by her words to produce at once from their stores some costly offerings-embroidered robes, chains and brooches and necklaces of gold and electrum. The queen, after the practical fashion of the age, is not too disdainful to carry them off to her chamber; while Ulysses-as indeed seems more in accordance with his character-secretly rejoices to see his wife thus "spoiling the Egyptians." Some commentators have apologised for this seeming meanness on the part of Penelope by the explanation, that she does it to inspire them with false hopes of her choosing one of them now at last for her husband, and so lulling them into a false security in order to insure their easier destruction. But it is best to take the moral tone of these early poems honestly, as we find it, and not attempt to force it into too close agreement with our own. After some further acts of insult, still borne with a wrathful endurance by Ulysses, the company quit the hall, as usual, for the night. Then Penelope descends again from her chamber, and sitting by the hearth, bids a chair be set also for the wandering stranger : she will hear his tale. He represents himself to her as the brother of King Idomeneus of Crete, and as having once in his brother's absence entertained the great Ulysses in his halls. To Penelope's eager questions, by which she seeks to test his veracity, he answers by describing not so much the person of her husband as his distinctive dress. The queen recognises, in this description, the curiously-embroidered mantle which she had worked for him, and the golden 66 clasp, "linked with twin stars," which she had fastened with her own hands when he parted from her to go to Troy. She breaks into floods of tears at the recollection; while the disguised Ulysses sets his eyes hard, as though they were of horn or steel," and checks his rising tears. He comforts her with the assurance that he brings recent news of her hero of his shipwreck and visit to the Phæacians; that he is even now on his way to Ithaca, last heard of in the neighbouring island of Dulichium, within easy reach of home; nay, this very year, he would be content to pledge himself, Ulysses shall stand once more in his own halls. Incredulous, yet thankful for the comfort, the queen orders the wanderer to be taken to the bath, and entertained as an honoured guest. But he refuses all attendance save that of the aged Eurycleia. She marks with wonder his likeness to her absent master; but such resemblance, he assures her, has been noticed frequently by others. As she bathes his feet, her eyes fall on a well-remembered scar, left by a wound received from a boar's tusk in his youth while hunting on Mount Parnassus with his grandsire Autolycus.* * From this maternal ancestor Ulysses might have inherited a large share of the subtlety which distinguished him. Autolycus was the reputed son of Hermes (Mercury)—the god of thieves —and did not in that point disgrace his blood. He was said to have the power of so transforming all stolen property, that the owner could not possibly recognise it. Shakespeare borrows the name, and some of the qualities, for one of his characters in the 'Winter's Tale'—"Autolycus, a rogue," as he stands in the list of dramatis persona, who professes himself "not naturally honest, but sometimes so by chance." The old nurse doubts no longer. She lets the foot fall heavily, and upsets the bath. "Surely thou art Ulysses-yes, thou art— My darling child, and I not knew my king He puts his hand upon her throat, and forcibly checks her outcry; his purpose is not to be known openly as yet, for he feels there are few, even of his own household, whom he can trust. He charges her -even on pain of death, much as he loves her-to keep his secret; then, refusing all softer accommodation, he lies down in the vestibule on a couch of bullhide, not sleeping, but nursing his wrath in a fever of wakefulness. CHAPTER IX. THE DAY OF RETRIBUTION. THE morrow is a festival of Apollo. It is kept by the riotous crew in the halls of Ulysses with more than their usual revelry. The disguised hero himself, feeding at a small table apart by command of Telemachus, is still subject to their insults. But portents are not wanting of their impending doom. In the midst of the feast Minerva casts them into fits of ghastly laughter; the meat which they are eating drips with gore; and the seer Theoclymenus—a refugee under the protection of Telemachus-who has been of late their unwilling companion, sees each man's head enveloped in a misty darkness, and the whole court and vestibule thronged with ghostly shapes. He cries out in affright, and tells them what sight he sees; but they only answer him with mockery, and threaten to drive him forth as one who has lost his wits. After warning them of the fate which he foresees awaiting them, he quits the company. They turn upon Telemachus, and taunt him with his sorry choice of guests: first yon lazy disreputable vagabond, and now this prating would-be soothsayer. The young man makes no reply, but watches his father anxiously; and Ulysses still bides his time. The queen meanwhile has bethought her of a new device, to put off yet awhile the evil day in which she must at length make her choice amongst her importunate lovers. She unlocks an inner chamber where the treasures of the house are stored, and draws from its case Ulysses' bow, the gift of his dead friend Iphitus, which he had not taken with him to Troy.. Before she carries it down, she lays it fondly on her knees, and weeps as she thinks of its absent master. One cunning feat she remembers which her hero was wont to performto drive an arrow straight through the hollow rings of twelve axe-heads set up in a line. Whichsoever of her suitors can bend the strong bow, and send a shaft right through the whole row of twelve, like the lost Ulysses, that man she will follow, however reluctantly, as her future lord. She has more than a lingering hope, we may be sure, that one and all will fail in a trial so manifestly difficult. They would refuse the ordeal, but for Antinous. Confident in his own powers, he hopes to succeed — he knows the rest will fail. They, out of shame, accept the test. Telemachus himself fixes the weapons firmly in the earth in a true ̈ and even line, a task in itself of no small difficulty, but which he performs with such skill as to win the admiration of the whole party. He claims the right to make trial first himself, in the hope to prove himself his father's true son. Thrice he draws the bow-string, but not yet to its right extent. As he is making a fourth |