No More Learning

"Go them for home, and troop up with the Wooers,
Thy will with theirs joined, power with their rude powers;
And after shall the herdsmen guide to town
My steps, my person wholly overgrown
With all appearance of a poor old swain,
Heavy and wretched. If their high disdain
Of my vile presence made them my desert
Affect with contumelies, let thy loved heart
Beat in fixed confines of thy bosom still,
And see me suffer, patient of their ill.
But when I give the sign, all th' arms that are
Aloft thy roof in some near room prepare--
Two swords, two darts, two shields, left for us twain.
But let none know Ulysses near again. "
But when air's rosy birth, the morn, arose,
Telemachus did for the turn dispose
His early steps; went on with spritely pace,
And to the Wooers studied little grace . . .
And now the king and herdsman from the field
Drew nigh the town; when in the yard there lay
A dog called Argus, which, before his way
Assumed for Ilion, Ulysses bred,
Yet stood his pleasure then in little stead,
As being too young, but, growing to his grace,
Young men made choice of him for every chase,
Or of their wild goats, of their hares, or harts;
But, his king gone, and he, now past his parts,
Lay all abjectly on the stable's store
Before the ox-stall, and mules' stable-door,
To keep the clothes cast from the peasants' hands
While they laid compass on Ulysses' lands,
The dog, with ticks (unlook'd to) overgrown.
But by this dog no sooner seen but known
Was wise Ulysses; who now enter'd there.
Up went his dog's laid ears, coming near,
Up he himself rose, fawned, and wagged his stern,
Couch'd close his ears, and lay so; nor discern
Could ever more his dear-loved lord again.
Ulysses saw it, nor had power t'abstain From
shedding tears; but (far-off seeing his swain)
His grief dissembled. . . . Then they entered in
And left poor Argus dead; his lord's first sight
Since that time twenty years bereft his sight.
Telemachus welcomed the wayworn suppliant; the feasting Wooers, too,
sent him portions of meat, save Antinous, who

Rapt up a stool, with which he smit
The king's right shoulder, 'twixt his neck and it.
He stood him like a rock. Antinous' dart
Stirred not Ulysses, who in his great heart
Deep ills projected.

The very Wooers were wroth. Which clamour Penelope hearing, she sent
for Eumaeus, and bade him summon the stranger to her; but he would
not come till evening, by reason of the suitors, from whom he had
discourteous treatment.

Now Ulysses coming to Penelope, did not discover himself, but told
her made-up tales of his doings; as, how he had seen Ulysses, and of
a robe he had worn which Penelope knew for one she had given him; so
that she gave credence to his words. Then she bade call the ancient
nurse Euryclea, that she might wash the stranger's feet. But by a scar
he came to be discovered by the aged dame. Her he charged with silence
and to let no ear in all the court more know his being there. As for
Penelope, she told him of her intent to promise herself to the man who
could wield Ulysses' bow, knowing well that none had the strength and
skill.


_IV. --Of the Doom of the Suitors_

On the morrow came Penelope to the Wooers, bearing the bow of her lord.

Her maids on both sides stood; and thus she spake:
"Hear me, ye Wooers, that a pleasure take
To do me sorrow, and my house invade
To eat and drink, as if 'twere only made
To serve your rapines, striving who shall frame
Me for his wife. And since 'tis made a game,
I here propose divine Ulysses' bow
For that great master-piece, to which ye row.
He that can draw it with least show to strive,
And through these twelve axe-heads an arrow drive,
Him will I follow, and this house forego. "
Whereat the herd Eumaeus wept for woe.