Odysseus and Penelope
I
Her face beaming with joy, and her feet stumbling over one another in their haste, Eurycleia ascended to the chamber where Penelope lay sleeping. "Awake, Penelope, awake!" she cried, standing by the bedside; "come and see with thine own eyes the fulfilment of all thy hopes. Odysseus has come home at last, and all the wooers lie slain by his hand!"
"Thou art mad, nurse," answered Penelope pettishly, turning in her bed and rubbing her eyes; "why mockest thou me in my sorrow with thy folly? and why hast thou disturbed me in the sweetest sleep that ever I had since the fatal, the accursed day when my lord sailed for Troy? But for thy years and thy faithful service I would have paid thee unkindly for this wanton insult"
"Heaven forbid that I should mock or insult thee, dear child!" cried the nurse, her eyes filling with tears. "I have told thee naught but the truth. The stranger whom we thought a beggar was Odysseus himself. Telemachus knew this all the time, but kept it from thee by the command of his father."
"May the gods ever bless thee for these tidings!" said Penelope, springing from the couch, and throwing her arms round the nurse's neck. "But tell me truly, how did he with his single hand gain the mastery over such a multitude?"
"I saw not how it was done," answered Eurycleia. "I heard but the groans of the men as they were stricken, for I was shut up with the handmaids in the women's chamber. When it was over, he called me, and I found him standing among the slain, like a lion by his prey. It was a sight to gladden thy heart."
But Penelope's first impulse of joyful surprise had passed, and a cold fit of doubt and distrust succeeded, "It cannot be!" she murmured; "some god has taken the likeness of my husband, and slain the wooers." Even when Eurycleia told her how she had discovered the scar, while washing the feet of Odysseus, she remained unshaken in her unbelief. "The counsels of the gods," she said, "are beyond our knowing, and they can take upon them disguises too deep for a poor woman's wit. But come, let us go and see the slaughtered wooers, and their slayer, whoever he be."
II
Odysseus was sitting bowed over the fire, which shone redly on his face, as he leaned his head upon his hand. He was still clothed in his beggar's rags, and strangely disfigured by the magic power of Athene; while the red stains of slaughter, which still lay thick upon him, served to render his disguise yet deeper. Small wonder then that Penelope hesitated long to acknowledge him for her husband, as she sat some way off scanning his features with timid yet attentive gaze, like one who strives to decipher a blurred and blotted manuscript. More than once she started up, as if about to fall upon his neck; then the gleam which had lighted up her face died away, her arms drooped listlessly at her side, and she remained motionless and cold.
When this had lasted for some time, Telemachus, who was present, rebuked his mother in angry terms, saying: "Fie upon thee, my mother! hast thou no heart at all? Why holdest thou thus aloof from my father, who has come back to thee after twenty years of suffering and toil? But 'twas ever thus with thee—thou art harder than stone."
"My child," answered Penelope, "I am sore amazed; I cannot speak, or ask any question, or look him in the face. But if this man be indeed my husband, he knows how to convince me, and scatter all my doubts to the winds, for there are secrets between us whereof no one knoweth, save only ourselves."
Odysseus smiled at his wife's caution. "Not in vain," he thought, "is she known to all the world as the prudent Penelope." Then, in order to give her time, he turned to Telemachus and said: "Come not between my wife and me, Telemachus; we shall know each other in due season. I have another charge for thee, and do thou mark heedfully what I shall say. We have slain the noblest in the land, not one, but many, who leave a host of friends to take up their cause: how then shall we escape the blood feud? We had best look to it warily and well."
"Father," answered Telemachus, "thou hast the name of wise, beyond all living men. Be it thine, therefore, to declare thy counsel, and I will follow it, to the utmost stretch of my power."
"Thus, then, shalt thou do," said Odysseus: "let all the household put on clean raiment, and bid the minstrel take his harp and make sweet music for the festal dance. Then foot it merrily, everyone, that all they who pass by the house may think that ye are keeping the marriage feast. In this wise the rumour of the wooers' death shall not reach the town until we have had time to collect our men and prepare for our defence."
Telemachus went forthwith to carry out his father's orders. The whole household, men and women, arrayed themselves in festal attire, and soon the hall echoed to the throbbing notes of the lyre, and the loud patter of the dancers' feet. And those who heard it from without said to one another: "So the long wooing of our queen has come to an end at last! Fickle woman, that could not endure unto the end, and keep faith with the husband of her youth!"
III
After giving his orders to Telemachus, Odysseus had retired to refresh himself with the bath, and put on fresh raiment, while Penelope remained seated in her former place. After an interval of some length he re-entered the hall, and sat down face to face with his wife. But what miracle was this? The haggard, timeworn beggar was gone, and in his place sat her husband, as she had known him in the days of old, with the added dignity which he had gained by twenty years of strenuous life. But the frost which had lain upon her spirit during her long period of weary waiting was not easily to be broken, and still she doubted. After a long silence Odysseus spoke, and now for the first time his tones had a ring of reproach: "Still not a word for thy husband, who has come back to thee after twenty years? Surely the very demon of unbelief possesses thee!" Even then Penelope made no answer, for she was waiting to put the final test, and at length Odysseus gave her the opportunity. "Go, Eurycleia," he said, "and prepare a bed for me; I will leave this iron-hearted wife and go to my rest."
"Ay, do so," said Penelope, "take the bed from the chamber which he built with his own hands, and lay it in another room, that he may slumber there." This she said to prove him, for the bed and the chamber had a secret history, known only to herself and her husband and the faithful nurse.
Odysseus rose bravely to the test: whether divining his wife's purpose or not, he exclaimed, with an air of surprise and indignation: "Lady, what meanest thou by this order? Who hath moved my bed from its place? He must be of more than mortal skill who could remove it, for it was fashioned in wondrous wise, and with my own hands I wrought it, to be a sign and a secret between thee and me. And this was the manner of the work. Within the courtyard there grew an olive-tree, a fair tree and a large, with a world of green leaves, and a stem like a stout pillar. Round this I built the walls of the chamber with close-fitting stones, and roofed it over, and hung the door on its hinges. Then I went to work on the tree, lopping off the boughs, and smoothing the trunk with the adze, so as to fashion it into a bedpost, and beginning from this I made the frame of a bed, and decorated it with gold and silver and ivory, and over the frame I stretched broad bands of ox-hide, stained with bright purple. This I tell thee as a sign by which thou mayest know me."
The last shadow was now removed, and before Odysseus had well ended what he was saying Penelope sprang towards him, threw her arms round his neck, and covered his face with kisses. "Be not angry with me, my dear lord," she murmured tenderly, "because I held back so long, and gave thee not loving welcome, as I do now. Thou art very wise, and knowest the dangers which beset a lonely woman who is over hasty to believe when a stranger comes and calls himself her husband. Many there be that lie in wait to lay snares for a weak and loving heart. But now I know thee for mine own dear love, and now is the winter of my widowhood made glorious summer, since I have seen thy face again."
So they sat locked in each other's arms, that valiant, long-suffering man, and his faithful wife, two brave and patient souls, parted so long, and tried so hard, but now united once more in wedded love and bliss. The hours went by unheeded, and day would have overtaken them in that trance of delight, had not Athene marked them with pity from her heavenly seat, and stayed the steeds of the morning in the east, and prolonged the reign of night, that the joy of that first meeting might not be broken until they had tasted all its honey to the lees.