Homer’s Daughter Read Online Free PDF

were thrust, and so forth. But this embellishment costs nothing; neither does it cost anything to portray myself as tall, beautiful and gentle-voiced, nor to enlarge our household staff from twenty to fifty women. Yet, on the whole, I have respected the truth because, not being a born liar, I find wanton invention confusing; though I do exaggerate at times, like everyone else, and must adapt, disguise, shift, diminish and enlarge incidents to square them with the epic tradition. I have, indeed, kept as closely as possible to my own experience and, whenever obliged bythe set theme to describe events and places beyond my experience, have either passed over them lightly, or given a description, instead, of what I know well. For instance, about Ithaca, Zacynthus, Same, and the other islands of that group, which are the main scene of my epic: never having visited these, nor been able to get a precise account of their position or aspect, I make do with the Aegadean Islands, which are a good deal smaller, but thoroughly familiar to me. Ithaca is really Hiera, which though invisible from Drepanum, because Bucinna—I call it Same—blocks the view, looks very noble from the top of Mount Eryx, lying far out on the western horizon. I call Aegusa “Zacynthus”; and as for the rest of the islands mentioned in the
Iliad
—Neritum, Crocylea and Aegilips—I have omitted them because there are only four Aegadeans and I need the fourth one, Motya, low-lying and rich in corn, to represent Dulichium. It cannot matter much. Those who listen to my poem and find that it does not fit their own geographical knowledge will respect the fame of Homer and believe either that an earthquake must have altered the configuration of Ithaca, Same and the other islands since his days, or that their names are changed.
    As I was saying, our Palace is more or less as I have described it in my epic, though the front door of the main building is really of oak studded with bronze, and the doorposts are of dressed stone, and the threshold of ash wood. We have only one boy torchholder, of cypress wood, covered with rather badly rubbed gold leaf; and the door dogs are of red Egyptian marble; and the walls are panelled in olive with a vermilion frieze. Our Palace lies north and south, and consists of three parts. The main building has an upper storeyprotected by a ridged roof, and gutters made of tiles which carry off the winter rains into a well at one corner of the banqueting court; the water roaring down to fill the deep, stone-lined well makes a glorious noise when the summer drought first breaks. My father’s throne chamber and the other living rooms are on the ground floor, our bedrooms lie above, and the front door opens into the banqueting court. At the back of the throne chamber, underneath the kitchen, is a large, cool cellar, which we use as our storeroom. My mother keeps the keys to its massive door on a ring attached to her girdle; but Eurycleia, the housekeeper, has a duplicate.
    The banqueting court is surrounded by paved and covered cloisters, the wide central area being of rammed earth. Here we entertain guests, seating them on stools or settles at trestle tables. A door leads into the outer court, or court of sacrifice, which is likewise cloistered and dominated by the great altar sacred to Zeus and the other Olympians. On the western side of this court, my father has built a round vaulted chamber for his private retreat; while on the eastern side the main gateway, with a guest room above, leads into the street and is commanded by a tall watch tower rising between the two courts. Near the vaulted chamber, a door in the wall opens on a narrow passage running the whole length of the Palace, with a side entrance to the banqueting hall, and another to the servants’ hall of the main building; and a couple of doors opening into the orchard. Ours is the most fertile orchard in Sicily, of several acres, rising in slow terraces and