reet Telemachus, "Look you to that, dear father.
Your wisdom is, they say, the best among mankind. No mortal man can rival
you. Zealously will we follow, and not fail, I think, in daring, so far as
power is ours."

Then wise Ulysses answered him and said, "Then I will tell you what seems
best to me. First wash and put on tunics, and bid the maids about the
house array themselves. Then let the sacred bard with tuneful lyre lead us
in sportive dancing, that men may say, hearing us from without, 'It is a
wedding,' whether such men be passers-by or neighboring folk; and so broad
rumor may not reach the town about the suitors' murder till we are gone to
our well-wooded farm. There will we plan as the Olympian shall grant us
wisdom."

So he spoke, and willingly they heeded and obeyed. For first they washed
themselves and put on tunics, and the women also put on their attire. And
then the noble bard took up his hollow lyre, and in them stirred desire
for merry music and the gallant dance; and the great house resounded to
the tread of lusty men and gay-girt women. And one who heard the dancing
from without would say, "Well, well! some man has married the long-courted
queen. Hard-hearted! For the husband of her youth she would not guard her
great house to the end, till he should come." So they would say, but knew
not how things were.

Meanwhile within the house Eurynome, the housekeeper, bathed resolute
Ulysses and anointed him with oil, and on him put a goodly robe and tunic.
Upon his face Athene cast great beauty; she made him taller than before,
and stouter to behold, and made the curling locks to fall round his head
as on the hyacinth flower. As when a man lays gold on silver,--some
skillful man whom Vulcan and Pallas Athene have trained in every art, and
he fashions graceful work, so did she cast a grace upon his head and
shoulders. Forth from the bath he came, in bearing like the Immortals, and
once more took the seat from which he first arose, facing his wife, and
spoke to her these words:--

"Lady, a heart impenetrable beyond the sex of women the dwellers on
Olympus gave to you. There is no other woman of such stubborn spirit to
stand off from the husband who, after many grievous toils, comes in the
twentieth year home to his native land. Come, then, good nurse, and make
my bed, that I may lie alone. For certainly of iron is the heart within
her breast."

Then said to him heedful Penelope, "Nay, sir, I am not proud,