nor
contemptuous of you, nor too much dazed with wonder. I very well remember
what you were when you went upon your long-oared ship away from Ithaca.
However, Eurycleia, make up his massive bed outside that stately chamber
which he himself once built. Move the massive frame out there, and throw
the bedding on,--the fleeces, robes, and bright-hued rugs."

She said this in the hope to prove her husband, but Ulysses spoke in anger
to his faithful wife: "Woman, these are bitter words which you have said!
Who set my bed elsewhere? A hard task that would be for one, however
skilled,--unless a god should come and by his will set it with ease upon
some other spot; but among men no living being, even in his prime, could
lightly shift it; for a great token is inwrought into its curious frame. I
built it; no one else. There grew a thick-leaved olive shrub inside the
yard, full-grown and vigorous, in girth much like a pillar. Round this I
formed my chamber, and I worked till it was done, building it out of
close-set stones, and roofing it over well. Framed and tight-fitting doors
I added to it. Then I lopped the thick-leaved olive's crest, cutting the
stem high up above the roots, neatly and skillfully smoothed with my axe
the sides, and to the line I kept all true to shape my post, and with an
auger I bored it all along. Starting with this, I fashioned me the bed
till it was finished, and I inlaid it well with gold, with silver, and
with ivory. On it I stretched a thong of ox-hide, gay with purple. This is
the token I now tell. I do not know whether the bed still stands there,
wife, or whether somebody has set it elsewhere, cutting the olive trunk."

As he spoke thus, her knees grew feeble and her very soul, when she
recognized the tokens which Ulysses exactly told. Then bursting into
tears, she ran straight toward him, threw her arms round Ulysses' neck and
kissed his face, and said,--

"Ulysses, do not scorn me! Ever before, you were the wisest of mankind.
The Gods have sent us sorrow, and grudged our staying side by side to
share the joys of youth and reach the threshold of old age. But do not be
angry with me now, nor take it ill that then when I first saw you I did
not greet you thus; for the heart within my breast was always trembling. I
feared some man might come and cheat me with his tale. Many a man makes
wicked schemes for gain. Nay, Argive Helen, the daughter of Zeus, would
not have given herself to love a stranger if