-170] THE DEBATE IN ITHACA 41

Furies that my mother's curses would call up as she was driven
from home. And finally my fellow-men would cry shame upon
me. You may take it, then, that I shall never give the word. No;

if a feeling of shame has any place in your own hearts, then quit
my palace and feast yourselves elsewhere, eating your own pro-
visions in each other's houses. But if you think it a sounder
scheme to destroy one man's estate and go scot-free yourselves,
then eat your fill, while I pray to the immortal gods for a day of
reckoning, when I can go scot-free, though I destroy you in
that house of mine.'

As though in answer to his words, Zeus, who was watching
from afar, urged two eagles into flight from the mountain-top.
For a while they sailed down the wind with outstretched
pinions, wing to wing. But as soon as they were directly over
the meeting-place, where the sound of voices filled the air, they
began to flap their wings and wheel about, glancing down at the
faces of the crowd with looks foreboding death. They then fell
to work with their talons, ripping each other's cheeks and neck
on either side, and so swooped eastward over the house-tops of
the busy town. The people stared at the birds in amazement
as this scene was enacted before their eyes, and asked them-
selves what was to come of such a portent. At last the old lord
Haliserthes, Master's son, spoke out. He knew more of bird-lore
and soothsaying than any man of his generation, and had his
countrymen's welfare at heart when he rose now to harangue
them:

'People oflthaca, hear what I have to say. And it is to the
Suitors in particular that I address my reading of these signs.
For them, a great calamity is rolling up. Odysseus is not going
to be parted from his friends much longer. At this very moment
indeed he may be close at hand, sowing the seeds of a bloody
doom for the Suitors one and all; which means disaster to many
of the rest of us who live under the clear skies oflthaca. Cannot
we stop them before it happens? Or rather, won't they stop of
their own accord - which I assure them they would find the
better course ? And I am not unskilled in prophecy: I speak from