He spake, and her knees faltered and her heart Was melted as she heard her lord recount The tokens all so truly; and she wept, And rose, and ran to him, and flung her arms About his neck, and kissed his brow, and said:—
“Ulysses, look not on me angrily, Thou who in other things art wise above All other men. The gods have made our lot A hard one, jealous lest we should have passed Our youth together happily, and thus Have reached old age. I pray, be not incensed, Nor take it ill that I embraced thee not As soon as I beheld thee, for my heart Has ever trembled lest someone who comes Into this isle should cozen me with words; And they who practise fraud are numberless.
The Argive Helen, child of Jupiter, Would ne’er have listened to a stranger’s suit And loved him, had she known that in the years To come the warlike Greeks would bring her back To her own land. It was a deity Who prompted her to that foul wrong. Her thought Was never of the great calamity Which followed, and which brought such woe on us.
But now, since thou, by tokens clear and true, Hast spoken of our bed, which human eye Has never seen save mine and thine, and those Of one handmaiden only, Actoris— Her whom my father gave me when I came To this thy palace, and who kept the door Of our close chamber—thou hast won my mind To full belief, though hard it was to win.”
She spake, and he was moved to tears; he wept As in his arms he held his dearly loved And faithful wife. As welcome as the land To those who swim the deep, of whose stout barque Neptune has made a wreck amidst the waves, Tossed by the billow and the blast, and few Are those who from the hoary ocean reach The shore, their limbs all crested with the brine, These gladly climb the sea-beach, and are safe— So welcome was her husband to her eyes.