But the old nurse Eurycleia hastened up to Queen Penelope, where she sat in fear and wonder, crying, "Odysseus is returned! Come and see with thine own eyes!"
After twenty years of false tales, the poor queen could not believe her ears. She came down into the hall bewildered, and looked at the stranger as one walking in a dream. Even when Athena had given him back his youth and kingly looks, she stood in doubt, so that her own son reproached her and Odysseus was grieved in spirit.
But when he drew near and called her by her name, entreating her by all the tokens that she alone knew, her heart woke up and sang like a brook set free in spring! She knew him then for her husband Odysseus, come home at last.
Surely that was happiness enough to last them ever after.