Then the housewife, Eurynome, spake to her saying:  ’Yea my child, all this thou hast spoken as is meet.  Go then, and declare thy word to thy son and hide it not, but first wash thee and anoint thy face, and go not as thou art with thy cheeks all stained with tears.  Go, for it is little good to sorrow always, and never cease.  And lo, thy son is now of an age to hear thee, he whom thou hast above all things prayed the gods that thou mightest see with a beard upon his chin.’

Then wise Penelope answered her, saying:  ’Eurynome, speak not thus comfortably to me, for all thy love, bidding me to wash and be anointed with ointment.  For the gods that keep Olympus destroyed my bloom, since the day that he departed in the hollow ships.  But bid Autonoe and Hippodameia come to me, to stand by my side in the halls.  Alone I will not go among men, for I am ashamed.’

So she spake, and the old woman passed through the chamber to tell the maidens, and hasten their coming.

Thereon the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, had another thought.  She shed a sweet slumber over the daughter of Icarius, who sank back in sleep, and all her joints were loosened as she lay in the chair, and the fair goddess the while was giving her gifts immortal, that all the Achaeans might marvel at her.  Her fair face first she steeped with beauty imperishable, such as that wherewith the crowned Cytherea is anointed, when she goes to the lovely dances of the Graces.  And she made her taller and greater to behold, and made her whiter than new-sawn ivory.  Now when she had wrought thus, that fair goddess departed, and the white-armed handmaidens came forth from the chamber and drew nigh with a sound of voices.  Then sweet sleep left hold of Penelope, and she rubbed her cheeks with her hands, and said: 

’Surely soft slumber wrapped me round, most wretched though I be.  Oh! that pure Artemis would give me so soft a death even now, that I might no more waste my life in sorrow of heart, and longing for the manifold excellence of my dear lord, for that he was foremost of the Achaeans.’

With this word she went down from the shining upper chamber, not alone, for two handmaidens likewise bare her company.  But when the fair lady had now come to the wooers, she stood by the pillar of the well-builded roof, holding her glistening tire before her face, and on either side of her stood a faithful handmaid.  And straightway the knees of the wooers were loosened, and their hearts were enchanted with love, and each one uttered a prayer that he might be her bed-fellow.  But she spake to Telemachus, her dear son: 

’Telemachus, thy mind and thy thoughts are no longer stable as they were.  While thou wast still a child, thou hadst a yet quicker and more crafty wit, but now that thou art great of growth, and art come to the measure of manhood, and a stranger looking to thy stature and thy beauty might say that thou must be some rich man’s son, thy mind and thy thoughts are no longer right as of old.  For lo, what manner of deed has been done in these halls, in that thou hast suffered thy guest to be thus shamefully dealt with.  How would it be now, if the stranger sitting thus in our house, were to come to some harm all through this evil handling?  Shame and disgrace would be thine henceforth among men.’