Till the dark and the cloud of death had wrapped us up in the night.

  But God for such things happening the grudge against us bore,

  Since him only made he hapless returning never more.”

  He moved their hearts to weeping with the words that thus he said.

  There wept the Argive Helen, the Zeus-begotten maid;

  Telemachus was weeping, and the son of Atreus wept;

  Nor yet the son of Nestor his eyes unwetted kept;

  For he in his heart remembered Antilochus undone,

  The noble warrior slaughtered by the bright Dawn’s glorious Son:

  It was him he held in memory as he let these words forth fly:

  “O Atreus’ son, the wisest of all the men that die,

  Would the anclent Nestor name thee whenso we thought of thee

  In our halls, and each of other asked what-like thou might’st be.

  Yet heed me, I pray, if thou mayest, since for my part indeed

  I love not weeping at supper; and now doth the Day-dawn speed,

  And at hand is the Mother of Morning: though no shame I think it yet

  To weep for the man that dieth, and the day of his doom hath met,

  Since there is no other honour that is left for the hapless dead

  Save the tears to run over the cheeks, and the clipping the hair of the head

  Lo, I had a brother that perished, nor the worst of the Argives was he.

  Yea, thou belike wilt have seen him, but he never was seen of me,

  Nor ever we met together: but men of Antilochus tell

  That he outwent all in running, and withal was a warrior fell.”

  But the yellow Menelaus thus spake and answered again:

  “O friend, hereof thou speakest as a heedful man among men

  Would speak, and would do; yea, even were he elder-born than thy youth;

  For e’en such a man is thy father, so wise are the words of his mouth;

  And easy it is to know the seed of such an one

  For whom in wedding and getting good fortune Zeus hath spun.

  But he unto Nestor hath given henceforward for ever to bide

  In his homestead, and ever smoothly toward age and the end to glide;

  While his sons should be wise withal, and right good the spear to throw.

  Now let us away with the weeping that we happed upon e’en now,

  And betake us again to supper, and the water let men pour

  On our hands; then betimes on the morrow shall tales be told once more:

  ‘Twixt me and Telemachus then shall all speech to an end be sped.”

  He spake,and over their hands the water Asphalion shed,

  The handy swain of the King Meneluus, glorious and great,

  And they reached their hands therewith to the feast and the ready meat.

  But now did the Zeus-born Helen on other matters think,

  And she cast a thing and a drug in the wine whence they would drink,

  The queller of grief and of anger, that lulleth all evil asleep;

  And when this in the bowl is mingled and thereof one drinketh deep,

  Then all day long o’er his cheek no tear adown shall fall,

  Not e’en if his father lie dead and his m other were dead withal;

  Xay, not if his brother before him the brazen edge should smite,

  Or his well-loved son were slaughtered and his eyes beheld the sight.

  Such goodly drugs and crafty the daughter of Zeus did own,

  And Polydamna gave them, the wife of AEgyptian Then,

  Where most drugs of the world all over the corn-kind acres bear;

  And many are hale for the mingling, and many are deadly and drear.

  And every man of the leeches of that land is skilled indeed

  Above all men; for truly are they Paeaeon’s seed.

  But when in the bowl she had put it and the wine she had bidden pour,

  Forthwith she betook her to speaking, and said the word once more:

  “Menelaus, son of Atreus, Zeus-cherished, and ye twain,

  Sons of the good and the gallant, since turn and turn again

  Zeus giveth good and evil, and of all things hath he might,

  Be sitting here and feasting within our halls to-night,

  With spoken tales be merry. Hear one befitting well;

  For not with words may I number all tales that erst befell

  Of the toils of Odysseus the patient, and all that him betid.

  But one alone will I tell of that the brave man dared and did

  In Troy-town, where the Achaeans full many an evil bore.

  For he on his own body laid grievous stripes and sore,

  And with loathly rags on his shoulders, and e’en as a slave did he go,

  And came his ways to the city and the wide ways of the foe.

  So hid in the alien likeness of a beggar was he then;

  But nought forsooth was he such-like by the ships of Achaean men.

  In that shape went he down into Troy, and no man knew him there

  But I alone: I knew him e’en in that guise and gear.

  Therewith I questioned him straitly, but he shunned it with crafty lore;

  But at last, when I had washed him and with oil had sleeked him o’er,

  And had set the raiment on him, and had sworn an oath of might

  That never amid the Trojans would I bring Odysseus to light,

  Till he came to the booths of battle and the swift-going ships of the sea,

  Then all the Achaean counsel he opened out unto me,

  And many an one of the Trojans with the long-edged brass he slew,

  And came his ways to the Argives and therefrom much knowledge drew.

  “Shrill wailed the Trojan women, the others, but I was fain;

  For turned was my mind and my mood to get me home again:

  And now I loathed the blindness from Aphrodite’s hand,

  Wherewith she led me away from the well-loved father-land.

  Apart from my child, and my chamber, and my lord she sundered me there,

  Though neither in wit was he lacking, nor in form of his body fair.”

  But the yellow Menelaus thus answered thereunto:

  “Yea, all these things, O wife, hast thou told in manner due;

  I have known the mind and the counsel of many a man of war,

  O’er a mighty deal of the earth have I passed and wandered afar,

  But never anywhere yet have I seen such a thing with mine eyes

  As the heart that Odysseus had of the patient mind and wise.

  Yea, and this deed, this other that the stout man dared and did,

  When in the Horse well-shapen we, the best of the Argives, were hid,

  And for all the Trojan people we bore the death and the doom.

  For then thou camest thither, and some God had bidden thee come

  Who on giving the gain and the glory to the folk of Troy was bent.

  And Deiphobus the godlike withal beside thee went.

  Three times about thou wentedst and handledst the hollow snare,

  And on all the best of the Danaans by name thou calledst there,

  And the voice of all wives of the Argives wert thou feigning cunningly.

  Now there were the son of Tydeus and the great Odysseus and I,

  All we were sitting amidmost and hearkened thy cry and thy speech,

  And we twain, Tydides and I, were minded each and each

  Either to rise and come forth, or to answer thee back from within;

  But Odysseus there withheld us, though we longed that work to win:

  And so we sons of Achaeans, in silence sat we all,

  Save that Anticlus of all men with words would answer and call,

  But on his mouth Odysseus laid his most mighty hand,

  And held it there and stayed him, and saved the Achaean band,

  Till at last did Pallas Athene from usward lead thee away.”

  But Telemachus the heedful thus answered and ‘gan say:

  “Menelaus, son of Atreus, Zeus-cherished people’s lord,

  Woe worth! for not even so the woful weird might he ward,

  Not even though within him he bore an iron heart.

  But come now, turn us bedward, that we others for our part

  May have our fill of slumber, and in sweet sleep be laid.”

  He spake, and the Argive Helen straightway the handmaids bade

  To lay the beds in the cloister, and over them to do

  Fair purple rugs, and thereover the coverlets to strew,

  And over all to be casting the blankets thick and fair.

  Forth then from the hall they wended, and torch in hand they bare,

  And arrayed the beds, and the marshal therefrom the guest-folk led,

  And in the porch of the homestead they laid them down abed,

  Telemachus the warrior, and Nestor’s noble son;

  Eut Atrides slept in the nook of his house high-builded and done,

  And beside him the long-robed Helen, the glory of women, lay.

  But when shone out the Mother of Morning, Rose-fingered Early Day,

  From his bed uprose Menelaus, the good at the battle-word,

  And clad him; and over his shoulders he hung his sharpened sword,

  And unto his sleek-skinned foot-soles fair-fashioned sandals tied,

  And like to a God to look on forth then from his chamber he hied;

  And so to Telemachus came he, and named him and spake the word:

  “What need hath brought thee hither, Telemachus the lord,

  To Lacedaemon the Holy, o’er the broad back of the sea?

  Thine own or a common matter? Speak straight and plain to me.”

  But Telemachus the heedful this word in answer spoke:

  “Zeus-cherished son of Atreus, Menelaus leader of folk,

  I came that thou mightest tell me of my father some true tale:

  But my house is being devoured; the fat lands to fallow fail,

  And the house is filled with the foemen, and oft and every day

  My knock-kneed shambling oxen and my huddling sheep they slay,

  Those Wooers of my mother with insolence fulfilled:

  So now to thy knees have I hied me, if thou may’st be so willed,

  To tell of his woful death-day if thou saw’st it with thine eyes,

  Or from any other wanderer hast heard the tale arise

  — This man, his mother bore him to most exceeding woe —

  But have no respect of my sorrow or be soft and soothing now,

  But tell me all the story what wise the man thou hast seen.

  And I pray thee if ever my father, the noble Odysseus, hath been

  As good as his word unto thee of the thing that he promised to do

  Amid the folk of the Trojans, the land of Achaean woe,

  Of these things for me bethink thee, and tell me the very truth.”

  Then from Wrath-burdened mind Menelaus the fair thus answered them,

  “Out on it! how are these youthful wooers thus minded? yea and why

  In the bed of a great-heart man will they, the puny, lie?

  As when some hind hath been laying in a mighty lion’s lair,

  Her little fawns new-born, unweaned, and she leaveth them there,

  And pasturing seeketh the knolls and the dales all grass bespread.

  But lo! it befalleth thereafter that he cometh back to his bed,

  And unto them both he dealeth a dreadful doom straightway;

  And a dreadful doom for these men shall Odysseus deal on a day.

  Grant Zeus the Father, Athene, and Apollo, that it might fall,

  That being such a man as he showed him by Lesbos’ well-built wall,

  When he stood against Philomeleides, and the strife of wrestling had,

  And threw him a mighty fall, and all the Achaeans were glad —

  Might Odysseus but meet those Wooers such a man as then was he,

  Short then were their fated life-days, and bitter their wedding should be.

  But of this whereof thou beseechest nought crooked or beside

  The very sooth will I tell thee, and nought with guile will I hide.

  But all that which I had from the Elder, the Unerring-one of the Sea,

  No word thereof will I cover or huddle it up from thee.

  “The Gods in Egypt held me, though hither would I be gone,

  Since the gifts an hundred-folded for them I had not done,

  And ever the Gods would have us of their bidding mindful to be.

  Now there is a certain island amidst of the wave-washing sea,

  That Pharos is named of men-folk, from ^Egypt lying there

  As far as in one day’s sailing a hollow ship may fare;

  When fast behind her follows the sea-wind piping shrill;

  And therein is a handy haven, where the shapely ships that fill

  Their store of the deep black water they drag down to the seas.

  There for twenty days God held us, and never came the breeze,

  No breath o’er the salt seas blowing; though such be born indeed

  O’er the broad back of the seaflood the fleeting ships to speed.

  There had all our victual perished, and all the might of’our men,

  If a certain of the Godfolk had not pitied and saved me then,

  E’en the daughter of Proteus the mighty, the Elder of the Sea,

  Eidothea hight, whose mind was mightily moved by me.

  For she met me wandering alone as apart from my fellows I went,

  Who over the isle-shore scattered fished on with angles bent;

  For indeed their bellies constrained them, and hunger pinched them sore.

  So she drew anigh me and spake, and the word to mewards bore:

  “‘ Art thou but simple, O Stranger, and exceeding wanting in wit?

  Or wanton and heedless art thou? Or thy grief thou lovest it?

  That so long in this isle thou art holden, and no issue may’st thou find,

  While the heart of thy folk is failing and minished is their mind?’

  “She spake, but I took up the word and answered for my part:

  ‘ Nay, now to thee will I tell it, since one of the Gods thou art,

  That unwilling here am I holden; and this is the tale to tell,

  That I trespass against the Deathless who in the wide heaven dwell.

  But since the Gods know all things, do thou speak out and say

  Which oneof the Deathless hathhinderedandbound me back from my way

  And my wending back, and my going across the fishy main?’

  “So I spake; but that Godhead’s glory thus answered me again:

  ‘ Yea to thee, O friend, will I tell it as clearly as I may.

  Here haunteth the Sea-wight, the Elder, that never goeth astray,

  Proteus the deathless of ^gypt, who throughly knoweth all

  The deeps of the sea; of Poseidon the very bounden thrall:

  And they say that he is my father and begat me once on a while.

  Now mightest thou compass an ambush to take the man by guile,

  He should tell thee of thy faring, and the way that is meeted for thee,

  Whereby thou shalt get thee homeward across the fishy sea.

  Yea, thou dear unto Zeus, he shall tell thee, if thereof thou hast the will,

  What thing in thine house hath befallen, be it good, or be it ill,

  While afar and long thou hast wandered and laboured thy way with pain.’

  “She spake, and I took up the word and answered her again:

  ‘ Yea now, for this Ancient of Gods do thou devise the snare,

  Lest he perchance escape me foreseeing and beware.

  For ’tis hard for a man that dieth against a God to prevail.’

  “I spake and that Godhead’s glory again took up the tale:

  ‘ Yea, all shall I tell thee, O friend, that thereof thou have no doubt:

  When up to the midmost heaven the sun hath wended about,

  The Sea-floods’ Elder unerring cometh up from the brine outright,

  Along with the breath of the west-wind with the darkling ripple dight,

  And in the hollow places of the rocks he falleth asleep,

  And about him the flock of the sea-calves, the brood of the Maid of the Deep,

  Lie sleeping gathered together, come up from the hoary sea,

  And they breathe forth a bitter savour of the brine where the flood-wells be.

  Now thither will I lead thee when the dawn beginneth to show,

  And lay thee there all duly: but three whom thou dost know

  To be the best of thy fellows from thy fair-decked ships choose well.

  But that Elder’s baleful magic to thee will I fully tell:

  For first unto numbering his sea-calves and telling them o’er will he fall,

  But when his count is accomplished, and he hath beheld them all,

  Then lieth he down amidst them, as a shepherd amidst of his sheep.

  But so soon as ye have beheld him that he lieth there asleep,

  Then mind ye of your starkness and to your might look ye,

  That ye hold him, as sore as he striveth, and longeth to be free.

  He will try it and turn into all things; all such as creep upon earth,

  And he will be the water, and the fire that of God hath birth.

  But all unmoved do ye hold him, and press him all the more.

  But when he shall speak unto you in the shape that he had before,

  And he being then nought other than ye saw him lying asleep,

  Then refrain your might and loosen that Elder of the Dee

  But ask him which of the Gods it is that is hard on thee,

  And ask of thine homeward faring, and thy road o’er the fishy sea.’

  “She spake, and therewithal dived under the billowy flood;

  But unto my ships I wended where hauled on the sands they stood,

  And with many things as I went my mind was darkened o’er.

  But when at last I was come to the sea and the ships and the shore,

  Our supper there we dighted, and the deathless night came on,

  And there on the salt-sea beach the slumber and sleep we won.

  But when the Mother of Morning, Rose-fingered Dawn, shone clear,

  By the side of the wide-wayed seaflood in that hour did I fare,

  Many things of the Godfolk praying: and I had with me fellows three,

  E’en such as of wont I trusted when any deed was to be.

  “But she meanwhile went under the broad breast of the main,

  And with four skins of the sea-calves came up from the sea again,

 

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