The Cretan Tale

22Odysseus, the sagacious, answered her:
“O royal consort of Laertes’ son!
Will you still ask my lineage? I will then
Disclose it, but you wake in my heart
New sorrows. So it ever is with one
Who long, like me, is far away from home,
Wandering in many realms, and suffering much;
But since you do require it, you shall hear.

23“Crete is a region lying in the midst
Of the black deep, a fair and fruitful land,
Girt by the waters. Many are the men,
Nay, numberless, who make it their abode,
And ninety are its cities. Different tongues
Are spoken by the dwellers of the isle.
In part they are Achaians, and in part
Are Cretans of the soil, a gallant stock;
There dwell Cydonians, Dorians of three tribes,
And proud Pelasgians. Their great capital
Is Knossos, where the monarch Minos dwelt,
He who at every nine years’ end conferred
With Zeus almighty; and to him was born
Deucalion, my brave father, who begat
Me and Idomeneus, the King of Crete.
To Ilium in his beaked galleys sailed
Idomeneus with Atreus’ sons. My name —
A name well known —is Aethon. It was at Crete
I saw Odysseus, who received from me
The welcome due a guest. A violent wind
Had driven him from Maleia and the course
That led to Ilium, and had carried him
To Crete, and lodged him in the dangerous port
Amnisus, close to Ilithyia’s cave,
Where scarce his fleet escaped the hurricane.
Thence came he to the city, and inquired
For King Idomeneus, who was, he said,
His dear and honored guest; but he had sailed
Ten days before, perhaps eleven, for Troy,
In his beaked galleys. To the palace there
I led Odysseus, and with liberal cheer
Welcomed the chief, for plentifully stored
The royal dwelling was. I also gave
Meal from the public magazines to him
And those who followed him, and dark red wine
Brought from the country round, and beeves to slay
In sacrifice, that so their hearts might feel
No lack of aught. Twelve days the noble Greeks
Remained with us. A violent north-wind,
Which scarcely suffered them to stand upright
On shore, withstood them. Some unfriendly power
Had bid it blow; but on the thirteenth day
Its fury ceased, and the fleet put to sea.”

24Thus went he on, inventing tales that seemed
Like truth. She listened, melting into tears
That flowed as when on mountain height the snow,
Shed by the west-wind, feels the east-wind’s breath,
And flows in water, and the hurrying streams
Are filled; so did Penelope’s fair cheeks
Seem to dissolve in tears —tears shed for him
Who sat beside her even then. He saw
His weeping wife, and pitied her at heart;
Yet were his eyes like iron or like horn,
And moved not in their lids; for artfully
He kept his tears from falling. When the queen
Had ceased to weep, she answered him and said: —