Padriac Colum - The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy
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12 [Illustration]
THE ADVENTURES
OF ODYSSEUS AND
THE TALE OF TROY
[Illustration]
THE ADVENTURES
OF ODYSSEUS AND
THE TALE OF TROY
BY PADRAIC COLUM
[Illustration]
PRESENTED BY
WILLY POGANY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
SET UP AND ELECTROTYPED. PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, 1918.
[Illustration]
REPRINTED JUNE, OCTOBER, 1919; OCTOBER, 1920; AUGUST,
1922; MARCH, 1923; MAY, 1924; JUNE, 1925; MARCH, 1926;
DECEMBER, 1926; AUGUST, 1927.
Norwood Press: J.S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
FOR HUGHIE AND PETER
THIS TELLING OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST STORY
BECAUSE THEIR IMAGINATIONS
RISE TO DEEDS AND WONDERS
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PART I
HOW TELEMACHUS THE SON OF ODYSSEUS WAS MOVED TO GO ON A VOYAGE
IN SEARCH OF HIS FATHER AND HOW HE HEARD FROM MENELAUS AND HELEN
THE TALE OF TROY 1
PART II
HOW ODYSSEUS LEFT CALYPSO'S ISLAND AND CAME TO THE LAND OF THE
PHAEACIANS; HOW HE TOLD HE FARED WITH THE CYCLOPES AND WENT PAST
THE TERRIBLE SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS AND CAME TO THE ISLAND OF
THRINACIA WHERE HIS MEN SLAUGHTERED THE CATTLE OF THE SUN; HOW
HE WAS GIVEN A SHIP BY THE PHAEACIANS AND CAME TO HIS OWN LAND;
HOW HE OVERTHREW THE WOOERS WHO WASTED HIS SUBSTANCE AND CAME TO
REIGN AGAIN AS KING OF ITHAKA. 125
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
COLOUR PLATES
The Judgement of Paris _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
The Fair Helen 30
Achilles Victorious 106
The Princess Threw the Ball 138
The Sorrowing Odysseus 148
Circe 170
The Sirens 176
Penelope Unravelling the Web 221
PART I
HOW TELEMACHUS THE SON OF ODYSSEUS WAS MOVED TO GO ON A VOYAGE IN SEARCH
OF HIS FATHER AND HOW HE HEARD FROM MENELAUS AND HELEN THE TALE OF TROY
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
I
This is the story of Odysseus, the most renowned of all the heroes the
Greek poets have told us of--of Odysseus, his wars and his wanderings.
And this story of Odysseus begins with his son, the youth who was called
Telemachus.
It was when Telemachus was a child of a month old that a messenger came
from Agamemnon, the Great King, bidding Odysseus betake himself to the
war against Troy that the Kings and Princes of Greece were about to
wage. The wise Odysseus, foreseeing the disasters that would befall all
that entered that war, was loth to go. And so when Agamemnon's messenger
came to the island of Ithaka where he was King, Odysseus pretended to be
mad. And that the messenger, Palamedes, might believe he was mad indeed,
he did a thing that no man ever saw being done before--he took an ass
and an ox and yoked them together to the same plough and began to plough
a field. And when he had ploughed a furrow he sowed it, not with seeds
that would grow, but with salt. When Palamedes saw him doing this he was
nearly persuaded that Odysseus was mad. But to test him he took the
child Telemachus and laid him down in the field in the way of the
plough. Odysseus, when he came near to where the child lay, turned the
plough aside and thereby showed that he was not a mad man. Then had he
to take King Agamemnon's summons. And Agamemnon's word was that Odysseus
should go to Aulis where the ships of the Kings and Princes of Greece
were being gathered. But first he was to go into another country to seek
the hero Achilles and persuade him also to enter the war against Troy.
And so Odysseus bade good-bye to his infant son, Telemachus, and to his
young wife Penelope, and to his father, old Laertes. And he bade
good-bye to his house and his lands and to the island of Ithaka where he
was King. He summoned a council of the chief men of Ithaka and commended
to their care his wife and his child and all his household, and
thereafter he took his sailors and his fighting men with him and he
sailed away. The years went by and Odysseus did not return. After ten
years the City was taken by the Kings and Princes of Greece and the
thread of war was wound up. But still Odysseus did not return. And now
minstrels came to Ithaka with word of the deaths or the homecomings of
the heroes who had fought in the war against Troy. But no minstrel
brought any word of Odysseus, of his death or of his appearance in any
land known to men. Ten years more went by. And now that infant son
whom he had left behind, Telemachus, had grown up and was a young man of
strength and purpose.
[Illustration]
II
One day, as he sat sad and disconsolate in the house of his father, the
youth Telemachus saw a stranger come to the outer gate. There were many
in the court outside, but no one went to receive the newcomer. Then,
because he would never let a stranger stand at the gate without hurrying
out to welcome him, and because, too, he had hopes that some day such a
one would bring him tidings of his father, Telemachus rose up from where
he was sitting and went down the hall and through the court and to the
gate at which the stranger stood.
'Welcome to the house of Odysseus,' said Telemachus giving him his hand.
The stranger clasped it with a friendly clasp. 'I thank you,
Telemachus,' he said, 'for your welcome, and glad I am to enter the
house of your father, the renowned Odysseus.'
The stranger looked like one who would be a captain amongst soldiers.
His eyes were grey and clear and shone wonderfully. In his hand he
carried a great bronze spear. He and Telemachus went together through
the court and into the hall. And when the stranger left his spear
within the spearstand Telemachus took him to a high chair and put a
footstool under his feet.
He had brought him to a place in the hall where the crowd would not
come. There were many in the court outside and Telemachus would not have
his guest disturbed by questions or clamours. A handmaid brought water
for the washing of his hands, and poured it over them from a golden ewer
into a silver basin. A polished table was left at his side. Then the
house-dame brought wheaten bread and many dainties. Other servants set
down dishes of meat with golden cups, and afterwards the maids came into
the hall and filled up the cups with wine.
But the servants who waited on Telemachus and his guest were disturbed
by the crowd of men who now came into the hall. They seated themselves
at tables and shouted out their orders. Great dishes of meat were
brought to them and bowls of wine, and the men ate and drank and talked
loudly to each other and did not refrain even from staring at the
stranger who sat with Telemachus.
'Is there a wedding-feast in the house?' the stranger asked, 'or do the
men of your clan meet here to drink with each other?'
A flush of shame came to the face of Telemachus. 'There is no
wedding-feast here,' he said, 'nor do the men of our clan meet here to
drink with each other. Listen to me, my guest. Because you look so wise
and because you seem so friendly to my father's name I will tell you who
these men are and why they trouble this house.'
Thereupon, Telemachus told the stranger how his father had not returned
from the war of Troy although it was now ten years since the City was
taken by those with whom he went. 'Alas,' Telemachus said, 'he must have
died on his way back to us, and I must think that his bones lie under
some nameless strait or channel of the ocean. Would he had died in the
fight at Troy! Then the Kings and Princes would have made him a
burial-mound worthy of his name and his deeds. His memory would have
been reverenced amongst men, and I, his son, would have a name, and
would not be imposed upon by such men as you see here--men who are
feasting and giving orders in my father's house and wasting the
substance that he gathered.'
'How come they to be here?' asked the stranger. Telemachus told him
about this also. When seven years had gone by from the fall of Troy and
still Odysseus did not return there were those who thought he was dead
and would never be seen more in the land of Ithaka. Then many of the
young lords of the land wanted Penelope, Telemachus' mother, to marry
one of them. They came to the house to woo her for marriage. But she,
mourning for the absence of Odysseus and ever hoping that he would
return, would give no answer to them. For three years now they were
coming to the house of Odysseus to woo the wife whom he had left behind
him. 'They want to put my lady-mother between two dread difficulties,'
said Telemachus, 'either to promise to wed one of them or to see the
substance of our house wasted by them. Here they come and eat the bread
of our fields, and slay the beasts of our flocks and herds, and drink
the wine that in the old days my father laid up, and weary our servants
with their orders.'
When he had told him all this Telemachus raised his head and looked at
the stranger: 'O my guest,' he said, 'wisdom and power shine out of your
eyes. Speak now to me and tell me what I should do to save the house of
Odysseus from ruin. And tell me too if you think it possible that my
father should still be in life.'
The stranger looked at him with his grey, clear, wonderfully-shining
eyes. 'Art thou verily the son of Odysseus?' said he.
'Verily, I am the son of Odysseus,' said Telemachus.
'As I look at you,' said the stranger, 'I mark your head and eyes, and I
know they are such a head and such eyes as Odysseus had. Well, being the
son of such a man, and of such a woman as the lady Penelope, your spirit
surely shall find a way of destroying those wooers who would destroy
your house.'
'Already,' said Telemachus, 'your gaze and your speech make me feel
equal to the task of dealing with them.'
'I think,' said the stranger, 'that Odysseus, your father, has not
perished from the earth. He may yet win home through labors and perils.
But you should seek for tidings of him. Harken to me now and I shall
tell you what to do.
'To-morrow summon a council of all the chief men of the land of Ithaka,
and stand up in that council and declare that the time has come for the
wooers who waste your substance to scatter, each man to his own home.
And after the council has been held I would have you voyage to find out
tidings of your father, whether he still lives and where he might be. Go
to Pylos first, to the home of Nestor, that old King who was with your
father in the war of Troy. Beg Nestor to give you whatever tidings he
has of Odysseus. And from Pylos go to Sparta, to the home of Menelaus
and Helen, and beg tidings of your father from them too. And if you get
news of his being alive, return: It will be easy for you then to endure
for another year the wasting of your substance by those wooers. But if
you learn that your father, the renowned Odysseus, is indeed dead and
gone, then come back, and in your own country raise a great funeral
mound to his memory, and over it pay all funeral rites. Then let your
mother choose a good man to be her husband and let her marry him,
knowing for a certainty that Odysseus will never come back to his own
house. After that something will remain for you to do: You will have to
punish those wooers who destroy the goods your father gathered and who
insult his house by their presence. And when all these things have been
done, you, Telemachus, will be free to seek out your own fortune: you
will rise to fame, for I mark that you are handsome and strong and most
likely to be a wise and valiant man. But now I must fare on my journey.'
The stranger rose up from where he sat and went with Telemachus from the
hall and through the court and to the outer gate. Telemachus said: 'What
you have told me I shall not forget. I know you have spoken out of a
wise and a friendly heart, and as a father to his son.'
The stranger clasped his hands and went through the gate. And then, as
he looked after him Telemachus saw the stranger change in his form. He
became first as a woman, tall, with fair hair and a spear of bronze in
her hand. And then the form of a woman changed too. It changed into a
great sea-eagle that on wide wings rose up and flew high through the
air. Telemachus knew then that his visitor was an immortal and no other
than the goddess Athene who had been his father's friend.
III
When Telemachus went back to the hall those who were feasting there had
put the wine-cups from them and were calling out for Phemius, the
minstrel, to come and sing some tale to delight them. And as he went
amongst them one of the wooers said to another, 'The guest who was with
him has told Telemachus something that has changed his bearing. Never
before did I see him hold himself so proudly. Mayhap he has spoken to
him of the return of his father, the renowned Odysseus.'
Phemius came and the wooers called upon him to sing them a tale. And the
minstrel, in flowing verse, began the tale of the return of the Kings
and Princes from Troy, and of how some god or goddess put a trouble upon
them as they left the City they had taken. And as the minstrel began the
tale, Penelope, Telemachus' lady-mother, was coming down the stairs with
two hand-maids beside her. She heard the words he sang, and she stood
still in her grief and drew her veil across her face. 'O Phemius,' she
cried, 'cease from that story that ever wastes my heart--the story that
has brought me sorrow and that leaves me comfortless all my days! O
Phemius, do you not know other tales of men and gods that you might sing
in this hall for the delight of my noble wooers?'
The minstrel would have ceased when Penelope spoke thus to him, but
Telemachus went to the stairway where his lady-mother stood, and
addressed her.
'My lady-mother,' said he, 'why should you not let the minstrel delight
the company with such songs as the spirit moves him to give us? It is no
blame to him if he sings of that which is sorrowful to us. As for you,
my mother, you must learn to endure that story, for long will it be sung
and far and wide. And you are not the only one who is bereaved--many
another man besides Odysseus lost the happy day of his homecoming in
the war of Troy.'
[Illustration]
Penelope, his lady-mother, looked in surprise at the youth who spoke to
her so wisely. Was this indeed Telemachus who before had hardly lifted
his head? And as she looked at him again she saw that he carried his
head--that head of his that was so like Odysseus'--high and proudly. She
saw that her son was now indeed a man. Penelope spoke no word to him,
for a new thought had come into her mind. She turned round on the stairs
and went back with her hand-maids to the chamber where her loom and her
distaff were. And as she went up the stairway and away from them her
wooers muttered one to the other that she would soon have to choose one
of them for her husband.
Telemachus turned to those who were standing at the tables and addressed
them. 'Wooers of my mother,' he said, 'I have a word to say to you.'
'By the gods, youth,' said one of the wooers, 'you must tell us first
who he is who has made you so high and proud of speech.'
'Surely,' said another, 'he who has done that is the stranger who was
with him. Who is he? Why did he come here, and of what land has he
declared himself to be?'
'Why did he not stay so that we might look at him and speak to him?'
said another of the wooers.
'These are the words I would say to you. Let us feast now in peace,
without any brawling amongst us, and listen to the tale that the
minstrel sings to us,' said Telemachus. 'But to-morrow let us have a
council made up of the chief men of this land of Ithaka. I shall go to
the council and speak there. I shall ask that you leave this house of
mine and feast on goods that you yourselves have gathered. Let the chief
men judge whether I speak in fairness to you or not. If you do not heed
what I will say openly at the council, before all the chief men of our
land, then let it be on your own heads what will befall you.'
All the wooers marvelled that Telemachus spoke so boldly. And one said,
'Because his father, Odysseus, was king, this youth thinks he should be
king by inheritance. But may Zeus, the god, never grant that he be
king.'
Then said Telemachus, 'If the god Zeus should grant that I be King, I am
ready to take up the Kingship of the land of Ithaka with all its toils
and all its dangers.' And when Telemachus said that he looked like a
young king indeed.
But they sat in peace and listened to what the minstrel sang. And when
evening came the wooers left the hall and went each to his own house.
Telemachus rose and went to his chamber. Before him there went an
ancient woman who had nursed him as a child--Eurycleia was her name. She
carried burning torches to light his way. And when they were in his
chamber Telemachus took off his soft doublet and put it in Eurycleia's
hands, and she smoothed it out and hung it on the pin at his bed-side.
Then she went out and she closed the door behind with its handle of
silver and she pulled the thong that bolted the door on the other side.
And all night long Telemachus lay wrapped in his fleece of wool and
thought on what he would say at the council next day, and on the goddess
Athene and what she had put into his heart to do, and on the journey
that was before him to Nestor in Pylos and to Menelaus and Helen in
Sparta.
IV
As soon as it was dawn Telemachus rose from his bed. He put on his
raiment, bound his sandals on his feet, hung his sharp sword across his
shoulder, and took in his hand a spear of bronze. Then he went forth to
where the Council was being held in the open air, and two swift hounds
went beside him.
The chief men of the land of Ithaka had been gathered already for the
council. When it was plain that all were there, the man who was oldest
amongst them, the lord AEgyptus, rose up and spoke. He had sons, and two
of them were with him yet, tending his fields. But one, Eurynomous by
name, kept company with the wooers of Telemachus' mother. And AEgyptus
had had another son; he had gone in Odysseus' ship to the war of Troy,
and AEgyptus knew he had perished on his way back. He constantly mourned
for this son, and thinking upon him as he spoke, AEgyptus had tears in
his eyes.
[Illustration]
'Never since Odysseus summoned us together before he took ship for the
war of Troy have we met in council,' said he. 'Why have we been brought
together now? Has someone heard tidings of the return of Odysseus? If it
be so, may the god Zeus give luck to him who tells us of such good
fortune.'
Telemachus was glad because of the kindly speech of the old man. He rose
up to speak and the herald put a staff into his hands as a sign that he
was to be listened to with reverence. Telemachus then spoke, addressing
the old lord AEgyptus.
'I will tell you who it is,' he said, 'who has called the men of Ithaka
together in council, and for what purpose. Revered lord AEgyptus, I have
called you together, but not because I have had tidings of the return of
my father, the renowned Odysseus, nor because I would speak to you about
some affair of our country. No. I would speak to you all because I
suffer and because I am at a loss--I, whose father was King over you,
praised by you all. Odysseus is long away from Ithaka, and I deem that
he will never return. You have lost your King. But you can put another
King to rule over you. I have lost my father, and I can have no other
father in all my days. And that is not all my loss, as I will show you
now, men of Ithaka.
'For three years now my mother has been beset by men who come to woo her
to be wife for one of them. Day after day they come to our house and
kill and devour our beasts and waste the wine that was laid up against
my father's return. They waste our goods and our wealth. If I were
nearer manhood I would defend my house against them. But as yet I am
not able to do it, and so I have to stand by and see our house and
substance being destroyed.'
So Telemachus spoke, and when his speech was ended Antinous, who was one
of the wooers, rose up.
'Telemachus,' said he, 'why do you try to put us to shame in this way? I
tell all here that it is not we but your mother who is to blame. We,
knowing her husband Odysseus is no longer in life, have asked her to
become the wife of one of us. She gives us no honest answer. Instead she
has given her mind to a device to keep us still waiting.
'I will tell you of the council what this device is. The lady Penelope
set up a great loom in her house and began to weave a wide web of cloth.
To each of us she sent a message saying that when the web she was
working at was woven, she would choose a husband from amongst us.
"Laertes, the father of Odysseus, is alone with none to care for him
living or dead," said she to us. "I must weave a shroud for him against
the time which cannot now be far off when old Laertes dies. Trouble me
not while I do this. For if he should die and there be no winding-sheet
to wrap him round all the women of the land would blame me greatly."
'We were not oppressive and we left the lady Penelope to weave the web,
and the months have gone by and still the web is not woven. But even now
we have heard from one of her maids how Penelope tries to finish her
task. What she weaves in the daytime she unravels at night. Never, then,
can the web be finished and so does she try to cheat us.
'She has gained praise from the people for doing this. "How wise is
Penelope," they say, "with her devices." Let her be satisfied with their
praise then, and leave us alone. We too have our devices. We will live
at her house and eat and drink there and give orders to her servants and
we shall see which will satisfy her best--to give an answer or to let
the wealth of her house be wasted.
'As for you, Telemachus, I have these words to say to you. Lead your
mother from your father's house and to the house of her father, Icarius.
Tell Icarius to give her in marriage to the one she chooses from amongst
us. Do this and no more goods will be wasted in the house that will be
yours,'
Then Telemachus rose and said, 'Never will I lead my mother out of a
house that my father brought her into. Quit my father's house, or, as I
tell you now, the day may come when a doom will fall upon you there for
your insolence in it.'
And even as Telemachus spoke, two eagles from a mountain crest flew over
the place where the council was being held. They wheeled above and
flapped their wings and looked down upon the crowd with destruction in
their gaze. They tore each other with their talons, and then flew away
across the City.
An old man who was there, Halitherses by name, a man skilled in the
signs made by birds, told those who were around what was foreshown by
the combat of the eagles in the air. 'Odysseus,' he said, 'is not far
from his friends. He will return, and his return will mean affliction
for those who insult his house. Now let them make an end of their
mischief.' But the wooers only laughed at the old man, telling him he
should go home and prophesy to his children.
Then arose another old man whose name was Mentor, and he was one who had
been a friend and companion of Odysseus. He spoke to the council saying:
'Never again need a King be gentle in his heart. For kind and gentle to
you all was your King, Odysseus. And now his son asks you for help and
you do not hurry to give it him. It is not so much an affliction to me
that these wooers waste his goods as that you do not rise up to forbid
it. But let them persist in doing it on the hazard of their own heads.
For a doom will come on them, I say. And I say again to you of the
council: you are many and the wooers are few: Why then do you not put
them away from the house of Odysseus?'
But no one in the council took the side of Telemachus and Halitherses
and Mentor--so powerful were the wooers and so fearful of them were the
men of the council. The wooers looked at Telemachus and his friends with
mockery. Then for the last time Telemachus rose up and spoke to the
council.
'I have spoken in the council, and the men of Ithaka know, and the gods
know, the rights and wrongs of my case. All I ask of you now is that you
give me a swift ship with twenty youths to be my crew so that I may go
to Pylos and to Sparta to seek tidings of my father. If I find he is
alive and that he is returning, then I can endure to wait another year
in the house and submit to what you do there.'
Even at this speech they mocked. Said one of them, Leocritus by name,
'Though Odysseus be alive and should one day come into his own hall,
that would not affright us. He is one, and we are many, and if he should
strive with those who outnumber him, why then, let his doom be on his
own head. And now, men of the council, scatter yourselves and go each to
his own home, and let Mentor and Halitherses help Telemachus to get a
ship and a crew.'
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