The Queen and the Beggar
Odysseus was left there in the hall,
and with Athena, he was hatching plans for how to kill the suitors. Words flew fast:
“Telemachus, we have to get the weapons
and hide them. When the suitors see them gone and question you, come up with good excuses. You can explain, ‘The soot had damaged them; when King Odysseus marched off to Troy
their metal gleamed; now they are growing dull.
I put them safe away from all that smoke. 10
Some spirit also warned me if you drink
too much and argue, you could hurt each other, dishonoring your banquet and your courtship. Weapons themselves can tempt a man to fight.’”
Telemachus obeyed his father’s word. He summoned Eurycleia, and he told her,
“Shut up the women in their rooms, while I carry my father’s weapons to the storeroom. They have got dirty since my father left when I was just a little boy. I want 20
to keep them safe, protected from the smoke.”
The loving nurse said, “Child, I wish you would take charge of all the household management
and guard the wealth. Which girl should bring the torch?
You said the slaves were not allowed to walk in front of you.”
He said, “This stranger will.
A man who eats my bread must work for me, even if he has come from far away.”
She made no answer but locked up the doors that led inside the hall. Odysseus 30
and his bright boy jumped up and got the helmets and studded shields and pointed spears. Athena stood by them with a golden lamp; she made majestic light. Telemachus said,
“Father, my eyes have noticed something very strange. The palace walls, the handsome fir-wood rafters and crossbeams and the pillars high above
are visible, as if a fire were lit.
Some god from heaven must be in the house.”
But cautiously Odysseus replied, 40
“Hush, no more questions, discipline your thoughts. This is the way of gods from Mount Olympus.
You need to go to bed. I will stay here,
to aggravate the slave girls and your mother, and make her cry, and let her question me.”
Telemachus went through the hall, lit up
by blazing torches, to his room. Sleep came, and there he lay till Dawn. Odysseus
stayed in the hall, still plotting with Athena how to destroy the suitors.
Then the queen, 50
her wits about her, came down from her room, like Artemis or golden Aphrodite.
Slaves pulled her usual chair beside the fire; it was inlaid with whorls of ivory
and silver, crafted by Icmalius,
who had attached a footstool, all in one.
A great big fleece was laid across the chair, and pensively Penelope sat down.
The white-armed slave girls came and cleared away the piles of bread, the tables, and the cups, 60
from which the arrogant suitors had been drinking.
They threw the embers from the braziers
onto the floor, and heaped fresh wood inside them for light and warmth.
And then Melantho scolded Odysseus again. “Hey! Stranger! Will you
keep causing trouble, roaming round our house at night and spying on us women here?
Get out, you tramp! Be happy with your meal! Or you will soon get pelted with a torch!
Be off!”
Odysseus began to scowl, 70
and made a calculated speech. “Insane! You silly girl, why are you mad at me? Because I am all dirty, dressed in rags,
and begging through the town? I have no choice. That is how homeless people have to live.
I used to have a house, and I was rich, respectable, and often gave to beggars; I helped whoever came, no matter what.
I had a lot of slave girls too, and all
the things we count as wealth; the happy life. 80
Zeus ruined it. He must have wanted to. Girl, may you never lose the rank you have among the other slave girls—if your mistress gets angry, or Odysseus arrives.
It might still happen. But if he is dead and never coming back, his son is now a man, praise be Apollo. He will notice any misconduct from the women here. He is a grown-up now.”
Penelope
had listened warily, and now she spoke 90
to scold the slave. “You brazen, shameless dog! What impudence! I see what you are doing!
Wipe that impertinent expression off!
You knew quite well—I told you so myself— that I might keep the stranger in the hall
to question him about my missing husband. I am weighed down by grief.”
And then she turned to tell Eurynome, “Bring out a chair
and put a cushion on it, so this stranger
can sit and talk with me. I want to ask him 100
some questions.”
So the woman brought a chair of polished wood, and set a cushion on it.
Odysseus knew how to bide his time. He sat, and circumspect Penelope began the conversation.
“Stranger, first
I want to ask what people you have come from. Who are your parents? Where is your home town?”
Cunning Odysseus said, “My good woman,
no mortal on the earth would speak against you; your glory reaches heaven. You must be 110
the daughter of a holy king who ruled
a mighty people with good laws; his rule
made the black earth grow wheat and barley; trees were full of fruit; the sheep had lambs; the sea provided fish, and people thrived. This is
your house. You have the right to question me, but do not ask about my family
or native land. The memory will fill
my heart with pain. I am a man of sorrow.
I should not sit in someone else’s house 120
lamenting. It is rude to keep on grieving. The slaves, or even you, might criticize and say my tearfulness is caused by wine.”
Penelope said cautiously, “Well, stranger,
the deathless gods destroyed my strength and beauty the day the Greeks went marching off to Troy,
and my Odysseus went off with them. If he came back and cared for me again,
I would regain my beauty and my status.
But now I suffer dreadfully; some god 130
has ruined me. The lords of all the islands, Same, Dulichium, and Zacynthus,
and those who live in Ithaca, are courting me—though I do not want them to!—and spoiling my house. I cannot deal with suppliants,
strangers and homeless men who want a job. I miss Odysseus; my heart is melting.
The suitors want to push me into marriage,
but I spin schemes. Some god first prompted me
to set my weaving in the hall and work 140
a long fine cloth. I said to all my suitors, ‘Although Odysseus is dead, postpone requests for marriage till I finish weaving this sheet to shroud Laertes when he dies. My work should not be wasted, or the people in Argos will reproach me, if a man
who won such wealth should lie without a shroud.’ They acquiesced. By day I wove the web,
and in the night by torchlight, I unwove it.
I tricked them for three years; long hours went by 150
and days and months, but then, in the fourth year, with help from my own fickle, doglike slave girls, they came and caught me at it. Then they shouted in protest, and they made me finish it.
I have no more ideas, and I cannot
fend off a marriage anymore. My parents are pressing me to marry, and my son
knows that these men are wasting all his wealth and he is sick of it. He has become
quite capable of caring for a house 160
that Zeus has glorified. And now, you must reveal your ancestry. You were not born from rocks or trees, as in a fairy tale.”
The master of deception answered, “Wife of great Odysseus, Laertes’ son,
why will you not stop asking me about my family? I will speak, if I must.
But you are making all my troubles worse.
It is the way of things, when someone is
away from home as long as I have been, 170
roaming through many cities, many dangers. Still, I will tell you what you ask. My homeland is Crete, a fertile island out at sea.
I cannot count how many people live there, in ninety cities, and our languages
are mixed; there are Achaeans, native Cretans, and long-haired Dorians and Pelasgians.
Knossos is there, a mighty city where Minos, the intimate of Zeus, was king
for nine years, and my father was his son, 180
the brave Deucalion, whose other son was Idomeneus, who sailed to Troy with the two sons of Atreus. My name is Aethon, and I am the younger brother.
In Crete, I saw Odysseus, and gave him
guest-gifts. A storm had driven him off course at Malea, and carried him to Crete,
although he yearned for Troy. He narrowly escaped the winds and found a refuge, mooring his ships in Amnisus, beside the cave 190
of Eileithyia. He came up to town,
and asked to see my brother, who, he said, was his good friend, a man he much admired.
But Idomeneus had sailed to Troy
ten days before. I asked him and his crew inside and gave them all a lavish welcome; our stores were ample, and I made the people bring barley and red wine and bulls to butcher, to satisfy their hearts. Those noble Greeks
stayed for twelve days; a mighty north wind trapped them; 200
so strong a person could not stand upright;
some spirit must have summoned it to curse them. But on the thirteenth day, the wind died down; they sailed away.”
His lies were like the truth, and as she listened, she began to weep.
Her face was melting, like the snow that Zephyr scatters across the mountain peaks; then Eurus thaws it, and as it melts, the rivers swell
and flow again. So were her lovely cheeks
dissolved with tears. She wept for her own husband, 210
who was right next to her. Odysseus pitied his grieving wife inside his heart,
but kept his eyes quite still, without a flicker, like horn or iron, and he hid his tears
with artifice. She cried a long, long time, then spoke again.
“Now stranger, I would like to set a test, to see if you did host
my husband and the men that followed him
in your own house, as you have said. Describe
his clothes, and what he looked like, and his men.” 220
Odysseus the trickster said, “My lady, that would be hard to say—his visit was so long ago. It has been twenty years.
But I will tell the image in my mind. Kingly Odysseus wore a purple cloak, of double-folded wool, held fastened by
a golden brooch with double pins, that was elaborately engraved. In its front paws
a dog held down a struggling dappled fawn.
All those who saw it marveled how the dog 230
could grip the fawn, and how the fawn could kick its legs and try to get away, though both
were made of gold. I noticed his white tunic was soft as dried-up onion peel, and shiny as sunlight. It astonished many women.
But note, I do not know if he had brought these clothes from home, or if a crew member had given them to him on board the ship,
or some guest-friend. Odysseus had many
dear friends, since very few could match his worth. 240
And I myself gave him a sword of bronze, a double-folded purple cloak, and tunic edged with a fringe. I sent him off in glory
when he embarked. He had a valet with him, I do remember, named Eurybates,
a man a little older than himself,
who had black skin, round shoulders, woolly hair, and was his favorite out of all his crew
because his mind matched his.”
These words increased her grief. She knew the signs that he had planted 250
as evidence, and sobbed; she wept profusely. Pausing, she said, “I pitied you before,
but now you are a guest and honored friend. I gave those clothes to him that you describe; I took them from the storeroom, folded them,
and clasped that brooch for him. But I will never welcome him home. A curse sailed on that ship when he went off to see Evilium—
He answered shrewdly,
“Your Majesty, Odysseus’ wife, 260
stop ruining your pretty skin with tears,
and grieving for your husband, brokenhearted.
I do not blame you; any woman would
mourn for a husband by whom she had children, even if he were not the kind of man
they say your husband was—a godlike hero. But stop your crying. Listen. I will tell you a certainty. I will be frank with you.
I heard Odysseus is coming home.
He is alive and near here, in Thesprotia. 270
By hustling, he gained a heap of treasure that he is bringing home. He lost his ship at sea, and let his loyal men be killed when he had left Thrinacia; Helius
and Zeus despised Odysseus, because his men had killed the Cattle of the Sun.
So all those men were drowned beneath the waves, but he himself was clinging to the rudder
and washed up in the land of the Phaeacians,
the cousins of the gods. They honored him 280
as if he were a god himself, and gave him abundant gifts, and tried to send him home safely. He would have been here long ago, but he decided he should travel more
and gather greater wealth. No man on earth knows better how to make a profit. Pheidon, the king of the Thesprotians, told me this.
He poured libations and he swore to me there was a ship already launched and crew
all set to take him home. But Pheidon said 290
good-bye to me first, as a ship of theirs happened to be already on its way
to barley-rich Dulichium. He showed me the treasure that Odysseus had gained—
enough to feed his children and grandchildren
for ten whole generations. 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. 300
I tell you, he is safe and near at hand.
He will not long be absent from his home and those that love him. I swear this by Zeus, the highest, greatest god, and by the hearth where I am sheltering. This will come true
as I have said. This very lunar month, between the waning and the waxing moon Odysseus will come.”
Penelope
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said warily, “Well, stranger, I do hope |
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that you are right. If so, I would reward you |
310 |
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at once with such warm generosity |
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that everyone you met would see your luck. |
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In fact, it seems to me, Odysseus |
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will not come home. No one will see you off |
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with kind good-byes. There is no master here |
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to welcome visitors as he once did |
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and send them off with honor. Was there ever |
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a man like him? Now slaves, give him a wash |
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and make a bed with mattress, woolen blankets |
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and fresh clean sheets, to keep him warm till Dawn |
320 |
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assumes her golden throne. Then bathe and oil him; |
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seat him inside the hall, beside my son, |
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and let him eat. If any of these men |
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is so corrupt that he would harm our guest, |
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the worse for him! He will get nowhere here, |
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however much he rages. Stranger, how |
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could you have evidence that I excel |
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all other women in intelligence, |
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if you were kept in rags, your skin all sunburnt, |
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in my house? Human beings have short lives. |
330 |
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If we are cruel, everyone will curse us |
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during our life, and mock us when we die. |
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The names of those who act with nobleness |
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are brought by travelers across the world, |
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and many people speak about their goodness.” |
“Oh, child! I am so useless to you now! Zeus hated you
beyond all other men, although you are so god-fearing! No human ever burned
so many thigh-bones to the Lord of Thunder, or sacrificed so much to him. You prayed that you would reach a comfortable old age and raise your son to be respected. Now
you are the only one who cannot reach
your home. And when that poor Odysseus 370
stays at the palaces of foreign kings,
I think the women slaves are mocking him
as these bad girls are hounding you. You have refused to let them wash you, to avoid
abuse. But wise Penelope has told me to wash you, and reluctantly I will,
for her sake and for yours—you move my heart.
Now listen. Many strangers have come here in trouble and distress. But I have never
seen any man whose body, voice, and feet 380
are so much like my master’s.”
He replied shrewdly, “Old woman, everyone who sees the two of us says we are much alike;
you were perceptive to observe the likeness.”
Then the old woman took the shining cauldron used for a footbath, and she filled it up
with water—lots of cold, a splash of hot. Odysseus sat there beside the hearth,
and hurriedly turned round to face the darkness. He had a premonition in his heart 390
that when she touched him, she would feel his scar and all would be revealed. She kneeled beside him, and washed her master. Suddenly, she felt
the scar. A white-tusked boar had wounded him on Mount Parnassus long ago. He went there with his maternal cousins and grandfather, noble Autolycus, who was the best
of all mankind at telling lies and stealing.
Hermes gave him this talent to reward him
for burning many offerings to him. 400
Much earlier, Autolycus had gone to Ithaca to see his daughter’s baby, and Eurycleia put the newborn child
on his grandfather’s lap and said, “Now name your grandson—this much-wanted baby boy.” He told the parents, “Name him this. I am disliked by many, all across the world,
and I dislike them back. So name the child ‘Odysseus.’ And when he is a man,
let him come to his mother’s people’s house, 410
by Mount Parnassus. I will give him treasure and send him home rejoicing.” When he grew, Odysseus came there to claim his gifts.
His cousins and Autolycus embraced him,
and greeted him with friendly words of welcome. His grandma, Amphithea, wrapped her arms around him like a vine and kissed his face
and shining eyes. Autolycus instructed his sons to make the dinner. They obeyed
and brought a bull of five years old and flayed it, 420
and chopped it all in pieces, and then sliced
the meat with skill and portioned it on skewers and roasted it with care, and shared it out,
and everybody got the same amount.
The whole day long they feasted, till the sun went down and darkness fell. Then they lay down and took the gift of sleep. When early Dawn,
the newborn child with rosy hands, appeared,
Autolycus went hunting with his dogs
and with his sons; Odysseus went too. 430
Up the steep wooded side of Mount Parnassus
they climbed and reached its windswept folds. The sun rose from the calmly flowing depths of Ocean
to touch the fields, just as the hunters came into a glen. The dogs had dashed in front, looking for tracks. Autolycus’ sons
came after, with Odysseus who kept
close to the dogs, and brandished his long spear. A mighty boar lurked there; its lair was thick,
protected from the wind; the golden sun 440
could never strike at it with shining rays, and rain could not get in; there was a pile of fallen leaves inside. The boar had heard
the sound of feet—the men and dogs were near. Out of his hiding place he leapt to face them, his bristles standing up, his eyes like fire,
and stood right next to them. Odysseus
was first to rush at him, his long spear gripped tight in his hand. He tried to strike; the boar
struck first, above his knee, and charging sideways 450
scooped a great hunk of flesh off with his tusk, but did not reach the bone. Odysseus
wounded the boar’s right shoulder, and the spear pierced through. The creature howled and fell to earth.
His life flew out. Autolycus’ sons bustled around and skillfully bound up the wound received by great Odysseus,
and stopped the black blood with a charm, and took him
back to their father’s house, and nursed him well,
then gave him splendid gifts, and promptly sent him 460
back home to Ithaca, and he was glad.
His parents welcomed him and asked him questions, wanting to know how he had got the wound.
He told them he was hunting with his cousins on Mount Parnassus, and a boar attacked him; the white tusk pierced his leg.
The old slave woman, holding his leg and rubbing with flat palms,
came to that place, and recognized the scar. She let his leg fall down into the basin.
It clattered, tilted over, and the water 470
spilled out across the floor. Both joy and grief took hold of her. Her eyes were filled with tears;
her voice was choked. She touched his beard and said,
“You are Odysseus! My darling child! My master! I did not know it was you until I touched you all around your leg.”
She glanced towards Penelope, to tell her it was her husband. But Penelope
did not look back; she could not meet her eyes, because Athena turned her mind aside. 480
Odysseus grabbed her throat with his right hand and with the left, he pulled her close and whispered,
“Nanny! Why are you trying to destroy me? You fed me at your breast! Now after all my twenty years of pain, I have arrived
back to my home. You have found out; a god has put the knowledge in your mind. Be silent; no one must know, or else I promise you,
if some god helps me bring the suitors down,
I will not spare you when I kill the rest, 490
the other slave women, although you were my nurse.”
With calculation, Eurycleia
answered, “My child! What have you said! You know my mind is firm, unshakable; I will
remain as strong as stone or iron. Let me promise you this: if you defeat the suitors,
I will tell you which women in the palace dishonor you, and which are free from guilt.”
Odysseus already had a plan.
“Nanny, why do you mention them? No need. 500
I will myself make my own observations of each of them. Be quiet now; entrust the future to the gods.”
The old nurse went to fetch more washing water; all the rest
was spilt. She washed and oiled him, and then he pulled his chair beside the fire again,
to warm himself, and covered up his scar with rags. And carefully Penelope
spoke to him.
“Stranger, I have one small question I want to ask you. It will soon be time 510
to lie down comfortably—at least for those who can enjoy sweet sleep, no matter what.
But I have been afflicted by some god with pain beyond all measure. In the day,
I concentrate on my work and my women’s, despite my constant grief. But when night comes, and everybody goes to sleep, I lie
crying in bed and overwhelmed by pain; worries and sorrows crowd into my heart.
As when the daughter of Pandareus, 520
the pale gray nightingale, sings beautifully
when spring has come, and sits among the leaves that crowd the trees, and warbles up and down
a symphony of sound, in mourning for her son by Zethus, darling Itylus,
whom she herself had killed in ignorance,
with bronze. Just so, my mind pulls two directions— should I stay here beside my son, and keep
things all the same—my property, my slave girls,
and my great house—to show respect towards 530
my husband’s bed and what the people say? Or should I marry one of them—whichever is best of all the suitors and can bring
most presents? When my son was immature,
and young, I could not leave my husband’s house.
He would not let me. Now that he is big and all grown-up, he urges me to go;
he is concerned that they are eating up his property. Now how do you interpret
this dream of mine? I dreamed that twenty geese 540
came from the river to my house, and they were eating grain and I was glad to see them.
Then a huge eagle with a pointed beak
swooped from the mountain, broke their necks, and killed them. I wept and wailed, inside the dream; the women
gathered around me, and I cried because
the eagle killed my geese. Then he came back and sitting on the jutting roof-beam, spoke
in human language, to restrain my grief.
‘Penelope, great queen, cheer up. This is 550
no dream; it will come true. It is a vision. The geese are suitors; I was once an eagle, but now I am your husband. I have come back home to put a cruel end to them.’
Then I woke up, looked round, and saw the geese still eating grain beside the trough as they
had done before.”
Odysseus, well-known for his intelligence, said, “My dear woman, there is no way to wrest another meaning
out of the dream; Odysseus himself 560
said how he will fulfill it: it means ruin
for all the suitors. No one can protect them from death.”
But shrewd Penelope said, “Stranger, dreams are confusing, and not all come true.
There are two gates of dreams: one pair is made of horn and one of ivory. The dreams
from ivory are full of trickery;
their stories turn out false. The ones that come
through polished horn come true. But my strange dream did not come out that way, I think. I wish 570
it had, as does my son. The day of doom is coming that will take me from the house of my Odysseus. I will arrange
a contest with his axes. He would set them
all in a row, like ship’s props. From a distance he shot an arrow through all twelve of them.
I will assign this contest to the suitors. Whoever strings his bow most readily,
and shoots through all twelve axes, will win me, and I will follow him. I will be parted 580
from here, this lovely house, my marriage home, so full of wealth and life, which I suppose
I will remember even in my dreams.”
Scheming Odysseus said, “Honored wife of great Odysseus, do not postpone
this contest. They will fumble with the bow and will not finish stringing it or shooting the arrow through, before Odysseus,
the mastermind, arrives.”
She chose her words
with care: “If you would sit and entertain me, 590
guest, I would never wish to go to sleep. But humans cannot stay awake forever; immortal gods have set a proper time for everything that mortals do on earth. I will go up and lie down on my bed,
which is a bed of grief, all stained with tears that I have cried since he went off to see Evilium, the town I will not name.
I will lie there, and you lie in this house;
spread blankets on the floor, or have the slaves 600
make up a bed.”
With that, she went upstairs, accompanied by slave girls. In her room,
she cried for her dear husband, till sharp-sighted Athena poured sweet sleep onto her eyes.
