hero's foot and felt the well-remembered scar. Not so Penelope. Though the great bow has been bent and the suitors have been slain, and though Eurycleia comes to tell her the whole truth, the queen has yet the heart to seat herself opposite Odysseus by the fire, and to prove him with cunningly devised tests. There is something provocative of anger against Penelope in this cross-questioning. But our anger is dissolved in tears, when at last, feeling sure that her husband and none other is there verily before her eyes, she flings her arms around him in that long and close embrace. Homer even in this supreme moment has sustained her character by a trait which however delicate, can hardly escape notice. Her lord is weary and would fain seek the solace of his couch. But he has dropped a hint that still more labors are in store for him. Then Penelope replies that his couch is ready at all times and whensoever he may need; no hurry about that. Meanwhile, she would like to hear the prophecy of Teiresias. Helen, the bondwoman of dame Aphrodite, would not have waited thus upon the edge of love's delight, long looked for with strained widow's eyes. Yet it would be unfair to Penelope to dwell only on this prudent and somewhat frigid aspect of her character. She is, perhaps, most amiable when she descends among the suitors and prays Phemius to cease from singing of the heroes who returned from Troy. It is more than she can bear to sit weaving in the silent chamber mid her damsels, listening to the shrill sound of the lyre and hearing how other men have reached their homes, while on the waves Odysseus still wanders, and none knows whether he be alive or dead. It may be noticed that just as Helen is a mate meet for easily persuaded Menelaus and luxurious Paris, so Penelope matches the temper of the astute, enduring, persevering Odysseus. As a creature of the fancy, she is far less fascinating than Helen; and this the poet seems to have felt, for side by side with Penelope in the _Odyssey_ he has placed the attractive forms of Circe, Calypso, and Nausicaa. The gain is double. Not only are the hearers of the romance gladdened by the contrast of these graceful women with the somewhat elegiac figure of Penelope, but the character of Odysseus for constancy is greatly enhanced. How fervent must the love of home have been in the man who could quit Calypso, after seven years' sojourn, for the sake of a wife grown gray with twenty widowed years! Odysseus tells Calypso to her face that she is far fairer than his wife: #oida kai autos panta mal', houneka seio periphrôn Pênelopeia eidos akidnoterê, megethos t', eis omma idesthai.#[25]