And Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying:  ’Ah, why now art thou so instant with me to declare it?  Yet I will tell thee all and hide nought.  Howbeit thy heart shall have no joy of it, as even I myself have no pleasure therein.  For Teiresias bade me fare to many cities of men, carrying a shapen oar in my hands, till I should come to such men as know not the sea, neither eat meat savoured with salt, nor have they knowledge of ships of purple cheek nor of shapen oars, which serve for wings to ships.  And he told me this with manifest token, which I will not hide from thee.  In the day when another wayfarer should meet me and say that I had a winnowing fan on my stout shoulder, even then he bade me make fast my shapen oar in the earth, and do goodly sacrifice to the lord Poseidon, even with a ram and a bull and a boar, the mate of swine, and depart for home, and offer holy hecatombs to the deathless gods, that keep the wide heaven, to each in order due.  And from the sea shall mine own death come, the gentlest death that may be, which shall end me, foredone, with smooth old age, and the folk shall dwell happily around.  All this, he said, was to be fulfilled.’

Then wise Penelope answered him saying:  ’If indeed the gods will bring about for thee a happier old age at the last, then is there hope that thou mayest yet have an escape from evil.’

Thus they spake one to the other.  Meanwhile, Eurynome and the nurse spread the bed with soft coverlets, by the light of the torches burning.  But when they had busied them and spread the good bed, the ancient nurse went back to her chamber to lie down, and Eurynome, the bower-maiden, guided them on their way to the couch, with torches in her hands, and when she had led them to the bridal-chamber she departed.  And so they came gladly to the rites of their bed, as of old.  But Telemachus, and the neatherd, and the swineherd stayed their feet from dancing, and made the women to cease, and themselves gat them to rest through the shadowy halls.

Now when the twain had taken their fill of sweet love, they had delight in the tales, which they told one to the other.  The fair lady spoke of all that she had endured in the halls at the sight of the ruinous throng of wooers, who for her sake slew many cattle, kine and goodly sheep; and many a cask of wine was broached.  And in turn, Odysseus, of the seed of Zeus, recounted all the griefs he had wrought on men, and all his own travail and sorrow, and she was delighted with the story, and sweet sleep fell not upon her eyelids till the tale was ended.