room was high up in a tower[1] that looked on to the outer court; hither, then, he hied, brooding and full of thought. A good old woman, Euryclea, daughter of Ops, the son of Pisenor, went before him with a couple of blazing torches. Laertes had bought her with his own money when she was quite young; he gave the worth of twenty oxen for her, and shewed as much respect to her in his household as he did to his own wedded wife, but he did not take her to his bed for he feared his wife's resentment,[2] She it was who now lighted Telemachus to his room, and she loved him better than any of the other women in the house did, for she had nursed him when he was a baby. He opened the door of his bed room and sat down upon the bed; as he took off his shirt[3] he gave it to the good old woman, who folded it tidily up, and hung it for him over a peg by his bed side, after which she went out, pulled the door to by a silver catch, and drew the bolt home by means of the strap.[4] But Telemachus as he lay covered with a woollen fleece kept thinking all night through of his intended voyage and of the counsel that Minerva had given him.444
- ↑ See appendix; g, in plan of Ulysses' house.
- ↑ I imagine this passage to be a rejoinder to Il. XXIII. 702—705 in which a tripod is valued at twelve oxen, and a good useful maid of all work at only four. The scrupulous regard of Laertes for his wife's feelings is of a piece with the extreme jealousy for the honour of woman, which is manifest throughout the Odyssey.
- ↑ χιτῶνα. "The χιτών, or tunica, was a shirt or shift, and served as the chief under garment of the Greeks and Romans, whether men or women." Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, under "Tunica."
- ↑ Doors fastened to all intents and pruposes as here described may be seen in the older houses at Trapani. There is a slot on the outer side of the door by means of which a person who has left the room can shoot the bolt. My bedroom at the Albergo Centrale was fastened in this way.
