The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 196 pages of information about The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy.

The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 196 pages of information about The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy.

Odysseus leaned towards her, and said, 6 Do not waste thy heart with endless weeping, lady.  Cease from lamentation, and lay up in thy mind the word I give thee.  Odysseus is near.  He has lost all his companions, and he knows not how to come into this house, whether openly or by stealth.  I swear it.  By the hearth of Odysseus to which I am come, I swear that Odysseus himself will stand up here before the old moon wanes and the new moon is born.’

‘Ah, no,’ said Penelope.  ’Often before have wanderers told me such comfortable things, and I believed them.  I know now that thy word cannot be accomplished.  But it is time for thee to rest thyself, stranger.  My handmaidens will make a bed for thee in the vestibule, and then come to thee and bathe thy feet.’

Said Odysseus, ’Thy handmaidens would be loath to touch the feet of a wanderer such as I. But if there is in the house some old wife who has borne such troubles as I have borne, I would have my feet bathed by her.’

Said Penelope, ’Here is an ancient woman who nursed and tended that hapless man, Odysseus.  She took him in her arms in the very hour he was born.  Eurycleia, wash the feet of this man, who knew thy lord and mine.’

Thereupon the nurse, old Eurycleia, fetched water, both hot and cold, and brought the bath to the hearth.  And standing before Odysseus in the flickering light of the fire, she said, ’I will wash thy feet, both for Penelope’s sake and for thine own.  The heart within me is moved at the sight of thee.  Many strangers have come into this hall, but I have never seen one that was so like as thou art to Odysseus.’

Said Odysseus, ’Many people have said that Odysseus and I favour each other.’

His feet were in the water, and she put her hand upon one of them.  As she did so, Odysseus turned his face away to the darkness, for it suddenly came into his mind that his nurse, old Eurycleia, might recognize the scar that was upon that foot.

How came it there, that scar?  It had been made long ago when a boar’s tusk had ripped up the flesh of his foot.  Odysseus was then a youth, and he had gone to the mountain Parnassus to visit there his mother’s father.

One morning, with his uncles, young Odysseus went up the slope of the mountain Parnassus, to hunt with hounds.  In a thick lair a mighty boar was lying.  When the sound of the men’s trampling came near him, he sprang up with gleaming eyes and stood before them all.  Odysseus, holding his spear in his hands, rushed upon him.  But before he could strike him, the boar charged, ripping deep into his flesh with his tusk.  Then Odysseus speared him through the shoulder and the boar was slain.  His uncles staunched the wound and he stayed with them on the mountain Parnassus, in his grandfather’s house, until the wound was healed.

And now, as Eurycleia, his old nurse, passed her hands along the leg, she let his foot drop suddenly.  His knee struck against the bath, and the vessel of water was overturned.  The nurse touched the chin of Odysseus and she said, ‘Thou art Odysseus.’

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The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.