Important Quotations Explained
1. Sing
to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven
time and again off course, once he had plundered
the
hallowed heights of Troy.
Many cities of men
he saw and learned their minds,
many pains
he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
fighting
to save his life and bring his comrades home.
But
he could not save them from disaster, hard as he
strove—
the recklessness of their own
ways destroyed them all,
the blind fools,
they devoured the cattle of the Sun
and the
Sungod blotted out the day of their return.
Launch
out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus,
start
from where you will—sing for our time too.
2.
So then,
royal son of Laertes, Odysseus,
man of exploits,
still eager to leave at once
and hurry back
to your own home, your beloved
native land?
Good luck to you, even so. Farewell!
But
if you only knew, down deep, what pains
are
fated to fill your cup before you reach that shore,
you'd
stay right here, preside in our house with me
and
be immortal. Much as you long to see your wife,
the
one you pine for all your days . . .
3.
“But you, Achilles,
there's not a man
in the world more blest than you—
there never
has been, never will be one.
Time was, when
you were alive, we Argives
honored you as
a god, and now down here, I see,
you lord
it over the dead in all your power.
So grieve
no more at dying, great Achilles.”
I
reassured the ghost, but he broke out, protesting,
“No
winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus!
By
god, I'd rather slave on earth for another man—
some
dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive—
than
rule down here over all the breathless dead.”
4. Of
all that breathes and crawls across the earth,
our
mother earth breeds nothing feebler than a man.
So
long as the gods grant him power, spring in his knees,
he
thinks he will never suffer affliction down the years.
But
then, when the happy gods bring on the long hard times,
bear
them he must, against his will, and steel his heart.
Our
lives, our mood and mind as we pass across the earth,
turn
as the days turn . . .
5. Just
as I
have come from afar, creating pain for
many—
men and women across the good green
earth—
so let his name be Odysseus . . .
the
Son of Pain, a name he'll earn in full.
