in of a wild goat, and bade
Odysseus be seated. Then he went out to the sties, killed two sucking
pigs, and roasted them daintily. When they were ready he cut off the
choicest bits and gave them to Odysseus, with a bowl of honey-sweet
wine.

While Odysseus ate and drank, the swineherd talked to him of the greed
and wastefulness of the wooers, and in silence Odysseus listened,
planning in his heart how he might punish them.

"Tell me thy master's name," he said at length. "I have traveled in
many lands. Perchance I may have seen him, and may give thee news of
him."

But the swineherd answered:

"Each vagrant who comes straying to the land of Ithaca goes to my
mistress with lying tales of how he has seen or heard of my master.
She receives them all kindly, and asks many questions, while tears run
down her cheeks. You, too, old man, would quickly make up a story if
any one would give thee some new clothes. My master is surely dead,
and wherever I may go I shall never again find a lord so gentle."

Then said Odysseus:

"My friend, I swear to thee that Odysseus shall return. In this year,
as the old moon wanes and the new is born, he shall return to his
home."

When the other herds returned that evening they found Odysseus and
their master still deep in talk. At night the swineherd made a feast
of the best that he had, and still they talked, almost until dawn. The
night was black and stormy, and a drenching rain blotted out the moon,
but the swineherd, leaving Odysseus lying in the bed he had made for
him, with his own thick mantle spread over him, went outside and lay
under a rock that sheltered him from the storm, keeping guard on the
white-tusked boars that slept around him. And Odysseus knew that he
had still at least one servant who was faithful and true.

While Odysseus dwelt with the swineherd, Athene sought Telemachus and
bade him hasten home. Speedily Telemachus went back to his ship and
his men. The hawsers were loosed, the white sail hauled up, and Athene
sent a fresh breeze that made the ship cut through the water like a
white-winged bird. It was night when they passed the island where the
wooers awaited their coming, and in the darkness none saw them go by.

By daybreak they reached Ithaca, and Telemachus, as Athene had bidden
him, sent on the men to the harbor with the ship, but made them put
him ashore on the woody coast near the swineherd's dwelling.

With his bronze-shod spear in his hand, Telem