The Beggar at His Own Door

When rosy-fingered Dawn¹ lit the sky, Telemachus tied his sandals on, picked up the strong spear that fit his hand, and got ready to head into the city. He turned to the swineherd.

“Old friend, I’m going into town now so my mother can see me. She won’t stop her crying and her bitter grieving until she lays eyes on me. As for this poor stranger, take him to town so he can beg his meals there. Anyone who wants to will give him a crust and a cup. I can’t take on every troubled soul in the world; I have enough trouble of my own. If the stranger is angry about it, too bad for him. I’d rather speak the plain truth.”

“Friend,” crafty Odysseus answered, “I don’t want to stay here either. A beggar does better in the town than out in the fields: anyone who likes can give him something. I’m too old to hang around a farm waiting on a master’s orders. So go on ahead. This man will bring me along, as you’ve asked, once I’ve warmed myself by the fire and the day heats up a little. These rags I’m wearing are wretched. The morning frost might kill me, and you say the town is a long way off.”

Telemachus strode out through the yard, walking fast, his mind already planting trouble for the suitors. When he reached the house he stood his spear against a tall pillar and stepped through the stone doorway inside.

Nurse Eurycleia saw him first. She was spreading fleeces over the carved chairs, and she burst into tears and ran straight to him. The other slave women crowded around too, kissing his head and shoulders in their joy.

Then Penelope came out of her room — she looked like Artemis, or golden Aphrodite². She threw her arms around her son and cried, kissing his face and both his beautiful eyes.

“You’ve come back, Telemachus, light of my life!” she sobbed. “I never thought I’d see you again after you sailed off to Pylos in secret, against my will, to ask about your father. Now tell me everything you saw.”

“Mother, don’t make me cry,” clear-thinking Telemachus said. “Don’t break my heart when I’ve only just escaped death. Wash yourself, put on clean clothes, go upstairs with your women, and pray: promise full offerings to all the gods³, if Zeus will only grant us our revenge. I have to go to the meeting place to invite a stranger who came back with me from Pylos. I sent him ahead with my crew and told Piraeus to take him home and treat him well until I could come for him.”

She listened, and his words went home. She washed, put on clean clothes, and vowed full offerings to all the gods, if only Zeus would let the day of reckoning come.

Telemachus walked back out through the hall, spear in hand, two quick dogs trotting beside him. Athena poured a kind of glory over him, so that everyone stared as he passed. The suitors clustered around with friendly words in their mouths and dark plans in their hearts. He kept clear of the whole crowd and went to sit with Mentor, Antiphus, and Halitherses, old friends of his father’s, and they wanted to hear everything.

Then Piraeus came up, leading Theoclymenus through the town to the meeting place. Telemachus didn’t keep the stranger waiting; he went straight to him.

“Telemachus,” Piraeus said, “send some of your women to my house to fetch the gifts Menelaus gave you.”

“Piraeus, we don’t know how things will turn out,” Telemachus answered. “If the suitors kill me in secret in my own halls and split up everything my father left, I’d rather you kept the gifts than have one of them get them. But if I manage to bring death down on those men, then bring the things to me, and we’ll both be glad.”

He led the weary stranger home. When they got there they laid their cloaks on the chairs and stepped into the polished tubs to bathe. The slave women washed them and rubbed them with oil and gave them thick cloaks and tunics, and they came out and sat down. An attendant poured water from a beautiful golden jug over a silver basin so they could rinse their hands, and drew a smooth table up beside them. The housekeeper brought bread and many good dishes, generous with what she had. Penelope sat across from them, leaning back in a chair by a pillar, spinning fine thread. They reached out for the food, and when they’d had enough to eat and drink, Penelope spoke.

“Telemachus, I’m going up to my room to lie down on that bed of sorrow, the one I’ve soaked with tears ever since Odysseus sailed for Troy with the sons of Atreus. But before the suitors come crowding back in here — you never told me clearly. Did you hear anything about your father’s homecoming?”

“I’ll tell you the truth, Mother,” he said. “We went to Pylos, to Nestor, shepherd of his people. He took me into his high house and treated me as kindly as a father treats a son come home after long years away. He and his fine sons looked after me well. But he said he’d heard nothing from any living person about Odysseus, whether he was alive or dead. He sent me on with horses and a fitted chariot to Menelaus.

“There I saw Helen of Argos, the woman so many Greeks and Trojans suffered and died for, by the gods’ will. Menelaus asked what had brought me to Sparta, and I told him everything. Then he said:

“‘Cowards! They want to lie in a brave man’s bed. It’s like a deer that beds her newborn fawns down in a strong lion’s den, then goes off grazing in the hills and valleys, and the lion comes back to his lair and tears them both apart. That’s the death Odysseus will bring those men. By Father Zeus, by Athena and Apollo, if he’s still the man he was that day on Lesbos, when he stood up and wrestled Philomeleides⁴ and threw him hard, and all the Greeks cheered — if that Odysseus came among the suitors, they’d find their lives cut short and their wedding bitter. But you asked me a question, and I won’t dodge it or lie to you. I’ll tell you exactly what the truthful old man of the sea⁵ told me, and hide nothing. He said he saw Odysseus on an island, in terrible grief, in the halls of the nymph Calypso⁶, who holds him there by force. He can’t get home to his own country. He has no ships, no oars, no men to carry him over the broad back of the sea.’

“That’s what Menelaus told me. When I’d heard it I sailed back, and the gods gave me a fair wind and brought me home fast.”

His words stirred her heart. Then Theoclymenus, who looked like a god, spoke up.

“Honored wife of Odysseus, son of Laertes, Menelaus doesn’t truly know. Listen to me. I’ll prophesy plainly and hide nothing. Let Zeus be my witness, first of the gods, and this table of hospitality⁷, and the hearth of Odysseus that I’ve come to: Odysseus is already in his own country. Sitting still or moving about, he is learning these evil deeds, and he is sowing ruin for every one of the suitors. I read it in a bird-sign as I sat on the ship, and I told Telemachus then.”

“Stranger, if only your words came true,” wise Penelope answered, “you’d soon know my kindness, and my gifts, so that everyone who met you would call you a lucky man.”

While they talked, the suitors out in front of the house were enjoying themselves throwing discs and spears at marks on the leveled ground, just as arrogant as ever. But when it was time for dinner and the flocks came in from the fields all around, driven by the herdsmen as usual, Medon spoke up. He was the herald the suitors liked best, and he ate with them.

“Young masters, you’ve all had your fun with the games. Come inside now and let’s get dinner ready. There’s nothing wrong with a meal at the proper hour.”

They got up and went, doing as he said. Inside the house they laid their cloaks on the chairs and slaughtered fat sheep and goats, fat pigs, and a heifer from the herd, getting the feast ready.

Out in the country, Odysseus and the noble swineherd were just setting out for town. Eumaeus said:

“Stranger, since you’re set on going into the city today, as my master ordered, well, I’d rather have kept you here to watch the farm. But I respect him, and I’m afraid he’d scold me later, and a master’s anger is a hard thing. So let’s get moving. Most of the day is gone, and toward evening it’ll turn cold on you.”

“I know. I understand,” Odysseus answered. “You’re telling a man who already sees it. Let’s go — lead the whole way. And if you’ve got a stick cut somewhere, give it to me to lean on. You said the road was rough.”

He slung his shabby, ragged sack over his shoulder (it had a twisted cord for a strap), and Eumaeus gave him a good stick. The two set off, leaving the farm to the dogs and the herdsmen. Eumaeus led his master toward the town, looking exactly like a miserable old beggar leaning on his staff, his wretched rags hanging off him.

They went down the rough, steep track and came near the town, to the fountain. It was a fine spring with sweet flowing water, where the townspeople drew what they needed. Ithacus, Neritus, and Polyctor had built it. Around it stood a grove of poplars that water feeds, in a full circle, and cold water ran down from the rock above. Over it was an altar to the nymphs, where everyone who passed made an offering.

There Melanthius, son of Dolius, caught up with them, driving goats — the best in all the flocks — for the suitors’ dinner. Two herdsmen came with him. When he saw the two travelers he began to curse them, foul and ugly, and it stirred the anger in Odysseus’ heart.

“Look at this,” he sneered. “One worthless dog leading another. The god always brings like to like. Where are you dragging this filthy pig, you miserable swineherd? This beggar’s a pest, a scrounger who licks the leftovers off other men’s tables. He’ll stand around rubbing his shoulders on doorposts, begging scraps — not swords or cauldrons, just garbage. Give him to me to mind the farm. He could muck out the pens and carry green branches to the kids, and drink the milk and fatten his legs. But no, he’s learned only bad habits. He won’t do an honest day’s work. He’d rather slink around town begging to stuff his bottomless belly. Let me tell you, and it’ll come true: if he goes near Odysseus’ house, plenty of footstools will fly at his head from men’s hands and crack his ribs as he’s pelted through the place.”

As he passed, the fool kicked Odysseus on the hip — but he didn’t knock him off the path. Odysseus stood firm. He turned it over in his mind: should he leap at Melanthius and beat the life out of him with the stick, or lift him by the head and smash him against the ground? He held himself back and bore it. But the swineherd looked the goatherd in the face and cursed him, raising his hands in prayer.

“Nymphs of the fountain, daughters of Zeus, if Odysseus ever burned thighbones for you, wrapped in rich fat, from lambs and kids, grant me this: bring that man home, let some god guide him. He’d scatter all your fine swagger, Melanthius, the arrogance you parade as you loaf around town while your worthless herding lets the flocks go to ruin.”

“What’s this?” Melanthius shot back. “Listen to the dog with murder on his mind! One day I’ll throw him on a black ship and haul him far from Ithaca and sell him for a good price. And I wish Apollo of the silver bow would strike Telemachus dead in the hall this very day — or that the suitors would kill him — as surely as Odysseus is never coming home.”

He left them to come on slowly behind, and went on ahead, reaching his master’s house fast. He walked in and sat down among the suitors, across from Eurymachus, who liked him best. The servers set a portion of meat in front of him, and the housekeeper brought bread.

Then Odysseus and the swineherd came up and stood by the house. The sound of the hollow lyre drifted out to them. Phemius was striking up a song. Odysseus caught Eumaeus by the hand.

“Eumaeus, this is surely the fine house of Odysseus. Easy to pick out among many. One building leads into the next, the courtyard is walled and topped with a ledge, and the double doors are strong. No man could break in by force. I can tell a big crowd is feasting in there: I smell roasting meat, and I hear the lyre, which the gods made the companion of a feast.”

“You’ve got it right,” Eumaeus said. “You’re no fool about anything else either. But let’s decide how to do this. Either you go in first among the suitors and I stay out here, or you wait and I’ll go ahead. Don’t wait long, though — someone might spot you outside and throw something, or drive you off. Think it over.”

“I understand. I see it,” Odysseus answered. “Go in ahead, and I’ll wait here. I’m no stranger to blows and things thrown at me. My heart can take it — I’ve suffered plenty on the sea and in war. Let this come along with the rest. There’s one thing a man can’t hide, though: a starving belly, the cursed thing that brings people so much grief. It’s for the belly’s sake that ships are fitted out to cross the barren sea and carry war to enemies.”

While they talked, a dog lying there raised its head and pricked its ears. Argos — Odysseus had raised him, with his own hands, before he sailed for Troy, but he never got the use of him. In the old days the young men used to take him out hunting wild goats and deer and hares. Now, with his master gone, he lay neglected on a heap of dung, mule and cattle dung piled deep in front of the doors, waiting for the slaves to cart it off to manure the big field. There Argos lay, crawling with ticks.

When he sensed Odysseus close by, he wagged his tail and dropped both ears. But he couldn’t get up to come to his master. Odysseus looked away and wiped off a tear, hiding it easily from Eumaeus, then asked:

“Eumaeus, it’s strange — this dog lying in the dung. He’s well built. But I can’t tell whether he was as fast as he looks, or whether he was just one of those table dogs men keep for show.”

“He belonged to a man who died far from home,” Eumaeus said. “If he were still what he was in body and in work, the day Odysseus left for Troy, you’d be amazed to see his speed and strength. No beast he tracked into the deep woods ever got away: he was brilliant at the scent. But now he’s wretched. His master is dead, far from his own land, and the careless women don’t look after him. Slaves stop doing their work right once their masters lose their grip on them. Zeus, who sees far, strips half the worth out of a man the day slavery takes him.”

He went inside the house and straight down the hall to the suitors. And Argos — the dark fate of death took him the moment he had seen Odysseus again, after twenty years⁸.

Telemachus saw the swineherd first, coming down the hall, and quickly nodded for him to come over. Eumaeus glanced about, found a stool (the carver used it when he was dividing out meat to the suitors at their feast) and brought it to Telemachus’ table and sat down across from him. A herald handed him a portion and bread from the basket.

Right behind him Odysseus came into the house, looking like a worn-out old beggar leaning on his staff, the sorry rags hanging from him. He sat down on the ash-wood doorsill just inside the doors, leaning against a cypress doorpost that a carpenter had once planed smooth and straightened true with the line.

Telemachus called the swineherd over, took a whole loaf from the fine basket and as much meat as his two cupped hands could hold, and said:

“Take this to the stranger, and tell him to go around to all the suitors and beg. Shame is no good thing for a man in need.”

Eumaeus went and stood beside Odysseus. “Stranger, Telemachus sends you this, and tells you to go around to all the suitors and beg. He says shame is no friend to a beggar.”

“Lord Zeus,” Odysseus answered, “grant Telemachus good fortune among men, and may everything his heart desires come true.”

He took the food in both hands and set it down in front of his feet, on the dirty sack, and ate while the singer sang. When he finished his meal, the singer stopped.

The suitors broke into noise through the hall. Then Athena came close to Odysseus and pushed him to go gather scraps from the suitors, so he could learn which of them were decent men and which were lawless, though she meant to spare none of them from ruin. He went around begging from each man, from left to right, stretching out his hand everywhere like a beggar who’d been at it for years. Some of them pitied him and gave, wondering who he was and where he’d come from, asking one another. Then the goatherd Melanthius spoke.

“Listen to me, you suitors of our famous queen, about this stranger. I’ve seen him before. The swineherd led him here. But who he really is and where he claims his family comes from, I don’t know.”

At that Antinous turned on the swineherd. “You obvious idiot, why did you bring this man to town? Don’t we have enough vagrants already — pests and beggars, leftover-lickers at our feasts? Isn’t it enough that they swarm here eating up your master’s living, without you inviting this one too?”

“Antinous,” Eumaeus answered, “you’re a good man but those aren’t fine words. Who goes out and invites a stranger from somewhere else, unless he’s one of the men who serve the public? A prophet, or a healer of hurts, or a builder, or a singer who delights people with his songs. Those are the men called in, all over the wide world. Nobody invites a beggar to eat up his own home. But you’ve always been the hardest of all the suitors on Odysseus’ slaves, and hardest of all on me. Still, I don’t care, not while wise Penelope is alive in these halls, and Telemachus, who looks like a god.”

“Quiet,” Telemachus said. “Don’t answer him at length. Antinous always picks a fight with cruel words, and he stirs the others up too.”

Then he turned to Antinous. “How kindly you look after me, Antinous — like a father with his son — when you order me to drive the stranger from my house with harsh words. God forbid I do that. Take something and give it to him yourself; I’m not stingy, I’m telling you to. Don’t hold back out of respect for my mother, or any slave in Odysseus’ house. But that’s not the thought in your heart. You’d much rather eat it all yourself than give to another.”

“Telemachus, you loud-mouth, you can’t hold your temper,” Antinous shot back. “What a thing to say! If every suitor gave him as much as I will, this house wouldn’t see him again for three months.”

As he spoke he grabbed the footstool from under the table, the one he rested his sleek feet on while he feasted, and held it up where Odysseus could see it. But all the others gave, and filled his sack with bread and meat. Odysseus was about to head back to the doorway and taste what the Greeks had handed him. He stopped beside Antinous first and said:

“Give me something, friend. You don’t seem to me the worst of the Greeks — you look like the best, like a king. So you ought to give better food than the rest, and I’ll praise you across the wide world. I too once lived in a fine house among men, rich and prosperous, and I often gave to a wanderer, whoever he was and whatever he needed. I had countless slaves and all the things men have who live well and are called wealthy. But Zeus, son of Cronus, wrecked me — he wanted it, I suppose. He sent me off with a band of roving pirates to Egypt, a long voyage, to be my undoing.

“I anchored my curved ships in the river of Egypt. I told my loyal men to stay by the ships and guard them, and I sent scouts up to the lookout points. But they gave in to their own arrogance, followed their own greed, and quickly started raiding the lovely Egyptian fields, carrying off women and little children, killing the men. The cry reached the city fast. The people heard the shouting, and at dawn they came. The whole plain filled with men on foot and horses and the flash of bronze. Zeus who loves the thunderbolt threw a wretched panic into my men. None of them dared stand and face it — ruin closed in from every side. They killed many of us with their sharp bronze and led the rest off alive to forced labor. Me they handed to a friend of theirs who happened by, Dmetor, son of Iasus, who ruled Cyprus with a strong hand, and from there I’ve come here, suffering all the way.”

“What god sent us this plague to spoil our dinner?” said Antinous. “Get away from my table, out into the middle, before you find a bitter Egypt and Cyprus right here. What a bold and shameless beggar you are. You go around to each man in turn, and they give carelessly, with no restraint and no pity, since it’s easy to be generous with someone else’s food, and there’s plenty in front of each of them.”

Odysseus drew back. “There’s no sense in you, for all your good looks,” he said. “You wouldn’t give even a pinch of salt from your own house to a man who begged at your door, when right now you sit at another man’s table and couldn’t bring yourself to break off a piece of bread for me, with all this in front of you.”

That made Antinous boil with rage. He glared at him. “Now I don’t think you’ll get back out through this hall in one piece, since you’re throwing insults around.”

He snatched up the footstool and hurled it. It struck Odysseus on the right shoulder, low on the back, near the spine. But Odysseus stood firm as a rock — the throw didn’t even rock him. He only shook his head in silence, brooding on revenge. He went back to the doorway and sat down, set his full sack beside him, and spoke to the suitors.

“Listen to me, you suitors of the famous queen, while I say what’s in my heart. There’s no real pain, no grief, when a man takes a blow fighting for his own: his cattle or his white sheep. But Antinous struck me for the sake of the cursed belly, that hateful thing that brings men so much grief. Well — if there are gods and avenging spirits⁹ for beggars too, then let death come for Antinous before his wedding day.”

“Sit and eat in peace, stranger,” Antinous said, “or go somewhere else, before the young men drag you through the house by a hand or a foot for what you’re saying, and tear the skin off you.”

But this time the others were furious with him. One of the arrogant young men said:

“Antinous, you did wrong to hit that poor wanderer. You’re cursed, if there’s any god in heaven, and the gods do walk the cities in disguise¹⁰, looking like strangers from far off, taking all kinds of shapes, watching to see who’s decent and who’s cruel.”

So the suitors said, but Antinous didn’t care. And in Telemachus’ heart the grief swelled at the blow his father had taken — yet not a tear fell from his eyes. He only shook his head in silence, brooding on revenge.

When Penelope heard that the man had been struck in the hall, she said to her slave women, “May Apollo the famous archer strike you the same way, Antinous!”

“If only our prayers came true,” answered Eurynome the housekeeper, “not one of them would live to see another dawn.”

“Nurse, I hate them all,” Penelope said. “They plot nothing but evil. But Antinous most of all — he’s like black death. A poor unlucky stranger is wandering through the house begging from the men, driven to it by need. Everyone else filled his sack and gave him something. Antinous threw a footstool and hit him low on the right shoulder.”

So she talked with her slave women, sitting in her room, while Odysseus ate. She called the swineherd to her.

“Go, Eumaeus, and tell the stranger to come here. I want to greet him and ask whether he’s heard anything of Odysseus, or seen him with his own eyes. He looks like a man who’s wandered far.”

“My queen,” Eumaeus answered, “if only the Greeks would be quiet, you’d be charmed by what he says. I kept him three nights and three days in my hut, he came to me first, after running off a ship, and he still hasn’t finished telling me his troubles. You know how people watch a singer who’s learned lovely words from the gods, and they hunger to hear him as long as he’ll sing? That’s how he held me, sitting in my hut. He says he’s an old family friend of Odysseus, from Crete, where the line of Minos is. He’s come here suffering, tumbled along the whole way. And he swears he’s heard of Odysseus, alive, close by, among the wealthy Thesprotians, and that he’s bringing home great treasure.”

“Go, call him here,” said Penelope, “so he can tell me himself. As for them, let them sit at the doors and amuse themselves, or in the house, since their hearts are light. Their own wealth lies safe at home, their bread and sweet wine, with only their servants eating it, while day after day they come crowding into our house, slaughtering our oxen and sheep and fat goats, feasting, drinking the bright wine, wasting it all. There’s no man like Odysseus here to drive off ruin. If he came back to his own country, he and his son would soon make these men pay for their violence.”

As she spoke, Telemachus gave a great sneeze that rang loud through the whole house. Penelope laughed and spoke quickly to Eumaeus.

“Go, call the stranger to me. Don’t you see — my son sneezed right when I was speaking? That means death will come, complete, to all the suitors, and not one will escape his doom. And here’s one more thing: keep it in mind. If I’m satisfied that he’s telling the whole truth, I’ll give him a cloak and tunic, fine clothes.”

The swineherd went when he heard this and stood beside Odysseus. “Father stranger, wise Penelope is calling for you, the mother of Telemachus. Her heart drives her to ask about her husband, though she’s suffered so much grief. And if she’s sure you’re telling the truth, she’ll give you a cloak and tunic — the very things you need most. As for bread, you can fill your belly begging around the town; whoever wants to will give.”

“Eumaeus,” long-suffering Odysseus said, “I’d gladly tell wise Penelope, daughter of Icarius, the whole truth: I know all about that man, we suffered the same hardships. But I’m afraid of this mob of cruel suitors. Their violence and arrogance reach the sky. Just now, when that man struck me as I crossed the hall, hurting me though I’d done nothing wrong, neither Telemachus nor anyone else lifted a hand to help. So tell Penelope to wait in her room till sundown, eager as she is, and then ask me about her husband’s homecoming, with me sitting closer to the fire. These rags I’m wearing are wretched: you know that yourself, since I first came to you for help.”

The swineherd went when he heard this. As he stepped through the doorway Penelope said, “You haven’t brought him, Eumaeus. What’s the wanderer thinking? Is he afraid of someone going too far, or is he just shy of the house? A shy beggar is no good.”

“He talks sense,” Eumaeus answered. “He’s saying just what anyone would, keeping clear of those arrogant men. He asks you to wait till sundown. And it’s far better for you, my queen, to speak with the stranger alone and hear him alone.”

“The stranger is no fool,” said Penelope. “He sees how things might go. There’s no other men on earth who scheme such reckless cruelty as these do.”

When she had spoken, the swineherd went back into the crowd of suitors, his message delivered. He bent his head close to Telemachus, so the others wouldn’t hear.

“Friend, I’m going back to look after the pigs and the rest out there, your living and mine. You take care of everything here. Watch yourself first of all, and keep out of harm. Many of the Greeks mean evil. May Zeus destroy them before they bring disaster on us.”

“It will be so, old friend,” Telemachus answered. “Go now, after your meal, and come back in the morning bringing good animals for sacrifice. The rest I’ll see to, and so will the gods.”

Eumaeus sat back down on the polished stool, and when he’d filled himself with food and drink he got up to go back to the pigs, leaving the courtyard and the hall full of feasters, who were enjoying dancing and song, for now the evening had come on.