The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy Part 13

VI

When the sun sank and darkness came on, my men went to lie by the hawsers of the s.h.i.+p. Then Circe the Enchantress took my hand, and, making me sit down by her, told me of the voyage that was before us.'

'"To the Sirens first you shall come," said she, "to the Sirens, who sit in their field of flowers and bewitch all men who come near them. He who comes near the Sirens without knowing their ways and hears the sound of their voices--never again shall that man see wife or child, or have joy of his home-coming. All round where the Sirens sit are great heaps of the bones of men. But I will tell thee, Odysseus, how thou mayst pa.s.s them."'

'"When thou comest near put wax over the ears of thy company lest any of them hear the Sirens' song. But if thou thyself art minded to hear, let thy company bind thee hand and foot to the mast. And if thou shalt beseech them to loose thee, then must they bind thee with tighter bonds.

When thy companions have driven the s.h.i.+p past where the Sirens sing then thou canst be unbound."'

'"Past where the Sirens sit there is a dangerous place indeed. On one side there are great rocks which the G.o.ds call the Rocks Wandering. No s.h.i.+p ever escapes that goes that way. And round these rocks the planks of s.h.i.+ps and the bodies of men are tossed by waves of the sea and storms of fire. One s.h.i.+p only ever pa.s.sed that way, Jason's s.h.i.+p, the Argo, and that s.h.i.+p would have been broken on the rocks if Hera the G.o.ddess had not helped it to pa.s.s, because of her love for the hero Jason."'

'"On the other side of the Rocks Wandering are two peaks through which thou wilt have to take thy s.h.i.+p. One peak is smooth and sheer and goes up to the clouds of heaven. In the middle of it there is a cave, and that cave is the den of a monster named Scylla. This monster has six necks and on each neck there is a hideous head. She holds her heads over the gulf, seeking for prey and yelping horribly. No s.h.i.+p has ever pa.s.sed that way without Scylla seizing and carrying off in each mouth of her six heads the body of a man."'

'"The other peak is near. Thou couldst send an arrow across to it from Scylla's den. Out of the peak a fig tree grows, and below that fig tree Charybdis has her den. She sits there sucking down the water and spouting it forth. Mayst thou not be near when she sucks the water down, for then nothing could save thee. Keep nearer to Scylla's than to Charybdis's rock. It is better to lose six of your company than to lose thy s.h.i.+p and all thy company. Keep near Scylla's rock and drive right on."'

'"If thou shouldst win past the deadly rocks guarded by Scylla and Charybdis thou wilt come to the Island of Thrinacia. There the Cattle of the Sun graze with immortal nymphs to guard them. If them comest to that Island, do no hurt to those herds. If thou doest hurt to them I foresee ruin for thy s.h.i.+p and thy men, even though thou thyself shouldst escape."'

'So Circe spoke to me, and having told me such things she took her way up the island. Then I went to the s.h.i.+p and roused my men. Speedily they went aboard, and, having taken their seats upon the benches, struck the water with their oars. Then the sails were hoisted and a breeze came and we sailed away from the Isle of Circe, the Enchantress.'

'I told my companions what Circe had told me about the Sirens in their field of flowers. I took a great piece of wax and broke it and kneaded it until it was soft. Then I covered the ears of my men, and they bound me upright to the mast of the s.h.i.+p. The wind dropped and the sea became calm as though a G.o.d had stilled the waters. My company took their oars and pulled away. When the s.h.i.+p was within a man's shout from the land we had come near the Sirens espied us and raised their song.'

'"Come hither, come hither, O Odysseus," the Sirens sang, "stay thy bark and listen to our song. None hath ever gone this way in his s.h.i.+p until he hath heard from our own lips the voice sweet as a honeycomb, and hath joy of it, and gone on his way a wiser man. We know all things--all the travail the Greeks had in the war of Troy, and we know all that hereafter shall be upon the earth. Odysseus, Odysseus, come to our field of flowers, and hear the song that we shall sing to thee."'

[Ill.u.s.tration]

'My heart was mad to listen to the Sirens. I nodded my head to the company commanding them to unloose me, but they bound me the tighter, and bent to their oars and rowed on. When we had gone past the place of the Sirens the men took the wax from off their ears and loosed me from the mast.'

But no sooner had we pa.s.sed the Island than I saw smoke arising and heard the roaring of the sea. My company threw down their oars in terror. I went amongst them to hearten them, and I made them remember how, by my device, we had escaped from the Cave of the Cyclops.

I told them nothing of the monster Scylla, lest the fear of her should break their hearts. And now we began to drive through that narrow strait. On one side was Scylla and on the other Charybdis. Fear gripped the men when they saw Charybdis gulping down the sea. But as we drove by, the monster Scylla seized six of my company--the hardiest of the men who were with me. As they were lifted up in the mouths of her six heads they called to me in their agony. 'But I could do nothing to aid them.

They were carried up to be devoured in the monster's den. Of all the sights I have seen on the ways of the water, that sight was the most pitiful.'

[Ill.u.s.tration]

'Having pa.s.sed the rocks of Scylla and Charybdis we came to the Island of Thrinacia. While we were yet on the s.h.i.+p I heard the lowing of the Cattle of the Sun. I spoke to my company and told them that we should drive past that Island and not venture to go upon it.'

'The hearts of my men were broken within them at that sentence, and Eurylochus answered me, speaking sadly.'

'"It is easy for thee, O Odysseus, to speak like that, for thou art never weary, and thou hast strength beyond measure. But is thy heart, too, of iron that thou wilt not suffer thy companions to set foot upon sh.o.r.e where they may rest themselves from the sea and prepare their supper at their ease?"'

'So Eurylochus spoke and the rest of the company joined in what he said.

Their force was greater than mine. Then said I, "Swear to me a mighty oath, one and all of you, that if we go upon this Island none of you will slay the cattle out of any herd."'

'They swore the oath that I gave them. We brought our s.h.i.+p to a harbour, and landed near a spring of fresh water, and the men got their supper ready. Having eaten their supper they fell to weeping for they thought upon their comrades that Scylla had devoured. Then they slept.'

'The dawn came, but we found that we could not take our s.h.i.+p out of the harbour, for the North Wind and the East Wind blew a hurricane. So we stayed upon the Island and the days and the weeks went by. When the corn we had brought in the s.h.i.+p was all eaten the men went through the island fis.h.i.+ng and hunting. Little they got to stay their hunger.'

'One day while I slept, Eurylochus gave the men a most evil counsel.

"Every death," he said, "is hateful to man, but death by hunger is far the worst. Rather than die of hunger let us drive off the best cattle from the herds of the Sun. Then, if the G.o.ds would wreck us on the sea for the deed, let them do it. I would rather perish on the waves than die in the pangs of hunger."'

'So he spoke, and the rest of the men approved of what he said. They slaughtered them and roasted their flesh. It was then that I awakened from my sleep. As I came down to the s.h.i.+p the smell of the roasting flesh came to me. Then I knew that a terrible deed had been committed and that a dreadful thing would befall all of us.'

'For six days my company feasted on the best of the cattle. On the seventh day the winds ceased to blow. Then we went to the s.h.i.+p and set up the mast and the sails and fared out again on the deep.'

'But, having left that island, no other land appeared, and only sky and sea were to be seen. A cloud stayed always above our s.h.i.+p and beneath that cloud the sea was darkened. The West Wind came in a rush, and the mast broke, and, in breaking, struck off the head of the pilot, and he fell straight down into the sea. A thunderbolt struck the s.h.i.+p and the men were swept from the deck. Never a man of my company did I see again.'

'The West Wind ceased to blow but the South Wind came and it drove the s.h.i.+p back on its course. It rushed towards the terrible rocks of Scylla and Charybdis. All night long I was borne on, and, at the rising of the sun? I found myself near Charybdis. My s.h.i.+p was sucked down. But I caught the branches of the fig tree that grew out of the rock and hung to it like a bat. There I stayed until the timbers of my s.h.i.+p were cast up again by Charybdis. I dropped down on them. Sitting on the boards I rowed with my hands and pa.s.sed the rock of Scylla without the monster seeing me.'

'Then for nine days I was borne along by the waves, and on the tenth day I came to Ogygia where the nymph Calypso dwells. She took me to her dwelling and treated me kindly. But why tell the remainder of my toils?

To thee, O King, and to thy n.o.ble wife I told how I came from Calypso's Island, and I am not one to repeat a plain-told tale.'

VII

Odysseus finished, and the company in the hall sat silent, like men enchanted. Then King Alcinous spoke and said, 'Never, as far as we Phaeacians are concerned, wilt thou, Odysseus, be driven from thy homeward way. To-morrow we will give thee a s.h.i.+p and an escort, and we will land thee in Ithaka, thine own country.' The Princes, Captains and Councillors, marvelling that they had met the renowned Odysseus, went each to his own home. When the dawn had come, each carried down to the s.h.i.+p on which Odysseus was to sail, gifts for him.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

When the sun was near its setting they all came back to the King's hall to take farewell of him. The King poured out a great bowl of wine as an offering to the G.o.ds. Then Odysseus rose up and placed in the Queen's hands a two-handled cup, and he said, 'Farewell to thee, O Queen! Mayst thou long rejoice in thy house and thy children, and in thy husband, Alcinous, the renowned King.'

He pa.s.sed over the threshold of the King's house, and he went down to the s.h.i.+p. He went aboard and lay down on the deck on a sheet and rug that had been spread for him. Straightway the mariners took to their oars, and hoisted their sails, and the s.h.i.+p sped on like a strong sea-bird. Odysseus slept. And lightly the s.h.i.+p sped on, bearing that man who had suffered so much sorrow of heart in pa.s.sing through wars of men and through troublous seas--the s.h.i.+p sped on, and he slept, and was forgetful of all he had pa.s.sed through.

When the dawn came the s.h.i.+p was near to the Island of Ithaka. The mariners drove to a harbour near which there was a great cave. They ran the s.h.i.+p ash.o.r.e and lifted out Odysseus, wrapped in the sheet and the rugs, and still sleeping. They left him on the sandy sh.o.r.e of his own land. Then they took the gifts which the King and Queen, the Princes, Captains and Councillors of the Phaeacians had given him, and they set them by an olive tree, a little apart from the road, so that no wandering person might come upon them before Odysseus had awakened. Then they went back to their s.h.i.+p and departed from Ithaka for their own land.

Odysseus awakened on the beach of his own land. A mist lay over all, and he did not know what land he had come to. He thought that the Phaeacians had left him forsaken on a strange sh.o.r.e. As he looked around him in his bewilderment he saw one who was like a King's son approaching.

Now the one who came near him was not a young man, but the G.o.ddess, Pallas Athene, who had made herself look like a young man. Odysseus arose, and questioned her as to the land he had come to. The G.o.ddess answered him and said, 'This is Ithaka, a land good for goats and cattle, a land of woods and wells,'

Even as she spoke she changed from the semblance of a young man and was seen by Odysseus as a woman tall and fair. 'Dost thou not know me, Pallas Athene, the daughter of Zeus, who has always helped thee?' the G.o.ddess said. 'I would have been more often by thy side, only I did not want to go openly against my brother, Poseidon, the G.o.d of the sea, whose son, Polyphemus, thou didst blind.'

As the G.o.ddess spoke the mist that lay on the land scattered and Odysseus saw that he was indeed in Ithaka, his own country--he knew the harbour and the cave, and the hill Neriton all covered with its forest.

And knowing them he knelt down on the ground and kissed the earth of his country.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Then the G.o.ddess helped him to lay his goods within the cave--the gold and the bronze and the woven raiment that the Phaeacians had given him.

She made him sit beside her under the olive tree while she told him of the things that were happening in his house.

'There is trouble in thy halls, Odysseus,' she said, 'and it would be well for thee not to make thyself known for a time. Harden thy heart, that thou mayest endure for a while longer ill treatment at the hands of men.' She told him about the wooers of his wife, who filled his halls all day, and wasted his substance, and who would slay him, lest he should punish them for their insolence. 'So that the doom of Agamemnon shall not befall thee--thy slaying within thine own halls--I will change thine appearance that no man shall know thee,' the G.o.ddess said.

Then she made a change in his appearance that would have been evil but that it was to last for a while only. She made his skin wither, and she dimmed his s.h.i.+ning eyes. She made his yellow hair grey and scanty. Then she changed his raiment to a beggar's wrap, torn and stained with smoke.

Over his shoulder she cast the hide of a deer, and she put into his hands a beggar's staff, with a tattered bag and a cord to hang it by.

And when she had made this change in his appearance the G.o.ddess left Odysseus and went from Ithaka.

It was then that she came to Telemachus in Sparta and counselled him to leave the house of Menelaus and Helen; and it has been told how he went with Peisistratus, the son of Nestor, and came to his own s.h.i.+p. His s.h.i.+p was hailed by a man who was flying from those who would slay him, and this man Telemachus took aboard. The stranger's name was Theoclymenus, and he was a sooth-sayer and a second-sighted man.