"Then wise Penelope answered him, saying: 'Child, my mind is amazed within me, and I have no strength to speak, or to ask him aught, nay, or to look on him face to face. But if in truth this be Odysseus, and he hath indeed come home, verily we shall be aware of each other the more surely; for we have tokens that we twain know of, even we, secret from all others.'
"So she spake, and the steadfast, goodly Odysseus smiled, and quickly he spake to Telemachus winged words: 'Telemachus, leave now thy mother to make trial of me within the chambers; so shall she soon come to a better knowledge than heretofore.'
"Meanwhile, the housedame Eurynome had bathed the great-hearted Odysseus within his house, and anointed him with olive oil, and cast about him a goodly mantle and a doublet. Moreover, Athena shed great beauty from his head downwards, and made him greater and more mighty to behold, and from his head caused deep, curling locks to flow, like the hyacinth flower. And as when some skilful man overlays gold upon silver, one that Hephæstus and Pallas Athena have taught all manner of craft, and full of grace is his handiwork, even so did Athena shed grace about his head and shoulders; and forth from the bath he came, in form like to the immortals. Then he sat down again on the high seat, whence he had arisen, over against his wife, and spake to her, saying:
"'Strange lady, surely to thee, above all womankind, the Olympians have given a heart that cannot be softened. No other woman in the world would harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her husband, who, after much travail and sore, had come to her, in the twentieth year, to his own country.--Nay, come, nurse strew a bed for me to lie all alone, for assuredly her spirit within her is as iron.'
"Then wise Penelope answered him again: 'Strange man, I have no proud thoughts, nor do I think scorn of thee, nor am I too greatly astonished, but I know right well what manner of man thou wert when thou wentest forth out of Ithaca, on the long-oared galley.--But come, Euryclea, spread for him the good bedstead outside the stablished bridal chamber that he built himself. Thither bring ye forth the good bedstead, and cast bedding thereon, even fleeces and rugs and shining blankets.'
"So she spake and made trial of her lord, but Odysseus in sore displeasure spake to his true wife, saying: 'Verily, a bitter word is this, lady, that thou hast spoken. Who has set my bed otherwhere? Hard would it be for one, how skilled soever, unless a god were to come that might easily set it in another place, if so he would. But of men there is none living, howsoever strong in his youth, that could lightly upheave it; for a great marvel is wrought in the fashion of the bed, and it was I that made it, and none other. There was growing a bush of olive, long of leaf, and most goodly of growth, within the inner court, and the stem as large as a pillar. Round about this I built the chamber, till I had finished it, with stones close set, and I roofed it over well and added thereto compacted doors fitting well. Next I sheared off all the light wood of the long-leaved olive, and rough-hewed the trunk upwards from the root, and smoothed it around with the adze, well and skilfully, and made straight the line thereto and so fashioned it into the bedpost, and I bored it all with the auger. Beginning from this headpost, I wrought at the bedstead till I had finished it, and made it fair with inlaid work of gold and of silver and of ivory. Then I made fast therein a bright purple band of oxhide. Even so I declare to thee this token, and I know not, lady, if the bedstead be yet fast in its place, or if some man has cut away the stem of the olive tree and set the bedstead otherwhere.'
"So he spake, and at once her knees were loosened, and her heart melted within her, as she knew the sure tokens that Odysseus showed her. Then she fell a-weeping, and ran straight towards him and cast her hands about his neck, and kissed his head and spake, saying:
"'Murmur not against me, Odysseus, for thou wert ever at other times the wisest of men. It is the gods that gave us sorrow, the gods who were jealous that we should abide together and have joy of our youth and come to the threshold of old age. So now be not wroth with me hereat nor full of indignation because I did not welcome thee gladly as now, when I first saw thee. For always my heart within my breast shuddered for fear lest some man should come and deceive me with his words, for many there be that devise gainful schemes and evil. Nay, even Argive Helen, daughter of Zeus, would not have lain with a stranger, and taken him for a lover, had she known that the warlike sons of the Achæans would bring her home again to her own dear country. Howsoever, it was the god that set her upon this shameful deed; nor ever, ere that, did she lay up in her heart the thought of this folly, a bitter folly, whence on us, too, first came sorrow. But now that thou hast told all the sure tokens of our bed, which never was seen by mortal man, save by thee and me, and one maiden only, the daughter of Actor, that my father gave me ere yet I had come hither, she who kept the doors of our strong bridal chamber, even now dost thou bend my soul, all ungentle as it is.'
"Thus she spake, and in his heart she stirred yet a greater longing to lament, and he wept as he embraced his beloved wife and true. And even as when the sight of land is welcome to swimmers, whose well-wrought ship Poseidon hath smitten on the deep, all driven with the wind and swelling waves, and but a remnant hath escaped the gray sea water and swum to the shore, and their bodies are all crusted with the brine, and gladly have they set foot on land and escaped an evil end; so welcome to her was the sight of her lord, and her white arms she would never quite let go from his neck.
"Now when the twain had taken their fill of sweet love, they had delight in the tales which they told one to the other. The fair lady spake of all that she had endured in the halls at the sight of the ruinous throng of wooers, who for her sake slew many cattle, kine, and goodly sheep; and many a cask of wine was broached. And, in turn, Odysseus, of the seed of Zeus, recounted all the griefs he had wrought on men, and all his own travail and sorrow; and she was delighted with the story, and sweet sleep fell not upon her eyelids till the tale was ended."