"The rising sun is healing the
blindness of Orion, and Hephaestus views the incident from Lemnos.
 
“Odysseus is next, feigning madness because




 

he does not want to make the campaign with the
sons of Atreus. The ambassadors are there to
summon him, All the details of his pretence are
true to life—the wagon, the ill-matched team,
 He yoked an ass and an ox together. 
the
folly of his actions. He is shown up, however, by
means of his child. Palamedes, son of Nauplius,
comprehending the situation, seizes Telemachus and
threatens, sword in hand, to kill him, meeting
Odysseus’ pretence of madness with a pretence of
anger. In the face of this fright Odysseus grows
sane, becomes a father and abandons his pretence.