Book IV · Ῥαψωδία δ

So the two of them rolled up to hollow Lacedaemon, all gorges and valleys for daysss,

and beelined straight for the halls of Menelaus, that legend with the glow on him.

And they caught the man mid wedding feast, the whole extended fam pulled up in force,

his son's and his flawless daughter's, both getting married off under the one roof, no cap.

The girl he was packing off to the son of Achilles, that line-breaker who folds armies:

to hand her over, and now the gods were out here sealing the whole marriage for them.

So he was sending her off with horses and chariots for the trip, fully kitted,

to the famous city of the Myrmidons, the people that boy was running.

And for his son he was bringing in a girl out of Sparta, Alector's daughter,

out of a slave girl: because for Helen the gods just stopped dropping kids

once she'd had that first one, her gorgeous little baddie of a daughter,

Hermione, who was straight up serving the whole face of golden Aphrodite.

So that's the vibe, them feasting through the big high-roofed hall, fully locked in,

just vibing: and a divine bard was in there absolutely cooking on the lyre,

plucking away: and a pair of tumblers, kicking the dance off,

were spinning and flipping right down the middle of the floor, putting on a show.

And those two, parked out front at the gates, the men and the horses both,

came to a stop: and lord Eteoneus, stepping out, clocked them straight away,

the quick-on-his-feet attendant of Menelaus, that legend with the glow,

and he booked it through the halls to drop word to the shepherd of his people,

and pulling up close he hit him with these winged words:

two men, and by the build on them they're straight out of great Zeus's bloodline.

So just say the word: do we unhitch their fast horses for them,

or wave them on to somebody else's place, whoever's gonna show them love?"

And ginger-haired Menelaus, properly heated, came right back at him:

not back then: but right now you're babbling like a literal toddler.

Come on now, the two of us put away plenty of guest-meals at

other people's places before we ever made it back here, praying maybe Zeus

would one day finally cap our suffering. So unhitch the guests'

That's what he said, and the guy bolted through the hall, calling out the rest,

the quick-on-their-feet attendants, to fall in line and come along with him.

And they slipped the sweating horses out from under the yoke,

and tied them up snug at the stalls where the horses were posted,

leaned the chariots up against the dazzling, glinting entrance walls,

and walked the men themselves into the godlike house. And those two, eyes everywhere,

were absolutely gobsmacked at the hall of the Zeus-raised king:

because it was giving the gleam of the sun or the moon up in there,

And once they'd soaked it all in with their eyes, fully feasting on the sight,

they stepped into the polished tubs and got themselves washed up proper.

And after the maids had bathed them and rubbed them down all glossy with oil,

and draped thick woolly cloaks and tunics round their shoulders,

A handmaid came round and tipped washing water out from a pitcher,

a gorgeous golden one, streaming over a silver basin nice and clean,

so they could rinse up: and she dragged a polished table over right beside them.

And the respectable housekeeper came through and laid out the bread,

and the carver hauled up platters of meat and set them down,

all kinds, and slid golden cups in beside the pair of them.

Then waving them in, ginger-haired Menelaus spoke up:

"Get your hands on the spread and enjoy: and after that's done,

you actually are: because your bloodline clearly hasn't fizzled out,

nah, you're straight from the line of Zeus-raised kings,

the sceptre-holding kind, since no nobodies were ever fathering sons like you."

That's what he said, and he grabbed up a fat roasted ox chine in his hands

So they all sent it on the spread laid out in front of them.

But once they'd absolutely demolished the food and drink and the craving backed off,

right then Telemachus leaned over to Nestor's son,

holding his head in close, so the others wouldn't catch it:

take in this flash of bronze all through the echoing halls,

and the gold and the amber and the silver and the ivory, the whole flex.

The inside of Olympian Zeus's own court must hit exactly like this,

this much endless stuff: I'm honestly stunned just standing here looking."

and finding his voice he hit the two of them with these winged words:

"Dear kids, no mortal could ever go toe to toe with Zeus, real talk:

because his halls and his treasures are deathless, forever-and-ever stuff.

But out of men, somebody might rival me, or maybe not,

I hauled the whole haul back in my ships and made it home in the eighth year,

drifting through Cyprus and Phoenicia and the Egyptians,

reaching the Aethiopians and the Sidonians and the Erembi

and Libya, where the lambs sprout horns the second they drop, no joke.

out there no lord and no shepherd is ever caught short

of cheese or meat or sweet milk, ever,

nah, they're pouring out milk on tap the whole year round.

But while I was off roaming those parts, stacking up a whole fortune,

caught him slipping, no warning, by the scheme of his cursed wife.

So that's why I rule over all this wealth with zero joy in it at all.

And you'll have caught wind of this from your fathers, whoever

they are: because I went through so much and lost a house

I'd take even a third of this fortune to just sit at home in peace,

if only those men were still breathing, the ones who went down back then

on the wide plains of Troy, far from horse-pasturing Argos.

But even so, mourning all of them and grieving,

sometimes I let my heart find a bit of comfort in the crying, and other times

I knock it off: because you fill up fast on icy weeping.

Yet out of the whole lot, sick as it makes me, I don't grieve so hard

for any one as for the single man who makes me hate sleep and food

as Odysseus grafted and bore. For him it was always gonna be

suffering on his end, and for me a grief I can never shake off

over him, since he's been ghosted from us forever and we don't even know

if the man's alive or dead. They're probably mourning him too right now,

and Telemachus, the one he left a newborn back in the house."

That's what he said, and he stirred up an ache in the boy to cry for his dad:

a tear dropped from his eyelids to the ground hearing about his father,

and he held his purple cloak up in front of both his eyes

and after that he turned it over in his head and deep in his chest,

whether to leave the kid to bring his dad up himself,

or to ask him first and feel out every single detail.

While he was weighing all that in his head and in his chest,

looking like Artemis herself with the golden distaff.

And alongside her, Adraste set out a finely made chair,

Alcippe brought a rug of soft, soft wool,

and Phylo carried a silver basket, the one Alcandre had handed her,

where the most treasures of all sit stacked up in the houses:

he was the one who slid Menelaus two silver bathtubs,

two tripods, and ten whole talents of gold.

And separately his wife handed Helen some gorgeous gifts of her own:

made of silver, with the rims finished off in gold, properly fancy.

That's the one her handmaid Phylo set down right beside her,

stuffed full with worked-up yarn: and across the top of it

the distaff was stretched, loaded with wool dyed a violet-dark.

And straight away she started quizzing her husband on every bit of it:

"Do we actually know, Zeus-raised Menelaus, who these

men are claiming to be that have pulled up to our house?

Am I gonna call it wrong, or call it true? My heart's pushing me to speak.

no man, no woman, it honestly stuns me just looking at him,

the way this kid is the literal spit of great-hearted Odysseus's son,

Telemachus, the one that man left a newborn back in the house

when, all for me, the shameless one, you Achaeans

And ginger-haired Menelaus came right back at her with this:

"Yeah, now I'm thinking the exact same, woman, you're calling it dead on:

because those were his exact feet, those his hands,

the same flash of the eyes, the head, the hair on top of it.

talking through all the misery he grafted and bore

on my account, and the boy let a thick tear spill from under his brows,

holding his purple cloak up in front of his eyes."

And Nestor's son Peisistratus answered him right back:

this really is that man's son for real, just like you're saying:

but he's the careful type, and he feels weird in his chest

flexing big speeches out of nowhere on his first ever visit

right in front of you, whose voice we two enjoy like it's a god's.

to come along as his escort: because he was dying to lay eyes on you,

hoping you'd drop him some word of advice or some helpful move.

Because a son whose dad's gone carries plenty of pain

in the halls, when there's nobody else around to back him up,

across the land who'd ward off the trouble for him."

And ginger-haired Menelaus came right back at him with this:

"Oh my days, so the son of a man I genuinely love has pulled up

to my house, a man who grafted through so many trials for my sake.

Argives if he ever showed, if the two of us had been handed a comeback

over the sea in our fast ships by Olympian wide-seeing Zeus.

And I'd have set him up with a city in Argos and built him a house,

brought him over from Ithaca with his stuff and his kid

the ones round about that I'm the one ruling over myself.

And we'd have been here together constantly, just kicking it: nothing

else would've split us, two ride-or-die friends close and content,

not until the dark cloud of death wrapped us both up.

the one who left that poor man, him alone, ghosted from his comeback for good."

That's what he said, and he stirred up an ache in the whole room to cry.

Argive Helen cried, the one born straight from Zeus,

Telemachus cried too and so did Atreus's son Menelaus,

because in his chest he remembered flawless Antilochus,

the one that shining Dawn's golden boy had cut down.

Thinking of him, he came out with these winged words:

"Atreus's son, old Nestor always said you were the most

in his halls and start quizzing each other:

and now, if it's at all possible, take my word for it: because me,

I get zero joy out of weeping after dinner, but Dawn

will be pulling up soon, early-born: not that I'm mad in the slightest

This is honestly the only honour we hand to suffering mortals,

to cut off our hair and let a tear drop down off our cheeks.

Because my own brother died too, no nobody

among the Argives: you'll have known him: because me,

above the rest, dead fast on his feet and a proper fighter."

And ginger-haired Menelaus came right back at him with this:

"My friend, since you've said all that, as much as any switched-on man

would say and do, even somebody older than you:

And it's easy to clock the offspring of a man whose line the son of Kronos

spins out good fortune for, at his wedding and at his birth,

like he's just now handed Nestor straight through every single day,

to grow old himself in comfort right there in his halls,

But us, let's drop the weeping that was going on before,

and let's get our heads back to dinner: let them pour

water over our hands: and there'll still be talk in the morning

for Telemachus and me to hash out with each other."

the quick-on-his-feet attendant of Menelaus, that legend with the glow.

So they all sent it on the spread laid out in front of them.

And right then Helen, the one born straight from Zeus, had another idea:

straight away she slipped a drug into the wine they were sipping on,

Whoever swallowed it down, once it was mixed into the bowl,

wouldn't let a single tear fall down his cheeks for that whole day,

not even if his mother and father dropped dead in front of him,

not even if right there they cut down with the bronze

That's the kind of clever drug the daughter of Zeus had on hand,

the good stuff, slid to her by Polydamna, the wife of Thon,

an Egyptian woman, in whose land the rich earth grows the most

drugs, plenty mixed up to heal, plenty mixed up to harm,

on earth: because they're literally from the bloodline of Paeon.

So once she'd slipped it in and told them to pour the wine,

she picked the conversation back up and dropped this:

"Atreus's son, Zeus-raised Menelaus, and you too,

Zeus does, whenever he feels like it: because the man can do anything.

So sure, for now sit and feast here in the halls

and vibe with the stories: because I'll tell you one that fits the moment.

I couldn't run you through all of it or even name every part,

but here's one feat that strong man pulled off and pushed through,

out in the Trojans' country, where you Achaeans were suffering.

He beat himself down with brutal, ugly blows, the full disguise,

threw filthy rags round his shoulders, made himself look like a slave,

He buried his real self, passing for some other guy,

a beggar, who was nothing like that back at the Achaean ships:

looking like him, he slid into the Trojans' city, and they were all

clueless: I was the only one who clocked who he really was,

But once I'd given him a bath and rubbed him down with oil,

and draped clothes on him and swore a rock-solid oath

not to out Odysseus among the Trojans

before he'd got back to the fast ships and the huts,

And after he'd cut down plenty of Trojans with his long-edged bronze,

he went back to the Argives, hauling tons of intel with him.

At that the other Trojan women were wailing sharp: but my own heart

was straight up glad, because by then my heart had already flipped to going

handed me, when she dragged me out there from my own dear homeland,

leaving my child behind, my bedroom, and a husband

who came up short on nothing, not in brains and not in looks."

And ginger-haired Menelaus came right back at her with this:

By now I've clocked the plans and the minds of plenty

of heroic men, and I've travelled over a whole lot of ground:

but never yet have I laid eyes on anyone

with a heart like patient Odysseus had on him.

inside the carved wooden horse, where all of us, the best

of the Argives, were posted up, carrying death and doom for the Trojans.

Then you came out there: some god must've put you up to it,

one that wanted to hand the Trojans a little bit of glory:

Three times you circled the hollow ambush, running your hands all over it,

and you called out the best of the Danaans by name,

matching your voice to the wives of all the Argives, dead on.

But me and Tydeus's son and Odysseus, that goat,

The two of us were both itching, ready to jump up,

either to bust out or to answer right away from inside:

but Odysseus held us back and shut it down, hard as we were straining.

At that point all the other sons of the Achaeans stayed dead silent,

you back with words: but Odysseus clamped his mouth shut with his hands,

relentless with those strong fists, and he saved every Achaean:

he held him locked like that until Pallas Athena finally led you off."

And switched-on Telemachus came right back at him with this:

it just makes it sting worse: because none of that warded off his grim ruin,

not even if his heart inside was made of literal iron.

But come on, send us off to bed, so finally

we can get some joy lying down under the gift of sweet sleep."

to set up beds out under the porch and to throw on

gorgeous purple blankets, and spread rugs over the top,

and lay out woolly cloaks to pull up over them as covers.

So they went out of the hall with torches in their hands,

So they crashed right there in the front room of the house,

Telemachus the hero and Nestor's son with the shine on him:

and Atreus's son slept way in the back of the high house,

and beside him lay long-robed Helen, that whole vision among women.

Menelaus, deadly with the war-cry, got himself up out of bed,

threw his clothes on, slung a sharp sword over his shoulder,

laced gorgeous sandals under his glistening feet,

and walked out of the bedroom looking like a god in the flesh,

"So what need hauled you all the way out here, Telemachus the hero,

to lovely Lacedaemon over the wide back of the sea?

Public business or your own? Lay it out for me dead straight."

And switched-on Telemachus came right back at him with this:

I came in case you could drop me any word at all about my dad.

My house is being eaten through, my rich fields are getting wrecked,

my home's packed with hostile men, the ones who are forever

slaughtering my close-packed flocks and my shuffling twisty-horned cattle,

So that's why I've come and grabbed your knees now, in case you'd be down

to tell me about his grim ruin, if you maybe caught it

with your own eyes, or heard the story off somebody else

who'd been wandering: because his mum bore him for outsized misery.

just lay it out proper, however you came across the sight.

I'm begging you, if my dad, noble Odysseus, ever

took on some word or some deed for you and saw it all the way through

out in the Trojans' country, where you Achaeans were suffering:

And ginger-haired Menelaus, properly heated, came back at him:

"Oh my days, so these clowns wanted to lie down in the bed

of a strong-hearted man, when they're absolute cowards themselves.

It's like when a deer beds her newborn fawns down,

then heads off browsing the slopes and the grassy valleys,

and then the lion comes rolling back into his own lair,

and unleashes a grim doom on the both of them,

that's exactly the grim doom Odysseus is gonna unleash on that lot.

if only he were the same as he was back in well-built Lesbos

when he got up out of a quarrel and wrestled Philomeleides,

and slammed him down hard, and all the Achaeans were buzzing,

if only Odysseus showed up to the suitors built exactly like that,

But this stuff you're asking me and begging me about, I'm not the type

to dodge sideways or talk around it or feed you lies:

nah, what the unerring old man of the sea told me himself,

not one word of it am I gonna hide from you or hold back.

because I hadn't laid on the proper hecatombs for them:

and the gods always want you to remember their orders.

So there's this island out in the heavy-surging sea,

right out front of Egypt, and they call it Pharos,

when a clear breeze is blowing in steady behind it.

There's a good harbour on it, where they launch their balanced ships

back into the open sea, after drawing up the dark water.

That's where the gods held me for twenty days, and never once

the ones that escort the ships over the wide back of the water.

And by now all our supplies would've wasted clean away, and the men's strength too,

if one of the gods hadn't pitied me and taken mercy,

the daughter of mighty Proteus, that old man of the sea,

she ran into me wandering alone, off away from my crew:

because they were always roaming round the island fishing

with the bent hooks, and hunger was grinding away at their bellies.

And she pulled up close to me and let the words fly:

or are you slacking off on purpose and getting off on the suffering?

The way you've been stuck on this island so long, and you can't even

find a single way out, while your crew's whole spirit drains away.'

That's what she said, and I came right back at her with this:

that I'm not stuck here by any choice of mine, nah, I must

have wronged the immortals somehow, the ones who hold the wide sky.

But you tell me instead, since you gods know literally everything,

which of the immortals has me pinned down and blocked from the road,

That's what I said, and the divine goddess fired back right away:

'Alright then, stranger, I'll lay it out for you super straight.

There's an unerring old man of the sea who hangs round this place,

an immortal, Proteus of Egypt, who knows all the depths

and they say he's my father, the one who fathered me.

If you could somehow set up an ambush and grab hold of him,

he'd spill your route and the stages of your road,

and your comeback, how you'll cross the fish-filled sea.

what good and what bad has gone down in your halls

while you've been off on this long, brutal road.'

That's what she said, and I came right back at her with this:

'You sort out the ambush yourself for the godlike old man,

because it's rough work for a mortal man to overpower a god.'

That's what I said, and the divine goddess fired back right away:

'Alright then, I'll lay this out for you super straight.

When the sun's climbed up around the middle of the sky,

under the breath of the west wind, hidden in a dark ripple,

and once he's out he lies down to crash under the hollow caves:

and round him the seals, the brood of the gorgeous sea-girl,

sleep huddled up together, having surfaced from the grey sea,

That's where I'll bring you at the crack of dawn

and bed you all down in a row: so pick your crew dead careful,

three of them, the best you've got beside your well-benched ships.

And I'll lay out for you all the deadly tricks of that old man.

and once he's tallied up all five and eyed them over good,

he'll lie down right in the middle, like a shepherd among his flock.

The second you spot him lying down to sleep,

right then it's all on your strength and your muscle,

And he'll have a go at morphing into everything that crawls

across the earth, and into water, and into blazing fire:

but you lot just hold him unshaken and clamp down even harder.

But when he finally questions you himself with words,

right then ease off the muscle and let the old man go,

hero, and ask him which of the gods is making your life hell,

and about your comeback, how you'll cross the fish-filled sea.'

And soon as she'd dropped all that, she just dipped, slipping back down under the rolling swell,

and ngl my chest was churning the whole walk over, no peace, none whatsoever.

But once I'd made it back down to my ship and the water's edge,

we rigged up dinner and the holy night came rolling in thick over us,

and that's when we crashed out, posted up right there on the breaking surf.

that's when I went padding back along the shore of the wide-open sea,

praying my whole heart out to the gods: and I rounded up three of my boys,

the three I trusted most, ride-or-die, for whatever play we were running.

Meanwhile she'd already ducked down deep into the belly of the water

all of them freshly skinned, brand new: she was lowkey cooking up a whole trap for her dad.

Then she scooped out little beds in the wet sand right there on the shore,

and posted up waiting: and we pulled in close, right on top of her,

and one by one she tucked us in and chucked a sealskin over every single one of us.

coming off those sea-fed seals was straight up bodying us, the worst stink ever:

like who's genuinely trying to lie down cuddled next to a sea monster, be so for real right now?

But she's the one who clutched it for us, she'd already clocked the genius little fix:

she came round and tucked some ambrosia right under each of our noses,

So we held it down the whole morning, locked in, riding it out with patient hearts:

and the seals came piling up out of the sea in a crowd. Then one after another

they bedded down in a neat line all along the edge of the surf,

and bang on midday the old man came up from the water, found his seals,

And he tallied us in first among his sea-beasts, no thoughts in his head,

zero suspicion it was a setup: then he stretched himself out too.

We hit him screaming and got our arms fully locked around the man,

clamping him down: but nah, the old guy didn't forget a single one of his slippery tricks,

then a serpent, then a leopard, then a massive boar,

then he went liquid running water, then a tree shooting up tall and leafy.

But we held the grip dead steady, never flinched once, patient hearts on lock.

And when the old schemer with all his tricks finally got worn down and properly fed up,

"Which of the gods, son of Atreus, sat down and cooked up this plot with you,

so you could jump me against my will and trap me in an ambush? What is it you even need?"

That's what he said, and I came right back at him with this:

"You already know, old man, so why you out here asking me sideways like that?

of a way out, and my heart's getting more washed every day in here.

But you tell me, since you gods know literally everything that goes on,

which one of the immortals has me chained up and blocked off the road,

and how am I meant to get home over the fish-packed sea?"

"Yeah no, you really should've poured one out for Zeus and the rest of the gods,

done the proper sacred stuff before you set sail, so you could've

made it home the fast way back to your country over the wine-dark water.

Because nah, it's not your fate to see your people or get back

not until you head back to the waters of Egypt, that heaven-fed river,

and pour the offerings out again and run the holy hecatombs proper

for the deathless gods, the ones who hold the wide sky on lock:

and only then will the gods hand you that road you're so desperate for."

because he was telling me to head all the way back over the misty sea again,

back to Egypt, that long brutal slog of a journey, an absolute l.

But even so I found my words and answered him back with this:

"Alright, old man, I'll get every bit of that done, exactly how you're telling me.

did all the Achaeans make it home safe and sound in their ships,

the ones Nestor and me left behind when we shipped out of Troy,

or did somebody catch a grim death out there on his own ship,

or in the arms of his people, once he'd finally wrapped the whole war up?"

"Son of Atreus, why you digging into me about this? There's no need

for you to know it, or to be reading my mind: and trust, I'm telling you, you won't

be staying dry-eyed for long once you've heard the whole thing laid out.

Because loads of them got cut down, and loads of them made it through:

went down on the comeback: you were there for the fighting yourself.

And one's still out there alive somewhere, held back on the wide sea.

Ajax got fully bodied right there among his long-oared ships:

first off Poseidon shoved him up onto the Gyrae rocks,

and he'd have dodged his fate clean, even with Athena hating his whole guts,

if he hadn't run his mouth, this reckless line, brain fully offline:

he bragged he'd ducked the deep gulf of the sea with zero help from the gods.

And Poseidon caught every word of that loud talk, no missing it:

and cracked the Gyraean rock, splitting the whole thing clean in two:

and one half held firm, but the chunk Ajax was perched on broke off,

the same rock he'd been sat on running his mouth when his brain switched off,

and it hauled him away across the endless rolling sea.

But your brother somehow dodged his fate and slipped clean past death

in his hollow ships: queen Hera's the one who pulled him out of it.

But just when he was about to round the steep cape of Malea,

a storm snatched him up out of absolutely nowhere right then

all the way to the far edge of the country, where Thyestes used to live

back in the day, but now it was Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, holding it down.

But when even from there a clean comeback started looking real,

and the gods spun the wind back round, and they touched home soil,

kissing the ground of his own homeland: and the hot tears came

streaming straight off him, that's how good it hit to see his land.

But up from a lookout the watchman clocked him, the exact one Aegisthus,

that sly schemer, had stationed there, dangling the payday in front of him,

so the king couldn't slip past unseen and remember his fierce fight.

And he booked it straight back to the halls to drop the news on his master.

And straight off Aegisthus locked in his sneaky little play:

he hand-picked the twenty best men out of the people

and off he rolled to fetch Agamemnon, that shepherd of the people,

horses and chariots and the lot, with something vile cooking in his head.

He walked the man up, no clue death was waiting, and put him down cold

right after dinner, like somebody dropping an ox at the feeding-trough.

and not one of Aegisthus's either: they all got merked inside the halls."

That's what he said, and honestly my whole heart just shattered all over again,

and I dropped down in the sand and sobbed, and there was no part of me

that wanted to keep living or even look at the light of the sun anymore.

that's when the unerring old man of the sea spoke up to me:

"Knock it off, son of Atreus, no more crying for hours on end like that,

since we're getting nothing done by it, none of it: instead, soon as you can,

make a move, lock in, so you can get yourself back to your homeland soil.

got the jump and merked him first: and then you'd at least make the funeral."

That's what he said, and even sat there deep in my grief, my heart and my proud spirit

came flickering back to life again inside my chest:

and I found my words and hit him with these winged ones:

the one still alive somewhere, held back out on the wide sea,

or the one who's gone: I wanna hear it, gutting as it is."

That's what I said, and he came right back at me with this:

"He's the son of Laertes, with his place over in Ithaca:

parked in the halls of the nymph Calypso, who's got him on lock

by force: and there's no way he can get back to his homeland soil,

because he's got no oared ships and no crew of his own

to send him off on his way over the wide back of the sea.

that you die in horse-pasturing Argos and meet your end there,

nah, the immortals are gonna send you off to the Elysian fields

and the literal ends of the earth, where blond Rhadamanthus is posted up,

where life is the easiest mode it gets for human beings:

just the clear-singing breezes of the West Wind always blowing through,

the ones that Ocean keeps sending up to refresh the people,

all because you've got Helen and you're Zeus's son-in-law, that's the cheat code."

That's what he said, then he dipped, slipping back down under the rolling swell,

and ngl my chest was churning the whole walk over, no peace, none whatsoever.

But once we'd made it back down to the ship and the water,

we rigged up dinner and the holy night came rolling in thick over us,

and that's when we crashed out, posted up right there on the breaking surf.

first thing, we dragged the ships down into the bright divine sea,

hoisted the masts up and ran the sails up in the balanced ships:

and the men climbed aboard themselves and dropped onto the benches,

and sitting in their rows they were beating the grey water with the oars.

where I parked the ships and ran the holy hecatombs proper.

And once I'd put a hard lid on the anger of the gods who live forever,

I heaped up a tomb for Agamemnon, so his fame would never burn out.

With all that wrapped up I set off home, and the immortals

But come on now, hang back here in my halls a little while,

until the eleventh and the twelfth day rolls around:

and then I'll send you off proper, with some gorgeous gifts,

three horses and a polished chariot: and on top of that

the deathless ones, and keep me on your mind every single day."

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

"Son of Atreus, please don't keep me hanging round here for daysss.

Honestly I could sit here parked at your place for a whole year

that's how hard I'm vibing just soaking up your stories and the way you talk:

but my crew's already getting proper antsy waiting on me

back in holy Pylos: and you're out here trying to keep me forever.

Whatever gift you're set on giving me, let it be a keepsake:

right here for you as a treasure: because you rule a wide plain,

loads of clover in it, and there's marsh-grass for daysss,

wheat and spelt and broad-growing white barley.

But in Ithaca there's no wide running tracks, no meadows at all:

Because not a single one of the islands that lean out over the sea

is good for driving horses or rich with meadows: and Ithaca least of all."

That's what he said, and Menelaus, that warrior, just cracked a smile,

gave him a little pat with his hand and said his piece:

So yeah, I'll swap out the gift for you, since I've got the juice to do that.

Of all the treasures stashed away in my house on lock,

I'll hand you the one that's the finest and the most prized of the lot.

I'll give you a mixing bowl, beautifully made: pure silver

the work of Hephaestus himself: the hero Phaedimus passed it to me,

the king of the Sidonians, the time his house took me in

on my way home: that's the very one I want to pass on to you."

So the two of them were going back and forth like that,

They were driving in the sheep, hauling in wine that puts heart in a man:

and their wives in their gorgeous veils were sending in the bread.

So those guys were busy locked in over dinner there in the halls:

meanwhile, out front of Odysseus's hall, the suitors

on the levelled ground, same spot as always, full of their usual nerve.

And Antinous was parked there, plus Eurymachus, looking all godlike,

the ringleaders of the suitors, top tier in skill, the best of the bunch.

Then Noemon, son of Phronius, rolled up close to them

"Antinous, you reckon we've got any clue, even a rough guess,

about when Telemachus is rolling back from sandy Pylos?

He dipped with a ship of mine, and ngl I actually need it back,

to cross over to spacious Elis, where I've got twelve

unbroken: I wanna haul one off and break it in."

That's what he said, and they were lowkey floored in their hearts: because they

never reckoned he'd gone off to Neleian Pylos, nah, they figured

he was somewhere round here on his lands, or with his flocks, or with the swineherd.

"Tell me dead straight: when did he take off, and which young men

went with him? Hand-picked guys out of Ithaca, or his own

hired hands and servants? He could've pulled off even that.

And lay this out for me honestly too, so I properly know the deal:

or did you hand it over willingly, since he came at you all sweet-talking?"

And Noemon, son of Phronius, came right back at him with this:

"I gave it to him willingly, myself: like what else is anyone gonna do,

when a man like that, with so much weighing on his chest,

And the young guys who shipped out with him, the best in the land after us,

they're the ones who went along: and the one I clocked

boarding as their leader was Mentor, or some god the spitting image of him.

But that's the part that's got me confused, no joke: I saw godlike Mentor

And once he'd said all that he headed off back to his father's house,

while the proud hearts of both those two were absolutely floored.

And they sat the suitors down together and called off the games.

Then Antinous, son of Eupeithes, spoke up among them,

brimming over, and his eyes looked like two blazing fires:

"Oh my days, this is genuinely a big move, the way Telemachus

pulled this whole trip off, brazen as anything: and we swore he'd never actually do it.

Some young kid like that, just dipping out against the whole lot of us,

that's only the start of the trouble he's gonna be for us: but may

Zeus snap the strength right out of him before he even hits his prime.

But come on, get me a fast ship and twenty crew,

so I can lie in wait for him on the comeback and ambush him

so this little voyage chasing his dad ends in pure misery for him."

That's what he said, and the whole lot of them backed it and egged him on:

and straight away they got up and filed into Odysseus's house.

And Penelope didn't stay clueless for long, not at all,

Because the herald Medon told her, the one who'd caught wind of their plans

while he was standing outside the courtyard: they were weaving the plot inside.

And he set off through the halls to bring the news to Penelope:

and as he stepped over the threshold Penelope hit him with this:

Is it to tell godlike Odysseus's handmaids to drop

their work and go put together a feast for that lot?

I swear, I wish they'd quit courting me, quit hanging round anywhere else,

and this right here was the very last meal they ever ate, periodt:

the wealth of big-brain Telemachus. Did you never, back when you

were kids, hear from your own fathers the kind of man

Odysseus was to your own parents back in the day,

never once doing a soul wrong or saying a thing out of line

one mortal he'd hate on, another one he'd love.

But that man never once did a single soul dirty, ever.

Nah, it's your own spirit and your disgraceful behaviour

on full display, and there's zero gratitude later for kindness done."

"If only, my queen, that was the worst of the evil cooking here.

But the suitors are scheming something way bigger and way grimmer,

something I'm praying the son of Kronos never lets go through:

they're itching to put Telemachus down with the sharp bronze

to holy Pylos and to godlike Sparta."

That's what he said, and her knees and her heart gave way right there:

and for the longest time she couldn't get a single word out, both her eyes

welled right up with tears, and her full voice just choked off in her throat.

"Herald, why's my boy taken off like that? There was no need for him

to climb aboard those fast ships, the ones that act like

sea-horses for men, crossing all that endless water.

Is it so even his name gets wiped clean off the map among people?"

"I don't know if some god put him up to it, or if it was his own

heart that drove him off to Pylos, to dig up word

of his father, whether he's coming home or what fate he ran into."

And once he'd said all that he headed off through Odysseus's house.

to park herself on a chair, even with loads of them around the house,

nah, she sank straight down onto the threshold of her well-built room,

sobbing pitifully: and around her the handmaids were all whimpering,

every single one, young and old, all of them in the house.

"Listen up, dear ones: because the Olympian's dropped more pain on me

than on anybody else who grew up and was born alongside me,

me, who already lost my brave lionhearted husband,

the one decked out with every kind of excellence among the Danaans,

And now a storm's snatched away my beloved boy without a trace,

gone from the halls, and I didn't even catch him leaving.

You hard-hearted things, not one of you thought to shake me

awake out of my bed, even though you all knew it dead in your hearts,

Because if I'd caught even a whisper he was setting off on this trip,

then for real he'd have stayed put, no matter how desperate he was to bounce,

or he'd have had to leave me lying dead behind in the halls.

But quick, somebody go call old Dolius over here,

the one who minds my orchard packed with trees, so he can hurry

and sit himself down beside Laertes and lay all this out for him,

in case the old man can weave some clever plan in his head

and head out to the people sobbing, the ones so set on

Then her dear nurse Eurycleia came back at her with this:

"Dear bride, go ahead and finish me with the pitiless bronze

or leave me in the hall: but I won't be keeping the truth from you.

I knew every bit of this, and I handed him everything he asked for,

not to tell you a thing until the twelfth day rolled around,

or until you missed him yourself and heard he'd gone,

so you wouldn't go wrecking your gorgeous skin with all the crying.

But go wash up, throw clean clothes on your body,

and pray to Athena, daughter of Zeus who carries the aegis:

because she's the one who could clutch it and save him, even out of death itself.

And don't go piling more misery on the already-miserable old man:

because nah, I don't reckon the blessed gods have got

left to hold the high-roofed halls and the rich fields off in the distance."

That's what she said, and she eased her sobbing and stopped her eyes from crying.

And Penelope washed up, threw clean clothes on her body,

headed up to the upper room with her handmaid women,

"Hear me out, child of Zeus who carries the aegis, you who never tire,

if ever big-brain Odysseus, back home in his halls,

burned up the rich thigh-bones of an ox or a sheep for you,

remember it now for me, and clutch it and save my beloved boy,

So she said, and let out the holy cry, and the goddess caught her prayer.

Meanwhile the suitors kicked up a whole racket through the shadowy halls,

and one of those arrogant young guys would pipe up with something like this:

"Oh for sure the much-courted queen is sorting out the wedding

That's the kind of thing one of them would say, no idea how it really stood.

Then Antinous spoke up among them and said his piece:

"You absolute clowns, knock off all this over-the-top talk,

every single one of you, in case somebody passes it on inside the house.

the one we've all signed off on deep in our hearts."

And once he'd said that he hand-picked the twenty best men,

and they set off down to the fast ship and the shore of the sea.

First off they dragged the ship down into the deep water,

and slotted the oars into the leather rowing-loops,

all in proper order: and they ran the white sails out.

And their high-and-mighty servants hauled their gear aboard for them.

They moored her up high in the current and stepped out themselves:

But up in the upper room, all this while, careful Penelope

was lying there with zero food, not touching a bite or a drop,

turning it over, whether her flawless son would dodge death

or get put down by the over-the-top suitors.

panicking, when they're dragging their sly circle in tight around him,

that's how hard she was churning when sweet sleep came over her:

and she sank back and dozed clean off, and all her limbs went loose.

Then Athena, the goddess with the grey-eye stare, cooked up something else:

modelled on Iphthime, daughter of big-hearted Icarius,

the one Eumelus married, with his home over in Pherae.

And she sent it off to godlike Odysseus's halls,

to get Penelope, all worn down from her sobbing and grieving,

It slipped into the bedroom along the strap of the bolt,

stood right over her head and hit her with this:

"You sleeping, Penelope, with your dear heart all torn up?

Nah, the gods who live easy aren't gonna let you

he hasn't done one single thing to wrong the gods at all."

Then careful Penelope answered it back,

dozing so sweetly there at the gates of dreams:

"Why've you pulled up here, sister? You never used to

and you're telling me to ease off my misery and the loads

of aches that keep clawing at my mind and my heart:

me, who already lost my brave lionhearted husband,

the one decked out with every kind of excellence among the Danaans,

And now my beloved boy's gone off on a hollow ship,

just a kid, no real handle on hardship or on assemblies.

And honestly I'm grieving over him even harder than over the other one.

I'm shaking over him, terrified something might happen to him,

because there's a whole crowd of enemies plotting against him,

itching to kill him before he can get back to his homeland soil."

Then the dim phantom answered her back with this:

"Be brave, and don't let your heart get all eaten up with fear:

other men have prayed to have stand beside them, since she's got the power,

Pallas Athena: and she pities you in your grief:

she's the very one who sent me here now to tell you all this."

Then careful Penelope answered it back:

then come on, lay it out for me about that wretched man too,

whether he's still alive somewhere and seeing the light of the sun,

or whether he's already gone and down in the halls of Hades."

Then the dim phantom answered her back with this:

whether he's alive or gone: no good talking empty into the wind."

And once it had said that it slipped off by the door-bolt of the post

out into the breath of the winds: and she sprang up out of her sleep,

the daughter of Icarius: and her dear heart was warmed right up,

And the suitors went aboard and sailed off down the watery roads,

plotting deep in their hearts a steep death for Telemachus.

There's a rocky little island parked out in the middle of the sea,

right between Ithaca and rugged Same,

on both sides: and that's where the Achaeans waited, posted up in ambush for him.