heard of Ulysses, near home, in the
rich land of Epirus, and that he is already on his way to us, bringing a
store of treasures with him."

Then Penelope said, "Quick, bring the stranger here at once, and let him
speak with me face to face. And if I see that he tells the truth I will
give him a vest and a cloak for himself."

So the swineherd hurried back with the message; but Ulysses said he dared
not face the princes a second time and it would be better to speak with
Penelope later in the evening, alone by the fireside; and when the queen
heard this, she said that the stranger was right. By this time it was
afternoon, and Eumaeus went up to Telemachus and whispered that he must be
off to his work again. Telemachus said he might go, but bade him have
supper first and told him to come back next morning without fail. So the
swineherd took his food in the hall, and then started home for his farm,
to look after his pigs and everything that he had charge of there.

B. THE TRIAL OF THE BOW

Translated by George Herbert Palmer

And now the goddess, clear-eyed Athene, put in the mind of Icarius's
daughter, heedful Penelope, to offer to the suitors in the hall the bow
and the gray steel, as means of sport and harbingers of death. She mounted
the long stairway of her house, holding a crooked key in her firm hand,--a
goodly key of bronze, having an ivory handle,--and hastened with her
damsels to a far-off room where her lord's treasure lay, bronze, gold, and
well-wrought steel. Here also lay his curved bow and the quiver for his
arrows,--and many grievous shafts were in it still,--gifts which a friend
had given Ulysses when he met him once in Lacedaemon,--Iphitus, son of
Eurytus, a man like the Immortals. At Messene the two met, in the house of
wise Orsilochus. Ulysses had come hither to claim a debt, which the whole
district owed him; for upon ships of many oars Messenians carried off from
Ithaca three hundred sheep together with their herdsmen. In the long quest
for these, Ulysses took the journey when he was but a youth; for his
father and the other elders sent him forth. Iphitus, on the other hand,
was seeking horses; for twelve mares had been lost, which had as foals
twelve hardy mules. These afterwards became the death and doom of Iphitus
when he met the stalwart son of Zeus, the hero Hercules, who well knew
deeds of daring; for Hercules slew Iphitus in his own house, although his
guest, and recklessly did not