Page 380 - the-odyssey

BOOK XXIII

PENELOPE EVENTUALLY

RECOGNISES HER

HUSBAND—EARLY IN

THE MORNING ULYSSES,

TELEMACHUS, EUMAEUS,

AND PHILOETIUS

LEAVE THE TOWN.

uryclea now went upstairs laughing to tell her mistress
Ethat her dear husband had come home. Her aged knees
became young again and her feet were nimble for joy as she
went up to her mistress and bent over her head to speak
to her. ‘Wake up Penelope, my dear child,’ she exclaimed,
‘and see with your own eyes something that you have been
wanting this long time past. Ulysses has at last indeed come
home again, and has killed the suitors who were giving so
much trouble in his house, eating up his estate and ill treat-
ing his son.’