anes
and the new moon is born.'

'Ah, no,' said Penelope. 'Often before have wanderers told me such
comfortable things, and I believed them. I know now that thy word cannot
be accomplished. But it is time for thee to rest thyself, stranger. My
handmaidens will make a bed for thee in the vestibule, and then come to
thee and bathe thy feet.'

Said Odysseus, 'Thy handmaidens would be loath to touch the feet of a
wanderer such as I. But if there is in the house some old wife who has
borne such troubles as I have borne, I would have my feet bathed by
her.'

Said Penelope, 'Here is an ancient woman who nursed and tended that
hapless man, Odysseus. She took him in her arms in the very hour he was
born. Eurycleia, wash the feet of this man, who knew thy lord and mine.'

Thereupon the nurse, old Eurycleia, fetched water, both hot and cold,
and brought the bath to the hearth. And standing before Odysseus in the
flickering light of the fire, she said, 'I will wash thy feet, both for
Penelope's sake and for thine own. The heart within me is moved at the
sight of thee. Many strangers have come into this hall, but I have never
seen one that was so like as thou art to Odysseus.'

Said Odysseus, 'Many people have said that Odysseus and I favour each
other.'

His feet were in the water, and she put her hand upon one of them. As
she did so, Odysseus turned his face away to the darkness, for it
suddenly came into his mind that his nurse, old Eurycleia, might
recognize the scar that was upon that foot.

How came it there, that scar? It had been made long ago when a boar's
tusk had ripped up the flesh of his foot. Odysseus was then a youth, and
he had gone to the mountain Parnassus to visit there his mother's
father.

One morning, with his uncles, young Odysseus went up the slope of the
mountain Parnassus, to hunt with hounds. In a thick lair a mighty boar
was lying. When the sound of the men's trampling came near him, he
sprang up with gleaming eyes and stood before them all. Odysseus,
holding his spear in his hands, rushed upon him. But before he could
strike him, the boar charged, ripping deep into his flesh with his tusk.
Then Odysseus speared him through the shoulder and the boar was slain.
His uncles staunched the wound and he stayed with them on the mountain
Parnassus, in his grandfather's house, until the wound was healed.

And now, as Eurycleia, his old nurse, passed her hands along the leg,
she let his foot drop sudden