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Ulysses preserves his disguise, and rises from his seat to offer it to the young chief. But Telemachus, like all Homer's heroes, is emphatically a gentleman; and he will not take an old man's place, though that man be but a poor wayfarer clad in rags. When he has broken his fast at his retainer's table, he would know from him who the stranger is. Eumæus repeats the fictitious history which he has heard from Ulysses, and Telemachus promises the shipwrecked wanderer relief and protection. He sends Eumæus to announce his own safe return to Penelope; and when the father and son are left alone, suddenly Minerva appears—visible only to Ulysses and to the dogs, who cower and whine at the supernatural presence—and bids him discover himself to his son. The beggar's rags fall off, a royal robe takes their place, and he resumes all the majesty of presence which he had worn before. But Telemachus does not recognise the father whom he has never known; the sudden transformation rather suggests to him some heavenly visitant. He was but an infant when Ulysses went to Troy; and even when his father assures him of his identity, he