Page:Homer. The Odyssey (IA homerodyssey00collrich).pdf/116

106 by her words to produce at once from their stores some costly offerings—embroidered robes, chains and brooches and necklaces of gold and electrum. The queen, after the practical fashion of the age, is not too disdainful to carry them off to her chamber; while Ulysses—as indeed seems more in accordance with his character—secretly rejoices to see his wife thus "spoiling the Egyptians." Some commentators have apologised for this seeming meanness on the part of Penelope by the explanation, that she does it to inspire them with false hopes of her choosing one of them now at last for her husband, and so lulling them into a false security in order to insure their easier destruction. But it is best to take the moral tone of these early poems honestly, as we find it, and not attempt to force it into too close agreement with our own.

After some further acts of insult, still borne with a wrathful endurance by Ulysses, the company quit the hall, as usual, for the night. Then Penelope descends again from her chamber, and sitting by the hearth, bids a chair be set also for the wandering stranger: she will hear his tale. He represents himself to her as the brother of King Idomeneus of Crete, and as having once in his brother's absence entertained the great Ulysses in his halls. To Penelope's eager questions, by which she seeks to test his veracity, he answers by describing not so much the person of her husband as his distinctive dress. The queen recognises, in this description, the curiously-embroidered mantle which she had worked for him, and the golden