sw00898v-OdysseusSongs06

Venturings



"Preparing to Find Odysseus"


Overhead, two eagles, fiercely fighting,
Halitherses, reader of omens, warns:
Though twenty years absent, Odysseus,
to the sorrow of some, will return.

And Telemachus, by Minerva urged and aided,
makes ready to find his father,
and his faithful mother, Penelope,
to spite her brash suitors, leave behind.

   Let the sun be your food,
   the wind your clothes,
   the earth your shelter,
   and the water,
   let the water answer your heart.

But the suitors, led by Eurymachus,
having so long vied for this prize,
this Penelope, this woman rare,
are not about to go home.

So Eurymachus chides Halitherses
and tells him they fear no man
and will continue to live off Telemachus
until Penelope quits her game.

   Boom     boom     boom
   Eee-tool     eee-ew-tool     eee-tool

Telemachus, then, addressing them
and asking for a ship and twenty men
to look here and there for his father:
Sparta, Pylos, wherever his spirit leads,

says that for another twelve months
he will suffer their wasting
if he hears his father's alive;
but if not, will quickly come back.

   Let the sun be your food,
   the wind your clothes,
   the earth your shelter,
   and the water,
   let the water answer your heart.

And will ritualize Odysseus' death
as is proper and as he desires,
and build to his memory a barrow,
and command his mother to marry again.

But the suitors, through Leiocritus,
do not believe he will leave; and his Mentor,
having railed the Ithacans for fearing to care,
put down, as a moon that would brighten a day.

   Boom     boom     boom
   Eee-tool     eee-ew-tool     eee-tool




-
Brian A. J. Salchert