The Odyssey Page 0,161

had washed the dark clots from our wounds and laid us out with wailing; for that is the dead man’s due.”

Then answered the spirit of the son of Atreus: “Fortunate son of Laeärtes, ready Odysseus! You won a wife full of all worth. How upright was the heart of true Penelope, the daughter of Icarius! How faithful to Odysseus, the husband of her youth! Wherefore the story of her worth shall never die; but for all humankind immortal ones shall make a joyous song in praise of steadfast Penelope. Not like the daughter of Tyndareusbf did she contrive vile deeds and slay the husband of her youth. Of her a loathsome song shall spread among mankind, and bring an ill repute on all the sex of women, even on well-doers too.”

So they conversed together, where they stood within the house of Hades, in the secret places of the earth.

But Odysseus and his men, after departing from the town, soon reached the rich well-ordered farmstead of Laeärtes. This place Laeärtes had acquired for himself in days gone by, after much patient toil. Here was his home; round it on every side there ran a shed, in which ate, sat, and slept the slaves who did his pleasure. Within, there lived an old Sicilian woman, who tended carefully the aged man here at his farm, far from the town. Arriving here, Odysseus thus addressed his servants and his son:

“Go you at once into the stately house and slay immediately for dinner the fattest of the swine. But I will put my father to the proof, and try if he will recognize and know me by the sight, or if he will fail to know me who have been absent long.”

So saying, he gave his armor to his men, who then went quickly in, while Odysseus approached the fruitful vineyard, to make his trial there. Dolius he did not find, in crossing the long garden, nor any slaves or men; for they were gone to gather stones to make a vineyard wall, and Doliusbg was their leader. His father he found alone in the well-ordered vineyard, hoeing about a plant. He wore a dirty tunic, patched and coarse, and round his shins had bound sewed leather leggings, a protection against harm. Upon his hands were gloves, to save him from the thorns, and on his head a goatskin cap; and so he nursed his sorrow.

When long-tried royal Odysseus saw his father, worn with old age and in great grief of heart, he stopped beneath a lofty pear-tree and shed tears. Then in his mind and heart he doubted much whether to kiss his father, to clasp him in his arms and tell him all, how he had come and found his native land; or first to question him and prove him through and through. Reflecting thus, it seemed the better way to try him first with probing words. With this intent, royal Odysseus walked straight toward him. Laeärtes, with his head bent low, was digging round the plant, and standing by his side his gallant son addressed him:

“Old man, you have no lack of skill in tending gardens. Of these your care is good. Nothing is here—shrub, fig-tree, vine, olive, or pear, or bed of earth,—in all the field uncared for. But one thing I will say; be not offended. No proper care is taken of yourself; for you are meeting hard old age, yet you are sadly worn and meanly clad. It is not as if for idleness your master had cast you by, and nothing of the slave shows in your face or form. Rather you seem a royal person; like one who after taking bath and food might sleep at ease, as is the due of age. Come, then, declare me this and plainly tell whose slave you are, whose farm you tend. And tell me truly this, that I may know full well, if this is really Ithaca to which we now are come, as the man said just now who met me on my way. He was not too bright, however; for he did not deign to talk at length, nor yet to hear my talk, when I inquired for my friend, and asked if he were living still or if he were already dead and in the house of Hades. But let me speak of that to you, and do you mark and listen. In my own country once I entertained a man who had come there;