et myself, I cannot be happy here, I shall every day be more
wretched.

_Circe_.--May not a wise and good man, who has spent all his youth in
active life and honourable danger, when he begins to decline, be
permitted to retire and enjoy the rest of his days in quiet and pleasure?

_Ulysses_.--No retreat can be honourable to a wise and good man but in
company with the muses. Here I am deprived of that sacred society. The
muses will not inhabit the abodes of voluptuousness and sensual pleasure.
How can I study or think while such a number of beasts--and the worst
beasts are men turned into beasts--are howling or roaring or grunting all
about me?

_Circe_.--There may be something in this, but this I know is not all. You
suppress the strongest reason that draws you to Ithaca. There is another
image besides that of your former self, which appears to you in this
island, which follows you in your walks, which more particularly
interposes itself between you and me, and chides you from my arms. It is
Penelope, Ulysses, I know it is. Don't pretend to deny it. You sigh for
Penelope in my bosom itself. And yet she is not an immortal. She is
not, as I am, endowed by Nature with the gift of unfading youth. Several
years have passed since hers has been faded. I might say, without
vanity, that in her best days she was never so handsome as I. But what
is she now?

_Ulysses_.--You have told me yourself, in a former conversation, when I
inquired of you about her, that she is faithful to my bed, and as fond of
me now, after twenty years' absence, as at the time when I left her to go
to Troy. I left her in the bloom of youth and beauty. How much must her
constancy have been tried since that time! How meritorious is her
fidelity! Shall I reward her with falsehood? Shall I forget my
Penelope, who can't forget me, who has no pleasure so dear to her as my
remembrance?

_Circe_.--Her love is preserved by the continual hope of your speedy
return. Take that hope from her. Let your companions return, and let
her know that you have fixed your abode with me, that you have fixed it
for ever. Let her know that she is free to dispose as she pleases of her
heart and her hand. Send my picture to her, bid her compare it with her
own face. If all this does not cure her of the remains of her passion,
if you don't hear of her marrying Eurymachus in a twelvemonth, I
understand nothing of womankind.

_Ulysses_.--O cruel goddess! why