But go thou home, and tend thy labors there,--
The web, the distaff,--and command thy maids
To speed the work. The cares of war pertain
To all men born in Troy, and most to me."
Thus speaking, mighty Hector took again
His helmet, shadowed with the horsehair plume,
While homeward his beloved consort went,
Oft looking back, and shedding many tears.
Soon was she in the spacious palace-halls
Of the man-queller Hector. There she found
A troop of maidens,--with them all she shared
Her grief; and all in his own house bewailed
The living Hector, whom they thought no more
To see returning from the battle-field,
Safe from the rage and weapons of the Greeks.
_Bryant's Translation, Book VI._





THE ODYSSEY.

"The surge and thunder of the Odyssey."


The Odyssey relates the adventures of Ulysses on his return to Ithaca
after the Trojan war.

It consists of twenty-four books, the first four of which are sometimes