g what would happen. Before Eumaeus came back from his errand to
Penelope, Athene changed Ulysses into the dirty old beggar again.

VIII

ULYSSES COMES DISGUISED AS A BEGGAR TO HIS OWN PALACE

Next morning Telemachus went home, and comforted his mother, and told
her how he had been with Nestor and Menelaus, and seen her cousin, Helen
of the fair hands, but this did not seem to interest Penelope, who
thought that her beautiful cousin was the cause of all her misfortunes.
Then Theoclymenus, the second-sighted man whom Telemachus brought from
Pylos, prophesied to Penelope that Ulysses was now in Ithaca, taking
thought how he might kill the wooers, who were then practising
spear-throwing at a mark, while some of them were killing swine and a
cow for breakfast.

Meanwhile Ulysses, in disguise, and the swineherd were coming near the
town, and there they met the goatherd, Melanthius, who was a friend of
the wooers, and an insolent and violent slave. He insulted the old
beggar, and advised him not to come near the house of Ulysses, and
kicked him off the road. Then Ulysses was tempted to slay him with his
hands, but he controlled himself lest he should be discovered, and he
and Eumaeus walked slowly to the palace. As they lingered outside the
court, lo! a hound raised up his head and pricked his ears, even where
he lay: Argos, the hound of Ulysses, of the hardy heart, which of old
himself had bred. Now in time past the young men used to lead the hound
against wild goats and deer and hares; but, as then, he lay despised
(his master being afar) in the deep dung of mules and kine, whereof an
ample bed was spread before the doors till the slaves of Ulysses should
carry it away to dung therewith his wide demesne. There lay the dog
Argos, full of vermin. Yet even now, when he was aware of Ulysses
standing by, he wagged his tail and dropped both his ears, but nearer to
his master he had not now the strength to draw. But Ulysses looked aside
and wiped away a tear that he easily hid from Eumaeus, and straightway
he asked him, saying:

'Eumaeus, verily this is a great marvel: this hound lying here in the
dung. Truly he is goodly of growth, but I know not certainly if he have
speed with this beauty, or if he be comely only, like men's trencher
dogs that their lords keep for the pleasure of the eye.'

Then answered the swineherd Eumaeus: 'In very truth this is the dog of a
man that has died in a far land. If he were what once