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concubine, because the slavers asked an excessively high price—twenty cow shekels instead of four—and he paid it almost without bargaining; yet not daring to risk my annoyance, he restricted himself to an occasional fatherly pat on the girl’s cheek or shoulders. No, child, whoever falls in love with her own husband is ruined. That was what went wrong between Ctimene and Laodamas, as you may have guessed: she lost her heart to him and grew jealous of the wild goats and boars which he hunted all day. He has never loved her—the marriage was arranged by your father—but is far too well mannered to confess this. So she grew exasperated; first with herself and then with him. If only it could be the other way about: if only his passion were stronger than hers!”

CHAPTER
THREE
THE DEPARTURE
OF ODYSSEUS
    The winter passed, olives were harvested and pressed, ewes lambed, she-goats kidded, the cheese-making season began, swallows, quails and cuckoos flew across from Libya, the Love Goddess ascended her mountain, bees thronged our fruit trees, young men put out in boats to harpoon tunny and swordfish, blankets were no longer needed on our beds, and the first merchant ships called. We confidently expected Laodamas, or a reassuring message from him, or at least some sort of news; but for a month or more not a word came, though every port in Sicily had heard of our anxiety. Then a merchant of Italian Hyria arrived, hoping to sell us carved stone vases and Daedalic jewellery, the art of making which still flourished in his city, a formercolony of Crete. He was a great haggis of a man, but wore clothes embroidered with flowers in the Cnossan style, and a little kiss curl on his forehead, which set my maids giggling. Immediately upon coming ashore he asked to be taken to the Palace, where he greeted my father with suppressed excitement, and after dinner—since it is considered bad manners for host and guest to exchange anything but compliments until that is over—spoke as follows:
    â€œHere is good news for you, my lord King, about your lost son, Prince Laodamas. I met him last autumn among the Thesprotians of Epeirus, and found him in perfect health, blessed be the Gods! It appears that the Phoenician ship in which he sailed from Drepanum ran aground off rocky Corcyra in a gale; yet he managed to escape black death. Yes, the keel had broken adrift, and kept him afloat, clinging tightly to it, until the whitecapped waves subsided and he could paddle ashore with his hands. The King of Corcyra entertained your son royally, exclaiming that he was clearly a favourite of the Goddess Thetis; and soon discovered that they had an ancestor in common—Zacynthus, an early Trojan king, great-grandfather of the Princess Aegesta. He not only heaped treasures on Laodamas, but gave him a letter of introduction to another distant kinsman, King Pheidon of the Thesprotians, who proved hardly less generous. Your son has, in consequence, amassed a great store of gold and silver, amber, armour, ivory toys, goblets, cauldrons, and tripods: enough, one might say, to enrich his descendants until the tenth generation. When we met, he had just consulted Zeus’s dove oracle at the Oaks of Dodona. I stood him several drinks, and he recommended me to you, my lord, and promised thatI should find a ready market for my wares among your discriminating Elyman subjects. He hopes to be back here about the season of the first figs, though not earlier, because the oracle warned him—who can guess why?—against hurrying home. No, my lord, he had failed to save even his clothes from the wreck: he was wearing only a loincloth, and a coral amulet around his neck, when the hospitable people of Corcyra found him half dead on the beach, his long hair crusted with salt.”
    You can imagine what relief this news afforded my father, who clapped his hands like a child. Clytoneus buried his head in a wine cup and drank until he was