see which might grieve his heart, with what foul usage and contumelious
language soever the suitors should receive his father, coming in that
shape, though they should strike and drag him by the heels along the
floors, that he should not stir nor make offer to oppose them, further
than by mild words to expostulate with them, until Minerva from heaven
should give the sign which should be the prelude to their destruction.
And Telemachus, promising to obey his instructions, departed; and the
shape of Ulysses fell to what it had been before, and he became to all
outward appearance a beggar, in base and beggarly attire.




CHAPTER NINE

The Queen's Suitors.--The Battle of the Beggars.--The Armour Taken Down.--
The Meeting with Penelope.


From the house of Eumaeus the seeming beggar took his way, leaning on his
staff, till he reached the palace, entering in at the hall where the
suitors sat at meat. They in the pride of their feasting began to break
their jests in mirthful manner, when they saw one looking so poor and so
aged approach. He, who expected no better entertainment, was nothing moved
at their behaviour, but, as became the character which he had assumed, in
a suppliant posture crept by turns to every suitor, and held out his hands
for some charity, with such a natural and beggar-resembling grace that he
might seem to have practised begging all his life; yet there was a sort of
dignity in his most abject stoopings, that whoever had seen him would have
said, If it had pleased Heaven that this poor man had been born a king, he