The Odyssey Page 0,72

here, Odysseus? What hostile power assailed you? With care we sent you forth, to let you reach your land and home or anywhere you pleased.’

“So they spoke, and with an aching heart I answered: ‘A wicked crew betrayed me—they and a cruel sleep. But heal my woes, my friends, for you have power.’

“So I spoke, addressing them in humble words. Then all the rest were silent, but the father answered thus: ‘Out of the island instantly, vilest of all that live! I may not aid or send upon his way a man detested by the blessed gods. Begone! for you are here because detested by the immortals.’

“Therewith he turned me loud lamenting from his door. Thence we sailed on, with aching hearts. Worn was the spirit of my men under the heavy rowing, caused by our folly too; aid on our way appeared no more.

“Six days we sailed, as well by night as day, and on the seventh came to the steep citadel of Lamos, Telepylus in Laestrygonia,af where one shepherd leading home his flock calls to another, and the other answers as he leads his own flock forth. Here a man who never slept might earn a double wage: this, herding kine; that, tending silvery sheep; so close are the outgoings of the night and day. Now when we reached the splendid harbor,—round which the rock runs steep, continuous all the way, and the projecting cliffs, facing each other, stretch forward at the mouth, and narrow is the entrance,—into the basin all the rest steered their curved ships, and so the ships lay in the hollow harbor close-anchored, side by side; for no wave swelled within it, large or small, but a clear calm was all around. I alone posted my black ship without the harbor, there at the point, lashing my cables to the rock. Then climbing up, I took my stand on a rugged point of outlook. From it no work of man or beast was to be seen, only we saw some smoke ascending from the ground. So I sent sailors forth to go and learn what men who live by bread dwelt in the land,—selecting two, and joining with them a herald as a third. Leaving the ship, they took a beaten road where carts brought timber from the lofty hills down to the town below. Before the town they met a maiden drawing water, the stately daughter of the Laestrygonian Antiphates. She had come down to the clear-flowing fountain of Artacia, from which they used to fetch the water for the town. So my men, drawing near, addressed her and inquired who was the king of the folk here and whom he ruled; whereat she pointed to her father’s high-roofed house. But when they entered the lordly hall, they found a woman there huge as a hilltop; at her they were aghast. Forthwith she called from the assembly noble Antiphates, her husband, who sought to bring upon my men a miserable end. Immediately seizing one, he made his meal of him; and the two others, dashing off, came flying to the ships. Then he raised a cry throughout the town, and hearing it, the mighty Laestrygonians gathered from here and there, seeming not men but giants. Then from the rocks they hurled down ponderous stones; and soon among the ships arose a dreadful din of dying men and crashing ships. As men spear fish, they gathered in their loathsome meal. But while they slaughtered these in the deep harbor, I drew my sharp sword from my thigh and cut the cables of my dark-bowed ship; and quickly inspiring my men, I bade them fall to their oars, that we might flee from danger. They all tossed up the water, in terror for their lives, and joyously to sea, away from the beetling cliff, my ship sped on; but all the other ships went down together there.

“Thence we sailed on with aching hearts, glad to be clear of death, though missing our dear comrades. And now we reached the island of Aeaea, where fair-haired Circe dwelt, a mighty goddess, human of speech. She was own sister of the sorcerer Aeeätes;29 both were the children of the beaming Sun and of a mother Perse, the daughter of Oceanus. Here we bore landward with our ship and ran in silence into a sheltering harbor, God our guide. Landing, we lay two days and nights, gnawing our hearts because of toil and trouble; but when the fair-haired dawn