As he spoke he drew the stool on
which he rested his dainty feet from under the table, and made as
though he would throw it at Odysseus, but the other suitors all gave
him something, and filled his wallet with bread and meat; he was
about, therefore, to go back to the threshold and eat what the
suitors had given him, but he first went up to Antinoos and
said:
"Sir, give me something; you are
not, surely, the poorest man here; you seem to be a chief, foremost
among them all; therefore you should be the better giver, and I will
tell far and wide of your bounty. I too was a rich
[olbios] man once, and had a fine house of my own; in
those days I gave to many a tramp such as I now am, no matter who he
might be nor what he wanted. I had any number of servants, and all
the other things which people have who live well and are accounted
wealthy, but it pleased Zeus to take all away from me. He sent me
with a band of roving robbers to Egypt; it was a long voyage and I
was undone by it. I stationed my ships in the river Aigyptos, and
bade my men stay by them and keep guard over them, while I sent out
scouts to reconnoiter from every point of vantage.
"But the men insolently disobeyed
[hubris] my orders, took to their own devices, and
ravaged the land of the Egyptians, killing the men, and taking their
wives and children captives. The alarm was soon carried to the city,
and when they heard the war-cry, the people came out at daybreak till
the plain was filled with soldiers horse and foot, and with the gleam
of armor. Then Zeus spread panic among my men, and they would no
longer face the enemy, for they found themselves surrounded. The
Egyptians killed many of us, and took the rest alive to do forced
labor for them; as for myself, they gave me to a friend who met them,
to take to Cyprus, Dmetor by name, son of Iasos, who was a great man
in Cyprus. Thence I am come hither in a state of great
misery."
Then Antinoos said, "What
daimôn can have sent such a pestilence to plague us
during our dinner? Get out, into the open part of the court, or I
will give you Egypt and Cyprus over again for your insolence and
importunity; you have begged of all the others, and they have given
you lavishly, for they have abundance round them, and it is easy to
be free with other people's property when there is plenty of
it."
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 (?).
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