A Stranger At Ithaca

And so, that stranger who claimed to be

the long-lost old king Ulysses

 killed all the other strangers drawn

as suitors to the queen Penelope's court

and made a claim on the queen and the kingdom;

and the king's son accepted, for

he was no match to the stranger in arms,

and the queen, fearing for her son,

and left with only one suitor,

accepted and declared to all that

this was her husband and their king, regained.

But not one of the men who left

with the king to Troy came back with

this stranger, and afterwards

he often told odd tales of how these men

allegedly pershed in hands

 of monsters out of tales told to children;

and the people felt he mocked them

and their acceptance of him as their lost king.

He told how their fathers had been turned into pigs

and anger teared their insides.

But they did nothing, these

weak men of Ithaca, and from the eyes of

their queen Penelope

they thought they recognized the same

sense of humiliation.

30.07.-31.07.2017