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. His palace, wanting its king, was
become the resort of insolent and imperious men, the chief nobility of
Ithaca and of the neighboring isles, who, in the confidence of Ulysses
being dead, came as suitors to Penelope. The queen (it was true) continued
single, but was little better than a state-prisoner in the power of these
men, who, under a pretence of waiting her decision, occupied the king's
house rather as owners than guests, lording and domineering at their
pleasure, profaning the palace and wasting the royal substance with their
feasts and mad riots. Moreover, the goddess told him how, fearing the