《奥德赛·卷17》第8节
Therewith he passed within the fair-lying house, and went straight to the hall, to the company of the proud wooers. But upon Argos came the fate of black death even in the hour that he beheld Odysseus again, in the twentieth year. Now godlike Telemachus was far the first to behold the swineherd as he came into the hall, and straightway then he beckoned and called him to his side. So Eumaeus looked about and took a settle that lay by him, where the carver was wont to sit dividing much flesh among the wooers that were feasting in the house. This seat he carried and set by the table of Telemachus over against him, and there sat down himself. And the henchman took a mess and served it him, and wheaten bread out of the basket. And close behind him Odysseus entered the house in the guise of a beggar, a wretched man and an old, leaning on his staff, and clothed on with sorry raiment. And he sat down on the ashen threshold within the doorway, leaning against a pillar of cypress wood, which the carpenter on a time had deftly planed, and thereon made straight the line. And Telemachus called the swineherd to him, and took a whole loaf out of the fair basket, and of flesh so much as his hands could hold in their grasp, saying: “Take and give this to the stranger, and bid him go about and beg himself of all the wooers in their turn, for shame is an ill mate of a needy man.” So he spake, and the swineherd went when he heard that saying, and stood by and spake to him winged words: “Stranger, Telemachus gives thee these and bids thee go about and beg of all the wooers in their turn, for, he says, ‘shame ill becomes a beggar man.’” Then Odysseus of many counsels answered him and said: “King Zeus, grant me that Telemachus may be happy among men, and may he have all his heart’s desire!” Therewith he took the gift in both hands, and set it there before his feet on his unsightly scrip. Then he ate meat so long as the minstrel was singing in the halls. When he had done supper, and the divine minstrel was ending his song, then the wooers raised a clamour through the halls; but Athene stood by Odysseus, son of Laertes, and moved him to go gathering morsels of bread among the wooers, and learn which were righteous and which unjust. Yet not even so was she fated to redeem one man of them from an evil doom. So he set out, beginning on the right, to ask of each man, stretching out his hand on every side, as though he were a beggar from of old. And they in pity gave him somewhat, and were amazed at the man, asking one another who he was and whence he came?
注释摘要
欧迈俄斯说完那番关于奴隶与主人、关于狗的话，转身走进堂皇的殿堂，径直走向那班傲慢的求婚者。而他身后留下的，是史诗中最安静也最沉重的一个句子：黑死的命运降临在阿尔戈斯身上，就在它重见奥德修斯的这一刻，在第二十年。 阿尔戈斯这条狗在整部诗里没有一句台词，却完成了一个叙事上极精巧的闭合。此处几个细节是按顺序铺开的：奥德修斯远远看到躺在粪堆里的狗，问起它的来历；欧…