Page:The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (IA iliadodysseyofho02home).pdf/82

74 These things have doubtless told you; for immense Have been my suff'rings, and I have destroy'd A palace well inhabited and stored With precious furniture in ev'ry kind; Such, that I would to heav'n! I own'd at home Though but the third of it, and that the Greeks Who perish'd then, beneath the walls of Troy Far from steed-pastured Argos, still survived. Yet while, sequester'd here, I frequent mourn My slaughter'd friends, by turns I sooth my soul With tears shed for them, and by turns again I cease; for grief soon satiates free indulged. But of them all, although I all bewail, None mourn I so as one, whom calling back To memory, I both sleep and food abhor. For, of Achaia's sons none ever toiled Strenuous as Ulysses; but his lot Was woe, and unremitting sorrow mine For his long absence, who, if still he live, We know not aught, or be already dead. Him doubtless, old Laertes mourns, and him Discrete Penelope, nor less his son Telemachus, born newly when he sail'd. So saying, he kindled in him strong desire To mourn his father; at his father's name Fast fell his tears to ground, and with both hands He spread his purple cloak before his eyes; Which Menelaus marking, doubtful sat