Ithaca…Heart racing, Odysseus that great exile
filled with joy to hear Athena, daughter of storming Zeus,
pronounce that name. He stood on native ground at last
and he replied with a winging word to Pallas,
not with a word of truth – he choked it back,
always invoking the cunning in his heart:
"Ithaca…yes, I seem to have heard of Ithaca,
even on Crete’s broad island far across the sea,
and now I’ve reached it myself, with all this loot,
but I left behind an equal measure for my children.
I’m a fugitive now, you see. I killed Idomeneus’ son,
Orsilochus, lightning on his legs, a man who beat
all runners alive on that long island – what a racer!
He tried to rob me of all the spoil I’d won at Troy."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 13, lines 284-297. Odysseus doesn’t recognize a disguised Athena who tells him that he is in Ithaca. So with typical cunning he conceals his joy and is careful not to reveal who he is. Instead he makes up a fictitious story that he is a fugitive from Crete who is wanted for killing a man who tried to rob him.