" Ulysses turns
the conversation immediately, and meanwhile Queen Arete told her
maids to put a bed in the corridor, and make it with red blankets,
and it was to have at least one counterpane. They were also to put
a woollen nightgown for Ulysses. "The maids took a torch, and made
the bed as fast as they could: when they had done so they came up
to Ulysses and said, 'This way, sir, if you please, your room is
quite ready'; and Ulysses was very glad to hear them say so."
On the following day Alcinous holds a meeting of the Phaeacians and
proposes that Ulysses should have a ship got ready to take him home
at once: this being settled he invites all the leading people, and
the fifty-two sailors who are to man Ulysses' ship, to come up to
his own house, and he will give them a banquet--for which he kills a
dozen sheep, eight pigs, and two oxen. Immediately after gorging
themselves at the banquet they have a series of athletic
competitions, and from this I gather the poem to have been written
by one who saw nothing very odd in letting people compete in sports
requiring very violent exercise immediately after a heavy meal.
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