So speaking he entered the well-built halls and went straight to the hall where the suitors sat. Argos the fate of black death took as soon as he had seen Odysseus in the twentieth year.
Telemachus saw Eumaeus first of all and beckoned him. Eumaeus looked about, saw a seat where the carver sat serving meat to the suitors — that man had finished his rounds — and picked it up and set it at Telemachus’s table opposite him, and sat down himself. A herald took a share and served him. Bread was set before him in a basket.
Right after him Odysseus came in, looking like a miserable old beggar, leaning on his staff, his body wrapped in foul rags. He sat on the ash-wood threshold inside the doorway, resting against the cypress doorpost, which a craftsman had once planed true and set plumb by the line.
“Take this to the stranger. Tell him to go round among the suitors and beg. Shame is no friend to a needy man.” Eumaeus went and said, “Stranger, Telemachus gives you this and says go round among the suitors. Shame, he says, is a bad companion for a beggar.” Odysseus answered, “Lord Zeus, grant Telemachus happiness, and may he have all his heart desires.”
Then Athena stood beside Odysseus and urged him to go among the suitors gathering scraps, and to learn which of them were decent and which lawless — yet even so she did not mean to save any from ruin. He set out to beg from left to right, holding out his hand all round, as if he had long been a beggar.
Then Melanthius the goatherd spoke: “Hear me, suitors of the famous queen — about this stranger. I saw him earlier on the road. This swineherd led him in. I do not know the man himself or where he claims his birth.” Antinous turned on Eumaeus at once: “Famous swineherd, why bring this fellow to town? Do we not have tramps and beggars enough already — pests at dinner?”
Eumaeus answered, “Antinous, you speak well born and badly. Who goes out himself to invite a stranger from abroad, unless he is a craftsman useful to the country — a prophet, a healer of sickness, a worker in wood, or an inspired bard who gives delight with song? Such men are welcome the wide world over. No one calls in a beggar to devour him.”
Telemachus broke in: “Be quiet. Do not answer him. Antinous has always the bitterest tongue of the suitors, and he stirs the others too.” Then he turned to Antinous: “You care for my goods as if I were your son. Why drive this stranger from the house? Take and give. I do not grudge it. I even urge it.”
Antinous answered, “What high talk is this, Telemachus? If every suitor offered what I mean to offer, he would stay clear of these halls for months.” As he spoke he showed the footstool under the table where he rested his soft feet, and lifted it in threat. The others all gave something and filled the wallet with bread and meat.
“I moored my curved ships in the Nile. Then I told my trusty companions to stay by the ships and guard them, and sent scouts to lookout places. But they gave way to arrogance and, trusting their strength, ravaged the Egyptians’ fine fields, killed the men, and carried off women and little children. The cry reached the city quickly. At dawn the townsfolk came.”