Unconditional Love

Stella and I were at some friends' house for dinner a few weeks ago. After the wonderful meal, my host excused himself to go pick up his mother and daughter. When he was gone, their pet Maltese waited by the veranda door, eagerly waiting for 'Daddy' (as my host fondly refers to himself to his dog whom he regarded as his son). The dog was transfixed with his eyes gazing out the sliding door, watching the dark street where his master would appear hopefully soon with his van. I noticed how excited the dog got when my friend finally came home, rushing to him, truly like a son anticipating his father's return. This was unconditional love in action I said to myself. Should we be so lucky to have our own children rush to us like that when we walk through the door!

Odysseus and Eumaios converse in front of Odysseus' palace:

Now as these two were conversing thus with each other,
a dog who was lying there raised his head and ears. This was
Argos, patient-hearted Odysseus' dog, whom he himself
raised, but got no joy of him, since before that he went to sacred
Ilium. In the days before, the young men had taken him
out to follow goats of the wild, and deer, and rabbits;
but now he had been put aside, with his master absent,
and lay on the deep pile of dung, from the mules and oxen,
which lay abundant before the gates, so that the servants
of Odysseus could take it to his great estate, for manuring.

There the dog Argos lay in the dung, all covered with dog ticks.
Now, as he perceived that Odysseus had come close to him,
he wagged his tail, and laid both ears back; only
he now no longer had the strength to move any closer
to his master, who, watching him from a distance, without Eumaios
noticing, secretly wiped a tear away, and said to him:

"Eumaios, this is amazing, this dog that lies on the dunghill.
The shape of him is splendid, and yet I cannot be certain
whether he had the running speed to go with this beauty,
or is just one of the kind of table dog that gentlemen
keep, and it is only for show that their masters care for them."

Then, O swineherd Eumaios, you said to him in answer:
"This, it is too true, is the dog of a man who perished
far away..."

So he spoke, and went into the strongly settled palace,
and strode straight on, to the great hall and the haughty suitors.

But the doom of dark death now closed over the dog, Argos,
when, after nineteen years had gone by, he had seen Odysseus.