Odysseus

" exclaimed Athena, "then you do indeed want Odysseus home again.

It rests with heaven to determine whether he is to return, and take his revenge in his own house or no;

Tell me, O Muse, of that many-sided hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy.

He escorted Chryseis on board and sent moreover a hecatomb for the god.

Chryseis also left the ship, and Odysseus led her to the altar to deliver her into the hands of her father.

Let the Achaeans find me a prize in fair exchange to my liking, or I will come and take your own, or that of Ajax or of Odysseus;

he adorned Agamemnon with purple only, and Odysseus with a single cloak from home.

"But the dwelling of Odysseus he made in no way like these, but, as belonging to a cautious man, equipped for this very purpose.

then it was that Odysseus alone was able to call them back and turn them about, and at last by his speech, together with Nestor, persuaded them to remain.

Again, his accuser said that he often quoted the passage from Homer, showing how Odysseus:

But whatever man of the people he saw and found him shouting, him he drove with his sceptre and chid him with loud words:

and it was partly by the prompting of Hermes, partly through his own self-restraint and avoidance of excessive indulgence in such things, that Odysseus was not turned into a pig.

I ran past the city on the Hellespont as no Odysseus ever ran past the songs of the Sirens.

But the misfortune that has befallen the most excellent Maximus has taught us to consider as credible even those things, until now mythical and quite incredible.

So that not for a year only, as Alcinous listened to Odysseus, but for all my life I would pray to listen to you, and on this account at least this life would seem long to me, even though I am ill-disposed toward it.

" But the rest, grown fast to the world like seaweed on sea-girt rocks, make light of immortality, like the old man of Ithaca, longing not for the truth and the heavenly fatherland, and besides for the light that truly is, but for the smoke.

"Come hither, much-praised Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans;

" Under this Aeolus Odysseus is entertained as a guest, after the capture of Ilium.

But, as it seems, the most of those who inscribe themselves with the name, like the comrades of Odysseus, go after the discourse boorishly, passing by, not the Sirens, but the rhythm and the melody, stopping their ears with want of learning, since they know they will not be able, having once submitted their hearing to the Greek studies, thereafter to attain the return home.

Agamemnon:

Agamemnon:

Odysseus cannot possibly hurt us.

You see, Telemachus did not kill the wife of Odysseus, because she did not marry husband upon husband, but the marriage-bed remained untainted in her home.

the other was the son of Strophius, a crafty plotter, like Odysseus, treacherous in silence, but true to his friends, bold for the fight, clever in war and a deadly serpent.

ATHENA.

CHORUS.

DIOMEDE.

Hecuba:

Talthybius:

Odysseus, king of Ithaca, has taken you to be his slave.

For he regards with complacency Autolycus, the maternal uncle of Odysseus, and says he was gifted beyond all men in thievery and perjury.

And it fell out that the soul of Odysseus drew the last lot of all and came to make its choice, and, from memory of its former toils having flung away ambition, went about for a long time in quest of the life of an ordinary citizen who minded his own business, and with difficulty found it lying in some corner disregarded by the others, and upon seeing it said that it would have done the same had i …

Ajax:

Ajax:

Ajax:

Odysseus:

Odysseus:

Odysseus:

Neoptolemus abandons a resolution that he has been persuaded by Odysseus to adopt, because of the pain that it gives him to tell a lie:

It is true that his motive for changing was pleasure, though a noble pleasure, since it was pleasant for him to speak the truth, and he had only told a lie at the instigation of Odysseus.

But when they come to wicked men, you must flee such imitation, stopping up your ears no less than they say Odysseus did against the songs of the Sirens.

As I once heard from a man skilled in discerning a poet's meaning, the whole poetry of Homer is a praise of virtue, and everything in it bears toward this, except what is by-work—and not least in those passages where he has portrayed the leader of the Cephallenians, saved naked from the shipwreck.

And then he was judged of such worth by the rest of the Phaeacians too, that, forsaking the luxury in which they lived, they all looked to him and emulated him, and there was at that time no Phaeacian who would have prayed for anything sooner than to become Odysseus—and that a man saved from a shipwreck.

Odysseus:

Odysseus:

Odysseus:

Hecuba:

Hecuba:

Hecuba:

Orestes:

Orestes:

Iphigenia:

And the bright goddess Calypso was joined to Odysseus in sweet love, and bore him Nausithous and Nausinous.

And Circe the daughter of Helius, Hyperion's son, loved steadfast Odysseus and bore Agrius and Latinus who was faultless and strong:

For in a secret vote the Danaans favored Odysseus;

And I expect that the story of Odysseus came to exceed his experiences, through the sweet songs of Homer, since there is a certain solemnity in his lies and winged artfulness, and poetic skill deceives, seducing us with stories, and the heart of the mass of men is blind.

And from this difference arose the fights and deaths of the Achaeans, and of the Trojans as well, and of the suitors of Penelope in their strife with Odysseus.

What price would any of you pay, judges, to examine him who led the great army against Troy, or Odysseus, or Sisyphus, or countless others, both men and women, whom I might mention?

Endure it, heart, you have born worse than this.

Do you suppose that, when he wrote those words, he thought of the soul as a harmony which would be led by the conditions of the body, and not rather as something fitted to lead and rule them, and itself a far more divine thing than a harmony?

Well then, do we not now find that the soul acts in exactly the opposite way, leading those elements of which it is said to consist and opposing them in almost everything through all our life, and tyrannizing over them in every way, sometimes inflicting harsh and painful punishments (those of gymnastics and medicine), and sometimes milder ones, sometimes threatening and sometimes admonishing, in s …