head fell rolling in the dust while he was yet speaking.

The minstrel Phemius son of Terpes — he who had been forced by the suitors to sing to them — now tried to save his life. He was standing near towards the trap door, and held his lyre in his hand. He did not know whether to fly out of the cloister and sit down by the altar of Jove that was in the outer court, and on which both Laertes and Ulysses had offered up the thigh bones of many an ox, or whether to go straight up to Ulysses and embrace his knees, but in the end he deemed it best to embrace Ulysses’ knees. So he laid his lyre on the ground between the mixing bowl and the silver-studded seat; then going up to Ulysses he caught hold of his knees and said, “Ulysses, I beseech you have mercy on me and spare me.