As soon as the suitors go to sleep, Telemachus and Odysseus go to work collecting and hiding all the weapons. Athena provides light for them to see. Telemachus tells the nurse, Eurycleia, that they are getting the weapons out of harm’s way, out of the way so they won’t get damaged at all. Telemachus then goes to bed, and Odysseus (still disguised as a beggar) is joined by Penelope who wants to ask him questions about his family, his homeland..etc. She wants to know if the “beggar” really has met Odysseus, and she asks him to describe Odysseus and any men that may have been with him as a test to see if he really had met Odysseus. The beggar, Odysseus, describes in detail the clothing he was wearing and the name of one of the men that accompanied him. Penelope believes him because his discriptions are correct. He then tells Penelope the same story he told Eumaeus about how he met Odysseus and how he came to Ithica although he changes the story just slightly. He tells Penelope that Odysseus is indeed still alive and will probably be home very soon. Penelope insists that one of her maids should wash his feet, and Eurycleia does so. Eurycleia was Odysseus’ and Telemachus’ nurse/ a kind of nanny to them their whole lives. She knows everything about Odysseus, and as she is washing his feet, she feels a familiar scar above his knee from when he was little and went boar hunting with his father. She recognizes immediately that this beggar is Odysseus disguised and gets really excited and tearful. Odysseus tells her she must not tell anyone, or it could bring about her own ruin. She promises not to tell anyone. Penelope (who was distracted by Athena during Eurycleia’s discovery of Odysseus) then describes to Odysseus a dream that she has had in which an eagle comes down by her geese and kills them. After the eagle does this, it comes to her and speaks. It says to her that it is her husband, Odysseus, and that it just killed all of her suitors. Penelope doesn’t know what this dream means, but she has finally decided to choose a new husband. She will choose the first man that can shoot an arrow through twelve loop holes in a row.
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