He ceased; the queen was moved to deeper grief, For she remembered all the tokens well Of which he spake; and when that passionate gust Of weeping ceased, she spake again and said:—
“Stranger, till now thy presence in these halls Has only moved my pity; thou henceforth Art dear and honored. It was I who gave The garments thou hast told me of; these hands Folded them in my chamber. I put on The glittering clasp to be his ornament, And now I never shall behold him more Returning to his own dear land and home; So cruel was the fate that took him hence To Ilium, in his roomy ship, a town Of evil omen never to be named.”
Ulysses, the sagacious, answered thus: “O gracious consort of Laertes’ son! Let not thy grief for him whom thou hast lost Wither thy beauty longer, and consume Thy heart. And yet I blame thee not at all; For any wife in losing him to whom She gave herself while yet a maid, and bore Children, will mourn him, though he be in worth Below Ulysses, who, as fame declares, Is like the gods. But cease to grieve, and hear What I shall say, and I shall speak the truth, Nor will I hide from thee that I have heard, But lately from Ulysses, yet alive, And journeying homeward, in the opulent realm Of the Thesprotians, whence he brings with him Much and rare treasure, gathered there among The people. His beloved friends he lost, And his good ship; the black deep swallowed them In coming from Trinacria, for his crew Had slaughtered there the oxen of the Sun. The Sun and Jove were angry; therefore all His comrades perished in the billowy sea; But him upon his galley’s keel the wind Drove to the coast where the Phaeacians dwell, The kinsmen of the gods. They welcomed him, And honored him as if he were a god, And gave him many things, and would have sent The hero safely to his native isle; And here Ulysses would have been long since, But that he deemed it wise to travel far, And gather wealth—for well Ulysses knew, Beyond all other men, the arts of gain, And none in these could think to rival him; So Pheidon, king of the Thesprotians said, Who also, in his palace, swore to