" Then kissed he his son, nor could any longer refrain those
tears which he had held under such mighty restraint before, though they
would ever be forcing themselves out in spite of him; but now, as if their
sluices had burst, they came out like rivers, pouring upon the warm cheeks
of his son. Nor yet by all these violent arguments could Telemachus be
persuaded to believe that it was his father, but he said some deity had
taken that shape to mock him; for he affirmed that it was not in the power
of any man, who is sustained by mortal food, to change his shape so in a
moment from age to youth: for, "but now," said he, "you were all wrinkles,
and were old, and now you look as the gods are pictured."
[Illustration: "_I am no more but thy father: I am even he._"]
His father replied: "Admire, but fear not, and know me to be at all parts
substantially thy father, who in the inner powers of his mind, and the
unseen workings of a father's love to thee, answers to his outward shape
and pretence! There shall no more Ulysseses come here. I am he that after
twenty years' absence, and suffering a world of ill, have recovered at
last the sight of my country earth. It was the will of Minerva that I
should be changed as you saw me. She put me thus together; she puts
together or takes to pieces whom she pleases. It is in the law of her free
power to do it: sometimes to show her favourites under a cloud, and poor,
and again to restore to them their ornaments. The gods raise and throw
down men with ease.
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