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Then Odysseus answered, "my lady wife of Odysseus, you need not defer your tournament [athlos], for Odysseus will return ere ever they can string the bow, handle it how they will, and send their arrows through the iron."

To this Penelope said, "As long, sir, as you will sit here and talk to me, I can have no desire to go to bed. Still, people cannot do permanently without sleep, and heaven has appointed us dwellers on earth a time for all things. I will therefore go upstairs and recline upon that couch which I have never ceased to flood with my tears from the day Odysseus set out for the city with a hateful name."

She then went upstairs to her own room, not alone, but attended by her maidens, and when there, she lamented her dear husband till Athena shed sweet sleep over her eyelids.

Homer. The Odyssey. Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. Samuel Butler. Based on public domain edition, revised by Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy. A. C. Fifield, London. 1900 (?).

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