"When we reached it we went ashore
to take in water, and dined hard by the ships. Immediately after
dinner I took a herald and one of my men and went straight to the
house of Aeolus, where I found him feasting with his wife and family;
so we sat down as suppliants on the threshold. They were astounded
when they saw us and said, ‘Odysseus, what brings you here? What
daimôn has been ill-treating you? We took great pains to
further you on your way home to Ithaca, or wherever it was that you
wanted to go to.’
"Thus did they speak, but I
answered sorrowfully, ‘My men have undone me; they, and cruel
sleep, have ruined me. My friends, mend me this mischief, for you can
if you will.’
"I spoke as movingly as I could,
but they said nothing, till their father answered, ‘Vilest of
humankind, get you gone at once out of the island; him whom heaven
hates will I in no wise help. Be off, for you come here as one
abhorred of heaven.' And with these words he sent me sorrowing from
his door.
"Thence we sailed sadly on till
the men were worn out with long and fruitless rowing, for there was
no longer any wind to help them. Six days, night and day did we toil,
and on the seventh day we reached the rocky stronghold of Lamos -
Telepylos, the city of the Laestrygonians, where the shepherd who is
driving in his sheep and goats [to be milked] salutes him who
is driving out his flock [to feed] and this last answers the
salute. In that country a man who could do without sleep might earn
double wages, one as a herdsman of cattle, and another as a shepherd,
for they work much the same by night as they do by day.
Homer. The Odyssey. Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. Samuel Butler. Based on public domain edition, revised by Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy. A. C. Fifield, London. 1900 (?).
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.