and of men who held in their hands lighted torches.  Outside the courtyard was a great garden filled with blossoming pear-trees and pomegranates, and apple-trees with shining fruit, and figs, and olives.  All the year round there was fruit in that garden.  There were grapes in blossom, and grapes purple and ready to eat, and there were great masses of snowy pear-blossom, and pink apple-blossom, and golden ripe pears, and rosy apples.

At all of those wonders Odysseus stood and gazed, but it was not for long; for he hastened through the halls to where the Queen sat in the firelight, spinning her purple yarn.  He fell at her knees, and silence came on all those in the room when they looked at him, so brave and so handsome did he seem.

“Through many and great troubles have I come hither, Queen,” said he; “speed, I pray you, my parting right quickly, that I may come to mine own country.  Too long have I suffered great sorrows far away from my own friends.”

Then he sat down amongst the ashes by the fire, and for a little space no one spoke.

At last a wise old courtier said to the King:  “Truly it is not right that this stranger should sit in the ashes by the fire.  Bid him arise, and give him meat and drink.”

At this the King took Odysseus by the hand and asked him to rise.  He made one of his sons give up his silver inlaid chair, and bade his servants fetch a silver basin and a golden ewer that Odysseus might wash his hands.  All kinds of dainties to eat and drink he also made them bring, and the lords and the courtiers who were there feasted along with Odysseus, until it was time for them to go to their own homes.

Before they went the King promised Odysseus a safe convoy back to his own land.

When he was left alone with the King and Queen, the latter said to him:  “Tell us who thou art.  I myself made the clothing that thou wearest.  From whence didst thou get it?”

Then Odysseus told her of his imprisonment in the island of Calypso, of his escape, of the terrible storm that shattered his raft, and of how at length he reached the shore and met with Nausicaa.

“It was wrong of my daughter not to bring thee to the palace when she came with her maids,” said the King.

But Odysseus told him why it was that Nausicaa had bade him stay behind.

“Be not vexed with this blameless maiden,” he said.  “Truly she is the sweetest and the fairest maiden I ever saw.”

Then Odysseus went to the bed that the servants had prepared for him.  They had spread fair purple blankets over it, and when it was ready they stood beside it with their torches blazing, golden and red.

“Up now, stranger, get thee to sleep,” said they.  “Thy bed is made.”

Sleep was very sweet to Odysseus that night as he lay in the soft bed with warm blankets over him.  He was no longer tossed and beaten by angry seas, no longer wet and cold and hungry.  The roar of furious waves did not beat in his ears, for all was still in the great halls where the flickering firelight played on the frieze of blue, and turned the brass walls into gold.