The Odyssey

by Homer

Some spirit also warned me if you drink too much and argue, you could hurt each other, dishonoring your banquet and your courtship.

That is how homeless people have to live.

Pheidon said Odysseus had gone to Dodona, to ask the rustling oak leaves whether Zeus advised him, after all those years away, to go home openly or in disguise.

We mortals grow old fast in times of trouble.”

“You are Odysseus! My darling child! My master! I did not know it was you until I touched you all around your leg.”

You have found out; a god has put the knowledge in your mind.

Be quiet now; entrust the future to the gods.”

In her room, she cried for her dear husband, till sharp-sighted Athena poured sweet sleep onto her eyes.

Eumaeus also prayed to all the gods to bring his many-minded master home.

With glinting eyes, Athena put a thought into the mind of wise Penelope,

Canny Odysseus smiled down and said, “You need not worry, he has saved your life. So live and spread the word that doing good is far superior to wickedness.

We huddled in our room and kept the doors tight shut, until your son called me—his father sent him.

Inside the court there grew an olive tree with delicate long leaves, full-grown and green,190 as sturdy as a pillar, and I built the room around it.

“Wife, we have not come yet to the end of all our troubles; there are more to come, many hard labors which I must complete.

He told her how Calypso trapped him there, inside her hollow cave, and wanted him to be her husband; she took care of him and promised she could set him free from death and time forever.

Her voice held back the fighters. “Ithacans! Stop this destructive war; shed no more blood, and go your separate ways, at once!”

She looked at him with steely eyes and said, “Odysseus, you are adaptable; you always find solutions. Stop this war, or Zeus will be enraged at you.”