“If I lie,” Ulysses answered, “you may have me thrown from the cliff as a warning to other cheats. I swear it, and call the Gods to witness.”
But the true-hearted swineherd only said, “I should get a good name by that, my friend, if I took you into nay house and had you for my guest, and then murdered you brutally! Do you think I could pray to Zeus after that without a fear? But now it is supper-time, and my men will be coming home.” While they spoke, the herdsmen came up with the swine, and the sows were driven into the pens, grunting and squealing noisily as they settled in for the night. Then Eumæus called out, “Bring in the fattest boar, and let us make a sacrifice in honor of our guest, and get some reward ourselves for all the trouble we have spent upon the drove,—trouble lost, since strangers take the fruit of it all.”
So they brought in a big fat white-tusked boar, while Eumæus split the wood for the fire. And he did not forget the Immortals, for he had a pious heart: he made the due offerings first and prayed for his master’s return, and then he stood up at the board to carve, and gave each man his share and a special slice for his guest from the whole length of the chine. Ulysses took it and thanked him with all his heart:—
“May Father Zeus be your friend, Eumæus, and give you what I would give you for your kindness to a poor old man like me.”
But the swineherd said, “Take it, my good friend, take it and enjoy it. Zeus will give or withhold as it may please him, for he can do all things.”
So they sat down to the feast, and after they had had their fill the swineherd’s servant cleared everything away, and then they made ready for sleep. The evening closed in black and stormy, and a west wind sprang up bringing the rain with it, and blew hard all the night; so Eumæus made up a bed of fleeces for Ulysses by the fire and gave him a great thick cloak as well, that he kept for the roughest weather. But he could not bring himself to stay there too, away from his herd of pigs, and he wrapped himself up warmly and went out to sleep beside them in the open. Ulysses saw, and smiled to see, what care he took of everything, while he thought his master was far away.
[On the following morning] Ulysses and the swineherd were already preparing their breakfast when Telemachus came up. The dogs knew him and played round him lovingly. “Eumæus,” said Ulysses, “some friend of yours is coming, for I hear footsteps, and the dogs are pleased and do not bark.”
He had hardly finished speaking when his own dear son stood in the doorway. The swineherd started up and dropped the vessels in which he was mixing the wine. He went to meet his young master and fell on his neck and kissed him as a father would kiss an only son escaped from death. “Light of my eyes, dear son, have you come home at last? When you sailed away to Pylos, I never thought to see you again. But come in and let me feast my eyes upon you; for you do not often visit us, but are kept at home in the town, watching that crowd of ruinous suitors.”
And Telemachus answered, “Gladly, good father; I have come to see you, and to hear tidings of my mother.”
Then the swineherd told him that his mother still waited patiently at home, and spent her days and nights in weeping.