ride. Her
wild despair seems to be assuaged by the thought that her son died
gloriously. This heroic sentiment sustains her before the corpse of
Hector, and even in her lamentation she voices her calm courage.

IV

WOMEN OF THE ODYSSEY

Ten years have passed since the fall of Ilium, and the various heroes of
the Greeks have met with diverse fortunes. Agamemnon, king of men, has
returned to his fatherland, but merely to find treason and death at the
hands of AEgisthus, the new lord of Clytemnestra, his wife. Menelaus,
after long wanderings, especially in Egypt, has reestablished his
kingdom in Sparta, with Helen as his queen. Odysseus, King of Ithaca,
had the longest and most perilous voyage homeward, and, after meeting
with various misadventures, has been detained for nearly eight long
years, consuming his own heart, in the island paradise of Calypso,
Meanwhile, on his own island, Ithaca, things have begun to go amiss. The
island chiefs, men of the younger generation, begin to woo Penelope and
to harass her son, Telemachus. The wooers, after being rebuffed for
years by the fair queen, are becoming insolent, quartering themselves
upon her, and devouring her substance. At this time the action of the
Odyssey begins.

The determined time has now arrived when, by the counsels of the gods,
Odysseus is to be brought home to free his house, to avenge himself on
the wooers, and to recover his kingdom, Pallas Athena is the chief
agent in the restoration of Odysseus to his fatherland. She beseeches
Zeus that he may be delivered, and in accordance with this prayer Hermes
is sent to Calypso to bid her release Odysseus. Meanwhile, the goddess,
in human form, visits Telemachus in Ithaca, and urges the young prince
to withstand the suitors who are devastating his house, and to go in
search of his father. Touched by the words of the goddess, youth rapidly
gives way to manhood, and Telemachus determines to assert his rights and
to find his father.

After the departure of the goddess, the prince enters the court where
the suitors are gathered, listening to the singing of the renowned
minstrel Phemius; and his song was of the pitiful return of the Achaeans.
We now have our first vision of discreet Penelope. From her upper
chamber she hears the glorious strain, and she descends the high stairs
from her apartments, accompanied by two of her handmaids. "Now, when the
fair lady had come unto the wooers, she stood by the doorpost