Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/54

18 large web in her palace she wove it, slender and very large; and straightway addressed us: 'Youths, my suitors, since godlike Ulysses is dead, stay urging my marriage until I shall finish this veil, that my threads may not perish in vain, a shroud for the hero Laertes, at the time when the destructive fate of long-slumbering death shall seize him. Lest some one amongst the Grecian women be indignant against me, should he lie without a wrapper, having possessed many things.' Thus she spoke, and our proud mind was persuaded. Then during the day she wove the mighty web; but at night, when she had placed the torches near her, she unravelled it. Thus for three years, indeed, she escaped by deceit, and persuaded the Grecians. But when the fourth year came, and the hours advanced on, then indeed some one of the women, who knew it well, told it; and we found her unravelling the splendid web; so that she finished it of necessity, although unwilling. Thus the suitors answer thee, that thou mayest thyself know it in thy mind, and that all the Greeks may know it. Send away your mother, and bid her marry whomsoever her father bids, and she herself pleases. But if she shall for a long time further annoy the sons of the Grecians, caring in mind for those things, which Minerva has given her in abundance, to understand beautiful works, and [to possess] a good disposition, and stratagems, such as we have never heard anyone, even of the ancients, [possessed, ] of those, who have been heretofore fair-haired Grecian women, Tyro, and Alcmene, and fair-haired Mycene; none of these knew the same arts of Penelope. But this indeed she has not planned rightly. For then they will consume thy livelihood and possessions, so long as she has this mind, which the gods have now placed in her breast; for herself indeed she obtains great glory, but for thee a regret for much sustinence. But we will neither go to our employments, nor any where else, before she marries whomsoever of the Grecians she chooses."

Him prudent Telemachus addressed in turn: "O Antinous, it is in no wise possible [for me] to thrust out of my house