CIRCE 'S PALACE . Some of you have heard , no doubt , of the wise King Ulysses , and how he went to the siege of Troy , and how , after that famous city was taken and burned , he spent ten long years in trying to get back again to his own little kingdom of Ithaca . At one time in the course of this weary voyage , he arrived at an island that looked very green and pleasant , but the name of which was unknown to him . For , only a little while before he came thither , he had met with a terrible hurricane , or rather a great many hurricanes at once , which drove his fleet of vessels into a strange part of the sea , where neither himself nor any of his mariners had ever sailed . This misfortune was entirely owing to the foolish curiosity of his shipmates , who , while Ulysses lay asleep , had untied some very bulky leathern bags , in which they supposed a valuable treasure to be concealed . But in each of these stout bags , King Aeolus , the ruler of the winds , had tied up a tempest , and had given it to Ulysses to keep in order that he might be sure of a favorable passage homeward to Ithaca ; and when the strings were loosened , forth rushed the whistling blasts , like air out of a blown bladder , whitening the sea with foam , and scattering the vessels nobody could tell whither . Immediately after escaping from this peril , a still greater one had befallen him . Scudding before the hurricane , he reached a place , which , as he afterwards found , was called Laestrygonia , where some monstrous giants had eaten up many of his companions , and had sunk every one of his vessels , except that in which he himself sailed , by flinging great masses of rock at them , from the cliffs along the shore . After going through such troubles as these , you can not wonder that King Ulysses was glad to moor his tempest-beaten bark in a quiet cove of the green island , which I began with telling you about . But he had encountered so many dangers from giants , and one-eyed Cyclops , and monsters of the sea and land , that he could not help dreading some mischief , even in this pleasant and seemingly solitary spot . For two days , therefore , the poor weather-worn voyagers kept quiet , and either staid on board of their vessel , or merely crept along under the cliffs that bordered the shore ; and to keep themselves alive , they dug shellfish out of the sand , and sought for any little rill of fresh water that might be running towards the sea . Before the two days were spent , they grew very weary of this kind of life ; for the followers of King Ulysses , as you will find it important to remember , were terrible gormandizers , and pretty sure to grumble if they missed their regulars meals , and their irregular ones besides . Their stock of provisions was quite exhausted , and even the shellfish began to get scarce , so that they had now to choose between starving to death or venturing into the interior of the island , where perhaps some huge three-headed dragon , or other horrible monster , had his den . Such misshapen creatures were very numerous in those days ; and nobody ever expected to make a voyage , or take a journey , without running more or less risk of being devoured by them . But King Ulysses was a bold man as well as a prudent one ; and on the third morning he determined to discover what sort of a place the island was , and whether it were possible to obtain a supply of food for the hungry mouths of his companions . So , taking a spear in his hand , he clambered to the summit of a cliff , and gazed round about him . At a distance , towards the center of the island , he beheld the stately towers of what seemed to be a palace , built of snow-white marble , and rising in the midst of a grove of lofty trees . The thick branches of these trees stretched across the front of the edifice , and more than half concealed it , although , from the portion which he saw , Ulysses judged it to be spacious and exceedingly beautiful , and probably the residence of some great nobleman or prince . A blue smoke went curling up from the chimney , and was almost the pleasantest part of the spectacle to Ulysses . For , from the abundance of this smoke , it was reasonable to conclude that there was a good fire in the kitchen , and that , at dinner-time , a plentiful banquet would be served up to the inhabitants of the palace , and to whatever guests might happen to drop in .
With so agreeable a prospect XXXXX him , Ulysses fancied that he could not do better than go straight to the palace gate , and tell the master of it that there was a crew of poor shipwrecked mariners , not far off , who had eaten nothing for a day or two , save a few clams and oysters , and would therefore be thankful for a little food .
For although before by in of than that to while