Homer
The Odyssey
William
Morris
London 1887
[Selection from the Opening of the Poem]
THE
ODYSSEY OF HOMER, DONE INTO ENGLISH
VERSE BY WILLIAM MORRIS
BOOK I. THE GODS ORDAIN THE RETURN OF ODYSSEUS:
PALLAS GOES TO ITHACA AND IN THE LIKENESS
OF MENTES HEARTENS UP TELEMACHUS, &
BIDS HIM CALL A MEETING OF MEN TO LAY HIS
GRIEVANCE AGAINST THE WOOERS, AND THEN TO
TAKE SHIP TO PYLOS AND SPARTA SEEKING TIDINGS
OF HIS FATHER.
Tell
me, O Muse, of the Shifty, the man who wandered afar,
After the Holy Burg, Troy-town, he had wasted with war;
He saw the towns of menfolk, and the mind of men did he learn;
As
he warded his life in the world, and his fellow-farers’ return,
Many a grief of heart on the deep-sea flood he bore,
Nor
yet might he save his fellows, for all that he longed for it sore.
They died of their own souls’ folly, for witless as they were
They
ate up the beasts of the Sun, the Rider of the Air,
And he took away from them all their dear returning day;
O
Goddess, O daughter of Zeus, from whencesoever ye may,
Gather the tale, and tell it, yea, even to us at the last!
Now all the other heroes, who forth from the warfare passed
And
fled from sheer destruction and ’scaped each man his bane,
Saved from the sea and the battle, at home they sat full fain;
But him alone, Odysseus, sore yearning after the strife
To
get him back to his homestead, sore yearing for his wife,
Did the noble nymph Calypso, the Godhead’s glory, hoard
In the hollow rocky places; for she longed for him for lord,
Yea, and e’en when the circling season had brought the year to hand
Wherein the Gods had doomed it that he should reach his land,
E’en
Ithaca his homestead, not even then was he,
Though amidst his kin and his people, of heavy trouble free.
Know now, that of all the God-folk there was none but pitied him,
Save that Poseidon only was with ceaseless wrath abrim
Against the godlike hero from his house and his home shut out.
But he to the Aethiopians e’en now was gone about,
The far-dwellers outmost of menfolk; and these are sundered atwain,
Some dwell where the High-rider setteth, and some where he riseth again.
There then of bulls and of rams would he gather an hundred-fold,
And he sat him adown rejoicing and noble feast did hold.
But the rest in the hall were gathered of Zeus the Olympian lord.
So the Father of Gods and of men amidst them took up the word,
For mindful in heart was he of Aegisthus the noble one,
He that was slain of Orestes far-famed, Agamemnon’s son.
Thus then to the deathless he spake, these things remembering still:
‘Out on it! how do the menfolk to the Gods lay all their ill,
And say that of us it cometh; when they themselves indeed
Gain griefs from their own souls’ folly beyond the fateful meed.
E’en as of late Aegisthus must wed Atrides’ wife
In Doom’s despite, and must slay him returning home from the strife.
Though his end therefrom he wotted, and thereof we warned him plain,
Sending him Hermes withal, the keen-eyed Argus-bane,
Bidding him slay not the man, nor woo the wife to his bed.
‘For vengeance shall come from Orestes for the son of Atreus dead
When the child is waxen a man and longeth his land to win:’
So
spake Hermes, but nought prevailed with Aegisthus herein,
Despite his goodly counsel. But
now for all hath he paid.’
To view the full text of Morris' translation, please use the following link: Morris Odyssey.
List of Published English Translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey