“He spake; my slumbers left me, and I looked, And saw the geese that in the palace still Were at their trough, and feeding as before.”
And thus Ulysses, the sagacious, said:
“Lady, the dream that visited thy sleep Cannot be wrested to another sense. Ulysses has himself revealed to thee The way of its fulfillment. Death is near The suitors, and not one escapes his doom.”
Then spake the sage Penelope again: “Of dreams, O stranger, some are meaningless And idle, and can never be fulfilled. Two portals are there for their shadowy shapes, Of ivory one, and one of horn. The dreams That come through the carved ivory deceive With promises that never are made good; But those which pass the doors of polished horn, And are beheld of men, are ever true. And yet I cannot hope that my strange dream Came through them, though my son and I would both Rejoice if it were so. This let me say, And heed me