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This stratagem; a web of amplest size And subtlest woof beginning, thus she spake. Princes, my suitors! since the noble Chief Ulysses is no more, press not as yet My nuptials, wait till I shall finish, first, A fun’ral robe (lest all my threads decay) Which for the antient Hero I prepare, Laertes, looking for the mournful hour When fate shall snatch him to eternal rest; Else I the censure dread of all my sex, Should he, so wealthy, want at last a shroud. So spake the Queen, and unsuspicious, we With her request complied. Thenceforth, all day She wove the ample web, and by the aid Of torches ravell’d it again at night. Three years by such contrivance she deceived The Greecians; but when (three whole years elaps’d) The fourth arriv’d, then, conscious of the fraud, A damsel of her train told all the truth, And her we found rav’ling the beauteous work. — Homer, The Odyssey
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