hands of violent men."

"It is hard, O goddess," answered Odysseus, "for a mortal man to know
thee, keen though he be of wit; for thou appearest in a hundred
shapes. Yet well I know that thou wast kind to me in days of old, when
I fought with the Greeks at Troy. But since that time I have never
seen thee, in all my wanderings and perils, save once in Phæacia. Now
tell me truly, I implore thee, what is this place where I am
wandering? Thou saidst 'twas Ithaca, but in that I think thou speakest
falsely, with intent to deceive me; or is this indeed my native land?"

"Ever the same Odysseus as of old," said Athene, smiling again,
"cautious and wary, and hard to convince. Verily thou art a man after
mine own heart, and therefore can I never leave thee or forsake thee
in all thy cares. Any other man would have rushed to embrace his wife,
after so many years of wandering; but thou must needs prove her and
make trial of her constancy, before thou takest her to thy heart. And
if thou wouldst know why I held aloof from thee so long, it was
because of Poseidon, my father's brother, who ever pursued thee with
his ire. Yet I knew that thou wouldst return at last, and have waited
patiently for that hour, And now I will open thine eyes, that thou
mayest know the land of thy birth."

As she spoke she touched his eyes, and a mist seemed to fall away from
them, so that he recognised every feature of the place, the slopes of
Neritus, waving with forest trees, the spreading olive-tree, the
harbour, and the cavern where he had many a time sacrificed to the
nymphs. Then Odysseus rejoiced in spirit, and kneeling down he kissed
his native soil, and put up a prayer to the guardian deities of the
place: "Greeting, lovely Naiads, maiden daughters of Zeus! Ne'er hoped