The Odyssey 23.40–57

“I saw not, I asked not; only I heard the groaning of men that were being slain. As for us women, we sat terror-stricken in the innermost part of our well-built chambers, and the close-fitting doors shut us in, until the hour when thy son Telemachus called me from the hall, for his father had sent him forth to call me. Then I found Odysseus standing among the bodies of the slain, and they, stretched all around him on the hard floor, lay one upon the other; the sight would have warmed thy heart with cheer.1 but he is purging the fair house with sulphur, and has kindled a great fire, and sent me forth to call thee. Nay, come with me, that the hearts of you two may enter into joy, for you have suffered many woes. But now at length has this thy long desire been fulfilled: he has come himself, alive to his own hearth, and he has found both thee and his son in the halls; while as for those, even the wooers, who wrought him evil, on them has he taken vengeance one and all in his house.” Then wise Penelope answered her: “Dear nurse, boast not yet loudly over them with laughter.