Constrained by his need to protect his disguise, Odysseus can’t let on that he knows the dog: the sole, unbearably poignant sign of his repressed inner emotion is a single tear that trickles down his cheek, which he takes pains to conceal from Eumaeus. And just then, Homer says, Death’s darkness then took hold of Argos, who had seen Odysseus again, after twenty years. This moment of recognition, with its implication that there is some inner quality in Odysseus that has remained intact despite the passage of years and the hardships he’s endured, in turn looks forward to his subsequent
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