Nevertheless, the men went safely across the lawn with the wild beasts frisking about them, and doing no manner of harm; although, as they mounted the steps of the palace, you might possibly have heard a low growl, particularly from the wolves, as if they thought it a pity, after all, to let the strangers pass without so much as tasting what they were made of.

Eurylochus and his followers now passed under a lofty portal, and looked through the open doorway into the interior of the palace.  The first thing that they saw was a spacious hall, and a fountain in the middle of it, gushing up towards the ceiling out of a marble basin, and falling back into it with a continual plash.  The water of this fountain, as it spouted upward, was constantly taking new shapes, not very distinctly, but plainly enough for a nimble fancy to recognize what they were.  Now it was the shape of a man in a long robe, the fleecy whiteness of which was made out of the fountain’s spray; now it was a lion, or a tiger, or a wolf, or an ass, or, as often as anything else, a hog, wallowing in the marble basin as if it were his sty.  It was either magic or some very curious machinery that caused the gushing waterspout to assume all these forms.  But, before the strangers had time to look closely at this wonderful sight, their attention was drawn off by a very sweet and agreeable sound.  A woman’s voice was singing melodiously in another room of the palace, and with her voice was mingled the noise of a loom, at which she was probably seated, weaving a rich texture of cloth, and intertwining the high and low sweetness of her voice into a rich tissue of harmony.

By and by the song came to an end; and then, all at once, there were several feminine voices, talking airily and cheerfully, with now and then a merry burst of laughter, such as you may always hear when three or four young women sit at work together.

“What a sweet song that was!” exclaimed one of the voyagers.

“Too sweet, indeed,” answered Eurylochus, shaking his head.  “Yet it was not so sweet as the song of the Sirens, those birdlike damsels who wanted to tempt us on the rocks, so that our vessel might be wrecked, and our bones left whitening along the shore.”

“But just listen to the pleasant voices of those maidens, and that buzz of the loom, as the shuttle passes to and fro,” said another comrade.  “What a domestic, household, homelike sound it is!  Ah, before that weary siege of Troy, I used to hear the buzzing loom and the women’s voices under my own roof.  Shall I never hear them again? nor taste those nice little savory dishes which my dearest wife knew how to serve up?”

“Tush! we shall fare better here,” said another.  “But how innocently those women are babbling together, without guessing that we overhear them!  And mark that richest voice of all, so pleasant and familiar, but which yet seems to have the authority of a mistress among them.  Let us show ourselves at once.  What harm can the lady of the palace and her maidens do to mariners and warriors like us?”