Page 230 - the-odyssey

BOOK XIV

ULYSSES IN THE HUT

WITH EUMAEUS.

lysses now left the haven, and took the rough track up
Uthrough the wooded country and over the crest of the
mountain till he reached the place where Minerva had said
that he would find the swineherd, who was the most thrifty
servant he had. He found him sitting in front of his hut,
which was by the yards that he had built on a site which
could be seen from far. He had made them spacious {126}
and fair to see, with a free run for the pigs all round them; he
had built them during his master’s absence, of stones which
he had gathered out of the ground, without saying anything
to Penelope or Laertes, and he had fenced them on top with
thorn bushes. Outside the yard he had run a strong fence of
oaken posts, split, and set pretty close together, while in-
side he had built twelve styes near one another for the sows
to lie in. There were fifty pigs wallowing in each stye, all of
them breeding sows; but the boars slept outside and were
much fewer in number, for the suitors kept on eating them,
and the swineherd had to send them the best he had con-
tinually. There were three hundred and sixty boar pigs, and
the herdsman’s four hounds, which were as fierce as wolves,