“My child, I am confused. I cannot speak,
or meet his eyes. If this is really him,
if my Odysseus has come back home,
we have our ways to recognize each other,
through secret signs known only to us two.”
Hardened Odysseus began to smile.110
He told the boy,
“You must allow your mother
to test me out; she will soon know me better.
While I am dirty, dressed in rags, she will not
treat me with kindness or acknowledge me.
Meanwhile, we must make plans. If someone murders
even just one man, even one who had
few friends in his community, the killer
is forced to run away and leave his homeland
and family. But we have killed the mainstay
of Ithaca, the island’s best young men.120
So what do you suggest?”
Telemachus
said warily, “You have to work it out.
They say you have the finest mind in all
the world; no mortal man can rival you
in cleverness. Lead me, and I will be
behind you right away. And I will do
my best to be as brave as I can be.”
Odysseus was quick to form a plan.
He told him, “Here is what I think is best.
The three of you should wash and change your clothes,130
and make the slave girls go put on clean dresses.
Then let the godlike singer take the lyre
and play a clear and cheerful dancing tune,
so passersby or neighbors hearing it
will think it is a wedding. We must not
allow the news about the suitors’ murder
to spread too far until we reach the woods
of our estate, and there we can decide
the best path forward offered us by Zeus.”
They did as Lord Odysseus had said. 140
They washed and changed their tunics, and the slave girls
prepared themselves. The singer took the lyre,
and roused in them desire to hear sweet music,
and dance. The house resounded with the thump
of beating feet from all the dancing men
and girls in pretty sashes. Those outside
who heard the noises said to one another,
“So somebody is marrying the queen
who had so many suitors! Headstrong woman!
She must have lacked the strength to wait it out150
and keep her husband’s house safe till he came.”
They spoke with no idea what really happened.
Eurynome the slave woman began
to wash strong-willed Odysseus. She rubbed him
with olive oil, and dressed him in a tunic
and handsome cloak. And then Athena poured
attractiveness from head to toe, and made him
taller and stronger, and his hair grew thick
and curly as a hyacinth. As when
a craftsman whom Athena or Hephaestus160
has trained in metalwork, so he can make
beautiful artifacts, pours gold on silver—
so she poured beauty on his head and shoulders.
After his bath he looked like an immortal.
He sat down in the same chair opposite
his wife and said,
“Extraordinary woman!
The gods have given you the hardest heart.
No other wife would so reject a husband
who had been suffering for twenty years
and finally come home. Well, Nanny, make170
a bed for me, so I can rest. This woman
must have an iron heart!”
Penelope
said shrewdly, “You extraordinary man!
I am not acting proud, or underplaying
this big event; yet I am not surprised
at how you look. You looked like this the day
your long oars sailed away from Ithaca.
Now, Eurycleia, make the bed for him
outside the room he built himself. Pull out
the bedstead, and spread quilts and blankets on it.”180
She spoke to test him, and Odysseus
was furious, and told his loyal wife,
“Woman! Your words have cut my heart! Who moved
my bed? It would be difficult for even
a master craftsman—though a god could do it
with ease. No man, however young and strong,
could pry it out. There is a trick to how
this bed was made. I made it, no one else.
Inside the court there grew an olive tree
with delicate long leaves, full-grown and green,190
as sturdy as a pillar, and I built
the room around it. I packed stones together,
and fixed a roof and fitted doors. At last
I trimmed the olive tree and used my bronze
to cut the branches off from root to tip
and planed it down and skillfully transformed
the trunk into a bedpost. With a drill,
I bored right through it. This was my first bedpost,
and then I made the other three, inlaid
with gold and silver and with ivory. 200
I stretched ox-leather straps across, dyed purple.
Now I have told the secret trick, the token.
But woman, wife, I do not know if someone—
a man—has cut the olive trunk and moved
my bed, or if it is still safe.”
At that,
her heart and body suddenly relaxed.
She recognized the tokens he had shown her.
She burst out crying and ran straight towards him
and threw her arms around him, kissed his face,
and said,
“Do not be angry at me now,210
Odysseus! In every other way
you are a very understanding man.
The gods have made us suffer: they refused
to let us stay together and enjoy
our youth until we reached the edge of age
together. Please forgive me, do not keep
bearing a grudge because when I first saw you,
I would not welcome you immediately.
I felt a constant dread that some bad man
would fool me with his lies. There are so many220
dishonest, clever men. That foreigner
would never have got Helen into bed,
if she had known the Greeks would march to war
and bring her home again. It was a goddess
who made her do it, putting in her heart
the passion that first caused my grief as well.
Now you have told the story of our bed,
the secret that no other mortal knows,
except yourself and me, and just one slave,
Actoris, whom my father gave to me230
when I came here, who used to guard our room.
You made my stubborn heart believe in you.”
This made him want to cry. He held his love,
his faithful wife, and wept. As welcome as
the land to swimmers, when Poseidon wrecks
their ship at sea and breaks it with great waves
and driving winds; a few escape the sea
and reach the shore, their skin all caked with brine.
Grateful to be alive, they crawl to land.
So glad she was to see her own dear husband,240
and her white arms would not let go his neck.
They would have wept until the rosy Dawn
began to touch the sky, but shining-eyed
Athena intervened. She held night back,
restraining golden Dawn beside the Ocean,
and would not let her yoke her swift young colts,
Shining and Bright. Odysseus, mind whirling,
said,
“Wife, we have not come yet to the end
of all our troubles; there are more to come,
many hard labors which I must complete.250
The spirit of Tiresias informed me,
that day I went inside the house of Hades
to ask about the journey home for me
and for my men. But come now, let us go
to bed together, wife; let us enjoy
the pleasure of sweet sleep.”
Penelope,
who always thought ahead, said, “When you wish.
The bed is yours. The gods have brought you home,
back to your well-built house. But since a god
has made you speak about these future labors,260
tell me what they involve. I will find out
eventually, and better to know now.”
He answered warily, “You really are
extraordinary. Why would you make me tell you
something to cause you pain? It hurts me too,
but I will tell the truth, not hide it from you.
Tiresias foretold that I must travel
through many cities carrying an oar,
till I reach men who do not know the sea,
and do not eat their food with salt, or use270
boats painted red around the prow, or oars,