On this the old woman {150} went out of the room to bid the maids go to their mistress.  In the meantime Minerva bethought her of another matter, and sent Penelope off into a sweet slumber; so she lay down on her couch and her limbs became heavy with sleep.  Then the goddess shed grace and beauty over her that all the Achaeans might admire her.  She washed her face with the ambrosial loveliness that Venus wears when she goes dancing with the Graces; she made her taller and of a more commanding figure, while as for her complexion it was whiter than sawn ivory.  When Minerva had done all this she went away, whereon the maids came in from the women’s room and woke Penelope with the sound of their talking.

“What an exquisitely delicious sleep I have been having,” said she, as she passed her hands over her face, “in spite of all my misery.  I wish Diana would let me die so sweetly now at this very moment, that I might no longer waste in despair for the loss of my dear husband, who possessed every kind of good quality and was the most distinguished man among the Achaeans.”

With these words she came down from her upper room, not alone but attended by two of her maidens, and when she reached the suitors she stood by one of the bearing-posts supporting the roof of the cloister, holding a veil before her face, and with a staid maid servant on either side of her.  As they beheld her the suitors were so overpowered and became so desperately enamoured of her, that each one prayed he might win her for his own bed fellow.

“Telemachus,” said she, addressing her son, “I fear you are no longer so discreet and well conducted as you used to be.  When you were younger you had a greater sense of propriety; now, however, that you are grown up, though a stranger to look at you would take you for the son of a well to do father as far as size and good looks go, your conduct is by no means what it should be.  What is all this disturbance that has been going on, and how came you to allow a stranger to be so disgracefully ill-treated?  What would have happened if he had suffered serious injury while a suppliant in our house?  Surely this would have been very discreditable to you.”

“I am not surprised, my dear mother, at your displeasure,” replied Telemachus, “I understand all about it and know when things are not as they should be, which I could not do when I was younger; I cannot, however, behave with perfect propriety at all times.  First one and then another of these wicked people here keeps driving me out of my mind, and I have no one to stand by me.  After all, however, this fight between Irus and the stranger did not turn out as the suitors meant it to do, for the stranger got the best of it.  I wish Father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo would break the neck of every one of these wooers of yours, some inside the house and some out; and I wish they might all be as limp as Irus is over yonder in the gate of the outer court.  See how he nods his head like a drunken man; he has had such a thrashing that he cannot stand on his feet nor get back to his home, wherever that may be, for he has no strength left in him.”