The Odyssey of Homer by Richmond Lattimore

Author:Richmond Lattimore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-04-18T16:00:00+00:00

180 and sitting then to row they dashed their oars in the gray sea.

But when we were as far from the land as a voice shouting

carries, lightly plying, the swift ship as it drew nearer

was seen by the Sirens, and they directed their sweet song toward us:

“Come this way, honored Odysseus, great glory of the Achaians,

185 and stay your ship, so that you can listen here to our singing;

for no one else has ever sailed past this place in his black ship

until he has listened to the honey-sweet voice that issues

from our lips; then goes on, well pleased, knowing more than ever

he did; for we know everything that the Argives and Trojans

190 did and suffered in wide Troy through the gods’ despite.

Over all the generous earth we know everything that happens.”

‘So they sang, in sweet utterance, and the heart within me

desired to listen, and I signaled my companions to set me

free, nodding with my brows, but they leaned on and rowed hard,

195 and Perimedes and Eurylochos, rising up, straightway

fastened me with even more lashings and squeezed me tighter.

But when they had rowed on past the Sirens, and we could no longer

hear their voices and lost the sound of their singing, presently

my eager companions took away from their ears the beeswax

200 with which I had stopped them. Then they set me free from my lashings.

‘But after we had left the island behind, the next thing

we saw was smoke, and a heavy surf, and we heard it thundering.

The men were terrified, and they let the oars fall out of

their hands, and these banged all about in the wash. The ship stopped

205 still, with the men no longer rowing to keep way on her.

Then I going up and down the ship urged on my companions,

standing beside each man and speaking to him in kind words:

“Dear friends, surely we are not unlearned in evils.

This is no greater evil now than it was when the Cyclops

210 had us cooped in his hollow cave by force and violence,

but even there, by my courage and counsel and my intelligence,

we escaped away. I think that all this will be remembered

some day too. Then do as I say, let us all be won over.

Sit well, all of you, to your oarlocks, and dash your oars deep

215 into the breaking surf of the water, so in that way Zeus

might grant that we get clear of this danger and flee away from it.

For you, steersman, I have this order; so store it deeply

in your mind, as you control the steering oar of this hollow

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