Page 241 - the-odyssey

bonds for me, and having drawn my rags over my head I slid
down the rudder into the sea, where I struck out and swam
till I was well clear of them, and came ashore near a thick
wood in which I lay concealed. They were very angry at my
having escaped and went searching about for me, till at last
they thought it was no further use and went back to their
ship. The gods, having hidden me thus easily, then took me
to a good man’s door—for it seems that I am not to die yet
awhile.’
To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, ‘Poor un-
happy stranger, I have found the story of your misfortunes
extremely interesting, but that part about Ulysses is not
right; and you will never get me to believe it. Why should
a man like you go about telling lies in this way? I know all
about the return of my master. The gods one and all of them
detest him, or they would have taken him before Troy, or
let him die with friends around him when the days of his
fighting were done; for then the Achaeans would have built
a mound over his ashes and his son would have been heir
to his renown, but now the storm winds have spirited him
away we know not whither.
‘As for me I live out of the way here with the pigs, and
never go to the town unless when Penelope sends for me
on the arrival of some news about Ulysses. Then they all sit
round and ask questions, both those who grieve over the
king’s absence, and those who rejoice at it because they can
eat up his property without paying for it. For my own part
I have never cared about asking anyone else since the time
when I was taken in by an Aetolian, who had killed a man

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