vengeance. I beseech you, O my friends, Both by Olympian Jove, and her by whom Councils of men are summoned and dissolved— The goddess Themis—that ye all refrain, And leave me to my grief alone, unless Ulysses, my great father, may have done Wrong in his anger to the gallant Greeks, Which ye, by prompting men to acts like these, Seek to avenge on me. Far better ’twere, Should ye yourselves destroy our goods and slay Our herds, since, were it so, there might in time Be some requital. We, from street to street, Would plead continually for recompense, Till all should be restored. But now ye heap Upon me wrongs for which is no redress.”
Thus angrily he spake, and clashed to earth The sceptre, shedding tears. The people felt Compassion; all were silent for a space, And there was none who dared with railing words Answer Telemachus, save one alone, Antinoüs, who arose and thus replied:—
“Telemachus, thou youth of braggart speech And boundless in abuse, what hast thou said To our dishonor? Thou wouldst fix on us A brand of shame. The blame is not with us, The Achaian suitors; ’tis thy mother’s fault, Skilled as she is in crafty shifts. ’Tis now Already the third year, and soon will be The fourth, since she began to cozen us. She gives us all to hope, and sends fair words To each by message, yet in her own mind Has other purposes. This shrewd device She planned; she laid upon the loom a web, Delicate, wide, and vast in length, and said Thus to us all: ‘Young princes, who are come To woo me, since Ulysses is no more— My noble husband—urge me not, I pray, To marriage, till I finish in the loom— That so my threads may not be spun in vain— A funeral vesture for the hero-chief Laertes, when his fatal hour shall come With death’s long sleep. Else some Achaian dame Might blame me, should I leave without a shroud Him who in life possessed such ample wealth!’ Such were her words, and easily they wrought Upon our generous minds. So went she on, Weaving that ample web, and every night Unravelled it by torchlight. Three full years She practised thus, and