’Lo now, I who have wandered in many lands and have walked in pain through many Cities have come at last to the house of Odysseus.  There it is, standing as of old, with building beyond building; with its walls and its battlements; its courts and its doors.  The house of Odysseus, verily!  And lo! unwelcome men keep revel within it, and the smoke of their feast rises up and the sound of the lyre is heard playing for them.’

Said Eumaeus, ’What wilt thou have me do for thee, friend?  Shall I bring thee into the hall and before the company of wooers, whilst I remain here, or wouldst thou have me go in before thee?’

‘I would have thee go in before me,’ Odysseus said.

Now as they went through the courtyard a thing happened that dashed Odysseus’ eyes with tears.  A hound lay in the dirt of the yard, a hound that was very old.  All uncared for he lay in the dirt, old and feeble.  But he had been a famous hound, and Odysseus himself had trained him before he went to the wars of Troy.  Argos was his name.  Now as Odysseus came near, the hound Argos knew him, and stood up before him and whined and dropped his ears, but had no strength to come near him.  Odysseus knew the hound and stopped and gazed at him.  ‘A good hound lies there,’ said he to Eumaeus, ’once, I think, he was so swift that no beast in the deep places of the wood could flee from him.’  Then he went on, and the hound Argos lay down in the dirt of the yard, and that same day the life passed from him.

[Illustration]

Behind Eumaeus, the swineherd, he came into his own hall, in the appearance of a beggar, wretchedly clad and leaning on an old man’s staff.  Odysseus looked upon the young lords who wooed his wife, and then he sat down upon the threshold and went no further into the hall.

Telemachus was there.  Seeing Eumaeus he called to him and gave the swineherd bread and meat, and said, ’Take these, and give them to the stranger at the doorway, and tell him that he may go amongst the company and crave an alms from each.’

Odysseus ate whilst the minstrel was finishing his song.  When it was finished he rose up, and went into the hall, craving an alms from each of the wooers.

Seeing him, Antinous, the most insolent of the wooers, cried out, ’O notorious swineherd, why didst thou bring this fellow here?  Have we not enough vagabonds?  Is it nothing to thee that worthless fellows come here and devour thy master’s substance?’

Hearing such a speech from Antinous, Telemachus had to say, ’Antinous, I see that thou hast good care for me and mine.  I marvel that thou hast such good care.  But wouldst thou have me drive a stranger from the door?  The gods forbid that I should do such a thing.  Nay, Antinous.  Give the stranger something for the sake of the house.’

’If all the company gives him as much as I, he will have something to keep him from beggary for a three months’ space,’ said Antinous, meaning by that that he would work some hurt upon the beggar.