PENELOPE ULYSSES FREE
But I may be deceived, and this imaginary crime may vanish into mere air and conceit nor can I persuade myself, that, if free to return, you would be absent from me. Perhaps too you divert her by telling what a homely wife you have, who minds only the spindle and the distaff. While I thus fondly revolve these things within myself, your it is possible, are the slave of some foreign beauty (such is the inconstancy of man). Whatever dangers arise either from sea or land, these I suspect may be the causes of so long a delay. I am apt to fancy you exposed to every kind of hazard, and find myself bewildered in a wide field of care. I should know in what part of the world you fought, and dread only the dangers of war nor should I be without companions to join in my complaint. Alas! unstable and unhappy, I am offended at my own wishes. It would be better for me, if the walls of Troy were still standing.
We sent likewise to Sparta but Sparta, being equally ignorant of the truth, left us uncertain that lands you might be wandering over, or where you could make so long a stay. We sent to Pylos, the Neleian kingdom of old Nestor but we thence received no account beside uncertain report. Whatever stranger touches upon these coasts, is sure to be teased with a thousand questions about you and, when he departs, is charged with a letter to deliver to you, in whatever region of the world he may chance to see you. Though victorious, you are still absent nor can I possibly know the cause of your long stay, or in what corner of the world my cruel Ulysses lurks.
The half-buried bones of heroes are ploughed up by the crooked share and rising grass covers the ruins of the houses. Now corn grows where once Troy stood and the ground, fattened by Phrygian blood, produces a rich crop that tempts the hand of the reaper.
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