The Odyssey

by Homer

“Ah how shameless —the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes, but they themselves, with their own reckless ways, 40 compound their pains beyond their proper share.

I get it now. All these suitors in his house, it’s all the possibilities that Telemechus could be. He’s entertaining them all, and because his attention and time is so divided, his youth is being spent at a fast rate.

Bards are not to blame — Zeus is to blame. He deals to each and every laborer on this earth whatever doom he pleases. Why fault the bard if he sings the Argives’ harsh fate?

It’s really not so bad to be a king. All at once 450 your palace grows in wealth, your honors grow as well. But there are hosts of other Achaean princes, look — young and old, crowds of them on our island here — and any one of the lot might hold the throne, now great Odysseus is dead . . . But I’ll be lord of my own house and servants, all that King Odysseus won for me by force.”

We can only control what’s in our domain. If we are lucky and achieve greater success, so be it, but first we must be masters of our own homes first.”

“So high and mighty, Telemachus —such unbridled rage! Well now, fling your accusations at us? Think to pin the blame on us? You think again. It’s not the suitors here who deserve the blame, it’s your own dear mother, the matchless queen of cunning. Look here. For three years now, getting on to four, she’s played it fast and loose with all our hearts, building each man’s hopes — dangling promises, dropping hints to each — 100 but all the while with something else in mind. This was her latest masterpiece of guile: she set up a great loom in the royal halls and she began to weave, and the weaving finespun, the yarns endless, and she would lead us on: ‘Young men, my suitors, now that King Odysseus is no more, go slowly, keen as you are to marry me, until I can finish off this web . . .

you’ll lack neither courage nor sense from this day on, not if your father’s spirit courses through your veins —

there’s every hope that you will reach your goal.

“there’s a god who made this plan.

The sun sank and the roads of the world grew dark.

he’ll never lie —the man is far too wise.”

“How can I greet him, Mentor, even approach the king? I’m hardly adept at subtle conversation. Someone my age might feel shy, what’s more, interrogating an older man.” “Telemachus,” the bright-eyed goddess Athena reassured him, “some of the words you’ll find within yourself, 30 the rest some power will inspire you to say.

All men need the gods

I look at you and a sense of wonder takes me.

The minds of the everlasting gods don’t change so quickly.

When a father’s gone, his son takes much abuse in a house where no one comes to his defense.

gods are always keen to see their rules obeyed.

It’s hard for a mortal man to force a god.’

I’d no desire to go on living and see the rising light of day.

it is not his fate to die here, far from his own people. Destiny still ordains that he shall see his loved ones,

found him there on the headland, sitting, still, weeping, his eyes never dry, his sweet life flowing away with the tears he wept for his foiled journey home,

But if you only knew, down deep, what pains are fated to fill your cup before you reach that shore, 230 you’d stay right here, preside in our house with me and be immortal. Much as you long to see your wife, the one you pine for all your days . . . and yet I just might claim to be nothing less than she, neither in face nor figure. Hardly right, is it, for mortal woman to rival immortal goddess?

it’s Olympian Zeus himself who hands our fortunes out, to each of us in turn, to the good and bad, however Zeus prefers

Be bold, nothing to fear. In every venture the bold man comes off best,

—how long I have suffered!”

Balance is best in all things.

no one who comes to my house will languish long here,

Nor is he past his prime, just beaten down by one too many blows.

Not even a god could improve those lovely looks of yours but the mind inside is worthless.

Your slander fans the anger in my heart!

Even at home I’ll pray to you as a deathless goddess all my days to come. You saved my life, dear girl.”

So nothing is as sweet as a man’s own country, his own parents, even though he’s settled down 40 in some luxurious house, off in a foreign land and far from those who bore him.

What are they —violent, savage, lawless? or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?’

—a man-mountain

as some god breathed enormous courage through us all.

They threw themselves in the labor,

Or if he’s fated to see his people once again and reach his well-built house 592 and his own native country, let him come home late and come a broken man —all shipmates lost, alone in a stranger’s ship — and let him find a world of pain at home!’

Even so, you and your crew may still reach home, suffering all the way, if you only have the power to curb their wild desire and curb your own,

The night’s still young, I’d say the night is endless.

my life is endless trouble.

By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man — some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive — than rule down here over all the breathless dead.

she’s an immortal devastation,

And even if you escape, you’ll come home late, all shipmates lost, and come a broken man.’

we will live to remember this

I know you won’t be driven off your course, nothing can hold you back — however much you’ve suffered, you’ll sail home.

And to no one —no man, no woman, not a soul — reveal that you are the wanderer home at last. No, in silence you must bear a world of pain, subject yourself to the cruel abuse of men.”

I wandered on, my heart forever torn to pieces inside my chest

I can’t forsake you in your troubles —

her life an endless hardship

“Surely I’ll stand beside you, not forget you,

A world of pain, you see, still lay in wait for me