show
of wonder, to hear any one ask the name of that land; as country
people are apt to esteem those for mainly ignorant and barbarous who
do not know the names of places which are familiar to _them_, though
perhaps they who ask have had no opportunities of knowing, and may
have come from far countries.

"I had thought," said he, "that all people knew our land. It is rocky
and barren, to be sure; but well enough: it feeds a goat or an ox
well; it is not wanting neither in wine or in wheat; it has good
springs of water, some fair rivers; and wood enough, as you may see:
it is called Ithaca."

Ulysses was joyed enough to find himself in his own country; but so
prudently he carried his joy, that dissembling his true name and
quality, he pretended to the shepherd that he was only some foreigner
who by stress of weather had put into that port; and framed on the
sudden a story to make it plausible, how he had come from Crete in
a ship of Phaeacia; when the young shepherd laughing, and taking
Ulysses's hand in both his, said to him: "He must be cunning, I find,
who thinks to over-reach you. What, cannot you quit your wiles and
your subtleties, now that you are in a state of security? must the
first word with which you salute your native earth be an untruth? and
think you that you are unknown?"

Ulysses looked again; and he saw, not a shepherd, but a beautiful
woman, whom he immediately knew to be the goddess Minerva, that in the
wars of Troy had frequently vouchsafed her sight to him; and had been
with him since in perils, saving him unseen.

"Let not my ignorance offend thee, great Minerva," he cried, "or move
thy displeasure, that in that shape I knew thee not; since the skill
of discerning of deities is not attainable by wit or study, but hard
to be hit by the wisest of mortals. To know thee truly through all thy
changes is only given to those whom thou art pleased to grace. To all
men thou takest all likenesses. All men in their wits think that they
know thee, and that they have thee. Thou art wisdom itself. But a
semblance of thee, which is false wisdom, often is taken for thee: so
thy counterfeit view appears to many, but thy true presence to few:
those are they which, loving thee above all, are inspired with light
from thee to know thee. But this I surely know, that all the time the
sons of Greece waged war against Troy, I was sundry times graced with
thy appearance; but since, I have never been able to set eyes up