HOMER'S ODYSSEY COMPLETE

Rhapsody 17

Translated by S. Butcher and A. Lang

Homer Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Homer in Print

Page 13

 So he spake, and the swineherd went when he heard that saying, and stood by and spake to him winged words:

 'Stranger, Telemachus gives thee these and bids thee go about and beg of all the wooers in their turn, for, he says, "shame ill becomes a beggar man."'

 Then Odysseus of many counsels answered him and said: 'King Zeus, grant me that Telemachus may be happy among men, and may he have all his heart's desire!'

 Therewith he took the gift in both hands, and set it there before his feet on his unsightly scrip. Then he ate meat so long as the minstrel was singing in the halls. When he had done supper, and the divine minstrel was ending his song, then the wooers raised a clamour through the halls; but Athene stood by Odysseus, son of Laertes, and moved him to go gathering morsels of bread among the wooers, and learn which were righteous and which unjust. Yet not even so was she fated to redeem one man of them from an evil doom. So he set out, beginning on the right, to ask of each man, stretching out his hand on every side, as though he were a beggar from of old. And they in pity gave him somewhat, and were amazed at the man, asking one another who he was and whence he came?

Previous / First / Next Page of this Rhapsody

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-17.asp?pg=13