Again the voice of the interpreter recited further lines from the Greek poem:
| “Hither, come hither and hearken awhile, Odysseus, far-famed king! No sailor ever has passed this way but has paused to hear us sing. Our song is sweeter than honey, and he that can hear it knows What he never has learnt from another, and has joy before he goes; We know what the heroes bore at Troy in the ten long years of strife We know what happens in all the world, and the secret things of life.” |
A thrill of appreciation and sympathy stirred the larger portion of the audience at the outset of the next tableau.
Strangers, slightly puzzled to guess the cause, found that a few hurried words made the situation clearer.
Odysseus has sailed from Crete and comes at last to his own land.
No change of scenery was possible. The hearers learned from the recitation that he had reached the island of Ithaca. Here his ship was moored in a haven between two steep headlands near a shadowy cave, where the water-fairies come to look after their bees and weave their sea-blue garments on the hanging looms.
Odysseus, knowing not that he has reached his home at last, walks up the steep incline from the shore. Here he meets the Goddess of wisdom, Pallas Athena.
Contrary to her own judgment Katherine Moore had agreed finally to represent Athena; in spite of the difficulties to be surmounted not to have accepted would have been too ungracious.
From beyond in the grove of trees the Goddess advances. She is seated in a chariot drawn by four children. The children wore costumes of white, short skirts to their knees and sandals on their feet.
The Goddess herself was clad in white with a wreath of green leaves about her hair. Had the audience been closer she would have appeared a pale and fragile Goddess with wide gray eyes set in a delicate, bravely smiling face. For the old-time Kara had been doing her best to return these days in order to cast no gloom upon the pleasure of her friends.