"Homer - Odyssey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Homer)

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The Odyssey
By Homer


Translated by Samuel Butler

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BOOK I

Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide
after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit,
and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted;
moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life
and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save
his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating
the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from
ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter
of Zeus, from whatsoever source you may know them.

So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely
home except Odysseus, and he, though he was longing to return to his
wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got
him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by,
there came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to
Ithaca; even then, however, when he was among his own people, his
troubles were not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun
to pity him except Posiedon, who still persecuted him without ceasing
and would not let him get home.

Now Posiedon had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world's
end, and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East.
He had gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was
enjoying himself at his festival; but the other gods met in the house
of Olympian Zeus, and the sire of gods and men spoke first. At that
moment he was thinking of Aegisthus, who had been killed by Agamemnon's
son Orestes; so he said to the other gods:

"See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing
but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs make love to
Agamemnon's wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon, though he
knew it would be the death of him; for I sent Mercury to warn him
not to do either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure
to take his revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home. Mercury
told him this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he
has paid for everything in full."