Having taken leave of his friends, he returned to the house, taking Theoclymenus with him.  And when they had bathed and put on fresh raiment, they sat down to meat.  The meal proceeded in silence, and at last Penelope, who was sitting near, busy with her distaff, and longing impatiently to hear her son’s news, said in a tone of displeasure:  “Hast thou no word for thy mother, Telemachus?  Or art thou keeping thy tidings until the wooers return?  Surely I thought in this rare interval of quiet to hear how thou hast fared and what thou hast learnt on this journey.  But if thou hast naught to tell me, I will go to my widowed bed, and weep away the hours until dawn.”

Roused from his reverie by his mother’s reproaches, Telemachus gave a brief account of his visit to Nestor and Menelaus, and of what they had told him.  Penelope was musing on her son’s report, when Theoclymenus, the second-sighted man, started up from his seat, and cried:  “I see him, I see him!  He is landed in Ithaca, he is coming hither, he is here!  Woe unto the suitors!  Their hour is at hand, and not one of them shall escape.”

Penelope had heard such prophecies too often to pay much heed to the seer’s vision.  “Ah! my friend,” she said, with a sad smile, “I can but pray that thy words will be fulfilled; if ever they are, it shall be a happy day for thee.”

At this moment the wooers came trooping in, filling the house with riot and uproar; and there was an end of all quiet converse for that day.

II

It was past noon before Odysseus and Eumaeus set out for the town; for Eumaeus had conceived a great liking for his guest, and listened with delight to his wonderful tales of adventure.  “Come,” he said at last, when Odysseus had finished one of his long stories.  “It is time to be going, though I would willingly have kept thee here.  But my young lord has spoken and we must obey.”  “Lead on,” said Odysseus, “I know what thou wouldst say; but first give me a staff to lean on, for I heard thee say that the path was rough.”

So saying he threw his tattered wallet over his shoulder, and taking a stout staff, which Eumaeus offered him, started with his friend across the hills.  After a toilsome walk they reached the top of the hill which overlooked the town, and descending the slope they came to a copious spring of water, well fenced with stones, and shaded by a grove of alders.  The water descended into a basin from the face of a rock in a cool and copious stream; and on either side stood an altar to the nymphs.  “It is the common fountain of the townspeople,” explained Eumaeus.  “The altars and the basin which receives the water are the work of our ancient kings.”

Odysseus paused a moment, lost in the memories which were awakened by that familiar scene.  But his reverie was rudely interrupted.  While he stood gazing at the fountain, he heard a rude voice hailing them from the road, and looking round he saw a man leading a pair of fine goats towards the town.  It was Melanthius, his own goatherd, who was bringing the best of his flock to make savoury meat for the wooers.