When Odysseus was hunting on Mount Parnassus as a boy, he was injured by a wild boar. He did kill it, but it got a piece of him as well. It was a cut that ran just up from his knee.
Eurycleia nursed Odysseus when he was a boy and she recognised his scar - this is how she knows the beggar is actually Odysseus..
Eurycleia is Odysseus and Telemachus's nurse and maid
Eurycleia
Eurycleia recognizes Odysseus purely by his scar.Eumaeus and Philoetius recognize Odysseus by his scar after Odysseus reveals who he is. Laertes, Odysseus' father, also recognizes Odysseus by his scar after Odysseus reveals his identity.
Odysseus's faithful dog, Argos, was the first to recognize him through his rags. Later on, the old nurse Eurycleia recognizes Odysseus while washing his feet, due to a scar he received as a child while on a boar hunt.
the nurse Eurycleia
When Odysseus returns home to Ithaca, the first person he reveals his identity to is his old nurse, Eurycleia. He does this after she recognizes him while washing his feet, and he swears her to secrecy about his return. Eurycleia's recognition marks the beginning of Odysseus's plan to reclaim his household from the suitors.
Odysseus is recognized by his old nurse, Eurycleia, when he returns to the palace. She identifies him by a distinctive scar on his foot, which he received during a hunting trip in his youth. Eurycleia's recognition is significant as it marks the moment when Odysseus begins to reclaim his identity and position in his household. Her loyalty and joy in recognizing him contrast with the suitors' ignorance of his true identity.
Eurycleia was a nurse and Laertes paid the worth of 20 oxen for her.
Eurycleia was the name of Odysseus's faithful old nurse.
while bathing him she sees a scar from his child hood
He had several: Philoetius the cowherd; Eumaeus the swineherd; or Eurycleia the nurse.
Euryclea recognizes Odysseus when she is washing his feet. The nurse recognizes Odysseus by a unique old hunting scar that he got from a boar hunt when he was a child.