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Updated: June 5, 2025
His feet were in the water, and she put her hand upon one of them. As she did so, Odysseus turned his face away to the darkness, for it suddenly came into his mind that his nurse, old Eurycleia, might recognize the scar that was upon that foot. How came it there, that scar? It had been made long ago when a boar's tusk had ripped up the flesh of his foot.
The wooers came into the hall and crowded around him, with fair words in their mouths. Then all sat down at tables, and Eurycleia brought wheaten bread and wine and dainties. Just at that time Odysseus and Eumæus were journeying towards the City.
Then the good nurse Eurycleia answered him: 'Yea now, my child, I will tell thee all the truth. Thou hast fifty women-servants in thy halls, that we have taught the ways of housewifery, how to card wool and to bear bondage. Of these twelve in all have gone the way of shame, and honour not me, nor their lady Penelope.
Swear to me now that thou wilt not tell my mother until twelve days have past." Eurycleia swore as he bade her, and at once set about making the preparations for his journey. The suitors were in high spirits at the result of the meeting, and they ate heavily and drank deeply to celebrate their triumph.
The suitors laughed to hear the young man's voice ring out like a trumpet and drown all other noises. Odysseus took the bow and turned it from side to side, examining it in every part. Telemachos, in a low tone, bade Eurycleia make fast all the doors, and the master herdsman tied the gates of the outer court with a ship's cable.
It is better for a man to beg his bread in the town than in the fields. Go thou, and I will follow, so soon as the sun shall wax hot, for my garments are exceeding poor, and I fear lest the cold overcome me." So Telemachus went his way, devising evil against the suitors all the while. And when he came to the house his nurse Eurycleia saw him first, and kissed him.
"Go, Eurycleia," he said, "and prepare a bed for me; I will leave this iron-hearted wife and go to my rest." "Ay, do so," said Penelope, "take the bed from the chamber which he built with his own hands, and lay it in another room, that he may slumber there." This she said to prove him, for the bed and the chamber had a secret history, known only to herself and her husband and the faithful nurse.
He told him, too, to order Eurycleia, the faithful nurse, to bar the doors of the women's apartment at the end of the hall, and to bid the women, even if they heard a groaning and a din, not to come into the hall. And he charged the cattleherd Philœtius to bar the gates of the courtyard. As he went into the hall, one of the wooers, Eurymachus, was striving to bend the bow.
Therefore, it does not become thee to revile him. She spoke to the old nurse who had come with her, and said, 'Eurycleia, bring to the fire a bench, with a fleece upon it, that this stranger may sit and tell me his story. Eurycleia brought over the bench, and Odysseus sat down near the fire.
So Telemachus strode away until he reached the palace, and went into the hall. The old nurse Eurycleia was there with the maids, spreading fleeces on the inlaid stools and chairs; and she saw him at once and went up to him with tears in her eyes, and then all the women gathered round and kissed him and welcomed him home again.
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