Telemachus blesses her for the happy interpretation, and promises that, should the word come true, he will worship the fair prophetess in Ithaca as nothing less than a divinity. Whether or no he made good his vow the poet does not tell us. Worse mortals have been canonised both in ancient and modern calendars. And whether Helen was honoured thus in Ithaca or not, she certainly was at Sparta, where we are told that she displayed her new powers as a divinity once at least in a very appropriate manner—transforming a child of remarkable ugliness, at the prayer of its nurse, into a no less remarkable beauty.
The young men make their first evening halt at Pheræ, as before, and reach Nestor's court at Pylos next day. Telemachus insists on driving straight to the bay where his patient crew still await him with the galley—for he knows old Nestor will try to detain him, out of kindness, if he once set foot again in the palace—and instantly on his arrival they hoist sail for home. They round the peninsula in the night, and with the morning's dawn they sight the spiry peaks of Ithaca. The crew moor the vessel in a sheltered bay, while Telemachus—to escape the ambuscade which he knows to have been laid for him—makes straight for the swineherd's lodge, instead of entering the town. As he draws near the threshold, the watch-dogs know his step, and run out to greet him; Eumæus himself, in his delight at the meeting, drops from his hands the bowl of wine which he was carefully mixing as a morning draught for his disguised guest, and falls on his young lord's neck, kissing him, and weeping tears of joy.
