O mother, O Heaven,
Why will you not understand me?
2. "It floats about, that boat of cypress wood,
There by the side of the Ho.
With his two tufts of hair falling over his forehead;
He was my only one;
And I swear that till death I will not do the evil thing.
O mother, O Heaven,
Why will you not understand me?"[42]
In the following lines a young lady begs her lover to be more cautious in his advances, and that in a tone which may remind us of Nausikaa's request to Odysseus to walk at some distance behind her, lest the busybodies of the town should take occasion to gossip:—