And now the king commands his son to call

Old Euryclea to the deathful hall:

The son observant not a moment stays;

The aged governess with speed obeys;

The sounding portals instant they display;

The matron moves, the prince directs the way.

On heaps of death the stern Ulysses stood,

All black with dust, and cover’d thick with blood.

So the grim lion from the slaughter comes,

Dreadful he glares, and terribly he foams,

His breast with marks of carnage painted o’er,

His jaws all dropping with the bull’s black gore.


Soon as her eyes the welcome object met,

The guilty fall’n, the mighty deed complete;

A scream of joy her feeble voice essay’d;

The hero check’d her, and composedly said.


“Woman, experienced as thou art, control

Indecent joy, and feast thy secret soul.

To insult the dead is cruel and unjust;

Fate and their crime have sunk them to the dust.

Nor heeded these the censure of mankind,

The good and bad were equal in their mind

Justly the price of worthlessness they paid,

And each now wails an unlamented shade.

But thou sincere! O Euryclea, say,

What maids dishonour us, and what obey?”


Then she: “In these thy kingly walls remain

(My son) full fifty of the handmaid train,

Taught by my care to cull the fleece or weave,

And servitude with pleasing tasks deceive;

Of these, twice six pursue their wicked way,

Nor me, nor chaste Penelope obey;

Nor fits it that Telemachus command

(Young as he is) his mother’s female band.

Hence to the upper chambers let me fly

Where slumbers soft now close the royal eye;

There wake her with the news”—the matron cried.

“Not so (Ulysses, more sedate, replied),

Bring first the crew who wrought these guilty deeds.”

In haste the matron parts: the king proceeds;

“Now to dispose the dead, the care remains

To you, my son, and you, my faithfull swains;

The offending females to that task we doom,

To wash, to scent, and purify the room;