Telemachus went ahead to the palace. Penelope wept for joy that her son had come home safe, and Eumaeus followed after, walking with the traveler in his beggar’s clothes.
At the palace gate the noise of feasting was loud. The suitors were eating and drinking as they did every day, and Odysseus stood at the threshold and looked inside.
He took a bowl and went from place to place asking for food. A few tossed him a piece of bread without much thought. Nobody knew that he was the master of this house.