The Old Horseman of Pylos

The sun leaped up out of the calm and shining sea into the bronze sky, to give light to the gods who never die and to mortal men on the wheat-bearing earth. The ship reached Pylos, Neleus’s well-built city, just as the people were sacrificing on the shore — black bulls to Poseidon¹, the dark-haired god who shakes the earth. They sat in nine groups, five hundred men to a group, and each group had nine bulls. They were tasting the inner meat and burning the thigh pieces for the god² when Telemachus’s ship came straight in. The crew furled the sail, brought her to anchor, and stepped ashore.

Telemachus climbed out, with Athena leading the way. She spoke first.

“Telemachus, no more shyness — not even a little. You crossed the sea for this: to find out about your father, where the earth covers him and what death he met. So walk straight up to Nestor, the tamer of horses. Let’s see what he keeps locked in his mind. Ask him yourself to tell you the truth. He won’t lie to you. He’s far too wise for that.”

“But Mentor,” clear-thinking Telemachus answered, “how do I go up to him? How do I even greet him? I’ve had no practice at clever talk. And a young man is shy about questioning his elders.”

“Telemachus,” the bright-eyed goddess said, “some of it your own heart will tell you, and a god will put the rest in your mouth. I don’t think you were born and raised without the gods watching over you.”

She went ahead quickly, and he followed in the steps of the goddess. They came to where the men of Pylos were gathered in their groups, with Nestor sitting among his sons while his men around him got the feast ready, roasting meat and spearing more on spits. The moment they saw the strangers, the whole crowd came up, clasped their hands in welcome, and waved them to seats. Nestor’s son Pisistratus reached them first. He took them both by the hand and settled them at the feast on soft fleeces spread over the sand, between his brother Thrasymedes and his father. He gave them shares of the inner meat and poured wine into a golden cup. Then he lifted the cup to Athena, daughter of Zeus who carries the storm-shield, and said:

“Pray now, stranger, to Lord Poseidon³. It’s his feast you’ve come to. When you’ve poured your offering and prayed, as is right, pass the cup of honey-sweet wine to your friend so he can pour too. He prays to the gods as well, I’m sure. Everyone needs the gods. But he’s younger, the same age as me, so I’ll give you the golden cup first.”

He put the cup of sweet wine into her hand. Athena was glad — a wise and fair-minded man, to give her the gold cup first. She prayed long to Lord Poseidon:

“Hear me, Poseidon who holds the earth, and don’t begrudge us. Grant what we ask. First give Nestor and his sons honor. Then give the rest of the people of Pylos a fine return for this splendid offering. And let Telemachus and me sail home with our task done, the task we came here for in our swift black ship.”

That was her prayer — and she herself was bringing it all to pass. Then she handed Telemachus the fine two-handled cup, and Odysseus’s son prayed in the same way. When the outer meat was roasted and pulled off the spits, they shared out the portions and feasted. And when they had put away all they wanted of food and drink, Nestor, the old horseman of Gerene, began to speak.

“Now is the better time to ask our guests who they are, since they’ve had their fill of food. Strangers, who are you? Where have you sailed from over the watery roads? Are you traders, or do you wander the sea like raiders, who risk their own lives to bring harm to others?”

Telemachus answered boldly, for Athena had put courage in his heart so he would ask about his missing father and earn himself a good name among men.

“Nestor, son of Neleus, great glory of the Greeks, you ask where we come from, and I’ll tell you. We come from Ithaca, under Mount Neriton. The matter I speak of is my own, not the people’s. I’m searching for any word of my father, the great Odysseus, the man who never broke under hardship. They say he fought beside you and helped sack the city of Troy. We know how every other man who fought there died — we’ve heard each one’s bitter end. But this man’s death the son of Cronus⁴ has hidden from us. No one can say for certain where he died: whether enemies cut him down on dry land, or the sea swallowed him in Amphitrite’s waves. That’s why I come to your knees now, to beg you to tell me of his bitter end, if you saw it with your own eyes, or heard of it from some other wanderer. His mother bore him for sorrow. Don’t soften it out of pity for me. Tell me plainly everything you saw. I beg you — if ever my father, good Odysseus, promised you a word or a deed and made it good, there at Troy where you Greeks suffered so much — remember it now, and tell me the truth.”

“My friend,” answered Nestor, the old horseman, “you’ve stirred up the memory of all the misery we endured in that land, we sons of the Greeks who would not be held back. So much of it at sea, hunting plunder in our ships wherever Achilles led, and so much fighting around King Priam’s great city. There our best men were killed. There lies Ajax the warrior, there Achilles, there Patroclus, a counselor like the gods themselves. And there lies my own dear son, strong and faultless Antilochus, who could outrun any man and fight like few others. And so much other grief on top of all that — what mortal man could tell it all? You could stay five years, even six, asking what the Greeks suffered there, and you’d give up and go home weary before I finished. Nine years we worked away at them, weaving every kind of trick, and the son of Cronus barely let us bring it off.

“In all that time no one wanted to match wits with your father out in the open — godlike Odysseus won by far at every kind of cunning. Your father — if you really are his son. I look at you and I’m amazed. Your words are just like his. You’d never think a man so young could speak so much like him. In all that time, Odysseus and I never spoke against each other, in the assembly or the council. We had one mind, and with good sense and careful planning we showed the Greeks the best way forward.

“But once we had sacked Priam’s steep city and gone aboard our ships, a god scattered us. Then Zeus planned a bitter homecoming for the Greeks. Not all of them had been wise or fair, so many came to a hard fate through the deadly anger of the bright-eyed daughter of a mighty father⁵. She set the two sons of Atreus quarreling. They called all the Greeks to assembly (carelessly, against all custom, at sunset, when the men came in heavy with wine) and they explained why they’d gathered the army. Menelaus told all the Greeks to think of sailing home across the sea’s broad back. But this didn’t please Agamemnon at all. He wanted to hold the army back and offer sacred hundred-beast sacrifices⁶, to soothe Athena’s terrible anger. The fool — he didn’t know she’d never give in. The mind of the gods who live forever doesn’t turn so easily.

“So the two of them stood trading angry words. The Greeks sprang up with a tremendous roar, split in two minds. We spent that night nursing bitter thoughts against each other, for Zeus was preparing trouble for us. At dawn, half of us dragged our ships down to the bright sea and loaded our goods and the women with their deep belts. The other half held back and stayed with Agamemnon, shepherd of the people. We who’d embarked rowed off, and the ships went fast, for a god smoothed the great sea-monster’s home. We came to Tenedos and sacrificed to the gods, longing for home. But Zeus didn’t mean for us to get there yet — cruel god, he stirred up a second quarrel. Some turned their curved ships back, under Odysseus of the twisting mind, going back to please Agamemnon. But I fled on with the ships that followed me, because I knew the god was planning harm. And Diomedes, son of Tydeus, fled too, and roused his men. Later red-haired Menelaus caught up with us at Lesbos, where we were trying to decide our long route: whether to sail outside rocky Chios, by the island of Psyria, keeping it on our left, or inside Chios past windy Mimas. We asked the god for a sign, and he showed us one and told us to cut straight across the open sea to Euboea, to get clear of trouble fastest. A shrill wind sprang up to drive us, and the ships ran quickly down the fish-filled paths, and that night we put in at Geraistus. We laid many bull’s thighs on the altar for Poseidon, thankful to have crossed that great sea. It was the fourth day when Diomedes’ men brought their ships to a stop in Argos, but I held on for Pylos, and the wind never failed from the moment the god first sent it to blow.

“So I came home, dear child, knowing nothing — nothing of which Greeks were saved and which were lost. But what I’ve learned since, sitting in my own halls, you’ll hear; it’s only right, I won’t hide it. They say the Myrmidons came home safe, those spearmen led by the splendid son of great-hearted Achilles. And Philoctetes, the shining son of Poias, came home safe. Idomeneus brought all his men back to Crete, all who escaped the war; the sea took none of them. And the son of Atreus, even far away, you’ve heard how he came home, and how Aegisthus plotted his miserable death. But Aegisthus paid for it horribly in the end. What a good thing it is for a dead man to leave a son behind — for that son took revenge on the killer, on crafty Aegisthus, who had murdered his famous father. And you, my friend (I see you’re tall and handsome), be brave, so that men born long after you will speak well of you.”

“Nestor, son of Neleus, great glory of the Greeks,” Telemachus answered, “yes, that man took full revenge, and the Greeks will carry his fame far, even to those still unborn. I wish the gods would clothe me with that much power, to make the suitors pay for their cruel arrogance, the men who insult me and scheme their wicked schemes. But the gods spun no such good fortune for my father and me. Now I just have to endure it.”

“My friend,” said Nestor, “since you bring it up and remind me, they say there are many suitors of your mother in your halls, against your will, making trouble. Tell me, do you give in to it willingly, or do the people of your land hate you, listening to some voice of a god? Who knows — Odysseus may yet come and make them pay for their violence, whether alone or with all the Greeks behind him. If only bright-eyed Athena chose to love you the way she cared for famous Odysseus there in Troy, where we Greeks suffered (I never saw the gods love a man so openly as Pallas Athena stood by his side), if she’d love you like that and care for you in her heart, then more than one of those suitors would forget all about marriage.”

“Old sir,” Telemachus answered, “I don’t think those words will ever come true. You’ve said too much, and it leaves me stunned. I can’t hope for it, even if the gods themselves wished it.”

Then the bright-eyed goddess said, “Telemachus, what a word slipped past the fence of your teeth! A god, if he wishes, can easily bring a man home safe even from far away. I’d rather suffer all kinds of hardship and reach home and see the day of my return than come home and be killed at my own hearth, the way Agamemnon was killed by the scheme of Aegisthus and his own wife. But death — death comes to everyone alike, and not even the gods can keep it off a man they love, once the deadly fate of long, cruel death lays hold of him.”

“Mentor,” said Telemachus, “let’s not talk of this anymore, sad as it is. There’s no more true homecoming for my father. The undying ones have already marked out his death, his black doom. But there’s something else I want to ask Nestor, since he knows justice and wisdom beyond all others. They say he’s ruled over three generations of men. When I look at him he seems like one of the immortals. Nestor, son of Neleus, tell me the truth: how did Agamemnon die, the wide-ruling son of Atreus? Where was Menelaus? What death did crafty Aegisthus plan for him, to kill a man so much better than himself? Was Menelaus away from Greek Argos, wandering among other men, so that Aegisthus took heart and did the murder?”

“I’ll tell you the whole truth, child,” answered Nestor. “You’ve guessed yourself how it would have gone. If red-haired Menelaus had come back from Troy and found Aegisthus alive in the house, no one would have heaped a burial mound over Aegisthus, dead or not. Dogs and birds would have torn him as he lay out on the plain far from the city, and no Greek woman would have cried for him. He did a terrible thing. We were over there fighting our many battles while he sat safe in a corner of horse-grazing Argos, charming Agamemnon’s wife with his words. At first she refused the shameful thing, that fine woman Clytemnestra — she had a good heart. And there was a singer with her, a man Agamemnon had ordered, when he set out for Troy, to watch over his wife. But when the gods’ plan tied her down to be conquered, Aegisthus took the singer off to a lonely island and left him there to be the prey and pickings of the birds. And he led her, willing as he was willing, to his own house. He burned many thigh pieces on the gods’ holy altars and hung up many offerings (woven cloth and gold) now that he’d brought off the great deed his heart never dared hope for.

“Meanwhile we were sailing together from Troy, Menelaus and I, the best of friends. But when we reached holy Sunium, the cape of Athens, Phoebus Apollo came and killed Menelaus’s helmsman with his gentle arrows, Phrontis, son of Onetor, who held the steering oar of the running ship, the best of all men at steering a ship through driving storms. So Menelaus stayed there, eager as he was to push on, to bury his companion and give him his funeral rites. But when he too set out over the wine-dark sea in his hollow ships and came racing to the steep cliff of Malea, then far-thundering Zeus laid out a hateful course for him. He poured down a blast of shrill winds and the swollen waves rose mountain-high. There he split the fleet, driving some ships to Crete, where the Cydonians live along the streams of the Iardanus.

“There’s a smooth steep cliff that runs down into the sea at the edge of Gortyn, in the misty deep, where the South Wind drives a great wave against the western point, toward Phaestus, and a small rock holds back the big wave. That’s where some of the ships came, and the men barely escaped death, but the waves smashed the ships on the rocks. The other five dark ships the wind and water carried to Egypt. So Menelaus wandered there with his ships among men of strange speech, gathering much treasure and gold. And all that time Aegisthus was plotting his evil at home. He ruled seven years over gold-rich Mycenae, having killed the son of Atreus, and the people were beaten down under him. But in the eighth year, godlike Orestes came back from Athens⁷ and killed Aegisthus, the murderer who had killed his famous father. After the killing, Orestes gave the Greeks a funeral feast for his hateful mother and the coward Aegisthus. And that very day Menelaus, good at the war cry, arrived, bringing all the treasure his ships could carry.

“So you, my friend, don’t wander too long, too far from home, leaving your goods behind and men so arrogant in your house. They’ll divide up everything you have and eat it, and your journey will have been for nothing. Still, I urge you, go to Menelaus. He’s just come back from far away, from men he never thought he’d return from, after storms drove him out across a sea so vast that not even birds could fly back from it in a year — it’s so great and terrible. Go now, with your ship and your crew. Or if you’d rather go by land, here’s a chariot and horses, and here are my sons to guide you to bright Lacedaemon, where red-haired Menelaus lives. Ask him yourself to tell you the truth. He won’t lie to you. He’s far too wise for that.”

As he finished, the sun went down and darkness came on. Then the bright-eyed goddess said, “Old sir, you’ve told all this rightly. Come now, cut out the victims’ tongues and mix the wine, so we can pour an offering to Poseidon and the other immortals and turn our thoughts to bed. The hour has come. The light has gone down under the dark, and it isn’t right to sit long at a feast of the gods. Time to go.”

The daughter of Zeus finished, and they listened. Heralds poured water over their hands, and young men filled the bowls to the brim with wine and passed it to everyone, pouring a first splash into each cup. They threw the tongues on the fire and stood up and poured the offering. And when they had poured and drunk all their hearts wanted, Athena and godlike Telemachus were both ready to go back to their hollow ship. But Nestor held them back, scolding them gently.

“Zeus and the other immortal gods forbid it! You will not leave my house for a swift ship as if I were some man with no clothes, some poor wretch with no cloaks or blankets in his house to sleep soft, or for his guests. I have plenty of cloaks and fine blankets. The son of Odysseus will not lie down on the deck of a ship, not while I’m alive, and not while sons are left in my halls after me to take care of guests, whoever comes to my house.”

“You speak well, dear old sir,” answered Athena. “It’s right for Telemachus to do as you say, much better that way. So let him go with you and sleep in your halls. But I’ll go down to the black ship to cheer my crew and tell them everything. I’m the only older man among them; the rest are young, all the same age as great-hearted Telemachus, who came along out of friendship. I’ll sleep by the black ship tonight, and in the morning I’ll go to the great-hearted Cauconians, where a debt is owed me, an old one, no small thing. As for Telemachus, since he’s come to your house, send him on with a chariot and one of your sons. Give him the horses that are fastest and strongest to run.”

When she had said this, bright-eyed Athena flew off in the form of a sea eagle. Everyone who saw it was amazed. The old man stared in wonder. He caught Telemachus by the hand and said:

“My friend, I don’t think you’ll turn out a coward or a weakling, if the gods follow you as guides while you’re still so young. That was one of the gods who live on Olympus — the daughter of Zeus, the glorious Tritoborn⁸, who honored your noble father among the Greeks. Queen, be kind to us — give good fame to me, to my children, and to my honored wife. In return I’ll sacrifice to you a broad-faced heifer, a yearling, unbroken, that no man has ever harnessed. I’ll sacrifice her to you with gold poured over her horns.”

That was his prayer, and Pallas Athena heard him. Then Nestor, the old horseman, led the way to his fine house, his sons and sons-in-law with him. When they came to the king’s famous halls, they sat down in rows on the chairs and benches, and the old man mixed them a bowl of sweet wine, a jar the housekeeper had opened in its eleventh year, untying the cloth around its mouth. He mixed the bowl from it and prayed long to Athena, pouring offerings to the daughter of Zeus who carries the storm-shield. And when they had poured and drunk all they wanted, each went home to sleep. But Nestor, the old horseman, bedded Telemachus, dear son of godlike Odysseus, right there on a corded bed under the echoing porch, and beside him slept Pisistratus, the fine spearman and leader of men, still a bachelor, living at home. Nestor himself slept in the inner room of the high house, where his wife made his bed.

When rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, the early-born, Nestor the old horseman rose from his bed. He went out and sat on the polished white stones set in front of his high doors, gleaming with oil. Neleus had sat on them once, a counselor like the gods, but he had died long ago and gone down to the house of Hades. Now Nestor of Gerene sat there, the guardian of the Greeks, holding his scepter. His sons came out of their rooms and gathered around him: Echephron and Stratius and Perseus and Aretus and godlike Thrasymedes. And sixth came the hero Pisistratus. They brought godlike Telemachus and sat him beside them. Nestor spoke first.

“Quickly, dear children, do what I want, so I can win the favor of Athena before any other god, she who came to me in plain sight at the god’s rich feast. One of you go to the plain for a heifer, and have the herdsman drive it here fast. One go to great-hearted Telemachus’s black ship and bring all his crew, leaving only two behind. And one tell the goldsmith Laerces to come and pour gold over the heifer’s horns. The rest of you stay here together, and tell the slave women inside to get a fine feast ready in the famous halls, to bring seats and wood for the fire and clear water.”

When he finished, they all set to work. The heifer came from the plain, and the crew of great-hearted Telemachus came from the swift ship, and the smith came with the bronze tools of his trade in his hands — the anvil, the hammer, the well-made tongs he worked the gold with. And Athena came too, to take part in the rite. Old Nestor the horseman gave out the gold, and the smith worked it carefully over the heifer’s horns, so the goddess would be glad to see the offering. Stratius and godlike Echephron led the heifer by the horns. Aretus came from the storeroom with washing water in a flowered bowl and barley grains in a basket in his other hand. Thrasymedes, steady in battle, stood ready with a sharp axe to cut the heifer down, and Perseus held the bowl for the blood. Old Nestor the horseman began the rite with the water and the barley, and he prayed hard to Athena as he started, throwing hairs from the heifer’s head into the fire.

When they had prayed and scattered the barley grains, Nestor’s high-spirited son Thrasymedes stepped up close and struck. The axe cut through the neck tendons and dropped the heifer’s strength. The women cried out the holy cry: Nestor’s daughters and his sons’ wives and his honored wife Eurydice, the eldest of Clymenus’s daughters. Then the men lifted the heifer’s head from the wide ground and held it up, and Pisistratus, leader of men, cut her throat. When the dark blood had run out and life had left the bones, they quickly carved her up, cut out all the thigh pieces in the proper way, wrapped them in a double fold of fat, and laid raw meat on top. The old man burned them on split wood and poured bright wine over them, while young men stood by holding five-pronged forks. When the thighs were burned and they had tasted the inner meat, they cut up the rest, ran it on spits, and held the pointed spits in their hands to roast it.

Meanwhile lovely Polycaste, Nestor’s youngest daughter, bathed Telemachus⁹. When she had washed him and rubbed him with rich oil and wrapped a fine cloak and tunic around him, he came out of the bath looking like one of the immortals, and went and sat beside Nestor, shepherd of the people. When the outer meat was roasted and pulled off the spits, they sat down and feasted, and good men attended them, pouring wine into golden cups. And when they had put away all they wanted of food and drink, Nestor the old horseman spoke.

“My sons, go and harness the horses with fine manes to the chariot for Telemachus, so he can get on with his journey.”

They listened and obeyed and quickly harnessed the swift horses to the chariot. The housekeeper packed in bread and wine and good food, the kind kings raised by Zeus eat. Telemachus climbed into the beautiful chariot, and Nestor’s son Pisistratus, leader of men, got up beside him and took the reins in his hands. He cracked the whip to drive, and the two horses flew off, glad to run, toward the plain, leaving the steep city of Pylos behind. All day they shook the harness they carried between them.

The sun went down and all the roads grew dark. They came to Pherae, to the house of Diocles, son of Ortilochus, whom Alpheus had fathered. There they spent the night, and Diocles gave them gifts as a host should. When rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, the early-born, they harnessed the horses again and climbed into the painted chariot, and drove out through the gateway and the echoing porch. Pisistratus cracked the whip to drive, and the two horses flew off, glad to run. They came to the wheat-bearing plain, and there they pressed on with their journey, so well the swift horses carried them. And the sun went down, and all the roads grew dark.