Homeric Ballads and Comedies of Lucian Author:Homer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: I. '15 at I] of FROM THK ODYSSEY.— Book XIX. 386-507. Odysseus, in the disguise of a ragged beggar-man, has an interview with his wife, who does not rec... more »ognise him. He tells her, as usual, a false story, "tyevisa irod Xeywv crfyiolffiH ioTa" in which he represents himself as an acquaintance of her ab- sent lord. She asks a description of his person, which he gives with much minuteness, and thereby convinces her of the truth of his assertion. She instantly extends the kindest hospitality to him, and orders Euryclea, his old nurse, to bathe his feet. The nurse complies the more willingly, as she is struck by the likeness of the poor stranger to Odysseus. Vol, IV.—2 £lje Batli of A CALDRON bright the old woman bore, 38G To wash the stranger's feet; Of water cold she poured in store— Then, to temper the bath, she filled it o'er With a stream of boiling heat. By the fire Odysseus took his place ; But he quickly turned him round In the darksome shadow to hide his face, For he thought that his nurse's hand would trace The scar of an ancient wound. And he feared that she might with outcry rash 390 His presence there betray ; And scarcely had she begun to wash, Ere she was aware of the grisly gash Above his knee that lay. It was a wound from a wild boar's tooth, All on Parnassus' slope, Where he went to hunt in the days of his youth With his mother's sire, with whom, in sooth, 395 In craft could no man cope. By Hermes' grace, with oaths and lies His fraudful game he played; And the god, for the blazing sacrifice Of kids' and lambkins' savory thighs, Lent him his ready aid. From Parnassus erst on a journey gone, To Ithaca's isle he came ; There he found that his daughter had borne a son, 400 Whom they .placed his gr...« less