Then spake in turn the sage Penelope: “Whenever thou desirest it thy couch Shall be made ready, since the gods vouchsafe To bring thee back into thy pleasant home And to thy native land. But now that thou Hast spoken of it, and some deity Is prompting thee, declare what this new task May be. Hereafter I shall hear of it, No doubt, nor were it worse to know it now.”
Ulysses, the sagacious, answered thus: “Dear wife, why wilt thou ask? why press me thus? Yet will I tell thee truly, nor will keep Aught from thee, though thou wilt not gladly hear, Nor I relate. Tiresias bade me pass Through city after city, till I found A people who know not the sea, nor eat Their food with salt, who never yet beheld The red-prowed galley, nor the shapely oars, Which are the wings of ships. And this plain sign He gave, nor will I keep it back from thee, That when another traveller whom I meet Shall say it is a winnowing-fan I bear On my stout shoulder, there he bade me plant The oar upright in earth, and offer up To monarch Neptune there a ram, a bull, And sturdy boar, and then, returning home, Burn hallowed hecatombs to all the gods Who dwell in the broad heaven, each one in turn. At last will death come over me, afar From ocean, such a death as peacefully Shall take me off in a serene old age, Amid a people prosperous and content. All this, the prophet said, will come to pass.”
And then the sage Penelope rejoined: “If thus the immortals make thy later age The happier, there is hope that thou wilt find Escape from evil in the years to come.”
So talked they with each other. Meantime went Eurynomè, attended by the nurse, And in the light of blazing torches dressed With soft fresh drapery a bed; and when Their busy hands had made it full and high,