Tell
me, O Muse, of that many-sided hero who traveled far and wide after
he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and
many were the people with whose customs and thinking
[noos] he was acquainted; many things he suffered at
sea while seeking to save his own life [psukhê]
and to achieve the safe homecoming [nostos] of his
companions; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they
perished through their own sheer recklessness in eating the cattle of
the Sun-god Helios; so the god prevented them from ever reaching
home. Tell me, as you have told those who came before me, about all
these things, O daughter of Zeus, starting from whatsoever point you
choose.
So now all who escaped death in
battle or by shipwreck had got safely home except Odysseus, and he,
though he was longing for his return [nostos] to his
wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got
him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by,
there came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to
Ithaca; even then, however, when he was among his own people, his
trials [athloi] were not yet over; nevertheless all
the gods had now begun to pity him except Poseidon, who still
persecuted him without ceasing and would not let him get
home.
Now Poseidon 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. 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 Zeus, and
the sire of gods and men spoke first. At that moment he was thinking
of Aigisthos, who had been killed by Agamemnon's son Orestes; so
he said to the other gods:
"See now, how men consider us gods
responsible [aitioi] for what is after all nothing but
their own folly. Look at Aigisthos; 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 Hermes 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. Hermes
told him this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he
has paid for everything in full."
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