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Updated: June 14, 2025
Then he ate and drank, and when he had put from him the desire of food he arose and girded on the sword, Euryalus's gift, but the black bow he left in its case. Now he was ready and about to set forth when Rei the Priest entered the chamber. "Whither goest thou, Eperitus?" asked Rei, the instructed Priest.
Know, Eperitus, that this sorrow is come upon the land, that all men love yonder witch and rave of her, and to each she wears a different face and sings in another voice. When she stands upon the pylon tower, then thou wilt see the madness with which she has smitten them. For they will weep and pray and tear their hair.
Then Rei told Helen all that tale which the Wanderer had charged him to deliver in her ear, and keep no word back. He told her how Meriamun had beguiled Eperitus in her shape; how he had fallen in the snare and sworn by the Snake, he who should have sworn by the Star.
Without the curtains the priests of the temple were gathered wondering little could they understand how it came to pass that the hero who was called Eperitus had vanished through the curtains and had not been smitten down by the unseen swords. And when they saw him come forth glorious and unharmed they cried aloud with fear. But he laughed and said, "Fear not.
In his hand he held a small hammer, and he had a little anvil by him, on which lay one of the golden shoulder-plates of his armour. The other pieces were heaped beside the brazier. Kurri, the Sidonian, stood beside him, with graving tools in his hands. "Hail to thee, Eperitus," cried Rei, calling him by the name he had chosen to give himself. "What makest thou here with fire and anvil?"
But before he could answer yea or nay, Meriamun the Queen, who was not minded that he should leave her, spoke hastily: "This is my counsel, Meneptah, that the Lord Eperitus should abide here in Tanis and be the Captain of my Guard while thou art gone to smite the Apura.
The Wanderer answered: "I go up to the Temple of the Hathor, for thou dost remember it is to-day that she stands upon the pylon brow and calls the people to her. Comest thou also, Rei?" "Nay, nay, I come not, Eperitus. I am old indeed, but yet the blood creeps through these withered veins, and, perchance, if I came and looked, the madness would seize me also, and I too should rush to my slaying.
Now when Kurri heard these words, and saw the Wanderer's sorry plight, he bent over him and said: "It was I, Kurri the Sidonian, who cut the cord of thy great bow, Eperitus; with the spear-point that thou gavest back to me I cut it, I, whose folk thou didst slay and madest me a slave.
Tell me, how long is it since thou didst receive him, and who art thou, and where is thy home?" "I am a man of Alybas," replied Odysseus, "the son of Apheidas the son of Polypemon, and Eperitus is my name; and it is now five years since Odysseus departed from my home. Fair omens attended him on his starting, and we parted in high hopes that we should meet again in his own land."
There is a way in which a man may listen to the voice of the Hathor, and that is to have his eyes blindfolded, as many do. But even then he will tear the bandage from his eyes, and look, and die with the others. Oh, go not up, Eperitus I pray thee go not up. I love thee I know not why and am little minded to see thee dead.
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