Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/224

188 But on a sudden the dogs, practised in barking, beheld Ulysses, they indeed ran on clamouring; but Ulysses sat down with cunning, and his staff fell from his hand: there indeed he would have suffered unseemly grief at his own stall, but the swineherd following quickly with his swift feet, ran through the vestibule; and the skin fell from his hand. Then chiding the dogs, he drove them different ways with frequent stones: and he addressed the king:

"O old man, but for a little the dogs would have destroyed thee on a sudden; and thou wouldst have poured out abuse against me. And to me the gods have given other griefs and sorrows; for mourning and grieving for a godlike king I sit, and I nourish fat swine for others to eat; but he, perhaps desirous of food, wanders amongst the people and the city of foreign men, if he is still alive, and beholds the light of the sun. But follow, and let us go to the resting-place, O old man, that thou thyself, being satisfied as to thy mind with food and wine, mayest relate from whence thou art, and how many griefs thou hast undergone."

Thus having spoken, the divine swineherd led the way to the resting-place. And having brought him in, he made him sit down, and he put thick rushes under him, and he strewed over it the skin of a wild shaggy goat, there as a couch, great and thick. And Ulysses rejoiced because he had thus received him; and he spoke, and addressed [him]:

"May Jove, O stranger, and the other immortal gods, give thee whatever thou dost most wish, because thou hast kindly received me."

But him the swineherd Eumæus answering addressed: "O stranger, it is not right for me, even if a more wretched one than thou shouldst come, to dishonour a stranger; for all strangers and beggars are from Jove; but our gift is both small and friendly; for this is the custom of servants, who are always in