Nurse Euryclea saw him long before any one else did.  She was putting the fleeces on to the seats, and she burst out crying as she ran up to him; all the other maids came up too, and covered his head and shoulders with their kisses.  Penelope came out of her room looking like Diana or Venus, and wept as she flung her arms about her son.  She kissed his forehead and both his beautiful eyes, “Light of my eyes,” she cried as she spoke fondly to him, “so you are come home again; I made sure I was never going to see you any more.  To think of your having gone off to Pylos without saying anything about it or obtaining my consent.  But come, tell me what you saw.”

“Do not scold me, mother,” answered Telemachus, “nor vex me, seeing what a narrow escape I have had, but wash your face, change your dress, go upstairs with your maids, and promise full and sufficient hecatombs to all the gods if Jove will only grant us our revenge upon the suitors.  I must now go to the place of assembly to invite a stranger who has come back with me from Pylos.  I sent him on with my crew, and told Piraeus to take him home and look after him till I could come for him myself.”

She heeded her son’s words, washed her face, changed her dress, and vowed full and sufficient hecatombs to all the gods if they would only vouchsafe her revenge upon the suitors.

Telemachus went through, and out of, the cloisters spear in hand—­not alone, for his two fleet dogs went with him.  Minerva endowed him with a presence of such divine comeliness that all marvelled at him as he went by, and the suitors gathered round him with fair words in their mouths and malice in their hearts; but he avoided them, and went to sit with Mentor, Antiphus, and Halitherses, old friends of his father’s house, and they made him tell them all that had happened to him.  Then Piraeus came up with Theoclymenus, whom he had escorted through the town to the place of assembly, whereon Telemachus at once joined them.  Piraeus was first to speak:  “Telemachus,” said he, “I wish you would send some of your women to my house to take away the presents Menelaus gave you.”

“We do not know, Piraeus,” answered Telemachus, “what may happen.  If the suitors kill me in my own house and divide my property among them, I would rather you had the presents than that any of those people should get hold of them.  If on the other hand I managed to kill them, I shall be much obliged if you will kindly bring me my presents.”

With these words he took Theoclymenus to his own house.  When they got there they laid their cloaks on the benches and seats, went into the baths, and washed themselves.  When the maids had washed and anointed them, and had given them cloaks and shirts, they took their seats at table.  A maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands; and she drew a clean table beside them.  An upper servant brought them bread and offered them many good things of what there was in the house.  Opposite them sat Penelope, reclining on a couch by one of the bearing-posts of the cloister, and spinning.  Then they laid their hands on the good things that were before them, and as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink Penelope said: