But this proposal found no favour with the honest swineherd.  “Who put such a thought,” he asked, “into thy mind?  Serve with the wooers!  They would put a speedy end to thy service, and pay thee thy wages in blood.  Those who wait upon them are of a different sort from thee—­gay striplings, daintily clad, with glossy hair and comely faces.  Remain with us until Telemachus comes home; thou art no burden either to me or to my men.”

“Be it so, then,” answered Odysseus, “and may Heaven requite thee for thy goodness to a poor homeless outcast, who wanders in misery, driven by hunger from door to door!  And since I am still to be thy guest, tell me something of thy master’s mother, and of the father whom he left behind when he went to the wars.  Do they still live, or have they gone to their rest?”

“This also thou shalt know,” replied Eumaeus.  “Laertes his father still lives, though sore stricken with years and sorrows; for his son’s long absence and his wife’s miserable end have brought him to the verge of the grave.  She died long ago, and by such a death as I pray may never come to anyone who is dear to me—­she, my kind mistress, who brought me up with her youngest daughter, and hardly loved me less.  As long as she lived I would often go down to the house, and she ever entertained me kindly, and gave me something to carry back with me to my dwelling on the land.  Full well she knew how to sweeten the lot of a thrall with pleasant words, and little acts of tenderness and love.  But now I seldom leave my charge, for since the wooers brought this curse upon my master’s house Penelope hides her face from us, and has no comfort for us either in word or deed.”

Odysseus listened with deep interest, and when Eumaeus paused he expressed a desire to hear the story of his life.  “How was it,” he asked, “that already in early childhood thou wast cast on the mercy of strangers?  Wast thou taken captive in war, or did robbers seize thee as thou satst watching sheep on the lonely hills, and sell thee into bondage?”

“Fill thy cup,” answered Eumaeus, “we will pledge each other in a hearty draught, and then thou shalt hear my tale.  The nights are long at this season, and we shall have time enough to sleep when I have done.  Fate has dealt hardly with me, even as with thee; and we can find some comfort in telling over our sorrows to each other.

“There is a certain island called Syria, lying north of Ortygia, not very large or populous, but a good land, rich in pasture, with waving cornfields and goodly vineyards.  There famine never comes, nor sickness, but all the people reach a good old age, and then die by the painless shafts of Artemis or of Apollo.  There are two cities which divide the territory equally between them; and there was one king over both, my father, Ctesius, son of Ormenus.