At daybreak Odysseus and the swineherd stirred the coals indoors and set breakfast going, having already packed the others off to drive the herd. The hounds stayed quiet as Telemachus came up the path; they only fawned. Odysseus caught the soft pad of paws and said:
“Eumaeus, someone is coming — a friend, or one of your men. The dogs are quiet and wagging. If they smelled a stranger they would be loud.” Before he finished, his own son stood in the doorway.
Eumaeus sprang up. The bowls he was mixing wine in fell from his hands. He ran to his young master, kissed his head and both eyes and both hands, and wept as a father weeps when he greets a son come home from a far country in the tenth year, the only son, long given up for dead.
“You have come, Telemachus — light of my eyes. When word came that you had sailed for Pylos I feared I would never look on you again. Come in, child, and let me look at you. You do not often visit the herdsmen. You stay in town. It must seem better to watch that ruinous crowd.”
Telemachus answered, “So it will be, old friend. I came to see you, and to ask whether Penelope still keeps the house or whether some other man has married her, so that Odysseus’s bed lies empty under cobwebs and no one sleeps there.”
“She is still there,” said Eumaeus, “grieving in her heart, weeping night and day.” He took the spear. Telemachus crossed the stone threshold. Odysseus rose to give him the seat, but the young man stopped him: “Sit, stranger. We will find another place in our own hut.”
Odysseus sat again. Eumaeus piled green brush and a sheepskin for Telemachus. Then the swineherd set platters of roast meat left from the day before, heaped bread in baskets, and mixed wine in a wooden bowl. Telemachus said to Eumaeus, “Old friend, who is this traveler, and from what country? How did a ship set him on Ithaca? Who do they claim to be? For I do not think he reached us on foot.”
Eumaeus answered, “Son, I will tell you straight. He says he is Cretan, a man who has wandered far. Just now he has escaped from a Thesprotian ship and come to my steading. I put him in your hands. Do as you will. He is your suppliant, as you claim.”
Telemachus looked troubled. “Eumaeus, this cuts me. How can I take a stranger into the house? I am young still, and not strong enough to defend myself if a man grows angry. As for my mother — her heart is divided. She stays by the house and keeps it for me, and also for Odysseus if he should come, and yet the suitors press her toward marriage. I will give this man a cloak and tunic, a two-edged sword, and sandals, and send him wherever his heart desires. Or keep him here at the farmstead.”
Odysseus spoke: “Friend, it is right I should answer. My heart aches at what you say of the suitors’ insolence in the house of such a man — if you wish it so. Tell me: do you submit willingly, or do the people hate you because of some word of a god, or do you blame your brothers? A man trusts brothers for help in a quarrel. I wish I still had your years, and son to Odysseus, or Odysseus himself come home from wandering.”