Page 342 - the-odyssey

stranger that is lately come here? Is he one of your men?
What is his family? Where does he come from? Poor fel-
low, he looks as if he had been some great man, but the gods
give sorrow to whom they will—even to kings if it so pleases
them.’
As he spoke he went up to Ulysses and saluted him with
his right hand; ‘Good day to you, father stranger,’ said he,
‘you seem to be very poorly off now, but I hope you will have
better times by and by. Father Jove, of all gods you are the
most malicious. We are your own children, yet you show
us no mercy in all our misery and afflictions. A sweat came
over me when I saw this man, and my eyes filled with tears,
for he reminds me of Ulysses, who I fear is going about in
just such rags as this man’s are, if indeed he is still among
the living. If he is already dead and in the house of Hades,
then, alas! for my good master, who made me his stockman
when I was quite young among the Cephallenians, and now
his cattle are countless; no one could have done better with
them than I have, for they have bred like ears of corn; nev-
ertheless I have to keep bringing them in for others to eat,
who take no heed to his son though he is in the house, and
fear not the wrath of heaven, but are already eager to divide
Ulysses’ property among them because he has been away so
long. I have often thought—only it would not be right while
his son is living—of going off with the cattle to some foreign
country; bad as this would be, it is still harder to stay here
and be ill-treated about other people’s herds. My position is
intolerable, and I should long since have run away and put
myself under the protection of some other chief, only that

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