{"id":2313,"date":"2013-07-13T01:40:47","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2313"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:40:47","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:47","slug":"64-opening-of-the-odyssey-vol-05-translations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/05-translations\/64-opening-of-the-odyssey-vol-05-translations","title":{"rendered":"-64_Opening of the Odyssey.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nOpening of the Odyssey<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nSing to me, Muse, of the man many-counselled who far through the world’s ways<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWandering was tossed after Troya he sacked, the divine stronghold,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMany cities of men he beheld, learned the minds of their dwellers,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMany the woes in his soul he suffered driven on the waters,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFending from fate his life and the homeward course of his comrades.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThem even so he saved not for all his desire and his striving;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWho by their own infatuate madness piteously perished,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFools in their hearts! for they slew the herds the deity pastured,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHelios high-climbing; but he from them reft their return and the daylight.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSing to us also of these things, goddess, daughter of heaven.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNow all the rest who had fled from death and sudden destruction<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSafe dwelt at home, from the war escaped and the swallowing ocean:<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe alone far was kept from his fatherland, far from his consort,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLong by the nymph divine, the sea-born goddess, Calypso,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStayed in her hollow caves; for she yearned to keep him her husband.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet when the year came at last in the rolling gyre of the seasons<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhen in the web of their wills the gods spun out his returning<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHomeward to Ithaca,
\n\u2014 there too he found not release from his labour,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn his own land with his loved ones, \u2014 all the immortals had pity<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSave Poseidon alone; but he with implacable anger<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMoved against godlike Odysseus before his return to his country.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNow was he
\ngone to the land of the Aethiopes, nations far-distant, \u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey who to either hand divided, remotest of mortals,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDwell where the high-climbing Helios sets and where he arises;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere of bulls and of rams the slaughtered hecatomb tasting<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe by the banquet seated rejoiced; but the other immortals<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSat in the halls of Zeus Olympian; the throng of them seated,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFirst led the word the father divine of men and immortals;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor in his heart had the memory risen of noble Aegisthus<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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Page \u2013 604<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\nWhom in his halls Orestes, the famed Agamemnonid, slaughtered;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHim in his heart recalling he spoke mid the assembled immortals:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n“Out on it! how are the gods ever vainly accused by earth’s creatures!<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStill they say that from us they have miseries; they rather always<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBy their own folly and madness draw on them woes we have willed not.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven as now Aegisthus, violating Fate, from Atrides<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTook his wedded wife and slew her husband returning,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nKnowing the violent end; for we warned him before, we sent him<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHermes charged with our message, the far-scanning slayer of Argus,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNeither the hero to smite nor wed the wife of Atrides,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSince from Orestes a vengeance shall be, the Atreid offspring,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhen to his youth he shall come and desire the soil of his country.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet not for all his words would the infatuate heart of Aegisthus<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHeed that friendly voice; now all in a mass has been paid for.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnswered then to Zeus the goddess grey-eyed Athene.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n“Father of ours, thou son of Cronus, highest of the regnant,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe indeed and utterly fell by a fitting destruction:<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSo too perish all who dare like deeds among mortals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut for a far better man my heart burns, clear-eyed Odysseus<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWho, ill-fated, far from his loved ones suffers and sorrows<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHemmed in the island girt by the waves, in the navel of ocean,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhere in her dwelling mid woods and caves a goddess inhabits,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDaughter of Atlas whose baleful heart knows all the abysses<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFathomless, vast of the sea and the pillars high on his shoulders<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn his huge strength he upbears that part the earth and the heavens;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAtlas’ daughter keeps in that island the unhappy Odysseus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlways soft are her words and crafty and thus she beguiles him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSo perhaps he shall cease from thought of his land; but Odysseus<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYearns to see even the distant smoke of his country upleaping.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDeath he desires. And even in thee, O Olympian, my father,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNever thy heart turns one moment to pity, nor dost thou remember<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHow by the ships of the Argives he wrought the sacrifice pleasing<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOft in wide-wayed Troya. What wrath gainst the wronged keeps thy bosom?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n

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Page \u2013 605<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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  Opening of the Odyssey   Sing to me, Muse, of the man many-counselled who far through the world’s ways Wandering was tossed after Troya…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-05-translations","wpcat-48-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}