This was what they said, but they did not know what it was that had been happening.  The upper servant Eurynome washed and anointed Ulysses in his own house and gave him a shirt and cloak, while Minerva made him look taller and stronger than before; she also made the hair grow thick on the top of his head, and flow down in curls like hyacinth blossoms; she glorified him about the head and shoulders just as a skilful workman who has studied art of all kinds under Vulcan or Minerva—­and his work is full of beauty—­enriches a piece of silver plate by gilding it.  He came from the bath looking like one of the immortals, and sat down opposite his wife on the seat he had left.  “My dear,” said he, “heaven has endowed you with a heart more unyielding than woman ever yet had.  No other woman could bear to keep away from her husband when he had come back to her after twenty years of absence, and after having gone through so much.  But come, nurse, get a bed ready for me; I will sleep alone, for this woman has a heart as hard as iron.”

“My dear,” answered Penelope, “I have no wish to set myself up, nor to depreciate you; but I am not struck by your appearance, for I very well remember what kind of a man you were when you set sail from Ithaca.  Nevertheless, Euryclea, take his bed outside the bed chamber that he himself built.  Bring the bed outside this room, and put bedding upon it with fleeces, good coverlets, and blankets.”

She said this to try him, but Ulysses was very angry and said, “Wife, I am much displeased at what you have just been saying.  Who has been taking my bed from the place in which I left it?  He must have found it a hard task, no matter how skilled a workman he was, unless some god came and helped him to shift it.  There is no man living, however strong and in his prime, who could move it from its place, for it is a marvellous curiosity which I made with my very own hands.  There was a young olive growing within the precincts of the house, in full vigour, and about as thick as a bearing-post.  I built my room round this with strong walls of stone and a roof to cover them, and I made the doors strong and well-fitting.  Then I cut off the top boughs of the olive tree and left the stump standing.  This I dressed roughly from the root upwards and then worked with carpenter’s tools well and skilfully, straightening my work by drawing a line on the wood, and making it into a bed-prop.  I then bored a hole down the middle, and made it the centre-post of my bed, at which I worked till I had finished it, inlaying it with gold and silver; after this I stretched a hide of crimson leather from one side of it to the other.  So you see I know all about it, and I desire to learn whether it is still there, or whether any one has been removing it by cutting down the olive tree at its roots.”