Then the grey-eyed Athene,
the goddess, spoke:
O my father, Kronos begot,
first among the great,
his death at least was just,
so may all perish who err thus;
but my heart is rent
for the prudent Odysseus,
who, exiled from his friends,
is kept too long distressed
in an island, sea swept,
in the sea midst,
a forest island,
haunt of a spirit,
child of Atlas,
crafty of thought,
who knows the sea depth,
who supports the high pillars
which cut sky from earth;
it is his child
who keeps Odysseus
lamenting with broken heart,
ceaseless to tempt him
with soft and tender speech,
that he forget Ithaca;
but Odysseus,
yearning to see but the smoke
drift above his own house,
prefers death;
your heart, is it not touched,
O Olympian?
did not Odysseus please you
when he made sacrifice
before the Grecian ships
in great Troy?
why are you angry, Zeus?
Then Zeus,
keeper of the clouds,
answering her, spoke:
O my child,
what quaint words
have sped your lips,
for how could I forget
the god-like Odysseus,
a spirit surpassing men,
first to make sacrifice
to the deathless
in the sky-space?
but Poseidon
girder of earth,
though yet he spares his life,
nurtures unending hate;
he goads him from place to place
because of the Cyclops
blinded of Odysseus,
Polyphemus, half-god,
greatest of the Cyclops,
whom the nymph Thoosa,
child of Phorcys,
king of the waste sea, begot
when she lay with Poseidon
among the shallow rocks:
but come,
let us plot
to reinstate Odysseus,
and Poseidon must abandon his wrath;
for what can one god accomplish,
striving alone
to defy all the deathless?
Then the grey-eyed Athene,
the goddess, spoke:
O my father, Kronos begot,
first among the great,
if then it seems just
to the highest,
that Odysseus return
to his own house,
let us swiftly send
Hermes, slayer of Argos,
your attendant,
that he state
to the fair-haired nymph,
our irrevocable wish,
that Odysseus,
valiant of heart,
be sent back:
and I will depart to Ithaca,
to incite his son,
to put courage in his heart,
that he call to the market place
the long-haired Greeks
and shut his gates
to the pretendants
who ceaselessly devour his flocks,
sheep and horned oxen
of gentle pace:
that he strive
for his father’s sake
and gain favour
in men’s thoughts,
I will send him to Sparta,
to Pylos’ sandy waste.
She spoke
and about her feet
clasped bright sandals,
gold-wrought, imperishable,
which lift her above sea,
across the land stretch,
wind-like,
like the wind breath.
From the Masque
Hyacinth
1
YOUR anger charms me,
and yet all the time
I think of chaste, slight hands,
veined snow;
snow craters filled
with first wild-flowerlets;
glow of ice-gentian,
whitest violet;
snow craters
and the ice ridge
spilling light;
dawn and the lover
chaste dawn leaves bereft—
I think of these
and snow-cooled Phrygian wine.
Your anger charms me subtly
and I know
that you would take
the still hands
where I’d rest;
you would despoil
for very joy of theft;
list, lady,
I would give you one last hint:
quench your red mouth
in some cold forest lake,
cover your russet locks
with arum leaf,
quench out the colour,
still the fevered glance,
cover your want,
your fire insatiate,
I can not match your fervour,
nay, nor still my ache
with any
but white hands inviolate.