Odyssey Quotations

Translation - Robert Fitzgerald. Part 1 & 2

“Back, and quickly! Out to sea again!”

Odysseus

CONTEXT: Sailing From Troy

“All hands aboard; come, clear the beach and no one taste the Lotus, or you lose your hope of home.”

Odysseus

CONTEXT: The Lotus Eaters

“Why not take these cheeses, get them stowed, come back, throw open all the pens, and make a run for it? We’ll drive the kids and lambs aboard. We say put out again on good salt water!”

Odysseus’ Men

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Strangers, who are you? And where from? What brings you here by seaways -- a fair traffic? Or are you wandering rogues, who cast our lives like dice, and ravage other folk by sea?”

Polyphemus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“We are from Troy, Achaeans, blown off course by shifting gales on the Great South Sea; homeward bound, but taking routes and ways uncommon; so the will of Zeus would have it. We served under Agamemnon, son of Atreus -- the whole world knows what city he laid waste, what armies he destroyed. It was our luck to come here; here we stand, beholden for your help, or any gifts you give -- as custom is to honor strangers. We would entreat you, great Sir, have a care for the gods’ courtesy; Zeus will avenge the unoffending guest.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“You are a ninny, or else you come from the other end of nowhere, telling me, mind the gods! We ______ care not a whistle for your thundering Zeus or all the gods in bliss; we have more force by far. I would not let you go for fear of Zeus -- you or your friends --- unless I had a whim to. Tell me, where was it, now, you left your ship -- around the point, or down the shore, I wonder?”

Polyphemus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“My ship? Poseidon Lord, who sets the earth a-tremble, broke it up on the rocks at your land’s end. A wind from seaward served him, drove us there. We are survivors, these good men and I.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Cyclops, try some wine. Here’s liquor to wash down your scraps of men. Taste it, and see the kind of drink we carried under out planks. I meant it for an offering if you would help us home. But you are mad, unbearable, a bloody monster! After this, will any other traveler come to see you?”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Give me another, thank you kindly. Tell me, how are you called? I’ll make a gift will please you. Even ______ know the wine grapes grow out of the grassland and loam in heaven’s rain, but here’s a bit of nectar and ambrosia!”

Polyphemus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Cyclops, you ask my honorable name? Remember the gift you promised me, and I shall tell you. My name is Nohbdy: mother, father, and friends, everyone calls me Nohbdy.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Nohbdy’s my meat, then, after I eat his friends. Others come first. There’s a noble gift, now.”

Polyphemus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“What ails you, Polyphemus? Why do you cry so sore in the starry night? You will not et us sleep. Sure no man’s driving off your flock? No man has tricked you, ruined you?”

One of the Cyclopes

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Nohbdy, Nohbdy’s tricked me, Nohbdy’s ruined me!”

Polyphemus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Ah well, if nobody has played you foul there in your lonely bed, we are no use in pain given by great Zeus. Let it be your father, Poseidon Lord to whom you pray.”

One of the Cyclopes

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Sweet cousin ram, why lag behind the rest in the night cave? You never linger so, but graze before them all, and go afar to crop sweet grass, and take your stately way leading along the streams, until at evening you run to be the first one in the fold. Why, now, so far behind? Can you be grieving over your Master’s eye? Thats a carrion rogue and his accurst companions burnt it out when he had conquered all my wits with wine. Nohbdy will not get out alive, I swear. Oh, had you brain and voice to tell where he may be now, dodging in all my fury! Bashed by this hand and bashed on this rock wall his brains would strew the floor, and I should have rest from the outrage Nohbdy worked upon me.”

Polyphemus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Load this herd; move fast, and put the ship’s head toward the breakers.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“O Cyclops! Would you feast on my companions? Puny, am I, in a cave man’s hands? How do you like the beating we gave you, you damned cannibal? Eater of guests under your roof! Zeus and the gods have paid you!”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Godsake, Captain! Let him alone! Why bait the beast again?”

Odysseus’ Crew

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“That tidal wave he made on the frst throw all but beached us.”

Odysseus’ Crew

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“All but stove us in!”

Odysseus’ Crew

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Give him our bearing with your trumpeting, he’ll get the range and lob a boulder.”

Odysseus’ Crew

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Aye He’ll smash our timbers and our heads together!”

Odysseus’ Crew

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Cyclops, if ever mortal man inquire how you were put to shame and blinded, tell him _____, raider of cities, took your eye: ___’s son, whose home’s on ____!”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“Now comes the weird upon me, spoken of old. A wizard, grand and wondrous, lived here -- Telemus, a son of Eurymus; a great length of days he had in the wizardry among the _____, and these things he foretold for time to come: my great eye lost, and at Odysseus’ hands. Always I had in mind some giant, armed in giant force, would come against me here. But this, but you-- small, pitful and twiggy -- you put me down with wine, you blinded me. Come back, Odysseus, and I’ll treat you well, praying the god of the earthquake to befriend you -- his son I am, for he by his avowal fathered me, and, if he will, he may heal me of this black wound-- he and no other of all the happy gods or mortal men.”

Polyphemus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“If I could take our life I would and take your time away, and hurl you down to hell! The god of earthquake could not heal you there!”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“O hear me, lord, blue girdler of the islands, if I am thine indeed, and thou art father: grant that Odysseus, raider of cities, never see his home: Laertes’ son, I mean, who kept his hall on Ithaca. Should destiny intend that he shall see his roof again among his family in his father land, far be that day, and dark the years between. Let him lose all companions, and return under strange sail to bitter days at home.”

Polyphemus

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CONTEXT: Cyclops

“How is this, Elpenor, how could you journey to the western gloom swifter afoot than I in the black lugger?”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Land of the Dead

“Son of great Laertes, Odysseus, master mariner and soldier, bad luck shadowed me, and no kindly power; ignoble death I drank with so much wine. I slept on Circe’s roof, then could not see the long steep backward ladder, coming down, and fell that height. My neckbone, buckled under, snapped, and my spirit found this well of dark. Now hear the grace I pray for, in the name of those back in the world, not here-- your wife and father, he who gave you bread in childhood, and your own child, your only son, Telemachus, long ago left at home.”

Elpenor

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CONTEXT: Land of the Dead

“When you make sail and put these lodgings of dim Death behind, you will moor ship, I know, upon Aeaea Island; there, O my lord, remember me, I pray, do not abandon me unwept, unburied, to tempt the gods’ wrath, while you sail for home; but fire my corpse, and all the gear I had, and build a cairn for me above the breakers -- an unknown sailor’s mark for men to come. Heap up the mound there, and implant upon it the oar I pulled in life with my companions.”

Elpenor

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CONTEXT: Land of the Dead

“Unhappy spirit, I promise ou the barrow and the burial”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Land of the Dead

“Son of Laertes and the gods of old, Odysseus, master of the landways and seaways, why leave the blazing sun, O man of woe, to see the cold dead and joyless region? Stand clear, put up your sword: let me but taste the blood, I shall speak true.”

Tiresias

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CONTEXT: Land of the Dead

“Great captain, a fair wind and the honey lights of home are all you seek. But anguish lies ahead; the god who thunders on the land prepares it, not to be shaken from your track, implacable, in rancor for the son whose eye you blinded.”

Tiresias

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CONTEXT: Land of the Dead

“One narrow strait may take you through his blows: denial of yourself, restraint of shipmates. When you make landfall on Thrinacia first and quit the violet sea, dark on the land you’ll find the grazing herds of Helios by whom all things are seen.”

Tiresias

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CONTEXT: Land of the Dead

“Avoid these kine, hold fast to your intent, and hard seafaring brings you all to Ithaca. But if you raid the beeves, I see destruction for ship and crew. Though you survive alone, bereft of all companions, lost for years, under a strange sail shall you come home, to find your own house filled with trouble: insolent men eating your livestock as they court to your lady.”

Tiresias

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CONTEXT: Land of the Dead

“Aye, you shall make those men atone in blood! But after you have dealt out death -- in open combat or by stealth -- to all the suitors, go overland on food, and take an oar, until one day you come where men have lived with meat unsalted, never known the sea, nor seen seagoing ships, with crimson bows and oars that fledge light hulls for dripping fight.”

Tiresias

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CONTEXT: Land of the Dead

“The spot will soon be plain to you, and I can tell you how: some passerby will say, ‘What winnowing fan is that upon your shoulder?’ Halt, and implant your smooth oar in the turf and make fair sacrifice to Lord Poseidon: a ram, a bull, a great buck boar: turn back, and carry out pure hecatombs at home to all wide heaven’s lords, the undying gods to each in order.”

Tiresias

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CONTEXT: Land of the Dead

“Then a seaborne death soft as this hand of mist will come upon you when you are wearied out with rich old age, your country folk in blessed peace around you. And all this shall just be as I foretell”

Tiresias

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CONTEXT: Land of the Dead

“Dear friends, more than one man, or two, should know those things Circe foresaw for us and shared with me, so let me tell her forecast: then we die with out eyes open, if we are going to die, or know what death we baffle if we can. Sirens weaving a haunting song over the sea we are to shun, she said, and their green shore all sweet with clover; yet she urged that I alone should listen to their song. Therefore you are to tie me up, tight as a splint, erect along the mast, lashed to the mast, and if I shout and beg to be untied, take more turns of the rope to muffle me.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Sirens - speech

“This way, oh turn your bows, Achaea’s glory, As the world allows-- Moor and be merry”

Sirens

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CONTEXT: Sirens Song

“Sweet coupled airs we sing. No lonely seafare Holds clear of entering Our green mirror.”

Sirens

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CONTEXT: Sirens Song

“Pleased by each purling note Like honey twining From her throat and my throat, Who lies a-pining?

Sirens

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CONTEXT: Sirens Song

“Sea rovers here take joy Voyaging onward, As from our song of Troy Graybeard and rower-boy Goeth more learned.”

Sirens

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CONTEXT: Sirens Song

“Argos’ old soldiery On Troy beach teeming. Charmed out of time we see. No life on earth can be Hid from our dreaming.”

Sirens

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CONTEXT: Sirens Song

“Untie me!”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Sirens -- Od. being tied up.

“Friends, have we never been in danger before this? More fearsome, is it now, than when the Cyclops penned us in his cave? What power he had! Did I not keep my nerve, and use my wits to find a way out for us?”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Scylla and Charybdis - Od. speech

“Now I say by hook or crook this peril too shall be something that we remember.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Scylla and Charybdis - Od. speech

“Heads up, lads! We must obey the orders as I give them. Get the oar shafts in your hands, and lay back hard on your benches; hit these breaking seas. Zeus help us pull away before we founder. You at the tiller, listen, and take in all that I say -- the rudders are your duty; keep her out of the combers and the smoke; steer for that headland; watch the drift, or we fetch up in the smother, and you drown us.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Scylla and Charybdis - Od. speech

“Old shipmates, Our stores are in the ship’s hold, food and drink; the cattle here are not for our provision, or we pay dearly for it. Fierce the god is who cherishes these heifers and these sheep: Helios; and no man avoids his eye.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Cattle of Sungod

“Comrades, you’ve gone through everything; listen to what I say. All deaths are hateful to us, mortal wretches, but famine is the most pitiful, the worst end that a man can come to.”

Eurylochus

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CONTEXT: Cattle of Sungod

“Wil you fight it? Come, we’ll cut out the noblest of these cattle for sacrifice to the gods who own the sky; and once at home, in the old country of Ithaca, if ever that day comes-- we’ll build a costly temple and adorn it with every beauty for the Lord of Noon. But if he flares up over his heifers lost, wishing our ships destroyed, and if the gods make cause with him, why, then I say: Better open your lungs to a big sea once for all than waste to skin and bones on a lonely island!”

Eurylochus

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CONTEXT: Cattle of Sungod

“O Father Zeus and gods in bliss forever, you made me sleep away this day of mischief! O cruel drowsing, in the evil hour! Here they sat, and a great work they contrived.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Cattle of Sungod

“They have killed your kine.”

Lampetia (to Helios)

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CONTEXT: Cattle of Sungod

“O Father Zeus and gods in bliss forever, punish Odysseus’ men! So overweening, now they have killed my peaceful kine, my joy at morning when I climbed the sky of stars, and evening, when I bore westward from heaven. Restitution or penalty they shall pay-- and pay in full -- or I go down forever to light the dead men in the underworld.”

Helios

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CONTEXT: Cattle of Sungod

“Peace, Helios: shine on among the gods, shine over mortals in the fields of grain. Let me throw down one white-hot bolt, and make splinters of their ship in the winedark sea.”

Zeus

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CONTEXT: Cattle of Sungod

“Son of Laertes and the gods of old, Odysseus, master of landways and seaways, dissemble to your son no longer now. The time has come: tell him how you together will bring doom on the suitors in the town. I shall not be far distant then, for I myself desire battle.”

Athena

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“Stranger, you are no longer what you were just now! Your cloak is new; even your skin! You are one of the gods who rule the sweep of heaven! Be kind to us, we’ll make you fair oblation and gifts of hammered gold. Have mercy on us!'“

Telemachus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“No god. Why take me for a god? No, no. I am that father whom your boyhood lacked and suffered pain for lack of. I am he.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“You cannot be my father Odysseus! Meddling spirits conceived this trick to twist the knife in me! No man of woman born could work these wonders by his own craft, unless a god came into it with ease to turn him young or old at will. I swear you were in rags and old, and here you stand like one of the immortals!”

Telemachus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“This is not princely, to be swept away by wonder at your father’s presence. No other Odysseus will ever come, for he and I are one, the same; his bitter fortune and his wanderings are mine. Twenty years gone, and I am back again on my own island.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“As for my change of skin, that is a charm Athena, Hope of Soldiers, uses as she will; she has the knack to make me seem a beggar man sometimes and sometimes young, with finer clothes about me. It is no hard thing for the gods of heaven to glorify a man or bring him low.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“Dear father! Tell me what kind of vessel put you here ashore on Ithaca? Your sailors, who were they? I doubt you made it, waking on the sea!”

Telemachus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“Only plain truth I shall tell you, child. Great seafarers, the Phaeacians, gave me passage as they give other wanderers. By night over the open ocean, while I slept, they brought me in their cutter, set me down on Ithaca, with gifts of bronze and gold and stores of woven things. By the gods’ will these lie all hidden in a cave. I came to this wild place, directed by Athena, so that we might lay plans to kill our enemies. Count up the suitors for me, let me know what men at arms are there, how many men. I must put all my mind to it, to see if we two by ourselves can take them on or if we should look round for help.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

O Father, all my life your fame as a fighting man has echoed in my ears -- your skill with weapons and the tricks of war -- but what you speak of is a staggering thing, beyond imagining, for me. How can two men do battle with a houseful in their prime? For I must tell you this is no affair of ten or even twice ten men, but scores, throngs of them. You shall see, here and now. The number from Dulichium alone is fifty-two picked men, with armorers, a half dozen; twenty-four came from Same, twenty from Zacynthus; our own island accounts for twelve, high-ranked, and their retainers. Medon the crier, and the Master Harper, besides a pair of handymen at feasts. If we go in against all these I fear we pay in salt blood for your vengeance. You must think hard if you would conjure up the fighting strength to take us through.”

Telemachus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“I’ll tell you now. Suppose Athena’s arm is over us, and Zeus her father’s, must I rack my brains for more?”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“Those two are great defenders, no one doubts it, but throned in the serene clouds overhead; other affairs of men and gods they have to rule over.”

Telemachus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“Before long they will stand to right and left os us in combat, in the shouting, when the test comes -- our nerve against the suitors’ in my hall. Here is your part: at break of day tomorrow home with you, go mingle with our princes. The swineherd later on will take me down the port-side trail -- a beggar, by my looks, hangdog and old. If they make fun of me in my own courtyard, let your ribs cage up your springing heart, no matter what I suffer, no matter if they pull me by the heels or practice shots at me, to drive me out. Look on, hold down your anger. You may even plead with them, by heaven! in gentle terms to quit their horseplay -- not that they will heed you, rash as they are, facing their day of wrath. Now fix the next step in your mind.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“Athena, counseling me, will give me word, and I shall signal to you, nodding: at that point round up all armor, lances, gear of war left in our hall, and stow the lot away back in the vaulted storeroom.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“When the suitors miss those arms and question you, be soft in what you say: answer: ‘I thought I’d move them out of the smoke. They seemed no longer those bright arms Odysseus left us years ago when he went off to Troy. Here where the fire’s hot breath came, they had grown black and drear. One better reason, too, I had from Zeus: suppose a brawl starts up when you are drunk, you might be crazed and bloody one another, and that would stain your feast, your courtship. Tempered iron can magnetize a man.’”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus - Od. telling Telemachus what to say.

“Say that. But put aside two broadswords and two spears for our own use, two oxhide shields nearby when we go into action. Pallas Athena and Zeus All-Provident will see you through, bemusing our young friends.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“Now one thing more. If son of mine you are and blood of mine, let no one hear _____ is about. Neither Laertes, nor the swineherd here, nor any slave, nor even Penelope. But you and I alone must learn how far the women are corrupted; we should know how to locate good men among our hands, the loyal and respectful, and the shirkers who take you lightly, as alone and young.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Return of Odysseus

“I marvel that they leave this hound to lie here on the dung pile; he would have been a fine dog, from the look of him, though I can’t say to his power and speed when he was young. You find the same good build in house dogs, table dogs landowners keep all for style.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Argus

“A hunter owned him -- but the man is dead in some far place. If this old hound could show the form he had when Lord Odysseus left him, going to Troy, you’d see him swift and strong. He never shrank from any savage thing he’d brought to bay in the deep woods; on the scent no other dog kept up with him. Now misery has him in leash. His owner died abroad, and here the women slaves will take no care of him. You know how servants are: without a master they have no will to labor, or excel. For Zeus who views the wide world takes away half the manhood of a man, that day he goes into captivity and slavery.”

Eumaeus

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CONTEXT: Argus

“God! What evil wind blew in this pest? Get over, stand in the passage! Nudge my table, will you? Egyptian whips are sweet to what you’ll come to here, you nosing rat, making your pitch to everyone! Those men have breads to throw away on you because it is not theirs. Who cares? Who spares another’s food, when he has more than plenty?”

Antinous

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CONTEXT: The Suitors

“A pity that you have more looks than heart. You’d grudge a pinch of salt from your own larder to your own handyman. You sit here, fat on others’ meat, and cannot bring yourself to rummage out a crust of bread for me!”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: The Suitors"

“You think you’ll shuffle off and get away after that impudence? Oh no you don’t!”

Antinous

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CONTEXT: The Suitors

“One word only, my lords, and suitors of the famous queen. One thing I have to say. There is no pain, no burden for the heart when blows come to a man, and he defending his own cattle -- his own cows and lambs. Here it was otherwise. Antinous hit me for being driven on by hunger -- how many bitter seas men cross for hunger! If beggars interest the gods, if there are Furies pent in the dark to avenge a poor man’s wrong, then may Antinous meet his death before his wedding day!”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: The Suitors

“Enough. Eat and be quiet where you are, or shamble elsewhere, unless you ant these lads to stop your mouth pulling you by the heels, or hands and feet, over the whole floor, till your back is peeled!”

Antinous

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CONTEXT: The Suitors

“A poor show, that -- hitting this famished tramp -- bad business, if he happened to be a god. You know they go in foreign guise, the gods do, looking like strangers, turning up in towns and settlements to keep an eye on manners, good or bad.”

One of the suitors

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CONTEXT: The Suitors

“Would god you could be hit yourself, Antinous -- hit by Apollo’s bowshot!”

Penelope

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CONTEXT: The Suitors

“He and no other? If we pray for came to pass, not one would live till dawn!”"

Eurynome

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CONTEXT: The Suitors

“Oh, Nan, they are a bad lot; they intend ruin for all of us; but Antinous appears a blacker-hearted hound than any. Here is poor man come, a wanderer, driven by want to beg his bread, and everyone in hall gave bits, to cram his bag -- only Antinous threw a stool, and banged his shoulder!”

Penelope

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CONTEXT: The Suitors

“Go to that man on my behalf, Eumaeus, and send him here, so I can greet and question him. Abroad in the great world, he may have heard rumors about Odysseus -- may have known him!”

Penelope

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CONTEXT: The Suitors

“Friend, let me ask you first of all: who are you, where do you come from, of what nation and parents were you born?”

Penelope

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CONTEXT: Penelope

“My lady, never a man in the wide world should have a fault to find with you. Your name has gone out under heaven like the sweet honor of some god-fearing king, who rules in equity over the strong: his black lands bear both wheat and barley, fruit trees laden bright, new lambs at lambing time -- and the deep sea gives great hauls of fish by his good strategy, so that his folk fare well.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Penelope

“O my dear lady, this being so, let it suffice to ask me of other matters -- not my blood, my homeland. Do not enforce me to recall my pain. My heart is sore; but I must not be found sitting in tears here, in another’s house: it is not well forever to be grieving. One of the maids might say -- or you might think -- I had got maudlin over cups of wine.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Penelope

“Stranger, my looks, my face, my carriage, were soon lost or faded when the Achaeans crossed the sea to Troy, Odysseus my lord among the rest. If he returned, if he were here to care for me, I might be happily renowned! But grief instead heaven sent me -- years of pain. Sons of the noblest families on the islands, Dulichium, Same, wooded Zacynthus, with native Ithacans, are here to court me, against my wish; and they consume this house. Can I give proper heed to guest or suppliant or herald on the realm’s affairs”

Penelope

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CONTEXT: Penelope

“How could I? wasted with longing for Odysseus, while here they press for marriage.”

Penelope

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CONTEXT: Penelope

“Ruses served my turn to draw the time out -- first a close-grained web I had the happy thought to set up weaving on my big loom in hall. I said, that day: ‘Young men -- my suitors, now my lord is dead, let me finish my weaving before I marry, or else my thread will have been spun in vain. It is a shroud I weave for Lord Laertes when cold Death comes to lay him on his bier. The country wives would hold me in dishonor if he, with all his fortune, lay unshrouded.’

Penelope

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CONTEXT: Penelope"

“I reached their hearts that way, and they agreed. So every day I wove on the great loom, but every night by torchlight I unwove it; and so for three years I deceived the Achaeans. But when the seasons brought a fourth year on, as long months waned, and the long days were spent, through impudent folly in the slinking maids they caught me -- clamored up to me at night; I had no choice but to then finish it. And now, as matters stand at last, I have no strength left to evade a marriage, cannot find any further way; my parents urge it upon me, and my son will not stand by while they eat up his property. He comprehends it, being a man full-grown, able to oversee the kind of house Zeus would endow with honor.”

Penelope

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CONTEXT: Penelope

“But you too confide in me, tell me your ancestry. You were not born of mythic oak or stone.”

Penelope

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CONTEXT: Penelope

“You see, then, he is alive and well, and headed homeward now, no more to be abroad far from his island, his dear wife and son. Here is my sworn word for it. Witness this, god of zenith, noblest of gods, and Lord Odysseus’ hearthfire, now before me: I swear these things shall turn out as I say. Between this present dark and one day’s ebb, after the wane, before the crescent moon, Odysseus will come.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Penelope

“A bow lover!”

Suitor

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CONTEXT: The Challenge

“Dealer in old bows!”

Suitor

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CONTEXT: The Challenge

“Maybe he has one like it at home!”

Suitor

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CONTEXT: The Challenge

“Or has an itch to make one for himself.”

Suitor

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CONTEXT: The Challenge

“See how he handles it, the sly old buzzard!”

Suitor

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CONTEXT: The Challenge

“May his fortune grow and inch for every inch he bends it!”

Suitor

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CONTEXT: The Challenge

“Telemachus, the stranger you welcomed in your hall has not disgraced you. I did not miss, neither did I take all day stringing the bow. My hand and eye are sound, not so contemptible as the young men say. The hour has come to cook their lordships’ mutton -- supper by daylight. Other amusements later, with song and harping that adorn a feast.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: The Challenge

“So much for that. Your clean-cut game is over. Now watch me hit a target that no man has hit before, if I can make this shot. Help me, Apollo.”

Odysseus

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CONTEXT: Odysseus’ Revenge

“Foul! to shoot at a man! That was your last shot!”

Suitor

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CONTEXT: Odysseus’ Revenge