Odysseus took thought whether he should strike the fellow with his staff or fling him upon the ground. But in the end he hardened his heart to endure the insult, and let the goatherd go on his way. But turning to the altar that was by the spring, he prayed:
'Nymphs of the Well! If ever Odysseus made offerings to you, fulfil for me this wish—that he—even Odysseus—may come to his own home, and have power to chastise the insolence that gathers around his house.'
They journeyed on, and when they came near they heard the sound of the lyre within the house. The wooers were now feasting, and Phemius the minstrel was singing to them. And when Odysseus came before his own house, he caught the swineherd by the hand suddenly and with a hard grip, and he said:
'Lo now, I who have wandered in many lands and have walked in pain through many Cities have come at last to the house of Odysseus. There it is, standing as of old, with building beyond building; with its walls and its battlements; its courts and its doors. The house of Odysseus, verily! And lo! unwelcome men keep revel within it, and the smoke of their feast rises up and the sound of the lyre is heard playing for them.'
Said Eumæus, 'What wilt thou have me do for thee, friend? Shall I bring thee into the hall and before the company of wooers, whilst I remain here, or wouldst thou have me go in before thee?'
'I would have thee go in before me,' Odysseus said.
Now as they went through the courtyard a thing happened that dashed Odysseus' eyes with tears. A hound lay in the dirt of the yard, a hound that was very old. All uncared for he lay in the dirt, old and feeble. But he had been a famous hound, and Odysseus himself had trained him before he went to the wars of Troy. Argos was his name. Now as Odysseus came near, the hound Argos knew him, and stood up before him and whined and dropped his ears, but had no strength to come near him. Odysseus knew the hound and stopped and gazed at him. 'A good hound lies there,' said he to Eumæus, 'once, I think, he was so swift that no beast in the deep places of the wood could flee from him.' Then he went on, and the hound Argos lay down in the dirt of the yard, and that same day the life passed from him.
Behind Eumæus, the swineherd, he came into his own hall, in the appearance of a beggar, wretchedly clad and leaning on an old man's staff. Odysseus looked upon the young lords who wooed his wife, and then he sat down upon the threshold and went no further into the hall.
Telemachus was there. Seeing Eumæus he called to him and gave the swineherd bread and meat, and said, 'Take these, and give them to the stranger at the doorway, and tell him that he may go amongst the company and crave an alms from each.'