The Odyssey | Page 5

still persecuted him without ceasing and
would not let him get home.
Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world's
end, and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East. {1}
He had gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was
enjoying himself at his festival; but the other gods met in the house of
Olympian Jove, and the sire of gods and men spoke first. At that
moment he was thinking of Aegisthus, who had been killed by
Agamemnon's son Orestes; so he said to the other gods:
"See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all
nothing but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs make
love to Agamemnon's wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon,
though he knew it would be the death of him; for I sent Mercury to
warn him not to do either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would
be sure to take his revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home.
Mercury told him this in all good will but he would not listen, and now
he has paid for everything in full."
Then Minerva said, "Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, it served
Aegisthus right, and so it would any one else who does as he did; but

Aegisthus is neither here nor there; it is for Ulysses that my heart
bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt island, far
away, poor man, from all his friends. It is an island covered with forest,
in the very middle of the sea, and a goddess lives there, daughter of the
magician Atlas, who looks after the bottom of the ocean, and carries the
great columns that keep heaven and earth asunder. This daughter of
Atlas has got hold of poor unhappy Ulysses, and keeps trying by every
kind of blandishment to make him forget his home, so that he is tired of
life, and thinks of nothing but how he may once more see the smoke of
his own chimneys. You, sir, take no heed of this, and yet when Ulysses
was before Troy did he not propitiate you with many a burnt sacrifice?
Why then should you keep on being so angry with him?"
And Jove said, "My child, what are you talking about? How can I
forget Ulysses than whom there is no more capable man on earth, nor
more liberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in heaven?
Bear in mind, however, that Neptune is still furious with Ulysses for
having blinded an eye of Polyphemus king of the Cyclopes.
Polyphemus is son to Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter to the
sea-king Phorcys; therefore though he will not kill Ulysses outright, he
torments him by preventing him from getting home. Still, let us lay our
heads together and see how we can help him to return; Neptune will
then be pacified, for if we are all of a mind he can hardly stand out
against us."
And Minerva said, "Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, if, then, the
gods now mean that Ulysses should get home, we should first send
Mercury to the Ogygian island to tell Calypso that we have made up
our minds and that he is to return. In the meantime I will go to Ithaca,
to put heart into Ulysses' son Telemachus; I will embolden him to call
the Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother
Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I
will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear
anything about the return of his dear father--for this will make people
speak well of him."
So saying she bound on her glittering golden sandals, imperishable,

with which she can fly like the wind over land or sea; she grasped the
redoubtable bronze-shod spear, so stout and sturdy and strong,
wherewith she quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased her, and
down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus, whereon
forthwith she was in Ithaca, at the gateway of Ulysses' house, disguised
as a visitor, Mentes, chief of the Taphians, and she held a bronze spear
in her hand. There she found the lordly suitors seated on hides of the
oxen which they had killed and eaten, and playing draughts in front of
the house. Men-servants and pages were bustling about to wait upon
them, some mixing wine with water in the mixing-bowls, some
cleaning down the tables with wet sponges and laying them out again,
and some cutting up great quantities of meat.
Telemachus saw her long before any one else did. He