<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=410324" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Odyssey: Book 19</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ulysses was left in the cloister, pondering on the means whereby<br>with Minerva's help he might be able to kill the suitors. Presently he<br>said to Telemachus, "Telemachus, we must get the armour together and<br>take it down inside. Make some excuse when the suitors ask you why you<br>have removed it. Say that you have taken it to be out of the way of<br>the smoke, inasmuch as it is no longer what it was when Ulysses went<br>away, but has become soiled and begrimed with soot. Add to this more<br>particularly that you are afraid Jove may set them on to quarrel<br>over their wine, and that they may do each other some harm which may<br>disgrace both banquet and wooing, for the sight of arms sometimes<br>tempts people to use them."<br>Telemachus approved of what his father had said, so he called<br>nurse Euryclea and said, "Nurse, shut the women up in their room,<br>while I take the armour that my father left behind him down into the<br>store room. No one looks after it now my father is gone, and it has<br>got all smirched with soot during my own boyhood. I want to take it<br>down where the smoke cannot reach it."<br>"I wish, child," answered Euryclea, "that you would take the<br>management of the house into your own hands altogether, and look after<br>all the property yourself. But who is to go with you and light you<br>to the store room? The maids would have so, but you would not let<br>them.<br>"The stranger," said Telemachus, "shall show me a light; when people<br>eat my bread they must earn it, no matter where they come from."<br>Euryclea did as she was told, and bolted the women inside their<br>room. Then Ulysses and his son made all haste to take the helmets,<br>shields, and spears inside; and Minerva went before them with a gold<br>lamp in her hand that shed a soft and brilliant radiance, whereon<br>Telemachus said, "Father, my eyes behold a great marvel: the walls,<br>with the rafters, crossbeams, and the supports on which they rest<br>are all aglow as with a flaming fire. Surely there is some god here<br>who has come down from heaven."<br>"Hush," answered Ulysses, "hold your peace and ask no questions, for<br>this is the manner of the gods. Get you to your bed, and leave me here<br>to talk with your mother and the maids. Your mother in her grief<br>will ask me all sorts of questions."<br>On this Telemachus went by torch-light to the other side of the<br>inner court, to the room in which he always slept. There he lay in his<br>bed till morning, while Ulysses was left in the cloister pondering<br>on the means whereby with Minerva's help he might be able to kill<br>the suitors.<br>Then Penelope came down from her room looking like Venus or Diana,<br>and they set her a seat inlaid with scrolls of silver and ivory near<br>the fire in her accustomed place. It had been made by Icmalius and had<br>a footstool all in one piece with the seat itself; and it was<br>covered with a thick fleece: on this she now sat, and the maids came<br>from the women's room to join her. They set about removing the<br>tables at which the wicked suitors had been dining, and took away<br>the bread that was left, with the cups from which they had drunk. They<br>emptied the embers out of the braziers, and heaped much wood upon them<br>to give both light and heat; but Melantho began to rail at Ulysses a<br>second time and said, "Stranger, do you mean to plague us by hanging<br>about the house all night and spying upon the women? Be off, you<br>wretch, outside, and eat your supper there, or you shall be driven out<br>with a firebrand."<br>Ulysses scowled at her and answered, "My good woman, why should<br>you be so angry with me? Is it because I am not clean, and my<br>clothes are all in rags, and because I am obliged to go begging<br>about after the manner of tramps and beggars generall? I too was a<br>rich man once, and had a fine house of my own; in those days I gave to<br>many a tramp such as I now am, no matter who he might be nor what he<br>wanted. I had any number of servants, and all the other things which<br>people have who live well and are accounted wealthy, but it pleased<br>Jove to take all away from me; therefore, woman, beware lest you too<br>come to lose that pride and place in which you now wanton above your<br>fellows; have a care lest you get out of favour with your mistress,<br>and lest Ulysses should come home, for there is still a chance that he<br>may do so. Moreover, though he be dead as you think he is, yet by<br>Apollo's will he has left a son behind him, Telemachus, who will<br>note anything done amiss by the maids in the house, for he is now no<br>longer in his boyhood."<br>Penelope heard what he was saying and scolded the maid, "Impudent<br>baggage, said she, "I see how abominably you are behaving, and you<br>shall smart for it. You knew perfectly well, for I told you myself,<br>that I was going to see the stranger and ask him about my husband, for<br>whose sake I am in such continual sorrow."<br>Then she said to her head waiting woman Eurynome, "Bring a seat with<br>a fleece upon it, for the stranger to sit upon while he tells his<br>story, and listens to what I have to say. I wish to ask him some<br>questions."<br>Eurynome brought the seat at once and set a fleece upon it, and as<br>soon as Ulysses had sat down Penelope began by saying, "Stranger, I<br>shall first ask you who and whence are you? Tell me of your town and<br>parents."<br>"Madam;" answered Ulysses, "who on the face of the whole earth can<br>dare to chide with you? Your fame reaches the firmament of heaven<br>itself; you are like some blameless king, who upholds righteousness,<br>as the monarch over a great and valiant nation: the earth yields its<br>wheat and barley, the trees are loaded with fruit, the ewes bring<br>forth lambs, and the sea abounds with fish by reason of his virtues,<br>and his people do good deeds under him. Nevertheless, as I sit here in<br>your house, ask me some other question and do not seek to know my race<br>and family, or you will recall memories that will yet more increase my<br>sorrow. I am full of heaviness, but I ought not to sit weeping and<br>wailing in another person's house, nor is it well to be thus<br>grieving continually. I shall have one of the servants or even<br>yourself complaining of me, and saying that my eyes swim with tears<br>because I am heavy with wine."<br>Then Penelope answered, "Stranger, heaven robbed me of all beauty,<br>whether of face or figure, when the Argives set sail for Troy and my<br>dear husband with them. If he were to return and look after my affairs<br>I should be both more respected and should show a better presence to<br>the world. As it is, I am oppressed with care, and with the<br>afflictions which heaven has seen fit to heap upon me. The chiefs from<br>all our islands- Dulichium, Same, and Zacynthus, as also from Ithaca<br>itself, are wooing me against my will and are wasting my estate. I can<br>therefore show no attention to strangers, nor suppliants, nor to<br>people who say that they are skilled artisans, but am all the time<br>brokenhearted about Ulysses. They want me to marry again at once,<br>and I have to invent stratagems in order to deceive them. In the first<br>place heaven put it in my mind to set up a great tambour-frame in my<br>room, and to begin working upon an enormous piece of fine<br>needlework. Then I said to them, 'Sweethearts, Ulysses is indeed dead,<br>still, do not press me to marry again immediately; wait- for I would<br>not have my skill in needlework perish unrecorded- till I have<br>finished making a pall for the hero Laertes, to be ready against the<br>time when death shall take him. He is very rich, and the women of<br>the place will talk if he is laid out without a pall.' This was what I<br>said, and they assented; whereon I used to keep working at my great<br>web all day long, but at night I would unpick the stitches again by<br>torch light. I fooled them in this way for three years without their<br>finding it out, but as time wore on and I was now in my fourth year,<br>in the waning of moons, and many days had been accomplished, those<br>good-for-nothing hussies my maids betrayed me to the suitors, who<br>broke in upon me and caught me; they were very angry with me, so I was<br>forced to finish my work whether I would or no. And now I do not see<br>how I can find any further shift for getting out of this marriage.<br>My parents are putting great pressure upon me, and my son chafes at<br>the ravages the suitors are making upon his estate, for he is now<br>old enough to understand all about it and is perfectly able to look<br>after his own affairs, for heaven has blessed him with an excellent<br>disposition. Still, notwithstanding all this, tell me who you are<br>and where you come from- for you must have had father and mother of<br>some sort; you cannot be the son of an oak or of a rock."<br>Then Ulysses answered, "madam, wife of Ulysses, since you persist in<br>asking me about my family, I will answer, no matter what it costs<br>me: people must expect to be pained when they have been exiles as long<br>as I have, and suffered as much among as many peoples. Nevertheless,<br>as regards your question I will tell you all you ask. There is a<br>fair and fruitful island in mid-ocean called Crete; it is thickly<br>peopled and there are nine cities in it: the people speak many<br>different languages which overlap one another, for there are Achaeans,<br>brave Eteocretans, Dorians of three-fold race, and noble Pelasgi.<br>There is a great town there, Cnossus, where Minos reigned who every<br>nine years had a conference with Jove himself. Minos was father to<br>Deucalion, whose son I am, for Deucalion had two sons Idomeneus and<br>myself. Idomeneus sailed for Troy, and I, who am the younger, am<br>called Aethon; my brother, however, was at once the older and the more<br>valiant of the two; hence it was in Crete that I saw Ulysses and<br>showed him hospitality, for the winds took him there as he was on<br>his way to Troy, carrying him out of his course from cape Malea and<br>leaving him in Amnisus off the cave of Ilithuia, where the harbours<br>are difficult to enter and he could hardly find shelter from the winds<br>that were then xaging. As soon as he got there he went into the town<br>and asked for Idomeneus, claiming to be his old and valued friend, but<br>Idomeneus had already set sail for Troy some ten or twelve days<br>earlier, so I took him to my own house and showed him every kind of<br>hospitality, for I had abundance of everything. Moreover, I fed the<br>men who were with him with barley meal from the public store, and<br>got subscriptions of wine and oxen for them to sacrifice to their<br>heart's content. They stayed with me twelve days, for there was a gale<br>blowing from the North so strong that one could hardly keep one's feet<br>on land. I suppose some unfriendly god had raised it for them, but<br>on the thirteenth day the wind dropped, and they got away."<br>Many a plausible tale did Ulysses further tell her, and Penelope<br>wept as she listened, for her heart was melted. As the snow wastes<br>upon the mountain tops when the winds from South East and West have<br>breathed upon it and thawed it till the rivers run bank full with<br>water, even so did her cheeks overflow with tears for the husband<br>who was all the time sitting by her side. Ulysses felt for her and was<br>for her, but he kept his eyes as hard as or iron without letting<br>them so much as quiver, so cunningly did he restrain his tears.<br>Then, when she had relieved herself by weeping, she turned to him<br>again and said: "Now, stranger, I shall put you to the test and see<br>whether or no you really did entertain my husband and his men, as<br>you say you did. Tell me, then, how he was dressed, what kind of a man<br>he was to look at, and so also with his companions."<br>"Madam," answered Ulysses, "it is such a long time ago that I can<br>hardly say. Twenty years are come and gone since he left my home,<br>and went elsewhither; but I will tell you as well as I can<br>recollect. Ulysses wore a mantle of purple wool, double lined, and<br>it was fastened by a gold brooch with two catches for the pin. On<br>the face of this there was a device that showed a dog holding a<br>spotted fawn between his fore paws, and watching it as it lay<br>panting upon the ground. Every one marvelled at the way in which these<br>things had been done in gold, the dog looking at the fawn, and<br>strangling it, while the fawn was struggling convulsively to escape.<br>As for the shirt that he wore next his skin, it was so soft that it<br>fitted him like the skin of an onion, and glistened in the sunlight to<br>the admiration of all the women who beheld it. Furthermore I say,<br>and lay my saying to your heart, that I do not know whether Ulysses<br>wore these clothes when he left home, or whether one of his companions<br>had given them to him while he was on his voyage; or possibly some one<br>at whose house he was staying made him a present of them, for he was a<br>man of many friends and had few equals among the Achaeans. I myself<br>gave him a sword of bronze and a beautiful purple mantle, double<br>lined, with a shirt that went down to his feet, and I sent him on<br>board his ship with every mark of honour. He had a servant with him, a<br>little older than himself, and I can tell you what he was like; his<br>shoulders were hunched, he was dark, and he had thick curly hair.<br>His name was Eurybates, and Ulysses treated him with greater<br>familiarity than he did any of the others, as being the most<br>like-minded with himself."<br>Penelope was moved still more deeply as she heard the indisputable<br>proofs that Ulysses laid before her; and when she had again found<br>relief in tears she said to him, "Stranger, I was already disposed<br>to pity you, but henceforth you shall be honoured and made welcome<br>in my house. It was I who gave Ulysses the clothes you speak of. I<br>took them out of the store room and folded them up myself, and I<br>gave him also the gold brooch to wear as an ornament. Alas! I shall<br>never welcome him home again. It was by an ill fate that he ever set<br>out for that detested city whose very name I cannot bring myself<br>even to mention."<br>Then Ulysses answered, "Madam, wife of Ulysses, do not disfigure<br>yourself further by grieving thus bitterly for your loss, though I can<br>hardly blame you for doing so. A woman who has loved her husband and<br>borne him children, would naturally be grieved at losing him, even<br>though he were a worse man than Ulysses, who they say was like a<br>god. Still, cease your tears and listen to what I can tell I will hide<br>nothing from you, and can say with perfect truth that I have lately<br>heard of Ulysses as being alive and on his way home; he is among the<br>Thesprotians, and is bringing back much valuable treasure that he<br>has begged from one and another of them; but his ship and all his crew<br>were lost as they were leaving the Thrinacian island, for Jove and the<br>sun-god were angry with him because his men had slaughtered the<br>sun-god's cattle, and they were all drowned to a man. But Ulysses<br>stuck to the keel of the ship and was drifted on to the land of the<br>Phaecians, who are near of kin to the immortals, and who treated him<br>as though he had been a god, giving him many presents, and wishing<br>to escort him home safe and sound. In fact Ulysses would have been<br>here long ago, had he not thought better to go from land to land<br>gathering wealth; for there is no man living who is so wily as he<br>is; there is no one can compare with him. Pheidon king of the<br>Thesprotians told me all this, and he swore to me- making<br>drink-offerings in his house as he did so- that the ship was by the<br>water side and the crew found who would take Ulysses to his own<br>country. He sent me off first, for there happened to be a<br>Thesprotian ship sailing for the wheat-growing island of Dulichium,<br>but he showed me all treasure Ulysses had got together, and he had<br>enough lying in the house of king Pheidon to keep his family for ten<br>generations; but the king said Ulysses had gone to Dodona that he<br>might learn Jove's mind from the high oak tree, and know whether after<br>so long an absence he should return to Ithaca openly or in secret.<br>So you may know he is safe and will be here shortly; he is close at<br>hand and cannot remain away from home much longer; nevertheless I will<br>confirm my words with an oath, and call Jove who is the first and<br>mightiest of all gods to witness, as also that hearth of Ulysses to<br>which I have now come, that all I have spoken shall surely come to<br>pass. Ulysses will return in this self same year; with the end of this<br>moon and the beginning of the next he will be here."<br>"May it be even so," answered Penelope; "if your words come true you<br>shall have such gifts and such good will from me that all who see<br>you shall congratulate you; but I know very well how it will be.<br>Ulysses will not return, neither will you get your escort hence, for<br>so surely as that Ulysses ever was, there are now no longer any such<br>masters in the house as he was, to receive honourable strangers or<br>to further them on their way home. And now, you maids, wash his feet<br>for him, and make him a bed on a couch with rugs and blankets, that he<br>may be warm and quiet till morning. Then, at day break wash him and<br>anoint him again, that he may sit in the cloister and take his meals<br>with Telemachus. It shall be the worse for any one of these hateful<br>people who is uncivil to him; like it or not, he shall have no more to<br>do in this house. For how, sir, shall you be able to learn whether<br>or no I am superior to others of my sex both in goodness of heart<br>and understanding, if I let you dine in my cloisters squalid and ill<br>clad? Men live but for a little season; if they are hard, and deal<br>hardly, people wish them ill so long as they are alive, and speak<br>contemptuously of them when they are dead, but he that is righteous<br>and deals righteously, the people tell of his praise among all<br>lands, and many shall call him blessed."<br>Ulysses answered, "Madam, I have foresworn rugs and blankets from<br>the day that I left the snowy ranges of Crete to go on shipboard. I<br>will lie as I have lain on many a sleepless night hitherto. Night<br>after night have I passed in any rough sleeping place, and waited<br>for morning. Nor, again, do I like having my feet washed; I shall<br>not let any of the young hussies about your house touch my feet;<br>but, if you have any old and respectable woman who has gone through as<br>much trouble as I have, I will allow her to wash them."<br>To this Penelope said, "My dear sir, of all the guests who ever<br>yet came to my house there never was one who spoke in all things<br>with such admirable propriety as you do. There happens to be in the<br>house a most respectable old woman- the same who received my poor dear<br>husband in her arms the night he was born, and nursed him in<br>infancy. She is very feeble now, but she shall wash your feet."<br>"Come here," said she, "Euryclea, and wash your master's age-mate; I<br>suppose Ulysses' hands and feet are very much the same now as his are,<br>for trouble ages all of us dreadfully fast."<br>On these words the old woman covered her face with her hands; she<br>began to weep and made lamentation saying, "My dear child, I cannot<br>think whatever I am to do with you. I am certain no one was ever<br>more god-fearing than yourself, and yet Jove hates you. No one in<br>the whole world ever burned him more thigh bones, nor gave him finer<br>hecatombs when you prayed you might come to a green old age yourself<br>and see your son grow up to take after you; yet see how he has<br>prevented you alone from ever getting back to your own home. I have no<br>doubt the women in some foreign palace which Ulysses has got to are<br>gibing at him as all these sluts here have been gibing you. I do not<br>wonder at your not choosing to let them wash you after the manner in<br>which they have insulted you; I will wash your feet myself gladly<br>enough, as Penelope has said that I am to do so; I will wash them both<br>for Penelope's sake and for your own, for you have raised the most<br>lively feelings of compassion in my mind; and let me say this<br>moreover, which pray attend to; we have had all kinds of strangers<br>in distress come here before now, but I make bold to say that no one<br>ever yet came who was so like Ulysses in figure, voice, and feet as<br>you are."<br>"Those who have seen us both," answered Ulysses, "have always said<br>we were wonderfully like each other, and now you have noticed it too.<br>Then the old woman took the cauldron in which she was going to<br>wash his feet, and poured plenty of cold water into it, adding hot<br>till the bath was warm enough. Ulysses sat by the fire, but ere long<br>he turned away from the light, for it occurred to him that when the<br>old woman had hold of his leg she would recognize a certain scar which<br>it bore, whereon the whole truth would come out. And indeed as soon as<br>she began washing her master, she at once knew the scar as one that<br>had been given him by a wild boar when he was hunting on Mount<br>Parnassus with his excellent grandfather Autolycus- who was the most<br>accomplished thief and perjurer in the whole world- and with the<br>sons of Autolycus. Mercury himself had endowed him with this gift, for<br>he used to burn the thigh bones of goats and kids to him, so he took<br>pleasure in his companionship. It happened once that Autolycus had<br>gone to Ithaca and had found the child of his daughter just born. As<br>soon as he had done supper Euryclea set the infant upon his knees<br>and said, you must find a name for your grandson; you greatly wished<br>that you might have one."<br>'Son-in-law and daughter," replied Autolycus, "call the child<br>thus: I am highly displeased with a large number of people in one<br>place and another, both men and women; so name the child 'Ulysses,' or<br>the child of anger. When he grows up and comes to visit his mother's<br>family on Mount Parnassus, where my possessions lie, I will make him a<br>present and will send him on his way rejoicing."<br>Ulysses, therefore, went to Parnassus to get the presents from<br>Autolycus, who with his sons shook hands with him and gave him<br>welcome. His grandmother Amphithea threw her arms about him, and<br>kissed his head, and both his beautiful eyes, while Autolycus<br>desired his sons to get dinner ready, and they did as he told them.<br>They brought in a five year old bull, flayed it, made it ready and<br>divided it into joints; these they then cut carefully up into<br>smaller pieces and spitted them; they roasted them sufficiently and<br>served the portions round. Thus through the livelong day to the<br>going down of the sun they feasted, and every man had his full share<br>so that all were satisfied; but when the sun set and it came on<br>dark, they went to bed and enjoyed the boon of sleep.<br>When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, the sons of<br>Autolycus went out with their hounds hunting, and Ulysses went too.<br>They climbed the wooded slopes of Parnassus and soon reached its<br>breezy upland valleys; but as the sun was beginning to beat upon the<br>fields, fresh-risen from the slow still currents of Oceanus, they came<br>to a mountain dell. The dogs were in front searching for the tracks of<br>the beast they were chasing, and after them came the sons of<br>Autolycus, among whom was Ulysses, close behind the dogs, and he had a<br>long spear in his hand. Here was the lair of a huge boar among some<br>thick brushwood, so dense that the wind and rain could not get through<br>it, nor could the sun's rays pierce it, and the ground underneath<br>lay thick with fallen leaves. The boar heard the noise of the men's<br>feet, and the hounds baying on every side as the huntsmen came up to<br>him, so rushed from his lair, raised the bristles on his neck, and<br>stood at bay with fire flashing from his eyes. Ulysses was the first<br>to raise his spear and try to drive it into the brute, but the boar<br>was too quick for him, and charged him sideways, ripping him above the<br>knee with a gash that tore deep though it did not reach the bone. As<br>for the boar, Ulysses hit him on the right shoulder, and the point<br>of the spear went right through him, so that he fell groaning in the<br>dust until the life went out of him. The sons of Autolycus busied<br>themselves with the carcass of the boar, and bound Ulysses' wound;<br>then, after saying a spell to stop the bleeding, they went home as<br>fast as they could. But when Autolycus and his sons had thoroughly<br>healed Ulysses, they made him some splendid presents, and sent him<br>back to Ithaca with much mutual good will. When he got back, his<br>father and mother were rejoiced to see him, and asked him all about<br>it, and how he had hurt himself to get the scar; so he told them how<br>the boar had ripped him when he was out hunting with Autolycus and his<br>sons on Mount Parnassus.<br>As soon as Euryclea had got the scarred limb in her hands and had<br>well hold of it, she recognized it and dropped the foot at once. The<br>leg fell into the bath, which rang out and was overturned, so that all<br>the water was spilt on the ground; Euryclea's eyes between her joy and<br>her grief filled with tears, and she could not speak, but she caught<br>Ulysses by the beard and said, "My dear child, I am sure you must be<br>Ulysses himself, only I did not know you till I had actually touched<br>and handled you."<br>As she spoke she looked towards Penelope, as though wanting to<br>tell her that her dear husband was in the house, but Penelope was<br>unable to look in that direction and observe what was going on, for<br>Minerva had diverted her attention; so Ulysses caught Euryclea by<br>the throat with his right hand and with his left drew her close to<br>him, and said, "Nurse, do you wish to be the ruin of me, you who<br>nursed me at your own breast, now that after twenty years of wandering<br>I am at last come to my own home again? Since it has been borne in<br>upon you by heaven to recognize me, hold your tongue, and do not say a<br>word about it any one else in the house, for if you do I tell you- and<br>it shall surely be- that if heaven grants me to take the lives of<br>these suitors, I will not spare you, though you are my own nurse, when<br>I am killing the other women."<br>"My child," answered Euryclea, "what are you talking about? You know<br>very well that nothing can either bend or break me. I will hold my<br>tongue like a stone or a piece of iron; furthermore let me say, and<br>lay my saying to your heart, when heaven has delivered the suitors<br>into your hand, I will give you a list of the women in the house who<br>have been ill-behaved, and of those who are guiltless."<br>And Ulysses answered, "Nurse, you ought not to speak in that way;<br>I am well able to form my own opinion about one and all of them;<br>hold your tongue and leave everything to heaven."<br>As he said this Euryclea left the cloister to fetch some more water,<br>for the first had been all spilt; and when she had washed him and<br>anointed him with oil, Ulysses drew his seat nearer to the fire to<br>warm himself, and hid the scar under his rags. Then Penelope began<br>talking to him and said:<br>"Stranger, I should like to speak with you briefly about another<br>matter. It is indeed nearly bed time- for those, at least, who can<br>sleep in spite of sorrow. As for myself, heaven has given me a life of<br>such unmeasurable woe, that even by day when I am attending to my<br>duties and looking after the servants, I am still weeping and<br>lamenting during the whole time; then, when night comes, and we all of<br>us go to bed, I lie awake thinking, and my heart comes a prey to the<br>most incessant and cruel tortures. As the dun nightingale, daughter of<br>Pandareus, sings in the early spring from her seat in shadiest<br>covert hid, and with many a plaintive trill pours out the tale how<br>by mishap she killed her own child Itylus, son of king Zethus, even so<br>does my mind toss and turn in its uncertainty whether I ought to<br>stay with my son here, and safeguard my substance, my bondsmen, and<br>the greatness of my house, out of regard to public opinion and the<br>memory of my late husband, or whether it is not now time for me to<br>go with the best of these suitors who are wooing me and making me such<br>magnificent presents. As long as my son was still young, and unable to<br>understand, he would not hear of my leaving my husband's house, but<br>now that he is full grown he begs and prays me to do so, being<br>incensed at the way in which the suitors are eating up his property.<br>Listen, then, to a dream that I have had and interpret it for me if<br>you can. I have twenty geese about the house that eat mash out of a<br>trough, and of which I am exceedingly fond. I dreamed that a great<br>eagle came swooping down from a mountain, and dug his curved beak into<br>the neck of each of them till he had killed them all. Presently he<br>soared off into the sky, and left them lying dead about the yard;<br>whereon I wept in my room till all my maids gathered round me, so<br>piteously was I grieving because the eagle had killed my geese. Then<br>he came back again, and perching on a projecting rafter spoke to me<br>with human voice, and told me to leave off crying. 'Be of good<br>courage,' he said, 'daughter of Icarius; this is no dream, but a<br>vision of good omen that shall surely come to pass. The geese are<br>the suitors, and I am no longer an eagle, but your own husband, who am<br>come back to you, and who will bring these suitors to a disgraceful<br>end.' On this I woke, and when I looked out I saw my geese at the<br>trough eating their mash as usual."<br>"This dream, Madam," replied Ulysses, "can admit but of one<br>interpretation, for had not Ulysses himself told you how it shall be<br>fulfilled? The death of the suitors is portended, and not one single<br>one of them will escape."<br>And Penelope answered, "Stranger, dreams are very curious and<br>unaccountable things, and they do not by any means invariably come<br>true. There are two gates through which these unsubstantial fancies<br>proceed; the one is of horn, and the other ivory. Those that come<br>through the gate of ivory are fatuous, but those from the gate of horn<br>mean something to those that see them. I do not think, however, that<br>my own dream came through the gate of horn, though I and my son should<br>be most thankful if it proves to have done so. Furthermore I say-<br>and lay my saying to your heart- the coming dawn will usher in the<br>ill-omened day that is to sever me from the house of Ulysses, for I am<br>about to hold a tournament of axes. My husband used to set up twelve<br>axes in the court, one in front of the other, like the stays upon<br>which a ship is built; he would then go back from them and shoot an<br>arrow through the whole twelve. I shall make the suitors try to do the<br>same thing, and whichever of them can string the bow most easily,<br>and send his arrow through all the twelve axes, him will I follow, and<br>quit this house of my lawful husband, so goodly and so abounding in<br>wealth. But even so, I doubt not that I shall remember it in my<br>dreams."<br>Then Ulysses answered, "Madam wife of Ulysses, you need not defer<br>your tournament, for Ulysses will return ere ever they can string<br>the bow, handle it how they will, and send their arrows through the<br>iron."<br>To this Penelope said, "As long, sir, as you will sit here and<br>talk to me, I can have no desire to go to bed. Still, people cannot do<br>permanently without sleep, and heaven has appointed us dwellers on<br>earth a time for all things. I will therefore go upstairs and<br>recline upon that couch which I have never ceased to flood with my<br>tears from the day Ulysses set out for the city with a hateful name."<br>She then went upstairs to her own room, not alone, but attended by<br>her maidens, and when there, she lamented her dear husband till<br>Minerva shed sweet sleep over her eyelids.</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=410324" data-title="The Odyssey: Book 19 de Homer" data-description="Ulysses was left in the cloister, pondering on the means whereby/with Minerva's help he might be able to kill the suitors. Presently he/said to Telemachus, "Telemachus, we must get the armour together and/take it down inside. Make some excuse when..."></div> </div> </div>

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