowned.
“‘Your brother and his ships escaped, for Juno protected him, but when
he was just about to reach the high promontory of Malea, he was caught
by a heavy gale which carried him out to sea again sorely against his
will, and drove him to the foreland where Thyestes used to dwell, but
where Aegisthus was then living. By and by, however, it seemed as
though he was to return safely after all, for the gods backed the wind
into its old quarter and they reached home; whereon Agamemnon kissed
his native soil, and shed tears of joy at finding himself in his own
country.
“‘Now there was a watchman whom Aegisthus kept always on the watch, and
to whom he had promised two talents of gold. This man had been looking
out for a whole year to make sure that Agamemnon did not give him the
slip and prepare war; when, therefore, this man saw Agamemnon go by, he
went and told Aegisthus, who at once began to lay a plot for him. He
picked twenty of his bravest warriors and placed them in ambuscade on
one side the cloister, while on the opposite side he prepared a
banquet. Then he sent his chariots and horsemen to Agamemnon, and
invited him to the feast, but he meant foul play. He got him there, all
unsuspicious of the doom that was awaiting him, and killed him when the
banquet was over as though he were butchering an ox in the shambles;
not one of Agamemnon’s followers was left alive, nor yet one of
Aegisthus’, but they were all killed there in the cloisters.’
“Thus spoke Proteus, and I was broken hearted as I heard him. I sat
down upon the sands and wept; I felt as though I could no longer bear
to live nor look upon the light of the sun. Presently, when I had had
my fill of weeping and writhing upon the ground, the old man of the sea
said, ‘Son of Atreus, do not waste any more time in crying so bitterly;
it can do no manner of good; find your way home as fast as ever you
can, for Aegisthus may be still alive, and even though Orestes has been
beforehand with you in killing him, you may yet come in for his
funeral.’
“On this I took comfort in spite of all my sorrow, and said, ‘I know,
then, about these two; tell me, therefore, about the third man of whom
you spoke; is he still alive, but at sea, and unable to get home? or is
he dead? Tell me, no matter how much it may grieve me.’