Homer, Odyssey

So she spoke, and straightway came golden-throned Dawn. But as she wept goodly Odysseus heard her voice, and thereupon he mused, and it seemed to his heart that she knew him and was standing by his head. [95] Then he gathered up the cloak and the fleeces on which he was lying and laid them on a chair in the hall, and carried the ox-hide out of doors and set it down; and he lifted up his hands and prayed to Zeus: “Father Zeus, if of your good will ye gods have brought me over land and sea to my own country, when ye had afflicted me sore, [100] let some one of those who are awaking utter a word of omen for me within, and without let a sign from Zeus be shown besides.” So he spoke in prayer, and Zeus the counsellor heard him. Straightway he thundered from gleaming Olympus, from on high from out the clouds; and goodly Odysseus was glad. [105] And a woman, grinding at the mill, uttered a word of omen from within the house hard by, where the mills of the shepherd of the people were set. At these mills twelve women in all were wont to ply their tasks, making meal of barley and of wheat, the marrow of men. Now the others were sleeping, for they had ground their wheat, [110] but she alone had not yet ceased, for she was the weakest of all. She now stopped her mill and spoke a word, a sign for her master: “Father Zeus, who art lord over gods and men, verily loud hast thou thundered from the starry sky, yet nowhere is there any cloud: surely this is a sign that thou art showing to some man. [115] Fulfil now even for wretched me the word that I shall speak. May the wooers this day for the last and latest time hold their glad feast in the halls of Odysseus. They that have loosened my limbs with bitter labour, as I made them barley meal, may they now sup their last.” [120] So she spoke, and goodly Odysseus was glad at the word of omen and at the thunder of Zeus, for he thought he had gotten vengeance on the guilty. Now the other maidens in the fair palace of Odysseus had gathered together and were kindling on the hearth unwearied fire, and Telemachus rose from his bed, a godlike man, [125] and put on his clothing. He slung his sharp sword about his shoulder, and beneath his shining feet he bound his fair sandals; and he took his mighty spear, tipped with sharp bronze, and went and stood upon the threshold, and spoke to Eurycleia: “Dear nurse, have ye honored the stranger in our house [130] with bed and food, or does he lie all uncared for? For such is my mother's way, wise though she is: in wondrous fashion she honours one of mortal men, though he be the worse, while the better she sends unhonored away.”