III
After giving his orders to Telemachus, Odysseus had retired to refresh himself with the bath, and put on fresh raiment, while Penelope remained seated in her former place. After an interval of some length he re-entered the hall, and sat down face to face with his wife. But what miracle was this? The haggard, timeworn beggar was gone, and in his place sat her husband, as she had known him in the days of old, with the added dignity which he had gained by twenty years of strenuous life. But the frost which had lain upon her spirit during her long period of weary waiting was not easily to be broken, and still she doubted. After a long silence Odysseus spoke, and now for the first time his tones had a ring of reproach: "Still not a word for thy husband, who has come back to thee after twenty years? Surely the very demon of unbelief possesses thee!" Even then Penelope made no answer, for she was waiting to put the final test, and at length Odysseus gave her the opportunity. "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.
Odysseus rose bravely to the test: whether divining his wife's purpose or not, he exclaimed, with an air of surprise and indignation: "Lady, what meanest thou by this order? Who hath moved my bed from its place? He must be of more than mortal skill who could remove it, for it was fashioned in wondrous wise, and with my own hands I wrought it, to be a sign and a secret between thee and me. And this was the manner of the work. Within the courtyard there grew an olive-tree, a fair tree and a large, with a world of green leaves, and a stem like a stout pillar. Round this I built the walls of the chamber with close-fitting stones, and roofed it over, and hung the door on its hinges. Then I went to work on the tree, lopping off the boughs, and smoothing the trunk with the adze, so as to fashion it into a bedpost, and beginning from this I made the frame of a bed, and decorated it with gold and silver and ivory, and over the frame I stretched broad bands of ox-hide, stained with bright purple. This I tell thee as a sign by which thou mayest know me."
The last shadow was now removed, and before Odysseus had well ended what he was saying Penelope sprang towards him, threw her arms round his neck, and covered his face with kisses. "Be not angry with me, my dear lord," she murmured tenderly, "because I held back so long, and gave thee not loving welcome, as I do now. Thou art very wise, and knowest the dangers which beset a lonely woman who is over hasty to believe when a stranger comes and calls himself her husband. Many there be that lie in wait to lay snares for a weak and loving heart. But now I know thee for mine own dear love, and now is the winter of my widowhood made glorious summer, since I have seen thy face again."
So they sat locked in each other's arms, that valiant, long-suffering man, and his faithful wife, two brave and patient souls, parted so long, and tried so hard, but now united once more in wedded love and bliss. The hours went by unheeded, and day would have overtaken them in that trance of delight, had not Athene marked them with pity from her heavenly seat, and stayed the steeds of the morning in the east, and prolonged the reign of night, that the joy of that first meeting might not be broken until they had tasted all its honey to the lees.