Then didst thou make answer, swineherd 

 Eumaeus : " In very truth this is the dog of a 

 man that has died in a far land. If he were what 

 once he was in limb and in the feats of the chase, 

 when Odysseus left him to go to Troy, thou 

 wouldst marvel at the sight of his swiftness and 

 his strength. There was no monster that could 

 flee from him in the deep places of the wood, 

 when he was in pursuit ; for even on a track he 

 was the keenest hound. But now he is holdcn in 

 an evil case, and his lord has perished far from 

 his own country, and the careless women take no 

 charge of him. Nay, thralls are no more inclined 

 to honest service when their masters have lost the 

 dominion, for Zeus, of the far-borne voice, takes 

 away the half of a man's virtue, when the day of 

 slavery comes upon him." 



Therewith he passed within the fair-lying house, 

 and went straight to the hall, to the company of 

 the proud wooers. But upon Argos came the fate 

 of black death even in the hour that he beheld 

 Odysseus again, in the twentieth year. 



S. H. Butcher and A. Lang. 



206 



