He, when he left his native island, grasped
My right hand at the wrist, and said to me:
‘Think not, dear wife, that all the well-armed Greeks
Will come back safe from Troy. The Trojan men,
They say, are brave in war, expert to cast
The spear and wing the arrow, skilled to rein
The rapid steeds by which the bloody strife
Of battlefields is hurried to its close;
And therefore whether God will bring me back,
Or I shall fall in Troy, I cannot know.
Take charge of all things here. I leave with thee
My father and my mother in these halls.
Be kind to them as now, nay, more than now,
Since I shall not be here. When thou shalt see
My son a bearded man, take to thyself
A husband, whom thou wilt, and leave thy house.’
Such were his words, and they have been fulfilled.
The night will come in which I must endure
This hateful marriage, wretched that I am,
To whom the will of Jupiter forbids
All consolation, and this bitter thought
Weighs evermore upon my heart and soul.
The custom was not thus in other times;
When suitors wooed a noble wife, the child
Of some rich house, contending for her smile,
They came with beeves and fatling sheep to feast
The damsel’s friends, and gave munificent gifts,
But wasted not the wealth that was not theirs.”
She spake, Ulysses was rejoiced to see
That thus she sought to draw from each a gift,
With fair and artful words. Yet were his thoughts
Intent on other plans. Eupeithes’ son,
Antinoüs, thus made answer to the queen:—
“Sage daughter of Icarius, only deign
To take the gifts which any of the Greeks
Will bring—nor is it gracious to reject
A present—yet be sure we go not hence,
To our estates nor elsewhere, till thou make
A bridegroom of the best Achaian here.”
So spake Antinoüs. All approved his words,
And each sent forth a herald for his gift.
The herald of Antinoüs brought to him
A robe of many colors, beautiful
And ample, with twelve golden clasps, which each
Had its well-fitted eye. Eurymachus
Received a golden necklace, richly wrought,
And set with amber beads, that glowed as if
With sunshine. To Eurydamas there came
A pair of earrings, each a triple gem,
Daintily fashioned and of exquisite grace.
Two servants bore them. From Pisander’s house—
Son of the Prince Polyctor—there was brought
A collar of rare beauty. Thus did each
Bestow a different yet becoming gift.
And then that most august of women went
Back to the upper chambers with her maids,
Who bore the sumptuous presents, while below
The suitors turned them to the dance and song,
Amused till evening came. Its darkness stole
Over their pastime. Then they brought and placed
Three hearths to light the palace, heaping them
With wood, well dried and hard and newly cleft.
With this they mingled flaming brands. The maids
Of the great sufferer, Ulysses, fed
The fire by turns. To them the hero spake:—
“Ye maidens of a sovereign absent long,
Withdraw to where your highborn mistress sits;
There turn the spindle, seeking to amuse
Her lonely hours; there comb with your own hands
The fleece, and I will see that these have light.
Even though they linger till the Morn is here
In her bright car, they cannot overcome
My patience. I am practised to endure.”
So spake he, and the maidens, as they heard,
Cast at each other meaning looks, and laughed,
And one Melantho, of the rosy cheeks,
Railed at him impudently. She was born
To Dolius, but Penelope had reared
The damsel as a daughter of her own,
And given her, for her pleasure, many things;
Yet for the sorrows of Penelope
Melantho little cared. Eurymachus
Had made the girl his paramour. She spake,
And chid Ulysses with unmannerly words:—
“Outlandish wretch! thou must be one whose brain
Is turned, since thou wilt neither go to sleep
Within a smithy, nor in any place
Of public shelter, but wilt stay and prate
Among this company with no restraint
Or reverence. Either wine has stolen away
Thy senses, or thy natural mood, perchance,
Prompts thee to chatter idly. Art thou proud
Of conquering Irus, that poor vagabond?
Beware lest someone of robuster arms
Than Irus seize and thrust thee out of doors
With a bruised head and face begrimed with blood.”
The sage Ulysses frowned on her and said:
“Impudent one, Telemachus shall hear
From me the saucy words which thou hast said,
And he will come and hew thee limb from limb.”
He spake; the damsels, frightened at his words,
Fled through the hall, and shook in every limb
With terror, lest his threat should be fulfilled.
He meantime stood beside the kindled hearths
And fed the flames, and, looking on the crowd
Of suitors, brooded in his secret heart
O’er plans that would not fail to be fulfilled.
But Pallas suffered not the suitors yet
To cease from railing speeches, all the more
To wound the spirit of Laertes’ son.
Eurymachus, the son of Polybus,
Began to scoff at him, and thus he spake
To wake the ready laughter of the rest:—
“Hear me, ye suitors of the illustrious queen.
I speak the thought that comes into my mind.
Led by some god, no doubt, this man has come
Into the palace; for the light we have
Of torches seems to issue from the crown
Of his bald pate, a head without a hair.”
So said Eurymachus, and then bespake
Ulysses, the destroyer of walled towns:—
“Stranger, if I accept thee, wilt thou serve
Upon the distant parts of my estate?
There shalt thou have fair wages, and shalt bring
The stones in heaps together, and shalt plant
Tall trees, and I will feed thee through the year,
And give thee clothes, and sandals for thy feet.
But thou art used, no doubt, to idle ways,
And never dost thou work with willing hands,
Bat dost prefer to roam the town and beg,
Purveying for thy gluttonous appetite.”
Ulysses, the sagacious, answered thus:—
“Eurymachus, if we were matched in work
Against each other in the time of spring
When days are long, and both were mowing grass,
And I had a curved scythe in hand and thou
Another, that we might keep up the strife
Till nightfall, fasting, mid the abundant grass;
Or if there were a yoke of steers to drive,
The sturdiest of their kind, sleek, large, well fed,
Of equal age, and equal strength to bear
The labor, and both strong, and if the field
Were of four acres, with a soil through which
The plough could cleave its way—then shouldst thou see
How evenly my furrow would be turned.
Or should the son of Saturn
