Book 19 - Recognitions and a Dream

When the suitors retired for the night,Telly and I removed the arms as planned. Athena lighted the room for us so that we could see as we worked. Telemachus told Eurycleia that we were storing the arms to keep them from being damaged. After we safely disposed of the arms, Telemachus retired and I was joined by the wife. She had come from the women’s quarters to question her "curious visitor". She knows that I had claimed to have met Odysseus, and she tested my honesty by asking me to describe her husband. I described myself, a task not to hard, capturing each detail so perfectly that it reduced Penelope to tears. I then told the story of how I met Odysseus and eventually came to Ithaca. In many respects, this story paralleled those that he told to Athena and Eumaeus in Books 13 and 14, though it is identical to neither. I told Penelope that, essentially, Odysseus had a long ordeal but is alive and freely traveling the seas, and predicted that Odysseus will be back within the month. Penelope offerred me a bed to sleep in, but I was used to the floor, I said, and declined. Only reluctantly did I allow Eurycleia to wash my feet, in case of recognition. As she was putting them in a basin of water, she noticed a scar on one of my feet. She immediately recognized it as the scar that I received when I went boar hunting with grandfather Autolycus. She threw her arms around me, but I silenced her while Athena kept Penelope distracted so that my secret will not be carried any further. The faithful Eurycleia recovered herself and promised to keep my secret. It was a good thing that it was Eurycleia, otherwise she might've leaked to Penelope. She has my trust since she has that of Telemachus. Before she retired, Penelope described to me a dream that she has had in which an eagle swoops down upon her twenty pet geese and kills them all; it then perched on her roof and, in a human voice, says that he is her husband who has just put her lovers to death. Penelope declares that she has no idea what this dream means. Rising to the challenge, I explained it to her. But Penelope decides that she was going to choose a new husband nevertheless: she will marry the first man who can shoot an arrow through the holes of twelve axes set in a line. Its rather easy for me, if they let me participate. Perhaps they will, the goal being to make themselves feel better about themselves after the restoration of their personal honor. This honor thing, its very important. If others get a blow at their's they try to damage that of a third party as well. If I can't win, neither can you. I have this competition in the bag. That is IF they let me participate.