"You – you’re truly my son, Odysseus, home at last?
Give me a sign, some proof – I must be sure."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 366-367. First Penelope doesn’t believe that Odysseus had returned, now it’s his father Laertes who doesn’t. But it is perhaps understandible that Laertes asks Odysseus for some proof, since he hasn’t seen him for twenty years. It’s only when Odysseus shows his father the scar that he received from a boar as a child that Laertes believes it is truly his son.