d throw it
headlong from some steep rock into the sea, that poor men, taking
example by me, may fear to lie." But Eumaeus made answer that that
should be small satisfaction or pleasure to him.

So while they sat discoursing in this manner, supper was served in,
and the servants of the herdsman, who had been out all day in the
fields, came in to supper, and took their seats at the fire, for the
night was bitter and frosty. After supper, Ulysses, who had well
eaten and drunken, and was refreshed with the herdsman's good cheer,
was resolved to try whether his host's hospitality would extend
to the lending him a good warm mantle or rug to cover him in the
night-season; and framing an artful tale for the purpose, in a merry
mood, filling a cup of Greek wine, he thus began:

"I will tell you a story of your king Ulysses and myself. If there is
ever a time when a man may have leave to tell his own stories, it is
when he has drunken a little too much. Strong liquor driveth the fool,
and moves even the heart of the wise, moves and impels him to sing
and to dance, and break forth in pleasant laughters, and perchance to
prefer a speech too which were better kept in. When the heart is open,
the tongue will be stirring. But you shall hear. We led our powers to
ambush once under the walls of Troy."

The herdsmen crowded about him eager to hear any thing which related
to their king Ulysses and the wars of Troy, and thus he went on:

"I remember, Ulysses and Menelaus had the direction of that
enterprise, and they were pleased to join me with them in the command.
I was at that time in some repute among men, though fortune has played
me a trick since, as you may perceive. But I was somebody in those
times, and could do something. Be that as it may, a bitter freezing
night it was, such a night as this, the air cut like steel, and the
sleet gathered on our shields like crystal. There was some twenty
of us, that lay close couched down among the reeds and bull-rushes
that grew in the moat that goes round the city. The rest of us made
tolerable shift, for every man had been careful to bring with him a
good cloak or mantle to wrap over his armour and keep himself warm;
but I, as it chanced, had left my cloak behind me, as not expecting
that the night would prove so cool, or rather I believe because I had
at that time a brave suit of new armour on, which, being a soldier,
and having some of the soldier's vice about me, _vanity_, I was not