Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/223

1—28.

he went from the haven by the rugged path up the woody country, through the wolds, where Minerva had informed him the divine swineherd [would be], who chiefly, among the servants whom divine Ulysses possessed, had a care for his livelihood. But him he found sitting in the portico, where his lofty abode was built, in a conspicuous situation, both beautiful and large, that could be run round, which the swineherd himself had built for his swine, when the king was absent, without the knowledge of his mistress and of old Laertes, with stones drawn thither, and he topped it with sloe; and outside he drove stakes all round here and there, close and frequent, having cleft the dark part. And within the abode he made twelve styes, near one another, beds for the swine; and in each were kept fifty ground-wallowing swine, females for breeding; but the males slept without, much fewer; for them the godlike suitors diminished, eating them: for the swineherd always sent the best of all the well-fatted swine; but they were three hundred and sixty [in number]. And near them four dogs always slept, like unto wild beasts, which the swineherd, chieftain of men, had nourished. But he himself about his own feet was fitting shoes, cutting a bull's skin, of a beautiful colour; but the others had now gone each a different way, three with the pasturing swine; but the fourth he had sent to the city to take a sow to the overbearing suitors through necessity; that sacrificing they might satiate their mind with flesh.