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So the twain came forward, and noble Odysseus led the way, and they stood before his face; and Achilles sprang up amazed with the lyre in his hand, and left the seat where he was sitting, and in like manner Patroklos when he beheld the men arose.
The name of Odysseus, the arch-plotter, occurred again and again as the tale went on; and once more Odysseus was moved to tears by the memories which the words of the bard awakened. Alcinous observed his emotion, and called to Demodocus to cease his song. "We vex our guest," he said, "for whose sake we are gathered here. Doubtless the minstrel has touched some hidden spring of sorrow.
Eumaios replied: "True, my friend, this is the house of Odysseus. Now, let us consider what we are to do. Shall I take the lead and go in first, or wilt thou go first and let me follow?" Odysseus, the sagacious, made answer: "Go in before me, and I will follow by and by." They were standing near the stable doors while talking.
But Odysseus lightly avoided it with a turn of his head, and smiled right grimly in his heart, and the ox's foot smote the well-builded wall. Then Telemachus rebuked Ctesippus, saying: 'Verily, Ctesippus, it has turned out happier for thy heart's pleasure as it is!
Youth, eager, strong, self-confident, with its innocent parted lips, and its steadfast eyes looking out over the future the drawing stood there as the quintessence, the embodiment, of a whole generation. So might the young Odysseus have looked when he left his mother on his first journey to hunt the boar with his kinsfolk on Mount Parnassus.
So shouldst thou know what my might is, and how my hands follow to obey. In like manner Eumaeus prayed to all the gods, that wise Odysseus might return to his own home. On such wise they spake one to the other, but the wooers at that time were framing death and doom for Telemachus. Even so there came by them a bird on their left, an eagle of lofty flight, with a cowering dove in his clutch.
Arnaeus was his name, for so had his good mother given it him at his birth, but all the young men called him Irus, because he ran on errands, whensoever any might bid him. So now he came, and would have driven Odysseus from his own house, and began reviling him, and spake winged words: 'Get thee hence, old man, from the doorway, lest thou be even haled out soon by the foot.
A proud maiden was Penelope, when Odysseus wedded her in her youthful bloom, and made her the mistress of his fair dwelling and his rich domain. One happy year they lived together, and a son was born to them, whom they named Telemachus. Then war arose between Greece and Asia, and Odysseus was summoned to join the train of chieftains who followed Agamemnon to win back Helen, his brother's wife.
And when once a few striking stories had thus arisen, when once it had been told how Indra smote the Panis, and how Sigurd rescued Brynhild, and how Odysseus blinded the Kyklops, then certain mythic or dramatic types had been called into existence; and to these types, preserved in the popular imagination, future stories would inevitably conform.
Then Odysseus, rich in counsel, stripped him of his rags and leaped on the great threshold with his bow and quiver full of arrows, and poured forth all the swift shafts there before his feet, and spake among the wooers. But the florid style of speech, which has beauty and capacity for creating delight and pleasure, like a flower, is frequent in our poet; his poetry is full of such examples.
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