A beggar in his own house

Telemachus goes ahead to the palace. Penelope receives him with relief and tears, and asks for any news. He tells her what Menelaus said — that Odysseus is alive on Calypso's island — but does not say his father is now sitting in Eumaeus's hut a few miles away. The disguised Odysseus follows with Eumaeus on the road into town. He is mocked along the way by Melanthius the goatherd, who has thrown his lot in with the suitors and recognizes nothing but a beggar. Melanthius kicks him as he passes; Odysseus says nothing.

At the gate of the palace lies an old dog on a heap of dung, half-blind and full of fleas. He is Argos, the puppy Odysseus raised as a boy and trained for hunting — fast and brave once, now too weak to stand. Argos lifts his head as the disguised stranger walks past. He recognizes him. He wags his tail once, drops his ears, and dies. Odysseus, unable to stoop and touch the dog without giving himself away, walks on past with a tear at the corner of his eye.

He enters the great hall and sits by the door, holding out a wooden bowl. The suitors mock him. Antinous, the worst of them, throws a footstool at him and hits him in the back. Odysseus does not flinch. Penelope, hearing of the visiting beggar, asks Eumaeus to bring him to her chamber that evening; she has questions she wants to ask. The trap is being set, slowly and patiently, from inside the disguise — and the only soul in Ithaca who has so far recognized the king on sight is a dying dog.