Hermes of Cyllene takes his golden wand and leads the suitors' ghosts, squealing like bats, past Oceanus and the rock Leucas to the asphodel meadow. Achilles and Agamemnon are talking about death at Troy: a mound on the Hellespont versus murder in Aegisthus's house. Amphimedon, who once hosted Agamemnon, tells the weaving trick, the beggar, the bow, and the slaughter. The bodies still lie unwashed in Odysseus's house. Agamemnon blesses Odysseus for Penelope's understanding and constancy. Clytemnestra's song, he says, will be hateful even to the good.
On the farm Odysseus sends the others to kill a pig and goes alone into the vineyard. Laertes is hoeing in a patched shirt, oxhide thongs on his legs, a goatskin cap, looking woe-begone. Odysseus weeps under a pear tree, then chooses cunning. He praises the garden, pretends to be Eperitus of Alybas, and describes guest-gifts to a man named Odysseus. Laertes pours dust over his grey head. The son flings his arms around him, then still has to show the Parnassus scar and count the trees the old man gave a boy: thirteen pears, ten apples, forty figs, fifty rows of vines. Laertes's strength fails. Athena makes him tall again. He wishes he had stood in the hall yesterday. Dolius and his sons come in from fencing the vineyard. Rumour is already in town.
The families groan before the palace, bury their dead, and meet in assembly. Eupeithes, father of Antinous, weeps for ships lost at Troy and young men killed at home, and says it will be everlasting disgrace not to avenge sons and brothers. Medon and Phemius, newly spared, testify that a god in Mentor's form fought in the court. Halitherses tells them it is all their own fault: they would not check their sons. More than half shout and leave. The rest arm and follow Eupeithes, who will not return. Zeus tells Athena the reasonable arrangement: Odysseus shall keep on ruling, and the others shall forgive and forget.
After dinner a son of Dolius sees the column close. Ten men, grey hair and all, sally from the gate. Athena as Mentor tells Telemachus not to disgrace his ancestors. Laertes rejoices that son and grandson are vying in valour. She puts vigour in the old king. His spear goes through Eupeithes's helmet. Father and son would have killed every man in the front line. Athena's voice makes the Ithacans drop their arms and flee. Odysseus still swoops like an eagle. Zeus throws a thunderbolt at her feet. She tells him to stop this warful strife or Zeus will be angry. He obeys her gladly. In Mentor's form she makes a covenant of peace.
