The Adventures of Ulysses > The Queen's Suitors.

From the house of Eumaeus the seeming beggar took his way, leaning on his staff, till he reached the palace, entering in at the hall where the suitors sat at meat. They in the pride of their feasting began to break their jests in mirthful manner, when they saw one looking so poor and so aged approach. He, who expected no better entertainment, was nothing moved at their behaviour, but, as became the character which he had assumed, in a suppliant posture crept by turns to every suitor, and held out his hands for some charity, with such a natural and beggar-resembling grace that he might seem to have practised begging all his life; yet there was a sort of dignity in his most abject stoopings, that whoever had seen him would have said, If it had pleased Heaven that this poor man had been born a king, he would gracefully have filled a throne.

The Adventures of Ulysses

Charles Lamb

9

The Queen's Suitors. - The Battle of the Beggars. - The Armour Taken Down. - The Meeting with Penelope

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