INTRODUCTION.

The second half of the Odyssey opens with a very critical situation. Odysseus has finished telling the story of his adventures to Alcinous and his nobles; and, after having been provided with many valuable gifts, he has been sent home in a Phaeacian ship and landed, while in a deep sleep, on the shores of Ithaca, his own home. He has come back to take vengeance on the band of arrogant leaders original: "insolent chieftains" who have long wasted his wealth and tried to win his wife. But he will be "facing fearful odds"!

Telemachus is still in Sparta, where he had gone to ask Menelaus for news original: "tidings" of Odysseus. But Athena is just about to cut the visit short and bring the son home to meet his father. Meanwhile, the Suitors have placed a ship in the narrow channel near Ithaca to intercept him on his return.

Penelope, year after year, has been resisting the persistent demands original: "importunity" of her Suitors. She will not think of marriage (so she tells them) until she has finished weaving a shroud original: "winding-sheet" for the aged Laertes—but the work of the day she unravels in the night. Her trick has been at last found out, and she has had to complete her weaving. There is no further excuse for delay. The last hope of the return of Odysseus is gone, and her last chance of resistance:—

"A crowd of extravagant suitors from Dulichium, Same, and high Zacynthus original: "Dulichii Samiique, et quos tulit alta Zacynthus" rush upon me... original: "Turba ruunt in me luxuriosa, proci" We are only three, powerless in number: a wife without strength, the aged Laertes, and the young Telemachus." original: "Tres sumus imbelles numero; sine viribus uxor, Laertesque senex, Telemachusque puer."

At this anxious point in the history of these three lives, our volume begins. The following outline original: "sketch" is an attempt to give the general course of events.