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“First observe this scar,” answered Ulysses, “which I got from a boar’s tusk when I was hunting on Mt. Parnassus. You and my mother had sent me to Autolycus, my mother’s father, to receive the presents which when he was over here he had promised to give me. Furthermore I will point out to you the trees in the vineyard which you gave me, and I asked you all about them as I followed you round the garden. We went over them all, and you told me their names and what they all were. You gave me thirteen pear trees, ten apple trees, and forty fig trees; you also said you would give me fifty rows of vines; there was corn planted between each row, and they yield grapes of every kind when the heat of heaven has been laid heavy upon them.”

“Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind; and e’en for hate thou canst but kill; and all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at best; whencesoe’er I came; wheresoe’er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power; and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there’s that in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee.”

“Alas! who sees not Jove’s almighty hand Transfers the glory to the Trojan band? Whether the weak or strong discharge the dart, He guides each arrow to a Grecian heart: Not so our spears; incessant though they rain, He suffers every lance to fall in vain. Deserted of the god, yet let us try What human strength and prudence can supply; If yet this honour’d corse, in triumph borne, May glad the fleets that hope not our return, Who tremble yet, scarce rescued from their fates, And still hear Hector thundering at their gates. Some hero too must be despatch’d to bear The mournful message to Pelides’ ear; For sure he knows not, distant on the shore, His friend, his loved Patroclus, is no more. But such a chief I spy not through the host: The men, the steeds, the armies, all are lost In general darkness—Lord of earth and air! Oh king! Oh father! hear my humble prayer: Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore; Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more: If Greece must perish, we thy will obey, But let us perish in the face of day!”

A dark cloud of sorrow fell upon Laertes as he listened. He filled both hands with the dust from off the ground and poured it over his grey head, groaning heavily as he did so. The heart of Ulysses was touched, and his nostrils quivered as he looked upon his father; then he sprang towards him, flung his arms about him and kissed him, saying, “I am he, father, about whom you are asking—I have returned after having been away for twenty years. But cease your sighing and lamentation—we have no time to lose, for I should tell you that I have been killing the suitors in my house, to punish them for their insolence and crimes.”