The Odyssey (Oxford World's Classics Hardback Collection) by Homer

Author:Homer
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780199669103
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2016-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

BOOK FOURTEEN

Meanwhile Odysseus left the harbour and took a rough track

through woods up towards high ground, where Athena had

told him the excellent swineherd would be, who more than

any in Odysseus’ household took good care of his property.

And he found him sitting in front of his hut, where a high-5

walled enclosure had been built, visible from all sides; a fine, large yard, with a cleared space round it. The swineherd

had built this yard himself, for the pigs of his absent master, without the help of his mistress and aged Laertes, with huge

quarried stones, and had capped it with a hedge of wild pear.10

Outside, running the length and breadth of the yard, he had

driven a stockade of many close-set oaken stakes whose

dark bark he had stripped away. Inside the yard he had built

twelve sties, set close to each other, to be beds for the pigs, and in each one fifty earth-wallowing swine were penned,15

sows which had produced litters. The hogs slept outside;

far fewer of them, because the godlike suitors kept eating them and so reduced their number, since the swineherd would

regularly send them the very best of his carefully nurtured

pigs; and there were in all three hundred and sixty of these.20

Hard by them dogs like wild beasts kept constant night-watch, four of them, reared by the swineherd, captain of men.

He himself was engaged in making sandals to fit his feet,

cutting them from a piece of good oxhide, and his men had

gone out in different directions with the droves of swine;25

there were three of these, and the fourth he had already sent to the city, being forced by the arrogant suitors to take them

a hog for them to slaughter and satisfy their desire for meat.

Suddenly the harsh-baying dogs caught sight of Odysseus,

and rushed at him, barking; but Odysseus, crafty man, sat30

down on the ground and let his staff drop from his hand.

There, in his own farm, he would have suffered a shameful

mauling, had not the swineherd dropped the hide and dashed

on swift feet through the yard gate, chasing the dogs away.

Shouting angrily at them, he drove them off this way and that35

with a shower of stones; and then he addressed his lord:

‘Old man, my dogs were quickly upon you, and came close to

tearing you apart; so you would have poured shame over me—

to add to all the other pain and grief the gods have sent me.

Here I sit, lamenting and grieving for my godlike master,40

feeding up his fat swine only for other men to devour, while

he, probably without enough to eat, is wandering in some land or city of men who speak an alien tongue—if, that is, he is

still alive somewhere and looks on the light of the sun.

But follow me, old man. Let us go into my hut, and there with45

me you may satisfy your desire for food and wine, and tell

me where you are from, and what troubles you have endured.’

So the good swineherd spoke, and led Odysseus towards his hut.

After showing him in, he heaped up some brushwood, and laid

on

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.