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As he spoke the women came out of their chambers, carrying torches in their hands. They fell upon Odysseus and embraced him and clasped and kissed his hands. A longing came over him to weep, for he remembered them from of old every one of the servants who were there. Eurycleia, the old nurse, went to the upper chamber where Penelope lay in her bed.
Half persuaded by the exact description of a garment she had herself made, she bade her maids look to him, but he would not suffer any of them to approach him save his old nurse Eurycleia. As she was washing him in the dim light of the fireside her fingers touched the old scar above his knee, the result of an accident in a boar-hunt during his youth.
But now let me go and tell the news to thy wife, who all this time has been lying in a deep sleep." "Rouse her not yet," said Odysseus, "but go quickly and send those guilty women hither." While Eurycleia was gone to summon the maid-servants, Telemachus and the two herdsmen began, by the command of Odysseus, to set the hall in order, and wash away the traces of slaughter.
So saying, she returned to her labour, and Odysseus rejoiced at the double sign which had been vouchsafed to him. By this time the whole household was afoot, and a score of busy hands were at work, under the direction of Eurycleia, preparing for the coming of the wooers. For it was a general holiday, being the festival of Apollo, and the guests were expected earlier than usual.
Telemachos had risen also, and he went forth to the market-place. Eurycleia called the servants together and ordered them to be quick about their work, for a festival was to be celebrated that day and the wooers would come early. There was a busy time. The menials obeyed, some bringing water, some sweeping the floors, others polishing the benches and covering them with royal tapestries.
So he spake, and the good nurse Eurycleia was not slow to obey, but brought fire and brimstone; and Odysseus thoroughly purged the women's chamber and the great hall and the court. Then the old wife went through the fair halls of Odysseus to tell the women, and to hasten their coming.
His old nurse, Eurycleia, led the way with two torches. She had been a faithful servant since Laertes, in his early manhood, had bought her for the price of a hundred oxen. Telemachos sat down on his bed, and removing his tunic handed it to the nurse, who folded it and smoothed it and hung it up.
One by one they slew those insolent suitors; for the right was theirs, and Athena stood by them, and the time was come. Every one of the false-hearted wooers they laid low, and every corrupt servant in that house; then they made the place clean and fair again. But the old nurse Eurycleia hastened up to Queen Penelope, where she sat in fear and wonder, crying, "Odysseus is returned!
Telemachos took new courage, and returned at once to his house where he found his old nurse, Eurycleia, alone. He revealed to her his intention, and asked her to assist him in getting everything ready for the journey. He bade her draw twelve jars of the best wine, and twelve skins of the finest meal to put aboard the ship. When the old nurse heard this she wept and beat her breast.
The former bars and fastens the outer gates of the court, the latter bids Eurycleia bar the doors of the womens' chambers which lead out of the hall. Odysseus now gets the bow into his hands, strings it, sends the arrow through the axe-blades, and then leaping on the threshold of stone, deals his shafts among the wooers.
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