A Year Lost to Comfort (Homer’s The Odyssey, Book 10 – Part 16)

🎵 🎵 Meanwhile, Cersei bathed the rest of my company in her halls with all care, and anointed them well with olive oil, and cast thick mantles and doublets about them, and we found them all feasting nobly in the halls.

And when they saw and knew each other face to face, they wept and mourned, and the house rang around.

Then she stood near me, that fair goddess, and spake, saying, Son of Laertes, the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many devices, no more now wake this plenteous weeping.

Myself I know all the pains ye endured upon the teeming deep, and the great despite done you by unkindly men upon the land.

Nay, come, eat ye meat and drink wine, till your spirit shall return to you again, as it was when ye first left your own country of Ruggedithica.

But now are ye wasted in wanting heart, mindful evermore of your sore wandering.

Nor has your heart ever been merry, for very grievous hath been your trial.

So spake she, and our lordly spirit consented thereto.

So there we sat day by day for the full circle of a year, feasting on abundant flesh and sweet wine.

But when now a year had gone, and the seasons returned as the months waned, and the long days came in their course, then did my dear company call me forth and say, Good sir, now it is high time to mind thee of thy native land, if it is ordained that thou shalt be saved, and come to thy lofty house in thine own country.

So they spake, and my lordly spirit consented thereto.

So for that time we sat the livelong day till the going down of the sun, feasting on abundant flesh and sweet wine.

But when the sun sank and darkness came on, they laid them to rest throughout the shadowy halls.