Chapter 2
As soon as Dawn with her rose-tinted hands had lit the East, Odysseus’ son put on his clothes and got up from his bed. He slung a sharp sword from his shoulder, bound a stout pair of sandals on his comely feet and strode from his bedroom looking like a god. He at once gave orders to the clear-voiced criers to call his long-haired compatriots to Assembly. The heralds cried their summons and the people quickly mustered. When all had arrived and the assembly was complete, Telemachus himself set out for the meeting-place, bronze spear in hand, escorted only by two dogs that trotted beside him. Athene endowed him with such magic charm that all eyes were turned on him in admiration when he came up. The elders made way for him as he took his father’s seat.
Aegyptius, an old lord bent with years and rich in wisdom, was the first to speak. This was natural, for his own soldier son Antiphus had sailed with King Odysseus in the big ships to Ilium the city of horses, only to be killed by the savage Cyclops in his cavern home when he made the last of his meals off Odysseus’ men. And although he had three other sons, Eurynomus, who foregathered with the Suitors, and two who worked steadily on their father’s estate, Antiphus was always in his mind. His grief was inconsolable; and it was with tears for this lost son that he now rose to address the gathering:
“My fellow-countrymen, I beg your attention. Not once since the gallant Odysseus sailed have we been called to Assembly or held a session here. Who is it that has summoned us now, one of the young men or one of the older generation? And what emergency has made him take this step? Perhaps he has heard that the army is coming back, and may wish to share with us the early news he has received? Or is there some other matter of public concern that he intends to raise for discussion? ‘Good man!’ I say, in any case. Our blessings on him! May Zeus reward him with his heart’s desire!”
His auspicious words brought comfort to Odysseus’ son. Eager to unburden himself, he left his seat without further ado and took his stand in the middle of the assembly. The herald Peisenor, who was an expert in debate, thrust the speaker’s staff into his hand; and Telemachus, turning first to old Aegyptius, began:
“My venerable lord, you shall have the truth at once. The man who summoned this gathering is not far to seek. It was I – suffering under a burden peculiar to myself. Of the army’s return, I have no prior news. I would share it with you if I had. Nor is it some other question of national importance that I propose to bring forward, but my own private business, the affliction – I should say the double affliction – that has fallen on my house. In the first place I have lost my good father, who was once king among you here and gentle as a father to you all. But there was a far greater calamity to follow, one which may well bring my house to utter ruin and rob me of any livelihood I have. A mob of hangers-on are pestering my mother with their unwanted attentions, and these suitors are actually the sons of those who are your leaders here. Too cowardly to present themselves at her father’s house, so that Icarius himself might make terms for his daughter’s hand with the claimant he preferred, they spend the whole time in and out of our place. They slaughter our oxen, our sheep, our fatted goats; they feast themselves and drink our sparkling wine – with never a thought for all the wealth that is being wasted. The truth is that there is no-one like Odysseus in charge to purge the house of this disease. You will understand that we are not equipped like him for the task, and that the attempt would serve only to expose our miserable weakness. Yet how gladly I should undertake my own defence, had I the force at my command! For I tell you, the things they do are past all bearing, and the way in which my wealth is being frittered away has become an outrage to decency; which you, gentlemen, should resent not only on your own behalf but as a scandal to our neighbours in the world around. Think of the gods! Have you no fear that they may requite these iniquities on your own heads? My friends, in the name of Olympian Zeus, in the name of Themis, who summons and dissolves the parliaments of men, I beg you to let me be and grant me leave to pine in solitary grief – unless by any chance you think that my good father was so cruel to your soldiers, whom he led, that you are trying to repay me with equal cruelty by the encouragement you give these parasites? If only it were you yourselves that were devouring our treasure and our flocks, I think we should be better off. For in that case we should not have far to look for compensation. We should simply dun you up and down the town for the restitution of our goods till every item was repaid. It is your present attitude that fills my heart with a bitterness for which I find no cure.”
As he spoke, his passion rose; and at the end he burst into tears and flung his staff on the ground. A wave of pity swept through the gathering. Nobody said a word or had the heart to give Telemachus a sharp reply, and the silence was unbroken till Antinous took it on himself to answer him:
“What rhetoric, Telemachus, and what an ugly show of spite! So you’d put us to shame, would you, and fix the blame on us? You are wrong. We suitors plead ‘Not guilty’. It is your own mother, that incomparable schemer, who is the culprit. Listen. For three whole years – in fact for close on four – she has kept us on tenterhooks, giving us all some grounds for hope, and in her private messages to each making promises that she has not the slightest intention of keeping. And here’s another example of her duplicity. On her loom at home she set up a great web and began weaving a large and delicate piece of work. She said to us: ‘I should be grateful to you young lords who are courting me, now that King Odysseus is dead, if you could restrain your ardour for my hand till I have done this work, so that the threads. I have spun may not be utterly wasted. It is a winding-sheet for Lord Laertes. When he succumbs to the dreaded hand of Death that stretches all men out a last, I must not risk the scandal there would be among my countrywomen here if one who had amassed such wealth were put to rest without a shroud.’ That’s how she talked; and we, like gentlemen, let her persuade us; with the result that by day she wove at the great web, but every night had torches set beside it and undid the work. For three years she fooled us with this trick. A fourth began, and the seasons were already slipping by, when one of her women, who knew all about it, gave her mistress away. We caught her unravelling her beautiful work, and she was forced reluctantly to complete it.
“This then, Telemachus, is the Suitors’ answer to you. I’d have you note it well, and all the people too. Send your mother away and make her marry the man whom her father chooses and whom she prefers. She must beware of trying our young men’s patience much further and counting too much on the matchless gifts that she owes to Athene, her skill in fine handicraft, her excellent brain, and that genius she has for getting her way. In that respect, I grant she has no equal, not even in story. For of all the Achaean beauties of former times, there is not one, not Tyro, nor Alcmene, nor Mycene of the lovely diadem, who had at her command such wits as she. Yet in the present case Penelope has used those wits amiss. For I assure you that so long as she maintains this attitude that she has been misguided enough to adopt, the Suitors will continue to eat you out of house and home. She may be winning a great name for cleverness, but at what expense to you! So I say again, we will not return to our own estates, nor go anywhere else, until she makes her choice and marries one of her countrymen.”
“Antinous,” the wise young prince replied, “it is quite impossible for me to cast out the mother who bore me and who brought me up, with my father somewhere at the world’s end, and as likely as not, still alive. Think, first, what I should have to pay Icarius if I took it into my head to send my mother back to him. Again, when that father of hers had done his worst to me, the gods would step in and let loose on me the avenging Furies that my mother’s curses would call up as she was driven from home. And finally my fellow-men would cry shame upon me. You may take it, then, that I shall never give the word. No; if a feeling of shame has any place in your own hearts, then quit my palace and feast yourselves elsewhere, eating your own provisions in each other’s houses. But if you think it a sounder scheme to destroy one man’s estate and go scot-free yourselves, then eat your fill, while I pray to the immortal gods for a day of reckoning, when I can go scot-free, though I destroy you in that house of mine.”
As though in answer to his words, Zeus, who was watching from afar, urged two eagles into flight from the mountain-top. For a while they sailed down the wind with outstretched pinions, wing to wing. But as soon as they were directly over the meeting-place, where the sound of voices filled the air, they began to flap their wings and wheel about, glancing down at the faces of the crowd with looks foreboding death. They then fell to work with their talons, ripping each other’s cheeks and neck on either side, and so swooped eastward over the house-tops of the busy town. The people stared at the birds in amazement as this scene was enacted before their eyes, and asked themselves what was to come of such a portent. At last the old lord Haliserthes, Mastor’s son, spoke out. He knew more of bird-lore and soothsaying than any man of his generation, and had his countrymen’s welfare at heart when he rose now to harangue them:
“People of Ithaca, hear what I have to say. And it is to the Suitors in particular that I address my reading of these signs. For them, a great calamity is rolling up. Odysseus is not going to be parted from his friends much longer. At this very moment indeed he may be close at hand, sowing the seeds of a bloody doom for the Suitors one and all; which means disaster to many of the rest of us who live under the clear skies of Ithaca. Cannot we stop them before it happens? Or rather, won’t they stop of their own accord – which I assure them they would find the better course? And I am not unskilled in prophecy: I speak from ripe experience. Consider Odysseus. Has not everything fallen out as I warned that self-reliant man when he embarked for Ilium with the Argive army? I said it would be nineteen years before he got home, after much suffering, with all his comrades lost, and that no-one would know him when he did. See how my prophecies are coming true!”
It was Eurymachus son of Polybus who rose to deal with the old man. “Greybeard,” he said, “enough! Run home and read omens to your children, or they may be getting into mischief. And leave me to interpret these signs. I am a better man than you at that. After all, plenty of birds go about their business in the sunny air, but it isn’t every one that has a meaning. As for Odysseus, he has met his fate abroad; and I wish you too had perished with him. We should then have been spared this flood of divination from your mouth, and the fuel you have added to Telemachus’ anger. No doubt you expect a handsome present for your house, if he is in a generous mood. But let me tell you this; and what I say holds good. If you, his senior, with the wisdom of the ages at your disposal, misuse your eloquence to incite this young man to violence, in the first place it will be all the worse for him, and there will be nothing he can do about it; and for you, old man, there will be the extremely unpleasant consequence that we shall impose on you a fine that it will break your heart to pay.
“For Telemachus, here is my own advice: I give it openly, before you all. Let him tell his mother to remove to her father’s house, where they will make arrangements for her wedding and see that she has a generous dowry, as is only right for a daughter they value. Not till that is done, can I see the young lords giving up their unwelcome suit. For we are afraid of no one at all – certainly not of Telemachus, for all his rhetoric. Nor, old gentleman, do we pay the slightest attention to these prophecies that fall from your lips. They come to nothing and only get you a worse name than you had. No; Telemachus must suffer and see his wealth consumed without hope of restitution, so long as Penelope keeps us kicking our heels in this matter of her marriage. Meanwhile we stay, and instead of seeking other brides, each according to his station, we feed our hopes from day to day on the thought of the incomparable prize for which we are competing.”
Telemachus now showed his ability and good judgment. “Eurymachus,” he said, “and the rest of you who pay my mother your distinguished attentions, I have done with entreaties and will discuss the matter no further. The gods and the whole people here have heard my case. All I ask for now is a fast ship and a crew of twenty to see me to my journey’s end and back. For I am going to Sparta and to sandy Pylos to inquire after my father’s return from his long absence, in the hope that someone may be able to tell me about him or that I may pick up one of those rumours from heaven that so often spread the truth. If I hear that he is alive and on his way back, then I might reconcile myself to one more year of this wastage. But if I learn that he is dead and gone, I shall come home, build him a mound with all the proper funeral rites, and give my mother’s hand to a new husband.”
Telemachus resumed his seat and Mentor rose to speak. Mentor was an old friend of Odysseus, to whom the king had entrusted his whole household when he sailed, with orders to defer to the aged Laertes and keep everything intact. He showed his good-will now by rising to admonish his compatriots.
“My fellow-citizens,” he said, “the conclusion that I, for one, have come to is that kindness, generosity, and justice should no longer be the aims of any man who wields the royal sceptre – in fact that he might just as well devote his days to tyranny and lawless deeds, if one may judge by the case of Odysseus, that admirable king, to whom not one of the people whom he once ruled like a loving father gives a thought to-day. Mind you, I pick no quarrel with these unruly Suitors for the crimes they commit in the wickedness of their hearts. It is their own skins they are risking when they wreck Odysseus’ estate in the belief that he is gone forever. No, it is the rest of you sitting there in abject silence that stir my indignation. They are a paltry few, and you are many. Yet not a word have they had from you in condemnation or restraint!”
Up sprang Leiocritus, Euenor’s son. “Mentor, you crazy fool,” he shouted at him, “what sense is there in telling them to stop us? Odds or no odds, it would be hard on them to have to fight about a supper! Why, if Odysseus of Ithaca himself came up and took it into his head to drive us nobles from the palace because he found us dining in his hall, his wife would have no joy of his return, much as she may have missed him, but then and there he’d come to an ugly end, if he faced odds in such a cause. So what you suggest is nonsense. But enough of this. Break up the meeting, and each man go back to his own lands, while Mentor and Haliserthes, as old friends of his father’s, forward the arrangements for Telemachus’ expedition; though I, for one, have an idea that he will never bring this journey off, but will find himself sitting in Ithaca for many a long day, gathering news as best he can.”
The assembled people were quick to accept this dismissal and now scattered to their homes, while the Suitors made their way to King Odysseus’ house.
In the meantime Telemachus sought the solitude of the sea-beach, where he washed his hands in the grey surf and lifted them in prayer to Athene:
“Hear me, you that in your godhead came yesterday to my house. It was your command that I should sail across the misty seas to find out whether my long-lost father is ever coming back. But see how my countrymen, and, above all, those bullies that besiege my mother, are thwarting me at every point!”
Athene answered his prayer in person. She assumed the appearance of Mentor and seemed so like him as to deceive both eye and ear when she came up and addressed Telemachus in these inspiring words:
“To-day has proved you, Telemachus, neither a coward nor a fool, nor destined to be such, if we are right in thinking that your father’s manly vigour has descended to his son – and what a man he was in action and debate! No fear, then, that this journey of yours will end in farce or failure. It is only if you were not the true son of Odysseus and Penelope that I should think your plans might come to nothing. Few sons, indeed, are like their fathers. Generally they are worse; but just a few are better. And since we have seen that you are by no means lacking in Odysseus’ wits, and that no fool’s or coward’s role awaits you in life, why then, you have every reason to feel that you will make a success of this undertaking. So forget the Suitors now and dismiss their plots and machinations from your mind. They are fools, and there is no sense or honour in them. Nor have they any inkling of the dark fate that is stalking so near and will strike them all down in a single day. You, meanwhile, will soon be off on this journey you have set your heart on. For am I not your father’s friend, and ready to find you a fast ship and sail with you myself? Go home now and show yourself to the Suitors. Then get provisions ready and stow them all in vessels, the wine in jars, and the barley-meal, to keep your men fit, in well-sewn skins. Meanwhile, I will soon collect a crew of volunteers in the city. And there are plenty of ships, new and old, in sea-girt Ithaca. I myself will pick out the best for you, and we’ll have her rigged in no time and launch her on the open sea.”
Athene, Daughter of Zeus, had spoken, and there was no loitering there for Telemachus when he heard the voice of the goddess, but he set off at once for home with a heavy heart. At the palace he found the ruffianly Suitors skinning goats and singeing fatted hogs in the courtyard. Antinous, with a laugh, ran up to him, seized his hand and spoke to him as man to man:
“Telemachus, my fiery young orator, enough now of hard words and thoughts of violence. Let me see you eat and drink with us as usual. And I’m sure our people will make all arrange-ments on your behalf for a ship and a picked crew to get you straight to sacred Pylos on your noble father’s trail.”
But Telemachus was too wise to be deceived. “Antinous,” he said, snatching his hand away, “it is out of the question for a man to sit down to a quiet supper and take his ease with a set of rioters like you. Isn’t it enough that all this time, under pretext of your suit, you have been robbing me of my best, while I was still too young to understand? I tell you, now that I’m old enough to learn from others what has happened and to feel my own strength at last, I will not rest till I have let hell loose upon you, whether I go to Pylos or manage here in Ithaca itself. And I shall not be balked of this journey I have spoken of. I am going, if only as a passenger, since it seems to have suited you better that I should not be allowed a ship or crew of my own.”
A storm of insults and derision greeted this speech. “I do believe,” said one young ruffian, “that Telemachus wants to cut our throats! And he’s off to sandy Pylos to get help. Perhaps he’ll go as far as Sparta and back, since he’s so thirsty for our blood. Or it may occur to him that the fertile soil of Ephyre is worth a visit. He’ll come home with a deadly poison, pop it in the wine-bowl, and lay us all out.”
And another of the young bloods chimed in: “Ah, but who knows? If he too takes to seafaring, he may stray from home and be lost like Odysseus. And what a nuisance that would be for us! All the extra trouble of dividing his property between us and presenting his house to his mother and her bridegroom!”
Telemachus let them talk, and went along to his father’s store-room, a big and lofty chamber stacked with gold and bronze, and with chests full of clothing, and stores of fragrant oil. There too, shoulder-to-shoulder along the wall, stood jars of mellow vintage wine, full of the true unblended juice, waiting for the day when Odysseus, for all he had suffered, should find his home again. There were locks to the closely-fitted, folding doors; and day and night the room and its treasures were in charge of the housekeeper, Eurycleia, daughter of Ops, Peisenor’s son, a custodian who had all her wits about her.
Calling her now to the store-room, Telemachus said: “Listen, nurse, will you draw me off some flagons of wine? And let it be good stuff, the best you have, next to the vintage you keep with such care for your unlucky king, always hoping that he may dodge his fate and walk in one day from heaven knows where. Fill me twelve flagons and put their stoppers on. And pour me out some barley-meal in strong leather bags – twenty measures, please, of mill-crushed grain. Not a word to anyone else! Get all the provisions together, and in the evening I shall fetch them myself when my mother has gone upstairs for the night. I am off to Sparta and sandy Pylos on the chance of finding out something about my dear father’s return.”
At this, his fond old nurse, Eurycleia, burst into a wail of protest.
“Dear child,” she remonstrated with him, “what on earth has put this idea into your head? What takes you that you must go wandering through the world, you an only son, the apple of your mother’s eye; and King Odysseus dead and gone, far from his home in foreign parts? Why, the moment your back is turned those fellows will be plotting mischief against you; and when they’ve done you to death, they’ll share all this between them. Sit tight where you are and guard your own property. There’s no call for you to take to the hard life and wander round the barren seas.”
“Nurse, have no fears,” the wise Telemachus replied. “There’s a god’s hand in this. But you must swear to me that you won’t tell my good mother for at least a dozen days or till she misses me herself and finds I’m gone. We don’t want tears to spoil her lovely cheeks.”
The old woman swore by all the gods that she would keep his secret, and when she had solemnly taken her oath she drew off the wine for him in flagons and ran the barley-meal into serviceable bags. Telemachus then rejoined the company in the hall.
Meanwhile another measure had suggested itself to the bright-eyed goddess Athene. Disguising herself as Telemachus, she went up and down through the city, picked out her twenty men and passed them each the word, instructing the whole company to foregather by the good ship at nightfall. The vessel itself she begged of Noemon son of Phronius, a prominent Ithacan, who was glad to let her have it.
The sun sank, and darkness fell in all the streets. The goddess now ran the good ship into the water and stowed in her all the gear proper to a well-found galley. This done, she moored her in the far corner of the haven. The gallant lads came up, and when the full crew had gathered round, Athene gave each man his orders.
The bright-eyed goddess then decided on a further step. She made her way to King Odysseus’ palace and lulled the Suitors there into a state of pleasant drowsiness, bemusing them, as they drank, till the wine-cups fell from their hands. Their eyelids heavy with sleep, they loitered no more at table, but rose to seek their various sleeping-quarters in the town. Then bright-eyed Athene, borrowing Mentor’s form and voice once more, called Telemachus out of the palace buildings to her side.
“Telemachus,” she said, “your gallant crew are sitting at their oars, waiting for your word to be off. Come; we do not want to delay their start.”
With this, Pallas Athene led the way at a smart pace and Telemachus followed in the footsteps of the goddess. When they came down to the sea and reached the boat they found their long-haired crew waiting on the beach and the young prince took command.
“My friends, follow me,” he ordered: “get the stores on board. They are all stacked and ready at the palace. But I must tell you that my mother knows nothing of this, nor any of the servants, except one woman whom I took into my confidence.”
He led off and the crew fell in behind. They brought down all the stores and stowed them in their well-built galley, taking their orders from Odysseus’ son. Telemachus then followed Athene on board. She took her seat on the after-deck and he sat down beside her. The sailors cast the hawsers [ship’s ropes] off, climbed in, and took their places on the benches. And now, out of the West, Athene of the flashing eyes called up for them a steady following wind and sent it singing over the wine-dark sea. Telemachus shouted to the crew to lay hands on the tackle and they leapt to his orders. They hauled up the fir mast, stept it in its hollow box, made it fast with stays, and hoisted the white sail with plaited ox-hide ropes. Struck full by the wind, the sail swelled out, and a dark wave hissed loudly round her stem as the vessel gathered way and sped through the choppy seas, forging ahead on her course.
When all was made snug in the swift black ship, they got out mixing-bowls, filled them to the brim with wine and poured libations to the immortal gods that have been since time began, and above all to the Daughter of Zeus, the Lady of the gleaming eyes. And all night long and into the dawn the ship ploughed her way through the sea.
