Homer: The Odyssey — Chapter 2

"Answered him Nestor, the Gerenian knight:'Friend, thou remind'st me of exceeding pain,Which we, the Achaians of unconquered might,There, and in ships along the clouded main,Led by Achilleus to the spoil, did drain,With those our fightings round the fortress highOf Priam king. There all our best were slain—There the brave Aias and Achilleus lie;Patroclus there, whose wisdom matched the gods on high.

"'There too Antilochus my son doth sleep,Who in his strength was all so void of blame—Swift runner, and staunch warrior.'"

"I weep for joyTo stand upon my kingdom once again.Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs:As a long-parted mother with her childPlays fondly with her tears, and smiles in meeting,So weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,And do thee favour with my royal hands."

"Many the warm tears from his eyelids shed,When through the mist of his long-hoped delightHe saw the lovely land before him spread.Him from high watch-tower marked the watchman wightSet by Ægisthus to watch day and night,Two talents of pure gold his promised hire.Twelve months he watched, lest the Avenger lightUnheeded, and remember his old fire;Then to his lord made haste to show the tidings dire.

"Forthwith Ægisthus, shaping a dark snare,Score of his bravest chose, and ambush set,And bade rich banquets close at hand prepare.Then he with horses and with chariots metThe king, and welcomed him with fair words, yetWith fraud at heart, and to the feast him led;There, like a stalled ox, smote him while he fed."

"Such and so glorious to celestial eyneHaply may gleam the Olympian halls divine!"

"Forth from her fragrant chamber Helen passedLike gold-bowed Dian: and Adraste cameThe bearer of her throne's majestic frame;Her carpet's fine-wrought fleece Alcippe bore,Phylo her basket bright with silver ore,Gift of the wife of Polybus, who swayedWhen Thebes, the Egyptian Thebes, scant wealth displayed.His wife Alcandra, from her treasured store,A golden spindle to fair Helen bore,And a bright silver basket, on whose roundA rim of burnished gold was closely bound."—(Sotheby.)

"Hardly I came at last, in the eighth year,Home with my ships from my long wanderings.Far as to Cyprus in my woe severe,Phœnice, Egypt, did the waves me bear.Sidon and Ethiopia I have seen,Even to Erembus roamed, and Libya, whereThe lambs are full-horned from their birth, I ween,And in the rolling year the fruitful flocks thrice yean."

"His was the fate to suffer grievous woe,And mine to mourn without forgetfulness,While onward and still on the seasons flow,And he yet absent, and I comfortless.Whether he live or die we cannot guess.Him haply old Laertes doth lament,And sage Penelope, in sore distress,And to Telemachus the hours are spentIn sadness, whom he left new-born when first he went."

"Which so cures heartache and the inward stings,That men forget all sorrow wherein they pine.He who hath tasted of the draught divineWeeps not that day, although his mother dieOr father, or cut off before his eyenBrother or child beloved fall miserably,Hewn by the pitiless sword, he sitting silent by."

"Thee to Elysian fields, earth's farthest end,Where Rhadamanthus dwells, the gods shall send;Where mortals easiest pass the careless hour;No lingering winters there, nor snow, nor shower,But ocean ever, to refresh mankind,Breathes the shrill spirit of the western wind."

"The island-valley of Avilion,Where falls not hail nor rain nor any snow,Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it liesDeep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns,And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea."

"There eternal summer dwells,And west winds, with musky wing,About the cedarn alleys flingNard and cassia's balmy smells."

"With me no steeds to Ithaca shall sail.Such leave I here—thy grace, thy rightful vaunt,Lord of a level land, where never failLotus, and rye, and wheat, and galingale:No room hath Ithaca to course, no mead—Goat-haunted, dearer than horse-feeding vale."