the country round,[1] with their shepherds as usual, then Medon, who was their favourite servant, and who waited upon them at table, said, "Now then, my young masters, you have had enough sport, so come inside that we may get dinner ready. Dinner is not a bad thing, at dinner time."
177They left their sports as he told them, and when they were within the house, they laid their cloaks on the benches and seats inside, and then sacrificed some sheep, goats, pigs, and a heifer, all of them fat and well grown.[2] Thus they made ready for their meal. In the meantime Ulysses and the swineherd were about starting for the town, and the swineherd said, "Stranger, I suppose you still want to go to town to-day, as my master said you were to do; for my own part I should have liked you to stay here as a station hand, but I must do as my master tells me, or he will scold me later on, and a scolding from one's master is a very serious thing. Let us then be off, for it is now broad day; it will be night again directly and then you will find it colder."[3]
192"I know, and understand you," replied Ulysses; "you need say no more. Let us be going, but if you have a stick ready cut, let me have it to walk with, for you say the road is a very rough one."
197As he spoke he threw his shabby old tattered wallet over his shoulders, by the cord from which it hung, and Eamæus gave him a stick to his liking. The two then started, leaving the station in charge of the dogs and herdsmen who remained
- ↑ i.e. to be milked, as in South Italian and Sicilian towns at the present day.
- ↑ The butchering and making ready the carcases took place partly in the outer yard and partly in the open part of the inner court.
- ↑ These words cannot mean that it would be afternoon soon after they were spoken. Ulysses and Eumæus reached the town which was "some way off" (xvii. 25) in time for the suitors' early meal (xvii. 170 and 176) say at ten or eleven o'clock. The context of the rest of the book shows this. Eumæus and Ulysses, therefore, cannot have started later than eight or nine, and Eumæus's words must be taken as an exaggeration for the purpose of making Ulysses bestir himself.
