Stories of the Old World

by Alfred John Church

So the slaughtering of the suitors was ended; and now Ulysses bade cleanse the hall, and wash the benches and the tables with water, and purify them with sulphur. And when this was done, that Euryclea, the nurse, should go to Penelopé and tell her that her husband was indeed returned. So Euryclea went to her chamber and found the Queen newly woke from slumber, and told her that her husband was returned, and how that he had slain the suitors, and how that she had known him by the scar where the wild boar had wounded him.

And yet the Queen doubted, and said, “Let me go down and see my son, and these men that are slain, and the man who slew them.”

So she went, and sat in the twilight by the other wall, and Ulysses sat by a pillar, with his eyes cast down, waiting till his wife should speak to him. But she was sore perplexed; for now she seemed to know him, and now she knew him not, being in such evil case, for he had not suffered that the women should put new robes upon him.

And Telemachus said, “Mother, evil mother, sittest thou apart from my father, and speakest not to him? Surely thy heart is harder than a stone.”

But Ulysses said, “Let be Telemachus. Thy mother will know that which is true in good time. But now let us hide this slaughter for a while, lest the friends of these men seek vengeance against us. Wherefore let there be music and dancing in the hall, so that men shall say, ‘This is the wedding of the Queen, and there is joy in the palace,’ and know not of the truth.”

So the minstrel played and the women danced. And meanwhile Ulysses went to the bath, and clothed himself in bright apparel, and came back to the hall, and Athené made him fair and young to see. Then he sat him down as before, over against his wife, and said,—

“Surely, O lady, the gods have made thee harder of heart than all women besides. Would other wife have kept away from her husband, coming back now after twenty years?”

And when she doubted yet, he spake again, “Hear thou this, Penelopé, and know that it is I myself, and not another. Dost thou remember how I built up the bed in our chamber? In the court there grew an olive tree, stout as a pillar, and round it I built a chamber of stone, and spanned the chamber with a roof; and I hung also a door, and then I cut off the leaves of the olive, and planed the trunk, to be smooth and round; and the bed I inlaid with ivory and silver and gold, and stretched upon it an ox-hide that was ornamented with silver.”

Then Penelopé knew him, that he was her husband indeed, and ran to him, and threw her arms about him, and kissed him, saying, “Pardon me, my lord, if I was slow to know thee; for ever I feared, so many wiles have men, that some one should deceive me, saying that he was my husband. But now I know this, that thou art he and not another.”

And they wept over each other and kissed each other. So did Ulysses come back to his home after twenty years.