《奥德修记》-23

"So I drew back, and sheathed my sword, whereon when he had drank ofthe blood he began with his prophecy."You want to know,' said he, 'about your return home, but heavenwill make this hard for you. I do not think that you will escape theeye of Neptune, who still nurses his bitter grudge against you forhaving blinded his son. Still, after much suffering you may get homeif you can restrain yourself and your companions when your shipreaches the Thrinacian island, where you will find the sheep andcattle belonging to the sun, who sees and gives ear to everything.If you leave these flocks unharmed and think of nothing but of gettinghome, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harmthem, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship andof your men. Even though you may yourself escape, you will return inbad plight after losing all your men, [in another man's ship, andyou will find trouble in your house, which will be overrun byhigh-handed people, who are devouring your substance under the pretextof paying court and making presents to your wife."'When you get home you will take your revenge on these suitors; andafter you have killed them by force or fraud in your own house, youmust take a well-made oar and carry it on and on, till you come to acountry where the people have never heard of the sea and do not evenmix salt with their food, nor do they know anything about ships, andoars that are as the wings of a ship. I will give you this certaintoken which cannot escape your notice. A wayfarer will meet you andwill say it must be a winnowing shovel that you have got upon yourshoulder; on this you must fix the oar in the ground and sacrifice aram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune. Then go home and offer hecatombsto an the gods in heaven one after the other. As for yourself, deathshall come to you from the sea, and your life shall ebb away verygently when you are full of years and peace of mind, and your peopleshall bless you. All that I have said will come true].'"'This,' I answered, 'must be as it may please heaven, but tell meand tell me and tell me true, I see my poor mother's ghost close byus; she is sitting by the blood without saying a word, and though I amher own son she does not remember me and speak to me; tell me, Sir,how I can make her know me.'"'That,' said he, 'I can soon do Any ghost that you let taste of theblood will talk with you like a reasonable being, but if you do notlet them have any blood they will go away again.'"On this the ghost of Teiresias went back to the house of Hades, forhis prophecyings had now been spoken, but I sat still where I wasuntil my mother came up and tasted the blood. Then she knew me at onceand spoke fondly to me, saying, 'My son, how did you come down to thisabode of darkness while you are still alive? It is a hard thing forthe living to see these places, for between us and them there aregreat and terrible waters, and there is Oceanus, which no man cancross on foot, but he must have a good ship to take him. Are you allthis time trying to find your way home from Troy, and have you neveryet got back to Ithaca nor seen your wife in your own house?'"'Mother,' said I, 'I was forced to come here to consult the ghostof the Theban prophet Teiresias. I have never yet been near theAchaean land nor set foot on my native country, and I have had nothingbut one long series of misfortunes from the very first day that Iset out with Agamemnon for Ilius, the land of noble steeds, to fightthe Trojans. But tell me, and tell me true, in what way did you die?Did you have a long illness, or did heaven vouchsafe you a gentle easypassage to eternity? Tell me also about my father, and the son whomI left behind me; is my property still in their hands, or has some oneelse got hold of it, who thinks that I shall not return to claim it?Tell me again what my wife intends doing, and in what mind she is;does she live with my son and guard my estate securely, or has shemade the best match she could and married again?'"My mother answered, 'Your wife still remains in your house, but sheis in great distress of mind and spends her whole time in tears bothnight and day. No one as yet has got possession of your fine property,and Telemachus still holds your lands undisturbed. He has to entertainlargely, as of course he must, considering his position as amagistrate, and how every one invites him; your father remains athis old place in the country and never goes near the town. He has nocomfortable bed nor bedding; in the winter he sleeps on the floor infront of the fire with the men and goes about all in rags, but insummer, when the warm weather comes on again, he lies out in thevineyard on a bed of vine leaves thrown anyhow upon the ground. Hegrieves continually about your never having come home, and suffersmore and more as he grows older. As for my own end it was in thiswise: heaven did not take me swiftly and painlessly in my own house,nor was I attacked by any illness such as those that generally wearpeople out and kill them, but my longing to know what you were doingand the force of my affection for you- this it was that was thedeath of me.'"Then I tried to find some way of embracing my mother's ghost.Thrice I sprang towards her and tried to clasp her in my arms, buteach time she flitted from my embrace as it were a dream or phantom,and being touched to the quick I said to her, 'Mother, why do younot stay still when I would embrace you? If we could throw our armsaround one another we might find sad comfort in the sharing of oursorrows even in the house of Hades; does Proserpine want to lay astill further load of grief upon me by mocking me with a phantomonly?'"'My son,' she answered, 'most ill-fated of all mankind, it is notProserpine that is beguiling you, but all people are like this whenthey are dead. The sinews no longer hold the flesh and bones together;these perish in the fierceness of consuming fire as soon as life hasleft the body, and the soul flits away as though it were a dream. Now,however, go back to the light of day as soon as you can, and noteall these things that you may tell them to your wife hereafter.'"Thus did we converse, and anon Proserpine sent up the ghosts of thewives and daughters of all the most famous men. They gathered incrowds about the blood, and I considered how I might question themseverally. In the end I deemed that it would be best to draw thekeen blade that hung by my sturdy thigh, and keep them from alldrinking the blood at once. So they came up one after the other, andeach one as I questioned her told me her race and lineage."The first I saw was Tyro. She was daughter of Salmoneus and wife ofCretheus the son of Aeolus. She fell in love with the river Enipeuswho is much the most beautiful river in the whole world. Once when shewas taking a walk by his side as usual, Neptune, disguised as herlover, lay with her at the mouth of the river, and a huge blue wavearched itself like a mountain over them to hide both woman and god,whereon he loosed her virgin girdle and laid her in a deep slumber.When the god had accomplished the deed of love, he took her hand inhis own and said, 'Tyro, rejoice in all good will; the embraces of thegods are not fruitless, and you will have fine twins about this timetwelve months. Take great care of them. I am Neptune, so now gohome, but hold your tongue and do not tell any one.'"Then he dived under the sea, and she in due course bore Peliasand Neleus, who both of them served Jove with all their might.Pelias was a great breeder of sheep and lived in Iolcus, but the otherlived in Pylos. The rest of her children were by Cretheus, namely,Aeson, Pheres, and Amythaon, who was a mighty warrior and charioteer."Next to her I saw Antiope, daughter to Asopus, who could boast ofhaving slept in the arms of even Jove himself, and who bore him twosons Amphion and Zethus. These founded Thebes with its seven gates,and built a wall all round it; for strong though they were theycould not hold Thebes till they had walled it."Then I saw Alcmena, the wife of Amphitryon, who also bore to Joveindomitable Hercules; and Megara who was daughter to great King Creon,and married the redoubtable son of Amphitryon."I also saw fair Epicaste mother of king OEdipodes whose awful lotit was to marry her own son without suspecting it. He married herafter having killed his father, but the gods proclaimed the wholestory to the world; whereon he remained king of Thebes, in great grieffor the spite the gods had borne him; but Epicaste went to the houseof the mighty jailor Hades, having hanged herself for grief, and theavenging spirits haunted him as for an outraged mother- to his ruingbitterly thereafter."Then I saw Chloris, whom Neleus married for her beauty, havinggiven priceless presents for her. She was youngest daughter to Amphionson of Iasus and king of Minyan Orchomenus, and was Queen in Pylos.She bore Nestor, Chromius, and Periclymenus, and she also bore thatmarvellously lovely woman Pero, who was wooed by all the countryround; but Neleus would only give her to him who should raid thecattle of Iphicles from the grazing grounds of Phylace, and this was ahard task. The only man who would undertake to raid them was a certainexcellent seer, but the will of heaven was against him, for therangers of the cattle caught him and put him in prison; neverthelesswhen a full year had passed and the same season came round again,Iphicles set him at liberty, after he had expounded all the oracles ofheaven. Thus, then, was the will of Jove accomplished."And I saw Leda the wife of Tyndarus, who bore him two famoussons, Castor breaker of horses, and Pollux the mighty boxer. Boththese heroes are lying under the earth, though they are still alive,for by a special dispensation of Jove, they die and come to lifeagain, each one of them every other day throughout all time, andthey have the rank of gods."After her I saw Iphimedeia wife of Aloeus who boasted the embraceof Neptune. She bore two sons Otus and Ephialtes, but both wereshort lived. They were the finest children that were ever born in thisworld, and the best looking, Orion only excepted; for at nine yearsold they were nine fathoms high, and measured nine cubits round thechest. They threatened to make war with the gods in Olympus, and triedto set Mount Ossa on the top of Mount Olympus, and Mount Pelion on thetop of Ossa, that they might scale heaven itself, and they wouldhave done it too if they had been grown up, but Apollo, son of Leto,killed both of them, before they had got so much as a sign of hairupon their cheeks or chin."Then I saw Phaedra, and Procris, and fair Ariadne daughter of themagician Minos, whom Theseus was carrying off from Crete to Athens,but he did not enjoy her, for before he could do so Diana killed herin the island of Dia on account of what Bacchus had said against her."I also saw Maera and Clymene and hateful Eriphyle, who sold her ownhusband for gold. But it would take me all night if I were to nameevery single one of the wives and daughters of heroes whom I saw,and it is time for me to go to bed, either on board ship with my crew,or here. As for my escort, heaven and yourselves will see to it."Here he ended, and the guests sat all of them enthralled andspeechless throughout the covered cloister. Then Arete said to them:"What do you think of this man, O Phaecians? Is he not tall and goodlooking, and is he not Clever? True, he is my own guest, but all ofyou share in the distinction. Do not he a hurry to send him away,nor niggardly in the presents you make to one who is in such greatneed, for heaven has blessed all of you with great abundance."Then spoke the aged hero Echeneus who was one of the oldest menamong them, "My friends," said he, "what our august queen has justsaid to us is both reasonable and to the purpose, therefore bepersuaded by it; but the decision whether in word or deed restsultimately with King Alcinous.""The thing shall be done," exclaimed Alcinous, "as surely as I stilllive and reign over the Phaeacians. Our guest is indeed very anxiousto get home, still we must persuade him to remain with us untilto-morrow, by which time I shall be able to get together the whole sum