Book III · Ῥαψωδία γ

bulls black as anything, posted up for Poseidon, the dark-haired one who literally moves the ground.

they hauled down and folded up snug, dropped anchor, then hopped out themselves:

on your dad, where the earth tucked him away and what fate ran him clean down.

And big-brain Telemachus came back at her with this:

"Telemachus, some of it you'll cook up all on your own, right there in your head,

And they pulled up to the Pylian men's gathering, the rows of seats lined up,

First up Peisistratus, son of Nestor, walked over nice and close,

into a golden cup: then lifting it for a toast he spoke up

then pass this one along too, the cup of honey-sweet wine,

So saying, he pressed the cup of sweet wine right into her hands:

the ones praying right here, on landing this whole job we've got going.

seeing as we pulled up here on a fast black ship, locked onto our course."

they portioned out the shares and absolutely tucked into the glorious feast.

Strangers, who even are you? Where'd you sail in from over the wet roads?

gone bold: because Athena herself dropped that bold straight into his chest,

We've rolled in from Ithaca, from under Mount Neion:

Because everyone else who went to war against the Trojans,

or out on the open sea among the rolling waves of Amphitrite.

And don't go soft on me out of pity or trying to spare my feelings,

think back on it for me now, and hit me with the unvarnished truth."

drifting after loot, wherever Achilles led the charge out front,

and there my own dear son, both strong and totally without fear,

would you get through all the pain the godlike Achaeans soaked up there:

with that man, because Odysseus, that absolute legend, kept winning

So the whole time me and Odysseus, that legend, were out there,

and boarded our ships, and a god scattered the Achaeans every which way,

the one who set a whole feud running between the two sons of Atreus.

There Menelaus was telling all the Achaeans

the absolute fool, no clue she was never ever gonna be talked round:

That night we slept turning hard, ugly thoughts over in our heads

with Atreus's son Agamemnon, the shepherd of the people:

the cruel one, who stirred up an evil quarrel a second time over.

I bolted, because I clocked a god was plotting bad stuff for us.

past the island of Psyria, keeping it on our left,

And a clear, whistling wind got up to blow: and the ships just ran,

of Diomedes son of Tydeus, that horse-breaker,

But everything I've picked up just sitting here in my own halls,

And Idomeneus brought all his crew safe back to Crete,

That's how clutch it is to leave a son behind when a man

And big-brain Telemachus came back at him with this:

to land the payback on the suitors for their painful, line-crossing nerve,

"My friend, now that you've gone and brought all this up and put it out there,

Because who even knows if he might one day pull up and make them pay

honestly I've never once seen the gods love anybody this openly,

"Old sir, no way I reckon that's ever coming true:

Easy enough for a god, when it wants to, to save a man from miles away.

But honestly, death, the great equaliser, not even the gods, none of them,

there's no real homecoming for that man anymore, no, the deathless ones

so to me he honestly reads straight-up immortal whenever I take him in.

Was Menelaus not in Achaean Argos, but off somewhere else,

if Atreus's son, ginger-haired Menelaus, rolling back from Troy,

woman of Achaea would've shed one tear for him: he pulled off a monstrous job.

that goddess of a woman Klytaimnestra: her head was screwed on right:

and dumped him there to turn into carrion and prey for the birds,

Because we were sailing back together, coming home from Troy,

the man holding the steering oar of the running ship in his hands,

But once that guy too, heading out over the wine-dark sea

There he split the fleet and shoved some of them onto Crete,

towards Phaistos, and one tiny rock holds the whole big wave off.

So that's how he, scooping up loads of goods and gold,

but in the eighth, doom rolled straight in on him: godlike Orestes

and that very same day along rolled Menelaus, good at the battle-cry,

all your property and eat it down, and your whole trip turns out a total waste.

into a sea that massive, where not even the birds

out to glorious Lacedaemon, where ginger-haired Menelaus is.

"Old sir, honestly, you've laid all this out exactly right, on point:

to sit forever at the gods' feast, no, time to head off."

and they tossed the tongues into the fire and stood up to pour one out.

"May Zeus and the rest of the deathless gods straight up forbid it,

But me, I've got cloaks and gorgeous rugs to spare for daysss.

And the goddess Athena, eyes glinting and locked in, hit him back again:

to hype up my crew and give them the whole rundown.

right now: and at dawn I'm off to the big-hearted Cauconians,

So saying, off she went, Athena with the grey-eye stare,

not if the gods are escorting you like this while you're still this young.

for me and my children and my respectable wife:

And Nestor, the Gerenian horseman, led the whole crew on,

of sweet-sipping wine, the kind the housekeeper

they all went off to crash, each one to his own house,

who was still the unmarried one of the sons left in the halls.

and stepped on out and parked himself on the polished stones

so Nestor, the Gerenian, was the one posted there now, the guardian of the Achaeans,

and they walked godlike Telemachus over and sat him down beside them.

But come on, one of you head to the plain for a cow, so it gets here

right over here, so he can gild the cow's horns up with gold.

up from the plain, and from the fast trim ship came rolling in

showing up for the offering. And Nestor, the old horseman,

coming out of the chamber carrying it, and in his other hand he had

he opened the offering, flicking hairs from the cow's head into the fire.

the daughters and the daughters-in-law and the respectable wife

right away they jointed it up, and straight off carved out the thigh-bones,

But once the thigh-bones were burned right through and they'd tasted the innards,

And once she'd bathed him down and rubbed him with rich olive oil,

they settled in and feasted: and good men hovered close over them,

and yoke them up under the chariot, so he can crack on with the journey."

And Telemachus climbed up into the gorgeous chariot:

And all day long they shook the yoke they held on either side.

And the second early-born rosy-fingered Dawn came pulling up, doing her early-bird thing,

they finished off the road: that's how hard the fast horses carried them on.