Part 4 (2/2)
Only one had been wise enough not to enter, and he rushed back to tell the tale to his lord. Odysseus started off alone to rescue his comrades; and Hermes met him on the way, in the likeness of a young man, and gave him _moly_, a magic herb, and full directions for its use, to ward off enchantment.
Fair Circe receives him most graciously and prepares also for him the magic potion, but for once her charm fails. He draws his sword to slay her, and then she becomes the suppliant. She has found her match, and at once, as if she were a mortal, falls in love with him. Her bonhomie is now her greatest charm. She swears a great oath not to harm him or his companions, and restores to the natural form those whom she had already bewitched. Royal entertainment and gracious hospitality and words of counsel are now the order of the day--attendant nymphs, delicious baths, and sumptuous banquets. So there they remained for a full year, feasting on abundant flesh and sweetest wine.
Lady Circe proved herself to be the counsellor and friend of Odysseus, and showed him how to carry out his fond desire of visiting the realm of Hades, to seek the spirit of Theban Tiresias, that he might unfold to the wanderer his future. Then, clad in a great, s.h.i.+ning robe, light of woof and gracious, with a fair golden girdle about her waist, and a veil upon her head, she bade farewell to Odysseus and his crew, and sent a favoring wind as a kindly escort to the dark-prowed s.h.i.+p.
During his descent into Hades, Odysseus discourses with the Theban seer, who makes known to him his destiny, and also with the wraith of his mother, who tells him that faithful Penelope abides with steadfast spirit in his halls, and wearily for her the nights wane always and the days in the shedding of tears; and how she herself was reft of sweet life through her sore longing for him.
And, after her, there appears a great company of the famous women of heroic times, wives and daughters of mighty men, who had been beloved of G.o.ds and ill.u.s.trious mortals,--Tyro, ancestress of Nestor's house; and Antiope, mother of Amphion and Zethus, founders of seven-gated Thebes; and Alcmene, mother of Heracles; and Epicaste, mother of Oedipus, who was wedded to her own son; and lovely Chloris, wife of Neleus; and Leda, mother of Castor and Pollux; and Iphimedia, and Phaedra, and Procris, and Maera, and Clymene, and hateful Eriphyle, and innumerable other wives and daughters of heroes,--Homer's _Catalogue of Famous Women_, who had exerted mighty influence in heroic times.
Upon Odysseus's return to the island of aea, Circe greets them, and once more they enjoy meat and bread in plenty and dark red wine. And our hero Circe leads apart and makes him sit down, and lays herself at his feet and asks all his tale. She then warns him of the dangers he has yet to encounter, and tells him how to meet them. Then, with words of farewell, she sends the travellers on their voyage with a favoring breeze. First, Odysseus encounters the Sirens, whose enchanting strains he enjoys while he is bound tight to the mast, and the ears of his companions are deafened with wax; he evades the Clas.h.i.+ng Rocks, escapes Scylla and Charybdis; and at last, on the Isle of the Sun, his comrades slaughter and devour the sacred cattle of Helios--in violation of the warnings of Tiresias and Circe. All are in consequence lost in a s.h.i.+pwreck, save Odysseus, who, after floating about for ten days on a raft, reaches the island of Ogygia, abode of the fair nymph Calypso, who holds him as her beloved for eight long years and would make him immortal.
Thus the tale ended--all are spellbound throughout the shadowy halls at the story, and Alcinous and his courtiers offer all manner of gifts to Odysseus. The next day, a s.h.i.+p is got ready for its voyage to far-off Ithaca; the gifts are stored on board, a farewell feast is held, and Odysseus bids farewell to his gracious hosts:
”My lord Alcinous, most notable of all the people, pour ye the drink offering, and send me safe upon my way; and as for you, fare ye well.
For now have I all that my heart desired, an escort and loving gifts.
May the G.o.ds of heaven give me good fortune with them, and may I find my n.o.ble wife in my home with my friends unharmed, while ye, for your part, abide here and make glad your gentle wives and children; and may the G.o.ds vouchsafe all manner of good, and may no evil come nigh the people!”
Then, after a grateful farewell to Queen Arete, the hero is conducted to the waiting s.h.i.+p, and there left reclining upon the soft rugs that have been spread for him, and soon a sound sleep, very sweet, falls upon his eyelids.
When Odysseus awakes, he is in his dear native land, though he does not recognize it until the G.o.ddess Athena appears and tells him how he is to regain wife and kingdom. For us, the rest of the story centres about Queen Penelope, who for so many, m'any years has been awaiting the return of her lord.
Odysseus, disguised by the G.o.ddess in the form of an aged beggar, goes to the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus, with whose aid the plot for the destruction of the wooers is to be carried out; and Athena summons Telemachus to return from Lacedaemon to meet his father and bear his part in the final scenes. When the young man returns to the palace, after his interview with his father, ”the nurse Euryclea saw him far before the rest, as she was strewing skin coverlets upon the carven chairs; and straightway she drew near him, weeping, and all the other maidens of Odysseus, of the hardy heart, gathered about him, and kissed him lovingly on the head and shoulders. Now wise Penelope came forth from her chamber, like Artemis or golden Aphrodite, and cast her arms about her dear son, and fell a-weeping, and kissed his face and both his beautiful eyes, and wept aloud, and spake to him winged words:
”'Thou art come, Telemachus, sweet light of mine eyes; methought I should see thee never again, after thou hadst gone in thy s.h.i.+p to Pylus, secretly, and without my will, to seek tidings of thy dear father. Come now, tell me, what sign didst thou get of him?'”
Telemachus tells his mother of his journey, and his friend Theoclymenus, who has the gift of second-sight, prophesies the speedy return of Odysseus. Soon the hero himself appears as a beggar in his own halls, and is roughly treated by the haughty wooers. He soundly whips the braggart beggar Irus, and the story of his presence is noised throughout the house.
Constant Penelope is ever anxious to hear some word of her lord, and every wandering stranger with a tale to tell could win rich gifts from her by devising some story of Odysseus. She has heard of the beggar in her halls, and summons him to her presence and questions him, and tells him of her grief and her longing for more news of the absent one. When crafty Odysseus fas.h.i.+oned a story of his entertaining her lord in Crete, her tears flowed as she listened, and she wept for her own lord who was sitting by her. The disguised hero had compa.s.sion for his wife; but he craftily hid his tears, and described the appearance of Odysseus so fully that she could not deny the certain likeness.
Then the aged nurse Euryclea, who had tended him in his youth, is asked to wash the feet of the old man. As the crone makes ready the caldron, a sudden fear seizes Odysseus lest when she handles his foot she might know the scar of the wound that the boar had dealt him with its white tusk in his boyhood. When the old woman took the scarred limb, she knew it by the touch, and grief and joy seized her, and she called him Odysseus, her dear child. Then would she have revealed the glad news to Penelope, had Odysseus not seized her by the throat and made her swear to keep his presence secret until the slaying of the lordly wooers.
Next day occurs the famous trial of the bow of Odysseus, which none of the suitors can draw; then Odysseus gets the bow into his hands, strings it, sends the arrow through the axheads, and finally, leaping on the stone threshold, deals his shafts among the wooers. The wretched company are all slaughtered, the faithless women of the household are hanged, and ominous silence reigns over the palace of Odysseus.
Euryclea hastens to the upper chamber to bring to Queen Penelope the good news that Odysseus has surely come and has slain the haughty wooers. The fair lady can with difficulty believe the tidings, but she is finally persuaded to go down to see the wooers dead and him that slew them.
”With the word, she went down from the upper chamber, and much her heart debated whether she should stand apart and question her dear lord or draw nigh and clasp his head and hands. But when she had come within and had crossed the threshold of stone, she sat down over against Odysseus, in the light of the fire, by the further wall. Now, he was sitting by the tall pillar, looking down and waiting to know if perchance his n.o.ble wife would speak to him, when her eyes beheld him. But she sat long in silence, and amazement came upon her soul, and now she would look upon him steadfastly with her eyes, and now again she knew him not, for that he was clad in vile raiment. And Telemachus rebuked her, and spake and hailed her:
”'Mother mine, ill mother, of an ungentle heart, why turnest thou thus away from my father, and dost not sit by him and question him and ask him all? No other woman in the world would harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her lord, who, after much travail and sore, had come to her in the twentieth year to his own country. But thy heart is ever harder than stone.'
”Then wise Penelope answered him, saying: 'Child, my mind is amazed within me, and I have no strength to speak, or to ask him aught, nay, or to look on him face to face. But if in truth this be Odysseus, and he hath indeed come home, verily we shall be aware of each other the more surely; for we have tokens that we twain know of, even we, secret from all others.'
”So she spake, and the steadfast, goodly Odysseus smiled, and quickly he spake to Telemachus winged words: 'Telemachus, leave now thy mother to make trial of me within the chambers; so shall she soon come to a better knowledge than heretofore.'
”Meanwhile, the housedame Eurynome had bathed the great-hearted Odysseus within his house, and anointed him with olive oil, and cast about him a goodly mantle and a doublet. Moreover, Athena shed great beauty from his head downwards, and made him greater and more mighty to behold, and from his head caused deep, curling locks to flow, like the hyacinth flower.
And as when some skilful man overlays gold upon silver, one that Hephaestus and Pallas Athena have taught all manner of craft, and full of grace is his handiwork, even so did Athena shed grace about his head and shoulders; and forth from the bath he came, in form like to the immortals. Then he sat down again on the high seat, whence he had arisen, over against his wife, and spake to her, saying:
”'Strange lady, surely to thee, above all womankind, the Olympians have given a heart that cannot be softened. No other woman in the world would harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her husband, who, after much travail and sore, had come to her, in the twentieth year, to his own country.--Nay, come, nurse strew a bed for me to lie all alone, for a.s.suredly her spirit within her is as iron.'
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