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Updated: June 12, 2025
And as he stood on the threshold he saw them approaching, and cried: "They are even now close at hand; let us arm ourselves in all haste." So they armed themselves. With Ulysses were Telemachus, and Eumaeus, and the keeper of the herds. Also there stood with him six sons of Dolius; and the two old men also, Laertes and Dolius, though their heads were white with age.
Then, O swineherd Eumaeus, didst thou answer him, saying: 'Guest of mine, it were an impious thing for me to slight a stranger, even if there came a meaner man than thou; for from Zeus are all strangers and beggars; and a little gift from such as we, is dear; for this is the way with thralls, who are ever in fear when young lords like ours bear rule over them.
"This hound," answered Eumaeus, "belonged to him who has died in a far country. If he were what he was when Ulysses left for Troy, he would soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the forest that could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and the women take no care of him.
Athene then goes to Lacedaemon, to bring back Telemachus, who has now resided there for a month. Odysseus won the heart of Eumaeus, who of course did not recognise him, and slept in the swineherd's hut, while Athene was waking Telemachus, in Lacedaemon, and bidding him 'be mindful of his return. Is spent by Odysseus in the swineherd's hut. Telemachus reaches Pherae, half-way to Pylos.
He sends Eumaeus to Penelope with news of his arrival, and then Athene reveals Odysseus to Telemachus. The two plot the death of the wooers. Odysseus bids Telemachus remove, on a favourable opportunity, the arms which were disposed as trophies on the walls of the hall at home. In the evening Eumaeus returned to his hut, where Athene had again disguised Odysseus.
Even so he spake, and the swineherd departed when he heard that saying. And as he crossed the threshold Penelope spake to him: 'Thou bringest him not, Eumaeus: what means the wanderer hereby? Can it be that he fears some one out of measure, or is he even ashamed of tarrying in the house? A shamefaced man makes a bad beggar.
Then didst thou speak to him in heaviness of heart, swineherd Eumaeus: 'Ah! wherefore, stranger, hath such a thought arisen in thine heart? Surely thou art set on perishing utterly there, if thou wouldest indeed go into the throng of the wooers, whose outrage and violence reacheth even to the iron heaven!
For this saying of Eumaeus the waters stood in Ulysses's eyes, and he said, "My friend, to say and to affirm positively that he cannot be alive is to give too much license to incredulity.
The tale pleased the herdsmen; and Eumaeus, who more than all the rest was gratified to hear tales of Ulysses, true or false, said that for his story he deserved a mantle, and a night's lodging, which he should have; and he spread for him a bed of goat and sheep skins by the fire; and the seeming beggar, who was indeed the true Ulysses, lay down and slept under that poor roof, in that abject disguise to which the will of Minerva had subjected him.
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 wont to believe that there might be a possibility of Ulysses being alive, and she said, "I dreamed a dream this morning.
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