ACT · I
Ithaca: the seashore. Thick mist thro’ which Ulysses can scarcely be discerned asleep under a tree. In the foreground, Athena.
ATHENA.
This day, the last of twenty fateful years,
Fulfils the toil and wanderings of the Greeks,
Who sailed with Agamemnon against Troy
To win back Argive Helen; for to-day
Ulysses, last and most despaired of all,
Is safe again in Ithaca: and in truth
Have I, Athena, though the wisest power
And mightiest in Olympus, striven long
In heaven and earth to save him from the wrath
Of great Poseidon; but at length my will
Nears its accomplishment, for on this isle
Of Ithaca was he at break of morn
Landed by good Phæacian mariners,
Who ply the convoys of the dangerous sea;
Even as they promised him, their king and queen,
Alcinous and Aretè, honouring him
With loving gifts, tripods of bronze and iron,
Raiment and bowls of gold: thro’ blackest night,
And the confusion of the baffling waters,
With sail and oar urging their keel they bore him,
Who all the while wrapt in sound slumber lay
Deep likest death; and in that trance they laid him
Beneath yon olive tree, and, by his feet,
The gifts they brought: there may ye see him lying,
And there the gifts: and yet ye scarce may see,
With so thick darkness have I drenched the air,
Lest when he wake, the sight and sweet desire
Of home supplant his cunning, and he rise
Forthwith, and entering suddenly his house
Fall by the treachery of the infatuate lords,
Who prey there on his substance unrestrained,
Sitting in idle suit to woo his wife,
Who weeps his fate unknown; and thus my will
At last were crossed. So hither am I come
Myself to break the sleep I sent, and warn him
Against his foes. And now must I awake him;
But first will doff my helmet, and appear
In mortal semblance, as a delicate youth,
Some prince of the isle: so shall my javelin,
Long robe and shining sandals not betray
My godhead. He to me, disguised and strange,
Will answer nothing truly, nor believe
What truth I tell: ’tis thus I love to prove him,
And catch his ready mind at unawares.
Wake, merchant, wake, awake; whoe’er thou beest,
That sleepest thus so nigh the public road:
Arouse thee, man, and guard thy store: Look to it!
Ay, if some passer-by have not already
Filched from thee a sad loan of bronze or iron.
For though we reverence Zeus, thou giv’st occasion
To make a thief even of an honest man.
ULYSSES (awaking).
Hail, friend, whom first my waking eyes behold
Here in this land: and since thou speakest friendly,
Prove now my friend, and show how best to save
These few things, ay, and save myself, being here
Without thee friendless. And, I prithee, tell me
What land is this? What people dwell herein?
Is it an island, or some mainland shore
That from its fertile plains shelves to the deep?
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Ath. What hast thou asked, man? Couldst thou hither come,
Not shipwrecked, as is plain, and yet not know
Our famous isle? Not so am I deceived.
Thyself tell rather who thou art and whence,
Else learn’st thou nought of me: And speak but truth.
Ill speeds entreaty on a lying tongue.
Ul. Indeed I speak but truth, friend, when I say
I know not where I stand; as thou must grant
At hearing how I came: for from wide Crete
Have I fared over sea with these my goods—
Where to my sons I left as much again,
When thence I fled in fear, because I slew
The noble and swift-footed prince of Crete,
Orsilochus, son of Idomeneus;
Who threatened to despoil me of the wealth
I won at Troy, suffering for many years
The woes of that long war; and all his grudge
Was that I had not served the king his father,
But kept my own retainers—for which thing
He would have robbed me: but I smote him dead.—
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Ath. Ah, king of ready wile, what tale is this
Of Crete and of thy sons, which when I bid thee
Speak truth, trips on thy tongue? Dost thou not know
Thy goddess, great Athena? Was’t not I
Who stirred the hearts of those Phæacian men
To bring thee hither? Wherefore in my ears
Pourest thou fables?
Ul.’Tis thy voice indeed,
Which tho’ my eyes were blinded, well I knew.
Voice of Athena, dearest of the gods!
Now with my soul I grasp thee, now I see,
And worship thee, divine one, and thy knees
Embrace: but in this darkness and disguise
Not even a god had known thee; blame me not.
Ath. Nor for thy false tale to a stranger spoken?
Ul. Since thou who lackest cause hast more deceived.
And I—where were I now without my guile,
Without thy help?
Ath.If I should help thee still,
What wouldst thou ask?
Ul.Answer me.—Say, what shore
Is this I stand on, which is hidden from me
By so thick mist: whether they promised true
Who brought me hither, and it be indeed
Ithaca, or whether, as I rather fear,
Some other land, to which my fated curse
Hales me, or ever I may see my own?
Ath. ’Tis Ithaca.
Ul.I pray thee by my longing
For that dear boon, goddess, deceive me not.
Ath. Thou dost not yet believe; but if I show thee
Thy very Ithaca, wilt thou believe?
Turn now and set thy back against the noise
Of the stilly-moaning surge and look inland.
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Ul. Nought.
Ath.Look!
Ul.I see nought. ’Tis a thicker mist
Than ever in my own cloud-gathering isle
Clung to the frowning cliffs, when the warm south
Beat up the vapours from the seas at morn.
Ath. Look.
Ul.Now it brightens somewhat, or mine eye
Wearies with vainly poring on the dark.
Ath. Look.
Ul.Ay, the vapours lift, the highlands loom,
The air obeys thee: thro’ its thinning veils
The figure of some mountain jags the sky;
And those should be my hills: ’tis Neritos,
’Tis Ithaca indeed.
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Ath.’Tis Ithaca.
Ul. O Blessed Light, that unto all men’s eyes
Shewest the lands and waters: that uprisest
Day after day upon the windy seas
And fertile plains, valleys and lovely hills,
Rivers and shores, and heights and peopled towns;
Now in all Greece is no tongue praiseth thee
As mine, nor heart thanketh; nor any eye
Rejoicest thou as mine.
Ath.Turn now to left.
There is the haven of Phorcys, here the tree,
Thy well-remembered olive; and to right
The rock-roofed cave, where thou so oft hast done
Sweet sacrifice unto the native Nymphs.
Ul. Soil of my dear-desirèd fatherland,
For warrant that I dream not, take this kiss;
My home! And ye, dear sisters of the spring,
I raise my hands to you, whom nevermore
I looked to greet; but now, children of heaven,
As once of old I praise you, and henceforth
Will pay with loving vows, if your fair queen
But grant me life, and comfort in my son.
Ath. Now thou believest.
Ul.See, there be the firs,
Which eastward of my house bar the red dawn
With black, and in their feathery tops at night
Sigh to the moon. Ay, and my house I see
Unchanged. ’Tis Ithaca.
Ath.Wilt thou not go
Now to thy home, and with the sweet surprise
Of thy desired return gladden thy wife,
And greet thy son, a man, whom thou didst leave
In cradle? See, I here will guard thy goods.
Thou wouldst be gone.
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Ul.Goddess, if strong desire
Could ever conquer me, now should I do
A thing for which no man might blame me, nay
Even tho’ he pitied me, if too great longing
Should fool me to my ruin. But in my heart
Are other thoughts. The wife of Agamemnon
At his return welcomed the king with state,
And to his chamber led, but in the bath
Soon as he lay, giving him honied words,
She slew him with a dagger, to the deed
Being prompted by her guilty paramour,
Ægisthus. Ten years numbered since that crime
Double the equal motive of my fear:
Nor can a woman, when her lord, tho’ loved,
Is long away, be trusted, that she should not
In weariness at last forsake her faith.
Wherefore I would not enter in my house,
Nay, nor be known of any, till I hear
Such tidings as bespeak my coming well.
Ath. O brave! thy wary mind has gone before,
The way I would have led it: thou art as ever
Fore-reckoner with chance, to take thy stand
Armed at all points.
Ul.This fear, goddess, I learnt
Of blind Tiresias, when at Circe’s bidding
I sailed for south beyond the coasts of men,
To dark Cimmerian cloud-land, and I saw
The hapless king himself, who with thin voice
Poured forth his wrongs; and many more I saw,
Who suffered pain: the tearful shadows penned
In mansions of austere Persephonè.
From that old prophet’s tongue of warning weird
Still for myself in the end I gathered hope,
And treasured it, but from thy tongue fear ill.
Ath. Yet shouldst thou cherish all the words he spake.
Ul. I ask not now what shall be, but what is.
Beneath yon roof what passes? Thou canst give
Present assurance. Tell me then. My wife—
She is well?
Ath.And beautiful.
Ul.Faithful?
Ath.And brave.
Ul. My son Telemachus?
Ath.He too is well.
Ul. Great are the gods in heaven! I need no more.
Thee, Goddess, will I worship while I live.
Ath. And much thou needest me yet. Hark while I tell.
Three years thy house hath been the hostelry
Of dissolute and shameless men, the lords
And princes of the isles and western shores;
Who woo thy wife, and feasting in thy halls
Make waste of all thy substance day and night.
As men besiege a city, and their host
Encamp about and let none out nor in,
Waiting the day when hunger and sore need,
Sharper than iron and cruder than fire,
Shall bow the starvèd necks beneath the yoke:
So sit they there: and ’mong them is an oath
That none will leave till one be satisfied;
Whoe’er it be that in the end shall take
Thy fair wife, and thy house and goods and lands;
Which false and covetous oath, since all have shared,
Must be the death of all.
Ul.Now with thine aid
Shall they be scattered, were their cursed swarm
Thick as the rooks, which from his new-sown fields
The husbandman a moment stays to scare,
Raising both hands.
Ath.Not so may they escape.
Better thou hadst not now returned, if one
Of all these men avoid his destined death.
Ul. How say’st thou, goddess, shall these men be slain?
Ath. How were Ulysses’ foes then wont to die?
Ul. It may not be.
Ath.Thou wert not used to fear.
Ul. Nay, but returned from exile and hard war,
I would not usher battle in my home.
Ath. Think’st thou of peace? Hadst thou but hence been stayed
So long as shall suffice yon dying moon
To launch her young bark on the western sea,
Then had Penelope no more been thine.
Ul. Thou saidst that she was faithful.
Ath.She withstands
The urgence of the wooers day by day;
But ’gainst herself, to save thy house from loss,
Deeming thee dead indeed, now falls to yield.
Ul. Vengeance upon them! Grant me but thine aid,
And though they count by hundreds they shall die.
Ath. If one escape, his joy will be for thine.
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Ul. All shall be slain, though ’twere a task too heavy
For great Alcides. But my son in this
Should stand with me. May I not see him first?
Shall he not know me, and, in that embrace
I yearn for, knit his willing strength with mine?
Ath. Telemachus hath lately at my bidding
Sailed hence to Lacedæmon, there to inquire
What might be learnt of thee.
Ul.Was this well done,
Or kindly of thee, who couldst have told him all:
To send him far, upon a useless errand,
Out of my sight, the eve of my return?
Ath. I sent him for his safety, there to win
Opinion too of such as knew him not,
And rouse remembrance of thee in the world.
To-day is he returned: I have brought his ship
North of the island, as was need, to shun
The wooers’ galley sent to take him; there
Is he disbarked alone. Thou mayst be first
To meet him.
Ul.Lead me thither.
Ath.Ah! thou forgettest.
If any one but he should see thy face?—
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Ul. Contrive then that I meet with him alone.
Ath. How if my plot were better, so that all
Might see thee, yet none know thee but thy son?
Ul. What manner of disguise is in thy thought?
Ath. Disfigurement, which thou mayst shrink to bear.
Ul. Ay, if my son behold me ill transformed.
Ath. Yet he alone shall see thee as thou art.
Ul. Then tell me, goddess, what thou wouldst: thou knowest
Playing another’s part I am most myself.
Ath. But I will make thee now least like thyself.
Ul. How! shall I stoop then to be less than man?
Ath. Nay, but of men the vilest, though a man.
For that thou mayst be hidden, lo! I will change
Thy outward seeming to the piteous aspect
Of age and beggary. Thy supple skin
I’ll wrinkle on thy joints, thy thick brown hair
Rob from thy head, and dim thy radiant eyes,
And o’er thy shoulders bowed cast sorry rags,
To make thee loathed of men. In such disguise
Mayst thou in safety seek thy herdsman’s hut,
Eumæus: he is faithful, and with kindness
Will serve thee as a stranger in distress,
No less than he will welcome thee revealed.
Accept his food and shelter, and the while
Learn from his lips what friends thou hast to look for,
What foes to reckon with, what wrongs to avenge;
And humour as thou wilt his honest ears,
Awaiting till I thither send thy son.
Ul. When wilt thou send him?
Ath.He will come ere noon.
Ul. Then must he first behold me thus deformed?
Ath. He cannot know thee. Thou betray thyself
No whit; I will be near and make occasion
To shew thee to him, as thou art, alone.
Ul. I have had no hope, goddess, but in thine aid:
Long as that tarried I despaired not then;
How should I, when thou comest, deny thee now?
Ath. Then first unto the cave, therein to stow
These goods; and after by this olive trunk
Sit we awhile together: when thou hast heard
My counsel, I will work this change upon thee,
That one who saw thee now of kingly port,
Hale and well-liking, ay, and bowed the head,
Should, when he next saw, spurn thee with his foot;
Thus must it be. Come, let us to the cave.
