Penelope called the traveler aside and had a seat made ready. “I hear that you once met my husband.” Once again he told her an invented account of meeting him.
Penelope wept and still heard the story to the end. She ordered that his feet be washed as a guest is owed, and the old nurse Eurycleia came with the basin.
Odysseus turned to sit with his back to the firelight. He knew that this nurse was the woman who had raised him, and he grew anxious that the scar on his thigh would give him away.