Eurymachus Flatters Penelope

34So talked the twain awhile; then interposed
Eurymachus, and thus bespoke the queen: —

35“Sage daughter of Icarius! if all those
Who in Iasian Argos have their homes
Should once behold you, a still larger crowd
Of suitors would tomorrow come and feast
Within your halls, so much do you excel
In mind and form and face all womankind.”

36To this the sage Penelope replied:
“Eurymachus, the immortals took away
Such grace of form and face as once was mine,
What time the sons of Argos sailed for Troy,
And with them went Odysseus, my espoused.
Should he return, and take again in charge
My household, greater would my glory be,
And prized more highly. I am wretched now,
Such woes the gods have heaped upon my head.
He, when he left his native island, grasped
My right hand at the wrist, and said to me:
‘Think not, dear wife, that all the well-armed Greeks
Will come back safe from Troy. The Trojan men,
They say, are brave in war, expert to cast
The spear and wing the arrow, skilled to rein
The rapid steeds by which the bloody strife
Of battlefields is hurried to its close;
And therefore whether God will bring me back,
Or I shall fall in Troy, I cannot know.
Take charge of all things here. I leave with you
My father and my mother in these halls.
Be kind to them as now, nay, more than now,
Since I shall not be here. When you shall see
My son a bearded man, take to yourself
A husband, whom you will, and leave your house.’
Such were his words, and they have been fulfilled.
The night will come in which I must endure
This hateful marriage, wretched that I am,
To whom the will of Zeus forbids
All consolation, and this bitter thought
Weighs evermore upon my heart and soul.
The custom was not thus in other times;
When suitors wooed a noble wife, the child
Of some rich house, contending for her smile,
They came with beeves and fatling sheep to feast
The damsel’s friends, and gave munificent gifts,
But wasted not the wealth that was not theirs.”