“Nay, mother,” answered Odysseus, “I am wandering still, still treading the path of woe, since the day when I followed Agamemnon to Troy.  But tell me now, and answer me truly, what was the manner of thy death?  Came it slowly, by long disease, or did Artemis lay thee low in a moment with a painless arrow from her bow?[1] And tell me of my father and my son whom I left in Ithaca; do they still hold my possessions, or hath some other thrust them with violence from my seat?  Tell me also of Penelope, my wedded wife, whether she abides steadfast and guards my goods, or whether she is gone to cheer some other man’s heart.”

[Footnote 1:  Sudden death was ascribed to Artemis or Apollo.]

“Steadfast indeed she is,” replied Anticleia, “and wondrous patient of heart; all her thoughts are ever of thee.  No one has yet usurped thy place in Ithaca, but Telemachus still reaps thy fields and sits down to meat with the noblest in the land.  As to thy father, he comes no more to the town, but dwells continually on his farm.  He lives not delicately, as princes use, but is clad in sorry raiment, and sleeps in the winter among the ashes of the hearth with his thralls, and in summer on a bed of dry leaves in his vineyard.  There he lies forsaken, heavy with years and sorrows, mourning for thee.  And in such wise also death came upon me, neither by wasting sickness nor by the gentle shafts of Artemis, but my sore longing for thee, Odysseus, and for thy sweet counsels, at last broke my heart.”

A flood of tenderness overpowered Odysseus at these sad words, and he sprang forward with arms outstretched to clasp his mother to his breast.  Thrice he essayed to embrace her, and thrice his arms closed on emptiness,[1] while that ghostly presence still flitted before him like a shadow or a dream.  “O my mother,” cried Odysseus in deep distress, “why dost thou mock me thus?  Come to my heart, dear mother; let me hold thee in mine arms once more, and mingle my tears with thine.  Or art thou but the shadow of a shade, a phantom sent by Persephone to deceive me?”

[Footnote 1:  Compare “Stories from the AEneid,” p. 24.]

“Persephone deceives thee not,” answered the ghost, “but this is the fashion of mortals when they die.  Flesh and bone and sinew are consumed by the might of fire, but the spirit takes flight and hovers ever like a winged dream.  But make haste and get thee back to the daylight, and keep all that thou hast seen in memory that thou mayest tell it to thy wife.”

When the spirit of Anticleia was gone, a shadowy throng pressed forward to the trench, all the ghosts of noble dames, wives and daughters of princes.  And Odysseus kept his place, sword in hand, suffering them only to drink one by one, that he might question them and learn their story.  There he saw Alcmene, the mother of Hercules, and Leda, to whose twin sons, Castor and Pollux, a strange destiny was allotted; for after their death they rose to life again on alternate days,