At the end of The Odyssey, Odysseus returns home in disguise after two decades of war and wandering; his old swineherd, Eumeaus, taking him for a stranger, walks him across his property and nearby his old dog, occasioning one of the earliest sentimental descriptions of the human-canine bond (from the eighth century BCE):
Now, as they talked on, a dog that lay there
lifted up his muzzle, pricked his ears…
It was Argos, long-enduring Odysseus’ dog
he trained as a puppy once, but little joy he got
since all too soon he shipped to sacred Troy.
In the old days young hunters loved to set him
coursing after wild goats and deer and hares.
But now with his master gone he lay there, castaway,
on piles of dung from mules and cattle, heaps collecting
out before the gates till Odysseus’ serving-men
could cart it off to manure the king’s estates.
Infested with ticks, half-dead from neglect,
here lay the old hound Argos.
But the moment he sensed Odysseus standing by
he thumped his tail, nuzzling low, and his ears dropped,
though he had no strength left to drag himself an inch
toward his master. Odysseus glanced to the side
and flicked away a tear, hiding it from Eumaeus,
diverting his friend in a hasty, offhand way:
“Strange, Eumaeus, look, a dog like this,
lying here on a dung-hill…
what handsome lines! But I can’t say for sure
if he had the running speed to match his looks
or he was only the sort that gentry spoil at table,
show-dogs masters pamper for their points.”
You told the stranger, Euamaeus, loyal swineherd,
“Here, it’s all too true, here’s the dog of a man
who died in foreign parts. But if he had now
the form and flair he had in his glory days —
as Odysseus left him, sailing off to Troy —
you’d be amazed to see such speed, such strength.
No quarry he chased in the deepest, darkest woods
could slip this hound. A champion tracker too!
Ah, but he’s run out of luck now, poor fellow…
his master’s dead and gone, so far from home,
and the heartless women tend to him not at all…”
With that he entered the well-constructed palace,
strode through the halls and joined the proud suitors.
But the dark shadow of death closed down on Argos’ eyes
the instant he saw Odysseus, twenty years away.Translation by Robert Fagles, 1990; brought to my attention by Abby.
The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them. Listener up there! what have you to confide to me? Do I contradict myself? I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab. Who has done his day’s work? Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late? The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, The last scud of day holds back for me, I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?
and my loitering.
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
Some souls have gotten free of their bodies. Do you see them? Open your eyes for those I don’t mind if my companions They will come back like a smiling drunk. A nightingale sometimes
who escape to meet with other escapees,
whose hearts associate in a way they have
of leaving their false selves
to live in a truer self.
wander away for a while.
Thirsty ones die of their thirst.
flies from a garden
to sing in the forest.
(Source: nirvikalpa, via fernsandmoss)
(Source: whimsicalele)
