Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/355

333—372. he came to the island Ogygia, and the nymph Calypso, who indeed detained him, desiring him to be her husband, in her hollow grot, and nourished him, and said that she would make him immortal and free from old age all his days: but she did not by any means persuade his mind in his breast: and how he came to the Phæacians, having toiled much, who honoured him in their heart as a god, and escorted him with a ship to his dear paternal land, giving him brass and gold in abundance, and garments. This was the last word he said, when sweet sleep loosing his limbs rushed upon him, relaxing the cares of his mind. But the blue-eyed goddess Minerva again thought of other things: when she now expected that Ulysses was satiated in his mind with the bed of his wife and with sleep, she immediately excited the golden-throned mother of dawn from the ocean, that she might give light to mortals: but Ulysses arose from his soft bed, and enjoined a command to his wife:

"O wife, we are now both of us satiated with many labours; thou indeed weeping for my toil-fraught return: but Jove and the other gods bound me anxious from my paternal land. But now, since both of us have reached our much-wished-for bed, take care of the possessions which I have in the palace: but as to the sheep, which the overbearing suitors have consumed, I myself will seize many as booty, and the Greeks shall give others, until they fill all my stalls. But I indeed am going to the well-wooded farm, to see my excellent sire, who is continually grieved for me. But to thee, O wife, I enjoin these things, although thou art prudent: for forthwith with the rising sun a rumour will go [abroad] concerning the suitors whom I have slain in the palace. Going to the upper room, with your women attendants, sit down, nor look out or inquire of any one."

He spoke, and around his shoulders he girt his beautiful arms; and he roused Telemachus and the herdsman and swineherd, and desired all to take their warlike weapons in their hands. And they did not disobey him: but they were armed with brass, and they opened the doors and went out: but Ulysses led the way. Now indeed light was upon the earth; but Minerva concealing them in night, led them quickly out of the city.