unseemly distance in me. If Menelaus's wife had used half my caution, she
would never have taken so freely to a stranger's bed; and she might have
spared us all these plagues which have come upon us through her shameless
deed."

These words with which Penelope excused herself wrought more affection in
Ulysses than if upon a first sight she had given up herself implicitly to
his embraces; and he wept for joy to possess a wife so discreet, so
answering to his own staid mind, that had a depth of wit proportioned to
his own, and one that held chaste virtue at so high a price; and he
thought the possession of such a one cheaply purchased with the loss of
all Circe's delights and Calypso's immortality of joys; and his long
labours and his severe sufferings past seemed as nothing, now they were
crowned with the enjoyment of his virtuous and true wife Penelope. And as
sad men at sea whose ship has gone to pieces nigh shore, swimming for
their lives, all drenched in foam and brine, crawl up to some poor patch
of land, which they take possession of with as great a joy as if they had
the world given them in fee, with such delight did this chaste wife cling
to her lord restored, till the dark night fast coming on reminded her of
that more intimate and happy union when in her long-widowed bed she should
once again clasp a living Ulysses.

So from that time the land had rest from the suitors. And the happy
Ithacans with songs and solemn sacrifices of praise to the gods celebrated
the return of Ulysses; for he that had been so long absent was returned to
wreak the evil upon the heads of the doers; in the place where they had
done the evil, there wreaked he his vengeance upon them.