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‘Nay, I mock thee not, dear child,’ answered Eurycleia. ‘The stranger with whom thou didst talk yesterday is Odysseus.’

Yet Penelope could not believe that her lord had returned. She spoke sadly to the old nurse, telling her that she was deceived and did not understand the ways of the gods. ‘None the less,’ she added, ‘let us go to my child, that I may see the suitors dead, and him that slew them.’

Down in the hall Odysseus, clothed no longer in rags, but in bright apparel, awaited his wife.

Then Penelope as she gazed upon him knew that it was indeed Odysseus, and she threw her arms around him and kissed him, saying, ‘Be not angry with me, Odysseus, that I did not know thee when I first saw thee. For ever I feared lest another than thou should deceive me, saying he was my husband, but now I know that thou art indeed he.’ So welcome to her was the sight of her lord, that ‘her white arm she would never quite let go from his neck.’

Thus after twenty years did Odysseus come back to Ithaca.