with Eumaeus, his disguise, which assumes three main attitudes.
First, he is passive, chiefly asking and listening; thus he gets out of
Eumaeus what information he wishes; then he plays an active part in his
disguise, telling his own history under the mask of fiction; finally he
assumes an open disguise, that is, he tells of one of his artifices at
Troy, and then states his present object in telling it. The simple
Eumaeus, however, does not suspect him in all these transformations.
Still we may notice in the swineherd a strong feeling of oneness with
the stranger, an unconscious presentiment of who he is.

I. The approach of Ulysses to the lodge of Eumaeus is an experience
which one may have in the mountains of Greece to-day. We can find the
same general outline of a hut with its surrounding fence and court, in
which domestic animals are penned, particularly during the night. Then
there is that same welcome from the dogs, which issue forth in a pack
with an unearthly howling, growling and barking at the approaching
stranger, till somebody appear and pelt them with stones. Often must
the wandering Homer have had such a greeting! The hospitable swineherd,
Eumaeus, the poet must have met with in his travels; the whole scene and
character are drawn directly from real life. A similar reception we
have had in a remote pastoral lodge, dogs included. But the modern
pedestrian will hardly employ the ruse of Ulysses, that of sitting down
on the ground and letting his staff drop out of his hand. He will use
his weapon and grasp for a stone everywhere present on the Greek soil,
though the fight be unequal. Still the sentence of Pliny (_Nat. Hist._
VIII. 61) deserves always to be cited in this connection: _impetus
eorum (canum) et soevitia mitigatur ab homine considente humi_; as if
dogs in the height of their rage might be touched with the plea of
piety.

The character of the swineherd straightway shows itself by his conduct
toward this poor hungry stranger, a vagabond in appearance. To be sure,
hospitality was and is a common virtue in Greece; but Eumaeus saw at
once in the wretched looking man his master "wandering among people of
a strange tongue, needing food." Therefore come, old man, and satisfy
yourself with bread and wine. Such is the strong fellow-feeling warming
the hearth of that humble lodge. Misfortune has not soured the
swineherd, but he has extracted from it his greatest blessing--an
universal charity. This is not