But Ulysses made answer: "Nay, wife of Ulysses, say not so. Cease from thy mourning, for Ulysses is yet alive. Near at hand is he, in the land of the Thesprotians, and is bringing many gifts with him. So the king of the land told me, and showed me the gifts which he had gathered; many they were and great, and will enrich his house to the tenth generation. But Ulysses himself, when I was there, had gone to Dodona [Footnote: Do-do'-na.], to inquire of Zeus—for there is the oracle of the god in the midst of an oak tree—whether he shall return to his home openly or by stealth. Be sure, O lady, that in this tenth year Ulysses shall come, even when the old moon waneth and the new is born."

Then said Penelope: "May thy words be accomplished, O stranger! Verily, thou shouldest have much kindness at my hands and many gifts. Yet I have a boding in my heart that it shall not be. But now the handmaids shall spread a bed for thee with mattress and blankets that thou mayest sleep warm till morning shall come. And they shall wash thy feet."

But Ulysses spake, saying: "Mattress and blankets have been hateful to me since I left the land of Crete. I will lie as I have been wont to lie for many nights, sleepless and waiting for the day. And I have no delight in the bath; nor shall any of these maidens touch my feet. Yet if there be some old woman, faithful of heart, her I would suffer to touch my feet."

Then said Penelope: "Such an one there is, even the woman who nursed my lord, and cherished him, and carried him in her arms, from the time when his mother bare him. She is now weak with age, but she will wash thy feet."

And she spake to the nurse, saying, "Up, now, and wash this man, who is of like age with thy master."

Then the old woman covered her face with her hands and wept, saying: "Willingly will I wash thy feet both for Penelope's sake and thine own. Many strangers, worn with travel, have come hither, but never saw I one that was so like to Ulysses in voice and in feet."

And Ulysses made answer, "Even so have I heard before; men said ever that we were most like one to the other."

But when she had made ready the bath, then Ulysses sat aloof from the hearth, and turned his face to the darkness, for he feared in his heart lest, when the old woman should handle his leg, she might know a great scar thereon, where he had been rent by the tusks of a wild boar.

By this scar, then, the old nurse knew that it was Ulysses himself, and said, "O Ulysses, O my child, to think that I knew thee not!"

And she looked towards the Queen, as meaning to tell the thing to her. But Ulysses laid his hand on her throat and said softly: "Mother, wouldest thou kill me? I am returned after twenty years, and none must know till I shall be ready to take vengeance."