I.4 "'I hope, sir,' said he..."

"I hope, sir," said he, "that you will not be offended with what I am going to say.
Singing comes cheap to those who do not pay for it,
and all this is done at the cost of one
whose bones lie rotting in some wilderness or grinding to powder in the surf.



U21: "The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the blank bay waiting for a swollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face, salt white. Here I am."



If these men were to see my father come back to Ithaca
they would pray for longer legs rather than a longer purse,
for money would not serve them;
but he, alas, has fallen on an ill fate,
and even when people do sometimes say that he is coming,
we no longer heed them; we shall never see him again.



U7: "Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I'll bring down Seymour and we'll give him a ragging worse than they gave Clive Kempthorpe."



And now, sir, tell me and tell me true, who you are and where you come from.
Tell me of your town and parents,
what manner of ship you came in,
how your crew brought you to Ithaca,
and of what nation they declared themselves to be—
for you cannot have come by land.
Tell me also truly, for I want to know, are you a stranger to this house,
or have you been here in my father's time?
In the old days we had many visitors for my father went about much himself."


U4: "— The mockery of it, he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek."





And Minerva answered, "I will tell you truly and particularly all about it.
I am Mentes, son of Anchialus, and I am King of the Taphians.
I have come here with my ship and crew,
on a voyage to men of a foreign tongue
being bound for Temesa with a cargo of iron,
and I shall bring back copper.
As for my ship, it lies over yonder off the open country away from the town,
in the harbour Rheithron under the wooded mountain Neritum.


(she lies!)

U17: "pulled to the slow iron door and locked it"
metals motif: no copper in U1


Our fathers were friends before us, as old Laertes will tell you,
if you will go and ask him.
They say, however, that he never comes to town now,
and lives by himself in the country, faring hardly,
with an old woman to look after him and get his dinner for him,
when he comes in tired from pottering about his vineyard.



u193: "— He knows you. He knows your old fellow."




They told me your father was at home again, and that was why I came,
but it seems the gods are still keeping him back,
for he is not dead yet not on the mainland.
It is more likely he is on some sea-girt island in mid ocean,
or a prisoner among savages who are detaining him against his will
I am no prophet, and know very little about omens,
but I speak as it is borne in upon me from heaven,
and assure you that he will not be away much longer;
for he is a man of such resource
that even though he were in chains of iron
he would find some means of getting home again.



u18: "— O, shade of Kinch the elder! Japhet in search of a father!"

u8: "I can't remember anything. I remember only ideas and sensations."



But tell me, and tell me true, can Ulysses really have such a fine looking fellow for a son?
You are indeed wonderfully like him about the head and eyes,
for we were close friends before he set sail for Troy
where the flower of all the Argives went also.
Since that time we have never either of us seen the other."



u6: "I have a lovely pair with a hair stripe, grey. You'll look spiffing in them. I'm not joking, Kinch. You look damn well when you're dressed."





"My mother," answered Telemachus, "tells me I am son to Ulysses,
but it is a wise child that knows his own father.
Would that I were son to one who had grown old upon his own estates,
for, since you ask me, there is no more ill-starred man under heaven than he who they tell me is my father."








And Minerva said, "There is no fear of your race dying out yet,
while Penelope has such a fine son as you are.
But tell me, and tell me true, what is the meaning of all this feasting, and who are these people?
What is it all about? Have you some banquet, or is there a wedding in the family—
for no one seems to be bringing any provisions of his own?
And the guests— how atrociously they are behaving;
what riot they make over the whole house;
it is enough to disgust any respectable person who comes near them."