Penelope's Test

Greathearted, home at last, I was bathed by Eurynome and rubbed with golden oil, and clothed again. Athena changed me from an old beggar, back to my old self. But she made me look taller, and massive, with crisping hair in curls. She lavished beauty over me before I appeared in front of Penelope again. When I saw Penelope I said:

“Strange woman, the immortals of Olympus made you hard, harder than any. Who else in the world would keep aloof as you do from her husband if he returned to her from years of trouble, cast on his own land in the twentieth year? Nurse, make up a bed for me to sleep on.” Penelope spoke:

“Strange man, if man you are….This is no pride on my part nor scorn for you –not even wonder, merely. I know so well how you –how he– appeared boarding the ship for Troy. But all the same…Make up his bed for him, Eurycleia. Place it outside the bedchamber my lord built with his own hands. Pile the big bed with fleeces, rugs, and sheets of purest linen.” What she said angered me, for I had made our bed out of a tree, and it could not be moved. I spoke with anger:

“Who dared to move my bed? No builder had the skill for that –unless a god came down to turn the trick. No mortal in his best days could budge it with a crowbar. There is our pact and pledge, our secret sign, built into that bed –my handiwork and no one else’s!” I explained how I built the bed and why it was so important.

Penelope ran to me with eyes brimming tears and throwing her arms around me, she said:

“Do not rage at me, Odysseus!” Penelope asked me to forgive her and explained her reasoning for testing me. She rejoiced and gazed upon me, her white arms around me pressed as though forever.