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 by the fraud deceived The Grecian youths; but when the hours had brought The fourth year round, a woman who knew all Revealed the mystery, and we ourselves Saw her unravelling the ample web.
Thenceforth, constrained, and with unwilling hands, She finished it.
Now let the suitors make Their answer to thy words, that thou mayst know Our purpose fully, and the Achaians all May know it likewise. Send thy mother hence, Requiring that she wed the suitor whom Her father chooses and herself prefers. But if she still go on to treat the sons Of Greece with such despite, too confident In gifts which Pallas has bestowed on her So richly, noble arts, and faculties Of mind, and crafty