The Odyssey, Homer [ebook reader for pc and android .txt] 📗

“ ‘O world-renowned Ulysses! thou who art
The glory of the Achaians, turn thy barque
Landward, that thou mayst listen to our lay
No man has passed us in his galley yet,
Ere he has heard our warbled melodies.
He goes delighted hence a wiser man;
For all that in the spacious realm of Troy
The Greeks and Trojans by the will of Heaven
Endured we know, and all that comes to pass
In all the nations of the fruitful earth.’ ”

’Twas thus they sang, and sweet the strain. I longed
To listen, and with nods I gave the sign
To set me free; they only plied their oars
The faster. Then upsprang Eurylochus
And Perimedes, and with added cords
Bound me, and drew the others still more tight.
And when we now had passed the spot, and heard
No more the melody the Sirens sang,
My comrades hastened from their ears to take
The wax, and loosed the cords and set me free.

“As soon as we had left the isle, I saw
Mist and a mountain billow, and I heard
The thunder of the waters. From the hands
Of my affrighted comrades flew the oars,
The deep was all in uproar; but the ship
Stopped there, for all the rowers ceased their task.
I went through all the ship exhorting them
With cheerful words, man after man, and said:⁠—

“ ‘Reflect, my friends, that we are not untried
In evil fortunes, nor in sadder plight
Are we than when within his spacious cave
The brutal Cyclops held us prisoners;
Yet through my valor we escaped, and through
My counsels and devices, and I think
That ye will live to bear this day’s events
In memory like those. Now let us act.
Do all as I advise; go to your seats
Upon the benches, smiting with your oars
These mighty waves, and haply Jove will grant
That we escape the death which threatens us.
Thee, helmsman, I adjure⁠—and heed my words,
Since to thy hands alone is given in charge
Our gallant vessel’s rudder⁠—steer thou hence
From mist and tumbling waves, and well observe
The rock, lest where it juts into the sea
Thou heed it not, and bring us all to wreck.’

“I spake, and quickly all obeyed my words.
Yet said I naught of Scylla⁠—whom we now
Could not avoid⁠—lest all the crew in fear
Should cease to row, and crowd into the hold.
And then did I forget the stern command
Which Circè gave me, not to arm myself
For combat. In my shining arms I cased
My limbs, and took in hand two ponderous spears,
And went on deck, and stood upon the prow⁠—
For there it seemed to me that Scylla first
Would show herself⁠—that monster of the rocks⁠—
To seize my comrades. Yet I saw her not,
Though weary grew my eyes with looking long
And eagerly upon those dusky cliffs.

“Sadly we sailed into the strait, where stood
On one hand Scylla, and the dreaded rock
Charybdis on the other, drawing down
Into her horrid gulf the briny flood;
And as she threw it forth again, it tossed
And murmured as upon a glowing fire
The water in a cauldron, while the spray,
Thrown upward, fell on both the summit-rocks;
And when once more she swallowed the salt sea,
It whirled within the abyss, while far below
The bottom of blue sand was seen. My men
Grew pale with fear; we looked into the gulf
And thought our end was nigh. Then Scylla snatched
Six of my comrades from our hollow barque,
The best in valor and in strength of arm.
I looked to my good ship; I looked to them,
And saw their hands and feet still swung in air
Above me, while for the last time on earth
They called my name in agony of heart.
As when an angler on a jutting rock
Sits with his taper rod, and casts his bait
To snare the smaller fish, he sends the horn
Of a wild bull that guards his line afar
Into the water, and jerks out a fish,
And throws it gasping shoreward; so were they
Uplifted gasping to the rocks, and there
Scylla devoured them at her cavern’s mouth,
Stretching their hands to me with piercing cries
Of anguish. ’Twas in truth the saddest sight,
Whatever I have suffered and where’er
Have roamed the waters, that mine eyes have seen.

“Escaping thus the rocks, the dreaded haunt
Of Scylla and Charybdis, we approached
The pleasant island of the Sun, where grazed
The oxen with broad foreheads, beautiful,
And flocks of sheep, the fatlings of the god
Who makes the round of heaven. While yet at sea
I heard from my black ship the low of herds
In stables, and the bleatings of the flocks,
And straightway came into my thought the words
Of the blind seer Tiresias, him of Thebes,
And of Aeaean Circè, who had oft
Warned me to shun the island of the god
Whose light is sweet to all. And then I said
To my companions with a sorrowing heart:⁠—

“ ‘My comrades, sufferers as ye are, give ear.
I shall disclose the oracles which late
Tiresias and Aeaean Circè gave.
The goddess earnestly admonished me
Not to approach the island of the Sun,
Whose light is sweet to all, for there she said
Some great misfortune lay in wait for us.
Now let us speed the ship and pass the isle.’

“I spake; their hearts were broken as they heard,
And bitterly Eurylochus replied:⁠—

“ ‘Austere art thou, Ulysses; thou art strong
Exceedingly; no labor tires thy limbs;
They must be made of iron, since thy will
Denies thy comrades, overcome with toil
And sleeplessness, to tread the land again,
And in that isle amid the waters make
A generous banquet. Thou wouldst have us sail
Into the swiftly coming night, and stray
Far from the