Beta.

beta

   look, look at him: this expanding contracting mystery man; now a
   foot taller, now looking an ordinary greek; now filled with vigor,
   now an exhausted worker, now looking like a god, now the despicable
   beggar; now fashionable ...

   a man with parts: what does he want with me old as i am; widowed in
   my eyes; a legend in the land of ithaka; surely there is more beauty
   with youth, and in his talked-about conquests one would have erased
   the taste of our first love

   a man with pasts: am i to join his collection of past loves; to be
   narrated from port to port as he does with kalypso and circe? as if
   i lack suitors; let me ask you all: what have i got which the rest
   of my kind don't?

   they say he has had nymphs and goddesses for passing time; what
   chance did i then have to enchant him all this while above the gods
   who promised him immortality, except that being human, he chose old
   age with me?

   used up by other women for twenty years, now he comes all shriveled
   up and expects me to ululate for him: haven't i got eyes; don't i
   have self-respect and a reputation to keep, did i wait this long for
   a beggar?

   yesterday he beguiled me with many a tale which brought tears to my
   eyes; but i am used to shedding them now; besides it fits my role of
   suffering waiter: but what if he is weaving a trap for my lonely
   heart?

   yesterday i examined him the beggar on the dress odysseus wore when
   he went
   to war: his recollection was faultless, especially the description
   of the
   pin with a hound holding/ensnaring the dappled fawn: the story of
   our joint destiny

   is this he, though?