V. THE HOME-COMING

Here the great poem suddenly ends, as if the poet had used up his share of a common story, and must leave the rest to another minstrel’s lay. We are told by the later literature how Paris, standing beside the battle, slew Achilles with an arrow that pierced his vulnerable heel, and how Troy fell at last through the stratagem of the wooden horse.

The victors themselves were vanquished by their victory, and returned in weary sadness to their longed-for homes. Many of them were shipwrecked, and some of these, stranded on alien shores, founded Greek colonies in Asia, the Aegean, and Italy.⁷³ Menelaus, who had vowed that he would kill Helen, fell in love with her anew when the “goddess among women” came to him in the calm majesty of her loveliness; gladly he took her back to be his queen again in Sparta. When Agamemnon reached Mycenae he “clasped his land and kissed it, and many were the hot tears that streamed from his eyes.”⁷⁴ But during his long absence Clytaemnestra had taken his cousin Aegisthus for husband and king; and when Agamemnon entered the palace they slew him.

Sadder still was the home-coming of Odysseus; and here probably another Homer has told the tale in a poem less powerful and heroic, gentler and pleasanter, than the Iliad.* Odysseus, says the Odyssey, is shipwrecked on the island of Ogygia, a fairyland Tahiti, whose goddess-queen Calypso holds him as her lover for eight years while secretly he pines for his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus, who pine for him at Ithaca.

(I) Athena persuades Zeus to bid Calypso let Odysseus depart. The goddess flies to Telemachus, and hears with sympathy the youth’s simple tale: how the princes of Ithaca and its vassal isles are paying court to Penelope, seeking through her the throne, and how meanwhile they live gaily in Odysseus’ palace, and consume his substance, (II) Telemachus bids the suitors disperse, but they laugh at his youth. Secretly he embarks upon the sea in search of his father, while Penelope, mourning now for both husband and son, holds off the suitors by promising to wed one of them when she has completed her web—of which she unweaves at night as much as she has woven by day. (III) Telemachus visits Nestor at Pylus and (IV) Menelaus at Sparta, but neither can tell him where to find his father. The poet paints an attractive picture of Helen settled and subdued, but still divinely beautiful; she has long since been forgiven her sins, and remarks that when Troy fell she had grown tired of the city anyway.*

(V) Now for the first time Odysseus enters the tale. “Sitting on the shore” of Calypso’s isle, “his eyes were dry of tears, and his sweet life ebbed away, as he longed mournfully for his return. By night indeed he would sleep by Calypso’s side perforce in the hollow caves, unwilling beside the willing nymph, but by day he would sit on the rocks and the sands, rocking his soul with tears and groans, and looking over the unresting sea.”⁷⁸ Calypso, having detained him one night more, bids him make a raft and set out alone.

(VI) After many struggles with the ocean, Odysseus lands in the mythical country of Phaeacia (possibly Corcyra-Corfu), and is found by the maiden Nausicaa, who leads him to the palace of her father, King Alcinous. The lass falls in love with the strong-limbed, strong-hearted hero, and confides to her companions: “Listen, my white-armed maidens. . . . Erewhile this man seemed to me uncomely, but now he is like the gods that keep wide heaven. Would that such a one might be called my husband, dwelling here, and that it might please him here to abide.”⁷⁹ (VII-VIII) Odysseus makes so good an impression that Alcinous offers him Nausicaa’s hand. Odysseus excuses himself, but is glad to tell the story of his return from Troy.

(IX) His ships (he tells the King) were borne off their course to the land of the Lotus-Eaters, who gave his men such honey-sweet lotus fruit that many forgot their homes and their longing, and Odysseus had to force them back to their ships. There they sailed to the land of the Cyclopes, one-eyed giants who lived without law or labor on an island abounding in wild grain and fruit. Caught in a cave by the Cyclop Polyphemus, who ate several of his men, Odysseus saved the remnant by lulling the monster to sleep with wine, and then burning out his single eye. (X) The wanderers took again to the sea, and came to the land of the Laestrygonians; but these, too, were cannibals, and only Odysseus’ ship escaped them. He and his mates reached next the isle of Aenea, where the lovely and treacherous goddess Circe lured most of them into her cave with song, drugged them, and turned them into swine. Odysseus was about to slay her when he changed his mind and accepted her love. He and his comrades, now restored to human form, remained with Circe a full year. (XI) Setting sail again, they came to a land perpetually dark, which proved to be the entrance to Hades; there Odysseus talked with the shades of Agamemnon, Achilles, and his mother, (XII) Resuming their voyage, they passed the island of the Sirens, against whose seductive strains Odysseus protected his men by putting wax into their ears. In the straits (Messina?) of Scylla and Charybdis his ship was wrecked, and he alone survived, to live for eight long years on Calypso’s isle.

(XIII) Alcinous is so moved with sympathy by Odysseus’ tale that he bids his men row Odysseus to Ithaca, but to blindfold him lest he learn and reveal the location of their happy land. On Ithaca the goddess Athena guides the wanderer to the hut of his old swineherd Eumaeus, who (XIV), though not recognizing him, receives him with Gargantuan hospitality, (XV) When Telemachus is led by the goddess to the same hut Odysseus (XVI) makes himself known to his son, and both “wail aloud vehemently.” He unfolds to Telemachus a plan for slaying all the suitors, (XVII-XVIII) In the guise of a beggar he enters his palace, sees the wooers feasting at his expense, and rages inwardly when he hears that they lie with his maidservants at night even while courting Penelope by day. (XIX-XX) He is insulted and injured by the suitors, but he defends himself with vigor and patience, (XXI) By this time the wooers have discovered the trick of Penelope’s web, and have forced her to finish it. She agrees to marry whichever or them can string Odysseus’ great bow—which hangs on the wall—and shoot an arrow through the openings of twelve axes ranged in line. They all try, and all fail. Odysseus asks for a chance, and succeeds. (XXII) Then with a wrath that frightens everyone, he casts off his disguise, turns his arrows upon the suitors, and, with the help of Telemachus, Eumaeus, and Athena, slays them all. (XXIII) He finds it hard to convince Penelope that he is Odysseus; it is difficult to surrender twenty suitors for one husband, (XXIV) He meets the attack of the suitors’ sons, pacifies them, and re-establishes his kingdom.

Meanwhile in Argos the greatest tragedy in Greek legend was pursuing its course. Orestes, son of Agamemnon, grown to manhood and aroused by his bitter sister Electra, avenged their father by murdering their mother and her paramour. After many years of madness and wandering Orestes ascended the throne of Argos-Mycenae (ca. 1176 B.C.) and later added Sparta to his kingdom.* But from his accession the house of Pelops began to decline. Perhaps the decline had begun with Agamemnon, and that vacillating chieftain had used war as a means of uniting a realm that was already falling to pieces. But his victory completed his ruin. For few of his chieftains ever returned, and the kingdoms of many others had lost all loyalty to them. By the end of the age that had opened with the siege of Troy the Achaean power was spent, the blood of Pelops was exhausted. The people waited patiently for a saner dynasty.