y exerting all his influence induced them
to forgo their murderous purpose and disperse quietly to their homes.

Odysseus and Penelope

As soon as the house was quiet, Telemachus, obeying a sign from his
father, prepared to convey the weapons which hung about the hall to an
inner chamber, out of the reach of the wooers. First he ordered
Eurycleia to keep the women out of the way, and having barred the
doors leading to the inner apartments, he took down helmet and spear
and shield from the walls, and carried them, with his father's help,
to the upper room. When this important task was performed he withdrew
for the night, and Odysseus was left alone in the hall to await the
coming of Penelope.

Presently the doors were opened, and by the flickering light of the
braziers Odysseus, for the first time after twenty years, saw the face
of his wife. Lovely indeed she seemed in his eyes, not less than when
he wedded her in her maiden bloom. Her handmaids brought a chair of
silver and ivory, a work of most rare device, and set it by the fire
with a soft fleece upon it. Penelope took the seat prepared for her
and gazed curiously at the stranger, who sat crouched in the shadow of
a pillar, avoiding her eye. Meanwhile the women were bustling about
the hall, removing the remains of the feast, and heaping fresh fuel on
the fires. Among them was Melantho, who had spoken so roughly to
Odysseus an hour or two before. When she saw Odysseus she began
railing at him again, and rudely bade him begone. Penelope soon
reduced her to silence, and then calling Eurycleia she bade her place
a seat for the stranger.

"Now tell me," began Penelope, when the chair had been brought, "who
art thou, and of what country? And who were thy father and mother?"

"Ah! lady," answered Odysseus, "I beseech thee, question me not as to
my country and my friends, lest thou open anew the fountain of my
grief. It is not seemly to sit weeping and wailing in a stranger's
house; and I fear that thou wilt say that my tears are the tears of
drunkenness."

Penelope pressed him for an answer. "Thou surely art of some country,"
she said, smiling; "or art thou one of those of whom old stories tell,
born of stocks and stones?"

"Since thou urgest it so strongly," replied Odysseus, "I cannot deny
thee. In the broad realm of Crete there is a certain city, Cnosus by
name; there reigned Minos, and begat Deucalion, my famous sire. To
Deucalion two sons were born, I