<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=410322" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Odyssey: Book 17</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared,<br>Telemachus bound on his sandals and took a strong spear that suited<br>his hands, for he wanted to go into the city. "Old friend," said he to<br>the swineherd, "I will now go to the town and show myself to my<br>mother, for she will never leave off grieving till she has seen me. As<br>for this unfortunate stranger, take him to the town and let him beg<br>there of any one who will give him a drink and a piece of bread. I<br>have trouble enough of my own, and cannot be burdened with other<br>people. If this makes him angry so much the worse for him, but I<br>like to say what I mean."<br>Then Ulysses said, "Sir, I do not want to stay here; a beggar can<br>always do better in town than country, for any one who likes can<br>give him something. I am too old to care about remaining here at the<br>beck and call of a master. Therefore let this man do as you have<br>just told him, and take me to the town as soon as I have had a warm by<br>the fire, and the day has got a little heat in it. My clothes are<br>wretchedly thin, and this frosty morning I shall be perished with<br>cold, for you say the city is some way off."<br>On this Telemachus strode off through the yards, brooding his<br>revenge upon the When he reached home he stood his spear against a<br>bearing-post of the cloister, crossed the stone floor of the<br>cloister itself, and went inside.<br>Nurse Euryclea saw him long before any one else did. She was putting<br>the fleeces on to the seats, and she burst out crying as she ran up to<br>him; all the other maids came up too, and covered his head and<br>shoulders with their kisses. Penelope came out of her room looking<br>like Diana or Venus, and wept as she flung her arms about her son. She<br>kissed his forehead and both his beautiful eyes, "Light of my eyes,"<br>she cried as she spoke fondly to him, "so you are come home again; I<br>made sure I was never going to see you any more. To think of your<br>having gone off to Pylos without saying anything about it or obtaining<br>my consent. But come, tell me what you saw."<br>"Do not scold me, mother,' answered Telemachus, "nor vex me,<br>seeing what a narrow escape I have had, but wash your face, change<br>your dress, go upstairs with your maids, and promise full and<br>sufficient hecatombs to all the gods if Jove will only grant us our<br>revenge upon the suitors. I must now go to the place of assembly to<br>invite a stranger who has come back with me from Pylos. I sent him<br>on with my crew, and told Piraeus to take him home and look after<br>him till I could come for him myself."<br>She heeded her son's words, washed her face, changed her dress,<br>and vowed full and sufficient hecatombs to all the gods if they<br>would only vouchsafe her revenge upon the suitors.<br>Telemachus went through, and out of, the cloisters spear in hand-<br>not alone, for his two fleet dogs went with him. Minerva endowed him<br>with a presence of such divine comeliness that all marvelled at him as<br>he went by, and the suitors gathered round him with fair words in<br>their mouths and malice in their hearts; but he avoided them, and went<br>to sit with Mentor, Antiphus, and Halitherses, old friends of his<br>father's house, and they made him tell them all that had happened to<br>him. Then Piraeus came up with Theoclymenus, whom he had escorted<br>through the town to the place of assembly, whereon Telemachus at<br>once joined them. Piraeus was first to speak: "Telemachus," said he,<br>"I wish you would send some of your women to my house to take awa<br>the presents Menelaus gave you."<br>"We do not know, Piraeus," answered Telemachus, "what may happen. If<br>the suitors kill me in my own house and divide my property among them,<br>I would rather you had the presents than that any of those people<br>should get hold of them. If on the other hand I manage to kill them, I<br>shall be much obliged if you will kindly bring me my presents."<br>With these words he took Theoclymenus to his own house. When they<br>got there they laid their cloaks on the benches and seats, went into<br>the baths, and washed themselves. When the maids had washed and<br>anointed them, and had given them cloaks and shirts, they took their<br>seats at table. A maid servant then brought them water in a<br>beautiful golden ewer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to<br>wash their hands; and she drew a clean table beside them. An upper<br>servant brought them bread and offered them many good things of what<br>there was in the house. Opposite them sat Penelope, reclining on a<br>couch by one of the bearing-posts of the cloister, and spinning.<br>Then they laid their hands on the good things that were before them,<br>and as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink Penelope said:<br>"Telemachus, I shall go upstairs and lie down on that sad couch,<br>which I have not ceased to water with my tears, from the day Ulysses<br>set out for Troy with the sons of Atreus. You failed, however, to make<br>it clear to me before the suitors came back to the house, whether or<br>no you had been able to hear anything about the return of your<br>father."<br>"I will tell you then truth," replied her son. "We went to Pylos and<br>saw Nestor, who took me to his house and treated me as hospitably as<br>though I were a son of his own who had just returned after a long<br>absence; so also did his sons; but he said he had not heard a word<br>from any human being about Ulysses, whether he was alive or dead. He<br>sent me, therefore, with a chariot and horses to Menelaus. There I saw<br>Helen, for whose sake so many, both Argives and Trojans, were in<br>heaven's wisdom doomed to suffer. Menelaus asked me what it was that<br>had brought me to Lacedaemon, and I told him the whole truth,<br>whereon he said, 'So, then, these cowards would usurp a brave man's<br>bed? A hind might as well lay her new-born young in the lair of a<br>lion, and then go off to feed in the forest or in some grassy dell.<br>The lion, when he comes back to his lair, will make short work with<br>the pair of them, and so will Ulysses with these suitors. By father<br>Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, if Ulysses is still the man that he was<br>when he wrestled with Philomeleides in Lesbos, and threw him so<br>heavily that all the Greeks cheered him- if he is still such, and were<br>to come near these suitors, they would have a short shrift and a sorry<br>wedding. As regards your question, however, I will not prevaricate nor<br>deceive you, but what the old man of the sea told me, so much will I<br>tell you in full. He said he could see Ulysses on an island<br>sorrowing bitterly in the house of the nymph Calypso, who was<br>keeping him prisoner, and he could not reach his home, for he had no<br>ships nor sailors to take him over the sea.' This was what Menelaus<br>told me, and when I had heard his story I came away; the gods then<br>gave me a fair wind and soon brought me safe home again."<br>With these words he moved the heart of Penelope. Then Theoclymenus<br>said to her:<br>"Madam, wife of Ulysses, Telemachus does not understand these<br>things; listen therefore to me, for I can divine them surely, and will<br>hide nothing from you. May Jove the king of heaven be my witness,<br>and the rites of hospitality, with that hearth of Ulysses to which I<br>now come, that Ulysses himself is even now in Ithaca, and, either<br>going about the country or staying in one place, is enquiring into all<br>these evil deeds and preparing a day of reckoning for the suitors. I<br>saw an omen when I was on the ship which meant this, and I told<br>Telemachus about it."<br>"May it be even so," answered Penelope; "if your words come true,<br>you shall have such gifts and such good will from me that all who<br>see you shall congratulate you."<br>Thus did they converse. Meanwhile the suitors were throwing discs,<br>or aiming with spears at a mark on the levelled ground in front of the<br>house, and behaving with all their old insolence. But when it was<br>now time for dinner, and the flock of sheep and goats had come into<br>the town from all the country round, with their shepherds as usual,<br>then Medon, who was their favourite servant, and who waited upon<br>them at table, said, "Now then, my young masters, you have had<br>enough sport, so come inside that we may get dinner ready. Dinner is<br>not a bad thing, at dinner time."<br>They left their sports as he told them, and when they were within<br>the house, they laid their cloaks on the benches and seats inside, and<br>then sacrificed some sheep, goats, pigs, and a heifer, all of them fat<br>and well grown. Thus they made ready for their meal. In the meantime<br>Ulysses and the swineherd were about starting for the town, and the<br>swineherd said, "Stranger, I suppose you still want to go to town<br>to-day, as my master said you were to do; for my own part I should<br>have liked you to stay here as a station hand, but I must do as my<br>master tells me, or he will scold me later on, and a scolding from<br>one's master is a very serious thing. Let us then be off, for it is<br>now broad day; it will be night again directly and then you will<br>find it colder."<br>"I know, and understand you," replied Ulysses; "you need say no<br>more. Let us be going, but if you have a stick ready cut, let me<br>have it to walk with, for you say the road is a very rough one."<br>As he spoke he threw his shabby old tattered wallet over his<br>shoulders, by the cord from which it hung, and Eumaeus gave him a<br>stick to his liking. The two then started, leaving the station in<br>charge of the dogs and herdsmen who remained behind; the swineherd led<br>the way and his master followed after, looking like some broken-down<br>old tramp as he leaned upon his staff, and his clothes were all in<br>rags. When they had got over the rough steep ground and were nearing<br>the city, they reached the fountain from which the citizens drew their<br>water. This had been made by Ithacus, Neritus, and Polyctor. There was<br>a grove of water-loving poplars planted in a circle all round it,<br>and the clear cold water came down to it from a rock high up, while<br>above the fountain there was an altar to the nymphs, at which all<br>wayfarers used to sacrifice. Here Melanthius son of Dolius overtook<br>them as he was driving down some goats, the best in his flock, for the<br>suitors' dinner, and there were two shepherds with him. When he saw<br>Eumaeus and Ulysses he reviled them with outrageous and unseemly<br>language, which made Ulysses very angry.<br>"There you go," cried he, "and a precious pair you are. See how<br>heaven brings birds of the same feather to one another. Where, pray,<br>master swineherd, are you taking this poor miserable object? It<br>would make any one sick to see such a creature at table. A fellow like<br>this never won a prize for anything in his life, but will go about<br>rubbing his shoulders against every man's door post, and begging,<br>not for swords and cauldrons like a man, but only for a few scraps not<br>worth begging for. If you would give him to me for a hand on my<br>station, he might do to clean out the folds, or bring a bit of sweet<br>feed to the kids, and he could fatten his thighs as much as he pleased<br>on whey; but he has taken to bad ways and will not go about any kind<br>of work; he will do nothing but beg victuals all the town over, to<br>feed his insatiable belly. I say, therefore and it shall surely be- if<br>he goes near Ulysses' house he will get his head broken by the<br>stools they will fling at him, till they turn him out."<br>On this, as he passed, he gave Ulysses a kick on the hip out of pure<br>wantonness, but Ulysses stood firm, and did not budge from the path.<br>For a moment he doubted whether or no to fly at Melanthius and kill<br>him with his staff, or fling him to the ground and beat his brains<br>out; he resolved, however, to endure it and keep himself in check, but<br>the swineherd looked straight at Melanthius and rebuked him, lifting<br>up his hands and praying to heaven as he did so.<br>"Fountain nymphs," he cried, "children of Jove, if ever Ulysses<br>burned you thigh bones covered with fat whether of lambs or kids,<br>grant my prayer that heaven may send him home. He would soon put an<br>end to the swaggering threats with which such men as you go about<br>insulting people-gadding all over the town while your flocks are going<br>to ruin through bad shepherding."<br>Then Melanthius the goatherd answered, "You ill-conditioned cur,<br>what are you talking about? Some day or other I will put you on<br>board ship and take you to a foreign country, where I can sell you and<br>pocket the money you will fetch. I wish I were as sure that Apollo<br>would strike Telemachus dead this very day, or that the suitors<br>would kill him, as I am that Ulysses will never come home again."<br>With this he left them to come on at their leisure, while he went<br>quickly forward and soon reached the house of his master. When he<br>got there he went in and took his seat among the suitors opposite<br>Eurymachus, who liked him better than any of the others. The<br>servants brought him a portion of meat, and an upper woman servant set<br>bread before him that he might eat. Presently Ulysses and the<br>swineherd came up to the house and stood by it, amid a sound of music,<br>for Phemius was just beginning to sing to the suitors. Then Ulysses<br>took hold of the swineherd's hand, and said:<br>"Eumaeus, this house of Ulysses is a very fine place. No matter<br>how far you go you will find few like it. One building keeps following<br>on after another. The outer court has a wall with battlements all<br>round it; the doors are double folding, and of good workmanship; it<br>would be a hard matter to take it by force of arms. I perceive, too,<br>that there are many people banqueting within it, for there is a<br>smell of roast meat, and I hear a sound of music, which the gods<br>have made to go along with feasting."<br>Then Eumaeus said, "You have perceived aright, as indeed you<br>generally do; but let us think what will be our best course. Will<br>you go inside first and join the suitors, leaving me here behind<br>you, or will you wait here and let me go in first? But do not wait<br>long, or some one may you loitering about outside, and throw something<br>at you. Consider this matter I pray you."<br>And Ulysses answered, "I understand and heed. Go in first and<br>leave me here where I am. I am quite used to being beaten and having<br>things thrown at me. I have been so much buffeted about in war and<br>by sea that I am case-hardened, and this too may go with the rest. But<br>a man cannot hide away the cravings of a hungry belly; this is an<br>enemy which gives much trouble to all men; it is because of this<br>that ships are fitted out to sail the seas, and to make war upon other<br>people."<br>As they were thus talking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised<br>his head and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Ulysses had<br>bred before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any work out of<br>him. In the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when<br>they went hunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his<br>master was gone he was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow<br>dung that lay in front of the stable doors till the men should come<br>and draw it away to manure the great close; and he was full of<br>fleas. As soon as he saw Ulysses standing there, he dropped his ears<br>and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When<br>Ulysses saw the dog on the other side of the yard, dashed a tear<br>from his eyes without Eumaeus seeing it, and said:<br>"Eumaeus, what a noble hound that is over yonder on the manure heap:<br>his build is splendid; is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he<br>only one of those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept<br>merely for show?"<br>"This hound," answered Eumaeus, "belonged to him who has died in a<br>far country. If he were what he was when Ulysses left for Troy, he<br>would soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in<br>the forest that could get away from him when he was once on its<br>tracks. But now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead<br>and gone, and the women take no care of him. Servants never do their<br>work when their master's hand is no longer over them, for Jove takes<br>half the goodness out of a man when he makes a slave of him."<br>As he spoke he went inside the buildings to the cloister where the<br>suitors were, but Argos died as soon as he had recognized his master.<br>Telemachus saw Eumaeus long before any one else did, and beckoned<br>him to come and sit beside him; so he looked about and saw a seat<br>lying near where the carver sat serving out their portions to the<br>suitors; he picked it up, brought it to Telemachus's table, and sat<br>down opposite him. Then the servant brought him his portion, and<br>gave him bread from the bread-basket.<br>Immediately afterwards Ulysses came inside, looking like a poor<br>miserable old beggar, leaning on his staff and with his clothes all in<br>rags. He sat down upon the threshold of ash-wood just inside the doors<br>leading from the outer to the inner court, and against a<br>bearing-post of cypress-wood which the carpenter had skillfully<br>planed, and had made to join truly with rule and line. Telemachus took<br>a whole loaf from the bread-basket, with as much meat as he could hold<br>in his two hands, and said to Eumaeus, "Take this to the stranger, and<br>tell him to go the round of the suitors, and beg from them; a beggar<br>must not be shamefaced."<br>So Eumaeus went up to him and said, "Stranger, Telemachus sends<br>you this, and says you are to go the round of the suitors begging, for<br>beggars must not be shamefaced."<br>Ulysses answered, "May King Jove grant all happiness to<br>Telemachus, and fulfil the desire of his heart."<br>Then with both hands he took what Telemachus had sent him, and<br>laid it on the dirty old wallet at his feet. He went on eating it<br>while the bard was singing, and had just finished his dinner as he<br>left off. The suitors applauded the bard, whereon Minerva went up to<br>Ulysses and prompted him to beg pieces of bread from each one of the<br>suitors, that he might see what kind of people they were, and tell the<br>good from the bad; but come what might she was not going to save a<br>single one of them. Ulysses, therefore, went on his round, going<br>from left to right, and stretched out his hands to beg as though he<br>were a real beggar. Some of them pitied him, and were curious about<br>him, asking one another who he was and where he came from; whereon the<br>goatherd Melanthius said, "Suitors of my noble mistress, I can tell<br>you something about him, for I have seen him before. The swineherd<br>brought him here, but I know nothing about the man himself, nor<br>where he comes from."<br>On this Antinous began to abuse the swineherd. "You precious idiot,"<br>he cried, "what have you brought this man to town for? Have we not<br>tramps and beggars enough already to pester us as we sit at meat? Do<br>you think it a small thing that such people gather here to waste<br>your master's property and must you needs bring this man as well?"<br>And Eumaeus answered, "Antinous, your birth is good but your words<br>evil. It was no doing of mine that he came here. Who is likely to<br>invite a stranger from a foreign country, unless it be one of those<br>who can do public service as a seer, a healer of hurts, a carpenter,<br>or a bard who can charm us with his Such men are welcome all the world<br>over, but no one is likely to ask a beggar who will only worry him.<br>You are always harder on Ulysses' servants than any of the other<br>suitors are, and above all on me, but I do not care so long as<br>Telemachus and Penelope are alive and here."<br>But Telemachus said, "Hush, do not answer him; Antinous has the<br>bitterest tongue of all the suitors, and he makes the others worse."<br>Then turning to Antinous he said, "Antinous, you take as much care<br>of my interests as though I were your son. Why should you want to<br>see this stranger turned out of the house? Heaven forbid; take'<br>something and give it him yourself; I do not grudge it; I bid you take<br>it. Never mind my mother, nor any of the other servants in the<br>house; but I know you will not do what I say, for you are more fond of<br>eating things yourself than of giving them to other people."<br>"What do you mean, Telemachus," replied Antinous, "by this<br>swaggering talk? If all the suitors were to give him as much as I<br>will, he would not come here again for another three months."<br>As he spoke he drew the stool on which he rested his dainty feet<br>from under the table, and made as though he would throw it at Ulysses,<br>but the other suitors all gave him something, and filled his wallet<br>with bread and meat; he was about, therefore, to go back to the<br>threshold and eat what the suitors had given him, but he first went up<br>to Antinous and said:<br>"Sir, give me something; you are not, surely, the poorest man<br>here; you seem to be a chief, foremost among them all; therefore you<br>should be the better giver, and I will tell far and wide of your<br>bounty. I too was a rich man once, and had a fine house of my own;<br>in those days I gave to many a tramp such as I now am, no matter who<br>he might be nor what he wanted. I had any number of servants, and<br>all the other things which people have who live well and are accounted<br>wealthy, but it pleased Jove to take all away from me. He sent me with<br>a band of roving robbers to Egypt; it was a long voyage and I was<br>undone by it. I stationed my bade ships in the river Aegyptus, and<br>bade my men stay by them and keep guard over them, while sent out<br>scouts to reconnoitre from every point of vantage.<br>"But the men disobeyed my orders, took to their own devices, and<br>ravaged the land of the Egyptians, killing the men, and taking their<br>wives and children captives. The alarm was soon carried to the city,<br>and when they heard the war-cry, the people came out at daybreak<br>till the plain was filled with soldiers horse and foot, and with the<br>gleam of armour. Then Jove spread panic among my men, and they would<br>no longer face the enemy, for they found themselves surrounded. The<br>Egyptians killed many of us, and took the rest alive to do forced<br>labour for them; as for myself, they gave me to a friend who met them,<br>to take to Cyprus, Dmetor by name, son of Iasus, who was a great man<br>in Cyprus. Thence I am come hither in a state of great misery."<br>Then Antinous said, "What god can have sent such a pestilence to<br>plague us during our dinner? Get out, into the open part of the court,<br>or I will give you Egypt and Cyprus over again for your insolence<br>and importunity; you have begged of all the others, and they have<br>given you lavishly, for they have abundance round them, and it is easy<br>to be free with other people's property when there is plenty of it."<br>On this Ulysses began to move off, and said, "Your looks, my fine<br>sir, are better than your breeding; if you were in your own house<br>you would not spare a poor man so much as a pinch of salt, for<br>though you are in another man's, and surrounded with abundance, you<br>cannot find it in you to give him even a piece of bread."<br>This made Antinous very angry, and he scowled at him saying, "You<br>shall pay for this before you get clear of the court." With these<br>words he threw a footstool at him, and hit him on the right<br>shoulder-blade near the top of his back. Ulysses stood firm as a<br>rock and the blow did not even stagger him, but he shook his head in<br>silence as he brooded on his revenge. Then he went back to the<br>threshold and sat down there, laying his well-filled wallet at his<br>feet.<br>"Listen to me," he cried, "you suitors of Queen Penelope, that I may<br>speak even as I am minded. A man knows neither ache nor pain if he<br>gets hit while fighting for his money, or for his sheep or his cattle;<br>and even so Antinous has hit me while in the service of my miserable<br>belly, which is always getting people into trouble. Still, if the poor<br>have gods and avenging deities at all, I pray them that Antinous may<br>come to a bad end before his marriage."<br>"Sit where you are, and eat your victuals in silence, or be off<br>elsewhere," shouted Antinous. "If you say more I will have you dragged<br>hand and foot through the courts, and the servants shall flay you<br>alive."<br>The other suitors were much displeased at this, and one of the young<br>men said, "Antinous, you did ill in striking that poor wretch of a<br>tramp: it will be worse for you if he should turn out to be some<br>god- and we know the gods go about disguised in all sorts of ways as<br>people from foreign countries, and travel about the world to see who<br>do amiss and who righteously."<br>Thus said the suitors, but Antinous paid them no heed. Meanwhile<br>Telemachus was furious about the blow that had been given to his<br>father, and though no tear fell from him, he shook his head in silence<br>and brooded on his revenge.<br>Now when Penelope heard that the beggar had been struck in the<br>banqueting-cloister, she said before her maids, "Would that Apollo<br>would so strike you, Antinous," and her waiting woman Eurynome<br>answered, "If our prayers were answered not one of the suitors would<br>ever again see the sun rise." Then Penelope said, "Nurse, I hate every<br>single one of them, for they mean nothing but mischief, but I hate<br>Antinous like the darkness of death itself. A poor unfortunate tramp<br>has come begging about the house for sheer want. Every one else has<br>given him something to put in his wallet, but Antinous has hit him<br>on the right shoulder-blade with a footstool."<br>Thus did she talk with her maids as she sat in her own room, and<br>in the meantime Ulysses was getting his dinner. Then she called for<br>the swineherd and said, "Eumaeus, go and tell the stranger to come<br>here, I want to see him and ask him some questions. He seems to have<br>travelled much, and he may have seen or heard something of my<br>unhappy husband."<br>To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, "If these Achaeans,<br>Madam, would only keep quiet, you would be charmed with the history of<br>his adventures. I had him three days and three nights with me in my<br>hut, which was the first place he reached after running away from<br>his ship, and he has not yet completed the story of his misfortunes.<br>If he had been the most heaven-taught minstrel in the whole world,<br>on whose lips all hearers hang entranced, I could not have been more<br>charmed as I sat in my hut and listened to him. He says there is an<br>old friendship between his house and that of Ulysses, and that he<br>comes from Crete where the descendants of Minos live, after having<br>been driven hither and thither by every kind of misfortune; he also<br>declares that he has heard of Ulysses as being alive and near at<br>hand among the Thesprotians, and that he is bringing great wealth home<br>with him."<br>"Call him here, then," said Penelope, "that I too may hear his<br>story. As for the suitors, let them take their pleasure indoors or out<br>as they will, for they have nothing to fret about. Their corn and wine<br>remain unwasted in their houses with none but servants to consume<br>them, while they keep hanging about our house day after day<br>sacrificing our oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and<br>never giving so much as a thought to the quantity of wine they<br>drink. No estate can stand such recklessness, for we have now no<br>Ulysses to protect us. If he were to come again, he and his son<br>would soon have their revenge."<br>As she spoke Telemachus sneezed so loudly that the whole house<br>resounded with it. Penelope laughed when she heard this, and said to<br>Eumaeus, "Go and call the stranger; did you not hear how my son<br>sneezed just as I was speaking? This can only mean that all the<br>suitors are going to be killed, and that not one of them shall escape.<br>Furthermore I say, and lay my saying to your heart: if I am<br>satisfied that the stranger is speaking the truth I shall give him a<br>shirt and cloak of good wear."<br>When Eumaeus heard this he went straight to Ulysses and said,<br>"Father stranger, my mistress Penelope, mother of Telemachus, has sent<br>for you; she is in great grief, but she wishes to hear anything you<br>can tell her about her husband, and if she is satisfied that you are<br>speaking the truth, she will give you a shirt and cloak, which are the<br>very things that you are most in want of. As for bread, you can get<br>enough of that to fill your belly, by begging about the town, and<br>letting those give that will."<br>"I will tell Penelope," answered Ulysses, "nothing but what is<br>strictly true. I know all about her husband, and have been partner<br>with him in affliction, but I am afraid of passing. through this crowd<br>of cruel suitors, for their pride and insolence reach heaven. Just<br>now, moreover, as I was going about the house without doing any<br>harm, a man gave me a blow that hurt me very much, but neither<br>Telemachus nor any one else defended me. Tell Penelope, therefore,<br>to be patient and wait till sundown. Let her give me a seat close up<br>to the fire, for my clothes are worn very thin- you know they are, for<br>you have seen them ever since I first asked you to help me- she can<br>then ask me about the return of her husband."<br>The swineherd went back when he heard this, and Penelope said as she<br>saw him cross the threshold, "Why do you not bring him here,<br>Eumaeus? Is he afraid that some one will ill-treat him, or is he shy<br>of coming inside the house at all? Beggars should not be shamefaced."<br>To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, "The stranger is quite<br>reasonable. He is avoiding the suitors, and is only doing what any one<br>else would do. He asks you to wait till sundown, and it will be much<br>better, madam, that you should have him all to yourself, when you<br>can hear him and talk to him as you will."<br>"The man is no fool," answered Penelope, "it would very likely be as<br>he says, for there are no such abominable people in the whole world as<br>these men are."<br>When she had done speaking Eumaeus went back to the suitors, for<br>he had explained everything. Then he went up to Telemachus and said in<br>his ear so that none could overhear him, "My dear sir, I will now go<br>back to the pigs, to see after your property and my own business.<br>You will look to what is going on here, but above all be careful to<br>keep out of danger, for there are many who bear you ill will. May Jove<br>bring them to a bad end before they do us a mischief."<br>"Very well," replied Telemachus, "go home when you have had your<br>dinner, and in the morning come here with the victims we are to<br>sacrifice for the day. Leave the rest to heaven and me."<br>On this Eumaeus took his seat again, and when he had finished his<br>dinner he left the courts and the cloister with the men at table,<br>and went back to his pigs. As for the suitors, they presently began to<br>amuse themselves with singing and dancing, for it was now getting on<br>towards evening.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Homer">Homer</a>, translated by Samuel Butler<div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=410322" data-title="The Odyssey: Book 17 de Homer" data-description="When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared,/Telemachus bound on his sandals and took a strong spear that suited/his hands, for he wanted to go into the city. "Old friend," said he to/the swineherd, "I will now go to the town and show ..."></div> </div> </div>

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