And when the
maids saw Ulysses, they said, "It is the beggar who came to the court to-
day, about whom all that uproar was stirred up in the hall: what does he
here?" But Penelope gave commandment that he should be brought before her,
for she said, "It may be that he has travelled, and has heard something
concerning Ulysses."
[Illustration: _Where the maids were lighting the queen through a stately
gallery_.]
Then was Ulysses right glad to hear himself named by his queen, to find
himself in nowise forgotten, nor her great love towards him decayed in all
that time that he had been away And he stood before his queen, and she
knew him not to be Ulysses, but supposed that he had been some poor
traveller. And she asked him of what country he was.
He told her (as he had before told Eumaeus) that he was a Cretan born,
and, however poor and cast down he now seemed, no less a man than brother
to Idomeneus, who was grandson to king Minos; and though he now wanted
bread, he had once had it in his power to feast Ulysses. Then he feigned
how Ulysses, sailing for Troy, was forced by stress of weather to put his
fleet in at a port of Crete, where for twelve days he was his guest, and
entertained by him with all befitting guest-rites. And he described the
very garments which Ulysses had on, by which Penelope knew he had seen her
lord.
In this manner Ulysses told his wife many tales of himself, at most but
painting, but painting so near to the life that the feeling of that which
she took in at her ears became so strong that the kindly tears ran down
her fair cheeks, while she thought upon her lord, dead as she thought him,
and heavily mourned the loss of him whom she missed, whom she could not
find, though in very deed he stood so near her.
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