Penelope shook her head sadly, as she replied:  “It will be a happy day for thee, if thy prophecy is confirmed by the event.  But what am I saying?  ’Tis an empty dream.  But come, let the maidens prepare a bath for thee, and afterwards them shalt sleep sound in a soft, warm bed.  Well hast thou deserved to receive all honour and worship at my hands, and woe unto him that shall seek to harm thee!  I will put a speedy end to his wooing.  For what wilt thou say of me, when thou art wandering in distant lands, if I suffer thee to abide here thus poorly clad, unwashed, and uncared for?  Few and evil are the days of our life; and the best we can do is to win a good name by our gentle deeds while we live, and leave a fair memory behind us when we die.”

“I doubt not thy goodness,” replied Odysseus; “but I have long been a stranger to the comforts of which thou speakest, and they suit not my forlorn and desolate state.  Nor would I that any of thy handmaids should wash my feet, and mock my infirmities; but if thou hast here an aged house-dame, like unto me in years and in sorrows, I grudge not that such a one should wait upon me.”

“Thou speakest as a prudent man,” said Penelope, “and I have such an aged dame as thou describest among my household.  She was the first who took my ill-fated husband in her arms when his mother bare him, and she nursed him tenderly and well.  She shall wash thy feet, old though she be, and feeble.”  Then she called Eurycleia, who was sitting near, and said to her:  “Come hither, nurse, and wash the stranger’s feet.  Who knows but thy master is now in like evil case, grown old before his time through care and misery?”

When she heard that, the old woman lifted up her voice and wept:  “Odysseus,” she cried, “child of my sorrow, what have I not borne for thee!  Pious thou wast, and righteous in all thy dealings, yet Zeus hath chosen thee out from among all men to be the object of his hate.  Yea, and perchance even now he is mocked in the house of strangers, as these women were lately mocking thee.  Yea, I will wash thee, as Penelope bids me, and for thy sake also, for my heart is moved with pity because of thy woes.”

With such speed as her years allowed, the dame went and fetched warm water, and a vessel for washing the feet.  She set them down in front of Odysseus, and before she began her task, stood for some time peering curiously into his face.  “Hear me, friend,” she said, after a while, “of all the strangers that ever entered these doors, ne’er saw I one so like unto Odysseus as thou art, in form, and in voice, and in feet.”

“So said everyone who saw us together,” answered Odysseus.  But her words filled him with alarm, and recalled to his mind an old scar, just above the knee, caused by a wound which he had received from a wild boar while hunting in his boyhood in the valleys of Parnassus, during a visit to Autolycus, Penelope’s father.  If his old nurse should discover the scar she would be certain to recognise him, and the consequences of the premature discovery might be fatal.  However, he had now no excuse for declining the bath, so he drew back his chair into the shadow, still hoping to escape detection.