The Scar That Reveals Everything — The Odyssey

Odysseus told Telemachus to move all the weapons from the hall into a storeroom and blame smoke if anyone asked. Athena lit their way as they carried helmets, shields, and spears inside. Telemachus went to bed, leaving Odysseus alone with Penelope.

Penelope came down and questioned the beggar about his background. He told a long false story about being a Cretan who had entertained Odysseus years ago. When she asked how her husband looked, he described his purple cloak, gold brooch with a dog and fawn, and his servant Eurybates so exactly that she wept. She also told him how she delayed the suitors for three years by weaving a funeral shroud by day and undoing it at night.

Penelope ordered the old nurse Euryclea to wash the stranger's feet. When Euryclea touched the scar from a boar hunt on Mount Parnassus, she knew at once it was Odysseus. He gripped her throat and made her swear silence until the suitors were dead.

Penelope then told her dream of an eagle killing twenty geese and asked the beggar to interpret it. He said the eagle was Odysseus and the geese were the suitors. She answered cautiously that dreams can deceive, then announced the bow contest: whoever could string Odysseus's bow and shoot through twelve axe heads would win her.