Chapter 17
The tender dawn, flecking the East with red, found King Odysseus’ son Telemachus eager to set out for the city. He bound his strong sandals on his feet, and had a word with his swineherd as he picked up his big well-balanced spear.
“Uncle,” he said, “I am going to town now, as you see, to show myself to my mother, who, I am sure, won’t stop weeping and lamenting till she sees me in the flesh. Here are my instructions for you. Take that unhappy visitor of ours to the city and let him beg there for his meals. He is sure to find charitable souls who will give him a crust and a cup of water. I myself cannot possibly cope with all and sundry: I have too many troubles on my mind. And if the stranger takes this in bad part, so much the worse for him. I admit I believe in plain speaking.”
“My good sir,” Odysseus here put in, “do not think that I am anxious to be left behind. Town is a better place than the country for a man to beg his food in; and I shall find charity there. For I am unsuited by my age to live on a farm at a master’s beck and call. So go your way; and presently this man, who already has your orders, will bring me along, when I have warmed myself at the fire and the day grows hot. For these clothes of mine are terribly threadbare and I am afraid the morning frost might be too much for me. It’s a long walk to the town, as you have told me.”
Telemachus now went off through the farm and fell into a rapid stride as plans for vengeance on the Suitors took shape in his mind. When he reached the great house he took his spear and leant it against one of the tall pillars, then crossed the stone threshold and went in.
The first to see him was the nurse Eurycleia, who was busy spreading rugs over the carved chairs. With tears in her eyes she ran up to meet him, and soon every maid the stalwart Odysseus possessed was pressing round him and showering affectionate kisses on his head and shoulders. And now the wise Penelope came out from her bedroom, lovely as Artemis or golden Aphrodite, and dissolved in tears as she threw her arms round her son’s neck and kissed his forehead and his beautiful eyes. “So you’re back, Telemachus, my darling boy!” she said between her sobs. “And I thought I should never see you again after you had sailed for Pylos to find out about your dear father – so secretly, so much against my wishes. Come, tell me all you saw.”
“Mother,” Telemachus soberly replied, “please do not reduce me to tears or play on my emotions when I have just escaped from such a deadly fate. But go upstairs to your room with your ladies, and when you have washed and changed into fresh clothes pray to all the gods, promising them the most perfect offerings if Zeus ever grants us a day of reckoning. I myself am going to the market-place to fetch an acquaintance who accompanied me on my journey back. I sent him ahead of me to town with my good crew and told Peiraeus to take him home and treat him with all care and respect till I should come.”
Telemachus’ manner froze the words on her lips. She bathed, changed into fresh clothes, and then addressed herself to the heavenly company, promising them a perfect offering when Zeus should grant her house a day of reckoning.
Meanwhile Telemachus strode across the half and sallied out, carrying his spear, and with two nimble hounds at his heels. Athene endowed him with such magic grace that all eyes were turned on him in admiration as he approached. The highborn Suitors gathered round him in a throng, with kindly speeches on their lips and evil brewing, in their hearts. But he shook them off as they crowded in upon him, and found a seat with Mentor, Antiphus, and Haliserthes, whose friendship for his house was rooted in the past. As these were plying him with questions about his voyage, the spearman Peiraeus came up with Theoclymenus, whom he had conducted through the streets to the market-place. Telemachus rose to meet him, not faltering for a moment in courtesy towards his guest, but it was Peiraeus who got the first word in and asked him at once to send some women to his house so that he could have Menelaus’ gifts conveyed to the palace. Telemachus, however, had his own views on this point. “No, Peiraeus,” he said. “None of us can tell what is going to happen. If my lords the Suitors assassinate me in the palace and partition my estate, I should like you or one of my friends here to keep and enjoy the treasures. On the other hand, if I succeed in sending the Suitors to their last account, I am sure you will be as glad to deliver the gifts at my house as I shall be to see them.”
This settled, he led the way home for his travel-worn friend and brought him to the great house, where they threw down their cloaks on settles or chairs, stepped into the polished baths and washed. When the maid-servants had finished bathing them and rubbing them with oil, they gave them tunics and threw warm mantles round their shoulders, and the two left their baths and sat down on chairs. A maid came with water in a fine golden jug and poured it out over a silver basin so that they might rinse their hands. She drew up a wooden table and the staid housekeeper brought some bread and set it by them, together with a choice of dainties, helping them liberally to all she could offer.
Telemachus’ mother sat opposite them by a pillar of the hall, reclining in an easy-chair and spinning the delicate thread on her distaff, while they fell to on the good fare laid before them. It was not till they had eaten and drunk their fill that the prudent Penelope broke the silence. Then she said to her son: “It seems, Telemachus, that I am to retire upstairs and go to my bed – which has been a bed of sorrows stained by my tears ever since Odysseus followed the Atreidae to Ilium – without your having deigned to tell me, before the house is invaded by my noble lovers, just what you may have heard about your father’s return.”
“Very well, mother,” said Telemachus; “you shall hear what I did. We went to Pylos and there visited King Nestor, who received me in his great palace and showed me every hospitality. He might have been my father, and I his long lost son just back from my travels, so kindly did he and his royal sons look after me. But of the stalwart Odysseus, alive or dead, he said he had not heard a single word from anyone on earth. However, he lent me a fine chariot and pair to take me on to the gallant Menelaus. And there I saw Helen of Argos, for whose sake the Argives and the Trojans by god’s will underwent so much. The warrior Menelaus was quick to ask me what had brought me to his pleasant land of Lacedaemon, and when I had explained the whole matter he cried: ‘For shame! So the cowards want to creep into the brave man’s bed? It is just as if a deer had put her little unweaned fawns to sleep in a mighty lion’s den and gone to range the high ridges and the grassy dales for pasture. Back comes the lion to his lair, and hideous carnage falls upon them all. But no worse than Odysseus will deal out to that gang! Once, in the pleasant isle of Lesbos I saw him stand up to Philomeleides in a wrestling-match and bring him down with a terrific throw which delighted all his friends. By Father Zeus, Athene and Apollo, that’s the Odysseus I should like to see these Suitors meet! A swift death and a sorry wedding there would be for all! But to come to your appeal and the questions you asked me – I have no wish to deceive you or to put you off with evasive answers. On the contrary I shall pass on to you without concealment or reserve every word that I heard myself from the infallible lips of the Old Man of the Sea. He told me that he had seen your father in great distress on an island, in the Nymph Calypso’s cavern, where she keeps him prisoner; for without galley or crew to carry him so far across the sea, it is impossible for him to get home.’ That is all I found out from the gallant Menelaus; so I left him when I had finished my enquiries. Heaven sent me a favourable wind and brought me quickly back to my beloved Ithaca.”
Penelope was deeply moved by what Telemachus had told her. And now the noble Theoclymenus joined in, addressing himself respectfully to Odysseus’ queen: “Believe me, madam, Menelaus has no accurate information. You would do better to listen to me, who will read you the signs exactly and truly. I swear by Zeus before all other gods, and by the I board of hospitality, and by the good Odysseus’ hearth, which I have reached, that Odysseus is actually in Ithaca at this moment, at rest or afoot, tracing these crimes to their source and scheming revenge on the Suitors – witness the bird of omen which I saw from our good ship and proclaimed to Telemachus.”
“Sir,” said the wise queen, “may what you say prove true! If it does, you shall learn from my liberality what my friendship means, and the world will envy you your luck.”
While this conversation was going on inside Odysseus’ palace, the Suitors, in their usual free and easy way, were amusing themselves outside with quoits and javelin-throwing on the levelled ground where we have seen them at their sports before. When supper-time arrived and the sheep came in from the countryside all round in the charge of the usual drovers, Medon, who was their chosen master of ceremonies and a partner in their junketings, came up to summon them. “Now that you gentlemen have enjoyed your sports,” he said, “I suggest that you should come indoors, so that we may get supper ready. There’s much to be said for a punctual meal.” The Suitors obediently left their games and flocked into the great house, where they threw down their cloaks on the settles and chairs, and prepared for a banquet by slaughtering some full-grown sheep and goats as well as several fatted hogs and a heifer from the herd.
Meanwhile Odysseus and the loyal swineherd were preparing to come in from the country to the town. It was the excellent herdsman who first proposed a move. “Friend,” he said, “I see you are still determined to go to town to-day, as my master said you should. I myself would rather leave you here to look after the farm. But I respect and fear him. He might scold me presently, and a rebuke from one’s master can be a very nasty thing. So now let us be off. The best part of the day is gone and you may well find it chilly towards evening.”
“Understood and agreed,” said Odysseus. “I recognize sense when I hear it. Let’s make a start; and you must lead the way from beginning to end. But do give me a staff to lean on, if you have one cut and ready, for I have gathered from you that it’s difficult going.”
As he spoke he hung his mean and tattered knapsack over his shoulders by the strap that supported it, and Eumaeus chose him a staff to suit him. Then the pair set out, leaving the dogs and herdsmen to look after the farm. In this way Eumaeus brought his King to the city, hobbling along with his staff and looking like a wretched old beggar-man in the miserable clothes he was wearing.
Beside the rocky path which they followed down, and not far from the city, there was a public watering-place, where a clear spring ran into a basin of stone that Ithacus, Neritus, and Polyctor had made for the townsfolk. A thicket of alders, flourishing on – the moisture, encircled the spot. The cool stream came tumbling down from the rock overhead, and an altar had been erected up above to the Nymphs, where all travellers paid their dues. Here they fell in with one Melantheus son of Dolius, who with two shepherds to help him was driving down some goats for the Suitors’ table, the pick of all his herds. This man no sooner set eyes on them than he burst into a torrent of vulgar abuse, which roused Odysseus to fury.
“Ha!” the fellow cried. “One scapegrace with another in tow – a case of birds of a feather! Tell me, you miserable swineherd, where are you taking this wastrel (a self-indulgent profligate)of yours, this nauseating beggar and killjoy at the feast? Just the sort to lean against all the door-posts and polish them with his shoulders, begging for scraps, but never for work on the pots and pans. Give him to me, to look after the folds, to sweep the pens and carry fodder to the kids, and he might thrive on whey and work his muscles up. But the fellow has taken to bad ways, and work on the farm is the last thing he’s looking for. He’d much rather fill his gluttonous belly by touting round the town for alms. You mark my words, and see what happens if he goes to King Odysseus’ palace. He’ll have a warm reception from the people there – a shower of footstools shied at his head and breaking on his ribs.”
With that he passed by and, as he did so, the fool landed a kick on Odysseus’ hip, failing, however, to thrust him off the path, so firm was his stance. Odysseus was in two minds whether to let out at the fellow and kill him with his staff or to tackle him by the waist and dash his head on the ground. In the end he had the hardihood to control himself. It was the swineherd who faced up to Melantheus and denounced him.
“Nymphs of the Fountain, Daughters of Zeus,” he cried, raising up his hands in earnest prayer, “if ever Odysseus made you a burnt-offering of the thighs of rams or kids wrapped up in their rich fat, grant me my wish that he himself may be brought back to us by the hand of heaven. He’d soon cure you, sir, of all the swaggering ways you have picked up since you took to loafing round the town and leaving bad shepherds to ruin your flocks.”
“Hear how the vicious mongrel snarls!” retorted the goatherd Melantheus. “I’ll pack him off one day from Ithaca in a big black ship and make my fortune by him. As for Odysseus, I wish I could make as sure that Telemachus should fall this very day in the palace to Apollo’s silver bow or at the Suitors’ hands, as I am certain that any chance of his father’s coming home has been disposed of far away from here.”
With this last shot he left them to pursue their leisurely way, while he himself stepped out and was soon at the king’s house, where he went straight in and joined the Suitors, taking a seat opposite Eurymachus, his favourite. The waiters helped him to the roast, and the staid housekeeper brought bread and gave him some to eat.
Meanwhile Odysseus and his trusty swineherd had arrived; but they paused for a moment outside when the notes from a well-made lyre came to their ears. For Phemius was just preparing to give the company a song. “Eumaeus,” said Odysseus, taking the swineherd by the arm, “this must surely be Odysseus’ palace: it would be easy to pick it out at a glance from any number of houses. There are buildings beyond buildings; the courtyard wall with its battlements is a fine piece of work and those folding doors are true defences. No one could afford to turn up his nose at this. I gather too that a large company is there for dinner: one can smell the roast, and someone is playing the lyre. Music and banquets always go together.”
“You have made no mistake,” said Eumaeus; “but you are naturally observant. Let us consider our next move. Either you go into the palace first and approach the Suitors while I stay where I am; or, if you prefer it, you wait here and let me be the first to go in. But in that case don’t be long, or they may see you here outside and take a shot at you or beat you off. I leave it to you to decide.”
“And rightly too,” said the stalwart Odysseus, “for I understand the position. You shall go in first while I stay here, for I am quite used to blows and missiles. I have been toughened by what I have suffered in the field and on the sea. After all that, what matters a bit more? But if there is anything that a man can’t conceal it is a ravening belly – that utter curse, the cause of so much trouble to mankind, which even prompts them to fit out great ships and sail the barren seas, bringing death and destruction to their enemies.”
Stretched on the ground close to where they stood talking, there lay a dog, who now pricked up his ears and raised his head. Argus was his name. Odysseus himself had owned and trained him, though he had sailed for holy Ilium before he could reap the reward of his patience. In years gone by the young huntsmen had often taken him out after wild goats, deer, and hares. But now, in his owner’s absence, he lay abandoned on the heaps of dung from the mules and cattle which lay in profusion at the gate, awaiting removal by Odysseus’ servants as manure for his great estate. There, full of vermin, lay Argus the hound. But directly he became aware of Odysseus’ presence, he wagged his tail and dropped his ears, though he lacked the strength now to come any nearer to his master. Yet Odysseus saw him out of the corner of his eye, and brushed a tear away without showing any sign of emotion to the swineherd, whom he now proceeded to sound:
“Eumaeus, it is very odd to see a hound like this lying in the dung. He’s a beauty, though one cannot really tell whether his looks were matched by his pace, or whether he was just one of those dogs whom their masters feed at table and keep for show.”
“It’s plain enough,” said the swineherd Eumaeus, “that this is a dog whose master has met his death abroad. If you could see him in the heyday of his looks and form, as Odysseus left him when he sailed for Troy, you’d be astonished at his speed and power. No game that he gave chase to could escape him in the forest glades. For beside all else he was a marvel at picking up the scent. But now he’s in a bad way; his master far away from home has come to grief, and the women are too careless to groom him. Servants, when their masters are no longer there to order them about, have little will to do their duties as they should. All-seeing Zeus takes half the good out of a man on the day when he becomes a slave.”
With this Eumaeus left him, entered the great house, and passed straight into the hall where the young gallants were assembled. As for Argus, he had no sooner set eyes on Odysseus after those nineteen years than he succumbed to the black hand of Death.
Prince Telemachus was the first to observe the swineherd’s approach through the palace, and signalled to him at once to join him. Eumaeus looked about him and picked up a stool which stood there for the steward to sit on when carving meat for the Suitors at their banquets in the hall. This he brought and placed at Telemachus’ table, on the far side, and there he sat down. A waiter fetched a portion of meat, which he set before him, and helped him to bread from a basket.
Close on his heels Odysseus entered the buildings. He looked exactly like some ancient and distressful beggar as he limped along with the aid of his staff, and the rags that hung upon him were a filthy sight. He sat down on the wooden threshold just inside the door, with his back against a pillar of cypress smoothed by some carpenter long ago and deftly trued to the line. Telemachus beckoned the swineherd to his side, and selecting a whole loaf from the dainty basket of bread and as much meat as his cupped hands would hold, he said:
“Take this food and give it to the newcomer. And tell him to go the rounds himself and beg from each of the company in turn. For modesty sits ill upon a needy man.”
Thus instructed, the swineherd went up to Odysseus and carefully delivered his message. “Stranger,” he said, “Telemachus makes you this gift and tells you to go the rounds and beg from each of the company in turn. For he points out that modesty sits ill upon a beggar-man.”
Odysseus promptly answered with a prayer: “I pray to you, Lord Zeus, to make Telemachus a happy man and grant him all the wishes of his heart.” He then stretched out both hands to take the food, put it straight down in front of his feet on his shabby wallet and continued to eat as long as the minstrel’s song was heard in the hall. He had finished his supper just as the excellent bard was coming to an end, and now, as the company began to fill the hall with uproar, Athene appeared before Odysseus and urged him to go round collecting scraps from the Suitors and learning to distinguish the good from the bad, though this did not mean that in the end she was to save a single one from destruction. So Odysseus set out and began to beg from them one after the other, working from left to right and stretching out his hand to each like one who had been a beggar all his life. They gave him food out of pity, and surprised at his appearance asked each other who he was and where he had come from. This gave the goatherd Melantheus the chance to put in his word: “My lords and courtiers of our noble queen, I can tell you something of this stranger, for I’ve seen him before, when the swineherd was bringing him down here. But I really don’t know who he is and where he hails from.”
At once Antinous rounded on Eumaeus. “How typical of our swineherd!” he cried. “May I ask, sir, why you brought this fellow to town? Haven’t we tramps in plenty to pester us with their wants and pollute our dinners? Are you so dissatisfied with the numbers collected here to eat your master’s food that you must ask this extra guest to join the gathering?”
“Antinous,” the swineherd answered him, “you may be nobly born but there’s nothing handsome in your speech. Who would take it on himself to press hospitality on a wandering stranger, unless he were some worker for the public good, a prophet, a physician, a shipwright, or even a minstrel whose songs might give pleasure? For all the world over such guests as those are welcomed, whereas nobody would call a beggar in to eat him out of house and home. But of all the Suitors you are always the hardest on Odysseus’ servants, and of all of them hardest on me. However, I care little for that as long as Penelope my wise mistress and the noble Prince Telemachus are alive in the palace.”
“Enough now!” Telemachus prudently interposed. “I won’t have you bandying words with Antinous, who likes nothing better than to rouse a man’s passion with his evil tongue and egg the others on to do the same.” Then he turned on Antinous and spoke his mind to him: “Antinous, I appreciate your fatherly concern on my behalf and your anxiety that I should order the stranger out of the house. God forbid such a thing! Give him something yourself. I don’t grudge it you; indeed I wish you would. Have no fear, either, of offending my mother or any of the royal servants by your charity. But there’s no such idea in your head. You’d far sooner eat the food yourself than give it away!”
“Telemachus, this is nonsense,” said Antinous in his turn. “You let your tongue and temper run away with you. If all the Suitors were to give him as much as I should like to, the place would be rid of him for three months.”
As he spoke, he seized the stool that supported his dainty feet as he dined, and brought it into view from under the table where it lay. But all the rest made their contributions and soon filled the wallet with bread and meat. It looked as if Odysseus might now have regained his seat on the threshold without having to pay for his experiment with the Suitors. But on the way he paused beside Antinous and addressed him directly.
“Your alms, kind sir!” he said. “I am sure you are not the meanest of these lords. Indeed, I take you for the noblest here, since you look every inch a king. Good reason why you should give me a bigger dole than the rest – and I’d sing your praises the wide world over. Time was when I too was one of the lucky ones with a rich house to live in, and I have often given alms to such a vagabond as myself, no matter who he was or what he came for. Hundreds of servants I had and plenty of all that one needs to live in luxury and take one’s place as a wealthy man. But Zeus – for some good reason of his own, no doubt – stripped me of all I had. To wreck my life, he put it into my head to sail for Egypt with a set of roving buccaneers. And what a way it was! But at last I brought my curved ships to, in the Nile. There I ordered my good men to stay by the ships on guard, while I sent out some scouts to reconnoitre from the heights. But these ran amuck and in a trice, carried away by their own violence, they had plundered some of the fine Egyptian farms, borne off the women and children and killed the men. The hue and cry soon reached the city, and the townsfolk, roused by the alarm, turned out at dawn. The whole plain was filled with infantry and chariots and the glint of arms. Zeus the Thunderer struck abject panic into my party. Not a man had the spirit to stand and face the enemy, for we were threatened on all sides. They ended by cutting down a large part of my force and carrying off the survivors to work for them as slaves. But they let me be taken off to Cyprus by an ally of theirs whom they fell in with, a man called Dmetor son of Iasus, the undisputed king of the island. And it’s from Cyprus that I have now made my painful way to this spot.”
“What god,” exclaimed Antinous, “has inflicted this plague on us to spoil our dinner? Stand out there in the middle and keep clear of my table, or I’ll give you the sort of Egypt and Cyprus you won’t relish! The audacity and impudence of the rogue! He has only to pester each man in turn, and they give him food without a thought. For they all have plenty before them, and nobody shows restraint or consideration when it comes to being generous with other people’s goods.”
Odysseus prudently drew back and said: “Ah, I was wrong in thinking that your brains might match your looks! You wouldn’t give so much as a pinch of salt from your larder to a retainer of your own, you that sit here at another man’s table and can’t bring yourself to take a bit of his bread and give it to me, though there’s plenty there.”
This roused Antinous to real fury. He gave him a black look and did not mince his words. “After that,” he said, “I swear you shall not get away from here in triumph. Your insolence has settled it.” And picking up a stool he let fly and struck Odysseus full on the right shoulder where it joins the back. But Odysseus stood firm as a rock and Antinous’ missile did not even make him totter. He just shook his head in silence, filled with revengeful thoughts. And so he went back to the threshold, where he sat down, dropped his bulging wallet and addressed the company:
“Listen to me, you lords that are wooing our illustrious queen! Let me unburden my heart. A knock or two, when a man is fighting for his own property, his oxen or white sheep, is nothing to cry about or be ashamed of. But this blow from Antinous was brought on me by my wretched belly, that cursed thing men have to thank for so much trouble. And if there are any gods and powers that can avenge a beggar, I hope Antinous will be dead before his wedding day.”
“Sit and eat in peace, sir,” Antinous retorted, “or take yourself elsewhere. Otherwise your freedom of speech will end in our young men dragging you out of the place by the leg or arm and flaying you from head to foot.”
But the rest of them felt the utmost indignation, and the general sense was expressed by one young gallant who said: “Antinous, you did wrong to strike the wretched vagabond. You’re a doomed man if he turns out to be some god from heaven. And the gods do disguise themselves as strangers from abroad, and wander round our towns in every kind of shape to see whether people are behaving themselves or setting out of hand.”
That was the Suitors’ view, but Antinous took no notice of what they said, and Telemachus, though he felt the blow like a stab at his own heart, kept the tears back from his eyes, shook his head in silence and nursed vindictive thoughts. But when the wise queen Penelope in due course heard of Antinous’ assault on the stranger in her palace she cried, in her maids’ hearing: “Archer Apollo, strike him as he struck!” And the housekeeper Eurynome chimed in: “Ah, if we could only have our wishes, there’s not a man among them who’d see to-morrow’s dawn.”
“Good mother,” Penelope went on, “I hate the whole gang for the wicked plots they hatch, but Antinous is the blackest scoundrel of them all. An unfortunate tramp, constrained by poverty, came wandering through the house and begged for their alms. All the rest were generous and filled his wallet up; but Antinous threw a stool at his back and hit him on the right shoulder.”
While Penelope was discussing the affair with her maids as she sat in her own apartment, the noble Odysseus was eating his supper. And now Penelope summoned her trusty herdsman to her side and said: “Go, my good Eumaeus, and ask the stranger to come here. I should like to greet him and enquire whether he happens to have heard of my gallant husband or to have seen him with his own eyes. He seems to have travelled far.”
“My Queen,” replied Eumaeus, “I only wish the young lords would keep quiet. With the tales he can tell, the man would fascinate you. I must explain that as I was the first person he came across after running away from his ship I had him with me for three nights and kept him all three days in my cottage; but even so he couldn’t finish the story of his troubled life. To have that man by me at home with his enchanting tales was like sitting with one’s eyes fixed on some bard inspired to melt one’s heart with song, so that nothing matters but to listen as long as he will sing.”
“He claims acquaintance with Odysseus through his family and says he is a native of Crete, where the Minoans live. Starting from there, like a rolling stone, and after many painful adventures, he has at last come to us; and he is positive that he has heard of Odysseus, that he’s near at hand and alive, in the rich Thesprotian country, and bringing home a fortune.”
“Go now and call him,” said the wise queen, “so that I can hear his story from himself; and let these others sit at our gates or in the house and enjoy themselves. They have nothing to worry them, for their own wealth, their bread and mellow wine, lies untouched at home with no-one but their servants to support, while they spend their whole time in and out of our place, slaughtering our oxen, our sheep, and our fatted gods, feasting themselves and drinking our sparkling wine, with never a thought for all the riches that are wasted. The truth is that there is nobody like Odysseus in charge to purge the house of this disease. Ah, if Odysseus could only come back to his own country! He and his son would soon pay them out for their crimes.”
As she finished, Telemachus gave a loud sneeze, which echoed round the house in the most alarming fashion. Penelope laughed and turned to Eumaeus. “Do go,” she said eagerly, “and bring this stranger here to me. Didn’t you notice that my son sneezed a blessing on all I had said? That means death, once for all, to every one of the Suitors: not a man can escape his doom. One more point, and don’t forget it. If, when I hear him tell his own story, I am satisfied with its truth, I will fit him out properly in a new cloak and tunic.”
With these instructions the swineherd left her, and approaching the stranger duly delivered his message. “My friend,” he said, “the wise Penelope, Telemachus’ mother, wishes to see you. Sorrow-stricken as she is, she is anxious to ask you some questions about her husband. If she is satisfied that all you say is true, she will fit you out with a cloak and tunic, which you need more than anything else; and then you can feed yourself by begging your bread in the town, where charitable folk will give you alms.”
“Eumaeus,” answered the stalwart Odysseus, “I should be glad to give Icarius’ daughter, the wise Penelope, all the real news I have. For I am well-informed about Odysseus, whose misfortunes I have shared. But I am frightened of this crowd of mischievous young gallants, whose insolence and violent acts cry out to heaven. Just now when that fellow struck me a painful blow as I was walking harmlessly through the place, neither Telemachus nor anyone else lifted a finger to save me. So urge Penelope to wait indoors and restrain her impatience till sunset, when she can question me about her husband and the date of his return, and can give me a seat nearer in by the fire. For my clothes are mere rags, as you know well, since it was you whom I first approached.”
When he had heard what the other had to say, the swineherd went off and was accosted by Penelope as soon as he crossed the threshold of her room. “Eumaeus!” she exclaimed. “You haven’t brought him? What does the man mean by this? Is he afraid of someone in particular, or is he just ashamed to linger in the house? Modesty such as that does not make successful beggars.”
“He wants to save himself,” said Eumaeus, “from the clutches of a set of scoundrels; and there he’s right. Anyone else would feel the same. He begs you to wait till sundown, a time which should suit you too, my lady, better, as it will allow you to converse with the man in private.”
“The stranger is no fool,” Penelope answered: “he seems to have a good idea of what might happen. For in the whole world I don’t believe one could find another set of reprobates* and miscreants like these.”
His message delivered, the worthy swineherd left her and rejoined the gathering, where he at once sought out Telemachus and whispered urgently in his ear so that the others could not hear him: “Dear master, I am leaving presently to look after the pigs and farm, your livelihood and mine. It’s for you to see to everything here. Look to your own safety first and take care that you don’t come to grief. For plenty of the young lords are none too well disposed. Perdition take them all before they do us in!”
“Very well, uncle,” said Telemachus. “Go when you’ve had your supper, and in the morning come back with some good beasts for slaughter. Leave things here to Providence and me.”
The swineherd sat down again on the polished settle and when he had satisfied his appetite and thirst, went off to rejoin his pigs, leaving the courts and hall full of banqueters dancing and singing to their hearts’ content, by the failing light of day.
