The Olive Tree Bed
Chuckling with glee, the old slave climbed upstairs to tell the queen that her beloved husband
was home. Her weak old knees felt stronger now; with buoyant steps she went and stood beside
her mistress, at her head, and said,
“Dear child, wake up and see! At long last you have got
your wish come true! Odysseus has come! He is right here inside this house! At last!
He slaughtered all the suitors who were wasting his property and threatening his son!” 10
But cautiously Penelope replied,
“You poor old thing! The gods have made you crazy.
They have the power to turn the sanest person mad, or make fools turn wise. You used to be so sensible, but they have damaged you.
Why else would you be mocking me like this, with silly stories, in my time of grief?
Why did you wake me from the sleep that sweetly wrapped round my eyes? I have not slept so soundly since my Odysseus marched off to see 20
that cursed town—Evilium. Go back!
If any other slave comes here to wake me and tell me all this nonsense, I will send her back down at once, and I will not be gentle.
Your old age will protect you from worse scolding.”
But Eurycleia answered with affection, “Dear child, I am not mocking you. I am telling the truth: Odysseus is here!
He is the stranger that they all abused.
Telemachus has known for quite some time, 30
but sensibly he kept his father’s plans a secret, so Odysseus could take
revenge for all their violence and pride.”
Penelope was overjoyed; she jumped
from bed and hugged the nurse, and started crying. Her words flew fast.
“Dear Nanny! If this is the truth, if he has come back to this house,
how could he have attacked those shameless suitors, when he is just one man, and there were always
so many crowded in there?”
Eurycleia 40
answered, “I did not see or learn the details. I heard the sound of screaming from the men as they were killed. We huddled in our room and kept the doors tight shut, until your son called me—his father sent him. Then I saw Odysseus surrounded by dead bodies.
They lay on top of one another, sprawled across the solid floor. You would have been thrilled if you saw him, like a lion, drenched
in blood and gore. Now they are all piled up 50
out by the courtyard gates, and he is burning a mighty fire to fumigate the palace, restoring all its loveliness. He sent me
to fetch you. Come with me, so both of you can start to live in happiness. You have endured such misery. Your wish came true! He is alive! He has come home again,
and found you and your son, and he has taken revenge on all the suitors who abused him.”
Penelope said carefully, “Do not 60
start gloating. As you know, my son and I would be delighted if he came. We all would. However, what you say cannot be true.
Some god has killed the suitors out of anger at their abuse of power and their pride.
They failed to show respect to visitors,
both good and bad. Their foolishness has killed them. But my Odysseus has lost his home,
and far away from Greece, he lost his life.”
The nurse replied, “Dear child! How can you say 70
your husband will not come, when he is here, beside the hearth? Your heart has always been mistrustful. But I have clear evidence!
When I was washing him, I felt the scar
made when the boar impaled him with its tusk.
I tried to tell you, but he grabbed my throat
and stopped me spoiling all his plans. Come with me. I swear on my own life: if I am lying,
then kill me.”
Wise Penelope said, “Nanny,
it must be hard for you to understand 80
the ways of gods, despite your cleverness.
But let us go to meet my son, so I
can see the suitors dead, and see the man who killed them.”
So she went downstairs. Her heart could not decide if she should keep her distance
as she was questioning her own dear husband, or go right up to him and kiss his face
and hold his hands in hers. She crossed the threshold and sat across from him beside the wall,
in firelight. He sat beside the pillar, 90
and kept his eyes down, waiting to find out whether the woman who once shared his bed would speak to him. She sat in silence, stunned.
Sometimes when she was glancing at his face it seemed like him; but then his dirty clothes were unfamiliar. Telemachus
scolded her.
“Mother! Cruel, heartless Mother!
Why are you doing this, rejecting Father? Why do you not go over, sit beside him,
and talk to him? No woman in the world 100
would be so obstinate! To keep your distance from him when he has come back after twenty long years of suffering! Your heart is always harder than rock!”
But thoughtfully she answered, “My child, I am confused. I cannot speak,
or meet his eyes. If this is really him, if my Odysseus has come back home,
we have our ways to recognize each other, through secret signs known only to us two.”
Hardened Odysseus began to smile. 110
He told the boy,
“You must allow your mother to test me out; she will soon know me better.
While I am dirty, dressed in rags, she will not treat me with kindness or acknowledge me.
Meanwhile, we must make plans. If someone murders even just one man, even one who had
few friends in his community, the killer
is forced to run away and leave his homeland and family. But we have killed the mainstay
of Ithaca, the island’s best young men. 120
So what do you suggest?”
Telemachus said warily, “You have to work it out.
They say you have the finest mind in all the world; no mortal man can rival you in cleverness. Lead me, and I will be behind you right away. And I will do my best to be as brave as I can be.”
Odysseus was quick to form a plan.
He told him, “Here is what I think is best.
The three of you should wash and change your clothes, 130
and make the slave girls go put on clean dresses.
Then let the godlike singer take the lyre and play a clear and cheerful dancing tune, so passersby or neighbors hearing it
will think it is a wedding. We must not allow the news about the suitors’ murder to spread too far until we reach the woods of our estate, and there we can decide
the best path forward offered us by Zeus.”
They did as Lord Odysseus had said. 140
They washed and changed their tunics, and the slave girls prepared themselves. The singer took the lyre,
and roused in them desire to hear sweet music, and dance. The house resounded with the thump of beating feet from all the dancing men
and girls in pretty sashes. Those outside who heard the noises said to one another,
“So somebody is marrying the queen
who had so many suitors! Headstrong woman!
She must have lacked the strength to wait it out 150
and keep her husband’s house safe till he came.” They spoke with no idea what really happened.
Eurynome the slave woman began
to wash strong-willed Odysseus. She rubbed him with olive oil, and dressed him in a tunic
and handsome cloak. And then Athena poured attractiveness from head to toe, and made him taller and stronger, and his hair grew thick and curly as a hyacinth. As when
a craftsman whom Athena or Hephaestus 160
has trained in metalwork, so he can make beautiful artifacts, pours gold on silver—
so she poured beauty on his head and shoulders. After his bath he looked like an immortal.
He sat down in the same chair opposite his wife and said,
“Extraordinary woman!
The gods have given you the hardest heart. No other wife would so reject a husband who had been suffering for twenty years
and finally come home. Well, Nanny, make 170
a bed for me, so I can rest. This woman must have an iron heart!”
Penelope said shrewdly, “You extraordinary man! I am not acting proud, or underplaying this big event; yet I am not surprised
at how you look. You looked like this the day your long oars sailed away from Ithaca.
Now, Eurycleia, make the bed for him outside the room he built himself. Pull out
the bedstead, and spread quilts and blankets on it.” 180
She spoke to test him, and Odysseus was furious, and told his loyal wife,
“Woman! Your words have cut my heart! Who moved my bed? It would be difficult for even
a master craftsman—though a god could do it with ease. No man, however young and strong, could pry it out. There is a trick to how
this bed was made. I made it, no one else.
Inside the court there grew an olive tree
with delicate long leaves, full-grown and green, 190
as sturdy as a pillar, and I built
the room around it. I packed stones together, and fixed a roof and fitted doors. At last
I trimmed the olive tree and used my bronze to cut the branches off from root to tip
and planed it down and skillfully transformed the trunk into a bedpost. With a drill,
I bored right through it. This was my first bedpost, and then I made the other three, inlaid
with gold and silver and with ivory. 200
I stretched ox-leather straps across, dyed purple. Now I have told the secret trick, the token.
But woman, wife, I do not know if someone— a man—has cut the olive trunk and moved
my bed, or if it is still safe.”
At that, her heart and body suddenly relaxed.
She recognized the tokens he had shown her.
She burst out crying and ran straight towards him and threw her arms around him, kissed his face, and said,
“Do not be angry at me now, 210
Odysseus! In every other way
you are a very understanding man.
The gods have made us suffer: they refused to let us stay together and enjoy
our youth until we reached the edge of age together. Please forgive me, do not keep bearing a grudge because when I first saw you, I would not welcome you immediately.
I felt a constant dread that some bad man
would fool me with his lies. There are so many 220
dishonest, clever men. That foreigner would never have got Helen into bed,
if she had known the Greeks would march to war and bring her home again. It was a goddess
who made her do it, putting in her heart
the passion that first caused my grief as well. Now you have told the story of our bed,
the secret that no other mortal knows, except yourself and me, and just one slave,
Actoris, whom my father gave to me 230
when I came here, who used to guard our room. You made my stubborn heart believe in you.”
This made him want to cry. He held his love, his faithful wife, and wept. As welcome as the land to swimmers, when Poseidon wrecks
their ship at sea and breaks it with great waves and driving winds; a few escape the sea
and reach the shore, their skin all caked with brine. Grateful to be alive, they crawl to land.
So glad she was to see her own dear husband, 240
and her white arms would not let go his neck. They would have wept until the rosy Dawn began to touch the sky, but shining-eyed Athena intervened. She held night back, restraining golden Dawn beside the Ocean,
and would not let her yoke her swift young colts, Shining and Bright. Odysseus, mind whirling, said,
“Wife, we have not come yet to the end of all our troubles; there are more to come,
many hard labors which I must complete. 250
The spirit of Tiresias informed me,
that day I went inside the house of Hades to ask about the journey home for me and for my men. But come now, let us go to bed together, wife; let us enjoy
the pleasure of sweet sleep.”
Penelope,
who always thought ahead, said, “When you wish. The bed is yours. The gods have brought you home, back to your well-built house. But since a god
has made you speak about these future labors, 260
tell me what they involve. I will find out eventually, and better to know now.”
He answered warily, “You really are extraordinary. Why would you make me tell you something to cause you pain? It hurts me too, but I will tell the truth, not hide it from you.
Tiresias foretold that I must travel through many cities carrying an oar,
till I reach men who do not know the sea,
and do not eat their food with salt, or use 270
boats painted red around the prow, or oars, which are the wings of ships. He said that I will know I have arrived when I encounter someone who calls the object on my back a winnowing fan. Then I must fix my oar firm in the earth, and make a sacrifice
to Lord Poseidon, of a ram and ox
and stud-boar, perfect animals, then come back home and give a hecatomb to all
the deathless gods who live above the sky. 280
If I do this, I will not die at sea;
I will grow old in comfort and will meet a gentle death, surrounded by my people, who will be rich and happy.”
Sensibly Penelope said, “If the gods allow you
to reach old age in comfort, there is hope that there will be an end to all our troubles.”
They talked like this. Meanwhile, the slaves were working:
Eurynome and Eurycleia laid
soft blankets on the sturdy bed by torchlight. 290
The nurse went off to sleep, and Eurynome picked up the torch and led them to their bed, then went to her room. Finally, at last,
with joy the husband and the wife arrived back in the rites of their old marriage bed.
Meanwhile, the herdsmen and Telemachus stopped dancing, made the women stop, and went to bed inside the darkened house.
And when the couple had enjoyed their lovemaking,
they shared another pleasure—telling stories. 300
She told him how she suffered as she watched the crowd of suitors ruining the house,
killing so many herds of sheep and cattle and drinking so much wine, because of her.
Odysseus told her how much he hurt so many other people, and in turn
how much he had endured himself. She loved to listen, and she did not fall asleep
until he told it all. First, how he slaughtered
the Cicones, then traveled to the fields 310
of Lotus-Eaters; what the Cyclops did, and how he paid him back for ruthlessly
eating his men. Then how he reached Aeolus, who welcomed him and helped him; but it was not yet his fate to come back home; a storm snatched him and bore him off across the sea, howling frustration. Then, he said, he came
to Laestrygonia, whose people wrecked
his fleet and killed his men. And he described
the cleverness of Circe, and his journey 320
to Hades to consult Tiresias,
and how he saw all his dead friends, and saw his mother, who had loved him as a baby; then how he heard the Sirens’ endless voices, and reached the Wandering Rocks and terrible Charybdis, and how he had been the first
to get away from Scylla. And he told her
of how his crew devoured the Sun God’s cattle;
Zeus roared with smoke and thunder, lightning struck the ship, and all his loyal men were killed. 330
But he survived, and drifted to Ogygia.
He told her how Calypso trapped him there, inside her hollow cave, and wanted him
to be her husband; she took care of him
and promised she could set him free from death and time forever. But she never swayed
his heart. He suffered terribly, for years,
and then he reached Phaeacia, where the people looked up to him as if he were a god,
and sent him in a ship back home again 340
to his dear Ithaca, with gifts of bronze
and gold and piles of clothes. His story ended; sweet sleep released his heart from all his cares.
Athena, bright-eyed goddess, stayed alert, and when she thought Odysseus had finished with taking pleasure in his wife and sleep,
she roused the newborn Dawn from Ocean’s streams to bring the golden light to those on earth.
Odysseus got up and told his wife,
“Wife, we have both endured our share of trouble: 350
you wept here as you longed for my return, while Zeus and other gods were keeping me away from home, although I longed to come. But now we have returned to our own bed, as we both longed to do. You must look after my property inside the house. Meanwhile,
I have to go on raids, to steal replacements
for all the sheep those swaggering suitors killed, and get the other Greeks to give me more,
until I fill my folds. But first I will 360
go to the orchard in the countryside
to see my grieving father. Then at dawn
the news will spread that I have killed the suitors. Your orders, wife—though you are smart enough to need no orders—are, go with your slaves upstairs, sit quietly, and do not talk
to anyone.”
He armed himself and called the herdsmen and Telemachus, and told them to put on armor too—breastplates of bronze. Odysseus led all of them outside. 370
The light was bright across the earth. Athena
hid them with night and brought them out of town.
