s
into my eyes, so that ye may think I am mad with misery." But Penelope
urged him: "Listen to me, old man. My beauty faded away when Odysseus
left me to go to Ilion, and my life has been full of woe since the
suitors came thronging round me, because my husband, as they said,
lived no more upon the earth. So I prayed them to let me weave a
shroud for Laertes, and every night I undid the web which I had woven
in the day time. Thus three years passed away, but in the fourth the
suitors found out my trick, and I know not how to avoid longer the
marriage which I hate. Wherefore tell me who thou art, for thou didst
not spring forth a full-grown man from a tree or a stone." Then
Odysseus recounted to her the tale which he had told to the swineherd,
Eumaius, and the eyes of Penelope were filled with tears as the
stranger spoke of the exploits of Odysseus. "Good friend," she said,
"thy kindly words fall soothingly on my ear. Here shalt thou sojourn,
and I will give thee a robe which I had meant for him who will come
back to me no more." But Odysseus would not take it, and he strove to
comfort her, till at the last he swore to her that before the year's
end her husband should stand before her.

And now, at the bidding of Penelope, his old nurse, Eurykleia, came
with water to wash his feet, and looking hard at him she said, "Many a
stranger has come to this house, but never one so like in form and
voice to my child, Odysseus," and the stranger answered, smiling,
"Most folk who have seen us both have marked the likeness." So she
knelt down to wash his feet, but Odysseus turned himself as much as he
could from the fire, for he feared that she might see the mark of the
wound which the boar's tusk had made long ago when he went to
Parnassus. But he strove in vain. For presently she saw the scar, and
she let go his feet, and the water was spilt upon the ground, as she
cried out, "It is Odysseus, and I knew him not until I saw the print
of the deadly wound which Autolykus healed by his wondrous power."
Then Odysseus bade her be silent, for Athene had dulled the ear of
Penelope that she might not hear, and he would not that any should
know that the chieftain had come back to his home.

[Illustration: ANCIENT METAL ENGRAVING.]

So all were gone, and Odysseus alone remained in the hall through the
still hours of night. But when the morning came, the suitors again
feasted at the banquet board, and many a time they reviled the beggar