Page:The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (IA iliadodysseyofho02home).pdf/419

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Book XVII.
HOMER's ODYSSEY.
411

Haunting, my beeves and sheep and fatted goats
Slay for the banquet, and my casks exhaust
Extravagant, whence endless waste ensues;
For no such friend as was Ulysses once 645
Have I to expel the mischief. But might he
Revisit once his native shores again,
Then, aided by his son, he should avenge,
Incontinent, the wrongs which now I mourn.
Then sneezed Telemachus with sudden force, 650
That all the palace rang; his mother laugh'd,
And in wing'd accents thus the swain bespake.
Haste—bid him hither—hear'st thou not the sneeze
Propitious of my son? oh might it prove
A presage of inevitable death 655
To all these revellers! may none escape!
Now mark me well. Should the event his tale
Confirm, at my own hands he shall receive
Mantle and tunic both for his reward.
She spake; he went, and where Ulysses sat 660
Arriving, in wing'd accents thus began.
Penelope, my venerable friend!
Calls thee, the mother of Telemachus.
Oppress'd by num'rous troubles, she desires
To ask thee tidings of her absent Lord. 665
And should the event verify thy report,
Thy meed shall be (a boon which much thou need'st)
Tunic and mantle; but she gives no more;

Thy