The Odyssey

The Odyssey
Homer Homer

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.‘Alas that mortalsShould blame the gods! From us, they say,All evils come. Yet they themselvesIt is who through defiant deedsBring sorrow on them-far more sorrowThan fate would have them bear.’Attributed to the blind Greek poet, Homer, The Odyssey is an epic tale about cunning and strength of mind. It takes its starting point ten years after the fall of the city of Troy and follows its Greek warrior hero Odysseus as he tries to journey to his home of Ithaca in northwest Greece after the Greek victory over the Trojans.On his travels, Odysseus comes across surreal islands and foreign lands where he is in turn challenged and supported by those that he meets on his travels as he attempts to find his way back home in order to vanquish those who threaten his estate. In turn, his son Telemachus has to grow up quickly as he attempts to find his father and protect his mother from her suitors.Dealing with the universal themes of temptation and courage, the epic journey that Odysseus undertakes is as meaningful today as it was almost 3,000 years ago when the story was composed.

THE

ODYSSEY

Homer

CONTENTS

COVER (#u7fab59ea-6294-51b1-85e3-f58a4a079561)

TITLE PAGE (#u24b05594-c2ab-5093-a735-0d63890732e9)

BOOK 1

BOOK 2

BOOK 3

BOOK 4

BOOK 5

BOOK 6

BOOK 7

BOOK 8

BOOK 9

BOOK 10

BOOK 11

BOOK 12

BOOK 13

BOOK 14

BOOK 15

BOOK 16

BOOK 17

BOOK 18

BOOK 19

BOOK 20

BOOK 21

BOOK 22

BOOK 23

BOOK 24

CLASSIC LITERATURE: WORDS AND PHRASES ADAPTED FROM THE COLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OTHER WORKS

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

HISTORY OF COLLINS

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

BOOK 1 (#u1719d911-0cd0-562d-90ff-78eb39314921)

By now the other warriors, those that had escaped headlong ruin by sea or in battle, were safely home. Only Odysseus tarried, shut up by Lady Calypso, a nymph and very Goddess, in her hewn-out caves. She craved him for her bed-mate: while he was longing for his house and his wife. Of a truth the rolling seasons had at last brought up the year marked by the Gods for his return to Ithaca; but not even there among his loved things would he escape further conflict. Yet had all the Gods with lapse of time grown compassionate towards Odysseus – all but Poseidon, whose enmity flamed ever against him till he had reached his home. Poseidon, however, was for the moment far away among the Aethiopians, that last race of men, whose dispersion across the world’s end is so broad that some of them can see the Sun-God rise while others see him set. Thither had Poseidon gone in the hope of burnt offerings, bulls and rams, by hundreds: and there he sat feasting merrily while the other Gods came together in the halls of Olympian Zeus. To them the father of Gods and men began speech, for his breast teemed with thought of great Aegisthus, whom famous Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, had slain.

‘It vexes me to see how mean are these creatures of a day towards us Gods, when they charge against us the evils (far beyond our worst dooming) which their own exceeding wantonness has heaped upon themselves. Just so did Aegisthus exceed when he took to his bed the lawful wife of Atrides and killed her returning husband. He knew the sheer ruin this would entail. Did we not warn him by the mouth of our trusty Hermes, the keen-eyed slayer of Argus, neither to murder the man nor lust after the woman’s body? “For the death of the son of Atreus will be requited by Orestes, even as he grows up and dreams of his native place.” These were Hermes’ very words: but not even such friendly interposition could restrain Aegisthus, who now pays the final penalty.’

Swiftly there took him up Athene, goddess of the limpid eyes. ‘Our Father, heir of Kronos, Lord of lords! That man Aegisthus has been justly served. May everyone who slaughters a victim after his fashion go down likewise into hell! But my heart is heavy for Odysseus, so shrewd, so ill-fated, pining in long misery of exile on an island which is just a speck in the belly of the sea. This wave-beset, wooded island is the domain of a God-begotten creature, the daughter of baleful Atlas whose are the pillars that prop the lofty sky: whose too are the deepest soundings of the sea. The daughter has trapped the luckless wretch and with subtle insistence cozens him to forget his Ithaca. Forget! Odysseus is so sick with longing to see if it were but the smoke of his home spiring up, that he prays for death. I marvel, my Lord of Olympus, how your heart makes no odds of it. Can you lightly pass over the burnt offerings Odysseus lavished upon you, by the Argive ships in the plain of Troy?’

‘My child,’ protested Zeus, the cloud-compeller, ‘what sharp judgements you let slip through your teeth! As if I could overpass the merit of Odysseus, who stands out above the ruck of men as much for worldly wisdom as for his generous offerings to the Gods that eternally possess the open sky. It is Poseidon the world-girdler who is so headily bitter against him, for the sake of that Cyclops whom Odysseus blinded, even the god-like Polyphemus, their chief figure and Poseidon’s very son: – for his mother Thoosa (daughter to Phorkys, an overlord of the ungarnered sea) conceived him after she had lain with the God under the beetling cliffs. Because of this, Poseidon the land-shaker, though he dare not quite kill Odysseus, at least implacably frustrates his every effort to get back to the land of his fathers. But come, let us put all our heads together and contrive the man’s return; then will Poseidon have to swallow his bile. Against the concert of the Immortals he cannot stand alone.’

Athene the clear-eyed, the Goddess, answered and said: ‘Father and Lord of all, Kronides, if indeed the ineffable Gods now judge it fit that prudent Odysseus should return, then let us call Hermes, our usher, the killer of Argus, and despatch him straight to Ogygia, the island of that nymph with the lovely hair: to warn her how it is become our fixed act that the dauntless one be allowed to set out homeward forthwith. For my part I shall go to Ithaca and rouse his son Telemachus, instilling some tardy purpose into his spirit, so that he may call his Greek exquisites to council and give check to the mob of wooers besetting his mother Penelope, the while they butcher his wealth of juicy sheep and rolling-gaited, screw-horned oxen. I will send the youth to Sparta – yes, and to sandy Pylos – to ask those he meets for news of his dear father’s return: not that he will hear anything, but his zeal will earn him repute among men.’

She ceased, and drew upon her feet those golden sandals (whose fairness no use could dim) that carried their mistress as surely and wind-swiftly over the waves as over the boundless earth. She laid hold of her guardian spear, great, heavy, and close-grained, tipped with cutting bronze. When wrath moved the goddess to act, this spear was her weapon: with it, and stayed by her pride of birth, she would daunt serried ranks of the very bravest warriors. Downward she now glided from the summit of Olympus, to alight on Ithaca before Odysseus’ house, by the sill of the main gate. With that war spear in her fist she seemed some traveller seeking hospitality: she had a look of Mentes, a chief in Taphos.

The gateway was thronged with the self-assertive suitors, whose pleasure for the moment was to sit there playing at chequers on the hides of the oxen they had killed and eaten. Round them bustled their criers and nimble pages, some mixing wine and water in the parent-bowls ready to drink, others wiping down table-tops with soft sponges or re-laying them for the next meal, while yet others were jointing huge sides of meat. If the suitors saw her they did not move or look before handsome Telemachus gave sign. He sat despondent in the hurly, fancying to himself his honest father’s sudden arrival from somewhere, somehow: and the scatter there would be, through the palace, of these wasters when they saw him stride in to regain men’s respect and king it honourably once more over his household.

As he so dreamed amidst the unheeding suitors he became aware of Athene waiting by the threshold; and went straight to her, vexed to the heart that any guest should be delayed at their door for lack of welcome. He clasped her right hand, relieving her of the metal spear, and spoke to her these winged words: ‘Accept, O guest, the friendliest greetings. Enter and taste our food: and thereafter make known to us your every need.’

Whereupon he led the way into the noble house. Pallas followed until he set her spear in the polished spear rack beside a high pillar, amongst weapons once used by the long-suffering Odysseus. Then he spread smooth draperies over a throne of cunning workmanship and seated her upon it. For her feet there was a foot-stool, while for himself he drew up a painted lounge-chair in such a way that they were shut off from the suitors. Telemachus feared lest that roistering mob’s impertinences might disgust the stranger and turn his stomach against eating. Then too he wished to put some privy questions about his missing father.

A maid came with a precious golden ewer and poured water for them above its silver basin, rinsing their hands. She drew to their side a gleaming table and on it the matronly house-keeper arranged her store of bread and many prepared dishes, making an eager grace of all the hospitality. A carver filled and passed them trenchers of meat in great variety, and set out on their table two golden beakers which the steward, as often as he walked up and down the hall, refilled for them with wine. The suitors swaggered in. One after the other they seated themselves on the thrones and long chairs. Their retainers poured water for their hands, and the maids of the house heaped loaves of bread in each man’s table-basket while the serving lads brimmed the wine-cisterns with drink. Every hand went out to the abundance so laid ready.