"

Down the hill to the city strode Telemachus. When he came to the
palace, his old nurse, whom he found busy in the hall, wept for joy.
And when Penelope heard his voice, she came from her room and cast her
arms round him and kissed his face and his eyes, and said, while tears
ran down her cheeks:

"Thou art come, sweet light of my eyes. I thought I should never see
thee more."

Then Telemachus, looking like a young god, with his spear in his hand
and his two hounds following at his heels, went to the hall where the
wooers sat. To his friend Mentor he told his adventures, but he looked
on the wooers with silence and scorn.

Soon Odysseus and the swineherd followed him to the city. A beggar's
bag, all tattered, was slung round the shoulders of Odysseus. In his
hand he carried a staff. Men who saw him, tattered and feeble, mocked
at him and his guide. But Odysseus kept down the anger in his heart,
and they went on to the palace. Near the doorway, lying in the dirt,
thin and old and rough of coat, lay Argos, the dog that long ago had
been the best and fleetest that had hunted the hares and deer with
Odysseus.

When he heard his master's voice he wagged his tail and tried to crawl
near him. But he was too feeble to move. He could only look up with
loving, wistful eyes that were almost blind, and thump his tail
gladly. So glad was he that his faithful heart broke for joy, and
before Odysseus could pat his head or speak a kind word to him, old
Argos rolled over dead.

There were tears in the eyes of Odysseus as he walked past the body of
his friend. He sat down on the threshold leaning on his staff, and
when Telemachus sent him bread and meat from his table he ate
hungrily. When the meal was over he went round the hall begging from
the wooers. Some gave him scraps of broken meats, others called him
hard names and bade him begone, and one of them seized a footstool and
struck him with it.

But Odysseus still kept down the anger in his heart, and went back to
his seat on the threshold with his beggar's bag full of the scraps
that had been given to him.

As he sat there, a common beggar, well known for his greed and
impudence, came to the palace.

"Get thee hence, old man," said he to Odysseus, "else I shall knock
all thy teeth from thy head."

More, too, he said, rudely and roughly, and at last he struck
Odysseus.

Then Odysseus could bear no more, and smote him such a blow on his
neck that the bones were brok