The Iliad and the Odyssey (Classics of World Literature) (117 page)

Was fired with these braves, the approv’d desert

Of her Ulysses chiding, saying: ‘No more

Thy force nor fortitude as heretofore

Will gain thee glory, when nine years at Troy

White-wristed Helen’s rescue did employ

Thy arms and wisdom, still and ever us’d,

The bloods of thousands through the field diffus’d

By thy vast valour. Priam’s broad-way’d town

By thy grave parts was sack’d and overthrown;

And now, amongst thy people and thy goods,

Against the wooers’ base and petulant bloods

Stint’st thou thy valour, rather mourning here

Than manly fighting? Come, friend, stand we near,

And note my labour, that thou may’st discern

Amongst thy foes how Mentor’s nerves will earn

All thy old bounties.’ This she spake, but stay’d

Her hand from giving each-way-often-sway’d

Uncertain conquest to his certain use,

But still would try what self-pow’rs would produce

Both in the father and the glorious son.

Then on the wind-beam that along did run

The smoky roof, transform’d, Minerva sat,

Like to a swallow, sometimes cuffing at

The swords and lances, rushing from her seat,

And up and down the troubled house did beat

Her wing at every motion. And as she

Had rous’d UIysses, so the enemy

Damastor’s son excited, Polybus,

Amphimedon, and Demoptolemus,

Eurynomus, and Polyetorides;

For these were men that of the wooing prease

Were most egregious, and the clearly best

In strength of hand of all the desperate rest

That yet surviv’d, and now fought for their souls;

Which straight swift arrows sent among the fowls.

But first, Damastor’s son had more spare breath

To spend on their excitements ere his death,

And said: that now Ulysses would forbear

His dismal hand, since Mentor’s spirit was there,

And blew vain vaunts about Ulysses’ ears;

In whose trust he would cease his massacres,

Rest him, and put his friend’s huge boasts in proof;

And so was he beneath the entry’s roof

Left with Telemachus, and th’ other two.

‘At whom,’ said he, ‘discharge no darts, but throw

All at Ulysses, rousing his faint rest;

Whom if we slaughter, by our interest

In Jove’s assistance, all the rest may yield

Our pow’rs no care, when he strews once the field.’

As he then will’d, they all at random threw

Where they suppos’d he rested; and then flew

Minerva after every dart, and made

Some strike the threshold, some the walls invade,

Some beat the doors, and all acts render’d vain

Their grave steel offer’d. Which escap’d, again

Came on Ulysses, saying: ‘O that we

The wooers’ troop with our joint archery

Might so assail, that where their spirits dream

On our deaths first, we first may slaughter them!’

Thus the much-sufferer said; and all let fly,

When every man struck dead his enemy.

Ulysses slaughter’d Demoptolemus.

Euryades by young Telemachus

His death encounter’d. Good Eumaeus slew

Elatus. And Philoetius overthrew

Pisander. All which tore the paved floor

Up with their teeth. The rest retir’d before

Their second charge to inner rooms; and then

Ulysses follow’d, from the slaughter’d men

Their darts first drawing. While which work was done,

The wooers threw with huge contention

To kill them all; when with her swallow wing

Minerva cuf
f
’
d, and made their javelins ring

Against the doors and thresholds, as before.

Some yet did graze upon their marks. One tore

The prince’s wrist, which was Amphimedon,

Th’ extreme part of the skin but touch’d upon.

Ctesippus over good Eumaeus’ shield

His shoulder’s top did taint; which yet did yield

The lance free pass, and gave his hurt the ground.

Again then charged the wooers, and girt round

Ulysses with their lances; who turn’d head,

And with his javelin struck Eurydamas dead.

Telemachus disli
f
’
d Amphimedon;

Eumaeus, Polybus; Philoetius won

Ctesippus’ bosom with his dart, and said,

In quittance of the jester’s part he play’d,

The neat’s foot hurling at Ulysses: ‘Now,

Great son of Polytherses, you that vow

Your wit to bitter taunts, and love to wound

The heart of any with a jest, so crown’d

Your wit be with a laughter, never yielding

To fools in folly, but your glory building

On putting down in fooling, spitting forth

Puf
f
’
d words at all sorts, cease to scoff at worth,

And leave revenge of vile words to the gods,

Since their wits bear the sharper edge by odds;

And, in the mean time, take the dart I drave,

For that right hospitable foot you gave

Divine Ulysses, begging but his own.’

Thus spake the black-ox-herdsman; and straight down

Ulysses struck another with his dart –

Damastor’s son. Telemachus did part,

Just in the midst, the belly of the fair

Evenor’s son, his fierce pile taking air

Out at his back. Flat fell he on his face,

His whole brows knocking, and did mark the place.

And now man-slaught’ring Pallas took in hand

Her snake-fring’d shield, and on that beam took stand

In her true form, where swallow-like she sat.

And then, in this way of the house and that,

The wooers, wounded at the heart with fear,

Fled the encounter, as, in pastures where

Fat herds of oxen feed, about the field

(As if wild madness their instincts impell’d)

The high-fed bullocks fly, whom in the spring,

When days are long, gad-bees or breezes sting.

UIysses and his son the flyers chas’d,

As when, with crooked beaks and seres, a cast

Of hill-bred eagles, cast off at some game,

That yet their strengths keep, but (put up) in flame

The eagle stoops; from which along the field

The poor fowls make wing, this and that way yield

Their hard-flown pinions, then the clouds assay

For ’scape or shelter, their forlorn dismay

All spirit exhaling, all wings’ strength to carry

Their bodies forth, and, truss’d up, to the quarry

Their falc’ners ride in, and rejoice to see

Their hawks perform a flight so fervently:

So, in their flight, Ulysses with his heir

Did stoop and cuff the wooers, that the air

Broke in vast sighs, whose heads they shot and cleft,

The pavement boiling with the souls they reft.

Liodes, running to Ulysses, took

His knees, and thus did on his name invoke:

‘Ulysses! Let me pray thee, to my place

Afford the reverence, and to me the grace,

That never did or said to any dame

Thy court contain’d, or deed or word to blame,

But others so affected I have made

Lay down their insolence; and, if the trade

They kept with wickedness have made them still

Despise my speech, and use their wonted ill,

They have their penance by the stroke of death,

Which their desert divinely warranteth.

But I am priest amongst them, and shall I,

That nought have done worth death, amongst them die?

From thee this proverb then will men derive:

Good turns do never their mere deeds survive.’

He, bending his displeased forehead, said:

‘If you be priest among them, as you plead,

Yet you would marry, and with my wife too,

And have descent by her. For all that woo

Wish to obtain – which they should never do,

Dames’ husbands living. You must therefore pray,

Of force and oft, in court here, that the day

Of my return for home might never shine;

The death to me wish’d therefore shall be thine.’

This said, he took a sword up that was cast

From Agelaus, having struck his last,

And on the priest’s mid neck he laid a stroke

That struck his head off, tumbling as he spoke.

Then did the poet Phemius (whose surname

Was call’d Terpiades, who thither came

Forced by the wooers) fly death; but being near

The court’s great gate, he stood, and parted there

In two his counsels: either to remove

And take the altar of Herceian Jove

(Made sacred to him, with a world of art

Engrav’n about it, where were wont t’ impart

Laertes and Ulysses many a thigh

Of broad-brow’d oxen to the deity),

Or venture to Ulysses, clasp his knee,

And pray his ruth. The last was the decree

His choice resolv’d on. ’Twixt the royal throne

And that fair table that the bowl stood on

With which they sacrific’d, his harp he laid

Along the earth, the king’s knees hugg’d, and said:

‘Ulysses! Let my pray’rs obtain of thee

My sacred skill’s respect, and ruth to me!

It will hereafter grieve thee to have slain

A poet, that doth sing to gods and men.

I of myself am taught, for god alone

All sorts of song hath in my bosom sown,

And I, as to a god, will sing to thee;

Then do not thou deal like the priest with me.

Thine own lov’d son Telemachus will say,

That not to beg here, nor with willing way

Was my access to thy high court address’d,

To give the wooers my song after feast,

But, being many, and so much more strong,

They forc’d me hither, and compell’d my song.’

This did the prince’s sacred virtue hear,

And to the king, his father, said: ‘Forbear

To mix the guiltless with the guilty’s blood.

And with him likewise let our mercies save

Medon the herald, that did still behave

Himself with care of my good from a child,

If by Eumaeus yet he be not kill’d,

Or by Philoetius, nor your fury met,

While all this blood about the house it swet.’

This Medon heard, as lying hid beneath

A throne set near, half dead with fear of death;

A new-flay’d oxhide, as but there thrown by,

His serious shroud made, he lying there to fly.

But hearing this he quickly left the throne,

His oxhide cast as quickly, and as soon

The prince’s knees seiz’d, saying: ‘O my love,

I am not slain, but here alive and move.

Abstain yourself, and do not see your sire

Quench with my cold blood the unmeasur’d fire

That flames in his strength, making spoil of me,

His wrath’s right, for the wooers’ injury.’

Ulysses smiled, and said: ‘Be confident

This man hath sav’d and made thee different,

To let thee know, and say, and others see,

Good life is much more safe than villany.

Go then, sit free without from death within,

This much-renowned singer from the sin

Of these men likewise quit. Both rest you there,

While I my house purge as it fits me here.’

This said, they went and took their seat without

At Jove’s high altar, looking round about,

Expecting still their slaughter; when the king

Search’d round the hall, to try life’s hidden wing

Made from more death. But all laid prostrate there

In blood and gore he saw. Whole shoals they were,

And lay as thick as in a hollow creek

Without the white sea, when the fishers break

Their many-meshed draught-net up, there lie

Fish frisking on the sands, and fain the dry

Would for the wet change, but th’ all-seeing beam

The sun exhales hath suck’d their lives from them:

So one by other sprawl’d the wooers there.

Ulysses and his son then bid appear

The nurse Euryclea, to let her hear

His mind in something fit for her affair.

He op’d the door, and call’d, and said: ‘Repair,

Grave matron long since born, that art our spy

To all this house’s servile housewi
f
’
ry;

My father calls thee, to impart some thought

That asks thy action.’ His word found in nought

Her slack observance, who straight op’d the door

And enter’d to him, when himself before

Had left the hall. But there the king she view’d

Amongst the slain, with blood and gore imbru’d.

And as a lion skulking all in night,

Far-off in pastures, and come home, all dight

In jaws and breast-locks with an ox’s blood

New feasted on him, his looks full of mood:

So look’d Ulysses, all his hands and feet

Freckled with purple. When which sight did greet

The poor old woman (such works being for eyes

Of no soft temper) out she brake in cries,

Whose vent, though throughly open’d, he yet clos’d,

Call’d her more near, and thus her plaints compos’d:

‘Forbear, nor shriek thus, but vent joys as loud.

It is no piety to bemoan the proud,

Though ends befall them moving ne’er so much;

These are the portions of the gods to such.

Men’s own impieties in their instant act

Sustain their plagues, which are with stay but wrack’d.

But these men gods nor men had in esteem,

Nor good nor bad had any sense in them.

Their lives directly ill were, therefore, cause

That death in these stern forms so deeply draws.

Recount, then, to me those licentious dames

That lost my honour and their sex’s shames.’

‘I’ll tell you truly,’ she replied: ‘There are

Twice five-and-twenty women here that share

All work amongst them; whom I taught to spin,