"I was not there," answered
Eurykleia, "and do not know; I only heard them groaning while they
were being killed. We sat crouching and huddled up in a corner of the
women's room with the doors closed, till your son came to fetch
me because his father sent him. Then I found Odysseus standing over
the corpses that were lying on the ground all round him, one on top
of the other. You would have enjoyed it if you could have seen him
standing there all bespattered with blood and filth, and looking just
like a lion. But the corpses are now all piled up in the gatehouse
that is in the outer court, and Odysseus has lit a great fire to
purify the house with sulfur. He has sent me to call you, so come
with me that you may both be happy together after all; for now at
last the desire of your heart has been fulfilled; your husband is
come home to find both wife and son alive and well, and to take his
revenge in his own house on the suitors who behaved so badly to
him."
"‘My dear nurse," said
Penelope, "do not exult too confidently over all this. You know how
delighted every one would be to see Odysseus come home - more
particularly myself, and the son who has been born to both of us; but
what you tell me cannot be really true. It is some god who is angry
with the suitors for their great wickedness [hubris],
and has made an end of them; for they respected no man in the whole
world, neither rich nor poor, who came near them, who came near them,
and they have come to a bad end in consequence of their iniquity.
Odysseus is dead far away from the Achaean land; he will never return
home again [nostos]."
Then nurse Eurykleia said, "My
child, what are you talking about? But you were all hard of belief
and have made up your mind that your husband is never coming,
although he is in the house and by his own fire side at this very
moment. Besides I can give you another proof
[sêma]; when I was washing him I perceived the
scar which the wild boar gave him, and I wanted to tell you about it,
but in his wisdom [noos] he would not let me, and
clapped his hands over my mouth; so come with me and I will make this
bargain with you - if I am deceiving you, you may have me killed by
the cruelest death you can think of."
"My dear nurse," said Penelope,
"however wise you may be you can hardly fathom the counsels of the
gods. Nevertheless, we will go in search of my son, that I may see
the corpses of the suitors, and the man who has killed
them."
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