O prince, in early youth divinely wise,

Born, the Ulysses of thy age to rise!

If to the son the father's worth descends,

O'er the wide waves success thy ways attends:

To tread the walks of death he stood prepared;

And what he greatly thought, he nobly dared.

For never, never, wicked man was wise.

All men need the gods.

But the great leveler, Death: not even the gods

can defend a man, not even one they love, that day

when fate takes hold and lays him out at last.

Heroes in various climes myself have found,

For martial deeds and depths of thought renowned;

But Ithacus, unrivalled in his claim,

May boast a title to the loudest fame:

In battle calm, he guides the rapid storm,

Wise to resolve, and patient to perform.

By the dire fury of a traitress wife,

Ends the sad evening of a stormy life:

Whence with incessant grief my soul annoy'd,

These riches are possess'd, but not enjoy'd!

My wars, the copious theme of every tongue,

To you, your fathers have recorded long:

How favouring heaven repaid my glorious toils

With a sack'd palace, and barbaric spoils.

A decent boldness ever meets with friends.

Oh, pity human woe!

’T is what the happy to the unhappy owe.

Hunger is insolent, and will be fed.

A generous heart repairs a slanderous tongue.

That is the gods' work, spinning threads of death

through the lives of mortal men,

an all to make a song for those to come.

Odysseus then you are, o great contender,

of whom the glittering god with the golden wand

spoke to me ever, and foretold

the black swift ship would carry you from Troy.

Put up your weapon in the sheath. We two

shall mingle and make love upon our bed.

So mutual trust may come of play and love.

I took the victims, over the trench I cut their throats

And the dark blood flowed in--and up out of Erebus they came,

flocking toward me now, the ghosts of the dead and gone ...

Brides and unwed youths and old men who had suffered much

And girls with their tender hearts freshly scarred by sorrow

And great armies of battle dead, stabbed by bronze spears,

men of war still wrapped in bloody armor--thousands

swarming around the trench from every side--

unearthly cries--blanching terror gripped me!

Better, I say, to break sod as a farm hand

for some poor country man, on iron rations,

than lord it over all the exhausted dead.

Now I the strength of Hercules behold,

A towering spectre of gigantic mould,

A shadowy form! for high in heaven's abodes

Himself resides, a god among the gods;

There, in the bright assemblies of the skies,

He nectar quaffs, and Hebe crowns his joys.

Here hovering ghosts, like fowl, his shade surround,

And clang their pinions with terrific sound;

Gloomy as night he stands, in act to throw

The aerial arrow from the twanging bow.

Around his breast a wondrous zone is roll'd,

Where woodland monsters grin in fretted gold:

There sullen lions sternly seem to roar,

The bear to growl, to foam the tusky boar;

There war and havoc, and destruction stood,

And vengeful murder red with human blood.

Thus terribly adorn'd the figures shine,

Inimitably wrought with skill divine.

Enough: in misery can words avail?

And what so tedious as a twice-told tale?

How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!

Who, versed in fortune, fear the flattering show,

And taste not half the bliss the gods bestow.

The gods

living in bliss are fond of no wrongdoing,

but honor discipline and right behavior.

A guest remembers all of his days

that host who makes provisions for him kindly.

If then my fortunes can delight my friend,

A story fruitful of events, attend:

Another's sorrow may thy ear enjoy,

And wine the lengthened intervals employ.

Long nights the now declining year bestows,

A part we consecrate to soft repose,

A part in pleasing talk we entertain;

For too much rest itself becomes a pain.

Let those, whom sleep invites, the call obey,

Their cares resuming with the dawning days

Here let us feast, and to the feast be joined

Discourse, the sweetest banquet of the mind;

Review the series of our lives, and taste

The melancholy joy of evil past:

For he who much has suffered, much will know;

And pleased remembrance builds delight on woe.

Love deceives the best of womankind.

The fool of fate, thy manufacture, man,

With penury, contempt, repulse, and care,

The galling load of life is doom'd to bear.

It is not right to glory in the slain.

Think of a catch that fishermen haul in to a halfmoon bay

in a fine-meshed net from the whit-caps of the sea:

how all are poured out on the sand, in throes for the salt- sea,

twitching their cold lives away in Helios' fiery air:

so lay the suitors heaped on one another.

The royal pair mingled in love again

and afterward lay revelling in stories:

hers of the siege her beauty stood at home

from arrogant suitors, crowding on her sight,

and how they fed their courtships on his cattle

oxen and fat sheep, and drank up rivers

of wine out of the vats. Odysseus told

of what hard blows he had dealt to others

and of what blows he had taken--all that story.

Now hear me, men of Ithaka.

When these hard deeds were done by Lord Odysseus

the immortal gods were not far off. I saw

with my own eyes someone divine who fought

beside him, in the shape and dress of Mentor;

it was a god who shone before Odysseus,

a god who swept the suitors down the hall

dying in droves.

Each future day increase of wealth shall bring,

And o'er the past Oblivion stretch her wing.