_Ath._ I sent him for his safety, there to win Opinion too of such as knew him not, And rouse remembrance of thee in the world. To-day is he returned: I have brought his ship North of the island, as was need, to shun The wooers’ galley sent to take him; there Is he disbarked alone. Thou mayst be first To meet him. _Ul._ Lead me thither. _Ath._ Ah! thou forgettest. If any one but he should see thy face?— _Ul._ Contrive then that I meet with him alone. 250 _Ath._ How if my plot were better, so that all Might see thee, yet none know thee but thy son? _Ul._ What manner of disguise is in thy thought? _Ath._ Disfigurement, which thou mayst shrink to bear. _Ul._ Ay, if my son behold me ill transformed. _Ath._ Yet he alone shall see thee as thou art. _Ul._ Then tell me, goddess, what thou wouldst: thou knowest Playing another’s part I am most myself. 258 _Ath._ But I will make thee now least like thyself. _Ul._ How! shall I stoop then to be less than man? _Ath._ Nay, but of men the vilest, though a man. For that thou mayst be hidden, lo! I will change Thy outward seeming to the piteous aspect Of age and beggary. Thy supple skin I’ll wrinkle on thy joints, thy thick brown hair Rob from thy head, and dim thy radiant eyes, And o’er thy shoulders bowed cast sorry rags, To make thee loathed of men. In such disguise Mayst thou in safety seek thy herdsman’s hut, Eumæus: he is faithful, and with kindness 270 Will serve thee as a stranger in distress, No less than he will welcome thee revealed. Accept his food and shelter, and the while Learn from his lips what friends thou hast to look for, What foes to reckon with, what wrongs to avenge; And humour as thou wilt his honest ears, Awaiting till I thither send thy son. _Ul._ When wilt thou send him? _Ath._ He will come ere noon. _Ul._ Then must he first behold me thus deformed? _Ath._ He cannot know thee. Thou betray thyself No whit; I will be near and make occasion 281 To shew thee to him, as thou art, alone. _Ul._ I have had no hope, goddess, but in thine aid: Long as that tarried I despaired not then; How should I, when thou comest, deny thee now? _Ath._ Then first unto the cave, therein to stow These goods; and after by this olive trunk Sit we awhile together: when thou hast heard My counsel, I will work this change upon thee, That one who saw thee now of kingly port, 290 Hale and well-liking, ay, and bowed the head, Should, when he next saw, spurn thee with his foot; Thus must it be. Come, let us to the cave. ACT · II