The Iliad & the Odyssey (Fall River Classics)

by Homer

as long as she continues in the mind with which heaven has now endowed her, so long shall we go on eating up your estate; and I do not see why she should change, for she gets all the honour and glory, and it is you who pay for it, not she.

mettle

remember to have heard that your mother has many suitors, who are ill disposed towards you and are making havoc of your estate.

Heaven has a long arm

Still, death is certain, and when a man’s hour is come, not even the gods can save him, no matter how fond they are of him.”

the gods have long since counselled his destruction.

for he knows much more than any one else does.

They say he has reigned for three generations so that it is like ta...

when heaven had counselled her destruction,

Jove counselled evil against him and made it it blow hard

you will have been on a fool’s errand. Still,

Beg of him to speak the truth, and he will tell you no lies, for he is an excellent person.”

since the gods wait upon you thus while you are still so young.

“Eteoneus, son of Boethous, you never used to be a fool, but now you talk like a simpleton.

perfidy

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

suppose, however, that heaven grudged us such great good fortune, for it has prevented the poor fellow from ever getting home at all.”

told me you were a person of rare and excellent understanding.

“Your discretion, my friend,”

“is beyond your years.

One can soon see when a man is son to one whom heaven has blessed both as regard...

She drugged the wine with an herb that banishes all care, sorrow, and ill humour.

where there grow all sorts of herbs, some good to put into the mixing-bowl and others poisonous.

they are of the race of Paeeon.

(which is as Jove wills, for he is the giver both of good and evil, and can do what he chooses),

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.

“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

shrift

prevaricate

Did not your fathers tell you when you were children how good Ulysses had been to them—never doing anything high-handed, nor speaking harshly to anybody? Kings may say things sometimes, and they may take a fancy to one man and dislike another, but Ulysses never did an unjust thing by anybody—which shows what bad hearts you have, and that there is no such thing as gratitude left in this world.”

the gods who live at ease will not suffer you to weep and be so sad. Your son has done them no wrong, so he will yet come back to you.”

“Take heart, and be not so much dismayed. There is one gone with him whom many a man would be glad enough to have stand by his side, I mean Minerva; it is she who has compassion upon you, and who has sent me to bear you this message.”

“You gods,” she exclaimed, to be ashamed of yourselves. You are always jealous and hate seeing a goddess take a fancy to a mortal man, and live with him in open matrimony.

Ceres

“there is something behind all this; you cannot be really meaning to help me home

nothing that you can say or do shall mage me go on board a raft unless you first solemnly swear that you mean me no mischief.”

hie