The careless women heed the creature’s wants; For, when the master is no longer near, The servants cease from their appointed tasks, And on the day that one becomes a slave The Thunderer, Jove, takes half his worth
He spake, and, entering that fair dwelling-place, Passed through to where the illustrious suitors sat, While over Argus the black night of death Came suddenly as soon as he had seen Ulysses, absent now for twenty years.
Telemachus, the godlike, was the first To mark the swineherd coming through the hall, And, nodding, called to him. The swineherd looked About him, and beheld a seat on which The carver of the feast was wont to sit, Distributing the meats. He bore it thence And placed it opposite Telemachus, And at his table. Then he sat him down, And thither came the herald, bringing him A portion of the feast, and gave him bread From the full canister.
Soon after him Ulysses entered, seemingly an old And wretched beggar, propped upon a staff, And wrapped in sordid weeds. He sat him down On the ashen threshold, just within the doors, And leaned against a shaft of cypress-wood, Which some artificer had skilfully Wrought by a line, and smoothed.
Telemachus Called to the swineherd, bade him come, and took A loaf that lay in the fair canister, And all the flesh which his two hands could grasp.
“Bear this to yonder stranger; bid him go And ask a dole from every suitor here. No beggar should be bashful in his need.”
He spake, the hind obeyed, and, drawing near Ulysses, said to him in winged words:—