seat? Tell me also of Penelope, my wedded wife, whether she abides
steadfast and guards my goods, or whether she is gone to cheer some
other man's heart."

[Footnote 1: Sudden death was ascribed to Artemis or Apollo.]

"Steadfast indeed she is," replied Anticleia, "and wondrous patient of
heart; all her thoughts are ever of thee. No one has yet usurped thy
place in Ithaca, but Telemachus still reaps thy fields and sits down
to meat with the noblest in the land. As to thy father, he comes no
more to the town, but dwells continually on his farm. He lives not
delicately, as princes use, but is clad in sorry raiment, and sleeps
in the winter among the ashes of the hearth with his thralls, and in
summer on a bed of dry leaves in his vineyard. There he lies forsaken,
heavy with years and sorrows, mourning for thee. And in such wise also
death came upon me, neither by wasting sickness nor by the gentle
shafts of Artemis, but my sore longing for thee, Odysseus, and for thy
sweet counsels, at last broke my heart."

A flood of tenderness overpowered Odysseus at these sad words, and he
sprang forward with arms outstretched to clasp his mother to his
breast. Thrice he essayed to embrace her, and thrice his arms closed
on emptiness,[1] while that ghostly presence still flitted before him
like a shadow or a dream. "O my mother," cried Odysseus in deep
distress, "why dost thou mock me thus? Come to my heart, dear mother;
let me hold thee in mine arms once more, and mingle my tears with
thine. Or art thou but the shadow of a shade, a phantom sent by
Persephone to deceive me?"

[Footnote 1: Compare "Stories from the Æneid," p. 24.]