After giving his orders to Telemachus, Odysseus had retired to refresh
himself with the bath, and put on fresh raiment, while Penelope
remained seated in her former place. After an interval of some length
he re-entered the hall, and sat down face to face with his wife. But
what miracle was this? The haggard, timeworn beggar was gone, and in
his place sat her husband, as she had known him in the days of old,
with the added dignity which he had gained by twenty years of
strenuous life. But the frost which had lain upon her spirit during
her long period of weary waiting was not easily to be broken, and
still she doubted. After a long silence Odysseus spoke, and now for
the first time his tones had a ring of reproach: "Still not a word for
thy husband, who has come back to thee after twenty years? Surely the
very demon of unbelief possesses thee!" Even then Penelope made no
answer, for she was waiting to put the final test, and at length
Odysseus gave her the opportunity. "Go, Eurycleia," he said, "and
prepare a bed for me; I will leave this iron-hearted wife and go to my
rest."
"Ay, do so," said Penelope, "take the bed from the chamber which he
built with his own hands, and lay it in another room, that he may
slumber there." This she said to prove him, for the bed and the
chamber had a secret history, known only to herself and her husband
and the faithful nurse.
Odysseus rose bravely to the test: whether divining his wife's purpose
or not, he exclaimed, with an air of surprise and indignation: "Lady,
what meanest thou by this order? Who hath moved my bed from its place?
He must be of more than mortal skill who could remove it, for it was
fashioned in wondrous wise, and with my own hands I wrought it, to be
a sign and a secret between thee and me. And this was the manner of
the work. Within the courtyard there grew an olive-tree, a fair tree
and a large, with a world of green leaves, and a stem like a stout
pillar. Round this I built the walls of the chamber with close-fitting
stones, and roofed it over, and hung the door on its hinges. Then I
went to work on the tree, lopping off the boughs, and smoothing the
trunk with the adze, so as to fashion it into a bedpost, and beginning
from this I made the frame of a bed, and decorated it with gold and
silver and ivory, and over the frame I stretched broad bands of
ox-hide, stained with bright purple. This I tell thee as a sign by
which thou mayest know me."
The last shadow was now removed, and before Odysseus had well ended
what he was saying Penelope sprang towards him, threw her arms round
his neck, and covered his face with kisses. "Be not angry with me, my
dear lord," she murmured tenderly, "because I held back so long, and
gave thee not loving welcome, as I do now. Thou art very wise, and
knowest the dangers which beset a lonely woman who is over hasty to
believe when a stranger comes and calls himself her husband. Many
there be that lie in wait to lay snares for a weak and loving heart.
But now I know thee for mine own dear love, and now is the winter of
my widowhood made glorious summer, since I have seen thy face again."
So they sat locked in each other's arms, that valiant, long-suffering
man, and his faithful wife, two brave and patient souls, parted so
long, and tried so hard, but now united once more in wedded love and
bliss. The hours went by unheeded, and day would have overtaken them
in that trance of delight, had not Athene marked them with pity from
her heavenly seat, and stayed the steeds of the morning in the east,
and prolonged the reign of night, that the joy of that first meeting
might not be broken until they had tasted all its honey to the lees.