Page 173 - the-odyssey

each other.’
‘And I answered, ‘Circe, how can you expect me to be
friendly with you when you have just been turning all my
men into pigs? And now that you have got me here my-
self, you mean me mischief when you ask me to go to bed
with you, and will unman me and make me fit for nothing.
I shall certainly not consent to go to bed with you unless
you will first take your solemn oath to plot no further harm
against me.’
‘So she swore at once as I had told her, and when she had
completed her oath then I went to bed with her.
‘Meanwhile her four servants, who are her housemaids,
set about their work. They are the children of the groves and
fountains, and of the holy waters that run down into the sea.
One of them spread a fair purple cloth over a seat, and laid a
carpet underneath it. Another brought tables of silver up to
the seats, and set them with baskets of gold. A third mixed
some sweet wine with water in a silver bowl and put golden
cups upon the tables, while the fourth brought in water and
set it to boil in a large cauldron over a good fire which she
had lighted. When the water in the cauldron was boiling,
{87} she poured cold into it till it was just as I liked it, and
then she set me in a bath and began washing me from the
cauldron about the head and shoulders, to take the tire and
stiffness out of my limbs. As soon as she had done washing
me and anointing me with oil, she arrayed me in a good
cloak and shirt and led me to a richly decorated seat in-
laid with silver; there was a footstool also under my feet. A
maid servant then brought me water in a beautiful golden

1 The Odyssey