The <I>Odyssey</I>
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then you would know my strength, how ready my hands are.”
Eumaios prayed to all the Gods in the same way:
“Let mind-full Odysseus now come back to his own house.”
The Master Revealed
Soon as he knew for sure the thoughts of the two men
Odysseus spoke once more, telling them plainly,
“I’m home, the man himself, with all of my deep pain,
back in the twentieth year to the land of my Fathers.
I know that only you, of all my helpers,
longed for my coming: no one else I have heard of
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prayed that I would walk again in my own house.
So I’ll tell the truth to you both, the way it will happen:
if Gods bring down these high-born suitors beneath me,
I’ll find good wives for you both and offer you great wealth.
I’ll build your houses next to me. You will be friends there,
both quite close to my son—Telemakhos’s brothers!
I tell you it’s true. Besides, I’ll show you a clear sign
to make you trust me well and know in your own hearts:
the scar caused by a boar’s white tusk in the old days.
I’d gone with Autolukos’s sons to the slopes of Parnesos.”
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He spoke that way and pulled the rags from the big scar.
Soon as they saw it, both of them marking it closely,
they cried and threw their arms around mind-full Odysseus,
kissing his head and shoulders to welcome him warmly.
Odysseus kissed their heads and hands in the same way.
A Weapon in the Master’s Hand
But now the Sun-God’s light would have set on their weeping
had not Odysseus himself calmed them and told them,
“Stop the tears and moans or someone may spot us
leaving the hall then tell the men in the building.
Take turns going inside, not all at the same time:
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I’ll go first, then you. Let’s work with my signals:
when all the rest of the high-born suitors inside there
hardly allow me to take the bow and the quiver,
godlike Eumaios, carry the bow through the great hall
and put it right in my hands. Order the women
to leave and bar the tight-fitting doors of the great hall.
Tell them if anyone hears an uproar and shouting,
the noise of men through the walls, no one should dash out.
Let them stay right there, quietly working.
Then you, godlike Philoitios: I charge you to fasten
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the courtyard gates in a hurry, bar them and lash them.”
He stopped and went in the house where people had lived well,
walking back to sit in the chair that he rose from.
Shortly both of the slaves of godlike Odysseus came in.
Another Failure
Eurumakhos now had the bow. He handled and warmed it
close to the fire’s glow, this way and that way—but even
so he failed to string it. Highly praised for his great heart
the man he moaned and fumed, telling the others,
“Look at this! Pain for myself and pain for you all here.
I don’t wail for this marriage, though it’s a hard loss.
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Other Akhaian women are plentiful, some on the island
of sea-ringed Ithaka, others in cities elsewhere.
But oh if we so lack such strength, we’re truly so meager,
not even stringing the bow of godlike Odysseus!
Such a disgrace will be known by men in the future.”
Trouble from the Archer God
But now the son of Eupeithes, Antinoos, answered,
“It won’t be so, Eurumakhos. You know it yourself too:
throughout the land this day is a holy feast of the Archer
♦ God Apollo. Who’d bend a bow? You should relax now;
let it lie. And the axes? What if we let them
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all stand there? I don’t think people will enter
the hall of Odysseus, son of Laertes, and steal them.
Come on then: let the wine-bearer pour in our goblets,
we’ll offer the Gods our wine and, setting the well-arched
bow aside, we’ll tell Melanthios, driver of goat-flocks,
to bring us the best of his whole flock in the morning.
We’ll lay out thighs for Apollo, known for his great bow.
Then we can try this bow and get on with the contest.”
Antinoos spoke that way and his word was their pleasure.
Stewards poured out water and, after a hand-wash,
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young men filled the bowls with a wine-mix for drinking.
They served them all, filling the goblets. Suitors
offered wine to the Gods then drank as their hearts wished.
A Rankling Challenge
Crafty-minded Odysseus called out, full of his own plans:
“Listen you men, courting a queen who is famous!
Let me say what the heart in my chest has commanded.
I plead with Eurumakhos most and godlike Antinoos,
surely the man who said it right when he told you
to stop trying the bow for now and trust in the great Gods.
At dawn Apollo can crown the man whom he chooses.
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Come on though: give me the well-shined bow and allow me
to try my hand among you. Maybe I still have
strength for my body was lithe and strong as a young man.
Lack of care and wandering now may have wrecked it.”
Another Death Threat
Those were his words. They all were exceedingly angry.
They worried too: the polished bow strung by a beggar?
Antinoos called him names, telling him roughly,
“Stranger, you wretch without brains, not even a smidgen!
Why aren’t you glad to be dining at ease among high men,
never lacking food and well within earshot
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of our own talk? No other stranger may hear it,
this talk of ours, no other beggar’s allowed here.
Did honey-sweet wine derange you? Wine has deluded
plenty of others who gulped it fast in the wrong way.
♦ Wine once crazed the well-known Kentaur Eurution,
staying in strong-hearted Pirithoos’s great hall,
visiting Lapiths. With wine crazing his spirits
he raved and caused great harm in Pirithoos’s household.
Grieved and outraged war-chiefs leaped up and dragged him
outdoors through the porch: they slashed his ears and his nose off
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with pitiless bronze. Mind still maddened, the Kentaur
moved away, a thoughtless heart laden with folly.
So strife arose between those Kentaurs and humans.
The first to find himself so wrong was a wine-heavy Kentaur.
“So now you: I’ll show you intense pain if you grapple
that bow and string it. You’ll never be faced with kindness
again in our land. We’ll hurry you off on a night-black
ship to King Ekhetos, known as a maimer of every
stranger. From there you cannot be saved. So relax here,
drink your wine. Don’t strive with men who are younger.”
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Marrying a Beggar
But mind-full Penelopeia answered him shortly:
“It’s not graceful or fair, Antinoos, thwarting
guests of Telemakhos, those who arrive in our household.
Do you suppose, if he strings Odysseus’s great bow—
a stranger trusting his hands, the strength of a beggar—
he’ll
take me off to his house and make me his own wife?
The man can hardly hope in his breast for that outcome.
Not one man of you, therefore, should dine with a sad heart
because of the stranger’s hopes. They’re very unlikely.”
Eurumakhos, Polubos’s son, answered her right back.
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“Ikarios’s daughter, mind-full Penelopeia,
we don’t guess he’ll take you. That’s surely unlikely.
But men and women talking—that could offend us.
In time some low-born Akhaian or other might mutter,
‘Far worse men are courting the wife of a faultless
king and they cannot string the polished bow of Odysseus.
Then some other wandering beggar arrives here,
strings the bow with ease and shoots through the iron.’
So people babble. All of that would disgrace us.”
A Chance for the Stranger
Mind-full Penelopeia answered him right back:
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“Eurumakhos, no one’s highly renowned in a country
for lacking esteem and devouring the home of a high lord.
Why make a beggar like this the cause of your own shame?
Our guest, to be sure, is very rugged and quite tall.
He claims good birth—the son of a worthy father.
Come on then, give him the well-shined bow and we’ll all see.
Because I’ll say this too and be sure it will happen:
if lordly Apollo grants him fame and he strings it,
I’ll dress him in beautiful clothes, a mantle and full cloak.
I’ll give him a sharp spear to guard against people
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and fight off dogs, a two-edged sword, and sandals for footwear.
I’ll send him wherever his heart and spirit should call him.”
Now Telemakhos gave her a sensible answer.
“No Akhaian, Mother, has more power than I have
over this bow, to allow or deny as I want to—
no man ruling on rock-strewn Ithaka, no one
on any island down toward horse-nourishing Elis.
None of them stops or forces my will if I’m minded
to offer our guest this bow to carry off outright.
♦ “But go to your room yourself. Look to your own work,
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loom and spindle now. Order your handmaids
to do their jobs. All us men have the great bow
to care for, and mainly myself: I rule in the household.”
The lady marveled and soon went back to her own room,
taking to heart her son’s sensible answer.
She entered her room again, joined by her handmaids,
and cried for Odysseus, the man she loved, till the glow-eyed
Athene tossed some honeyed sleep on her eyelids.
Devoured by His Own Dogs
Now the godlike hog-tender took up the well-arched
bow and sported it! All the suitors were yelling
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throughout the hall, an overproud younger one shouting,
“Where are you taking the well-arched bow, you disgusting
swineherd? The dogs you raised will shortly devour you
alone and far from us men, if Apollo will do us
the favor with help from the other Gods who are deathless.”
A Counter Threat
He stopped and the swineherd placed the bow on the floor there,
scared by all of the roaring men in the great hall.
Then from the other side Telemakhos threatened:
“Carry the bow forward, uncle! Don’t be obeying
them all or soon, young as I am, I will chase you
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afield and pelt you with stones—I’m stronger than you are.
If only my hands were stronger than all of the suitors’
hands in our house! With so much strength I would soon be
packing a few of them off. They’d travel a sorry
road from our house for all the harm they have planned here.”
Barred Doors
He stopped as all of the suitors were laughing with pleasure.
Their hard anger aimed at Telemakhos let go,
quickly the swineherd carried the bow through the great hall
and handed it now up close to a knowing Odysseus.
He called for the nurse Eurukleia and spoke to her briefly:
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“Thoughtful Eurukleia, Telemakhos wants you
to go and bar the tight-fitting doors of the great hall.
Say if anyone hears an uproar and shouting—
noise from men through the walls—no one should dash out.
Let them stay right there, quietly working.”
He spoke that way and, all her words being wingless,
she barred the doors of the hall where people had lived well.
Philoitios briskly walked outdoors without speaking
and soon had barred the well-worked gates of the courtyard.
A braided line from an up-curved ship was lying
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