have come to our coast with news of Ulysses being alive could gain credit
with the queen or her son yet. These travellers, to get raiment or a meal,
will not stick to invent any lie. Truth is not the commodity they deal in.
Never did the queen get anything of them but lies. She receives all that
come graciously, hears their stories, inquires all she can, but all ends
in tears and dissatisfaction. But in God's name, old father, if you have
got a tale, make the most on't, it may gain you a cloak or a coat from
somebody to keep you warm; but for him who is the subject of it, dogs and
vultures long since have torn him limb from limb, or some great fish at
sea has devoured him, or he lieth with no better monument upon his bones
than the sea-sand. But for me past all the race of men were tears created;
for I never shall find so kind a royal master more; not if my father or my
mother could come again and visit me from the tomb, would my eyes be so
blessed, as they should be with the sight of him again, coming as from the
dead. In his last rest my soul shall love him. He is not here, nor do I
name him as a flatterer, but because I am thankful for his love and care
which he had to me a poor man; and if I knew surely that he were past all
shores that the sun shines upon, I would invoke him as a deified thing."

For this saying of Eumaeus the waters stood in Ulysses's eyes, and he
said, "My friend, to say and to affirm positively that he cannot be alive
is to give too much license to incredulity. For, not to speak at random,
but with as much solemnity as an oath comes to, I say to you that Ulysses
shall return; and whenever that day shall be, then shall you give to me a
cloak and a coat; but till then, I will not receive so much as a thread of
a garment, but rather go naked; for no less than the gates of hell do I
hate that man whom poverty can force to tell an untruth. Be Jove then
witness to my words, that this very year, nay, ere this month be fully
ended, your eyes shall behold Ulysses, dealing vengeance in his own palace
upon the wrongers of his wife and his son."