Now, as they talked on, a dog that lay there lifted up his muzzle, pricked his ears … It was Argos, long-enduring Odysseus’ dog he trained as a puppy once, but little joy he got since all too soon he shipped to sacred Troy. In the old days young hunters loved to set him coursing after the wild goats and deer and hares. But now with his master gone he lay there, castaway, on piles of dung from mules and cattle, heaps collecting out before the gates till Odysseus’ serving-men could cart it off to manure the king’s estates. Infested with ticks, half-dead from neglect, here lay the hound, old Argos. But the moment he sensed Odysseus standing by he thumped his tail, nuzzling low, and his ears dropped, though he had no strength to drag himself an inch toward his master. Odysseus glanced to the side and flicked away a tear, hiding it from Eumaeus, diverting his friend in a hasty, offhand way: “Strange, Eumaeus, look, a dog like this, lying here on a dung-hill … what handsome lines! But I can’t say for sure if he had the running speed to match his looks or he was only the sort that gentry spoil at table, show-dogs masters pamper for their points.” You told the stranger, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd, “Here—it’s all too true—here’s the dog of a man who died in foreign parts. But if he had now the form and flair he had in his glory days— as Odysseus left him, sailing off to Troy— you’d be amazed to see such speed, such strength. No quarry he chased in the deepest, darkest woods could ever slip this hound. A champion tracker too! Ah, but he’s run out of luck now, poor fellow … his master’s dead and gone, so far from home, and the heartless women tend him not at all. Slaves, with their lords no longer there to crack the whip, lose all zest to perform their duties well. Zeus, the Old Thunderer, robs a man of half his virtue the day the yoke clamps down around his neck.” With that he entered the well-constructed palace, strode through the halls and joined the proud suitors. But the dark shadow of death closed down on Argos’ eyes the instant he saw Odysseus, twenty years away.
