The Odyssey

by Homer

Meanwhile the wearied king the bath ascends;
With faithful cares Eurynome attends,
O’er every limb a shower of fragrance sheds;
Then, dress’d in pomp, magnificent he treads.
The warrior-goddess gives his frame to shine
With majesty enlarged, and grace divine.
Back from his brows in wavy ringlets fly
His thick large locks of hyacinthine dye.
As by some artist to whom Vulcan gives
His heavenly skill, a breathing image lives;
By Pallas taught, he frames the wondrous mould,
And the pale silver glows with fusile gold:
So Pallas his heroic form improves
With bloom divine, and like a god he moves!
More high he treads, and issuing forth in state,
Radiant before his gazing consort sate.
“And, O my queen! (he cries) what power above
Has steel’d that heart, averse to spousal love?
Canst thou, Penelope, when heaven restores
Thy lost Ulysses to his native shores,
Canst thou, O cruel! unconcern’d survey
Thy lost Ulysses, on this signal day?
Haste, Euryclea, and despatchful spread
For me, and me alone, the imperial bed,
My weary nature craves the balm of rest.
But Heaven with adamant has arm’d her breast.”

“Ah no! (she cries) a tender heart I bear,
A foe to pride: no adamant is there;
And now, e’en now it melts! for sure I see
Once more Ulysses my beloved in thee!
Fix’d in my soul, as when he sailed to Troy,
His image dwells: then haste the bed of joy,
Haste, from the bridal bower the bed translate,
Fram’d by his hand, and be it dress’d in state!”

Thus speaks the queen, still dubious, with disguise
Touch’d at her words, the king with warmth replies
“Alas for this! what mortal strength can move
The enormous burden, who but Heaven above?
It mocks the weak attempts of human hands!
But the whole earth must move if Heaven commands
Then hear sure evidence, while we display
Words seal’d with sacred truth, and truth obey:
This hand the wonder framed; an olive spread
Full in the court its ever verdant head.
Vast as some mighty column’s bulk, on high
The huge trunk rose, and heaved into the sky;
Around the tree I raised a nuptial bower,
And roof’d defensive of the storm and shower;
The spacious valve, with art inwrought conjoins;
And the fair dome with polished marble shines.
I lopp’d the branchy head: aloft in twain
Sever’d the bole, and smoothed the shining grain;
Then posts, capacious of the frame, I raise,
And bore it, regular, from space to space:
Athwart the frame, at equal distance lie
Thongs of tough hides, that boast a purple dye;
Then polishing the whole, the finished mould
With silver shone, with elephant, and gold.
But if o’erturn’d by rude, ungovern’d hands,
Or still inviolate the olive stands,
’Tis thine, O queen, to say, and now impart,
If fears remain, or doubts distract thy heart.”

While yet he speaks, her powers of life decay;
She sickens, trembles, falls, and faints away.
At length recovering, to his arms she flew,
And strain’d him close, as to his breast she grew.
The tears pour’d down amain, and “O (she cries)
Let not against thy spouse thine anger rise!
O versed in every turn of human art,
Forgive the weakness of a woman’s heart!
The righteous powers, that mortal lot dispose,
Decree us to sustain a length of woes.
And from the flower of life the bliss deny
To bloom together, fade away, and die.
O let me, let me not thine anger move,
That I forbore, thus, thus to speak my love:
Thus in fond kisses, while the transport warms
Pour out my soul and die within thine arms!
I dreaded fraud! Men, faithless men, betray
Our easy faith, and make our sex their prey:
Against the fondness of my heart I strove:
’Twas caution, O my lord! not want of love.
Like me had Helen fear’d, with wanton charms
Ere the fair mischief set two worlds in arms;
Ere Greece rose dreadful in the avenging day;
Thus had she fear’d, she had not gone astray.
But Heaven, averse to Greece, in wrath decreed
That she should wander, and that Greece should bleed:
Blind to the ills that from injustice flow,
She colour’d all our wretched lives with woe.
But why these sorrows when my lord arrives?
I yield, I yield! my own Ulysses lives!
The secrets of the bridal bed are known
To thee, to me, to Actoris alone
(My father’s present in the spousal hour,
The sole attendant on our genial bower).
Since what no eye hath seen thy tongue reveal’d,
Hard and distrustful as I am, I yield.”

Touch’d to the soul, the king with rapture hears,
Hangs round her neck, and speaks his joy in tears.
As to the shipwreck’d mariner, the shores
Delightful rise, when angry Neptune roars:
Then, when the surge in thunder mounts the sky,
And gulf’d in crowds at once the sailors die;
If one, more happy, while the tempest raves,
Outlives the tumult of conflicting waves,
All pale, with ooze deform’d, he views the strand,
And plunging forth with transport grasps the land:
The ravish’d queen with equal rapture glows,
Clasps her loved lord, and to his bosom grows.
Nor had they ended till the morning ray,
But Pallas backward held the rising day,
The wheels of night retarding, to detain
The gay Aurora in the wavy main;
Whose flaming steeds, emerging through the night,
Beam o’er the eastern hills with streaming light.

At length Ulysses with a sigh replies:
“Yet Fate, yet cruel Fate repose denies;
A labour long, and hard, remains behind;
By heaven above, by hell beneath enjoin’d:
For to Tiresias through the eternal gates
Of hell I trode, to learn my future fates.
But end we here—the night demands repose,
Be deck’d the couch! and peace awhile, my woes!”

To whom the queen: “Thy word we shall obey,
And deck the couch; far hence be woes away:
Since the just gods, who tread the starry plains,
Restore thee safe, since my Ulysses reigns.
But what those perils heaven decrees, impart;
Knowledge may grieve, but fear distracts the heart.”

To this the king: “Ah, why must I disclose
A dreadful story of approaching woes?
Why in this hour of transport wound thy ears,
When thou must learn what I must speak with tears?
Heaven, by the Theban ghost, thy spouse decrees,
Torn from thy arms, to sail a length of seas;
From realm to realm, a nation to explore
Who ne’er knew salt, or heard the billows roar,
Nor saw gay vessel storm the surgy plain,
A painted wonder, flying on the main:
An oar my hand must bear; a shepherd eyes
The unknown instrument with strange surprise,
And calls a corn-van; this upon the plain
I fix, and hail the monarch of the main;
Then bathe his altars with the mingled gore
Of victims vow’d, a ram, a bull, a boar;
Thence swift re-sailing to my native shores,
Due victims slay to all the ethereal powers.
Then Heaven decrees, in peace to end my days
And steal myself from life by slow decays!
Unknown to pain, in age resign my breath,
When late stern Neptune points the shaft of death;
To the dark grave retiring as to rest;
My people blessing, by my people bless’d.
Such future scenes the all-righteous powers display
By their dread seer, and such my future day.”

To whom thus firm of soul: “If ripe for death,
And full of days, thou gently yield thy breath;
While Heaven a kind release from ills foreshows,
Triumph, thou happy victor of thy woes?”

But Euryclea, with dispatchful care,
And sage Eurynome, the couch prepare;
Instant they bid the blazing torch display
Around the dome and artificial day;
Then to repose her steps the matron bends,
And to the queen Eurynome descends;
A torch she bears, to light with guiding fires
The royal pair; she guides them, and retires
The instant his fair spouse Ulysses led
To the chaste love-rites of the nuptial bed.