But having related so much of her own story, she asked again for the old man’s name and race; and above all, would not he say whether he had seen or heard aught of her husband? Odysseus needed all his subtlety now, as he invented a tale of Crete and the great city of Cnossos, and Minos the king who was his ancestor; and how on one occasion her husband had indeed taken shelter with him there.
Thus in the likeness of truth he related a tissue of falsehood.
Meantime, weeping she listened, her cheeks all flooded with teardrops,
Like as the snow when it melteth away from the heights of the mountains,
Thawed by the breath of the Eurus—the snow that the Zephyr hath sprinkled.
... And Odysseus,
Touched to the heart by the grief of his wife, felt tender compassion;
Yet did his eyes keep fixed, as of horn they had been or of iron,
Motionless under the lids. Tears came, but he skilfully hid them.[[8]]
There was one thing more which Odysseus must do before he could reveal himself; and meantime he could only comfort Penelope by assuring her that her husband still lived and was even now on his way home to her. She shook her head sadly: that was too good to believe: the kind old man was only trying to comfort her. But it was time for him to go to bed; and because he disliked the giddy young serving-maids, Penelope called up the old nurse Euryclea, and bade her wash the beggar’s feet with as much care as if he were her master returned at last. That he was indeed her master the nurse divined the instant that her fingers touched an old scar upon his foot. But Odysseus hastily whispered her to say nothing of what she had discovered; and soon the palace was asleep, with the old beggar stretched upon sheepskins in the forecourt.