HOMER'S ODYSSEY COMPLETE

Rhapsody 17

Translated by S. Butcher and A. Lang

Homer Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Homer in Print

Page 21

 Then wise Penelope answered him, saying: 'Go, call him hither, that he may speak to me face to face. But let these men sit in the doorway and take their pleasure, or even here in the house, since their heart is glad. For their own wealth lies unspoiled at home, bread and sweet wine, and thereon do their servants feed. But they resorting to our house day by day sacrifice oxen and sheep and fat goats, and keep revel and drink the dark wine recklessly; and, lo, our great wealth is wasted, for there is no man now alive, such as Odysseus was, to keep ruin from the house. Oh, if Odysseus might come again to his own country; soon would he and his son avenge the violence of these men!'

 Even so she spake, and Telemachus sneezed loudly, and around the roof rang wondrously. And Penelope laughed, and straightway spake to Eumaeus winged words:

 'Go, call me the stranger, even so, into my presence. Dost thou not mark how my son has sneezed a blessing on all my words? Wherefore no half-wrought doom shall befal the wooers every one, nor shall any avoid death and the fates. Yet another thing will I say, and do thou ponder it in thy heart. If I shall find that he himself speaks nought but truth, I will clothe him with a mantle and a doublet, goodly raiment.'

 So she spake, and the swineherd departed when he heard that saying, and stood by the stranger and spake winged words:

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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-17.asp?pg=21