hands; and having conducted them into the chamber, she went away again: they then gladly came to the rites of their ancient bed.[1] But Telemachus and the herdsman and swineherd stopped their feet from dancing, and made the women stop: and they slept in the shady palace. But when they twain were satiated with agreeable love, they were delighted telling to one another with words, she indeed, divine one of women, what things she had endured in the palace, beholding the destructive company of suitors; who on her account slew many [cattle], oxen and fat sheep, and [by whom] much wine was drawn from the casks. But Jove-sprung Ulysses, [relating] what cares he had brought upon men, and what he himself suffering had toiled through, told all; she then was delighted hearing it, nor did sleep fall upon her eyelids, before he had related all. And he began, how first he subdued the Ciconians, but then came to the fruitful land of the men Lotophagi; and how many deeds the Cyclops did, and how he avenged the destruction of his doughty companions, whom he eat,[2] nor did he pity them: and how he came to Æolus, who kindly received him and sent him away; nor yet was it fated for him to reach his paternal land; but the tempest snatching him away again, bore him mourning heavily over the fishy sea; and how he came to Læstrigonia to Telephilus, who[3] destroyed his ships, and his well-greaved companions [all; but Ulysses alone escaped in a black ship]:[4] and he related the deceit and the various contrivance of Circe; and how he came into the spacious dwelling of Pluto, in a many-benched ship, to consult the soul of Theban Tiresias, and saw all his companions, and his mother, who brought him forth and nourished him, being little: and how he heard the voice of the assembled Sirens; and how he came to the wandering rocks, and to terrible Charybdis and Scylla, which men have never escaped unharmed: and how his companions slew the beeves of the Sun, and how high-thundering Jove struck the swift ship with smouldering thunder; and all his excellent companions perished together, but he himself escaped from the evil Fates: and how
- ↑ According to Eustathius, the grammarians, Aristarchus and Aristophanes, terminated the Odyssey at this line, considering the subsequent portion as spurious. But see Clarke.
- ↑ The Cyclops.
- ↑ οἱ, scilicet, οἱ Λαιστρύγονες.
- ↑ A doubtful verse.
