"Strange ordinance of Zeus!" said Odysseus musingly, "which hath
turned the choicest blessing of man's life, the love of woman, into
the bitterest of curses for thee and for thy house. Yea, and upon all
the land of Hellas hath woe been brought by the deed of a
woman--Helen, thy brother's wife."

"Ay, trust them not," replied Agamemnon bitterly, "Never give thy
heart into a woman's keeping; she will rifle thy very soul's flower,
and then laugh thee to scorn. But why do I speak thus to thee? Thou
hast indeed a treasure in thy wife; no wiser head, no truer heart,
than hers. Happy art thou, and sweet the refuge which is prepared for
thee after all thy toils, Well I remember the day when we set sail
from Greece, and how fondly thou spakest of her, thy young bride, with
her babe at her breast. Now he will be a tall youth, and with what joy
will he look into the eyes of his father, whom he was then too young
to know!"

After that Odysseus was silent, his mind full of sweet and anxious
thoughts. Meanwhile other familiar forms had drawn near, the spirits
of warriors renowned, whose very names were as a battle-cry when they
dwelt on earth: Achilles, Patroclus, and Antilochus, and farther off,
looming dimly in the darkness, the gigantic shade of Ajax. Achilles
was the first to speak. "Son of Laertes," he said, "thou man of
daring, hast thou reached the limit of thy rashness, or wilt thou go
yet further? Are there no perils left for thee in the land of the
living that thou must invade the very realm of Hades, the sunless
haunts of the dead?"

"I came to inquire of Teiresias," answered Odysseus, "concerning my
return to Ithaca. All my life I am a bondslave to toil and woe; but