Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ODYSSEY: BOOK 4. PENELOPE FORLORN, by HOMER


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THE ODYSSEY: BOOK 4. PENELOPE FORLORN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: And medon answer made, the man of skill
Last Line: Had I, nor knew I of his setting forth.'
Subject(s): Mythology - Classical


AND Medon answer made, the man of skill:
'Yea, Queen, if this now were the worst of ill!
But greater and more grievous far they plan,
Which may the son of Cronus not fulfil!

'With the sword's edge they plot your son to slay
Returning homeward; if some word he may
Hear of his sire, to lordly Pylos he
And to bright Lacedaemon takes his way.'

So spake he, and her heart with grief he stirred,
And shook her knees beneath her as she heard.
Long she sat speechless, and her eyes with tears
Brimmed over, and she said not any word.

Yet utterance at last she found, and slow
She spake: 'O herald, wherefore is it so
My child is gone from me? No need there was
For him upon swift-sailing ships to go!

'Which are the horses that men yoke to swim
Over the sea, and cross from brim to brim
The fields of water: oh, among mankind
Shall there not even a name be left of him?'

And Medon answered her, the man of skill:
'I know not whether by some God his will
Was roused within him, or his own heart planned
This voyage forth to Pylos to fulfil,

'If tidings of his father he may know,
Whether he comes, or by what fate laid low
He even now has perished.' Thus he said,
And turned him from Odysseus' house to go.

But bitter anguish at her heartstrings tore,
And on a seat she brooked to sit no more,
Of many that the house was furnished with;
But on the richly fashioned chamber's floor

Moaning in lamentable wise she clung,
While round her wailed the women, old and young,
All of her household: and Penelope
Bitterly sighing spake her maids among:

'Hearken, my women! for upon my head
Surely the Lord Olympian grief has shed
Exceeding great, beyond the lot of all
The women whom this age has born and bred.

'For I long since my noble husband lost,
The lion-hearted, in the Danaan host
Renowned for all achievement, and his fame
All over Hellas and mid-Argos crossed.

'And now again my own beloved son
The winds have snatched from home, and tidings none
Had I, nor knew I of his setting forth.'





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