To know thee truly through all thy changes
is only given to those whom thou art pleased to grace. To all men thou
takest all likenesses. All men in their wits think that they know thee,
and that they have thee. Thou art wisdom itself. But a semblance of thee,
which is false wisdom, often is taken for thee, so thy counterfeit view
appears to many, but thy true presence to few: those are they which,
loving thee above all, are inspired with light from thee to know thee. But
this I surely know, that all the time the sons of Greece waged war against
Troy, I was sundry times graced with thy appearance; but since, I have
never been able to set eyes upon thee till now; but have wandered at my
own discretion, to myself a blind guide, erring up and down the world,
wanting thee."
Then Minerva cleared his eyes, and he knew the ground on which he stood to
be Ithaca, and that cave to be the same which the people of Ithaca had in
former times made sacred to the sea-nymphs, and where he himself had done
sacrifices to them a thousand times; and full in his view stood Mount
Nerytus with all his woods: so that now he knew for a certainty that he
was arrived in his own country, and with the delight which he felt he
could not forbear stooping down and kissing the soil.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Change from a King to a Beggar.--Eumaeus and the Herdsmen.--
Telemachus.
Not long did Minerva suffer him to indulge vain transports; but briefly
recounting to him the events which had taken place in Ithaca during his
absence, she showed him that his way to his wife and throne did not lie so
open, but that before he were reinstated in the secure possession of them
he must encounter many difficulties.
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