marble towers of the palace, ascending, as white as snow, out of the
lovely green shadow of the trees which surrounded it. A gush of smoke
came from a chimney in the rear of the edifice. This vapor rose high in
the air, and meeting with a breeze, was wafted seaward and made to pass
over the heads of the hungry mariners. When people’s appetites are keen,
they have a very quick scent for anything savory in the wind.
“That smoke comes from the kitchen!” cried one of them, turning up his
nose as high as he could, and snuffing eagerly. “And, as sure as I’m a
half-starved vagabond, I smell roast meat in it.”
“Pig, roast pig!” said another. “Ah, the dainty little porker! My mouth
waters for him.”
“Let us make haste,” cried the others, “or we shall be too late for the
good cheer!”
But scarcely had they made half a dozen steps from the edge of the cliff,
when a bird came fluttering to meet them. It was the same pretty little
bird, with the purple wings and body, the yellow legs, the golden collar
round its neck, and the crown-like tuft upon its head, whose behavior
had so much surprised Ulysses. It hovered about Eurylochus, and almost
brushed his face with its wings.
“Peep, peep, pe—weep!” chirped the bird.
So plaintively intelligent was the sound, that it seemed as if the
little creature were going to break its heart with some mighty secret
that it had to tell, and only this one poor note to tell it with.
“My pretty bird,” said Eurylochus—for he was a wary person, and let no
token of harm escape his notice—“my pretty bird, who sent you hither? And
what is the message which you bring?”
“Peep, peep, pe—weep!” replied the bird, very sorrowfully.
Then it flew towards the edge of the cliff, and looked round at them,
as if exceedingly anxious that they should return whence they came.
Eurylochus and a few of the others were inclined to turn back.
They could not help suspecting that the purple bird must be aware of
something mischievous that would befall them at the palace, and the
knowledge of which affected its airy spirit with a human sympathy and
sorrow. But the rest of the voyagers, snuffing up the smoke from the
palace kitchen, ridiculed the idea of returning to the vessel. One of
them (more brutal than his fellows, and the most notorious gormandiser
in the whole crew) said such a cruel and wicked thing, that I wonder the
mere thought did not turn him into a wild beast, in shape, as he already
was in his nature.
“This troublesome and impertinent little fowl,” said he, “would make a
delicate titbit to begin dinner with. Just one plump morsel, melting away
between the teeth. If he comes within my reach, I’ll catch him, and give
him to the palace cook to be roasted on a skewer.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth, before the purple bird flew
away, crying, “Peep, peep, pe—weep,” more dolorously than ever.
“That bird,” remarked Eurylochus, “knows more than we do about what
awaits us at the palace.”
“Come on, then,” cried his comrades, “and we’ll soon know as much as he
does.”
The party, accordingly, went onward through the green and pleasant wood.
Every little while they caught new glimpses of the marble palace, which
looked more and more beautiful the nearer they approached it. They soon
entered a broad pathway, which seemed to be very neatly kept, and which
went winding along, with streaks of sunshine falling across it, and
specks of light quivering among the deepest shadows that fell from the
lofty trees.
It was bordered, too, with a great many sweet-smelling flowers, such as
the mariners had never seen before. So rich and beautiful they were,
that if the shrubs grew wild here, and were native in the soil, then
this island was surely the flower garden of the whole earth; or, if
transplanted from some other clime, it must have been from the happy
islands that lay towards the golden sunset.
“There has been a great deal of pains foolishly wasted on these flowers,”
observed one of the company; and I tell you what he said, that you may
keep in mind what gormandisers they were. “For my part, if I were the
owner of the palace, I would bid my gardener cultivate nothing but savory
pot herbs to make a stuffing for roast meat, or to flavor a stew with.”
“Well said!” cried the others. “But I’ll warrant you there’s a kitchen
garden in the rear of the palace.”
At one place they came to a crystal spring, and paused to drink at it
for want of liquor which they liked better. Looking into its bosom, they
beheld their own faces dimly reflected, but so extravagantly distorted
by the gush and motion of the water, that each one of them appeared to
be laughing at himself and all his companions. So ridiculous were these
images of themselves, indeed, that they did really laugh aloud, and could
hardly be grave again as soon as they wished. And after they had drank,
they grew still merrier than before.
“It has a twang of the wine cask in it,” said one, smacking his lips.
“Make haste!” cried his fellows; “we’ll find the wine cask itself at the
palace; and that will be better than a hundred crystal fountains.”
They then quickened their pace, and capered for joy at the thought of the
savory banquet at which they hoped to be guests. But Eurylochus told them
that he felt as if he were walking in a dream.
“If I am really awake,” continued he, “then, in my opinion, we are on the
point of meeting with some stranger adventure than any that befell us
in the cave of Polyphemus, or among the gigantic man-eating Læstrygons,
or in the windy palace of King Æolus, which stands on a brazen-walled
island. This kind of dreamy feeling always comes over me before any
wonderful occurrence. If you take my advice, you will turn back.”
“No, no,” answered his comrades, snuffing the air, in which the scent
from the palace kitchen was now very perceptible. “We would not turn
back, though we were certain that the King of the Læstrygons, as big as
a mountain, would sit at the head of the table, and huge Polyphemus, the
one-eyed Cyclops, at its foot.”
At length they came within full sight of the palace, which proved to
be very large and lofty, with a great number of airy pinnacles upon
its roof. Though it was now midday, and the sun shone brightly over
the marble front, yet its snowy whiteness and its fantastic style of
architecture made it look unreal, like the frostwork on a window pane, or
like the shapes of castles which one sees among the clouds by moonlight.
But, just then, a puff of wind brought down the smoke of the kitchen
chimney among them, and caused each man to smell the odor of the dish
that he liked best; and, after scenting it, they thought everything else
moonshine and nothing real save this palace, and save the banquet that
was evidently ready to be served up in it.
So they hastened their steps towards the portal, but had not got half-way
across the wide lawn when a pack of lions, tigers, and wolves came
bounding to meet them. The terrified mariners started back, expecting no
better fate than to be torn to pieces and devoured. To their surprise
and joy, however, these wild beasts merely capered around them, wagging
their tails, offering their heads to be stroked and patted, and behaving
just like so many well-bred house dogs, when they wish to express their
delight at meeting their master or their master’s friends. The biggest
lion licked the feet of Eurylochus; and every other lion, and every wolf
and tiger, singled out one of his two and twenty followers, whom the
beast fondled as if he loved him better than a beef bone.
But, for all that, Eurylochus imagined that he saw something fierce and
savage in their eyes; nor would he have been surprised, at any moment,
to feel the big lion’s terrible claws, or to see each of the tigers make
a deadly spring, or each wolf leap at the throat of the man whom he had
fondled. Their mildness seemed unreal and a mere freak; but their savage
nature was as true as their teeth and claws.
Nevertheless, the men went safely across the lawn with the wild beasts
frisking about them and doing no manner of harm; although, as they
mounted the steps of the palace, you might possibly have heard a low
growl, particularly from the wolves; as if they thought it a pity, after
all, to let the strangers pass without so much as tasting what they were
made of.
Eurylochus and his followers now passed under a lofty portal, and looked
through the open doorway into the interior of the palace. The first thing
that they saw was a spacious hall, and a fountain in the middle of it
gushing up towards the ceiling out of a marble basin, and falling back
into it with a continual plash. The water of this fountain, as it spouted
upward, was constantly taking new shapes, not very distinctly but plainly
enough for a nimble fancy to recognize what they were. Now it was the
shape of a man in a long robe, the fleecy whiteness of which was made out
of the fountain’s spray; now it was a lion, or a tiger, or a wolf, or an
ass, or, as often as anything else, a hog, wallowing in the marble basin
as if it were his sty. It was either magic or some very curious machinery
that caused the gushing waterspout to assume all these forms. But, before
the strangers had time to look closely at this wonderful sight, their
attention was drawn off by a very sweet and agreeable sound. A woman’s
voice was singing melodiously in another room of the palace, and with
her voice was mingled the noise of a loom, at which she was probably
seated, weaving a rich texture of cloth, and intertwining the high and
low sweetness of her voice into a rich tissue of harmony.
By and by, the song came to an end; and then, all at once, there were
several feminine voices talking airily and cheerfully, with now and then
a merry burst of laughter such as you may always hear when three or four
young women sit at work together.
“Just listen to the pleasant voices of those maidens, and that buzz of
the loom, as the shuttle passes to and fro,” said another comrade. “What
a domestic, household, home-like sound it is! Ah before that weary siege
of Troy, I used to hear the buzzing loom and the women’s voices under
my own roof. Shall I never hear them again? nor taste those nice little
savory dishes which my dearest wife knew how to serve up?”
“Tush! we shall fare better here,” said another. “But how innocently
those women are babbling together, without guessing that we overhear
them! And mark that richest voice of all, so pleasant and familiar,
but which yet seems to have the authority of a mistress among them. Let
us show ourselves at once. What harm can the lady of the palace and her
maidens do to mariners and warriors like us?”
“Remember,” said Eurylochus, “that it was a young maiden who beguiled
three of our friends into the palace of the King of the Læstrygons, who
ate up one of them in the twinkling of an eye.”
No warning or persuasion, however, had any effect on his companions.
They went up to a pair of folding doors at the farther end of the hall,
and throwing them wide open, passed into the next room. Eurylochus,
meanwhile, had stepped behind a pillar. In a short moment while the
folding doors opened and closed again, he caught a glimpse of a very
beautiful woman rising from the loom, and coming to meet the poor
weather-beaten wanderers, with a hospitable smile, and her hand stretched
out in welcome. There were four other young women, who joined their
hands and danced merrily forward, making gestures of obeisance to the
strangers. They were only less beautiful than the lady who seemed to be
their mistress. Yet Eurylochus fancied that one of them had sea-green
hair, and that the close-fitting bodice of a second looked like the hark
of a tree, and that both the others had something odd in their aspect,
although he could not quite determine what it was, in the little while
that he had to examine them.
The folding doors swung quickly back, and left him standing behind the
pillar, in the solitude of the outer hall. There Eurylochus waited until
he was quite weary, and listened eagerly to every sound, but without
hearing anything that could help him to guess what had become of his
friends. Footsteps, it is true, seemed to be passing and repassing in
other parts of the palace. Then there was a clatter of silver dishes, or
golden ones, which made him imagine a rich feast in a splendid banqueting
hall. But by and by he heard a tremendous grunting and squealing, and
then a sudden scampering like that of small hard hoofs over a marble
floor, while the voices of the mistress and her four hand-maidens were
screaming all together, in tones of anger and derision. Eurylochus could
not conceive what had happened, unless a drove of swine had broken into
the palace, attracted by the smell of the feast. Chancing to cast his
eyes at the fountain, he saw that it did not shift its shape as formerly,
nor looked either like a long-robed man, or a lion, a tiger, a wolf, or
an ass. It looked like nothing but a hog, which lay wallowing in the
marble basin, and filled it from brim to brim.
But we must leave the prudent Eurylochus waiting in the outer hall, and
follow his friends into the inner secrecy of the palace. As soon as the
beautiful woman saw them, she arose from the loom, as I have told you,
and came forward, smiling, and stretching out her hand. She took the hand
of the foremost among them, and bade him and the whole party welcome.
“You have been long expected, my good friends,” said she. “I and my
maidens are well acquainted with you, although you do not appear to
recognize us. Look at this piece of tapestry, and judge if your faces
must not have been familiar to us.”
So the voyagers examined the web of cloth which the beautiful woman had
been weaving in her loom; and, to their vast astonishment, they saw their
own figures perfectly represented in different colored threads. It was a
life-like picture of their recent adventures, showing them in the cave
of Polyphemus, and how they had put out his one great moon-eye; while
in another part of the tapestry they were untying the leathern bags,
puffed out with contrary winds; and farther on, they beheld themselves
scampering away from the gigantic King of the Læstrygons, who had caught
one of them by the leg. Lastly, there they were, sitting on the desolate
shore of this very island, hungry and downcast, and looking ruefully at
the bare bones of the stag which they devoured yesterday. This was as far
as the work had yet proceeded; but when the beautiful woman should again
sit down at her loom, she would probably make a picture of what had since
happened to the strangers, and of what was now going to happen.
“You see,” she said, “that I know all about your troubles; and you cannot
doubt that I desire to make you happy for as long a time as you may
remain with me. For this purpose, my honored guests, I have ordered a
banquet to be prepared. Fish, fowl, and flesh, roasted and in luscious
stews, and seasoned, I trust, to all your tastes, are ready to be served
up. If your appetites tell you it is dinner-time, then come with me to
the festal saloon.”
At this kind invitation, the hungry mariners were quite overjoyed;
and one of them, taking upon himself to be spokesman, assured their
hospitable hostess that any hour of the day was dinner-time with them,
whenever they could get flesh to put in the pot, and fire to boil it
with. So the beautiful woman led the way; and the four maidens (one of
them had sea-green hair, another a bodice of oak-bark, a third sprinkled
a shower of water drops from her fingers’ ends, and the fourth had some
other oddity, which I have forgotten), all these followed behind, and
hurried the guests along, until they entered a magnificent saloon. It was
built in a perfect oval, and lighted from a crystal dome above. Around
the walls were ranged two and twenty thrones, overhung by canopies of
crimson and gold, and provided with the softest of cushions which were
tasselled and fringed with gold cord. Each of the strangers was invited
to sit down; and there they were, two and twenty storm-beaten mariners in
worn and tattered garb, sitting on two and twenty cushioned and canopied
thrones, so rich and gorgeous that the proudest monarch had nothing more
splendid in his stateliest hall.
Then you might have seen the guests nodding, winking with one eye, and
leaning from one throne to another, to communicate their satisfaction in
hoarse whispers.
“Our good hostess has made kings of us all,” said one. “Ha! do you smell
the feast? I’ll engage it will be fit to set before two and twenty kings.”
“I hope,” said another, “it will be mainly good substantial joints,
sirloins, spareribs, and hinder quarters, without too many kickshaws. If
I thought the good lady would not take it amiss, I should call for a fat
slice of dried bacon to begin with.”
Ah, the gluttons and gormandisers! You see how it was with them. In the
loftiest seats of dignity, on royal thrones, they could think of nothing
but their greedy appetite, which was the portion of their nature that
they shared with wolves and swine; so that they resembled those vilest
of animals far more than they did kings—if, indeed, kings were what they
ought to be.
But the beautiful woman now clapped her hands; and immediately there
entered a train of two and twenty serving men, bringing dishes of the
richest food, all hot from the kitchen fire, and sending up such a steam
that it hung like a cloud below the crystal dome of the saloon. An equal
number of attendants brought great flagons of wine, of various kinds,
some of which sparkled as it was poured out, and went bubbling down the
throat; while, of other sorts, the purple liquor was so clear that you
could see the wrought figures at the bottom of the goblet. While the
servants supplied the two and twenty guests with food and drink, the
hostess and her four maidens went from one throne to another, exhorting
them to eat their fill, and to quaff wine abundantly, and thus to
recompense themselves, at this one banquet, for the many days when they
had gone without a dinner. But, whenever the mariners were not looking
at them (which was pretty often, as they looked chiefly into the basins
and platters), the beautiful woman and her damsels turned aside, and
laughed. Even the servants, as they knelt down to present the dishes,
might be seen to grin and sneer, while the guests were helping themselves
to the offered dainties.
And, once in a while, the strangers seemed to taste something that they
did not like.
“Here is an odd kind of a spice in this dish,” said one. “I can’t say it
quite suits my palate. Down it goes, however.”
“Send a good draught of wine down your throat,” said his comrade on the
next throne. “That is the stuff to make this sort of cookery relish well.
Though I must needs say, the wine has a queer taste, too. But the more I
drink of it, the better I like the flavor.”
Whatever little fault they might find with the dishes, they sat at dinner
a prodigiously long while; and it would really have made you ashamed to
see how they swilled down the liquor and gobbled up the food.
They sat on golden thrones, to be sure, but they behaved like pigs in a
sty; and, if they had had their wits about them, they might have guessed
that this was the opinion of their beautiful hostess and her maidens. It
brings a blush into my face to reckon up, in my own mind, what mountains
of meat and pudding, and what gallons of wine these two and twenty
guzzlers and gormandisers ate and drank. They forgot all about their
homes and their wives and children, and all about Ulysses, and everything
else, except this banquet at which they wanted to keep feasting for ever.
But at length they began to give over from mere incapacity to hold any
more.
“That last bit of fat is too much for me,” said one.
“And I have not room for another morsel,” said his next neighbor, heaving
a sigh. “What a pity! My appetite is as sharp as ever.”
In short, they all left off eating and leaned back on their thrones, with
such a stupid and helpless aspect, as made them ridiculous to behold.
When their hostess saw this, she laughed aloud; so did her four damsels;
so did the two and twenty serving men that bore the dishes, and their
two and twenty fellows that poured out the wine. And the louder they all
laughed, the more stupid and helpless did the two and twenty gormandisers
look. Then the beautiful woman took her stand in the middle of the
saloon, and stretching out a slender rod (it had been all the while in
her hand, although they never noticed it till this moment), she turned
it from one guest to another, until each had felt it pointed at himself.
Beautiful as her face was, and though there was a smile on it, it looked
just as wicked and mischievous as the ugliest serpent that ever was seen;
and fat-witted as the voyagers had made themselves, they began to suspect
that they had fallen into the power of an evil-minded enchantress.
“Wretches,” cried she, “you have abused a lady’s hospitality; and in
this princely saloon your behavior has been suited to a hog-pen. You
are already swine in everything but the human form, which you disgrace,
and which I myself should be ashamed to keep a moment longer were you
to share it with me. But it will require only the slightest exercise of
magic to make the exterior conform to the hoggish disposition. Assume
your proper shapes, gormandisers, and begone to the sty!”
Uttering these last words, she waved her wand; and stamping her foot
imperiously, each of the guests was struck aghast at beholding, instead
of his comrades in human shape, one and twenty hogs sitting on the same
number of golden thrones. Each man (as he still supposed himself to be)
essayed to give a cry of surprise but found that he could merely grunt,
and that, in a word, he was just such another beast as his companions.
It looked so intolerably absurd to see hogs on cushioned thrones, that
they made haste to wallow down upon all fours like other swine. They
tried to groan and beg for mercy, but forthwith emitted the most awful
grunting and squealing that ever came out of swinish throats. They would
have wrung their hands in despair, but, attempting to do so, grew all the
more desperate for seeing themselves squatted on their hams and pawing
the air with their fore-trotters. Dear me! what pendulous ears they had!
what little red eyes, half buried in fat! and what long snouts, instead
of Grecian noses!
But brutes as they certainly were, they yet had enough of human nature
in them to be shocked at their own hideousness; and, still intending to
groan, they uttered a viler grunt and squeal than before. So harsh and
ear-piercing it was, that you would have fancied a butcher was sticking
his knife into each of their throats, or, at the very least, that
somebody was pulling every hog by his funny little twist of a tail.
“Begone to your sty!” cried the enchantress, giving them some smart
strokes with her wand; and then she turned to the serving men—“Drive out
these swine, and throw down some acorns for them to eat.”
The door of the saloon being flung open, the drove of hogs ran in
all directions save the right one, in accordance with their hoggish
perversity, but were finally driven into the back yard of the palace. It
was a sight to bring tears into one’s eyes (and I hope none of you will
be cruel enough to laugh at it), to see the poor creatures go snuffing
along, picking up here a cabbage-leaf, and there a turnip-top, and
rooting their noses in the earth for whatever they could find. In their
sty, moreover, they behaved more piggishly than the pigs that had been
born so; for they bit and snorted at one another, put their feet in the
trough, and gobbled up their victuals in a ridiculous hurry; and, when
there was nothing more to be had, they made a great pile of themselves
among some unclean straw, and fell fast asleep. If they had any human
reason left, it was just enough to keep them wondering when they should
be slaughtered, and what quality of bacon they should make.
Meantime, as I told you before, Eurylochus had waited, and waited,
and waited in the entrance hall of the palace, without being able to
comprehend what had befallen his friends. At last, when the swinish
uproar resounded through the palace, and when he saw the image of a hog
in the marble basin, he thought it best to hasten back to the vessel, and
inform the wise Ulysses of these marvellous occurrences.
So he ran as fast as he could down the steps, and never stopped to draw
breath till he reached the shore.
“Why do you come alone?” asked King Ulysses as soon as he saw him. “Where
are your two and twenty comrades?”