Then the steadfast goodly Odysseus answered him, saying:  ’I mark, I heed, all this thou speakest to one with understanding.  Do thou then go before me, and I will remain here, for well I know what it is to be smitten and hurled at.  My heart is full of hardiness, for much evil have I suffered in perils of waves and war; let this be added to the tale of those.  But a ravening belly may none conceal, a thing accursed, that works much ill for men.  For this cause too the benched ships are furnished, that bear mischief to foemen over the unharvested seas.’

Thus they spake one to the other.  And lo, a hound raised up his head and pricked his ears, even where he lay, Argos, the hound of Odysseus, of the hardy heart, which of old himself had bred, but had got no joy of him, for ere that, he went to sacred Ilios.  Now in time past the young men used to lead the hound against wild goats and deer and hares; but as then, despised he lay (his master being afar) in the deep dung of mules and kine, whereof an ample bed was spread before the doors, till the thralls of Odysseus should carry it away to dung therewith his wide demesne.  There lay the dog Argos, full of vermin.  Yet even now when he was ware of Odysseus standing by, he wagged his tail and dropped both his ears, but nearer to his master he had not now the strength to draw.  But Odysseus looked aside and wiped away a tear that he easily hid from Eumaeus, and straightway he asked him, saying: 

’Eumaeus, verily this is a great marvel, this hound lying here in the dung.  Truly he is goodly of growth, but I know not certainly if he have speed with this beauty, or if he be comely only, like as are men’s trencher dogs that their lords keep for the pleasure of the eye.’

Then didst thou make answer, swineherd Eumaeus:  ’In very truth this is the dog of a man that has died in a far land.  If he were what once he was in limb and in the feats of the chase, when Odysseus left him to go to Troy, soon wouldst thou marvel at the sight of his swiftness and his strength.  There was no beast that could flee from him in the deep places of the wood, when he was in pursuit; for even on a track he was the keenest hound.  But now he is holden in an evil case, and his lord hath perished far from his own country, and the careless women take no charge of him.  Nay, thralls are no more inclined to honest service when their masters have lost the dominion, for Zeus, of the far-borne voice, takes away the half of a man’s virtue, when the day of slavery comes upon him.’

Therewith he passed within the fair-lying house, and went straight to the hall, to the company of the proud wooers.  But upon Argos came the fate of black death even in the hour that he beheld Odysseus again, in the twentieth year.

Now godlike Telemachus was far the first to behold the swineherd as he came into the hall, and straightway then he beckoned and called him to his side.  So Eumaeus looked about and took a settle that lay by him, where the carver was wont to sit dividing much flesh among the wooers that were feasting in the house.  This seat he carried and set by the table of Telemachus over against him, and there sat down himself.  And the henchman took a mess and served it him, and wheaten bread out of the basket.