You will note that the queen does not say “we are all of us very well off.”

“Then the hero Echeneus, who was the oldest man among them, added a few words of his own.  ‘My friends,’ he said, ’there cannot be two opinions about the graciousness and sagacity of the remarks that have just fallen from Her Majesty; nevertheless it is with His Majesty King Alcinous that the decision must ultimately rest.’

“‘The thing shall be done,’ exclaimed Alcinous, ’if I am still king over the Phaeacians.  As for our guest, I know he is anxious to resume his journey, still we must persuade him if we can to stay with us until to-morrow, by which time I shall be able to get together the balance of the sum which I mean to press on his acceptance.’”

So here we have it straight out that the monarch knew he had only contributed the coat and waistcoat, and did not know exactly how he was to lay his hands on the 250 pounds.  What with piracy—­for we have been told of at least one case in which Alcinous had looted a town and stolen his housemaid Eurymedusa—­what with insufficient changes of linen, toping like an immortal god, swaggering at large, and open-handed hospitality, it is plain and by no means surprising that Alcinous is out at elbows; nor can there be a better example of the difference between the occasional broad comedy of the Iliad and the delicate but very bitter satire of the Odyssey than the way in which the fact that Alcinous is in money difficulties is allowed to steal upon us, as contrasted with the obvious humour of the quarrels between Jove and Juno.  At any rate we can hardly wonder at Ulysses having felt that to a monarch of such mixed character the unfastened box might prove a temptation greater than he could resist.  To return, however, to the story—­

“If it please your Majesty,” said he, in answer to King Alcinous, “I should be delighted to stay here for another twelve months, and to accept from your hands the vast treasures and the escort which you are go generous as to promise me.  I should obviously gain by doing so, for I should return fuller-handed to my own people and should thus be both more respected and more loved by my acquaintance.  Still to receive such presents—­”

The king perceived his embarrassment, and at once relieved him.  “No one,” he exclaimed, “who looks at you can for one moment take you for a charlatan or a swindler.  I know there are many of these unscrupulous persons going about just now with such plausible stories that it is very hard to disbelieve them; there is, however, a finish about your style which convinces me of your good disposition,” and so on for more than I have space to quote; after which Ulysses again proceeds with his adventures.

When he had finished them Alcinous insists that the leading Phaeacians should each one of them give Ulysses a still further present of a large kitchen copper and a three-legged stand to set it on, “but,” he continues, “as the expense of all these presents is really too heavy for the purse of any private individual, I shall charge the whole of them on the rates”:  literally, “We will repay ourselves by getting it in from among the people, for this is too heavy a present for the purse of a private individual.”  And what this can mean except charging it on the rates I do not know.