The goddess, gray-eyed Athene, smiled on him,
and stroked him with her hand, and took on the shape of a woman
both beautiful and tall, and well versed in glorious handiworks,
and spoke aloud to him and addressed him in winged words, saying:
‘It would be a sharp one, and a stealthy one, who would ever get past you
in any contriving; even if it were a god against you.
You wretch, so devious, never weary of tricks, then you would not
even in your own country give over your ways of deceiving
and your thievish tales. They are near to you in your very nature.
But come, let us talk no more of this, for you and I both know
sharp practice, since you are far the best of all mortal
men for counsel and stories, and I among all the divinities
am famous for wit and sharpness; and yet you never recognized
Pallas Athene, daughter of Zeus, the one who is always
standing beside you and guarding you in every endeavor.
And it was I who made you loved by all the Phaiakians.
And now again I am here, to help you in your devising
of schemes, and to hide the possessions which the haughty Phaiakians
bestowed—it was by my thought and counsel—on you, as you started
from home, and tell you all the troubles you are destined to suffer
in your well-wrought house; but you must, of necessity, endure
all, and tell no one out of all the men and the women
that you have come back from your wanderings, but you must endure
much grief in silence, standing and facing men in their violence.’

Then in turn resourceful Odysseus spoke to her in answer:
‘It is hard, O goddess, for even a man of good understanding
to recognize you on meeting, for you take every shape upon you.
But this I know well: there as a time when you were kind to me
in the days when we sons of the Achaians were fighting in Troy land.
But after we had sacked the sheer citadel of Priam,
and went away in our ships, and the god scattered the Achaians,
I never saw you, daughter of Zeus, after that, nor did I
know of your visiting my ship, to beat off some trouble
from me, but always with my heart torn inside its coverings
I wandered, until the gods set me free from unhappiness, until
in the rich territory of the Phaiakian men you cheered me
with words, then led me, yourself in person, into their city.
And now I entreat you in the name of your father; for I do not think
I have really come into sunny Ithaka, but have been driven
off course to another country, and I think you are teasing me
when you tell me I am, and saying it to beguile me; tell me
if it is true that I have come back to my own dear country.’
Then in turn the goddess gray-eyed Athene answered him:
‘Always you are the same, and such is the mind within you,
and so I cannot abandon you when you are unhappy,
because you are fluent, and reason closely, and keep your head always.
Anyone else come home from wandering would have run happily
off to see his children and wife in his halls; but it is not
your pleasure to investigate and ask questions, not till
you have made trial of your wife; yet she, as always,
sits there in your palace, and always with her the wretched
nights, and the days also, waste her away with weeping.
And I never did have any doubt, but in my heart always
knew how you would come home, having lost all of your companions.
But, you see, I did not want to fight with my father’s
brother, Poseidon, who was holding a grudge against you
in his heart, and because you blinded his dear son, hated you.
Come, I will show you settled Ithaka, so you will believe me.
This is the harbor of the Old Man of the Sea, Phorkys,
and here at the head of the harbor is the olive tree with spreading
leaves, and nearby is the cave that is shaded, and pleasant,
and sacred to the nymphs who are called the Nymphs of the Wellsprings,
Naiads. That is the wide over-arching cave, where often
you used to accomplish for the nymphs their complete hecatombs;
and there is the mountain, Neritos, all covered with forest.’
So speaking the goddess scattered the mist, and the land was visible.