ng desire to see his wife again, whom for twenty
years he had not beheld, and he softly stole through the known
passages of his beautiful house, till he came where the maids were
lighting the queen through a stately gallery, that led to the chamber
where she slept. And when the maids saw Ulysses, they said, "It is
the beggar who came to the court to-day, about whom all that uproar
was stirred up in the hall: what does he here?" But Penelope gave
commandment that he should be brought before her, for she said, "It
may be that he has travelled, and has heard something concerning
Ulysses."

Then was Ulysses right glad to hear himself named by his queen, to
find himself in no wise forgotten, nor her great love towards him
decayed in all that time that he had been away. And he stood before
his queen, and she knew him not to be Ulysses, but supposed that he
had been some poor traveller. And she asked him of what country he
was.

He told her (as he had before told to Eumaeus) that he was a Cretan
born, and however poor and cast down he now seemed, no less a man than
brother to Idomeneus, who was grandson to king Minos, and though he
now wanted bread, he had once had it in his power to feast Ulysses.
Then he feigned how Ulysses, sailing for Troy, was forced by stress
of weather to put his fleet in at a port of Crete, where for twelve
days he was his guest, and entertained by him with all befitting
guest-rites. And he described the very garments which Ulysses had on,
by which Penelope knew that he had seen her lord.

In this manner Ulysses told his wife many tales of himself, at most
but painting, but painting so near to the life, that the feeling of
that which she took at her ears became so strong, that the kindly
tears ran down her fair cheeks, while she thought upon her lord, dead
as she thought him, and heavily mourned the loss of him whom she
missed, whom she could not find, though in very deed he stood so near
her.

Ulysses was moved to see her weep, but he kept his own eyes as dry as
iron or horn in their lids, putting a bridle upon his strong passion,
that it should not issue to sight.

Then told he how he had lately been at the court of Thesprotia, and
what he had learned concerning Ulysses there, in order as he had
delivered to Eumaeus: and Penelope was won to believe that there might
be a possibility of Ulysses being alive, and she said, "I dreamed a
dream this morning. Methought I had twenty household fowl whic