[76]. Odyssey, xvi. 4-10.
[77]. Odyssey, xvi. 162.
We are next transported to the scene of the revellings of the Suitors, and the fortitude of Penelope. The sight of the once familiar turreted enclosure of his palace, and the sound of the well-remembered voice and lyre of the minstrel Phemius, proclaiming the progress of the festivities, all but overturned the equanimity of the counterfeit mendicant. His practised powers of dissimulation, however, came to his aid; and grasping the hand of his unsuspecting retainer, he brought, with a cunningly devised speech, his tell-tale emotion into harmony with his assumed character. They advanced to the threshold, and there, on a dung-heap, half devoured with insect parasites, lay a dog—the dog Argus. But we must allow the poet to tell the story in his own way.
Thus as they spake, a dog that lay apart,
Lifted his head, and pricked his list’ning ears,
Argus, whom erst Odysseus patient bred,
But use of him had none; for ere that day,
He sailed for sacred Troy; and other men
Had trained and led him forth o’er field and fell,
To chase wild goats, hares, and the pricket deer.