Ithakesios

Leiokritos, son of Euenor, answered him saying, "Mentor, what folly is all this, that you should set the people to stay us? It is a hard thing for one man to fight with many about his victuals. Even though Odysseus himself were to set upon us while we are feasting in his house, and do his best to oust us, his wife, who wants him back so very badly, would have small cause for rejoicing, and his blood would be upon his own head if he fought against such great odds. There is no sense in what you have been saying. Now, therefore, do you people go about your business, and let his father's old friends, Mentor and Halitherses, speed this boy on his journey, if he goes at all - which I do not think he will, for he is more likely to stay where he is till some one comes and tells him something." On this he broke up the assembly, and every man went back to his own abode, while the suitors returned to the house of Odysseus. Then Telemakhos went all alone by the sea side, washed his hands in the gray waves, and prayed to Athena. "Hear me," he cried, "you god who visited me yesterday, and bade me sail the seas in search of the nostos of my father who has so long been missing. I would obey you, but the Achaeans, and more particularly the wicked suitors, are hindering me that I cannot do so."

Odysseia ·Kitap 2 ·241-260 ·machine translation (native)

They turned pale with fear as he spoke, and every man looked round about to see whither he might flee for safety, but Eurymakhos alone spoke. "If you are Odysseus," said he, "then what you have said is just. We have done much wrong on your lands and in your house. But Antinoos, who was the head and front of the offending [ aitios ], lies low already. It was all his doing. It was not that he wanted to marry Penelope; he did not so much care about that; what he wanted was something quite different, and Zeus has not granted it to him; he wanted to kill your son and to be chief man in Ithaca . Now, therefore, that he has met the death which was his due, spare the lives of your people. We will make everything good among ourselves in this district [ dêmos ], and pay you in full for all that we have eaten and drunk. Each one of us shall pay you a fine worth twenty oxen, and we will keep on giving you gold and bronze till your heart is softened. Until we have done this no one can complain of your being enraged against us." Odysseus again glared at him and said, "Though you should give me all that you have in the world both now and all that you ever shall have, I will not stay my hand till I have paid all of you in full. You must fight, or flee for your lives; and flee, not a man of you shall."

Odysseia ·Kitap 22 ·41-60 ·machine translation (native)

"Men of Ithaca ," he said, "hear my words. From the day Odysseus left us there has been no meeting of our councilors until now; who then can it be, whether old or young, that finds it so necessary to convene us? Has he got wind of some host approaching, and does he wish to warn us, or would he speak upon some other matter of public moment? I am sure he is an excellent person, and I hope Zeus will grant him his heart's desire." Telemakhos took this speech as of good omen and rose at once, for he was bursting with what he had to say. He stood in the middle of the assembly and the good herald Pisenor brought him his staff. Then, turning to Aigyptios, "Sir," said he, "it is I, as you will shortly learn, who have convened you, for it is I who am the most aggrieved. I have not got wind of any host approaching about which I would warn you, nor is there any matter of public moment on which I would speak. My grievance is purely personal, and turns on two great misfortunes which have fallen upon my house. The first of these is the loss of my excellent father, who was chief among all you here present, and was like a father to every one of you; the second is much more serious, and ere long will be the utter ruin of my estate. The sons of all the chief men among you are pestering my mother to marry them against her will. They are afraid to go to her father Ikarios, asking him to choose the one he likes best, and to provide marriage gifts for his daughter, but day by day they keep hanging about my father's house, sacrificing our oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much as a thought to the quantity of wine they drink. No estate can stand such recklessness; we have now no Odysseus to ward off harm from our doors, and I cannot hold my own against them. I shall never all my days be as good a man as he was, still I would indeed defend myself if I had power to do so, for I cannot stand such treatment any longer; my house is being disgraced and ruined. Have respect, therefore, to your own consciences and to public opinion. Fear, too, the wrath [ mênis ] of the gods, lest they should be displeased and turn upon you. I pray you by Zeus and Themis, who is the beginning and the end of councils, [do not] hold back, my friends, and leave me singlehanded - unless it be that my brave father Odysseus did some wrong to the Achaeans which you would now avenge on me, by aiding and abetting these suitors. Moreover, if I am to be eaten out of house and home at all, I had rather you did the eating yourselves, for I could then take action against you to some purpose, and serve you with notices from house to house till I got paid in full, whereas now I have no remedy."

Odysseia ·Kitap 2 ·21-40 ·machine translation (native)

whereon Odysseus went straight up to Agamemnon and received from him his ancestral, imperishable staff. With this he went about among the ships of the Achaeans. Whenever he met a king or chieftain, he stood by him and spoke him fairly. "Sir," said he, "this flight is cowardly and unworthy. Stand to your post, and bid your people also keep their places. You do not yet know the full mind [ noos ] of Agamemnon; he was sounding us, and ere long will visit the Achaeans with his displeasure. We were not all of us at the council to hear what he then said; see to it lest he be angry and do us a mischief; for the timê of kings is great, and the hand of Zeus is with them." But when he came across some man from some locale [ dêmos ] who was making a noise, he struck him with his staff and rebuked him, saying, "What kind of daimôn has possessed you? Hold your peace, and listen to better men than yourself. You are a coward and no warrior; you are nobody either in fight or council; we cannot all be kings; it is not well that there should be many masters; one man must be supreme - one king to whom the son of scheming Kronos has given the scepter and divine laws to rule over you all." Thus masterfully did he go about among the host, and the people hurried back to the council from their tents and ships with a sound as the thunder of surf when it comes crashing down upon the shore,

İlyada ·Kitap 2 ·181-200 ·machine translation (native)

Then Theoklymenos said, ‘And what, my dear young friend, is to become of me? To whose house, among all your chief men, am I to repair? Or shall I go straight to your own house and to your mother?" "At any other time," replied Telemakhos, "I should have bidden you go to my own house, for you would find no want of hospitality; at the present moment, however, you would not be comfortable there, for I shall be away, and my mother will not see you; she does not often show herself even to the suitors, but sits at her loom weaving in an upper chamber, out of their way; but I can tell you a man whose house you can go to - I mean Eurymakhos the son of Polybos, who is held in the highest estimation by every one in Ithaca . He is much the best man and the most persistent wooer, of all those who are paying court to my mother and trying to take Odysseus’ place. Zeus, however, in heaven alone knows whether or not they will come to a bad end before the marriage takes place." As he was speaking a bird flew by upon his right hand - a hawk, Apollo's messenger. It held a dove in its talons, and the feathers, as it tore them off, fell to the ground midway between Telemakhos and the ship. On this Theoklymenos called him apart and caught him by the hand. "Telemakhos," said he, "that bird did not fly on your right hand without having been sent there by some god. As soon as I saw it I knew it was an omen; it means that you will remain powerful and that there will be no house in the dêmos of Ithaca more royal than your own."

Odysseia ·Kitap 15 ·501-520 ·machine translation (native)

With these words he sat down, and Mentor who had been a friend of Odysseus, and had been left in charge of everything with full authority over the servants, rose to speak. He, then, plainly and in all honesty addressed them thus: "Hear me, men of Ithaca , I hope that you may never have a kind and well-disposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern you equitably; I hope that all your chiefs henceforward may be cruel and unjust, for there is not one of you but has forgotten Odysseus, who ruled you as though he were your father. I am not half so angry with the suitors, for if they choose to do violence in the naughtiness of their minds [ noos ], and wager their heads that Odysseus will not return, they can take the high hand and eat up his estate, but as for you others I am shocked at the way in which you the rest of the population [ dêmos ] all sit still without even trying to stop such scandalous goings on - which you could do if you chose, for you are many and they are few." Leiokritos, son of Euenor, answered him saying, "Mentor, what folly is all this, that you should set the people to stay us? It is a hard thing for one man to fight with many about his victuals. Even though Odysseus himself were to set upon us while we are feasting in his house, and do his best to oust us, his wife, who wants him back so very badly, would have small cause for rejoicing, and his blood would be upon his own head if he fought against such great odds. There is no sense in what you have been saying. Now, therefore, do you people go about your business, and let his father's old friends, Mentor and Halitherses, speed this boy on his journey, if he goes at all - which I do not think he will, for he is more likely to stay where he is till some one comes and tells him something."

Odysseia ·Kitap 2 ·221-240 ·machine translation (native)

"Hear me, men of Ithaca , and I speak more particularly to the suitors, for I see mischief brewing for them. Odysseus is not going to be away much longer; indeed he is close at hand to deal out death and destruction, not on them alone, but on many another of us who live in Ithaca . Let us then be wise in time, and put a stop to this wickedness before he comes. Let the suitors do so of their own accord; it will be better for them, for I am not prophesying without due knowledge; everything has happened to Odysseus as I foretold when the Argives set out for Troy , and he with them. I said that after going through much hardship and losing all his men he should come home again in the twentieth year and that no one would know him; and now all this is coming true." Eurymakhos son of Polybos then said, "Go home, old man, and prophesy to your own children, or it may be worse for them. I can read these omens myself much better than you can; birds are always flying about in the sunshine somewhere or other, but they seldom mean anything. Odysseus has died in a far country, and it is a pity you are not dead along with him, instead of prating here about omens and adding fuel to the anger of Telemakhos which is fierce enough as it is. I suppose you think he will give you something for your family, but I tell you - and it shall surely be - when an old man like you, who should know better, talks a young one over till he becomes troublesome, in the first place his young friend will only fare so much the worse - he will take nothing by it, for the suitors will prevent this - and in the next, we will lay a heavier fine, sir, upon yourself than you will at all like paying, for it will bear hardly upon you. As for Telemakhos, I warn him in the presence of you all to send his mother back to her father, who will find her a husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts so dear a daughter may expect. Till then we shall go on harassing him with our suit; for we fear no man, and care neither for him, with all his fine speeches, nor for any fortune-telling of yours. You may preach as much as you please, but we shall only hate you the more. We shall go back and continue to eat up Telemakhos' estate without paying him, till such time as his mother leaves off tormenting us by keeping us day after day on the tiptoe of expectation, each vying with the other in his suit for a prize of such rare perfection [ aretê ]. Besides we cannot go after the other women whom we should marry in due course, but for the way in which she treats us."

Odysseia ·Kitap 2 ·161-180 ·machine translation (native)

Laertes ’ strength failed him when he heard the convincing proofs [ sêmata ] which his son had given him. He threw his arms about him, and Odysseus had to support him, or he would have gone off into a swoon; but as soon as he came to, and was beginning to recover his senses, he said, "O father Zeus, then you gods are still in Olympus after all, if the suitors have really been punished for their insolence [ hubris ] and folly. Nevertheless, I am much afraid that I shall have all the townspeople of Ithaca up here directly, and they will be sending messengers everywhere throughout the cities of the Cephallênians." Odysseus answered, "Take heart and do not trouble yourself about that, but let us go into the house hard by your garden. I have already told Telemakhos, Philoitios, and Eumaios to go on there and get dinner ready as soon as possible." Thus conversing the two made their way towards the house. When they got there they found Telemakhos with the stockman and the swineherd cutting up meat and mixing wine with water. Then the old Sicel woman took Laertes inside and washed him and anointed him with oil. She put him on a good cloak, and Athena came up to him and gave him a more imposing presence, making him taller and stouter than before. When he came back his son was surprised to see him looking so like an immortal, and said to him, "My dear father, some one of the gods has been making you much taller and better-looking."

Odysseia ·Kitap 24 ·341-360 ·machine translation (native)

On this pale fear laid hold of them, and old Halitherses, son of Mastor, rose to speak, for he was the only man among them who knew both past and future; so he spoke to them plainly and in all honesty, saying, "Men of Ithaca , it is all your own fault that things have turned out as they have; you would not listen to me, nor yet to Mentor, when we bade you check the folly of your sons who were doing much wrong in the wantonness of their hearts - wasting the substance and dishonoring the wife of a chieftain who they thought would not return. Now, however, let it be as I say, and do as I tell you. Do not go out against Odysseus, or you may find that you have been drawing down evil on your own heads." This was what he said, and more than half raised a loud shout, and at once left the assembly. But the rest stayed where they were, for the speech of Halitherses displeased them, and they sided with Eupeithes; they therefore hurried off for their armor, and when they had armed themselves, they met together in front of the city, and Eupeithes led them on in their folly. He thought he was going to avenge the murder of his son, whereas in truth he was never to return, but was himself to perish in his attempt.

Odysseia ·Kitap 24 ·441-460 ·machine translation (native)

On this pale fear seized every one; they were so frightened that their arms dropped from their hands and fell upon the ground at the sound of the goddess’ voice, and they fled back to the city for their lives. But Odysseus gave a great cry, and gathering himself together swooped down like a soaring eagle. Then the son of Kronos sent a thunderbolt of fire that fell just in front of Athena, so she said to Odysseus, "Odysseus, noble son of Laertes, stop this warful strife, or Zeus will be angry with you." Thus spoke Athena, and Odysseus obeyed her gladly. Then Athena assumed the form and voice of Mentor, and presently made a covenant of peace between the two contending parties.

Odysseia ·Kitap 24 ·521-540 ·machine translation (native)