that the women
gathered round me to comfort me. But the eagle descended again, and
alighted on a jutting beam of the roof, and thus spake unto me with a
human voice: 'Take comfort, daughter of Icarius; no dream is this, but
a waking vision, which shall surely be fulfilled. The geese are the
wooers, and I the eagle am thy husband, who will shortly come and give
them to their doom.' Even as he said this I awoke, and going to the
window I saw the geese by the door, cropping the grain from the
trough, as is their wont."

"Lady," answered Odysseus, "there is but one interpretation of thy
dream, and thy husband declared it with his own voice. Death looms
near at hand for the wooers, and not one of them shall escape."

But Penelope shook her head. "It is ill trusting in dreams," she said,
"and hard to discern the false from the true. There are two gates from
which flitting dreams are sent to men: one is of horn, and the other
of ivory: and the dreams which pass through the ivory gate are sent to
beguile, while those which come from the gate of horn are a true
message to him who sees them. And my dream, I believe, was sent me
from the gate of ivory. Yea, the day is approaching, the hateful day,
which shall part me for ever from the house of Odysseus; and this
shall be the manner of the trial whereby I will prove which of the
wooers is to win me: I will set up twelve axes, like the trestles on
which the keel of a ship is laid, in the hall, and he who can send an
arrow through the line of double axeheads from the further end of the
hall shall win me for his bride. This device I learnt from Odysseus,
who was wont thus to prove his skill in archery. Then farewell my
home, the house of my lord, the home of my love, so fair, so full of
plenty, which will haunt me in my dreams even unto life's end."

"Tis well-imagined, this trial of the wooers," answered Odysseus, "and
I counsel thee to put them to the proof without delay; for I am sure
that Odysseus will return here again before ever one of these men
shall string his bow and shoot an arrow through the line of axes."

"Well, my friend," said Penelope, "I will now bid thee good-night,
though gladly would I sit here till to-morrow's dawn, and let thee
discourse to enchant mine ear. But there is a time for all things, and
I would not rob thee of thy needful rest. Therefore I will go and lay
my head on my uneasy pillow, and the women shall lay a bed for thee
here, or where thou choo