For sleep, when once it weighs the eyelids down, Makes men unmindful both of good and ill, And all things else.
But me some deity Visits with fearful dreams. There lay by me, This very night, one like him, as he was When with his armed men he sailed for Troy; And I was glad, for certainly I deemed It was a real presence, and no dream.”
She spake. Just then, upon her car of gold, Appeared the Morn. The great Ulysses heard That voice of lamentation; anxiously He mused; it seemed to him as if the queen Stood over him and knew him. Gathering up In haste the cloak and skins on which he slept, He laid them in the palace on a seat, But bore the bull’s hide forth in open air, And lifted up his hands and prayed to Jove:—
“O Father Jove, and all the gods! if ye
Have led me graciously, o’er land and deep,
Across the earth, and, after suffering much,
To mine own isle, let one of those who watch
Within the palace speak some ominous word,
And grant a sign from thee without these walls.”
So prayed he. All-providing Jupiter Hearkened, and thundered from the clouds around The bright Olympian peaks. Ulysses heard With gladness. From a room within the house, In which the mills of the king’s household stood, A woman, laboring at the quern, gave forth An omen also. There were twelve who toiled In making flour of barley and of wheat— The strength of man. The rest were all asleep; Their tasks were done; one