HOMER'S ODYSSEY COMPLETE

Rhapsody 13

Translated by S. Butcher and A. Lang

Homer Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Homer in Print

Page 16

 And Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying: 'Nay, wherefore then didst thou not tell him, seeing thou hast knowledge of all? Was it, perchance, that he too may wander in sorrow over the unharvested seas, and that others may consume his livelihood?'

 Then the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him: 'Nay, let him not be heavy on thy heart. I myself was his guide, that by going thither he might win a good report. Lo, he knows no toil, but he sits in peace in the palace of the son of Atreus, and has boundless store about him. Truly the young men with their black ship they lie in wait, and are eager to slay him ere he come to his own country. But this, methinks, shall never be. Yea, sooner shall the earth close over certain of the wooers that devour thy livelihood.'

 Therewith Athene touched him with her wand. His fair flesh she withered on his supple limbs, and made waste his yellow hair from off his head, and over all his limbs she cast the skin of an old man, and dimmed his two eyes, erewhile so fair. And she changed his raiment to a vile wrap and a doublet, torn garments and filthy, stained with foul smoke. And over all she clad him with the great bald hide of a swift stag, and she gave him a staff and a mean tattered scrip, and a cord therewith to hang it.

 And after they twain had taken this counsel together, they parted; and she now went to goodly Lacedaemon to fetch the son of Odysseus.

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Homer's Complete ILIAD & ODYSSEY Contents

Homer Bilingual Anthology ||| Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons
A Commentary on the ODYSSEY ||| Interlinear ILIAD

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-Greece/homer/odyssey-13.asp?pg=16