"
Then said Ulysses, "This dream can endure no other interpretation than
that which the hawk gave to it, who is your lord, and who is coming
quickly to effect all that his words told you."
"Your words," she said, "my old guest, are so sweet that would you sit and
please me with your speech, my ears would never let my eyes close their
spheres for very joy of your discourse; but none that is merely mortal can
live without the death of sleep, so the gods who are without death
themselves have ordained it, to keep the memory of our mortality in our
minds, while we experience that as much as we live we die every day; in
which consideration I will ascend my bed, which I have nightly watered
with my tears since he that was the joy of it departed for that bad city"
--she so speaking because she could not bring her lips to name the name of
Troy so much hated. So for that night they parted, Penelope to her bed and
Ulysses to his son, and to the armour and the lances in the hall, where
they sat up all night cleaning and watching by the armour.
CHAPTER TEN
The Madness from Above.--The Bow of Ulysses.--The Slaughter.--The
Conclusion.
When daylight appeared, a tumultuous concourse of the suitors again filled
the hall; and some wondered, and some inquired what meant that glittering
store of armour and lances which lay in heaps by the entry of the door;
and to all that asked Telemachus made reply that he had caused them to be
taken down to cleanse them of the rust and of the stain which they had
contracted by lying so long unused, even ever since his father went for
Troy; and with that answer their minds were easily satisfied.
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