Then Odysseus bade Eurycleia go tell Penelope that her lord had returned and awaited her in the hall. The queen lay on her bed fast asleep when the old nurse broke into her room, and, all tremulous with joy, told her that Odysseus had come and slain the suitors. Too good were the tidings for Penelope to believe. ‘Dear nurse,’ she cried, ‘be not so foolish. Why dost thou mock my sorrow? It may be that one of the gods hath slain the suitors, but Odysseus himself hath perished in a strange land.’ ‘Nay, I mock thee not, dear child,’ answered Eurycleia. ‘The stranger with whom thou didst talk yesterday is Odysseus.’ Yet Penelope could not believe that her lord had returned. She spoke sadly to the old nurse, telling her that she was deceived and did not understand the ways of the gods. ‘None the less,’ she added, ‘let us go to my child, that I may see the suitors dead, and him that slew them.’ Down in the hall Odysseus, clothed no longer in rags, but in bright apparel, awaited his wife. Then Penelope as she gazed upon him knew that it was indeed Odysseus, and she threw her arms around him and kissed him, saying, ‘Be not angry with me, Odysseus, that I did not know thee when I first saw thee. For ever I feared lest another than thou should deceive me, saying he was my husband, but now I know that thou art indeed he.’ So welcome to her was the sight of her lord, that ‘her white arm she would never quite let go from his neck.’ Thus after twenty years did Odysseus come back to Ithaca. CHAPTER XXI THE LAND OF HELLAS The stories of gods and heroes are not pure history. They are myths or legends which have grown with the ages, until sometimes they are told as though they were true. Although the tales I have been telling you of the early days of Greece are myths, yet the Greeks who lived in later times would often speak of them as though they had actually happened. I am going to tell you now, not of gods or heroes, but of the true deeds of mortal men. And first of all you will wish to hear a little about the land in which the ancient Greeks lived. It was named, as you already know, Hellas, while the inhabitants were called Hellenes. But Hellas and her people had another name given to them by the Romans, who called Hellas Graecia, and the Hellenes Graeci, from a tribe that dwelt in a part of the country known as Epirus. Epirus was not a very important region, but it was well known to the Romans who dwelt in the south of Italy. We have altered these Roman names a little and call Hellas Greece, the Hellenes Greeks. If you open your atlas at the map of Europe, you will find in the south the little country of Greece, which although it is so small has yet flung its influence over all the wide world. On three sides Greece is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea, and the country is now usually known as the Balkan Peninsula.