Eurylochus

“ But his companions, he said, were all vanished.
Then Ulysses, suspecting some foul witchcraft, snatched his sword and his bow, and commanded Eurylochus instantly to lead him to the place. But Eurylochus fell down, and, embracing his knees, besought him by the name of a man whom the gods had in their protection, not to expose his safety, and the safety of them all, to certain destruction.
"Do thou then stay, Eurylochus," answered Ulysses: "eat thou and drink in the ship in safety; while I go alone upon this adventure: necessity, from whose law is no appeal, compels me." ”

“ Meantime Eurylochus had waited, and waited, and waited in the entrance hall of the palace, without being able to comprehend what had befallen his friends. At last, when the swinish uproar sounded through the palace, and when he saw the image of a hog in the marble basin, he thought it best to hasten back to the vessel and inform the wise Ulysses of these marvelous occurrences. So he ran as fast as he could down the steps, and never stopped to draw breath till he reached the shore.
"Why do you come alone?" asked King Ulysses, as soon as he saw him. "Where are your two-and-twenty comrades?" ”

“ Then Eurylochus took his advantage. He was the man of most authority with them after Ulysses. He represented to them all the misery of their condition; how that every death is hateful and grievous to mortality, but that of all deaths famine is attended with the most painful, loathsome, and humiliating circumstances; that the subsistence which they could hope to draw from fowling or fishing was too precarious to be depended upon ”

“ It looked like nothing but a hog, which lay wallowing in the marble basin, and filled it from brim to brim.
But we must leave the prudent Eurylochus waiting in the outer hall, and follow his friends into the inner secrecy of the palace. As soon as the beautiful woman saw them, she arose from the loom, as I have told you, and came forward, smiling, and stretching out her hand. She took the hand of the foremost among them, and bade him and the whole party welcome. ”

“ The sounds of soft music were heard from within, and a sweet female voice singing. Eurylochus called aloud and the goddess came forth and invited them in; they all gladly entered except Eurylochus, who suspected danger. ”

“ She called them in, but Eurylochus, abiding without, saw her feast them, and then turn them with her wand into swine. From him hearing these things I hastened thither. But Hermes met me, and gave me of the herb Moly, to be a protection against her spells, and wise counsel withal. So when she had feasted me she touched me with her wand.
I drew my sword, and charged her, as I meant
To take her life. When out she cried, and bent
Beneath my sword her knees, embracing mine,
And full of tears, said, "Who, of what high line
Art thou? Deep-souled Ulysses must thou be." ”

“ Meanwhile the goddess in disdain bestows
The mast and acorn, brutal food! and strows
The fruits and cornel, as their feast, around;
Now prone and grovelling on unsavoury ground.
"Eurylochus, with pensive steps and slow.
Aghast returns; the messenger of woe,
And bitter fate. To speak he made essay,
In vain essay'd, nor would his tongue obey.
His swelling heart denied the words their way:
But speaking tears the want of words supply,
And the full soul bursts copious from his eye.
Affrighted, anxious for our fellows' fates,
We press to hear what sadly he relates:
"We went, Ulysses! ”

“ The Greeks went on again until they came to Ææa, an island inhabited by the golden-haired enchantress Circe, sister of Æetes, and aunt of Medea. Here Ulysses’ crew was divided into two parties, one of which, led by Eurylochus, set out to explore the island, while the other, headed by Ulysses, remained to guard the ships. Through a dense forest, peopled with strangely gentle wild beasts, Eurylochus led his force, until they came in sight of the beautiful palace home of Circe. ”

“ Eurylochus received from these various townships reinforcements for his army, as well as hostages for their fidelity, whom he deposited at Kytinium in Doris: and he was thus enabled to march through all the territory of the Ozolian Lokrians without resistance; except from Œneon and Eupalion, both which places he took by force. Having arrived in the territory of Naupaktus, he was there joined by the full force of the Ætolians; and their joint efforts, after laying waste all the neighborhood, captured the Corinthian colony of Molykreion, which had become subject to the Athenian empire. ”

“ And this place is like to be the grave of all of us. I never knew a wind so furious to blow so long. We should sink in an hour did we but put out.”
“There is only food for one day more, and that sparse,” said Eurylochus. “For my part, my limbs are heavy as brass and the strength is all gone from me. I could not move an oar now. Man needs meat and wine or the fires of hunger burn the sinews and dry the blood. Brown meat and red wine! I could fill my belly till the skin cracked!”
“The rich brown meat, mate! Dost mind the soft kids on Circe’s island? By Zeus, I can taste them now!” ”

“ Ulysses arrives at the island of AEolus, who gives him prosperous winds, and incloses the adverse ones in a bag, which his companions untying, they are driven back again and rejected. Then they sail to the Laestrygons, where they lose eleven ships, and, with only one remaining, proceed to the island of Circe. Eurylochus is sent first with some companions, all which, except Eurylochus, are transformed into swine. Ulysses then undertakes the adventure, and, by the help of Mercury, who gives him the herb Moly, overcomes the enchantress, and procures the restoration of his men. ”

“ On this the men would have come with me at once, but Eurylochus tried to hold them back and said, ‘Alas, poor wretches that we are, what will become of us? Rush not on your ruin by going to the house of Circe, who will turn us all into pigs or wolves or lions, and we shall have to keep guard over her house. Remember how the Cyclops treated us when our comrades went inside his cave, and Ulysses with them. ”

“ Before her gate lay many beasts, as wolves, lions, leopards, which, by her art, of wild, she had rendered tame. These arose when they saw strangers, and ramped upon their hinder paws, and fawned upon Eurylochus and his men, who dreaded the effects of such monstrous kindness; and staying at the gate they heard the enchantress within, sitting at her loom, singing such strains as suspended all mortal faculties, while she wove a web, subtle and glorious, and of texture inimitable on earth, as all the housewiferies of the deities are. ”

“ Thus this vow of Eurylochus looks like another anticipation of the subsequent absorption of the Sun into the person and deity of Apollo: and on the whole, we are left to infer that beginnings of that process may have been already visible. Homer, perhaps, did not care to advance it. At least, it does not appear to me that either he or his nation were friendly to the conception of mere elemental gods. Gods who preside over external nature he presents to us in abundance ”

“ Thus I spoke; but their dear heart was broken, when they remembered the deeds of the Læstrygonian Antiphates, and the violence of the strong-hearted [12] cannibal Cyclops. And they wept piercingly, shedding the warm tear. But there was not any advantage to them wailing. And I numbered all my well-greaved companions into two parties, and I gave a chieftain to both. I commanded one party, and godlike Eurylochus the other. And we quickly shook lots in a brazen helmet, and the lot of magnanimous Eurylochus leaped out. ”

“ Eurylochus, their chief magistrate, told him that he had come to friends, but he must keep away from the harbour and allow the Magnetes to live in harmony and liberty and not seduce the populace under cover of a political discussion. This started a hot dispute, not a conference, as the Roman envoy bitterly reproached the Magnetes for their ingratitude and predicted the disasters which would quickly overtake them, whilst the townsmen shouted out in reply angry aspersions on the conduct of the senate and Quinctius. ”

“ They heard a voice within the house singing, and it seemed to them to be the voice of a woman, singing as she went to and fro before a web she was weaving on a loom. The men shouted, and she who had been singing opened the polished doors and came out of the dwelling. She was very fair to see. As she opened the doors of the house she asked the men to come within and they went into her halls.'
'But Eurylochus tarried behind. ”

“ Then with a sorrowing heart he said to his companions, “My comrades, sufferers as you are, listen to me, and I shall disclose the oracles which lately Tiresias and Circè gave me. The goddess earnestly admonished me not to approach the island of the Sun, whose light is sweet to all, for there she said some great misfortune lay in wait for us. Now let us speed the ship and pass the isle.”
The hearts of the men were broken by this speech, and one of them, Eurylochus, bitterly replied, “How austere you are, Odysseus. You are exceedingly strong and no labor tires your limbs ”

“ For none hath ever driven by this way in his black ship, till he hath heard from our lips the voice sweet as the honeycomb, and hath had joy thereof and gone on his way the wiser. For lo, we know all things, all that the Greeks and the Trojans have suffered in wide Troy-land, yea, and we know all that shall hereafter be upon the fruitful earth.'
"Then I motioned my men to loose me, for their ears were stopped; but they plied their oars, and Eurylochus put new bonds upon me. And when we had passed by the island, then they took the wax from their ears, and loosed my bonds. ”

“ Looking through the thicket he saw the whole band surrounding Euryalus with noisy questions. What should he do; how extricate the youth; or would it be better to die with him?
Raising his eyes to the moon which now shone clear, he said, "Goddess, favor my effort!" and, aiming his javelin at one of the leaders of the troop, struck him in the back and stretched him [Pg 370] on the plain with a deathblow. In the midst of their amazement another weapon flew, and another of the party fell dead. Volscens, the leader, ignorant whence the darts came, rushed sword in hand upon Euryalus. ”

“ We have enough fragments and quotations from the Aeschylean plays on this subject—especially the Lycurgus trilogy—to see that all kinds of small details which seemed like invention, and rather fantastic invention, on the part of Euripides, are taken straight from Aeschylus or the ritual or both. The timbrels, the fawnskin, the ivy, the sacred pine, the god taking the forms of Bull and Lion and Snake; the dances on the mountain at dawn; the Old Men who are by the power of the god made young again; the god represented as beardless and like a woman ”

“ These expressions of Themistocles made Eurybiades suspect that if he retreated the Athenians would fall off from him. When one of Eretria began to oppose him, he said, "Have you any thing to say of war, that are like an ink-fish? you have a sword, but no heart." [3] Some say that while Themistocles was thus speaking things upon the deck, an owl was seen flying to the right hand of the fleet, which came and sate upon the top of the mast; and this happy omen so far disposed the Greeks to follow his advice, that they presently prepared to fight. ”

“ For since their father was removed from the earth, first Eurystheus wished to kill me, but I escaped; and my country indeed is no more, but my life is saved, and I wander in exile, migrating from one city to another. For, in addition to my other ills, Eurystheus has chosen to insult me with this insult; sending heralds whenever on earth he learns we are settled, he demands us, and drives us out of the land; alleging the city of Argos, one not paltry either to be friends with or to make an enemy, and himself too prospering as he is ”

“ A scoff, a glee, a thing to be destroyed.
Woe and alas!
Ah for my shattered dreams, my broken hopes, 450
Hopes that I once built on your father's words!
Argos to thee [8] thy dead sire would allot:
Thou in Eurystheus' palace wast to dwell
In fair and rich Pelasgia's sceptred sway.
That beast's fell o'er thine head he wont to throw, 450
The lion's skin wherein himself went clad.
Thou [9] shouldst be king of chariot-loving Thebes,
And hold the champaigns of mine heritage ”

“ Eurymachus said, “If thou be indeed Ulysses of Ithaca, thou hast said well. Foul wrong has been done to thee in the house and in the field. But lo! he who was the mover of it all lies here, even Antinoüs. Nor was it so much this marriage that he sought as to be king of this land, having destroyed thy house. But we will pay thee back for all that we have devoured, even twenty times as much.”
But Ulysses said, “Speak not of paying back. My hands shall not cease from slaying till I have taken vengeance on you all.”
Then said Eurymachus to his comrades, “This man will not stay his hands. ”

“ Falls, whelmed beneath the plough-share, and wondering at its doom;
Or as a scarlet poppy, laying weary neck on earth,
Yields its breath to the full shower it welcomed at its birth;
So, all too fair to die, star of a life, Euryalus
Left for Nisus nought but despair, with dire revenge; and thus
Sank Pallas, young and brave;—as, under a girl’s heedless feet,
Drop violets, soft and shy, or hyacinths, faint and sweet,
Appealing from Fate to Heav’n, with all of their grace and sheen,
Telling—the more that life has fled—of what its charms have been ”