For this saying of Eumaeus the waters stood in Ulysses’s eyes, and he said, “My friend, to say and to affirm positively that he cannot be alive, is to give too much licence to incredulity.  For, not to speak at random, but with as much solemnity as an oath comes to, I say to you that Ulysses shall return, and whenever that day shall be, then shall you give to me a cloak and a coat; but till then, I will not receive so much as a thread of a garment, but rather go naked; for no less than the gates of hell do I hate that man, whom poverty can force to tell an untruth.  Be Jove then witness to my words, that this very year, nay ere this month be fully ended, your eyes shall behold Ulysses, dealing vengeance in his own palace upon the wrongers of his wife and his son.”

To give the better credence to his words, he amused Eumaeus with a forged story of his life, feigning of himself that he was a Cretan born, and one that went with Idomeneus to the wars of Troy.  Also he said that he knew Ulysses, and related various passages which he alleged to have happened betwixt Ulysses and himself, which were either true in the main, as having really happened between Ulysses and some other person, or were so like to truth, as corresponding with the known character and actions of Ulysses, that Eumaeus’s incredulity was not a little shaken.  Among other things he asserted that he had lately been entertained in the court of Thesprotia, where the king’s son of the country had told him, that Ulysses had been there but just before him, and was gone upon a voyage to the oracle of Jove in Dodona, whence he should shortly return, and a ship would be ready by the bounty of the Thesprotians to convoy him straight to Ithaca.  “And in token that what I tell you is true,” said Ulysses, “if your king come not within the period which I have named, you shall have leave to give your servants commandment to take my old carcase, and throw it headlong from some steep rock into the sea, that poor men, taking example by me, may fear to lie.”  But Eumaeus made answer that that should be small satisfaction or pleasure to him.

So while they sat discoursing in this manner, supper was served in, and the servants of the herdsman, who had been out all day in the fields, came in to supper, and took their seats at the fire, for the night was bitter and frosty.  After supper, Ulysses, who had well eaten and drunken, and was refreshed with the herdsman’s good cheer, was resolved to try whether his host’s hospitality would extend to the lending him a good warm mantle or rug to cover him in the night-season; and framing an artful tale for the purpose, in a merry mood, filling a cup of Greek wine, he thus began: 

“I will tell you a story of your king Ulysses and myself.  If there is ever a time when a man may have leave to tell his own stories, it is when he has drunken a little too much.  Strong liquor driveth the fool, and moves even the heart of the wise, moves and impels him to sing and to dance, and break forth in pleasant laughters, and perchance to prefer a speech too which were better kept in.  When the heart is open, the tongue will be stirring.  But you shall hear.  We led our powers to ambush once under the walls of Troy.”