So talked they with each other, standing there In Pluto’s realm beneath the vaulted earth. Meantime Ulysses, hastening from the town, Came to the fair fields of Laertes, tilled With care. Laertes, after years of toil, Acquired them. There his dwelling stood; a shed Encircled it, where ate and sat and slept The servants of the household, who fulfilled His slightest wish. An old Sicilian dame Was there, who waited, in that distant spot, On her old master with assiduous care. And then Ulysses to his followers said:—
“Go into that fair dwelling, and with speed Slay for our feast the fattest of the swine. I go to prove my father; I would learn Whether he knows me when he sees my face, Or haply knows me not, so long away.”
He spake, and laid his weapons in their hands. Straight toward the house they went. Ulysses passed Into the fruitful orchard, there to prove His father. Going down and far within The garden-plot, he found not Dolius there, Nor any of the servants, nor his sons. All were abroad, old Dolius leading them. They gathered thorns to fence the garden-grounds.
There, delving in that fertile spot, around A newly planted tree, Ulysses saw His father only, sordidly arrayed In a coarse tunic, patched and soiled. He wore Patched greaves of bullock’s hide upon his thighs, A fence against the thorns; and on his hands gloves, to protect them from the prickly stems Of bramble; and upon his head a cap Of goatskin. There he brooded o’er his grief.
Him when the much-enduring chief beheld, Wasted with age and sorrow-worn, he stopped Beside a lofty pear-tree’s stem and wept, And pondered whether he should kiss and clasp His father in his arms, and tell him all, How he had reached his native land and home, Or question first and prove him. Musing thus, It pleased him to begin with sportive words; And thus resolved, divine Ulysses drew Near to his father stooping at his task, And loosening the hard earth about a tree, And thus the illustrious son accosted him:—