Then the ghost of the son of Atreus answered him:  ’Ah, happy son of Laertes, Odysseus of many devices, yea, for a wife most excellent hast thou gotten, so good was the wisdom of constant Penelope, daughter of Icarius, that was duly mindful of Odysseus, her wedded lord.  Wherefore the fame of her virtue shall never perish, but the immortals will make a gracious song in the ears of men on earth to the fame of constant Penelope.  In far other wise did the daughter of Tyndareus devise ill deeds, and slay her wedded lord, and hateful shall the song of her be among men, and an evil repute hath she brought upon all womankind, even on the upright.’

Even so these twain spake one to the other, standing in the house of Hades, beneath the secret places of the earth.

Now when those others had gone down from the city, quickly they came to the rich and well-ordered farm land of Laertes, that he had won for himself of old, as the prize of great toil in war.  There was his house, and all about it ran the huts wherein the thralls were wont to eat and dwell and sleep, bondsmen that worked his will.  And in the house there was an old Sicilian woman, who diligently cared for the old man, in the upland far from the city.  There Odysseus spake to his thralls and to his son, saying: 

’Do ye now get you within the well-builded house, and quickly sacrifice the best of the swine for the midday meal, but I will make trial of my father, whether he will know me again and be aware of me when he sees me, or know me not, so long have I been away,’

Therewith he gave the thralls his weapons of war.  Then they went speedily to the house, while Odysseus drew near to the fruitful vineyard to make trial of his father.  Now he found not Dolius there, as he went down into the great garden, nor any of the thralls nor of their sons.  It chanced that they had all gone to gather stones for a garden fence, and the old man at their head.  So he found his father alone in the terraced vineyard, digging about a plant.  He was clothed in a filthy doublet, patched and unseemly, with clouted leggings of oxhide bound about his legs, against the scratches of the thorns, and long sleeves over his hands by reason of the brambles, and on his head he wore a goatskin cap, and so he nursed his sorrow.  Now when the steadfast goodly Odysseus saw his father thus wasted with age and in great grief of heart, he stood still beneath a tall pear tree and let fall a tear.  Then he communed with his heart and soul, whether he should fall on his father’s neck and kiss him, and tell him all, how he had returned and come to his own country, or whether he should first question him and prove him in every word.  And as he thought within himself, this seemed to him the better way, namely, first to prove his father and speak to him sharply.  So with this intent the goodly Odysseus went up to him.  Now he was holding his head down and kept digging about the plant, while his renowned son stood by him and spake, saying: