Odyssey by Homer

Book XIX

Ulysses was left in the cloister, pondering on the means whereby
with Minerva's help he might be able to kill the suitors. Presently
he said to Telemachus, "Telemachus, we must get the armour together
and take it down inside. Make some excuse when the suitors ask you
why you have removed it. Say that you have taken it to be out of the
way of the smoke, inasmuch as it is no longer what it was when Ulysses
went away, but has become soiled and begrimed with soot. Add to this
more particularly that you are afraid Jove may set them on to quarrel
over their wine, and that they may do each other some harm which may
disgrace both banquet and wooing, for the sight of arms sometimes
tempts people to use them."

Telemachus approved of what his father had said, so he called nurse
Euryclea and said, "Nurse, shut the women up in their room, while
I take the armour that my father left behind him down into the store
room. No one looks after it now my father is gone, and it has got
all smirched with soot during my own boyhood. I want to take it down
where the smoke cannot reach it."

"I wish, child," answered Euryclea, "that you would take the management
of the house into your own hands altogether, and look after all the
property yourself. But who is to go with you and light you to the
store room? The maids would have so, but you would not let them.

"The stranger," said Telemachus, "shall show me a light; when people
eat my bread they must earn it, no matter where they come from."

Euryclea did as she was told, and bolted the women inside their room.
Then Ulysses and his son made all haste to take the helmets, shields,
and spears inside; and Minerva went before them with a gold lamp in
her hand that shed a soft and brilliant radiance, whereon Telemachus
said, "Father, my eyes behold a great marvel: the walls, with the
rafters, crossbeams, and the supports on which they rest are all aglow
as with a flaming fire. Surely there is some god here who has come
down from heaven."

"Hush," answered Ulysses, "hold your peace and ask no questions, for
this is the manner of the gods. Get you to your bed, and leave me
here to talk with your mother and the maids. Your mother in her grief
will ask me all sorts of questions."

On this Telemachus went by torch-light to the other side of the inner
court, to the room in which he always slept. There he lay in his bed
till morning, while Ulysses was left in the cloister pondering on
the means whereby with Minerva's help he might be able to kill the
suitors.

Then Penelope came down from her room looking like Venus or Diana,
and they set her a seat inlaid with scrolls of silver and ivory near
the fire in her accustomed place. It had been made by Icmalius and
had a footstool all in one piece with the seat itself; and it was
covered with a thick fleece: on this she now sat, and the maids came
from the women's room to join her. They set about removing the tables
at which the wicked suitors had been dining, and took away the bread
that was left, with the cups from which they had drunk. They emptied
the embers out of the braziers, and heaped much wood upon them to
give both light and heat; but Melantho began to rail at Ulysses a
second time and said, "Stranger, do you mean to plague us by hanging
about the house all night and spying upon the women? Be off, you wretch,
outside, and eat your supper there, or you shall be driven out with
a firebrand."

Ulysses scowled at her and answered, "My good woman, why should you
be so angry with me? Is it because I am not clean, and my clothes
are all in rags, and because I am obliged to go begging about after
the manner of tramps and beggars generall? I too was a rich man once,
and had a fine house of my own; in those days I gave to many a tramp
such as I now am, no matter who he might be nor what he wanted. I
had any number of servants, and all the other things which people
have who live well and are accounted wealthy, but it pleased Jove
to take all away from me; therefore, woman, beware lest you too come
to lose that pride and place in which you now wanton above your fellows;
have a care lest you get out of favour with your mistress, and lest
Ulysses should come home, for there is still a chance that he may
do so. Moreover, though he be dead as you think he is, yet by Apollo's
will he has left a son behind him, Telemachus, who will note anything
done amiss by the maids in the house, for he is now no longer in his
boyhood."

Penelope heard what he was saying and scolded the maid, "Impudent
baggage, said she, "I see how abominably you are behaving, and you
shall smart for it. You knew perfectly well, for I told you myself,
that I was going to see the stranger and ask him about my husband,
for whose sake I am in such continual sorrow."

Then she said to her head waiting woman Eurynome, "Bring a seat with
a fleece upon it, for the stranger to sit upon while he tells his
story, and listens to what I have to say. I wish to ask him some questions."

Eurynome brought the seat at once and set a fleece upon it, and as
soon as Ulysses had sat down Penelope began by saying, "Stranger,
I shall first ask you who and whence are you? Tell me of your town
and parents."

"Madam;" answered Ulysses, "who on the face of the whole earth can
dare to chide with you? Your fame reaches the firmament of heaven
itself; you are like some blameless king, who upholds righteousness,
as the monarch over a great and valiant nation: the earth yields its
wheat and barley, the trees are loaded with fruit, the ewes bring
forth lambs, and the sea abounds with fish by reason of his virtues,
and his people do good deeds under him. Nevertheless, as I sit here
in your house, ask me some other question and do not seek to know
my race and family, or you will recall memories that will yet more
increase my sorrow. I am full of heaviness, but I ought not to sit
weeping and wailing in another person's house, nor is it well to be
thus grieving continually. I shall have one of the servants or even
yourself complaining of me, and saying that my eyes swim with tears
because I am heavy with wine."

Then Penelope answered, "Stranger, heaven robbed me of all beauty,
whether of face or figure, when the Argives set sail for Troy and
my dear husband with them. If he were to return and look after my
affairs I should be both more respected and should show a better presence
to the world. As it is, I am oppressed with care, and with the afflictions
which heaven has seen fit to heap upon me. The chiefs from all our
islands- Dulichium, Same, and Zacynthus, as also from Ithaca itself,
are wooing me against my will and are wasting my estate. I can therefore
show no attention to strangers, nor suppliants, nor to people who
say that they are skilled artisans, but am all the time brokenhearted
about Ulysses. They want me to marry again at once, and I have to
invent stratagems in order to deceive them. In the first place heaven
put it in my mind to set up a great tambour-frame in my room, and
to begin working upon an enormous piece of fine needlework. Then I
said to them, 'Sweethearts, Ulysses is indeed dead, still, do not
press me to marry again immediately; wait- for I would not have my
skill in needlework perish unrecorded- till I have finished making
a pall for the hero Laertes, to be ready against the time when death
shall take him. He is very rich, and the women of the place will talk
if he is laid out without a pall.' This was what I said, and they
assented; whereon I used to keep working at my great web all day long,
but at night I would unpick the stitches again by torch light. I fooled
them in this way for three years without their finding it out, but
as time wore on and I was now in my fourth year, in the waning of
moons, and many days had been accomplished, those good-for-nothing
hussies my maids betrayed me to the suitors, who broke in upon me
and caught me; they were very angry with me, so I was forced to finish
my work whether I would or no. And now I do not see how I can find
any further shift for getting out of this marriage. My parents are
putting great pressure upon me, and my son chafes at the ravages the
suitors are making upon his estate, for he is now old enough to understand
all about it and is perfectly able to look after his own affairs,
for heaven has blessed him with an excellent disposition. Still, notwithstanding
all this, tell me who you are and where you come from- for you must
have had father and mother of some sort; you cannot be the son of
an oak or of a rock."

Then Ulysses answered, "madam, wife of Ulysses, since you persist
in asking me about my family, I will answer, no matter what it costs
me: people must expect to be pained when they have been exiles as
long as I have, and suffered as much among as many peoples. Nevertheless,
as regards your question I will tell you all you ask. There is a fair
and fruitful island in mid-ocean called Crete; it is thickly peopled
and there are nine cities in it: the people speak many different languages
which overlap one another, for there are Achaeans, brave Eteocretans,
Dorians of three-fold race, and noble Pelasgi. There is a great town
there, Cnossus, where Minos reigned who every nine years had a conference
with Jove himself. Minos was father to Deucalion, whose son I am,
for Deucalion had two sons Idomeneus and myself. Idomeneus sailed
for Troy, and I, who am the younger, am called Aethon; my brother,
however, was at once the older and the more valiant of the two; hence
it was in Crete that I saw Ulysses and showed him hospitality, for
the winds took him there as he was on his way to Troy, carrying him
out of his course from cape Malea and leaving him in Amnisus off the
cave of Ilithuia, where the harbours are difficult to enter and he
could hardly find shelter from the winds that were then xaging. As
soon as he got there he went into the town and asked for Idomeneus,
claiming to be his old and valued friend, but Idomeneus had already
set sail for Troy some ten or twelve days earlier, so I took him to
my own house and showed him every kind of hospitality, for I had abundance
of everything. Moreover, I fed the men who were with him with barley
meal from the public store, and got subscriptions of wine and oxen
for them to sacrifice to their heart's content. They stayed with me
twelve days, for there was a gale blowing from the North so strong
that one could hardly keep one's feet on land. I suppose some unfriendly
god had raised it for them, but on the thirteenth day the wind dropped,
and they got away."

Many a plausible tale did Ulysses further tell her, and Penelope wept
as she listened, for her heart was melted. As the snow wastes upon
the mountain tops when the winds from South East and West have breathed
upon it and thawed it till the rivers run bank full with water, even
so did her cheeks overflow with tears for the husband who was all
the time sitting by her side. Ulysses felt for her and was for her,
but he kept his eyes as hard as or iron without letting them so much
as quiver, so cunningly did he restrain his tears. Then, when she
had relieved herself by weeping, she turned to him again and said:
"Now, stranger, I shall put you to the test and see whether or no
you really did entertain my husband and his men, as you say you did.
Tell me, then, how he was dressed, what kind of a man he was to look
at, and so also with his companions."

"Madam," answered Ulysses, "it is such a long time ago that I can
hardly say. Twenty years are come and gone since he left my home,
and went elsewhither; but I will tell you as well as I can recollect.
Ulysses wore a mantle of purple wool, double lined, and it was fastened
by a gold brooch with two catches for the pin. On the face of this
there was a device that showed a dog holding a spotted fawn between
his fore paws, and watching it as it lay panting upon the ground.
Every one marvelled at the way in which these things had been done
in gold, the dog looking at the fawn, and strangling it, while the
fawn was struggling convulsively to escape. As for the shirt that
he wore next his skin, it was so soft that it fitted him like the
skin of an onion, and glistened in the sunlight to the admiration
of all the women who beheld it. Furthermore I say, and lay my saying
to your heart, that I do not know whether Ulysses wore these clothes
when he left home, or whether one of his companions had given them
to him while he was on his voyage; or possibly some one at whose house
he was staying made him a present of them, for he was a man of many
friends and had few equals among the Achaeans. I myself gave him a
sword of bronze and a beautiful purple mantle, double lined, with
a shirt that went down to his feet, and I sent him on board his ship
with every mark of honour. He had a servant with him, a little older
than himself, and I can tell you what he was like; his shoulders were
hunched, he was dark, and he had thick curly hair. His name was Eurybates,
and Ulysses treated him with greater familiarity than he did any of
the others, as being the most like-minded with himself."

Penelope was moved still more deeply as she heard the indisputable
proofs that Ulysses laid before her; and when she had again found
relief in tears she said to him, "Stranger, I was already disposed
to pity you, but henceforth you shall be honoured and made welcome
in my house. It was I who gave Ulysses the clothes you speak of. I
took them out of the store room and folded them up myself, and I gave
him also the gold brooch to wear as an ornament. Alas! I shall never
welcome him home again. It was by an ill fate that he ever set out
for that detested city whose very name I cannot bring myself even
to mention."

Then Ulysses answered, "Madam, wife of Ulysses, do not disfigure yourself
further by grieving thus bitterly for your loss, though I can hardly
blame you for doing so. A woman who has loved her husband and borne
him children, would naturally be grieved at losing him, even though
he were a worse man than Ulysses, who they say was like a god. Still,
cease your tears and listen to what I can tell I will hide nothing
from you, and can say with perfect truth that I have lately heard
of Ulysses as being alive and on his way home; he is among the Thesprotians,
and is bringing back much valuable treasure that he has begged from
one and another of them; but his ship and all his crew were lost as
they were leaving the Thrinacian island, for Jove and the sun-god
were angry with him because his men had slaughtered the sun-god's
cattle, and they were all drowned to a man. But Ulysses stuck to the
keel of the ship and was drifted on to the land of the Phaecians,
who are near of kin to the immortals, and who treated him as though
he had been a god, giving him many presents, and wishing to escort
him home safe and sound. In fact Ulysses would have been here long
ago, had he not thought better to go from land to land gathering wealth;
for there is no man living who is so wily as he is; there is no one
can compare with him. Pheidon king of the Thesprotians told me all
this, and he swore to me- making drink-offerings in his house as he
did so- that the ship was by the water side and the crew found who
would take Ulysses to his own country. He sent me off first, for there
happened to be a Thesprotian ship sailing for the wheat-growing island
of Dulichium, but he showed me all treasure Ulysses had got together,
and he had enough lying in the house of king Pheidon to keep his family
for ten generations; but the king said Ulysses had gone to Dodona
that he might learn Jove's mind from the high oak tree, and know whether
after so long an absence he should return to Ithaca openly or in secret.
So you may know he is safe and will be here shortly; he is close at
hand and cannot remain away from home much longer; nevertheless I
will confirm my words with an oath, and call Jove who is the first
and mightiest of all gods to witness, as also that hearth of Ulysses
to which I have now come, that all I have spoken shall surely come
to pass. Ulysses will return in this self same year; with the end
of this moon and the beginning of the next he will be here."

"May it be even so," answered Penelope; "if your words come true you
shall have such gifts and such good will from me that all who see
you shall congratulate you; but I know very well how it will be. Ulysses
will not return, neither will you get your escort hence, for so surely
as that Ulysses ever was, there are now no longer any such masters
in the house as he was, to receive honourable strangers or to further
them on their way home. And now, you maids, wash his feet for him,
and make him a bed on a couch with rugs and blankets, that he may
be warm and quiet till morning. Then, at day break wash him and anoint
him again, that he may sit in the cloister and take his meals with
Telemachus. It shall be the worse for any one of these hateful people
who is uncivil to him; like it or not, he shall have no more to do
in this house. For how, sir, shall you be able to learn whether or
no I am superior to others of my sex both in goodness of heart and
understanding, if I let you dine in my cloisters squalid and ill clad?
Men live but for a little season; if they are hard, and deal hardly,
people wish them ill so long as they are alive, and speak contemptuously
of them when they are dead, but he that is righteous and deals righteously,
the people tell of his praise among all lands, and many shall call
him blessed."

Ulysses answered, "Madam, I have foresworn rugs and blankets from
the day that I left the snowy ranges of Crete to go on shipboard.
I will lie as I have lain on many a sleepless night hitherto. Night
after night have I passed in any rough sleeping place, and waited
for morning. Nor, again, do I like having my feet washed; I shall
not let any of the young hussies about your house touch my feet; but,
if you have any old and respectable woman who has gone through as
much trouble as I have, I will allow her to wash them."

To this Penelope said, "My dear sir, of all the guests who ever yet
came to my house there never was one who spoke in all things with
such admirable propriety as you do. There happens to be in the house
a most respectable old woman- the same who received my poor dear husband
in her arms the night he was born, and nursed him in infancy. She
is very feeble now, but she shall wash your feet." "Come here," said
she, "Euryclea, and wash your master's age-mate; I suppose Ulysses'
hands and feet are very much the same now as his are, for trouble
ages all of us dreadfully fast."

On these words the old woman covered her face with her hands; she
began to weep and made lamentation saying, "My dear child, I cannot
think whatever I am to do with you. I am certain no one was ever more
god-fearing than yourself, and yet Jove hates you. No one in the whole
world ever burned him more thigh bones, nor gave him finer hecatombs
when you prayed you might come to a green old age yourself and see
your son grow up to take after you; yet see how he has prevented you
alone from ever getting back to your own home. I have no doubt the
women in some foreign palace which Ulysses has got to are gibing at
him as all these sluts here have been gibing you. I do not wonder
at your not choosing to let them wash you after the manner in which
they have insulted you; I will wash your feet myself gladly enough,
as Penelope has said that I am to do so; I will wash them both for
Penelope's sake and for your own, for you have raised the most lively
feelings of compassion in my mind; and let me say this moreover, which
pray attend to; we have had all kinds of strangers in distress come
here before now, but I make bold to say that no one ever yet came
who was so like Ulysses in figure, voice, and feet as you are."

"Those who have seen us both," answered Ulysses, "have always said
we were wonderfully like each other, and now you have noticed it too.

Then the old woman took the cauldron in which she was going to wash
his feet, and poured plenty of cold water into it, adding hot till
the bath was warm enough. Ulysses sat by the fire, but ere long he
turned away from the light, for it occurred to him that when the old
woman had hold of his leg she would recognize a certain scar which
it bore, whereon the whole truth would come out. And indeed as soon
as she began washing her master, she at once knew the scar as one
that had been given him by a wild boar when he was hunting on Mount
Parnassus with his excellent grandfather Autolycus- who was the most
accomplished thief and perjurer in the whole world- and with the sons
of Autolycus. Mercury himself had endowed him with this gift, for
he used to burn the thigh bones of goats and kids to him, so he took
pleasure in his companionship. It happened once that Autolycus had
gone to Ithaca and had found the child of his daughter just born.
As soon as he had done supper Euryclea set the infant upon his knees
and said, you must find a name for your grandson; you greatly wished
that you might have one."

'Son-in-law and daughter," replied Autolycus, "call the child thus:
I am highly displeased with a large number of people in one place
and another, both men and women; so name the child 'Ulysses,' or the
child of anger. When he grows up and comes to visit his mother's family
on Mount Parnassus, where my possessions lie, I will make him a present
and will send him on his way rejoicing."

Ulysses, therefore, went to Parnassus to get the presents from Autolycus,
who with his sons shook hands with him and gave him welcome. His grandmother
Amphithea threw her arms about him, and kissed his head, and both
his beautiful eyes, while Autolycus desired his sons to get dinner
ready, and they did as he told them. They brought in a five year old
bull, flayed it, made it ready and divided it into joints; these they
then cut carefully up into smaller pieces and spitted them; they roasted
them sufficiently and served the portions round. Thus through the
livelong day to the going down of the sun they feasted, and every
man had his full share so that all were satisfied; but when the sun
set and it came on dark, they went to bed and enjoyed the boon of
sleep.

When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, the sons
of Autolycus went out with their hounds hunting, and Ulysses went
too. They climbed the wooded slopes of Parnassus and soon reached
its breezy upland valleys; but as the sun was beginning to beat upon
the fields, fresh-risen from the slow still currents of Oceanus, they
came to a mountain dell. The dogs were in front searching for the
tracks of the beast they were chasing, and after them came the sons
of Autolycus, among whom was Ulysses, close behind the dogs, and he
had a long spear in his hand. Here was the lair of a huge boar among
some thick brushwood, so dense that the wind and rain could not get
through it, nor could the sun's rays pierce it, and the ground underneath
lay thick with fallen leaves. The boar heard the noise of the men's
feet, and the hounds baying on every side as the huntsmen came up
to him, so rushed from his lair, raised the bristles on his neck,
and stood at bay with fire flashing from his eyes. Ulysses was the
first to raise his spear and try to drive it into the brute, but the
boar was too quick for him, and charged him sideways, ripping him
above the knee with a gash that tore deep though it did not reach
the bone. As for the boar, Ulysses hit him on the right shoulder,
and the point of the spear went right through him, so that he fell
groaning in the dust until the life went out of him. The sons of Autolycus
busied themselves with the carcass of the boar, and bound Ulysses'
wound; then, after saying a spell to stop the bleeding, they went
home as fast as they could. But when Autolycus and his sons had thoroughly
healed Ulysses, they made him some splendid presents, and sent him
back to Ithaca with much mutual good will. When he got back, his father
and mother were rejoiced to see him, and asked him all about it, and
how he had hurt himself to get the scar; so he told them how the boar
had ripped him when he was out hunting with Autolycus and his sons
on Mount Parnassus.

As soon as Euryclea had got the scarred limb in her hands and had
well hold of it, she recognized it and dropped the foot at once. The
leg fell into the bath, which rang out and was overturned, so that
all the water was spilt on the ground; Euryclea's eyes between her
joy and her grief filled with tears, and she could not speak, but
she caught Ulysses by the beard and said, "My dear child, I am sure
you must be Ulysses himself, only I did not know you till I had actually
touched and handled you."

As she spoke she looked towards Penelope, as though wanting to tell
her that her dear husband was in the house, but Penelope was unable
to look in that direction and observe what was going on, for Minerva
had diverted her attention; so Ulysses caught Euryclea by the throat
with his right hand and with his left drew her close to him, and said,
"Nurse, do you wish to be the ruin of me, you who nursed me at your
own breast, now that after twenty years of wandering I am at last
come to my own home again? Since it has been borne in upon you by
heaven to recognize me, hold your tongue, and do not say a word about
it any one else in the house, for if you do I tell you- and it shall
surely be- that if heaven grants me to take the lives of these suitors,
I will not spare you, though you are my own nurse, when I am killing
the other women."

"My child," answered Euryclea, "what are you talking about? You know
very well that nothing can either bend or break me. I will hold my
tongue like a stone or a piece of iron; furthermore let me say, and
lay my saying to your heart, when heaven has delivered the suitors
into your hand, I will give you a list of the women in the house who
have been ill-behaved, and of those who are guiltless."

And Ulysses answered, "Nurse, you ought not to speak in that way;
I am well able to form my own opinion about one and all of them; hold
your tongue and leave everything to heaven."

As he said this Euryclea left the cloister to fetch some more water,
for the first had been all spilt; and when she had washed him and
anointed him with oil, Ulysses drew his seat nearer to the fire to
warm himself, and hid the scar under his rags. Then Penelope began
talking to him and said:

"Stranger, I should like to speak with you briefly about another matter.
It is indeed nearly bed time- for those, at least, who can sleep in
spite of sorrow. As for myself, heaven has given me a life of such
unmeasurable woe, that even by day when I am attending to my duties
and looking after the servants, I am still weeping and lamenting during
the whole time; then, when night comes, and we all of us go to bed,
I lie awake thinking, and my heart comes a prey to the most incessant
and cruel tortures. As the dun nightingale, daughter of Pandareus,
sings in the early spring from her seat in shadiest covert hid, and
with many a plaintive trill pours out the tale how by mishap she killed
her own child Itylus, son of king Zethus, even so does my mind toss
and turn in its uncertainty whether I ought to stay with my son here,
and safeguard my substance, my bondsmen, and the greatness of my house,
out of regard to public opinion and the memory of my late husband,
or whether it is not now time for me to go with the best of these
suitors who are wooing me and making me such magnificent presents.
As long as my son was still young, and unable to understand, he would
not hear of my leaving my husband's house, but now that he is full
grown he begs and prays me to do so, being incensed at the way in
which the suitors are eating up his property. Listen, then, to a dream
that I have had and interpret it for me if you can. I have twenty
geese about the house that eat mash out of a trough, and of which
I am exceedingly fond. I dreamed that a great eagle came swooping
down from a mountain, and dug his curved beak into the neck of each
of them till he had killed them all. Presently he soared off into
the sky, and left them lying dead about the yard; whereon I wept in
my room till all my maids gathered round me, so piteously was I grieving
because the eagle had killed my geese. Then he came back again, and
perching on a projecting rafter spoke to me with human voice, and
told me to leave off crying. 'Be of good courage,' he said, 'daughter
of Icarius; this is no dream, but a vision of good omen that shall
surely come to pass. The geese are the suitors, and I am no longer
an eagle, but your own husband, who am come back to you, and who will
bring these suitors to a disgraceful end.' On this I woke, and when
I looked out I saw my geese at the trough eating their mash as usual."

"This dream, Madam," replied Ulysses, "can admit but of one interpretation,
for had not Ulysses himself told you how it shall be fulfilled? The
death of the suitors is portended, and not one single one of them
will escape."

And Penelope answered, "Stranger, dreams are very curious and unaccountable
things, and they do not by any means invariably come true. There are
two gates through which these unsubstantial fancies proceed; the one
is of horn, and the other ivory. Those that come through the gate
of ivory are fatuous, but those from the gate of horn mean something
to those that see them. I do not think, however, that my own dream
came through the gate of horn, though I and my son should be most
thankful if it proves to have done so. Furthermore I say- and lay
my saying to your heart- the coming dawn will usher in the ill-omened
day that is to sever me from the house of Ulysses, for I am about
to hold a tournament of axes. My husband used to set up twelve axes
in the court, one in front of the other, like the stays upon which
a ship is built; he would then go back from them and shoot an arrow
through the whole twelve. I shall make the suitors try to do the same
thing, and whichever of them can string the bow most easily, and send
his arrow through all the twelve axes, him will I follow, and quit
this house of my lawful husband, so goodly and so abounding in wealth.
But even so, I doubt not that I shall remember it in my dreams."

Then Ulysses answered, "Madam wife of Ulysses, you need not defer
your tournament, for Ulysses will return ere ever they can string
the bow, handle it how they will, and send their arrows through the
iron."

To this Penelope said, "As long, sir, as you will sit here and talk
to me, I can have no desire to go to bed. Still, people cannot do
permanently without sleep, and heaven has appointed us dwellers on
earth a time for all things. I will therefore go upstairs and recline
upon that couch which I have never ceased to flood with my tears from
the day Ulysses set out for the city with a hateful name."

She then went upstairs to her own room, not alone, but attended by
her maidens, and when there, she lamented her dear husband till Minerva
shed sweet sleep over her eyelids.

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