Summary

When the suitors have left, Odysseus and Telemachus begin moving all the weapons and armor from the great hall into a storeroom, on the pretence that the smoke from the fire is damaging them. Penelope then comes down to speak to Odysseus, who she still believes to be a beggar who may have news of her husband. She catches the Melantho being rude to him again and rebukes her. She then tells Odysseus that she kept the suitors at bay for four years with the pretence of weaving a funeral shroud for her father-in-law. She refused to marry until it was finished, and unpicked the stitches every night so that it would never be done. Unfortunately her maids saw her doing this and the disloyal ones told the suitors.

Penelope then asks Odysseus...