In the evening, Penelope interrogated me. I was still disguised as an old beggar. She said to me:
"Friend, let me ask you first of all: who are you, where do you come from, of what nation and parents were you?" So I replied:
"My lady, never a man in the wide world should have a fault to find with you. Your name has gone out under heaven like the sweet honor of some god-fearing king, who rules in equity over the strong..." I could not tell her who I was...yet. She told me that if her husband was to return, she could possibly be happy once again.
"How could I? Wasted with longing for Odysseus, while here they press for marriage." Penelope said. She also told me about how she had been stalling the suitors by weaving a shroud for Lord Laertes when cold Death comes to lay him on his bier. But she would weave during the day, and unweave what she did late at night when everyone is sleeping. One night someone caught Penelope, so she had no choice but to finish weaving. After telling me about herself, she said:
"But you too confide in me, tell me your ancestry. You were not born of mythic oak or stone."
I made up a tale that mentioned Odysseus and I declared that her husband will soon be home. I told her:
"You see, then, he is alive and well, and headed homeward now, no more to be abroad far from his island, his dear wife and son. Here is my sworn word for it. Witness this, god of the zenith, noblest of the gods, and Lord Odysseus' hearthfire, now before me: I swear these things shall turn out as I say. Between this present dark and one day's ebb, after the wane, before the crescent moon, Odysseus will come"
