The dogs’ failure to recognize Odysseus looks forward to, and is pointedly contrasted with, one of the best-known moments in the epic. In Book 17, Odysseus, accompanied by his loyal servant, finally makes his way to the gates of his palace, which he plans to infiltrate. As he passes by, a mangy dog lying on a dung heap outside the palace walls pricks up its ears: this, we are told, is the loyal hound Argos, which Odysseus had trained as a puppy and which now, like his master, has been made unrecognizable by the passing years—“an object of revulsion, his master long since gone.” And yet the dog
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