Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far journeys
after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel
Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of,
many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea
struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions
Even so he could not save his companions, hard though he strove to;
they were destroyed by their own wild recklessness,
fools, who devoured the oxen of Helios, the Sun God
and he took away the day of their homecoming.
From some point here, goddess, daughter of Zeus, speak and begin our story.
Then all the others, as many as fled sheer destruction,
were at home now, having escaped the sea and the fighting
This one alone, longing for his wife and his homecoming,
was detained by the queenly nymph Kalypso, bright among goddesses,
in her hollowed caverns, desiring that he should be her husband.
But when in the circling of the years that very year came
in which the gods had spun for him his time of homecoming to Ithaka,
not even then was he free of his trials nor among his own people.
But all the gods pitied him
except Poseidon; he remained relentlessly angry
with godlike Odysseus, until his return to his own country.
But Poseidon was gone now to visit the far Aithiopians
Aithiopians, most distant of men, who live divided
some at the setting of Hyperion, some at his rising,
to receive a hecatomb of bulls and rams.
There he sat at the feast and took his pleasure.
Meanwhile the other Olympian gods were gathered together in the halls of Zeus
First among them to speak was the father of gods and mortals,
for he was thinking in his heart of stately Aigisthos,
whom Orestes, Agamemnon's far-famed son, had murdered.
Remembering him he spoke now before the immortals:
"Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame upon us gods
for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather
who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given
as now lately, beyond what was given Aigisthos
married the wife of Atreus' son, and murdered him on his homecoming
though he knew it was sheer destruction
for we ourselves had told him, sending Hermes
the mighty watcher, Argeïphontes,
not to kill the man, nor court his lady for marriage;
for vengeance would come on him from Orestes, son of Atreides
whenever he came of age and longed for his own country.
So Hermes told him,
but for all his kind intention he could not persuade the mind of Aigisthos.
And how he has paid for everything."
Then in turn the goddess gray-eyed Athene answered him:
"Son of Kronos, our father, O lordliest of the mighty,
Aigisthos indeed has been struck down in a death well merited.
Let any other man who does thus perish as he did.
But the heart in me is torn for the sake of wise Odysseus,
unhappy man, who still, far from his friends, is suffering griefs
on the sea-washed island, the navel of all the waters,
a wooded island, and there a goddess has made her dwelling place;
she is the daughter of malignant Atlas,
who has discovered all the depths of the sea
and himself sustains the towering columns which bracket earth and sky and hold them together.
This is his daughter; she detains the grieving, unhappy man
and ever with soft and flattering words she works
to charm him to forget Ithaka;
and yet Odysseus, straining to get sight of the very smoke from his own country
longs to die.
But you, Olympian, the heart in you is heedless of him.
Did not Odysseus do you grace by the ships of the Argives,
making sacrifice in wide Troy?
Why, Zeus, are you now so harsh with him?"
Then in turn Zeus who gathers the clouds made answer:
"My child, what sort of word escaped your teeth's barrier?
How could I forget Odysseus the godlike,
he who is beyond all other men in mind,
and who beyond others has given sacrifice to the gods, who hold wide heaven?
It is the Earth Encircler Poseidon who, ever relentless,
nurses a grudge because of the Cyclops,
whose eye he blinded;
for Polyphemos like a god, whose power is greatest over all the Cyclopes.
Thoösa, a nymph, was his mother,
and she was the daughter of Phorkys, lord of the barren salt water.
She in the hollows of the caves had lain with Poseidon.
For his sake Poseidon, shaker of the earth,
although he does not kill Odysseus, yet drives him back from the land of his fathers.
But come, let all of us who are here work out his homecoming
and see to it that he returns.
Poseidon shall put away his anger
for all alone and against the will of the other immortal gods united
he can accomplished nothing."
Then in turn the goddess gray-eyed Athene answered him:
"Son of Kronos, our father, O lordliest of the mighty,
if in truth this is pleasing to the blessed immortals
that Odysseus of the many designs shall return home,
then let us dispatch Hermes, the guide, the slayer of Argos,
to the island of Ogygia, so that with all speed
he may announce to the lovely-haired nymph our absolute purpose,
the homecoming of enduring Odysseus, that he shall come back.
But I shall make my way to Ithaka
so that I may stir up his son a little, and put some confidence in him
to summon into assembly the flowing-haired Achaians
and make a statement to all the suitors
who now and forever slaughter his crowding sheep and lumbering horn-curved cattle;
and I will convey him into Sparta and to sandy Pylos
to ask after his dear father's homecoming,
if he can hear something,
and so that among people he may win a good reputation."
Speaking so she bound upon her feet the sandals,
golden and immortal, that carried her over the water
and over the dry boundless earth, abreast of the wind's blast.
Then she caught up a powerful spear, edged with sharp bronze,
heavy, huge, thick, wherewith she beats down the batallions of fighting men,
against whom she of the mighty father is angered,
and descended in a flash of speed from the peaks of Olympos,
and lighted in the land of Ithaka, at the doors of Odysseus
at the threshold of the court, and in her hand was the bronze spear.
She was disguised as a friend, leader of the Taphians, Mentes
There she found the haughty suitors.  They at the moment
in front of the doors were amusing their spirits with draughts games,
sitting about on skins of cattle whom they had slaughtered themselves,
and about them, of their heralds and hard working henchmen,
some at the mixing bowls were combining wine and water
while others again with porous sponges were wiping the tables and setting them out
and others cutting meat in quantities.
Now far the first to see Athene was godlike Telemachos,
as he sat among the suitors, his heart deep grieving within him,
imagining in his mind his great father, how he might come back
and all throughout the house might cause the suitors to scatter
and hold his rightful place adn be lord of his own possessions.
With such thoughts, sitting among the suitors, he saw Athene
and went straight to the forecourt, the heart within him scandalized
that a guest should still be standing at the doors
He stood beside her and took her by the right hand, and relieved her of her bronze spear,
and spoke to her and addressed her in winged words:
"Welcome, stranger.  You shall be entertained as a guest among us.
Afterward, when you have tasted dinner, you shall tell us what your need is."
So speaking he led the way, and Pallas Athene followed him.
Now , when the two of them were inside the lofty dwelling,
he took the spear he carried and set it against a tall column
in a rack of spears, of polished wood, where indeed there were other
spears of patient-hearted Odysseus standing in numbers,
and he led her and seated her in a chair, with a cloth to sit on,
the chair splendid and elaborate.  For her feet there was a footstool.
For himself, he drew a painted bench next to her
apart from the others, the suitors,
for fear the guest, made uneasy by the uproar, might lose his appetite
there among overbearing people,
and so he might also ask him about his absent father.
A maidservant brought water for them and poured it
from a splendid and golden pitcher, holding it above a silver basin for them to wash,
and she pulled a polished table before them.
A grave housekeeper brought in the bread and served it to them,
adding many good things to it, generous with her provisions,
while a carver lifted platters of all kinds of meat and set them in front of them
and placed beside them the golden goblets,
and a herald, going back and forth, poured the wine for them.
Then the haughty suitors came in,
and all of them straightaway
took their places in order on chairs and along the benches,
and the heralds poured water over their hands for them to wash with,
and the serving maids brought them bread heaped up in the baskets,
and the young men filled the mixing bowls with wine for their drinking
They put their hands to the good things that lay ready for them.
But when they had put away their desire for eating and drinking,
the suitors found their attention turned to other matters,
the song and the dance; for these things come at the end of the feasting.
A herald put the beautifully wrought lyre in the hands
of Phemios, who sang for the suitors, because they made him.
He played his lyre and struck up a fine song.
Meanwhile Telemachos talked to Athene of the gray eyes,
leaning his head close to hers, so that none of the others might hear him:
"Dear stranger, would you be scandalized at what I say to you?
This is all they think of, the lyre and the singing,
Easy for them, since without penalty they eat up the substance
of a man whose white bones lie out in the rain and fester
somewhere on the mainland, or roll in the wash of the breakers
If they were ever to see him coming back to Ithaka
all the prayer of them all would be to be lighter on their feet
instead of to be richer men for gold and clothing.
As it is, he has died by an evil fate
and there is no comfort left for us
not even though some one among mortals tells us he will come back.
His day of homecoming has perished.
But come now, tell me this and give me an accurate answer.
What man are you, and whence? Where is your city? Your parents?
What kind of ship did you come here on?
And how did the sailors bring you to Ithaka?
What men do they claim that they are?
For I do not think you could have traveled on foot to this country.
And tell me this too, tell me truly, so that I may know it.
Are you here for the first time, or are you a friend of my father's from abroad?
Since many other men too used to come and visit
in the days when he used to go about among people."
εἶσιν μὲν οὖν πολλοὶ τρόποι διγήματα διηγήσασθαι
πολλοὶ καὶ τρόποι ποιήσεις ἀναγνῶναι
ἰδοῦ δέ τοι ἄλλον ἔχεις, τὸν ἐμὸν.
ἐλπίζω σε ἀπολελαυκέναι.
χάριν μὲν οἶδα τῆς σῆς ἀκοῆς
γρᾶψον δὲ ὅτι ἄν σοι δοκῇ
