as it is.'

"Thus she spake, and in his heart she stirred yet a greater longing to
lament, and he wept as he embraced his beloved wife and true. And even
as when the sight of land is welcome to swimmers, whose well-wrought
ship Poseidon hath smitten on the deep, all driven with the wind and
swelling waves, and but a remnant hath escaped the gray sea water and
swum to the shore, and their bodies are all crusted with the brine, and
gladly have they set foot on land and escaped an evil end; so welcome
to her was the sight of her lord, and her white arms she would never
quite let go from his neck.

"Now when the twain had taken their fill of sweet love, they had delight
in the tales which they told one to the other. The fair lady spake of
all that she had endured in the halls at the sight of the ruinous throng
of wooers, who for her sake slew many cattle, kine, and goodly sheep;
and many a cask of wine was broached. And, in turn, Odysseus, of the
seed of Zeus, recounted all the griefs he had wrought on men, and all
his own travail and sorrow; and she was delighted with the story, and
sweet sleep fell not upon her eyelids till the tale was ended."

Filled with incidents of domestic life in heroic times, the Odyssey
presents us a galaxy of women, if not more impressive, at any rate more
brilliant than that of the Iliad. Of these attractive figures, who
should first merit our consideration, if not the heroine of the poem?

Queen, wife, mother, the sentiment which most characterizes Penelope is
love of husband, child, and home; her chief intellectual trait is
prudence. We find in her the rare combination of warmth of temperament
and sanity of judgment. Her sense of prudence does not exclude depth of
devotion, longings for the absent one, and outbursts of indignation at
the wrongs inflicted on her son. Her love for Odysseus is intense and
constant. There is a beautiful legend that when Odysseus came to carry
off his bride, her father entreated her to remain with him in his old
age. The chariot is ready to bear her away, and the maiden pauses just a
moment, hesitating 'twixt love and duty. Odysseus gives her her choice;
but, drawing down her veil, she signifies that where her lover goes
there will she go. This intensity of affection marks the twenty long
years of separation. Every night, she bewails Odysseus, her dear lord,
till gray-eyed Athena casts sweet sleep upon her eyelids. She ever longs
for, though at times despairs