As soon as the house was quiet, Telemachus, obeying a sign from his father, prepared to convey the weapons which hung about the hall to an inner chamber, out of the reach of the wooers.  First he ordered Eurycleia to keep the women out of the way, and having barred the doors leading to the inner apartments, he took down helmet and spear and shield from the walls, and carried them, with his father’s help, to the upper room.  When this important task was performed he withdrew for the night, and Odysseus was left alone in the hall to await the coming of Penelope.

Presently the doors were opened, and by the flickering light of the braziers Odysseus, for the first time after twenty years, saw the face of his wife.  Lovely indeed she seemed in his eyes, not less than when he wedded her in her maiden bloom.  Her handmaids brought a chair of silver and ivory, a work of most rare device, and set it by the fire with a soft fleece upon it.  Penelope took the seat prepared for her and gazed curiously at the stranger, who sat crouched in the shadow of a pillar, avoiding her eye.  Meanwhile the women were bustling about the hall, removing the remains of the feast, and heaping fresh fuel on the fires.  Among them was Melantho, who had spoken so roughly to Odysseus an hour or two before.  When she saw Odysseus she began railing at him again, and rudely bade him begone.  Penelope soon reduced her to silence, and then calling Eurycleia she bade her place a seat for the stranger.

“Now tell me,” began Penelope, when the chair had been brought, “who art thou, and of what country?  And who were thy father and mother?”

“Ah! lady,” answered Odysseus, “I beseech thee, question me not as to my country and my friends, lest thou open anew the fountain of my grief.  It is not seemly to sit weeping and wailing in a stranger’s house; and I fear that thou wilt say that my tears are the tears of drunkenness.”

Penelope pressed him for an answer.  “Thou surely art of some country,” she said, smiling; “or art thou one of those of whom old stories tell, born of stocks and stones?”

“Since thou urgest it so strongly,” replied Odysseus, “I cannot deny thee.  In the broad realm of Crete there is a certain city, Cnosus by name; there reigned Minos, and begat Deucalion, my famous sire.  To Deucalion two sons were born, Idomeneus the elder, and myself, whom he named AEthon.  When war arose between the Greeks and Trojans, Idomeneus sailed to fight for the sons of Atreus, and I was left behind in my father’s house.  Then it was that I saw Odysseus, who was driven by stress of weather to seek shelter on our coasts.  When he had anchored his ships in the harbour, he came up to the town and inquired for Idomeneus, whom he said was his friend, honoured and beloved; but we told him that Idomeneus had departed ten days before.  Then I received him in my house, and feasted him and all his company for twelve days; for all that time the north wind blew, so that a man could not stand up against it.  On the thirteenth day the wind ceased and they put out to sea.”