“Mother, hard mother, of ungentle heart, why do you hold aloof so from my father, and do not sit beside him, plying him with words and questions?  There is no other woman of such stubborn spirit to stand off from the husband who, after many grievous toils, comes in the twentieth year home to his native land.  Your heart is always harder than a stone!”

Then said to him heedful Penelope, “My child, my soul within is dazed with wonder.  I cannot speak to him, nor ask a question, nor look him in the face.  But if this indeed is Ulysses, come at last, we certainly shall know each other better than others know; for we have signs which we two understand,—­signs hidden from the rest.”

As she, long tried, spoke thus, royal Ulysses smiled, and said to Telemachus forthwith in winged words, “Telemachus, leave your mother in the hall to try my truth.  She soon will know me better.  Now, because I am foul and dressed in sorry clothes, she holds me in dishonor, and says I am not he.  But you and I have yet to plan how all may turn out well.  For whoso kills one man among a tribe, though the man leaves few champions behind, becomes an exile, quitting kin and country.  We have destroyed the pillars of the state, the very noblest youths of Ithaca.  Form, then, a plan, I pray.”

Then answered him discreet Telemachus, “Look you to that, dear father.  Your wisdom is, they say, the best among mankind.  No mortal man can rival you.  Zealously will we follow, and not fail, I think, in daring, so far as power is ours.”

Then wise Ulysses answered him and said, “Then I will tell you what seems best to me.  First wash and put on tunics, and bid the maids about the house array themselves.  Then let the sacred bard with tuneful lyre lead us in sportive dancing, that men may say, hearing us from without, ’It is a wedding,’ whether such men be passers-by or neighboring folk; and so broad rumor may not reach the town about the suitors’ murder till we are gone to our well-wooded farm.  There will we plan as the Olympian shall grant us wisdom.”

So he spoke, and willingly they heeded and obeyed.  For first they washed themselves and put on tunics, and the women also put on their attire.  And then the noble bard took up his hollow lyre, and in them stirred desire for merry music and the gallant dance; and the great house resounded to the tread of lusty men and gay-girt women.  And one who heard the dancing from without would say, “Well, well! some man has married the long-courted queen.  Hard-hearted!  For the husband of her youth she would not guard her great house to the end, till he should come.”  So they would say, but knew not how things were.

Meanwhile within the house Eurynome, the housekeeper, bathed resolute Ulysses and anointed him with oil, and on him put a goodly robe and tunic.  Upon his face Athene cast great beauty; she made him taller than before, and stouter to behold, and made the curling locks to fall round his head as on the hyacinth flower.  As when a man lays gold on silver,—­some skillful man whom Vulcan and Pallas Athene have trained in every art, and he fashions graceful work, so did she cast a grace upon his head and shoulders.  Forth from the bath he came, in bearing like the Immortals, and once more took the seat from which he first arose, facing his wife, and spoke to her these words:—­