reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, oh daughter
of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them.

So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got
safely home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to
return to his wife and country, was detained by the goddess
Calypso, who had got him into a large cave and wanted to marry
him. But as years went by, there came a time when the gods
settled that he should go back to Ithaca; even then, however,
when he was among his own people, his troubles were not yet
over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him except
Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not
let him get home.

Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the
world's end, and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the
other East. {1} He had gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep
and oxen, and was enjoying himself at his festival; but the
other gods met in the house of Olympian Jove, and the sire of
gods and men spoke first. At that moment he was thinking of
Aegisthus, who had been killed by Agamemnon's son Orestes; so he
said to the other gods:

"See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all
nothing but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs
make love to Agamemnon's wife unrighteously and then kill
Agamemnon, though he knew it would be the death of him; for I
sent Mercury to warn him not to do either of these things,
inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his revenge when he
grew up and wanted to return home. Mercury told him this in all