She spake; the aged handmaid hid her face With both her hands, and, shedding bitter tears, Thus sorrowfully to the queen replied:—
“My heart is sad for thee, my son; and yet I can do nothing. Can it be that Jove Hates thee beyond all other? though thyself So reverent to the gods?
No man on earth Has burned so many thighs of fatling beasts And chosen hecatombs as thou to Jove The Thunderer, with prayer that thou mayst reach A calm old age, and rear thy glorious son To manhood; yet the god hath cut thee off From thy return forever.
Even now Perchance the women of some princely house Which he has entered in some distant land Scoff at him as these wretched creatures scoff At thee, O stranger, who, to shun their taunts And insults, wilt not suffer them to wash Thy feet.
The sage Penelope commands, And I am not unwilling. I will wash Thy feet, both for her sake and for thy own; For deeply am I moved at sight of thee. Hear what I say: of strangers in distress Come many hither, yet have I beheld No one who bears, in shape and voice and feet, Such likeness to our absent lord as thou.”
Ulysses, the sagacious, thus replied:
“O aged woman, so has it been said By all who have beheld both him and me. They all declare that we are very like Each other; thou in this hast spoken well.”