And then she rolled away the mist, and the long-suffering hero rejoiced to see his native land again. He kissed the kindly earth, and vowed to the nymphs that he would bring them offerings as of old if he lived to see his dear son a man.
Then the goddess bade him be of good cheer, and showed him a hiding-place in the cavern for the gifts. And then they sat down by the trunk of the olive-tree, and Athene told him all the misdeeds of the suitors, and how his wife had beguiled them and kept them waiting till his return, and how he must avenge himself and her.
Then Ulysses said, “Truly, I should have perished in my own halls, like Agamemnon, if you had not warned me. Help me, therefore, with your wisdom, and stand beside me again and put strength and courage within me as in the days of Troy. For with you by my side I could fight against three hundred men.”
And Pallas Athene made answer, “I will be with you, Ulysses, when the hour of the conflict is come, and the blood of the suitors who eat up your substance shall be shed at last. But now I will change you into a poor beggar, so old and so wretched that no one will know you, and in that guise you must go and stay with the herdsman Eumæus, who tends your swine, until I have brought your son Telemachus from Sparta, where he has gone to seek tidings of you.”
Then she touched him with her magic wand, and the fair flesh withered on his limbs, and the golden locks fell from his head, and he was changed into an old man. His skin was shriveled and his bright eyes dimmed, and for his covering she gave him a tattered wrap, begrimed with smoke, and a worn deerskin on his shoulder, and a wallet and a staff in his hand.
Then she vanished, and left him to take his way alone across the hills.
[Ulysses at the House of the Swineherd]
By F.S. Marvin, R.J.C. Mayor, and F.M. Stowell
Ulysses went up along the rough mountain path, through the forest and over the hills, till he came to the house where his faithful steward lived. It stood in an open space, and there was a large courtyard in front with a wall of heavy stones and hawthorn boughs and a stout oak palisade. Inside the yard there were twelve sties for the pigs, and the swineherd kept four watch-dogs to guard the place, great beasts and fierce as wolves, that he had reared himself. Ulysses found him at home, sitting in the porch alone, and cutting himself a pair of sandals from a brown oxhide.