Chapter 24
Meanwhile Cyllenian Hermes was gathering in the souls of the Suitors, armed with the splendid golden wand that he can use at will to cast a spell on our eyes or wake us from the soundest sleep. He roused them up and marshalled them with this, and they obeyed his summons gibbering like bats that squeak and flutter in the depths of some mysterious cave when one of them has fallen from the rocky roof, losing his hold on his clustered friends. With such shrill discord the company set out in Hermes’ charge, following the Deliverer down the dark paths of decay. Past Ocean Stream, past the White Rock, past the Gates of the Sun and the region of dreams they went, and before long they reached the meadow of asphodel, which is the dwelling-place of souls, the disembodied wraiths of men.
Here they encountered the souls of Peleus’ son Achilles, of Patroclus, of the noble Antilochus, and of Aias, who in stature and in manly grace was second to none of the Danaans but the peerless son of Peleus. These had foregathered with Achilles’ soul, and now they were joined by that of Agamemnon, Atreus’ son, who came to them still plunged in grief and still surrounded by the souls of all that met their doom and died with him in Aegisthus’ house. Achilles’ soul spoke first. “Agamemnon,” he said to him, “we used to think of you, among all our princes, as the lifelong favourite of Zeus the Thunderer, because of the great and gallant army you commanded in Troyland when we Achaeans fought those hard campaigns. But you too were to be visited in your prime by that fell power whom no man born can evade. How I wish you could have met your fate and died at Troy in the full enjoyment of your royal state. For then the whole nation would have joined in building you a mound and you would have left a great name for your son to inherit. But as things were, you were doomed to die a most appalling death.”
“Illustrious Prince Achilles,” the soul of Atreus’ son replied, “yours was the happy death, in Troyland far away from Argos, with the flower of the Trojan and Achaean forces falling round you in the battle for your corpse. There in a whirl of dust you lay, great even in your fall, thinking no longer of a charioteer’s delights. And the whole day long we fought. Indeed we never would have ceased had Zeus not stopped us with a storm. Then we carried you off from the battlefield to the ships, cleaned your fair flesh with warm water and unguents (ointments), and laid you on a bed. Your countrymen gathered round you; hot tears were shed, and many locks of hair were cut. Your mother, when she heard the news, came up from the sea with the deathless See-Nymphs, and a mysterious wailing rose from the waters. The whole army was seized by panic and would have fled on board the ships, if one man, Nestor, had not used his knowledge of our ancient lore. And it was not the first time that his wisdom triumphed. He came forward and checked them in his friendly way. “Halt, Argives!” he shouted. “Achaeans, stand your ground! This is Achilles’ mother who has come out of the sea with her immortal Nymphs to see her dead son’s face.” He stopped the panic, and the troops plucked up their hearts. They saw the Daughters of the Old Sea-god, dressed in the robes of immortality and shedding bitter tears, take up their stand around your corpse. The Nine Muses too were there, chanting your dirge in sweet antiphony, till not a dry eye was to be seen in all the Argive force, so poignant was the Muse’s song.”
“For seventeen days and seventeen nights we mourned for you, immortal gods and mortal men alike; and on the eighteenth day we committed you to the flames, with a rich sacrifice of fatted sheep and shambling cattle at your pyre. You were burnt in the clothing of the gods, in lavish unguents and sweet honey; and an armed company of Achaean nobles, on foot or in their chariots, moved in procession round the pyre where you were burning and filled the air with sound. When the sacred flames had consumed you, we gathered your white bones at dawn, Achilles, and laid them by in unmixed wine and oil. Then your mother gave us a golden urn, a gift, she said, from Dionysus, made by the great Hephaestus. In this your white bones lie, my lord Achilles, and mingled with them the bones of Menoetius’ son Patroclus, dead before you, and separately those of Antilochus, who was your closest friend after Patroclus’ death. Over them all, we soldiers of the mighty Argive force built up a great and glorious mound, on a foreland jutting out over the broad waters of the Hellespont, so that it might be seen far out at sea by the sailors of to-day and future ages. Then, in the middle of the lists where the Achaean champions were to test their skill, your mother placed the magnificent prizes she had asked the gods to give. You must often have attended royal funerals yourself, when the young men strip and make ready for the games by which they honour their dead king, but the splendid prizes offered in your honour by the divine Thetis of the Silver Feet would have struck you as the most wonderful you had ever seen. For the gods loved you very dearly. Thus even death, Achilles, did not destroy your glory and the whole world will honour you for ever. But what satisfaction is there now for me in having brought the war to a successful close? For on my very journey home Zeus planned a miserable end for me, at the hands of Aegisthus and my unconscionable wife.”
Their talk was interrupted now by the near approach of Hermes the Giant-slayer, ushering into the world below the ghosts of the Suitors whom Odysseus had killed. Astonished at the sight of all these newcomers, the pair moved quickly up, and the soul of Agamemnon was able to recognize the noble Amphimedon, Melaneus’ son, who had entertained him in his home in Ithaca. Agamemnon’s soul did not wait for him to speak, but greeted him at once. “Amphimedon,” he said, “What catastrophe has brought you down into the bowels of the earth with this chosen band of men of your own age, as carefully picked as though one had gone round and taken the very flower of some city’s best? Did Poseidon catch your ships in a gale and overwhelm you in the heavy seas? Or did you fall to some hostile tribe on land as you were lifting their cattle and their flocks, or fighting with them for their town and women? Pray tell me, for you and I have been host and guest. Or have you forgotten the time when I came over to your house in Ithaca with King Menelaus to persuade Odysseus to join forces with me in the naval expedition against Ilium? It was a full month after that before we had made the long sea passage, so hard did we find it to win over the man who now is styled the Sacker of Cities.”
“August and imperial Agamemnon,” the soul of Amphimedon replied, “I well remember all that your majesty has referred to, and will give you a full and honest account of the events that culminated in our tragic death.”
“In the prolonged absence of Odysseus we began to pay our addresses to his wife. These proved distasteful to her, but instead of refusing us outright or taking the final step, she schemed to bring about our downfall and our death. Here is a sample of the woman’s guile. On her loom at home she set up a great web and began weaving a large and delicate piece of work. And 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, which stretches all men out at 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 is 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. But no sooner had she woven the great web, laundered the robe and shown it to us gleaming like the sun or moon, than the powers of evil landed Odysseus out of the blue in a distant corner of his estate where the swineherd had his cabin. His son, Prince Telemachus, just back from sandy Pylos in his ship, made for the same spot too. They put their heads together, planned our assassination, and made their way to the city of Ithaca, or rather, Telemachus served as vanguard and Odysseus followed later. The swineherd brought him down disguised in rags, and looking like a wretched old beggar as he hobbled along with his staff. He was so disreputably dressed that not a man in our party, not even the older members, could realize that this was Odysseus when he suddenly appeared among us. In fact we gave him the rough side of our tongues and threw things at his head. For a while he had the self-control to put up patiently with this man-handling and abuse in his own palace. But presently the spirit stirred within him. With Telemachus’ help he removed the excellent weapons they possessed and stowed them in the arsenal behind locked doors. Then, for his own cunning purposes, he prevailed on his wife to challenge our skill with a bow and some grey iron axes, toys that were to play a leading part in the slaughter of my unhappy company. Not one of us could string the mighty weapon; indeed we were too weak by far. But when it came to handing the great bow to Odysseus, we all protested loudly that he shouldn’t have it, however much he argued. Telemachus was the only one who encouraged him to take it. And so that great and reckless man got his hands on the bow, which he strung without effort, and shot through the iron marks. Then he leapt onto the threshold and with murder in his eye poured out his arrows, and shot Prince Antinous down; after which, aiming straight in every case, he let fly at the rest of us with his deadly shafts. We fell thick and fast; and it was obvious that some god was on their side. For presently their fury gave them confidence to charge through the hall and they hacked us down right and left. Skulls cracked, the hideous groans of dying men were heard, and the whole floor ran with blood.
“That, Agamemnon, is how we were destroyed. And our corpses still lie uncared for in Odysseus’ house, since the news has not yet reached our several homes and brought our friends to wash the dark blood from our wounds, to lay our bodies out and mourn for us, as is a dead man’s right.”
“Unconquerable Odysseus!” the soul of Agamemnon cried. “Ah, happy prince, blessed in Icarius’ daughter with a wife in whom all virtues meet, flawless Penelope, who has proved herself so good and wise, so faithful to her wedded love! Her glory will not fade with the years, but the deathless gods themselves will make a song for mortal ears, to grace Penelope the constant queen. What a contrast with Clytaemnestra and the infamy she sank to when she killed her wedded lord! Her name will be cursed wherever she is sung. She has branded all her sex, with every honest woman in it.”
While the souls stood there in Hades’ Halls, conversing in the bowels of the earth, Odysseus’ party left the town behind, and before long had reached the rich and well-run farmlands of Laertes, which he had wrested from their natural state by his own exertions long ago. Here was his cottage, surrounded by outbuildings, where the serfs that laboured for him had their meals and sat and slept. An old Sicilian woman lived in the cottage, devoting all her care to the old man’s comfort in this rural retreat.
When they reached the spot, Odysseus said to Telemachus and his men: “Go into the main building now and make haste to kill the best pig you can find for our midday meal. Meanwhile I shall try an experiment with my father, to find out whether he will remember me and realize who it is when he sees me, or fail to know me after so long an absence.”
As he spoke, he handed his weapons of war to the servants, who then went straight into the house, while Odysseus moved off towards the luxuriant vineyard intent on his experiment. As he made his way down into the great orchard, he fell in, neither with Dolius nor with any of the serfs or Dolius’ sons, who had all gone with the old man at their head to gather stones for the vineyard wall. Thus he found his father alone on the vineyard, terrace digging round a plant. He was wearing a filthy, patched, and disreputable tunic, a pair of stitched leather gaiters strapped round his shins to protect them from scratches, and gloves to save his hands from the brambles; while to crown all, and by way of emphasizing his misery, he had it hat of goatskin on his head. When the gallant Odysseus saw how old and worn his father looked and realized how miserable he was, he halted under a tall pear-tree and the tears came into his eyes. Nor could he make up his mind at once whether to hug and kiss his father, and tell him the whole story of his own return to Ithaca, or first to question him and find out what he thought. In the end he decided to start by assuming a brusque manner in order to draw the old man out, and with this purpose in view he now went straight up to his father.
Laertes was still hoeing round his plant with his head down, as his famous son came up and accosted him.
“Old man,” said Odysseus, “you have everything so tidy here that I can see there is little about gardening that you do not know. There is nothing, not a green thing in the whole enclosure, not a fig, olive, vine, pear, or vegetable bed that does not show signs of your care. On the other hand I cannot help remarking, I hope without offence, that you don’t look after yourself very well; in fact, what with your squalor and your wretched clothes, old age has hit you very hard. Yet it can’t be on account of any laziness that your master neglects you, nor is there anything in your build and size to suggest the slave. You look more like a man of royal blood, the sort of person who enjoys the privilege of age, and sleeps on a soft bed when he has had his bath and dined. However, tell me whose serf you are. And whose is this garden you look after? The truth, if you please. And there’s another point you can clear up for me. Am I really in Ithaca? A fellow I met on my way up here just now assured me that I was. But he was not very intelligent, for he wouldn’t deign to answer me properly or listen to what I said, when I mentioned a friend of mine and asked him whether he was still in the land of the living or dead and gone by now. You shall learn about this friend yourself if you pay attention to what I say. Some time ago in my own country I befriended a stranger who turned up at our place and proved the most attractive visitor I have ever entertained from abroad. He said he was an Ithacan, and that Arceisius’ son Laertes was his father. I took him in, made him thoroughly welcome and gave him every hospitality that my rich house could afford, including presents worthy of his rank. Seven talents of wrought gold he had from me, a solid silver wine-bowl with a floral design, twelve single-folded cloaks, twelve rugs, twelve splendid mantles and as many tunics too, and besides all this, four women as skilled in fine handicraft as they were good to look at. I let him choose them for himself.”
“Sir,” said his father to Odysseus, with tears on his cheeks, “I can assure you that you’re in the place you asked for; but it’s in the hands of rogues and criminals. The gifts you lavished on your friend were given in vain, though, had, you found him alive in Ithaca, he would never have let you go before he had made you an ample return in presents and hospitality, as is right when such an example has been set. But pray tell me exactly how long ago it was that you befriended the unfortunate man, for that guest of yours was my unhappy son – if ever I had one – my son, who far from friends, and home has been devoured by fishes in the sea or fallen a prey, maybe, to the wild beasts and birds oil land. Dead people have their dues, but not Odysseus. We had no chance, we two that brought him into the world, to wrap his body up and wail for him, nor had his richly dowered wife, constant Penelope, the chance to close her husband’s eyes and give him on his bier the seemly tribute of a dirge.”
“But you have made me curious about yourself. Who are you, sir? What is your native town? And where might she be moored, the good ship that brought you here with your gallant crew? Or were you travelling as a passenger on someone else’s ship, which landed you and sailed away?”
“I am quite willing,” said the resourceful Odysseus, “to tell you all you wish to know. I come from Alybas. My home is in the palace there, for my father is King Apheidas, Polypemon’s son. My own name is Eperitus. I had no intention of putting in here when I left Sicania, but had the misfortune to be driven out of my course; and my ship is riding yonder by the open coast some way from the port. As for Odysseus, it is four years and more since he bade me farewell and left my country – to fall on evil days, it seems. And yet the omens when he left were good, birds on the right, which pleased me as I said goodbye, and cheered him as he started out. We both had every hope that we should meet again as host and guest and give each other splendid gifts.”
When Laertes heard this, he sank into the black depths of despair. Groaning heavily, he picked the black dust up in both his hands and poured it on the grey hairs of his head. Odysseus’ heart was stirred, and suddenly, as he watched his dear father, poignant compassion forced its way through his nostrils. He rushed forward, flung his arms round his neck and kissed him. “Father,” he cried, “here I am, the very man you asked about, home in my own land after nineteen years. But this is no time for tears and lamentation. For I have news to tell you, and heaven knows there is need for haste. I have killed that gang of Suitors in our palace. I have paid them out for their insulting gibes and all their crimes.”
Laertes answered him: “If you that have come here are indeed my son Odysseus, give me some definite proof to make me sure.”
Odysseus was ready for this. “To begin with,” he said, “cast your eye on this scar, where I was wounded by the white tusk of a boar when I went to Parnassus. You and my mother had sent me to my grandfather Autolycus, to fetch the gifts he solemnly promised me when he came to visit us. Then again, I can tell you all the trees you gave me one day on this garden terrace. I was only a little boy at the time, trotting after you through the orchard, begging for this and that, and as we wound our way through these very trees you told me all their names. You gave me thirteen pear-, ten apple-, and forty fig-trees, and at the same time you pointed out the fifty rows of vines that were to be mine. Each ripened at a different time, so that the bunches on them were at various stages when the branches felt their weight under the summer skies.”
Laertes realized at once that Odysseus’ evidence had proved his claim. With trembling knees and bursting heart he flung his arms round the neck of his beloved son, and stalwart Odysseus caught him fainting to his breast. The first words he uttered as he rallied and his consciousness returned were in reply to the news his son had given him. “By Father Zeus,” he cried, “you gods are still in your heaven, if those Suitors have really paid the price for their iniquitous presumption! But I have a horrible fear now that the whole forces of Ithaca will soon be on us here, and that they will send urgent messages for help to every town in Cephallenia.”
“Have no fear,” said his resourceful son, “and don’t trouble your head about that; but come with me to the farmhouse here by the orchard, where I sent on Telemachus with the cowman and swineherd to prepare a meal as quickly as they could.”
Accordingly the pair set out for the house, and there in the pleasant homestead they found Telemachus and the two herdsmen carving lavish portions of meat and mixing the sparkling wine. The lord Laertes made use of his own house to have himself bathed, anointed, and decked out in a fine mantle by his Sicilian maid-servant, and Athene herself intervened to increase his royal stature. As he stepped out of the bath she made him seem taller and sturdier than before, so that his own son was amazed when he saw him looking like an immortal god. He could not repress his astonishment.
“Father!” he exclaimed. “I do believe some god has made you handsomer and taller than ever!” To which the wise old man replied: “By Father Zeus, Athene, and Apollo, if only I could have been the man I was when as King of the Cephallenians I took the stronghold of Nericus on the mainland cape, and could have stood by you yesterday in our palace, clothed in mail, to help you beat those rascals off! I warrant I’d have brought them down in plenty and delighted your heart!”
While they were talking to one another, the others finished their work and prepared the meal. They had just taken their seats at table and were falling to, when the old man Dolius came up with his sons, weary after their work, from which they had been called in by their mother, the old Sicilian, who saw to their food and looked after their old father with unfailing devotion now that his years set heavily upon him. When they set eyes on Odysseus and realized who he was, they stopped short in amazement half-way across the room. Odysseus greeted them with friendly chaff. “Old man,” he said, “sit down to your lunch. And the rest of you, don’t stand gaping there! We have been hard put to it to keep our hands off the food in here, waiting all this time and expecting you every minute.”
Dolius ran up with outstretched arms, seized Odysseus by the hand and kissed him on the wrist. “So you have come back to us, my dear master,” he said with emotion, “and fulfilled, our dearest wishes! We had given up hope, but heaven itself must have led you home. Here’s health and happiness, and may the gods shower their blessings on you! But tell me this, for I am anxious – has our wise queen Penelope heard of your arrival here, or shall we send someone to tell her?”
“She knows already, my old friend,” Odysseus answered. “Don’t you trouble your head about that.”
Dolius sat down again on his wooden stool, and now it was his sons’ turn to gather round the famous Odysseus, make him speeches of welcome and shake him by the hand. Then they all took their seats by Dolius their father.
But while Odysseus’ party were discussing their meal in the farmhouse, whispering Rumour flew like wildfire through the town, with the fateful news of the Suitors’ hideous death. As a result, a murmuring throng of mourners, coming in from all sides with one accord, gathered at Odysseus’ gate. They carried out the corpses and each buried their dead, while those from the other towns were put on ships and despatched in the crews’ care to their several homes. The disconsolate Ithacans then trooped off to the meeting-place, and there, when the Assembly was complete, Eupeithes rose to address them, overcome by grief for his son Antinous, the first of the great Odysseus’ victims. “Friends,” he began, and tears for his son were streaming down his cheeks, “I denounce Odysseus as the inveterate enemy of our race. Where is the gallant company he sailed away with? Lost by him, every one; and our good ships lost as well! And now he comes home and slaughters the very pick of the Cephallenians! Quick, I say. Before he can fly to Pylos or to Elis where the Epeians rule, let us make a move, or we’ll never be able to hold up our heads again. Our names will stink in the nostrils of our descendants if we do not avenge ourselves on the murderers of our sons and brothers. I, for one, should find no further pleasure in living, but should prefer to finish now and join the dead. To action then, or they may be across the seas before we move.”
His tearful appeal stirred all his countrymen to pity. But at this moment Medon and the minstrel appeared on the scene. On waking, they had come straight from the palace, and now took their stand in the centre of the assembly. Everyone wondered what this meant, but Medon, who was by no means a fool, enlightened them at once. “Listen, my fellow-Ithacans,” he said, “And you will understand that in acting as he did Odysseus was not without the guiding hand of heaven. With my own eyes I saw an immortal, who looked exactly like Mentor, standing at his side. And some divine being could be seen, at one moment ahead of Odysseus, cheering him on, and at the next charging down the hall and striking panic into the Suitors, who fell in heaps before him.”
Medon’s disclosure drained the blood from their cheeks; and now the aged lord Halitherses, the only man there who could look into the future as into the past, rose up to administer a well-meant rebuke. “Ithacans,” he cried, “I beg for your attention. Your own wickedness, my friends, is to blame for what has happened. You would not listen to me or to your leader Mentor, when we urged you to check your sons in their career of folly. They threw all restraint to the winds, and in plundering the estate and insulting the wife of a prince whom they counted on never seeing here again, they were guilty of a flagrant offence. I hope therefore that you will be persuaded by me when I propose that we should take no action; or else I fear that some of you may bring your own doom on your heads.”
At the end of this speech, more than half the audience, bursting into uproar, leapt to their feet, though a fair number remained in their seats. The old lord’s plain speaking had proved unpalatable; Eupeithes won the day. They rushed to arms, equipped themselves in their gleaming bronze and mustered in an open space beside the town. Eupeithes in his folly took command. He saw himself avenging his son’s death, though in fact he was never to come back alive but to meet his own fate on the selfsame day.
Athene now decided to consult with Zeus. “Father of ours,” she said to him, “Son of Cronos, King of Kings, will you reveal to me the thoughts that are hidden in your heart? Are you planning to prolong this strife, with the horrors and turmoil it entails, or to establish peace between the warring sides?”
To which the Cloud-gatherer replied: “My child, why come to me with such questions? Was it not your own idea that Odysseus should return and avenge himself on his enemies? Act as you please, though this is what I think most suitable myself. Since the admirable Odysseus has had his revenge on the Suitors, let them make a treaty of peace to establish him as king in perpetuity, with an act of oblivion, on our part, for the slaughter of their sons and brothers. Let the mutual goodwill of the old days be restored, and let peace and plenty prevail.”
With this encouragement from Zeus, Athene, who had already set her heart on action, sped down at once from the peaks of Olympus.
In the farmhouse, meanwhile, they had enjoyed a satisfying meal, when the gallant Odysseus suggested that someone should go out and discover whether the enemy were not yet in sight. One of Dolius’ sons jumped up and went to the threshold. Standing there, he saw the whole hostile force at no great distance, and called excitedly to Odysseus: “See! They are on us. Get ready, quick!” Whereupon they leapt up and put their armour on. Odysseus and his followers made four; Dolius’ sons another six; and to them Laertes And Dolius himself must be added, for they armed themselves too, grey-headed though they were and forced by circumstance to fight. When all were clad in gleaming bronze they opened the gates and sallied out under Odysseus’ leadership.
They were now joined by Athene, Daughter of Zeus, who had assumed Mentor’s appearance and voice for the occasion. The stalwart Odysseus was overjoyed to see her. He turned at once to his dear son and said: “Telemachus, when you find yourself in the thick of battle, where the best men prove their mettle, I am sure you will know how not to shame your father’s house. In all the world there has been none like ours for valour and for manly strength.” And the wise Telemachus replied: “As you said, dear father, in this present mood of mine your line will not be put to shame by me. You shall see that for yourself.”
Laertes was delighted. “Dear gods!” he exclaimed. “What a day this is to warm my heart! My son and my grandson are competing in valour.”
Athene of the flashing eyes came up to him now and said: Laertes, dearest of all my friends, pray to the Lady of the flashing eyes and to Father Zeus; then quickly swing your long spear back and let it fly.”
As she spoke Pallas Athene breathed daring into the old man, who, with a prayer to the Daughter of Zeus, poised his long spear at once and hurled it. He struck Eupeithes on the bronze cheek-guard of his helmet. The helmet failed to stop the spear, the point burst through, and with a clang of armour Eupeithes crashed to earth. Then Odysseus and his noble son fell on the front rank of the enemy and smote them with their swords and double-pointed spears. They would have destroyed them all and seen that none went home alive, if Athene, Daughter of aegis-wearing Zeus, had not raised a great cry and checked the whole of the contending forces: “Ithacans, stop this disastrous fight and separate at once before more blood is shed.”
Athene’s cry struck panic into the Ithacans, who let their weapons go, in their terror at the goddess’ voice. The arms all fell to earth, and the men turned citywards, intent on their own salvation. The indomitable Odysseus raised a terrible war-cry, gathered himself together and pounced on them like a swooping eagle. But at this moment Zeus let fly a flaming bolt, which fell in front of the bright-eyed Daughter of that formidable Sire. Athene called out at once to Odysseus by his royal titles, commanding him to hold his hand and bring this civil strife to a finish, for fear of offending the ever-watchful Zeus.
Odysseus obeyed her, with a happy heart. And presently Pallas Athene, Daughter of aegis-wearing Zeus, still using Mentor’s form and voice for her disguise, established peace between the two contending forces.
The End
