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This was Argos, whom Ulysses had bred before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any work out of him.
"But what shall that profit," said the King; "for Calchas will cause the matter to be known, or Ulysses, saying that I have failed of my promise; and if I fly to Argos, they will come and destroy my city and lay waste my land. Woe is me! in what a strait am I set! But take thou care, my brother, that Clytæmnestra hear nothing of these things."
Ajax, after the death of Achilles, had a contest with Ulysses for the armor of the dead hero, but was unsuccessful, and died by his own hand.
When he had thus spoken, he said to his son Mercury, "Mercury, you are our messenger, go therefore and tell Calypso we have decreed that poor Ulysses is to return home.
Be sure, O lady, that in this tenth year Ulysses shall come, even when the old moon waneth and the new is born." Then said Penelope: "May thy words be accomplished, O stranger! Verily, thou shouldest have much kindness at my hands and many gifts. Yet I have a boding in my heart that it shall not be.
"When Circe saw me sitting there without eating, and in great grief, she came to me and said, 'Ulysses, why do you sit like that as though you were dumb, gnawing at your own heart, and refusing both meat and drink? Is it that you are still suspicious? You ought not to be, for I have already sworn solemnly that I will not hurt you.
Surely 'tis his son Telemachus, whom he left an infant at home when ye went to Troy for my sake!" Then said Menelaus: "It must indeed be so, lady. For these are the hands and feet of Ulysses, and the look of his eyes and his hair. And but now, when I made mention of his name, he wept, holding his mantle before his face." Then said Peisistratus: "King Menelaus, thou speakest truth.
Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun they feasted, and every man had his full share so that all were satisfied; but when the sun set and it came on dark, they went to bed and enjoyed the boon of sleep. When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, the sons of Autolycus went out with their hounds hunting, and Ulysses went too.
Tiresias, the monologue of the aged seer, blinded by excess of light when he beheld Athene unveiled, and under the curse of Cassandra, is worthy of the author who, in youth, wrote OEnone and Ulysses. Possibly the verses reflect Tennyson's own sense of public indifference to the voice of the poet and the seer. But they are of much earlier date than the year of publication:
And they hastened to their ship, not forgetting to drive before them a good store of the Cyclops' fat sheep. Right glad were those that had abode by the ship to see them. Nor did they lament for those that had died, though they were fain to do so, for Ulysses forbade, fearing lest the noise of their weeping should betray them to the giant, where they were.
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