Across the world, doors are opening to welcome loved ones home. As the pain of separation melts into relief, as tears of joy replace tears of sadness, people are discovering what they have lost, and what they’ve gained in their departures from home. I turned to the greatest homecoming of all in literature: Odysseus, who left his wife and son some twenty years earlier to fight in the Trojan War, and whose journey back to Ithaca alone has taken ten long years. Eurycleia, the old nurse, recognizes Odysseus as he comes to take possession of his home again by slaughtering the suitors who have been dining there daily, whittling down his stores of food and wine. She hurries to Odysseus’s wife, Penelope, to tell her that he is here at last, her Odysseus has finally come home. Penelope does not dare to believe her and is full of doubts. When she sees him, he is unrecognizable. Her skeptical eyes tell her the man facing her can’t possibly be her husband. Her heart says something else altogether. I have taken two passages from Book 23 in the Odyssey, magnificently translated by Robert Fagles, where a wife demands proofs that only a husband can give.

•

“Dear old nurse,” composed Penelope responded,

“deep as you are, my friend, you’ll find it hard

to plumb the plans of the everlasting gods.

All the same, let’s go and join my son

So I can see the suitors lying dead

and see… the one who killed them.”

                                                                  With that thought

Penelope started down from her lofty room, her heart

In turmoil, torn … should she keep her distance,

probe her husband? Or rush up to the man at once

and kiss his head and cling to both his hands?

As soon as she stepped across the stone threshold,

slipping in, she took a seat at the closest wall

and radiant in the firelight, faced Odysseus now.

There he sat, leaning against the great central column,

Eyes fixed on the ground, waiting, poised for whatever words

His hardy wife might say when she caught sight of him.

A long while she sat in silence…numbing wonder

filled her heart as her eyes explored his face.

One moment he seemed …Odysseus, to the life—

the next, no, he was not the man she knew,

a huddled mass of rags was all she saw.

[…]

And Athena crowned the man with beauty, head to foot,

made him taller to all eyes, his build more massive,

yes, and down from his brow the great goddess

ran his curls like thick hyacinth clusters

full of blooms. As a master craftsman washes

gold over beaten silver—a man the god of fire

and Queen Athena trained in every fine technique—

and finishes off his latest effort, handsome work…

so she lavished splendor over his head and shoulders now.

He stepped from his bath, glistening like a god,

and back he went to the seat that he had left

and facing his wife, declared,

“Strange woman, so hard—the gods of Olympus

made you harder than any other woman in the world!

What other wife could have a spirit so unbending?

Holding back from her husband, home at last for her

after bearing twenty years of brutal struggle.

Come, nurse, make me a bed, I’ll sleep alone.

She has a heart of iron in her breast.”  

                                                                   “Strange man,”

wary Penelope said. “I’m not so proud, so scornful,

nor am I overwhelmed by your quick change…

You look—how well I know—the way he looked,

Setting sail from Ithaca years ago

Aboard the long-oared ship.

                                                    Come, Eurycleia,

move the sturdy bedstead out of our bridal chamber—

that room the master built with his own hands.

Take it out now, sturdy bed that it is,

and spread it deep with fleece,

blankets and lustrous throws to keep him warm.”

Putting her husband to the proof—but Odysseus

blazed up in fury, lashing out at his loyal wife:

“Woman—your words, they cut me to the core!

Who could move my bed? Impossible task,

even for some skilled craftsman—unless a god

came down in person, quick to lend a hand,

lifted it out with ease and moved it elsewhere.

Not a man on earth, not even at peak strength,

would find it easy to prise it up and shift it, no,

a great sign, a hallmark lies in its construction.

I know, I built it myself—no one else…

There was a branching olive-tree inside our court,

Grown to its full prime, the bole like a column, thickset.

Around it I built my bedroom…

[…]

There’s our secret sign, I tell you, our life story!

Does the bed, my lady, still stand planted firm?—

I don’t know—or has someone chopped away

That olive-trunk and hauled our bedstead off?”

                                                                                       Living proof—

Penelope felt her knees go slack, her heart surrender,

recognizing the strong clear signs Odysseus offered.

She dissolved in tears, rushed to Odysseus, flung her arms

around his neck and kissed his head….

•

I’ll end with a translation of an old Runic inscription for all those who will be journeying in the weeks to come: “Hale may thou fare, hale may thou return, hale may thou on your way be.”

Thanks very much for listening. Until next time.

These passages are from Homer’s Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles, and published by Penguin Classics in 1996.