When Odysseus and his two loyal servants returned to the great hall, they found that none of the suitors had been able to string the bow. “Why do you not resume your contest tomorrow?” Odysseus said. “Perhaps the archer god will help one of you then. But for now, let me hold that smooth bow. I should like to see if there is any force left in my hands, or if my hard travels have taken all my strength away.”
The men reacted angrily. “You fool, do not dare to touch that bow,” said Antinous. “Hold your tongue, or we will throw you out to sea.”
Penelope stood up. “Our guest says he comes from a noble family,” she said. “Give him the bow and let him try to string it.”
“Mother, return to your chamber and your weaving,” said Telemachus, for he knew that a bloody battle was about to begin. “I am master of this house. I will be the one to invite our guest to string the bow.”
Penelope was surprised by the sharp words of her son, but she lowered her head and returned to her chamber. As she lay on her bed and wept for Odysseus, the goddess Athena closed Penelope’s eyelids and sent her into a deep slumber, sparing her from the horror of what was about to happen.
In the great hall below, the swineherd and cowherd took the mighty bow and quiver of arrows and handed them to Odysseus. Then they hurried from the room to give orders to the maids and lock the outside gate.
Odysseus slowly examined the bow. Then he bent and strung it effortlessly, as if he were a musician stringing a harp. When he finished, he plucked the taut cord. It sang like a swallow’s note.
Thunder rumbled in the sky. Odysseus smiled, for he knew the thunder was another sign from the god Zeus. As the suitors watched in stunned silence, he picked up an arrow and set it against the bow. He aimed at the row of axes. He drew the arrow back, and let it fly.
The arrow sailed perfectly through each of the twelve ax rings.
Odysseus put down his bow and looked at Telemachus. “The stranger you welcomed into your home has not disgraced you,” he said.
Telemachus nodded. The battle was about to begin.
SEVEN
DEATH TO THE SUITORS
Odysseus threw off his rags and leapt onto the stone threshold of the hall. He glared down at the suitors.
“That contest is over,” he said. “But now there is another target for my bow. Help me, Apollo, god of archers—” And with those words, Odysseus took aim at Antinous, the leader of the suitors, and sent an arrow straight into the villain’s throat.
As Antinous fell to the floor, the other suitors sprang from their seats. “You will pay for this!” one shouted at Odysseus. “The vultures will soon eat you!” They all then rushed about in great confusion, searching for their weapons. But no spears or shields could be found.
“Dogs!” Odysseus shouted at them. “I—Odysseus—have come back! You never thought you would see me again, did you? But now your final hour has come!”
“Use the tables for shields to block his arrows!” one of the suitors shouted. “Attack him with your swords!” The man rushed at Odysseus with his sword, but Odysseus swiftly slew him with another arrow from his bow.
Another suitor ran toward Odysseus, but Telemachus hurled his spear and killed him, too. Then Telemachus hurried from the room to get arms for the swineherd and the cowherd.
Odysseus held off the suitors with his arrows until Telemachus returned with shields and spears and gave the weapons to their two allies. Then the four men stood together against the crowd.
One of Odysseus’ enemies ran upstairs to the storeroom and found the door unlocked. He grabbed twelve spears and brought them to the others.
With the enemy now armed, it seemed impossible to Odysseus that he and his three comrades could defeat the scores of men. But suddenly the goddess Athena appeared in the hall.
“Join us in our fight!” Odysseus shouted to her.
Athena’s eyes flashed. “You must prove yourselves first!” she said. Then she turned into a swallow and flew up to a roof beam to watch.
One after another, Odysseus sent his arrows streaking through the air, killing many of the suitors. Then he and his three comrades hurled their four spears at the enemy. When four of the suitors went down, Odysseus and his men pulled the spears from their bodies and hurled them again.
The suitors hurled spears, too. But Athena kept sending them astray. Finally the goddess sent a vision that struck terror into the suitors’ hearts. A dark cloud appeared over the great hall. The cloud took the shape of Athena’s mighty shield. The suitors knew that a vision of Athena’s shield meant certain death.
Ruthlessly, Odysseus, Telemachus, and their two comrades slew man after man. Odysseus spared the life of the minstrel, for the singer sang songs sent from the gods. And he spared the herald, for he wanted him to spread the news that the men of this earth should do good and not evil.
But to all others, Odysseus showed no mercy. By the end of the battle, every suitor had been slain. Their bodies were heaped on the floor like dead fish thrown from a net onto the sand.
The god Hermes appeared in the great hall. Holding his golden wand, he led the suitors’ ghosts from the palace.
Squeaking like bats, the ghosts followed Hermes over ocean waves. They followed him past snowy rocks. They followed him beyond the sun’s gate and beyond the place of dreams, until they arrived at last in the mist-shrouded Land of the Dead.
EIGHT
REUNION
Standing in a pool of blood, surrounded by the corpses of the suitors, Odysseus called for the maidservant Euryclea. When the old woman saw the carnage, she shrieked with joy and relief, for she knew the palace was finally free of the villains who had tormented Odysseus’ family for so many years.
“Be silent,” Odysseus commanded her. “It is wrong to exult over the dead.”
“Let me at least go and tell Penelope,” said the maid. “She has slept through the whole battle.”
“No, do not wake her yet,” said Odysseus. “Gather all the maids who once danced with the suitors. Order them to carry away the dead and wash the blood from the walls and floors.”
Euryclea did as Odysseus commanded her. When the palace was scrubbed clean, Odysseus told her to make a fire to purify the house. Finally, as the fire sent its smoke through the halls and courtyard, Euryclea hurried upstairs to Penelope.
“Wake up!” she cried, shaking the sleeping queen. “Your beloved husband has returned! He waits for you now! Wake up!”
When Penelope opened her eyes, the old woman told her the story of the great battle and how she had found Odysseus and Telemachus standing over the corpses of the suitors.
“Do not raise my hopes that it is truly Odysseus,” said Penelope. “Surely, it is one of the immortal gods in disguise. My beloved husband is either far away on a distant island, or he is dead.”
“Go and see for yourself!” urged Euryclea. “I saw the scar on his leg—from the tusk of the boar. Come with me now! He waits for you by his own fireside!”
“Old woman, you do not know the minds of the gods…or how they can trick us,” said Penelope. “But I will go and see my son.”
Penelope went downstairs. She found Odysseus sitting by the fire. His rags were covered with blood. Sweat and blood covered his dirty face and hair.
Stunned by Odysseus’ savage appear-ance, Penelope turned away.
Telemachus rebuked her. “Mother, can you not even look at him? Is your heart so hard?”
But Odysseus was patient. He smiled and turned to Telemachus. “Let us wash ourselves and dress in fresh tunics,” he said. “Then tell the minstrel to play a cheerful dance tune as if he were playing a wedding song. We must fool the neighbors, and delay the news of the slaughter from reaching the relatives of the slain. When they hear about it, they will surely seek revenge.”
Odysseus left the hall, and servants bathed him and rubbed him with oil and dressed him in a clean tunic. Then the goddess Athena magically took away his beggar disguise and made him look younger and taller.
As handsome as a god, Odysseus returned to the hearthside. He sat opposite Penelope. But still she was silent. Odysseus’ transformation had made her even more mistrustful. Was this man truly a man? Or was he a god trying to deceive her?
“What a strange woman you are,” said Odysseus. “After twenty years, you will not let your husband take you in his arms.” When Penelope did not speak, Odysseus went on. “Well, then, I suppose I must sleep alone.”
“What a strange man you are,” said Penelope, “if indeed you are a man, and not a god playing a trick on me.” Then Penelope thought of a trick of her own. Long ago, Odysseus had built their marriage bed from an olive tree that grew through the floor of their bedchamber. Only she and Odysseus himself knew the secret of its construction.
“I know not who you truly are,” Penelope said, “but I will tell my maid to prepare my own bed for you. Euryclea!” she called. “Have the servants place my bed outside my chamber and pile it with fleeces and sheets of linen.”
Odysseus’ eyes flashed with anger. “What happened to the bed I made for us long ago?” he said. “That bed could never be moved—one of its posts is the trunk of an olive tree still rooted in the ground! Has a thief cut that post and stolen our bed?”
Penelope gave a shout of joy and rushed into Odysseus’ arms. “Only you would know this secret of our marriage bed!” she exclaimed tearfully. “Forgive me for doubting you!”
As his wife’s arms closed tenderly about him, a deep ache rose in Odysseus’ breast—the ache of a swimmer in a stormy sea who has long yearned for the sun-warmed earth. Holding Penelope in the flickering firelight of his own hearth, he wept with sweet grief.
As his mother and father embraced, Telemachus hushed the dancers and the servants. The hall was darkened, and everyone went to bed.
Odysseus and Penelope retired to their chamber, and to the bed with the post made from the olive tree. There they spent many hours of the night telling each other stories of all that had happened during Odysseus’ absence.
While they talked, the goddess Athena held back the horses of Dawn—Firebright and Daybright—so the joyful couple could spend more time alone.
NINE
PEACE
When dawn finally came, Odysseus told Penelope that he must go to the country and see his father, Laertes. Mad with grief, Laertes had mourned his lost son for twenty years. The old man refused even to live in the palace, preferring to sleep in rags in one of Odysseus’ vineyards.
“While I am gone, lock yourselves and your maids in your rooms and speak to no one,” Odysseus said to Penelope. “For I must warn you—by the end of this day, word will have spread about the death of the suitors—and their kin will surely come seeking revenge.”
Odysseus then woke Telemachus, and the swineherd and cowherd, and asked them to go with him to see his father. Though it was bright morning when they set out, Athena shrouded the four men in darkness until they came to Laertes’ vineyard far from town.
“Go to the house and prepare a meal for us,” Odysseus told the others. “I will go into the fields and find my father.”
In one of the fields of the vineyard, Odysseus saw an old man hoeing the ground. Bent over his hoe, the man wore a filthy tunic and a tattered hat made of goatskin. It grieved Odysseus to see his father, Laertes, looking so weary and ragged.
“Forgive me for disturbing you,” Odysseus called out. “I am looking for a friend of mine. He once stopped at my island and stayed in our house. He said he was from Ithaca and that his father was Laertes.”
The old man lowered his head and wept. “That must have been my son, my unfortunate son, Odysseus,” he said. “He has long been dead. Far from home, he was eaten by the fish of the sea or perhaps by wild beasts on land.”
“Indeed?” said Odysseus. “It has only been a few years since I saw him. I gave him gifts and sent him on his way. I thought the omens for him were good. We had every hope of meeting again.”
Laertes nodded and his eyes filled with tears. Then the burden of his grief became too much for him. Groaning with misery, he picked up a handful of dirt and poured it over his head.
Odysseus could not bear to see his father suffer a moment longer. He rushed forward and threw his arms around the sad old man. “Father, I am your son,” he said. “I have returned. And I have destroyed all those who tormented you and my wife and son.”
Laertes stammered in disbelief. “Can—can you give me proof that you are truly my son?” he asked.
“I can show you this hunting wound,” said Odysseus, revealing the scar above his knee. “And I can tell you about the trees in your orchards. When I was a boy, you gave me thirteen pear trees and ten apple trees and forty fig trees.”
Hearing these words, Laertes collapsed to the ground in a faint. Odysseus held his father tightly to his chest, until Laertes opened his eyes again. A smile of joy spread over the old man’s face—then a look of fear.
“I am afraid that soon the families of the slain suitors will come seeking revenge,” said Laertes.
“Do not worry about them now,” said Odysseus. “Come, let us go to the farmhouse and have a meal together with your grandson, Telemachus.”
Odysseus helped his father to the house, where a great feast awaited them. There the old man bathed and dressed in a fine cloak. The goddess Athena gave youthful energy to his frail limbs and made him taller and stronger.
In the midst of their celebration, an angry shout came from outside. Armed men had indeed come seeking revenge for the death of the suitors.
Odysseus, his father, and his son quickly pulled on armor and went outside. Laertes hurled his spear through the air and killed one of the men. Odysseus and Telemachus held up their swords and prepared to meet their enemy.
At that moment, Athena appeared. “Hold back!” she cried. “Stop, before another drop of blood is shed!”
Odysseus’ foes turned pale at the sight of the great goddess. They dropped their weapons and fled in terror. Odysseus let out a savage battle cry. He swooped like an eagle after them.
But mighty Zeus threw a thunderbolt to earth. Seeing this sign, Athena called Odysseus back. “Cease fighting, Odysseus, before you anger the gods!” she cried. “All fighting must end! Let there be peace from now on!”
Odysseus was relieved to hear these words. He gladly gave up the pursuit of his enemies. He knew that with the blessing of the gods, all his battles were over—battles against Trojan warriors, against monsters of the deep, against terrible storms, and against enemies at home. Odysseus had survived each and every one, and was finally reunited with his beloved family.
From that day on, and for many years to come, peace reigned on the island of Ithaca, and the gods looked favorably upon Odysseus, his wife, and his son.
ABOUT HOMER AND THE ODYSSEY
Long ago, the ancient Greeks believed that the world was ruled by a number of powerful gods and goddesses. Stories about the gods and goddesses are called the Greek myths. The myths were probably first told as a way to explain things in nature—such as weather, volcanoes, and constellations. They were also recited as entertainment.
The first written record of the Greek myths comes from a blind poet named Homer. Homer lived almost three thousand years ago. Many believe that Homer was the author of the world’s two most famous epic poems: the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad is the story of the Trojan War. The Odyssey tells about the long journey of Odysseus, king of an island called Ithaca. The tale concerns Odysseus’ adventures on his way home from the Trojan War.
To tell his tales, Homer seems to have drawn upon a combination of his own imagination and Greek myths that had been passed down by word of mouth. A bit of actual history may have also gone into Homer’s stories; there is archaeological evidence to suggest that the story of the Trojan War was based on a war fought about five hundred years before Homer’s time.
Over the centuries, Homer’s Odyssey has greatly influenced the literature of the Western world.
The most powerful of all the Greek gods and goddesses was Zeus, the thunder god. Zeus ruled the heavens and the mortal world from a misty mountaintop known as Mount Olympus. The main Greek gods and goddesses were all relatives of Zeus. His brother Poseidon was ruler of the seas, and his brother Hades was ruler of the underworld. His wife Hera was queen of the gods and goddesses. Among his many children were the gods Apollo, Mars, and Hermes, and the goddesses Aphrodite, Athena, and Artemis.
The gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus not only inhabited their mountaintop but also visited the earth, involving themselves in the daily activities of mortals such as Odysseus.
THE MAIN GODS AND GODDESSES
AND PRONUNCIATION OF THEIR NAMES
Zeus (zyoos), king of the gods, god of thunder
Poseidon (poh-SY-don), brother of Zeus, god of seas and rivers
Hades (HAY-deez), brother of Zeus, king of the Land of the Dead
Hera (HEE-ra), wife of Zeus, queen of the gods and goddesses
Hestia (HES-tee-ah), sister of Zeus, goddess of the hearth
Athena (ah-THEE-nah), daughter of Zeus, goddess of wisdom and war, arts and crafts
Demeter (dee-MEE-tur), goddess of crops and the harvest, mother of Persephone
Aphrodite (ah-froh-DY-tee), daughter of Zeus, goddess of love and beauty
Artemis (AR-tem-is), daughter of Zeus, goddess of the hunt
Ares (AIR-eez), son of Zeus, god of war
Apollo (ah-POL-oh), god of the sun, music, and poetry
Hermes (HUR-meez), son of Zeus, messenger god, a trickster
Hephaestus (heh-FEES-tus), son of Hera, god of the forge
Persephone (pur-SEF-oh-nee), daughter of Zeus, wife of Hades and queen of the Land of the Dead
Dionysus (dy-oh-NY-sus), god of wine and madness
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE TO OTHER PROPER NAMES
Achilles (ah-KIL-ees)
Tales from the Odyssey, Part 2 Page 7