The Odyssey (Wisehouse Classics Edition). Homer

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СКАЧАТЬ all must perish, and by fraud you die!

      Then stay, my, child! storms beat, and rolls the main,

      Oh, beat those storms, and roll the seas in vain!”

      “Far hence (replied the prince) thy fears be driven:

      Heaven calls me forth; these counsels are of Heaven.

      But, by the powers that hate the perjured, swear,

      To keep my voyage from the royal ear,

      Nor uncompell’d the dangerous truth betray,

      Till twice six times descends the lamp of day,

      Lest the sad tale a mother’s life impair,

      And grief destroy what time awhile would spare.”

      Thus he. The matron with uplifted eyes

      Attests the all-seeing sovereign of the skies.

      Then studious she prepares the choicest flour,

      The strength of wheat and wines an ample store.

      While to the rival train the prince returns,

      The martial goddess with impatience burns;

      Like thee, Telemachus, in voice and size,

      With speed divine from street to street she flies,

      She bids the mariners prepared to stand,

      When night descends, embodied on the strand.

      Then to Noemon swift she runs, she flies,

      And asks a bark: the chief a bark supplies.

      And now, declining with his sloping wheels,

      Down sunk the sun behind the western hills

      The goddess shoved the vessel from the shores,

      And stow’d within its womb the naval stores,

      Full in the openings of the spacious main

      It rides; and now descends the sailor-train,

      Next, to the court, impatient of delay.

      With rapid step the goddess urged her way;

      There every eye with slumberous chains she bound,

      And dash’d the flowing goblet to the ground.

      Drowsy they rose, with heavy fumes oppress’d,

      Reel’d from the palace, and retired to rest.

      Then thus, in Mentor’s reverend form array’d,

      Spoke to Telemachus the martial maid.

      “Lo! on the seas, prepared the vessel stands,

      The impatient mariner thy speed demands.”

      Swift as she spoke, with rapid pace she leads;

      The footsteps of the deity he treads.

      Swift to the shore they move along the strand;

      The ready vessel rides, the sailors ready stand.

      He bids them bring their stores; the attending train

      Load the tall bark, and launch into the main,

      The prince and goddess to the stern ascend;

      To the strong stroke at once the rowers bend.

      Full from the west she bids fresh breezes blow;

      The sable billows foam and roar below.

      The chief his orders gives; the obedient band

      With due observance wait the chief’s command;

      With speed the mast they rear, with speed unbind

      The spacious sheet, and stretch it to the wind.

      High o’er the roaring waves the spreading sails

      Bow the tall mast, and swell before the gales;

      The crooked keel the parting surge divides,

      And to the stern retreating roll the tides.

      And now they ship their oars, and crown with wine

      The holy goblet to the powers divine:

      Imploring all the gods that reign above,

      But chief the blue-eyed progeny of Jove.

Thus all the night they stem the liquid way, And end their voyage with the morning ray. ,.

Book III

       Argument

THE INTERVIEW OF TELEMACHUS AND NESTOR.

      Telemachus, guided by Pallas in the shape of Mentor, arrives in the morning at Pylos, where Nestor and his sons are sacrificing on the sea-shore to Neptune. Telemachus declares the occasion of his coming: and Nestor relates what passed in their return from Troy, how their fleets were separated, and he never since heard of Ulysses. They discourse concerning the death of Agamemnon, the revenge of Orestes, and the injuries of the suitors. Nestor advises him to go to Sparta, and inquire further of Menelaus. The sacrifice ending with the night, Minerva vanishes from them in the form of an eagle: Telemachus is lodged in the palace. The next morning they sacrifice a bullock to Minerva; and Telemachus proceeds on his journey to Sparta, attended by Pisistratus.

      The scene lies on the sea-shore of Pylos.

      The sacred sun, above the waters raised,

      Through heaven’s eternal brazen portals blazed;

      And wide o’er earth diffused his cheering ray,

      To gods and men to give the golden day.

      Now on the coast of Pyle the vessel falls,

      Before old Neleus’ venerable walls.

      There suppliant to the monarch of the flood,

      At nine green theatres the Pylians stood,

      Each held five hundred (a deputed train),

      At each, nine oxen on the sand lay slain.

      They taste the entrails, and the altars СКАЧАТЬ