ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε , μοῦσα , πολύτροπον , ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
πλάγχθη , ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν :
πολλῶν δ᾽ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω ,
πολλὰ δ᾽ ὅ γ᾽ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν ,
ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων .
ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ὣς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο , ἱέμενός περ :
αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο ,
νήπιοι , οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο
ἤσθιον : αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ .
τῶν ἁμόθεν γε , θεά , θύγατερ Διός , εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν .
ἔνθ᾽ ἄλλοι μὲν πάντες , ὅσοι φύγον αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον ,
οἴκοι ἔσαν , πόλεμόν τε πεφευγότες ἠδὲ θάλασσαν :
τὸν δ᾽ οἶον νόστου κεχρημένον ἠδὲ γυναικὸς
νύμφη πότνι᾽ ἔρυκε Καλυψὼ δῖα θεάων
ἐν σπέσσι γλαφυροῖσι , λιλαιομένη πόσιν εἶναι .
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ ἔτος ἦλθε περιπλομένων ἐνιαυτῶν ,
τῷ οἱ ἐπεκλώσαντο θεοὶ οἶκόνδε νέεσθαι
εἰς Ἰθάκην , οὐδ᾽ ἔνθα πεφυγμένος ἦεν ἀέθλων
καὶ μετὰ οἷσι φίλοισι . θεοὶ δ᾽ ἐλέαιρον ἅπαντες
νόσφι Ποσειδάωνος : ὁ δ᾽ ἀσπερχὲς μενέαινεν
ἀντιθέῳ Ὀδυσῆι πάρος ἣν γαῖαν ἱκέσθαι .
ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν Αἰθίοπας μετεκίαθε τηλόθ᾽ ἐόντας ,
Αἰθίοπας τοὶ διχθὰ δεδαίαται , ἔσχατοι ἀνδρῶν ,
οἱ μὲν δυσομένου Ὑπερίονος οἱ δ᾽ ἀνιόντος ,
ἀντιόων ταύρων τε καὶ ἀρνειῶν ἑκατόμβης .
ἔνθ᾽ ὅ γ᾽ ἐτέρπετο δαιτὶ παρήμενος : οἱ δὲ δὴ ἄλλοι
Ζηνὸς ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν Ὀλυμπίου ἁθρόοι ἦσαν .
τοῖσι δὲ μύθων ἦρχε πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε :
μνήσατο γὰρ κατὰ θυμὸν ἀμύμονος Αἰγίσθοιο ,
τόν ῥ᾽ Ἀγαμεμνονίδης τηλεκλυτὸς ἔκταν᾽ Ὀρέστης :
τοῦ ὅ γ᾽ ἐπιμνησθεὶς ἔπε᾽ ἀθανάτοισι μετηύδα :

Speak , Memory --
Of the cunning hero ,
The wanderer , blown off course time and again
After he plundered Troy’s sacred heights .

Speak
Of all the cities he saw , the minds he grasped ,
The suffering deep in his heart at sea
As he struggled to survive and bring his men home
But could not save them , hard as he tried --
The fools -- destroyed by their own recklessness
When they ate the oxen of Hyperion the Sun ,
And that god snuffed out their day of return .

Of these things ,
Speak , Immortal One ,
And tell the tale once more in our time .

By now , all the others who had fought at Troy --
At least those who had survived the war and the sea --
Were safely back home . Only Odysseus
Still longed to return to his home and his wife .
The nymph Calypso , a powerful goddess --
And beautiful -- was clinging to him
In her caverns and yearned to possess him .
The seasons rolled by , and the year came
In which the gods spun the thread

For Odysseus to return home to Ithaca ,
Though not even there did his troubles end ,
Even with his dear ones around him .
All the gods pitied him , except Poseidon ,
Who stormed against the godlike hero
Until he finally reached his own native land .

But Poseidon was away now , among the Ethiopians ,
Those burnished people at the ends of the earth --
Some near the sunset , some near the sunrise --
To receive a grand sacrifice of rams and bulls .
There he sat , enjoying the feast .
The other gods
Were assembled in the halls of Olympian Zeus ,
And the Father of Gods and Men was speaking .
He couldn’t stop thinking about Aegisthus ,
Whom Agamemnon’s son , Orestes , had killed :

Tell me about a complicated man .
Muse , tell me how he wandered and was lost
when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy ,
and where he went , and who he met , the pain
he suffered in the storms at sea , and how
he worked to save his life and bring his men
back home . He failed to keep them safe ; poor fools ,
they ate the Sun God’s cattle , and the god
kept them from home . Now goddess , child of Zeus ,
tell the old story for our modern times .
Find the beginning .

All the other Greeks
Who had survived the brutal sack of Troy
sailed safely home to their own wives -- except
this man alone . Calypso , a great goddess ,
had trapped him in her cave ; she wanted him
to be her husband . When the year rolled round
in which the gods decreed he should go home
to Ithaca , his troubles still went on .
The man was friendless . All the gods took pity ,
except Poseidon’s anger never ended
until Odysseus was back at home .
But now the distant Ethiopians ,
who live between the sunset and dawn ,
were worshipping the Sea God with a feast ,
a hundred cattle and a hundred rams .
There sat the god , delighting in his banquet .
The other gods were gathered on Olympus ,
in Father Zeus’ palace . He was thinking
of fine , well-born Aegisthus , who was killed
by Agamemnon’s famous son Orestes .
He told the deathless gods ,