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within, and her knees moved fast for joy, and her feet
stumbled one over the other; and she stood above the lady's
head and spake to her, saying:

'Awake, Penelope, dear child, that thou mayest see with
thine own eyes that which thou desirest day by day.
Odysseus hath come, and hath got him to his own house,
though late hath he come, and hath slain the proud wooers
that troubled his house, and devoured his substance, and
oppressed his child.'

Then wise Penelope answered her: 'Dear nurse, the gods have
made thee distraught, the gods that can make foolish even
the wisdom of the wise, and that stablish the simple in
understanding. They it is that have marred thy reason,
though heretofore thou hadst a prudent heart. Why dost thou
mock me, who have a spirit full of sorrow, to speak these
wild words, and rousest me out of sweet slumber, that had
bound me and overshadowed mine eyelids? Never yet have I
slept so sound since the day that Odysseus went forth to
see that evil Ilios, never to be named. Go to now, get thee
down and back to the women's chamber, for if any other of
the maids of my house had come and brought me such tidings,
and wakened me from sleep, straightway would I have sent
her back woefully to return within the women's chamber; but
this time thine old age shall stand thee in good stead.'

Then the good nurse Eurycleia answered her: 'I mock thee
not, dear child, but in very deed Odysseus is here, and
hath come home, even as I tell thee. He is that guest on
whom all men wrought such dishonour in the halls. But long
ago Telemachus was ware of him, that he was within the
house, yet in his prudence he hid the counsels of his
father, that he might take vengeance on the violence of the
haughty wooers.'

Thus she spake, and then was Penelope glad, and leaping
from her bed she fell on the old woman's neck, and let fall
the tears from her eyelids, and uttering her voice spake to
her winged words: 'Come, dear nurse, I pray thee, tell me
all truly--if indeed he hath come home as thou sayest--how
he hath laid his hands on the shameless wooers, he being
but one man, while they abode ever in their companies
within the house.'

Then the good nurse Eurycleia answered her: 'I saw not, I
wist not, only I heard the groaning of men slain. And we in
an inmost place of the well-builded chambers sat all
amazed, and the close-fitted doors shut in the room, till
thy son called me from the chamber, for his father sent him
out to that end. Then I found Odysseus standing among the
slain, who around him, stretched on the hard floor, lay one
upon the other; it would have comforted thy heart to see
him, all stained like a lion with blood and soil of battle.
And now are all the wooers gathered in an heap by the gates
of the court, while he is purifying his fair house with
brimstone, and hath kindled a great fire, and hath sent me
forth to call thee. So come with me, that ye may both enter
into your heart's delight, {*} for ye have suffered much
affliction. And even now hath this thy long desire been
fulfilled; thy lord hath come alive to his own hearth, and
hath found both thee and his son in the halls; and the
wooers that wrought him evil he hath slain, every man of
them in his house.'

{* Reading [Greek] . . . [Greek].}

Then wise Penelope answered her: 'Dear nurse, boast not yet
over them with laughter. Thou knowest how welcome the sight
of him would be in the halls to all, and to me in chief,
and to his son that we got between us. But this is no true
tale, as thou declarest it, nay but it is one of the
deathless gods that hath slain the proud wooers, in wrath
at their bitter insolence and evil deeds. For they honoured
none of earthly men, neither the good nor yet the bad, that
came among them. Wherefore they have suffered an evil doom
through their own infatuate deeds. But Odysseus, far away
hath lost his homeward path to the Achaean land, and
himself is lost.'

Then the good nurse Eurycleia made answer to her: 'My
child, what word hath escaped the door of thy lips, in that
thou saidest that thy lord, who is even now within, and by
his own hearthstone, would return no more? Nay, thy heart
is ever hard of belief. Go to now, and I will tell thee
besides a most manifest token, even the scar of the wound
that the boar on a time dealt him with his white tusk.
This I spied while washing his feet, and fain I would have
told it even to thee, but he laid his hand on my mouth, and
in the fulness of his wisdom suffered me not to speak. But
come with me and I will stake my life on it; and if I play
thee false, do thou slay me by a death most pitiful.'

Then wise Penelope made answer to her: 'Dear nurse, it is
hard for thee, how wise soever, to observe the purposes of
the everlasting gods. None the less let us go to my child,
that I may see the wooers dead, and him that slew them.'

With that word she went down from the upper chamber, and
much her heart debated, whether she should stand apart, and
question her dear lord or draw nigh, and clasp and kiss his
head and hands. But when she had come within and had
crossed the threshold of stone, she sat down over against
Odysseus, in the light of the fire, by the further wall.
Now he was sitting by the tall pillar, looking down and
waiting to know if perchance his noble wife would speak to
him, when her eyes beheld him. But she sat long in silence,
and amazement came upon her soul, and now she would look
upon him steadfastly with her eyes, and now again she knew
him not, for that he was clad in vile raiment. And
Telemachus rebuked her, and spake and hailed her: 

'Mother mine, ill mother, of an ungentle heart, why turnest
thou thus away from my father, and dost not sit by him and
question him and ask him all? No other woman in the world
would harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her lord,
who after much travail and sore had come to her in the
twentieth year to his own country. But thy heart is ever
harder than stone.'

Then wise Penelope answered him, saying: 'Child, my mind is