The Odyssey Page 0,132

the tale, though you deliver me to sorrows more than I now bear. But so it ever is when one is absent from his land as long as I, wandering from town to town, he meets with hardship! Still, I will tell you what you ask and seek to know.

“There is a country, Crete, in the midst of the wine-dark sea, a fair land and a rich, begirt with water. The people there are many, innumerable indeed, and they have ninety cities. Their speech is mixed; one language joins another. Here are Achaeans, here brave native Cretans, here Cydonians, crested Dorians, and noble Pelas gians. Of all their towns the capital is Cnosus, where Minosax became king when nine years old—Minos, the friend of mighty Zeus and father of my father, bold Deucalion. Deucalion begot me and the prince Idomeneus. Idomeneus, however, went in beaked ships to Ilios, in train of the Atreidae. My own proud name is Aethon,ay and I am the younger born; he was the older and the better man. Here was it that I saw Odysseus and gave him entertainment; for into Crete a strong wind bore him, and while he steered toward Troy it forced him past Maleia. He anchored at Amnisus, where is Elithyia’s cave, in a harbor hard to win, and he scarcely cleared the storm. At once he came to town, inquiring for Idomeneus; for he said he was his friend, beloved and honored. But it was now the tenth dawn, or the eleventh, since Idomeneus had gone with the beaked ships to Ilios. And so it happened it was I who brought him to the palace, where I entertained him well and gave him generous welcome from the abundance of my house. To him and all the men who followed I furnished barley-meal and sparkling wine from out the public store, with oxen enough for sacrifice to fill their hearts’ desire. Here for twelve days the noble Achaeans tarried; the strong wind Boreas constrained them and even near the shore let them not lie at anchor. Some baffling power aroused it. But on the thirteenth day the wind went down, and so they put to sea.”

He made the many falsehoods of his tale seem like the truth. So as she listened, drops ran down; she melted into tears. And as the snow melts on the lofty mountains, when Eurus melts what Zephyrus has scattered, and at its melting flowing rivers fill; so did her fair cheeks melt with flowing tears, as she bewailed her husband who was seated by her side. Odysseus in his heart pitied his sobbing wife; but his eyes stood fixed as horn or iron, motionless in their sockets. Through craft he checked his tears. But when she had had her fill of tears and sighs, finding her words once more she said to him:

“Now, stranger, I shall put you to the test, I think, and see if at your hall you really entertained my husband and his gallant comrades, as you say. Tell me what sort of clothes he wore; what the man himself was like, and the comrades who were with him.”

Then wise Odysseus answered her and said: “O lady, it is hard, with so long a time between, to tell you that; for twenty years are gone since he set forth and left my land. Still, I will tell you how my mind makes him appear. A cloak of purple wool Odysseus wore, made with a double fold. A brooch of gold upon it was fashioned with twin buckles, the front part ornamented. In his forepaws a dog held down a spotted fawn and clutched it as it writhed. This all admired and marveled how, though things of gold, the dog would clutch and choke the fawn, and how the fawn that struggled to escape would twitch its feet. His tunic too I noticed, gleaming across the flesh, just like the skin stripped down from a dried onion; so smooth it was, and glistening like the sun. And truly many a woman gazed on the man with wonder. But this I will say further; mark it well. I do not know if Odysseus wore this dress at home, or if a comrade gave it when he entered the swift ship, or yet perhaps some host. Odysseus was beloved by many men; few of the Achaeans equally. I gave him gifts myself,—a sword of bronze, a beautiful purple doublet and a bordered tunic; and I sent