Odysseus left the harbor path and climbed inland through scrub and oak until he reached the swineherd’s steading on the ridge, the place Athena had marked for him — a yard built stout against thieves and weather, the most faithful of the servants he had left behind.
Four bitches that the swineherd kept as watchers saw the stranger and rushed barking. Odysseus sat down at once and dropped his stick. They would have torn him, but the swineherd ran out of the hut, shouting and scattering them with stones.
“Old man, those dogs nearly ended you,” he said. “You would have brought me shame before the gods. Come in. Pain is enough without adding a guest’s death to it.”
He led Odysseus inside, spread thick brush and a goatskin for a seat, and said, “Eat what a servant can offer. My master, if he still lives, would treat a stranger better — but he is gone, and the proud men devour what was his.”
Odysseus answered, “May Zeus and the other deathless gods give you what you most want for this welcome. You have a kind heart.”
The swineherd’s yard was built of stones dragged from the hillside, topped with thorn. Inside the pens the brood sows lay with their young; outside, twelve sties held the swine by scores. Odysseus counted them with a master’s eye and kept his face blank.
Eumaeus girded himself, went to the pens, and chose two young pigs. He slaughtered them, singed the bristles, cut the meat, and roasted it on spits. He set it before the stranger with wine in a wooden bowl.
“Take this servants’ fare,” he said. “The fat hogs go to the suitors — shameless men who neither fear the gods nor pity the house they waste. My master would have worn me out with gifts if he had grown old here. But he died, or the gods hid him. The whole house wastes, and strangers come with false news to please his wife.”
Odysseus ate in silence, planning revenge. When he had finished he said, “Friend, who bought you and raised you? You speak of a rich, gentle lord. Perhaps I have met him. Zeus is my witness — I have wandered far.”
Eumaeus shook his head. “No traveler’s tale will persuade his wife or son now. Beggars invent sightings for a cloak and a meal. My master is lost. Dogs and birds have torn him, or fish in the sea, and his bones lie on a distant shore. He was kind to me beyond other servants. I will never find so gentle a master again, no matter where I go — not even if I see my parents’ land.”