"Bear out the bed made by his own hands," she
commanded Eurycleia, "that he may rest for the night."
"Who has dared move my bed?" cried Ulysses; "the couch framed upon the
stump of an olive-tree, round which I built a stone chamber! I myself
cunningly fitted it together, and adorned it with gold, silver, and
ivory."
Then Penelope, who knew that no one save herself, Ulysses, and one
handmaiden had ever seen the interior of that chamber, fell on his neck
and welcomed the wanderer home. "Pray, be not angry with me, my husband.
Many times my heart has trembled lest some fraud be practised on me, and I
should receive a stranger to my heart."
Welcome as land to the shipwrecked mariner was Ulysses to Penelope. Both
wept as he held her in his arms, and the rosy-fingered morn would have
found them thus, weeping, with her fair, white arms encircling his neck,
had not Pallas prolonged the night that he might relate to her the story
of his wanderings. Then, happy in their reunion, the years of sorrow all
forgotten, sleep overcame them. At dawn, bidding a brief farewell to his
wife, Ulysses went forth to visit his father, and settle as best he might
the strife which he knew would result from the slaughter of the suitors.
After Ulysses' mother had died of grief at the prolonged absence of her
son, Laertes passed his days wretchedly in a little habitation remote from
the palace.
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