And this the old woman was right willing to do, for love of her master, “for never,” she said, “of all strangers that had come to the land, had come one so like to him.”
When she had prepared the bath for his feet, Ulysses sat by the fire, but as far in the shadow as he could, lest the old woman should see a great scar that was upon his leg, and know him thereby.
By this scar the old nurse knew that it was Ulysses himself, and said, “O Ulysses, O my child, to think that I knew thee not!”
And she looked towards the queen, meaning to tell the thing to her. But Ulysses laid his hand on her throat, “Mother, wouldst thou kill me? I am returned after twenty years; and none must know till I shall be ready to take vengeance.”
And the old woman held her peace. And after this Penelope talked with him again, telling him her dreams, how she had seen a flock of geese in her palace, and how that an eagle had slain them, and when she mourned for these geese, lo! a voice said, “These geese are thy suitors, and the eagle thy husband.”
And Ulysses said that the dream was well. Then she said that on the morrow she must make her choice, for she had promised to bring forth the great bow that was Ulysses’, and whosoever should draw it most easily, and shoot an arrow best at a mark, should be her husband.
And Ulysses made answer to her, “It is well, lady. Put not off this trial of the bow, for before one of them shall draw the string the great Ulysses shall come and duly shoot at the mark that shall be set.”
After this Penelope slept, but Ulysses watched.
The next day many things cheered Ulysses for that which he had to do; for first the goddess Minerva had told him that she would stand at his side, and next he heard the thunder of Jupiter in a clear sky, and at last it chanced that a woman who sat at the mill grinding corn, being sore weary of her task, and hating the suitors, said, “Grant Father Jupiter, that this be the last meal which these men shall eat in the house of Ulysses!”
After a while the suitors came and sat down, as was their wont, to the feast, and the servants bare to Ulysses, as Telemachus had bidden, a full share with the others. When Ctesippus, a prince of Samos, saw this, he said, “Is it well that this fellow should fare even as we? Look now at the gift that I shall give him.” Whereupon he took a bullock’s foot out of the basket wherein it lay, and cast it at Ulysses.