豚飼いエウマイオス異譚
Eumaeus, el honbre humilde crea coches
ここでは、豚飼いのエウマイオスを、豚飼いそのもの
として理解することを考えます。まずは、アウトラインの説明から。
「エウマイオス(Eumaeus)はオデュッセウス
に仕える豚飼であり、また友人である。オデュッセイアでは、エウマイオスはイタカに帰郷したオデュッセウスが最初に出会う人間である。彼は変装したオ
デュッセウスの正体に気付かなかったが、彼に食事と寝床を与え、温かくもてなした。そこへ［オデュッセウスの息子——引用者］テレマコスが長旅から帰って
きたが、同様に歓待した。テレマコスも、はじめ父親の正体に気付かなかった。オデュッセウス不在の間、エウマイオスはテレマコスの父親がわりだった」（出
典：デュッセイアを読む@wikiエウマイオス）。
Book XIV
The Loyal Swineherd
So up from the haven now Odysseus climbed a rugged path
through timber along high ground—Athena had shown the way—
to reach the swineherd’s place, that fine loyal man
who of all the household hands Odysseus ever had
cared the most for his master’s worldly goods.
Sitting at the door of his lodge he found him,
there in his farmstead, high-walled, broad and large,
with its long view on its cleared rise of ground …
The swineherd made those walls with his own hands
to enclose the pigs of his master gone for years.
Alone, apart from his queen or old Laertes,
he’d built them up of quarried blocks of stone
and coped them well with a fence of wild pear.
Outside he’d driven stakes in a long-line stockade,
a ring of thickset palings split from an oak’s dark heart.
Within the yard he’d built twelve sties, side-by-side,
to bed his pigs, and in each one fifty brood-sows
slept aground, penned and kept for breeding.
The boars slept outside, but far fewer of them,
thanks to the lordly suitors’ feasts that kept on
thinning the herd and kept the swineherd stepping,
sending to town each day the best fat hog in sight.
By now they were down to three hundred and sixty head.
But guarding them all the time were dogs like savage beasts,
a pack of four, reared by the swineherd, foreman of men.
The man himself was fitting sandals to his feet,
carving away at an oxhide, dark and supple.
As for his men, three were off with their pigs,
herding them here or there. Under orders he’d sent
a fourth to town, with hog in tow for the gorging suitors
to slaughter off and glut themselves with pork.
Suddenly—those snarling dogs spotted Odysseus,
charged him fast—a shatter of barks—but Odysseus
sank to the ground at once, he knew the trick:
the staff dropped from his hand but here and now,
on his own farm, he might have taken a shameful mauling.
Yes, but the swineherd, quick to move, dashed for the gate,
flinging his oxhide down, rushed the dogs with curses,
scattered them left and right with flying rocks
and warned his master, “Lucky to be alive, old man—
a moment more, my pack would have torn you limb from limb!
Then you’d have covered me with shame. As if the gods
had never given me blows and groans aplenty …
Here I sit, my heart aching, broken for him,
my master, my great king—fattening up
his own hogs for other men to eat, while he,
starving for food, I wager, wanders the earth,
a beggar adrift in strangers’ cities, foreign-speaking lands,
if he’s still alive, that is, still sees the rising sun.
Come, follow me into my place, old man, so you,
at least, can eat your fill of bread and wine.
Then you can tell me where you’re from
and all the pains you’ve weathered.”
On that note
the loyal swineherd led the way to his shelter,
showed his guest inside and sat Odysseus down
on brush and twigs he piled up for the visitor,
flinging over these the skin of a shaggy wild goat,
broad and soft, the swineherd’s own good bedding.
The king, delighted to be so well received,
thanked the man at once: “My host—may Zeus
and the other gods give you your heart’s desire
for the royal welcome you have shown me here!”
And you replied, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd,
“It’s wrong, my friend, to send any stranger packing—
even one who arrives in worse shape than you.
Every stranger and beggar comes from Zeus
and whatever scrap they get from the likes of us,
they’ll find it welcome. That’s the best we can do,
we servants, always cowed by our high and mighty masters,
especially our young lords … But my old master?
The gods, they must have blocked his journey home.
He’d have treated me well, he would, with a house,
a plot of land and a wife you’d gladly prize.
Goods that a kind lord will give a household hand
who labors for him, hard, whose work the gods have sped,
just as they speed the work I labor at all day.
My master, I tell you, would have repaid me well
if he’d grown old right here. But now he’s dead …
If only Helen and all her kind had died out too,
brought to her knees, just as she cut the legs
from under troops of men! My king among them,
he went off to the stallion-land of Troy
to fight the Trojans, save Agamemnon’s honor!”
Enough—
he brusquely cinched his belt around his shirt,
strode out to the pens, crammed with droves of pigs,
picked out two, bundled them in and slaughtered both,
singed them, sliced them down, skewered them through
and roasting all to a turn, set them before Odysseus,
sizzling hot on the spits.
Then coating the meat with white barley groats
and mixing honeyed wine in a carved wooden bowl,
he sat down across from his guest, inviting warmly,
“Eat up now, my friend. It’s all we slaves have got,
scrawny pork, while the suitors eat the fatted hogs—
no fear of the gods in their hard hearts, no mercy!
Trust me, the blessed gods have no love for crime.
They honor justice, honor the decent acts of men.
Even cutthroat bandits who raid foreign parts—
and Zeus grants them a healthy share of plunder,
ships filled to the brim, and back they head for home—
even their dark hearts are stalked by the dread of vengeance.
But the suitors know, they’ve caught some godsent rumor
of master’s grisly death! That’s why they have no mind
to do their courting fairly or go back home in peace.
No, at their royal ease they devour all his goods,
those brazen rascals never spare a scrap!
Not a day or a night goes by, sent down by Zeus,
but they butcher victims, never stopping at one or two,
and drain his wine as if there’s no tomorrow—
swilling the last drop …
Believe me, my master’s wealth was vast!
No other prince on earth could match his riches,
not on the loamy mainland or here at home in Ithaca—
no twenty men in the world could equal his great treasures!
Let me count them off for you. A dozen herds of cattle
back on the mainland, just as many head of sheep,
as many droves of pigs and goatflocks ranging free;
hired hands or his own herdsmen keep them grazing there.
Here in Ithaca, goatflocks, eleven in all, scatter
to graze the island, out at the wild end,
and trusty goatherds watch their every move.
And each herdsman, day after day, it never ends,
drives in a beast for the suitors—best in sight,
a sheep or well-fed goat. While I tend to these pigs,
I guard them, pick the best for those carousers
and send it to the slaughter!”
His voice rose
while the stranger ate his meat and drank his wine,
ravenous, bolting it all down in silence …
brooding on ways to serve the suitors right.
But once he’d supped and refreshed himself with food,
he filled the wooden bowl he’d been drinking from,
brimmed it with wine and passed it to his host
who received the offer gladly, spirit cheered
as the stranger probed him now with winging words:
“Friend, who was the man who bought you with his goods,
the master of such vast riches, powerful as you say?
You tell me he died defending Agamemnon’s honor?
What’s his name? I just might know such a man …
Zeus would know, and the other deathless gods,
if I ever saw him, if I bring you any news.
I’ve roamed the whole earth over.”
And the good swineherd answered, foreman of men,
“Old friend, no wanderer landing here with news of him
is likely to win his wife and dear son over.
Random drifters, hungry for bed and board,
lie through their teeth and swallow back the truth.
Why, any tramp washed up on Ithaca’s shores
scurries right to my mistress, babbling lies,
and she ushers him in, kindly, pressing for details,
and the warm tears of grief come trickling down her cheeks,
the loyal wife’s way when her husband’s died abroad.
Even you, old codger, could rig up some fine tale—
and soon enough, I’d say,
if they gave you shirt and clothing for your pains.
My master? Well, no doubt the dogs and wheeling birds
have ripped the skin from his ribs by now, his life is through—
or fish have picked him clean at sea, and the man’s bones
lie piled up on the mainland, buried deep in sand …
he’s dead and gone. Aye, leaving a broken heart
for loved ones left behind, for me most of all.
Never another master kind as he!
I’ll never find one—no matter where I go,
not even if I went back to mother and father,
the house where I was born and my parents reared me once.
Ah, but much as I grieve for them, much as I long
to lay my eyes on them, set foot on the old soil,
it’s longing for him, him that wrings my heart—
Odysseus, lost and gone!
That man, old friend, far away as he is …
I can scarcely bear to say his name aloud,
so deeply he loved me, cared for me, so deeply.
Worlds away as he is, I call him Master, Brother!”
“My friend,” the great Odysseus, long in exile, answered,
“since you are dead certain, since you still insist
he’s never coming back, still the soul of denial,
I won’t simply say it—on my oath I swear
Odysseus is on his way!
Reward for such good news? Let me have it
the moment he sets foot in his own house,
dress me in shirt and cloak, in handsome clothes.
Before then, poor as I am, I wouldn’t take a thing.
I hate that man like the very Gates of Death who,
ground down by poverty, stoops to peddling lies.
I swear by Zeus, the first of all the gods,
by this table of hospitality here, my host,
by Odysseus’ hearth where I have come for help:
all will come to pass, I swear, exactly as I say.
True, this very month—just as the old moon dies
and the new moon rises into life—Odysseus will return!
He will come home and take revenge on any man
who offends his wedded wife and princely son!”
“Good news,” you replied, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd,
“but I will never pay a reward for that, old friend—
Odysseus, he’ll never come home again. Never …
Drink your wine, sit back, let’s talk of other things.
Don’t remind me of all this. The heart inside me
breaks when anyone mentions my dear master.
That oath of yours, we’ll let it pass—
Odysseus,
oh come back!—
just as I wish, I and Penelope,
old Laertes too, Telemachus too, the godlike boy.
How I grieve for him now, I can’t stop—Odysseus’ son,
Telemachus. The gods reared him up like a fine young tree
and I often said, ‘In the ranks of men he’ll match his father,
his own dear father—amazing in build and looks, that boy!’
But all of a sudden a god wrecks his sense of balance—
god or man, no matter—off he’s gone to catch
some news of his father, down to holy Pylos.
And now those gallant suitors lie in wait for him,
sailing home, to tear the royal line of Arcesius
out of Ithaca, root and branch, good name and all!
Enough. Let him pass too—whether he’s trapped
or the hand of Zeus will pull him through alive.
Come,
old soldier, tell me the story of your troubles,
tell me truly, too, I’d like to know it well …
Who are you? where are you from? your city? your parents?
What sort of vessel brought you? Why did the sailors
land you here in Ithaca? Who did they say they are?
I hardly think you came this way on foot.”
The great teller of tales returned at length,
“My story—the whole truth—I’m glad to tell it all.
If only the two of us had food and mellow wine
to last us long, here in your shelter now,
for us to sup on, undisturbed,
while others take the work of the world in hand,
I could easily spend all year and never reach the end
of my endless story, all the heartbreaking trials
I struggled through. The gods willed it so …
I hail from Crete’s broad land, I’m proud to say,
and I am a rich man’s son. And many other sons
he brought up in his palace, born in wedlock,
sprung of his lawful wife. Unlike my mother.
She was a slave, a concubine he’d purchased, yes,
but he treated me on a par with all his true-born sons—
Castor, Hylax’ son. I’m proud to boast his blood, that man
revered like a god throughout all Crete those days,
for wealth, power and all his glorious offspring.
But the deadly spirits soon swept him down
to the House of Death, and his high and mighty sons
carved up his lands and then cast lots for the parts
and gave me just a pittance, a paltry house as well.
But I won myself a wife from wealthy, landed people,
thanks to my own strong points. I was no fool
and never shirked a fight.
But now my heyday’s gone—
I’ve had my share of blows. Yet look hard at the husk
and you’ll still see, I think, the grain that gave it life.
By heaven, Ares gave me courage, Athena too, to break
the ranks of men wide open, once, in the old days,
whenever I picked my troops and formed an ambush,
plotting attacks to spring against our foes—
no hint of death could daunt my fighting spirit!
Far out of the front I’d charge and spear my man,
I’d cut down any enemy soldier backing off.
Such was I in battle, true, but I had no love
for working the land, the chores of households either,
the labor that raises crops of shining children. No,
it was always oarswept ships that thrilled my heart,
and wars, and the long polished spears and arrows,
dreadful gear that makes the next man cringe.
I loved them all—god planted that love inside me.
Each man delights in the work that suits him best.
Why, long before we Achaeans ever camped at Troy,
nine commands I led in our deep-sea-going ships,
raiding foreign men, and a fine haul reached my hands.
I helped myself to the lion’s share and still more
came by lot. And my house grew by leaps and bounds,
I walked among the Cretans, honored, feared as well.
But then, when thundering Zeus contrived that expedition—
that disaster that brought so many fighters to their knees—
and men kept pressing me and renowned Idomeneus
to head a fleet to Troy,
there was no way out, no denying them then,
the voice of the people bore down much too hard.
So nine whole years we Achaeans soldiered on at Troy,
in the tenth we sacked King Priam’s city, then embarked
for home in the long ships, and a god dispersed the fleet.
Unlucky me. Shrewd old Zeus was plotting still more pain.
No more than a month I stayed at home, taking joy
in my children, loyal wife and lovely plunder.
But a spirit in me urged, ‘Set sail for Egypt—
fit out ships, take crews of seasoned heroes!’
Nine I fitted out, the men joined up at once
and then six days my shipmates feasted well,
while I provided a flock of sheep to offer up
to the gods and keep the feasters’ table groaning.
On the seventh we launched out from the plains of Crete
with a stiff North Wind fair astern—smooth sailing,
aye, like coasting on downstream …
And not one craft in our squadron foundered;
all shipshape, and all hands sound, we sat back
while the wind and helmsmen kept us true on course.
Five days out and we raised the great river Nile
and there in the Nile delta moored our ships of war.
God knows I ordered my trusty crews to stand by,
just where they were, and guard the anchored fleet
and I sent a patrol to scout things out from higher ground.
But swept away by their own reckless fury, the crew went berserk—
they promptly began to plunder the lush Egyptian farms,
dragged off the women and children, killed the men.
Outcries reached the city in no time—stirred by shouts
the entire town came streaming down at the break of day,
filling the river plain with chariots, ranks of infantry
and the gleam of bronze. Zeus who loves the lightning
flung down murderous panic on all my men-at-arms—
no one dared to stand his ground and fight,
disaster ringed us round from every quarter.
Droves of my men they hacked down with swords,
led off the rest alive, to labor for them as slaves.
And I? Zeus flashed an inspiration through my mind,
though I wish I’d died a soldier down in Egypt then!
A world of pain, you see, still lay in wait for me …
Quickly I wrenched the skullcap helmet off my head,
I tore the shield from my back and dropped my spear
and ran right into the path of the king’s chariot,
hugged and kissed his knees. He pitied me, spared me,
hoisted me onto his war-car, took me home in tears.
Troops of his men came rushing after, shaking javelins,
mad to kill me—their fighting blood at the boil—
but their master drove them off.
He feared the wrath of Zeus, the god of guests,
the first of the gods to pay back acts of outrage.
So,
there I lingered for seven years, amassing a fortune
from all the Egyptian people loading me with gifts.
Then, at last, when the eighth had come full turn,
along comes this Phoenician one fine day …
a scoundrel, swindler, an old hand at lies
who’d already done the world a lot of damage.
Well, he smoothly talked me round and off we sailed,
Phoenicia-bound, where his house and holdings lay.
There in his care I stayed till the year was out.
Then, when the months and days had run their course
and the year wheeled round and the seasons came again,
he conned me aboard his freighter bound for Libya,
pretending I’d help him ship a cargo there for sale
but in fact he’d sell me there and make a killing!
I suspected as much, of course, but had no choice,
so I boarded with him, yes, and the ship ran on
with a good strong North Wind gusting—
fast on the middle passage clear of Crete—
but Zeus was brewing mischief for that crew …
Once we’d left the island in our wake—
no land at all in sight, nothing but sea and sky—
then Zeus the son of Cronus mounted a thunderhead
above our hollow ship and the deep went black beneath it.
Then, then in the same breath Zeus hit the craft
with a lightning-bolt and thunder. Round she spun,
reeling under the impact, filled with reeking brimstone,
shipmates pitching out of her, bobbing round like seahawks
swept along by the breakers past the trim black hull—
and the god cut short their journey home forever.
Not mine.
Zeus himself—when I was just at the final gasp—
thrust the huge mast of my dark-prowed vessel
right into my arms so I might flee disaster
one more time. Wrapping myself around it,
I was borne along by the wretched galewinds,
rushed along nine days—on the tenth, at dead of night,
a shouldering breaker rolled me up along Thesprotia’s beaches.
There the king of Thesprotia, Phidon, my salvation,
treated me kindly, asked for no reward at all.
His own good son had found me, half-dead
from exhaustion and the cold. He raised me up
by the hand and led me home to his father’s house
and dressed me in cloak and shirt and decent clothes.
That’s where I first got wind of him—Odysseus …
The king told me he’d hosted the man in style,
befriended him on his way home to native land,
and showed me all the treasure Odysseus had amassed.
Bronze and gold and plenty of hard wrought iron,
enough to last a man and ten generations of his heirs—
so great the wealth stored up for him in the king’s vaults!
But Odysseus, he made clear, was off at Dodona then
to hear the will of Zeus that rustles forth
from the god’s tall leafy oak: how should he return,
after all the years away, to his own green land of Ithaca—
openly or in secret? Phidon swore to me, what’s more,
as the princely man poured out libations in his house,
The ship’s hauled down and the crew set to sail,
to take Odysseus home to native land.’
But I …
he shipped me off before. A Thesprotian cutter
chanced to be heading for Dulichion rich in wheat,
so he told the crew to take me to the king, Acastus,
treat me kindly, too, but it pleased them more
to scheme foul play against me,
sink me into the very depths of pain. As soon
as the ship was far off land, scudding in mid-sea,
they sprang their trap—my day of slavery then and there!
They stripped from my back the shirt and cloak I wore,
decked me out in a new suit of clothes, all rags,
ripped and filthy—the rags you see right now.
But then, once they’d gained the fields of Ithaca,
still clear in the evening light, they lashed me fast
to the rowing-benches, twisting a cable round me;
all hands went ashore
and rushed to catch their supper on the beach.
But the gods themselves unhitched my knots at once
with the gods’ own ease. I wrapped my head in rags,
slid down the gangplank polished smooth, slipped my body
into the water, not a splash, chest-high, then quick,
launched out with both my arms and swam away—
out of the surf in no time, clear of the crew.
I clambered upland, into a flowery, fragrant brush
and crouched there, huddling low. They raised a hue and cry,
wildly beat the bushes, but when it seemed no use
to pursue the hunt, back they trudged again and
boarded their empty ship.
The gods hid me themselves—
it’s light work for them—and brought me here,
the homestead of a man who knows the world.
So it seems to be my lot that I’ll live on.”
And you replied, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd,
“So much misery, friend! You’ve moved my heart,
deeply, with your long tale … such blows, such roving.
But one part’s off the mark, I know—you’ll never persuade me—
what you say about Odysseus. A man in your condition,
who are you, I ask you, to lie for no good reason?
Well I know the truth of my good lord’s return,
how the gods detested him, with a vengeance—
never letting him go under, fighting Trojans,
or die in the arms of loved ones,
once he’d wound down the long coil of war.
Then all united Achaea would have raised his tomb
and he’d have won his son great fame for years to come.
But now the whirlwinds have ripped him away—no fame for him.
And I live here, cut off from the world, with all my pigs.
I never go into town unless, perhaps, wise Penelope
calls me back, when news drops in from nowhere.
There they crowd the messenger, cross-examine him,
heartsick for their long-lost lord or all too glad
to eat him out of house and home, scot-free.
But I’ve no love for all that probing, prying,
not since some Aetolian fooled me with his yarn.
He’d killed a man, wandered over the face of the earth,
stumbled onto my hut, and I received him warmly.
He told me he’d seen Odysseus
lodged with King Idomeneus down in Crete—
refitting his ships, hard-hit by the gales,
but he’d be home, he said, by summer or harvest-time,
his hulls freighted with treasure, manned by fighting crews.
So you, old misery, seeing a god has led you here to me,
don’t try to charm me now, don’t spellbind me with lies!
Never for that will I respect you, treat you kindly;
no, it’s my fear of Zeus, the god of guests,
and because I pity you …”
“Good god,” the crafty man pressed on,
“what a dark, suspicious heart you have inside you!
Not even my oath can win you over, make you see the light.
Come, strike a bargain—all the gods of Olympus
witness now our pact!
If your master returns, here to your house,
dress me in shirt and cloak and send me off
to Dulichion at once, the place I long to be.
But if your master doesn’t return as I predict,
set your men on me—fling me off some rocky crag
so the next beggar here may just think twice
before he peddles lies.”
“Surely, friend!”—
the swineherd shook his head—”and just think
of the praise and fame I’d win among mankind,
now and for all time to come, if first I took you
under my roof, I treated you kindly as my guest
then cut you down and robbed you of your life—
how keen I’d be to say my prayers to Zeus!
But it’s high time for a meal.
I hope the men will come home any moment
so we can fix a tasty supper in the lodge.”
As host and guest confided back and forth
the herdsmen came in, driving their hogs up close,
penning sows in their proper sties for the night,
squealing for all they’re worth, shut inside their yard,
and the good swineherd shouted to his men,
“Bring in your fattest hog!
I’ll slaughter it for our guest from far abroad.
We’ll savor it ourselves. All too long we’ve sweated
over these white-tusked boars—our wretched labor—
while others wolf our work down free of charge!”
Calling out
as he split up kindling now with a good sharp ax
and his men hauled in a tusker five years old,
rippling fat, and stood him steady by the hearth.
The swineherd, soul of virtue, did not forget the gods.
He began the rite by plucking tufts from the porker’s head,
threw them into the fire and prayed to all the powers,
“Bring him home, our wise Odysseus, home at last!”
Then raising himself full-length, with an oak log
he’d left unsplit he clubbed and stunned the beast
and it gasped out its life …
The men slashed its throat, singed the carcass,
quickly quartered it all, and then the swineherd,
cutting first strips for the gods from every limb,
spread them across the thighs, wrapped in sleek fat,
and sprinkling barley over them, flung them on the fire.
They sliced the rest into pieces, pierced them with skewers,
broiled them all to a turn and, pulling them off the spits,
piled the platters high. The swineherd, standing up
to share the meat—his sense of fairness perfect—
carved it all out into seven equal portions.
One he set aside, lifting up a prayer
to the forest nymphs and Hermes, Maia’s son,
and the rest he handed on to each man in turn.
But to Odysseus he presented the boar’s long loin
and the cut of honor cheered his master’s heart.
The man for all occasions thanked his host:
“I pray, Eumaeus, you’ll be as dear to Father Zeus
as you are to me—a man in my condition—
you honor me by giving me your best.”
You replied in kind, Eumaeus, swineherd:
“Eat, my strange new friend … enjoy it now,
it’s all we have to offer. As for Father Zeus,
one thing he will give and another he’ll hold back,
whatever his pleasure. All things are in his power.”
He burned choice parts for the gods who never die
and pouring glistening wine in a full libation,
placed the cup in his guest’s hands—Odysseus,
raider of cities—and down he sat to his own share.
Mesaulius served them bread, a man the swineherd
purchased for himself in his master’s absence—
alone, apart from his queen or old Laertes—
bought him from Taphians, bartered his own goods.
They reached out for the spread that lay at hand
and when they’d put aside desire for food and drink,
Mesaulius cleared the things away. And now, content
with bread and meat, they made for bed at once.
A foul night came on—the dark of the moon—and Zeus
rained from dusk to dawn and a sodden West Wind raged.
Odysseus spoke up now, keen to test the swineherd.
Would he take his cloak off, hand it to his guest
or at least tell one of his men to do the same?
He cared for the stranger so, who ventured now,
“Listen, Eumaeus, and all you comrades here,
allow me to sing my praises for a moment.
Say it’s the wine that leads me on, the wild wine
that sets the wisest man to sing at the top of his lungs,
laugh like a fool—it drives the man to dancing … it even
tempts him to blurt out stories better never told.
But now that I’m sounding off, I can’t hold back.
Oh make me young again, and the strength inside me
steady as a rock! Just as I was that day
we sprang a sudden ambush against the Trojans.
Odysseus led the raid with Atreus’ son Menelaus.
I was third in command—they’d chosen me themselves.
Once we’d edged up under the city’s steep ramparts,
crowding the walls but sinking into the thick brake,
the reeds and marshy flats, huddling under our armor
there we lay, and a foul night came on, the North Wind struck,
freezing cold, and down from the skies the snow fell like frost,
packed hard—the rims of our shields armored round with ice.
There all the rest of the men wore shirts and cloaks and,
hunching shields over their shoulders, slept at ease.
Not I. I’d left my cloak at camp when I set out-—
idiot—never thinking it might turn cold,
so I joined in with just the shield on my back
and a shining waist-guard … But then at last,
the night’s third watch, the stars just wheeling down—
I muttered into his ear, Odysseus, right beside me,
nudging him with an elbow—he perked up at once—
‘Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, full of tactics,
I’m not long for the living. The cold will do me in.
See, I’ve got no cloak. Some spirit’s fooled me—
I came out half-dressed. Now there’s no escape!’
I hadn’t finished—a thought flashed in his mind;
no one could touch the man at plots or battles.
‘Shhh!’ he hissed back—Odysseus had a plan—
‘One of our fighters over there might hear you.’
Then he propped his head on his forearm, calling out,
‘Friends, wake up. I slept and a god sent down a dream.
It warned that we’re too far from the ships, exposed.
Go, someone, tell Agamemnon, our field marshal—
he might rush reinforcements from the beach.’
Thoas, son of Andraemon, sprang up at once,
flung off his purple cloak and ran to the ships
while I, bundling into his wrap, was glad at heart
till Dawn rose on her golden throne once more.
Oh make me young again
and the strength inside me steady as a rock!
One of the swineherds here would lend a wrap,
for love of a good soldier, respect as well.
Now they spurn me, dressed in filthy rags.”
And you replied, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd,
“Now that was a fine yarn you told, old-timer,
not without point, not without profit either.
You won’t want for clothes or whatever else
is due a worn-out traveler come for help—
not for tonight at least. Tomorrow morning
you’ll have to flap around in rags again.
Here we’ve got no store of shirts and cloaks,
no changes. Just one wrap per man, that’s all.
But just you wait till Odysseus’ dear son comes back—
that boy will deck you out in a cloak and shirt
and send you off, wherever your heart desires!”
With that
he rose to his feet, laid out a bed by the fire,
throwing over it skins of sheep and goats and
down Odysseus lay. Eumaeus flung on his guest
the heavy flaring cloak he kept in reserve
to wear when winter brought some wild storm.
So here
Odysseus slept and the young hands slept beside him.
Not the swineherd. Not his style to bed indoors,
apart from his pigs. He geared up to go outside
and it warmed Odysseus’ heart,
Eumaeus cared so much for his absent master’s goods.
First, over his broad shoulders he slung a whetted sword,
wrapped himself in a cloak stitched tight to block the wind,
and adding a cape, the pelt of a shaggy well-fed goat,
he took a good sharp lance to fight off men and dogs.
Then out he went to sleep where his white-tusked boars
had settled down for the night … just under
a jutting crag that broke the North Wind’s blast.
-----HOMER, THE ODYSSEY, TRANSLATED BY Robert Fagles
-----HOMER, THE ODYSSEY, TRANSLATED BY Robert Fagles
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Copyright Mitzub'ixi Quq Chi'j, 2012