Collected Works

For the elder Nestor related everything to your son,
whom I sent to seek you; and he, in turn, told me.
He told of Rhesus and Dolon, both slain by the sword:
how the one was betrayed by sleep, the other by deceit.
You were too daring, oh, too forgetful of your loved ones,
to enter the Thracian camp with nighttime guile.
To slaughter so many men at once, aided by only one!
The "one" refers to Diomedes, who accompanied Ulysses on the night raid described in Book 10 of the Iliad.
But you were surely cautious, and mindful of me beforehand.
My heart throbbed with fear until you were said to have passed
as victor through the Ismarian Thracian ranks on captured horses.
But what does it profit me that Troy has been cast down by your arms,
and that what was once a wall is now level ground?
If I remain as I remained while Troy still stood,
and my husband is absent, to be missed without end?
Troy has been demolished for others; for me alone it remains,
which the victorious inhabitant plows with captive oxen.
Now there are grain fields where Troy once was, and the soil,
fertile with Phrygian blood, grows lush for the sickle.
The half-buried bones of heroes are struck by curved plows;
the grass hides the ruined houses.
Though victor, you are absent; I am not allowed to know the cause of your delay,
nor in what part of the world you—iron-hearted man—are hiding.
Whoever turns a foreign ship toward these shores
departs only after being asked many things by me about you.
And to him is handed a paper marked by my fingers A letter written in Penelope's own hand
to deliver to you, if only he should see you anywhere.
I sent to Pylos, the Neleian lands of ancient Nestor;
but the report sent back from Pylos was uncertain.
I sent to Sparta too; but Sparta also knew not the truth
of what lands you inhabit, or where you linger.
It would be better if the walls of Apollo The walls of Troy, said to be built by the gods Apollo and Poseidon were standing even now.
Alas, fickle as I am, I am angry at my own prayers!
I would know where you were fighting, and I would fear only war,
and my complaint would be joined with that of many others.
I know not what to fear; yet in my madness I fear everything,
and a wide field lies open for my cares.
Whatever dangers the sea holds, whatever the land,
I suspect these are the causes of so long a delay.
While I foolishly dwell on these things—such is the lust of you men—
you might be captured by a foreign love.
Perhaps you even tell her how "rustic" your wife is,
who only knows how to keep the wool from being coarse.
Penelope fears Ulysses is mocking her domesticity to a new lover.
May I be mistaken, and may this accusation vanish into thin air;