Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/128

92 cians sat drinking and eating; for they held it all the year. But golden youths stood upon the well-built pedestals, holding in their hands burning torches, which shone during the night to the banqueters through the house. And there were fifty women servants in the house; some grind apple-coloured corn in the mill, others weave the webs, and whirl the spindles as they sit, like as the leaves of a tall poplar; and moist oil drips from the well-woven linen. As much as the Phæacians are skilled above all men to guide a swift ship in the sea, so are the women in weaving the web: for Minerva granted them exceedingly to be acquainted with beautiful works, and [endowed them with] a good understanding. But without the hall there is a large garden, near the gates, of four acres; but around it a hedge was extended on both sides. And there tall flourishing trees grew, pears, and pomegranates, and apple-trees producing beautiful fruit, and sweet figs, and flourishing olives. Of these the fruit never perishes, nor does it fail in winter or summer, lasting throughout the whole year; but the west wind ever blowing makes some bud forth, and ripens others. Pear grows old after pear, apple after apple, grape also after grape, and fig after fig. There a fruitful vineyard was planted: one part of this ground, exposed to the sun in a wide place, is dried by the sun; and some [grapes] they are gathering, and others they are treading, and further on are unripe grapes, having thrown off the flower, and others are slightly changing colour. And there are all kinds of beds laid out in order to the furthest part of the ground, flourishing throughout the whole year: and in it are two fountains, one is spread through the whole garden, but the other on the other side goes under the threshold of the hall to the lofty house, from whence the citizens are wont to draw water. Such indeed were the glorious gifts of the gods in the house of Alcinous. There much-enduring divine Ulysses standing admired it. But when he had admired all things in his mind, he quickly passed over the threshold within the house. And he found the leaders and chieftains of the Phæacians making libations in their cups to the watchful Argus-slayer, to whom they last made libations, when they were thinking of bed. But much-enduring divine Ulysses went through the house, having a heavy mist, which Minerva shed around him, until he came to Arete and king Alcinous, when Ulysses threw his