Odyssey

"Telemakhos, insolent braggart that you are, how dare you try to throw the blame upon us suitors? We are not the ones who are responsible [ aitioi ] but your mother is, for she knows many kinds of kerdos . This three years past, and close on four, she has been driving us out of our minds, by encouraging each one of us, and sending him messages that say one thing but her noos means other things. And then there was that other trick she played us. She set up a great tambour frame in her room, and began to work on an enormous piece of fine fabric. ‘Sweet hearts,’ said she, ‘Odysseus is indeed dead, still do not press me to marry again immediately, wait - for I would not have skill in weaving perish unrecorded - till I have completed a shroud for the hero Laertes , to be in readiness against the time when death shall take him. He is very rich, and the women of the dêmos will talk if he is laid out without a shroud.’

OdysseyBook 2, Line 85Samuel ButlerEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 2

HomerProseID odyssey-odyssey-butler-en-prose-2-85