Butler:
Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero
who travelled far and wide
after he had sacked the famous town of Troy.
U3: "— Introibo ad altare Dei."
U4: "You saved men from drowning. I'm not a hero, however."
U3? Trojan horse references
Many cities did he visit,
and many were the nations
with whose manners and customs he was acquainted;
moreover he suffered much by sea
while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home;
but do what he might he could not save his men,
for they perished through their own sheer folly
in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion;
so the god prevented them from ever reaching home.
U4: "We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid?"
U17? "Come out, Kinch. You have eaten all we left, I suppose."
Tell me, too, about all these things,
O daughter of Jove,
from whatsoever source you may know them.
U14? "Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a messenger."
So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck
had got safely home except Ulysses,
and he, though he was longing to return to his wife and country,
was detained by the goddess Calypso,
who had got him into a large cave and wanted to marry him.
U22: "— Is she up the pole?"
But as years went by, there came a time
when the gods settled that he should go back to Ithaca;
even then, however, when he was among his own people,
his troubles were not yet over;
nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him
except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing
and would not let him get home.
U9? "Silent with awe and pity I went to her bedside."
Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians,
who are at the world's end, and lie in two halves,
the one looking West and the other East.
U7: "His old fellow made his tin by selling jalap to Zulus or some bloody swindle or other."
He had gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen,
and was enjoying himself at his festival;
but the other gods met in the house of Olympian Jove,
and the sire of gods and men spoke first.
At that moment he was thinking of Aegisthus,
who had been killed by Agamemnon's son Orestes;
so he said to the other gods:
"See now, how men lay blame upon us gods
for what is after all nothing but their own folly.
Look at Aegisthus;
he must needs make love to Agamemnon's wife unrighteously
and then kill Agamemnon,
though he knew it would be the death of him;
for I sent Mercury to warn him not to do either of these things,
inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his revenge
when he grew up and wanted to return home.
Mercury told him this in all good will
but he would not listen, and now he has paid for everything in full."
U17: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. Mercurial Malachi."
U19: "He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat quivering in the fresh wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries."
U15: "We had better pay her, Mulligan, hadn't we?"
cf Boylan and Molly??
cf Murray:
Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many devices,
who wandered full many ways
after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy.
Many were the men whose cities he saw
and whose mind he learned,
aye, and many the woes he suffered in his heart upon the sea,
seeking to win his own life
and the return of his comrades.
Yet even so he saved not his comrades,
though he desired it sore,
for through their own blind folly they perished—
fools, who devoured the kine of Helios Hyperion;
but he took from them the day of their returning.
Of these things, goddess, daughter of Zeus,
beginning where thou wilt, tell thou even unto us.
Now all the rest, as many as had escaped sheer destruction,
were at home, safe from both war and sea,
but Odysseus alone, filled with longing for his return and for his wife,
did the queenly nymph Calypso, that bright goddess,
keep back in her hollow caves,
yearning that he should be her husband.
But when, as the seasons revolved, the year came
in which the gods had ordained that he should return home to Ithaca,
not even there was he free from toils,
even among his own folk.
And all the gods pitied him save Poseidon;
but he continued to rage unceasingly
against godlike Odysseus
until at length he reached his own land.
Howbeit Poseidon had gone among the far-off Ethiopians—
the Ethiopians who dwell sundered in twain,
the farthermost of men,
some where Hyperion sets and some where he rises,
there to receive a hecatomb of bulls and rams,
and there he was taking his joy, sitting at the feast;
but the other gods were gathered together
in the halls of Olympian Zeus.
Among them the father of gods and men was first to speak,
for in his heart he thought of noble Aegisthus,
whom far-famed Orestes, Agamemnon's son, had slain.
Thinking on him he spoke among the immortals, and said:
"Look you now, how ready mortals are to blame the gods.
It is from us, they say, that evils come,
but they even of themselves, through their own blind folly,
have sorrows beyond that which is ordained.
Even as now Aegisthus, beyond that which was ordained,
took to himself the wedded wife of the son of Atreus,
and slew him on his return,
though well he knew of sheer destruction,
seeing that we spake to him before,
sending Hermes, the keen-sighted Argeiphontes,
that he should neither slay the man nor woo his wife;
for from Orestes shall come vengeance for the son of Atreus
when once he has come to manhood and longs for his own land.
So Hermes spoke, but for all his good intent
he prevailed not upon the heart of Aegisthus;
and now he has paid the full price of all."
No comments:
Post a Comment