| Homer, Odyssey (English) (XML Header) [genre: poetry; hexameter] [word count] [lemma count] [Hom. Od.]. | ||
| <<Hom. Od. 14.72 | Hom. Od. 14.191 (Greek English(2)) | >>Hom. Od. 14.299 |
14.148"My friend," replied Odysseus,
"you are very positive, and very hard of belief about your
master's coming home again, nevertheless I will not merely say,
but will swear, that he is coming. Do not give me anything for my
news till he has actually come, you may then give me a shirt and
cloak of good wear if you will. I am in great want, but I will not
take anything at all till then, for hateful [ekhthros ]
is the man, as hateful as Hades, who lets his poverty tempt him into
lying. I swear by king Zeus, by the rites of hospitality, and by that
hearth of Odysseus to which I have now come, that all will surely
happen as I have said it will. Odysseus will return in this self same
year; with the end of this moon and the beginning of the next he will
be here to do vengeance on all those who are ill treating his wife
and son."
Laertes , and his son Telemakhos. I am
terribly unhappy too about this same boy of his; he was running up
fast into manhood, and bade fare to be no worse man, face and figure,
than his father, but some one, either god or man, has been unsettling
his mind, so he has gone off to Pylos to try and get news of his
father, and the suitors are lying in wait for him as he is coming
home, in the hope of leaving the house of Arceisius without a name in
Ithaca . But let us say no more about him, and leave him to be taken,
or else to escape if the son of Kronos holds his hand over him to
protect him. And now, old man, tell me your own story; tell me also,
for I want to know, who you are and where you come from. Tell me of
your town and parents, what manner of ship you came in, what crew
brought you to Ithaca , and from what country they professed to come -
for you cannot have come by land."
dêmos of the Cretans for his wealth, prosperity
[olbos ], and the valor of his sons) put me on the same
level with my brothers who had been born in wedlock. When, however,
death took him to the house of Hades, his sons divided his estate and
cast lots for their shares, but to me they gave a holding and little
else; nevertheless, my valor [aretê ] enabled me
to marry into a rich family, for I was not given to bragging, or
shirking on the field of battle. It is all over now; still, if you
look at the straw you can see what the ear was, for I have had
trouble enough and to spare. Ares and Athena made me doughty in war;
when I had picked [krinô ] my men to surprise the
enemy with an ambuscade I never gave death so much as a thought, but
was the first to leap forward and spear all whom I could overtake.
Such was I in battle, but I did not care about farm work, nor the
frugal home life of those who would bring up children. My delight was
in ships, fighting, javelins, and arrows - things that most men
shudder to think of; but one man likes one thing and another another,
and this was what I was most naturally inclined to. Before the
Achaeans went to Troy , nine times was I in command of men and ships
on foreign service, and I amassed much wealth. I had my pick of the
spoil in the first instance, and much more was allotted to me later
on.
Troy , and there was no way out of
it, for the judgment of the dêmos insisted on our doing
so. There we fought for nine whole years, but in the tenth we sacked
the city of Priam and sailed home again as heaven dispersed us. Then
it was that Zeus devised evil against me. I spent but one month
happily with my children, wife, and property, and then I conceived
the idea of making a descent on Egypt , so I fitted out a fine fleet
and manned it. I had nine ships, and the people flocked to fill them.
For six days I and my men made feast, and I found them many victims
both for sacrifice to the gods and for themselves, but on the seventh
day we went on board and set sail from Crete with a fair North wind
behind us though we were going down a river. Nothing went ill with
any of our ships, and we had no sickness on board, but sat where we
were and let the ships go as the wind and steersmen took them. On the
fifth day we reached the river Aigyptos; there I stationed my ships
in the river, bidding my men stay by them and keep guard over them
while I sent out scouts to reconnoiter from every point of
vantage.
14.165To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaios, "Old man, you will neither get paid for bringing good news, nor will Odysseus ever come home; drink you wine in peace, and let us talk about something else. Do not keep on reminding me of all this; it always pains me when any one speaks about my honored master. As for your oath we will let it alone, but I only wish he may come, as do Penelope, his old father
14.191And Odysseus answered, "I will tell you all about it. If there were meat and wine enough, and we could stay here in the hut with nothing to do but to eat and drink while the others go to their work, I could easily talk on for a whole twelve months without ever finishing the story of the sorrows with which it has pleased heaven to visit me.
14.199"I am by birth a Cretan; my father was a well-to-do man, who had many sons born in marriage, whereas I was the son of a slave whom he had purchased for a concubine; nevertheless, my father Castor son of Hylax (whose lineage I claim, and who was held in the highest honor in the
14.233"My house grew apace and I became a great man among the Cretans, but when Zeus counseled that terrible expedition, in which so many perished, the people required me and Idomeneus to lead their ships to
| Homer, Odyssey (English) (XML Header) [genre: poetry; hexameter] [word count] [lemma count] [Hom. Od.]. | ||
| <<Hom. Od. 14.72 | Hom. Od. 14.191 (Greek English(2)) | >>Hom. Od. 14.299 |
