es was amazed at seeing a warrior all in mail come into his garden,
but said that he was the father of Ulysses, who had long been unheard of
and unseen. 'And who are you?' he asked. 'Where is your own country?'
Ulysses said that he came from Sicily, and that he had met Ulysses five
years ago, and hoped that by this time he had come home.

Then the old man sat down and wept, and cast dust on his head, for
Ulysses had not arrived from Sicily in five long years; certainly he
must be dead. Ulysses could not bear to see his father weep, and told
him that he was himself, come home at last, and that he had killed all
the wooers.

But Laertes asked him to prove that he really was Ulysses, so he showed
the scar on his leg, and, looking round the garden, he said: 'Come, I
will show you the very trees that you gave me when I was a little boy
running about after you, and asking you for one thing or another, as
children do. These thirteen pear trees are my very own; you gave them to
me, and mine are these fifty rows of vines, and these forty fig trees.'

Then Laertes was fainting for joy, but Ulysses caught him in his arms
and comforted him. But, when he came to himself, he sighed, and said:
'How shall we meet the feud of all the kin of the slain men in Ithaca
and the other islands?' 'Be of good courage, father,' said Ulysses. 'And
now let us go to the farmhouse and breakfast with Telemachus.'

So Laertes first went to the baths, and then put on fresh raiment, and
Ulysses wondered to see him look so straight and strong. 'Would I were
as strong as when I took the castle of Nericus, long ago,' said the old
man, 'and would that I had been in the fight against the wooers!' Then
all the old man's servants came in, overjoyed at the return of Ulysses,
and they breakfasted merrily together.

By this time all the people in the town knew that the wooers had been
slain, and they crowded to the house of Ulysses in great sorrow, and
gathered their dead and buried them, and then met in the market place.
The father of Antinous, Eupeithes, spoke, and said that they would all
be dishonoured if they did not slay Ulysses before he could escape to
Nestor's house in Pylos. It was in vain that an old prophet told them
that the young men had deserved their death. The most of the men ran
home and put on armour, and Eupeithes led them towards the farm of
Laertes, all in shining mail. But the Gods in heaven had a care for
Ulysses, and sent Athene to make