At dawn Odysseus and Eumaeus have lit a fire in the hut and sent the men out with the pigs. Telemachus comes up. The dogs do not bark. They fawn. Odysseus hears the feet and asks who it is. Eumaeus drops his work, kisses the boy's head and both eyes, and weeps like a father whose son has come home from a far country after ten years. Telemachus asks after Penelope. She still waits in the palace. She still weeps. She has not said she will marry, and she has not ended it. He does not know the ragged stranger at the fire is his father.
Still in rags, Odysseus asks why a prince lets such men eat the house. Telemachus names the shape of it. Zeus made them a race of only sons. The chiefs of Dulichium, Same, Zacynthus, and Ithaca itself are eating the estate under the pretext of courting his mother. He sends Eumaeus to town in secret to tell Penelope he is safe, and not to let the suitors hear. When the swineherd has gone, Athena stands outside the hut, visible only to Odysseus. She restores his hair, his flesh, and his clothes. Telemachus looks at him and thinks a god has come in, until Odysseus says he is his father, the man on whose account the boy has suffered under lawless men. There is no other Odysseus who will come hereafter. They weep until they have had enough. Then they count. Fifty-two chosen youths from Dulichium with six servants, twenty-four from Same, twenty from Zacynthus, twelve from Ithaca, plus Medon, a bard, and two carvers. Two men cannot stand against that. Odysseus says Athena and Zeus will not keep long out of the fight. Tomorrow Telemachus goes back to the hall as before. When Athena puts it in his mind, Odysseus will nod, and the boy must hide every spear and shield in the strong store room. Blame smoke if anyone asks.
Eumaeus tells Penelope in private. The ambush ship comes into harbour with her sails down. Antinous wants a new plan to kill Telemachus before he can call an assembly. Amphinomus, son of Nisus, will not vote for murder without an oracle from Zeus. Penelope comes down into the hall and names what they tried to do to her son. That evening Eumaeus returns to the hut. Athena wrinkles Odysseus back into the beggar so the secret will not walk in with the swineherd.
Coming Up in Chapter 17
At dawn Odysseus enters his own city as a beggar while Telemachus must play host to the men plotting his death. A faithful dog will recognise what nobles cannot, and every insult in the hall will become evidence for the reckoning to come.
