Recognition is one of our deepest needs—to be seen beneath the disguises of time.

Argos reminds us that love recognises what reason alone cannot.

Home is not just where we come from, but where we are truly recognised.

Outside the palace gates lies an old, flea-ridden, and forgotten dog.

His name is Argos. Once he had been the finest hunting dog in Ithaca, swift enough to pursue deer and wild goats across the hills. Now he lies upon a dung heap. His master has been away for 20 years. The servants neglect him. The household scarcely notices that he is still alive.

A beggar approaches the palace. No one recognises him. Not the servants who pass him by. Not the arrogant suitors who have consumed his wealth and overrun his home. Not even Penelope, though she has faithfully waited for him. Athena has disguised Odysseus as an old man, stooped and ragged, so that he may enter his own house without revealing himself.

But Argos knows. Though he cannot rise to greet his master, he pricks up his ears and wags his tail. Odysseus in his disguise can do no more than turn away and brush a tear from his eye. Then Argos dies.

The entire episode occupies barely 40 lines of the Odyssey. Remove it, and the plot remains untouched—except that we have deprived the Odyssey of one of its most tender and memorable scenes.

Anyone........

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