"there is a time for many words, a time for sleep as well.
But if you insist on hearing more, I’d never stint
on telling my own tale and those more painful still,
the griefs of my comrades, dead in the war’s wake,
who escaped the battle-cries of Trojan armies
only to die in blood at journey’s end –
thanks to a vicious woman’s will."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 11, lines 429-436. Odysseus says this to Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, who wants him to continue regaling him with tales of his adventures, since "it’s hardly time to sleep." Though it causes Odysseus pain, he vows to never stop telling his story and those of the heroes of the Trojan War. The "vicious woman" Odysseus blames for the deaths of the Achaeans who escaped the Trojan armies is Persephone. She was goddess of the underworld and wife of Hades.