happen to thee indeed. Those household fowl, which thou lamentest so
without reason, are the suitors who devour thy substance, even as thou
sawest the fowl eat from thy hand; and the hawk is thy husband, who is
coming to give death to the suitors.' And I awoke, and went to see to my
fowls if they were alive, whom I found eating wheat from their troughs,
all well and safe as before my dream."

Then said Ulysses, "This dream can endure no other interpretation than
that which the hawk gave to it, who is your lord, and who is coming
quickly to effect all that his words told you."

"Your words," she said, "my old guest, are so sweet that would you sit and
please me with your speech, my ears would never let my eyes close their
spheres for very joy of your discourse; but none that is merely mortal can
live without the death of sleep, so the gods who are without death
themselves have ordained it, to keep the memory of our mortality in our
minds, while we experience that as much as we live we die every day; in
which consideration I will ascend my bed, which I have nightly watered
with my tears since he that was the joy of it departed for that bad city"
--she so speaking because she could not bring her lips to name the name of
Troy so much hated. So for that night they parted, Penelope to her bed and
Ulysses to his son, and to the armour and the lances in the hall, where
they sat up all night cleaning and watching by the armour.




CHAPTER TEN

The Madness from Above.--The Bow of Ulysses.--The Slaughter.--The