“I will tell you everything,” answered Ulysses, “quite truly.  I come from Alybas, where I have a fine house.  I am son of king Apheidas, who is the son of Polypemon.  My own name is Eperitus; heaven drove me off my course as I was leaving Sicania, and I have been carried here against my will.  As for my ship it is lying over yonder, off the open country outside the town, and this is the fifth year since Ulysses left my country.  Poor fellow, yet the omens were good for him when he left me.  The birds all flew on our right hands, and both he and I rejoiced to see them as we parted, for we had every hope that we should have another friendly meeting and exchange presents.”

A dark cloud of sorrow fell upon Laertes as he listened.  He filled both hands with the dust from off the ground and poured it over his grey head, groaning heavily as he did so.  The heart of Ulysses was touched, and his nostrils quivered as he looked upon his father; then he sprang towards him, flung his arms about him and kissed him, saying, “I am he, father, about whom you are asking—­I have returned after having been away for twenty years.  But cease your sighing and lamentation—­we have no time to lose, for I should tell you that I have been killing the suitors in my house, to punish them for their insolence and crimes.”

“If you really are my son Ulysses,” replied Laertes, “and have come back again, you must give me such manifest proof of your identity as shall convince me.”

“First observe this scar,” answered Ulysses, “which I got from a boar’s tusk when I was hunting on Mt.  Parnassus.  You and my mother had sent me to Autolycus, my mother’s father, to receive the presents which when he was over here he had promised to give me.  Furthermore I will point out to you the trees in the vineyard which you gave me, and I asked you all about them as I followed you round the garden.  We went over them all, and you told me their names and what they all were.  You gave me thirteen pear trees, ten apple trees, and forty fig trees; you also said you would give me fifty rows of vines; there was corn planted between each row, and they yield grapes of every kind when the heat of heaven has been laid heavy upon them.”

Laertes’ strength failed him when he heard the convincing proofs which his son had given him.  He threw his arms about him, and Ulysses had to support him, or he would have gone off into a swoon; but as soon as he came to, and was beginning to recover his senses, he said, “O father Jove, then you gods are still in Olympus after all, if the suitors have really been punished for their insolence and folly.  Nevertheless, I am much afraid that I shall have all the townspeople of Ithaca up here directly, and they will be sending messengers everywhere throughout the cities of the Cephallenians.”

Ulysses answered, “Take heart and do not trouble yourself about that, but let us go into the house hard by your garden.  I have already told Telemachus, Philoetius, and Eumaeus to go on there and get dinner ready as soon as possible.”