“O aged man, no wanderer who should bring News of Ulysses e’er would win his wife And son to heed the tale. For roving men, In need of hospitality, are prone To falsehood, and will never speak the truth. The vagabond who comes to Ithaca Goes straightway to my mistress with his lies. Kindly she welcomes him, and cherishes And questions him, while tears abundantly Fall from her lids—such tears as women shed Whose lords have perished in a distant land. Thou too, old man, perchance, couldst readily Frame a like fable, if someone would give A change of raiment for thy news—a cloak And tunic. But the dogs and fowls of air Have doubtless fed upon the frame from which The life has passed, and torn from off his bones The skin, or fishes of the deep have preyed Upon it, and his bones upon the shore Lie whelmed in sand. So is he lost to us, And sorrow is the lot of all his friends, Mine most of all; for nowhere shall I find So kind a master, though I were to come Into my father’s and my mother’s house, Where I was born and reared. Nor do I pine So much to look on them with my own eyes, And in my place of birth, as I lament Ulysses lost. Though he be far away, Yet must I ever speak, O stranger guest, His name with reverence, for exceedingly He loved me and most kindly cared for me; And though he is to be with us no more, I hold him as an elder brother still.”
Ulysses, the great sufferer, thus replied: > “Since then, my friend, thou dost not say nor think That he will come again, nor wilt believe My words, I now repeat, but with an oath, Ulysses will return. Let this reward Be given for my good news: the very hour When he once more is in his house, bestow On me a comely