The Iliad and the Odyssey (Classics of World Literature) (82 page)

Undoubtedly thy choice would here remain,

Keep house with me, and be a liver ever.

Which, methinks, should thy house and thee dissever,

Though for thy wife there thou art set on fire,

And all thy days are spent in her desire,

And though it be no boast in me to say

In form and mind I match her every way.

Nor can it fit a mortal dame’s compare,

T’ affect those terms with us that deathless are.’

The great-in-counsels made her this reply:

‘Renown’d and to-be-reverenc
’
d deity!

Let it not move thee, that so much I vow

My comforts to my wife, though well I know

All cause myself why wise Penelope

In wit is far inferior to thee,

In feature, stature, all the parts of show,

She being a mortal, an immortal thou,

Old ever growing, and yet never old.

Yet her desire shall all my days see told,

Adding the sight of my returning day,

And natural home. If any god shall lay

His hand upon me as I pass the seas,

I’ll bear the worst of what his hand shall please,

As having giv’n me such a mind as shall

The more still rise the more his hand lets fall.

In wars and waves my sufferings were not small;

I now have suffer’d much, as much before.

Hereafter let as much result, and more.’

This said, the sun set, and earth shadows gave;

When these two (in an in-room of the cave,

Left to themselves) left love no rites undone.

The early Morn up, up he rose, put on

His in and out weed. She herself enchaces

Amidst a white robe, full of all the graces,

Ample, and pleated thick like fishy scales;

A golden girdle then her waist impales,

Her head a veil decks, and abroad they come.

And now began Ulysses to go home.

A great axe first she gave, that two ways cut,

In which a fair well-polish’d helm was put,

That from an olive bough receiv’d his frame;

A planer then. Then led she, till they came

To lofty woods that did the isle confine.

The fir tree, poplar, and heav’n-scaling pine,

Had there their offspring. Of which, those that were

Of driest matter, and grew longest there,

He choos’d for lighter sail. This place thus shown,

The nymph turn’d home. He fell to felling down,

And twenty trees he stoop’d in little space,

Plan’d, used his plumb, did all with artful grace.

In mean time did Calypso wimbles bring.

He bor’d, clos’d, nail’d, and order’d every thing,

And look how much a ship-wright will allow

A ship of burden (one that best doth know

What fits his art), so large a keel he cast,

Wrought up her decks, and hatches, side-boards, mast,

With willow watlings arm’d her to resist

The billows’ outrage, added all she miss’d,

Sail-yards, and stern for guide. The nymph then brought

Linen for sails, which with dispatch he wrought,

Gables and halsters, tacklings. All the frame

In four days’ space to full perfection came.

The fifth day, they dismiss’d him from the shore,

Weeds neat and odorous gave him, victuals’ store,

Wine, and strong waters, and a prosp’rous wind,

To which, Ulysses, fit-to-be-divin’d,

His sails expos’d, and hoised. Off he gat;

And cheerful was he. At the stern he sat,

And steer’d right artfully, nor sleep could seize

His eyelids. He beheld the Pleiades;

The Bear, surnam’d the Wain, that round doth move

About Orion, and keeps still above

The billowy ocean; the slow-setting star

Boötes call’d, by some the waggoner.

Calypso warn’d him he his course should steer

Still to his left hand. Seventeen days did clear

The cloudy night’s command in his moist way,

And by the eighteenth light he might display

The shady hills of the Phaeacian shore,

For which, as to his next abode, he bore.

The country did a pretty figure yield,

And look’d from off the dark seas like a shield.

Imperious Neptune, making his retreat

From th’ Aethiopian earth, and taking seat

Upon the mountains of the Solymi,

From thence, far off discovering, did descry

Ulysses his fields ploughing. All on fire

The sight straight set his heart, and made desire

Of wreak run over, it did boil so
high.

When, his head nodding, ‘O impiety,’

He cried out, ‘now the gods’ inconstancy

Is most apparent, altering their designs

Since I the Aethiops saw, and here confines

To this Ulysses’ fate, his misery:

The great mark, on which all his hopes rely,

Lies in Phaeacia. But I hope he shall

Feel woe at height, ere that dead calm befall.’

This said, he begging gather’d clouds from land,

Frighted the seas up, snatch’d into his hand

His horrid trident, and aloft did toss,

Of all the winds, all storms he could engross;

All earth took into sea with clouds, grim night

Fell tumbling headlong from the cope of light,

The East and South winds justled in the air,

The violent Zephyr, and North making-fair,

Roll
’
d up the waves before them. And then bent

Ulysses’ knees, then all his spirit was spent.

In which despair, he thus spake: ‘Woe is me!

What was I born to, man of misery!

Fear tells me now, that all the goddess said

Truth’s self will author, that fate would be paid

Grie
f
’
s whole sum due from me, at sea, before

I reach’d the dear touch of my country’s shore.

With what clouds Jove heav’n’s heighten’d forehead binds!

How tyrannize the wraths of all the winds!

How all the tops he bottoms with the deeps,

And in the bottoms all the tops he steeps!

Thus dreadful is the presence of our death.

Thrice four times blest were they that sunk beneath

Their fates at Troy, and did to nought contend

But to renown Atrides with their end!

I would to god, my hour of death and fate

That day had held the power to terminate,

When showers of darts my life bore undepress’d

About divine Aeacides deceased!

Then had I been allotted to have died,

By all the Greeks with funerals glorified

(Whence death, encouraging good life, had grown),

Where now I die by no man mourn’d nor known.’

This spoke, a huge wave took him by the head,

And hurl’d him o’er board; ship and all it laid

Inverted quite amidst the waves, but he

Far off from her sprawl’d, strow’d about the sea,

His stern still holding broken off, his mast

Burst in the midst, so horrible a blast

Of mix’d winds struck it. Sails and sail-yards fell

Amongst the billows; and himself did dwell

A long time under water, nor could get

In haste his head out, wave with wave so met

In his depression; and his garments too,

Giv’n by Calypso, gave him much to do,

Hind’ring his swimming; yet he left not so

His drenched vessel, for the overthrow

Of her nor him, but gat at length again,

Wrestling with Neptune, hold of her; and then

Sat in her bulk, insulting over death,

Which, with the salt stream prest to stop his breath,

He ’scap’d, and gave the sea again to give

To other men. His ship so striv’d to live,

Floating at randon, cuf
f
’
d from wave to wave.

As you have seen the North wind when he drave

In autumn heaps of thorn-fed grasshoppers

Hither and thither, one heap this way bears,

Another that, and makes them often meet

In his confus’d gales: so Ulysses’ fleet

The winds hurl’d up and down; now Boreas

Toss’d it to Notus, Notus gave it pass

To Eurus, Eurus Zephyr made pursue

The horrid tennis. This sport call’d the view

Of Cadmus’ daughter, with the narrow heel,

Ino Leucothea, that first did feel

A mortal dame’s desires, and had a tongue,

But now had th’ honour to be nam’d among

The marine godheads. She with pity saw

Ulysses justled thus from flaw to flaw,

And like a cormorant in form and flight,

Rose from a whirlpool, on the ship did light,

And thus bespake him: ‘Why is Neptune thus

In thy pursuit extremely furious,

Oppressing thee with such a world of ill,

Ev’n to thy death? He must not serve his will,

Though ’tis his study. Let me then advise

As my thoughts serve; thou shalt not be unwise

To leave thy weeds and ship to the commands

Of these rude winds, and work out with thy hands

Pass to Phaeacia, where thy austere fate

Is to pursue thee with no more such hate.

Take here this tablet, with this riband strung,

And see it still about thy bosom hung;

By whose eternal virtue never fear

To suffer thus again, nor perish here.

But when thou touchest with thy hand the shore,

Then take it from thy neck, nor wear it more,

But cast it far off from the continent,

And then thy person far ashore present.’

Thus gave she him the tablet; and again

Turn’d to a cormorant, div’d, past sight, the main.

Patient Ulysses sigh’d at this, and stuck

In the conceit of such fair-spoken luck,

And said: ‘Alas! I must suspect ev
’
n this,

Lest any other of the deities

Add sleight to Neptune’s force, to counsel me

To leave my vessel, and so far off see

The shore I aim at. Not with thoughts too clear

Will I obey her, but to me appear

These counsels best: as long as I perceive

My ship not quite dissolv’d, I will not leave

The help she may afford me, but abide,

And suffer all woes till the worst be tried.

When she is split, I’ll swim. No miracle can,

Past near and clear means, move a knowing man.’

While this discourse employ’d him, Neptune rais’d

A huge, a high, and horrid sea, that seiz’d

Him and his ship, and toss’d them through the lake.

As when the violent winds together take

Heaps of dry chaff, and hurl them every way:

So his long wood-stack Neptune strook astray.

Then did Ulysses mount on rib, perforce,

Like to a rider of a running horse,

To stay himself a time, while he might shift

His drenched weeds, that were Calypso’s gift.

When putting straight Leucothea’s amulet

About his neck, he all his forces set

To swim, and cast him prostrate to the seas.

When powerful Neptune saw the ruthless prease

Of perils siege him thus, he mov’d his head,

And this betwixt him and his heart he said:

‘So, now feel ills enow, and struggle so,

Till to your Jove-lov’d islanders you row.

But my mind says, you will not so avoid

This last task too, but be with suf
f
’
rance cloy’d.’

This said, his rich-man’d horse he mov’d, and reach’d

His house at Aegas. But Minerva fetch’d

The winds from sea, and all their ways but one

Barr’d to their passage; the bleak North alone

She set to blow, the rest she charg’d to keep

Their rages in, and bind themselves in sleep.

But Boreas still flew high to break the seas,

Till Jove-bred Ithacus the more with ease

The navigation-skill’d Phaeacian states

Might make his refuge, death and angry fates

At length escaping. Two nights yet, and days,

He spent in wrestling with the sable seas;

In which space, often did his heart propose

Death to his eyes. But when Aurora rose,

And threw the third light from her orient hair,

The winds grew calm, and clear was all the air,

Not one breath stirring. Then he might descry,

Rais’d by the high seas, clear, the land was nigh.

And then, look how to good sons that esteem

Their father’s life dear (after pains extreme,

Felt in some sickness that hath held him long

Down to his bed, and with affections strong

Wasted his body, made his life his load,

As being inflicted by some angry god),

When on their pray
’
rs they see descend at length

Health from the heav’ns, clad all in spirit and strength,

The sight is precious: so, since here should end

Ulysses’ toils, which therein should extend

Health to his country (held to him his sire,

And on which long for him disease did tire),

And then, besides, for his own sake to see

The shores, the woods so near, such joy had he

As those good sons for their recover’d sire.

Then labour’d feet and all parts to aspire

To that wish’d continent; which when as near

He came, as Clamour might inform an ear,

He heard a sound beat from the sea-bred rocks,

Against which gave a huge sea horrid shocks,

That belch’d upon the firm land weeds and foam,

With which were all things hid there, where no room

Of fit capacity was for any port,

Nor from the sea for any man’s resort,

The shores, the rocks, the cliffs, so prominent were.

‘O,’ said Ulysses then, ‘now Jupiter

Hath giv’n me sight of an unhoped-for shore –

Though I have wrought these seas so long, so sore –

Of rest yet no place shows the slend’rest prints,

The rugged shore so bristled is with flints,

Against which every way the waves so flock,