THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER
Translated by
William Marris
Oxford University Press, 1925

BOOK I

Tell me, O Muse, of that Great Traveller
Who wandered far and wide when he had sacked
The sacred town of Troy. Of many men
He saw the cities and he learned the mind;
Ay, and at heart he suffered many woes
Upon the sea, intent to save his life
And bring his comrades home. Yet even so
His men he could not save for all his efforts,
For through their own blind wilfulness they perished;
The fools! who at up Hyperion's kine;
And he bereft them of their homing day.
Touching these things, beginning where thou wilt,
Tell even us, O goddess, child of Zeus.
Now all the rest, as many as escaped
The plunge to death, were safe from war and wave
At home: Odysseus only, hungering
For wife and home, the queenly nymph Calypso
Kept, that bright goddess, in her hollow caves,
Desiring him for mate. But when the year
Came with the circling of the seasons, when
The gods had so ordained that he should come
Homer unto Ithaca, not even there
Among his own folk, was he quit of toils.
And all the gods felt pity for him, save
Poseidon, who unceasing raged against
Godlike Odysseys, till he reached his home.
Howbeit Poseidon had gone off to visit
The distant Ethiopians (now they dwell,
Those Ethiopians, in twain divided,
Some by the sunset, others by the dawn,
The uttermost of men) there to receive
His hecatomb of bulls and rams from them.
There made he merry sitting at the feast;
But in the dwelling of Olymmpian Zeus
The other gods were gathered; and the Father
Of gods and mend began to speak among them.
For he was thinking of superb Aegisthus,
Whom famed Orestes, Agamemnon's son,
Had slain; and having him in mind, he spake
Among the immortals:
'Look ye, how apt men are to blame the gods!
It is from us, they say, that evils come,
Whereas through their blind folly they themselves
Have miseries behond what was ordained.
So even now, beyond what was ordained,
Aegisthus took to him the wedded wife
Of Atreus' son, and when her lord came home,
Slew him, though well he knew it meant sheer death;
Since we betimes had sent our word to him
By Hermes, keen-eyed Argus-slayer, thus:
"Thou must not kill the man nor woo his wife:
Since from Orestes' hand, once he has won
To man's estate and longs for his own land,
Shall the avenging of Atrides come."
So Hermes spoke, but yet could not persuade,
For all his good intent, Aegisthus' heart:
Well, now hath he paid the full price of all!'

To access the full text of the Marris translation, please use the following link: Marris Odyssey

List of Published English Translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey