BOOK XX.
ARGUMENT.
But divine Ulysses slept in the vestibule; he strewed upon the ground an undressed bull's hide, but above it many skins of sheep, which the Grecians had sacrificed. And Eurynome threw a cloak over him when he lay down. There Ulysses meditating evil in his mind against the suitors, lay awake; and the women, who were before mingled with the suitors, went out of the palace, furnishing laughter and merriment to each other. And his mind was excited in his breast; and much he meditated in his soul and in his mind, whether, rushing upon them, he should cause death to each of them, or should still suffer them to be mingled with the overbearing suitors for the last and latest time: and his heart was greatly disturbed[1] within him. And as a bitch going about her tender whelps, growls at a man when she knows [him] not, and is eager to fight with him; so his heart growled within him, marvelling at their evil deeds. And smiting his breast, he chided his heart in words:
"Endure it now, my heart; thou once didst endure something else even more severe, in that day when the Cyclops, intolerable in might, eat thy stout companions, but thou didst endure it, until stratagem took thee out of the cave, when thou thoughtest that thou wouldst die."
Thus he spoke, rebuking the dear heart in his breast: and his heart remained at rest,[2] unceasingly enduring it; but he turned himself on one side and the other. As when a man, while a large fire is blazing, turns a paunch full of fat and
- ↑ Literally, "barked." Cf. Stat. Sylv. ii. 1, 12. "stat pectore demens Luctus, et admoto latrant præcordia tactu."
- ↑ This is somewhat a free translation of ἐν πείσῃ κραδίῃ μένε, which properly means, "remained at anchor," πείση signifying "a cable." Cf. Hesych. πείσῃ, πείσματι καί χώρα aid. Alberti on T. i. p. 1255, v. ἐν πείσῃ, where this interpretation is fully confirmed.
