BOOK XIV.
ARGUMENT.
But 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,[1] 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,[2] and he topped it with sloe; and outside he drove stakes all round here and there, close and frequent, having cleft the dark part.[3] And within the abode he made twelve styes, near one another, beds for the swine; and in each were kept[4] fifty ground-wallowing swine, females for breeding;[5] but the males slept without, much fewer; for them the godlike[6] 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,[7] 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.
- ↑ i. e. detached.
- ↑ Literally, "drawn." Cf. vi. 267.
- ↑ περισχίσας, περίκοψας, Hesych. s. v.
- ↑ Cf. Thiersch, Gk. Gr. p. 503, 58.
- ↑ "brood females," like "brood mares," would be a more literal rendering of τοκάδες.
- ↑ So Homer styles Paris θεοειδής. Eustath.
- ↑ Merely a complimentary phrase, as Clarke rightly observes
