tore deep though it did not reach the bone.  As for the boar, Ulysses hit him on the right shoulder, and the point of the spear went right through him, so that he fell groaning in the dust until the life went out of him.  The sons of Autolycus busied themselves with the carcass of the boar, and bound Ulysses’ wound; then, after saying a spell to stop the bleeding, they went home as fast as they could.  But when Autolycus and his sons had thoroughly healed Ulysses, they made him some splendid presents, and sent him back to Ithaca with much mutual good will.  When he got back, his father and mother were rejoiced to see him, and asked him all about it, and how he had hurt himself to get the scar; so he told them how the boar had ripped him when he was out hunting with Autolycus and his sons on Mt.  Parnassus.

As soon as Euryclea had got the scarred limb in her hands and had well hold of it, she recognised it and dropped the foot at once.  The leg fell into the bath, which rang out and was overturned, so that all the water was spilt on the ground; Euryclea’s eyes between her joy and her grief filled with tears, and she could not speak, but she caught Ulysses by the beard and said, “My dear child, I am sure you must be Ulysses himself, only I did not know you till I had actually touched and handled you.”

As she spoke she looked towards Penelope, as though wanting to tell her that her dear husband was in the house, but Penelope was unable to look in that direction and observe what was going on, for Minerva had diverted her attention; so Ulysses caught Euryclea by the throat with his right hand and with his left drew her close to him, and said, “Nurse, do you wish to be the ruin of me, you who nursed me at your own breast, now that after twenty years of wandering I am at last come to my own home again?  Since it has been borne in upon you by heaven to recognise me, hold your tongue, and do not say a word about it to any one else in the house, for if you do I tell you—­and it shall surely be—­that if heaven grants me to take the lives of these suitors, I will not spare you, though you are my own nurse, when I am killing the other women.”

“My child,” answered Euryclea, “what are you talking about?  You know very well that nothing can either bend or break me.  I will hold my tongue like a stone or a piece of iron; furthermore let me say, and lay my saying to your heart, when heaven has delivered the suitors into your hand, I will give you a list of the women in the house who have been ill-behaved, and of those who are guiltless.”

And Ulysses answered, “Nurse, you ought not to speak in that way; I am well able to form my own opinion about one and all of them; hold your tongue and leave everything to heaven.”

As he said this Euryclea left the cloister to fetch some more water, for the first had been all spilt; and when she had washed him and anointed him with oil, Ulysses drew his seat nearer to the fire to warm himself, and hid the scar under his rags.  Then Penelope began talking to him and said: