The swineherd looked, and when he saw his young master he wept for joy.

“I thought I should never see thee more, sweet light of my eyes,” he said.  “Come into my hut, that I may gladden my heart with the sight of thee.”

He then spread before him the best he had, and the three men ate together.  Although Odysseus seemed only a poor, ragged, old beggar, Telemachus treated him with such gentleness and such courtesy that Odysseus was proud and glad of his noble son.  Soon Telemachus sent the swineherd to tell Penelope of his safe return, and while he was gone Athene entered the hut.  She made herself invisible to Telemachus, but beckoned to Odysseus to go outside.

“The time is come for thee to tell thy son who thou art,” she said, and touched him with her golden wand.

At once Odysseus was again a strong man, dressed in fine robes, and radiant and beautiful as the sun.

When he went back into the hut Telemachus thought he was a god.

“No god am I,” said Odysseus; “I am thy father, Telemachus.”

And Odysseus took his son in his arms and kissed him, and the tears that he had kept back until now ran down his cheeks.  Telemachus flung his arms round his father’s neck, and he, too, wept like a little child, so glad was he that Odysseus had come home.

All day they spoke of the wooers and plotted how to slay them.

When the swineherd returned, and Athene had once more changed Odysseus into an old beggar-man, he told Telemachus that the wooers had returned, and were so furious with Telemachus for escaping from them, that they were going to kill him next day.

At this Telemachus smiled to his father, but neither said a word.

Next morning Telemachus took his spear and said to the swineherd: 

“I go to the palace to see my mother.  As for this old beggar-man, lead him to the city, that he may beg there.”

And Odysseus, still pretending to be a beggar, said: 

“It is better to beg in the town than in the fields.  My garments are very poor and thin, and this frosty air chills me; but as soon as I am warmed at the fire and the sun grows hot, I will gladly set out.”

Down the hill to the city strode Telemachus.  When he came to the palace, his old nurse, whom he found busy in the hall, wept for joy.  And when Penelope heard his voice, she came from her room and cast her arms round him and kissed his face and his eyes, and said, while tears ran down her cheeks: 

“Thou art come, sweet light of my eyes.  I thought I should never see thee more.”

Then Telemachus, looking like a young god, with his spear in his hand and his two hounds following at his heels, went to the hall where the wooers sat.  To his friend Mentor he told his adventures, but he looked on the wooers with silence and scorn.

Soon Odysseus and the swineherd followed him to the city.  A beggar’s bag, all tattered, was slung round the shoulders of Odysseus.  In his hand he carried a staff.  Men who saw him, tattered and feeble, mocked at him and his guide.  But Odysseus kept down the anger in his heart, and they went on to the palace.  Near the doorway, lying in the dirt, thin and old and rough of coat, lay Argos, the dog that long ago had been the best and fleetest that had hunted the hares and deer with Odysseus.