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Vol. 36 No 3-4
Greek Poetry: New Voices and Ancient Echoes

Spring 1999

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Homer

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From: Odyssey (Book XI, lines 139-227)


Odysseus (Narrator) 
'Teiresias, I accept  that the gods must have spun these threads. 
But tell me another truth:  I see the spirit of my mother here. 
She's sitting in silence  beside the pit of blood; she doesn't 
seem to have the power to speak,  or even see me. Can you, 
great prophet, tell me  how she might come to recognise me?' 

Teiresias 
'That is easy to answer:  any spirit that you permit to sip 
blood at the pit, will find  the power to speak as its former self: 
any that you deny,  will revert to the world of vague shadows.' 

Odysseus (Narrator) 
After these prophesies  the spirit of Teiresias retreated.
I stood my ground, until  my mother came and lapped the livid 
   blood — 
at once she recognised me,  and said in deep distress:

Anticleia 
'How can you have arrived,  my son, in this mouldering gloom, 
while you're still alive?  It's difficult for the living 
to look on this dead world  — great and terrible rivers intervene. 
Can you really have sailed here  with your ship and companions 
still on your long, long  wanderings coming home from Troy? 
Have you not yet set eyes on  Ithaca, or your wife waiting there?' 

Odysseus (Narrator) 
'I had to come here, mother,  to Hades to question the spirit 
of the prophet Teiresias.  I haven't once set foot in my own land, 
since I first departed for Troy  at the summons of Agamemnon — 
forever I wander and wander,  weighed down by gathering grief. 
But tell me truly:  what kind of death-blow brought you down? 
Was it lingering illness?  or eased from breath peacefully 
by an arrow of Artemis?  And tell me of the life of my father, 
and the boy, left behind  — do they still hold my heritage? 
or has some other man  taken over, thinking I'll never come home? 
and what of my wedded wife?  how is her mind inclining? 
Is she loyal to my boy,  maintaining our estates intact, 
or has she remarried,  taking her pick of the Achaeans?' 

Anticleia 
'Your wife is waiting at home,  as patient as patient can be, 
always weeping,  as the fretful nights and days waste away. 
No one else has your heritage;  Telemachus keeps his estate, 
(and already takes part  in communal affairs and feasting). 
Your father farms  in the country, and doesn't come into the city. 
He doesn't bother with beds,  blankets or clean linen —
during the cold winter nights  he sleeps like the servants 
in the ash by the hearthside,  clothed in filthy tatters; 
but in summer and autumn,  anywhere in his vineyards 
or his rich orchards,  he beds down on the bare ground, 
enfolded in fallen leaves.  There he lies accumulating misery, 
pining, son, for your return  — his old age a hard time. 
And this is how I also  ended my days. I wasn't eased peacefully
by an arrow of Artemis;  nor did disease strike me down 
(the most common cause  of the body's weakness and wasting). 
But a lingering longing  for you, my splendid Odysseus, 
longing for your intelligence  and your mild-mindedness — 
that's what faded away  the delight in life from my soul.' 

Odysseus (Narrator) 
I was overwhelmed by a wish  to embrace my mother's spirit. 
Three times with a desperate  hope I tried to hold her: 
three times she flitted  from my clasp, like some dream 
or insubstantial shadow  — and my pain grew sharper and 
         sharper. 
'Mother, my mother,  why keep escaping from my embrace? 
can't we clasp each other,  even here in Hades' domains, 
so as to satisfy  the deep need for grief and mourning? 
Or could you possibly be  a mere phantom formed by Persephone? 
and only sent to make  my torture more terrible?' 

Anticleia 
'Son, my only son,  first of men in misfortune, 
no, I am not a deception  or phantom formed by Persephone. 
This is what has to happen  to a mortal body when it dies. 
Once the life has left  the white bones, then the thews and sinews 
no longer tie together  the cold flesh and skeleton. 
All these elements  are consumed in the flames of cremation; 
but the spirit flutters away,  and dream-like flies round here.' 

Odysseus (Narrator) 
With that her spirit departed.  But while we'd been talking, 
ghosts had been gathering  around in their thousands, 
lured by the blood,  and sent by fearsome Persephone.

Translated by Oliver Taplin

Page(s) 213-215

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