The Last Banquet of the Suitors
Disorderly conduct of the serving-women—Prayer of Ulysses for a favorable omen—Its fulfillment—Preparations for a feast of the suitors in the palace—The feast—Ulysses insulted by Ctesippus, who is reproved by Telemachus—Strange prodigies observed by Theoclymenus, who leaves the hall.
The noble chief, Ulysses, in the porch Lay down to rest. An undressed bullock’s hide Was under him, and over that the skins Of sheep, which for the daily sacrifice The Achaians slew. Eurynomè had spread A cloak above him. There he lay awake, And meditated how he yet should smite The suitors down. Meantime, with cries of mirth And laughter, came the women forth to seek The suitors’ arms. Ulysses, inly moved With anger, pondered whether he should rise And put them all to death, or give their shame A respite for another night, the last. His heart raged in his bosom. As a hound Growls, walking round her whelps, when she beholds A stranger, and is eager for the attack, So growled his heart within him, and so fierce Was his impatience with that shameless crew. He smote his breast, and thus he chid his heart:—
“Endure it, heart! thou didst bear worse than this. When the grim Cyclops of resistless strength Devoured thy brave companions, thou couldst still Endure, till thou by stratagem didst leave The cave in which it seemed that thou must die.”
Thus he rebuked his heart, and, growing calm, His heart submitted; but the hero tossed From side to side. As when one turns and turns The stomach of a bullock filled with fat And blood before a fiercely blazing fire And wishes it were done, so did the chief Shift oft from side to side,