Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece

by Gustav Schwab

  “You do my mistress wrong,” Euryclea replied. “The stranger drank as much wine as he pleased, and he ate all he wanted as well. He was even offered a sumptuous couch, but he spurned it, and it was only with difficulty that we prevailed on him to accept a humbler one.”

  When Telemachus had been thus reassured, he hastened to the assembly in the market place. Euryclea, meanwhile, ordered the handmaids to prepare for the feast of Apollo. Some spread the chairs with crimson stuffs; some cleaned the tables with sponges, while others washed the pitchers and cups; twenty were needed to fetch water from the well. The servants of the suitors also took part in these preparations and split wood in the forecourt. The swineherd came with his fattest boars and greeted his former guest with joy and affection. Melantheus and two of his helpers brought the choicest she-goats, which they tied to posts in the portico. In passing, he addressed Odysseus in scornful tones. “Are you still here, old beggar?” he asked. “Are you still glued to the threshold? We certainly shall not part until you have felt my fists. Are there no other feasts you could go to?” Odysseus did not answer. He only shook his head.

  And now an honest man entered the palace, Philoetius, who from the mainland had brought the suitors a bullock and fatted goats. When he saw Eumaeus, he said: “Who is the stranger who came here a short time ago? He looked very much like Odysseus, our king. It can well happen, you know, that suffering makes beggars of kings.” Then he went up to Odysseus and greeted him, saying: “Though you seem wretched enough now, I hope the future may bring you ease and happiness. When I first saw you, I broke into a sweat and tears came to my eyes, because you made me think of Odysseus, who, if he is still alive, may also be wandering around somewhere in the world, dressed in tatters. When I was quite young, he made me the herdsman over his cattle, and they are thriving, but I am forced to supply them for the feasts of others. I should have left the country long ago in anger and grief if I did not still hope to see Odysseus come back and put an end to the scoundrels we are forced to entertain here.”

  “Herdsman,” said Odysseus, “you seem neither base nor foolish. And I swear to you by Zeus that while you are still in the palace Odysseus will come home, and your eyes will see him take vengeance on the suitors.”

  “May Zeus make your words come true!” said Philoetius. “And when the time comes, I shall not stand by and twiddle my thumbs!”

  THE FEAST

  The suitors, who had been plotting the murder of Telemachus, began to arrive in the palace. They laid their mantles aside. Meat was roasting on the spits, and the servants were mixing the wine. Eumaeus passed around the cups, and Philoetius served bread in baskets. Melantheus poured, and the feasting began.

  Telemachus purposely assigned to Odysseus a place near the threshold and set before him a mean stool and a little table. He had him served with meat, filled his cup with wine, and said: “Eat here in peace, and I do not advise anyone to molest you!” Even Antinous warned his companions not to trouble the stranger, for it was evident to him that he was under the protection of Zeus. But Athene secretly goaded the suitors to words of contempt. Among them was a malicious man named Ctesippus from the island of Same. “Listen to me, you suitors,” he said with a mocking smile. “It is true that the stranger has already got his share, and it would, indeed, have been unpardonable for Telemachus to have neglected so noble a guest, but I want to give him a special gift. He can use it to pay the old nurse who scraped the filth from his body!” And with that he drew from a basket the hoof of an ox, and flung it at the beggar with all his might. But Odysseus dodged it and hid his anger behind an ominous grin. The missile struck the wall.

  And now Telemachus rose and cried: “Consider yourself fortunate not to have hit the stranger, Ctesippus! Had you done so, I should have thrust my lance through your chest, and your father would have had to prepare for your burial instead of your wedding. Let no one else permit himself such actions in my house. Rather kill me than insult a guest!”

  The suitors were silenced by these grim words, and Agelaus, son of Damastor, rose and said: “Telemachus is right! But now he and his mother must listen to reason. As long as there was the slightest hope that Odysseus would return to his country it was all very well to hold off us suitors. But now there is no doubt that he will never come back. So talk to your mother, Telemachus. Urge her to choose the noblest among us, him who brings the best gifts, and then you will be able to enjoy your inheritance in peace.”

  Telemachus rose from his chair and said: “By Zeus! I too do not wish to postpone this matter any longer. On the contrary, I have been begging my mother to choose among her suitors. The only thing I refuse to do is to force her to go from my palace.”

  These words were greeted with loud bursts of laughter, for Pallas Athene was turning their wits awry. They grinned and grimaced, and stuffed their mouths with uncooked meat until the blood dripped from their lips. But then suddenly their eyes filled with tears, and instead of bawdy merriment they felt only dejection. Theoclymenus, the seer, noticed the change which had come over them. “What is wrong with you?” he cried in surprise. “Your heads are shrouded in night, your eyes are wet, and lament pours from your lips. And what do I see? The walls are oozing blood, the hall and the forecourt swarm with ghosts from the underworld, and the sun is blotted out in the sky!” So he spoke, but the suitors all laughed at him.

  Then Eurymachus said to them: “This foreign soothsayer who has been with us for only a short time is nothing but a fool! If he sees only darkness in this hall, take him out and let him stay in the street or the market place.”

  “I do not need your servants to guide me from here,” said Theoclymenus indignantly. “My eyes and ears and feet are sound, and my reason is unimpaired. I shall leave of my own accord, for I foresee the destruction which will overtake you and which not one of you will escape.” So he said and swiftly left the palace to go to Peiraeus, his former host, who was glad to welcome him back.

  The suitors, meanwhile, went on taunting Telemachus. “No one in the world has ever lodged worse guests than you,” said one of them. “A dirty beggar and a fool who makes predictions! What you should do is travel through Sicily with them and exhibit them in the market place for money.” Telemachus said nothing in reply. He glanced at his father, for he was only waiting for the sign to begin.

  THE CONTEST WITH THE BOW

  And now Penelope too realized that the time had come. She took in her hand a brazen key with an ivory handle and, accompanied by her handmaids, went to a storeroom where many precious utensils of bronze, gold, and iron, the property of Odysseus, were kept. Among these were his bow and a quiverful of arrows, gifts he had once received from a host in Lacedaemon. When Penelope had unlocked the door, she slid back the bolts, and their creak was loud as the bellow of a bull in the pasture. The door flew open and Penelope entered. The bow and quiver were hanging on the wall. She stood on her toes, reached up for them, and took them down. But when she held them in her hands, grief overwhelmed her. She threw herself in a chair and gave way to tears. At last she rose and left the room. The servants followed carrying the bow and quiver. She went straight to the suitors, called for silence, and said: “You who have been wooing me so long a time, listen to what I have to say. Let him who wishes to win me hold himself in readiness, for now we shall have a contest. Here is the great bow of my noble husband. Whoever can bend it and shoot an arrow through the holes of twelve axes, set up one behind the other, shall take me to wife, and with him I shall leave this palace, the house of my first husband.”

  When she had spoken, she bade the swineherd lay the bow and the arrows before the suitors. As Eumaeus took the weapon, his eyes were wet, and Philoetius, the cowherd, wept too. This angered Antinous. “Stupid peasants!” he grumbled. “Why do you make the queen’s heart heavy with your tears? Eat all you want in silence, or lament outside. We suitors have to go about this trying contest, for I do not think it will be easy to bend that bow. Not one among us is as strong as Odysseus. I r
emember him perfectly, though I was only a little boy when he left.” So said Antinous, but in his heart he already saw himself bending the bow and shooting the arrow through the holes of the axes. But to him Fate had allotted the first shaft to be launched by the hand of Odysseus.

  And now Telemachus rose and said: “Zeus must have addled my brain! Here is my mother declaring her willingness to leave this house to follow a suitor, yet I am standing by with a smile. Well then, you suitors, you are about to wage a contest for a woman who has not her equal in all of Greece. But you know that yourselves, and I need not din my mother’s praises in your ears. Begin then, and bend the bow! I wish I could take my turn with you, for if I won, my mother would not go from here.” When he had finished speaking he unslung his sword and cast off his crimson mantle. Then he drew a straight furrow along the floor of the hall and fixed the axes in the ground, one after the other, and stamped the earth hard around them. Everyone admired his strength and the sureness and accuracy of his movements. Then he himself gripped the bow. Three times he strained to bend it, but three times he failed. When he tried a fourth time, he was about to succeed when his father motioned to him and stopped him. “Gods of Olympus!” Telemachus cried. “Either I am a weakling or too young, and not yet able to fend off an attacker. You are stronger than I, so you try it!” And so saying, he leaned the bow and quiver against the doorpost and seated himself in his chair.

  With an air of great triumph, Antinous rose and said: “Come, my friends, let us take turns from left to right, the way the cupbearer goes.” Then Leiodes rose. He was the one who poured the libations and always sat in the innermost part of the hall, by the big mixing-bowl. Of all the suitors he was the only one who was dismayed by their wanton deeds, and he hated the noisy mob of feasters. Quietly he went to the threshold and attempted to bend the bow, but he could not.

  “Let another try,” he said, letting his delicate hands drop to his sides. “I am not the right man for this, and perhaps no one here will succeed.” With these words he leaned the bow and the quiver against the post.

  But Antinous reproved him, saying: “That was an unpleasant speech, Leiodes. Just because you could not bend the bow, is that sufficient reason to claim that no one else can? Come, Melantheus,” he continued, turning to the goatherd. “Light a fire, put a chair in front of it, and bring us a thick slice of fat from the kitchen. We shall warm this dried-out bow and grease it, and then it will be easier to handle.” All was done as he had bidden, but the bow was just as inflexible as before. In vain one suitor after another tried to bend it. Finally only two were left—Antinous and Eurymachus.

  ODYSSEUS REVEALS HIMSELF TO THE GOOD HERDSMEN

  Now it happened that, in leaving the palace, the cowherd and the swineherd met, and close on their heels came Odysseus. He caught up with them just as they closed the door to the forecourt behind them, and said to them in a low voice: “I should like to tell you something, my friends, but only if I can rely on you; otherwise I had better keep silence. So first let me ask you something. If a god suddenly brought Odysseus home from alien lands, whom would you side with, him or the suitors? Tell me quite frankly!”

  “O Zeus on Olympus!” exclaimed the cowherd. “If my dearest wish were granted, if Odysseus really returned—you should see me fight for him!” And Eumaeus too called on all the gods to send his master home.

  When Odysseus had thus made sure of their faithfulness, he said: “Well then, this is what I have to tell you: I myself am Odysseus! After twenty years, after unbearable hardships, I have returned to my native land and find only you two of all my servants ready to welcome me, for I have not heard anyone else implore the gods to send me home. As soon as I have destroyed the suitors, you shall have your reward for this! I shall give each of you a wife, and fields, and a house built close to my own. And Telemachus shall treat you like brothers. But to convince you that I am telling the truth, I shall show you the scar from the wound a boar once dealt me while I was out hunting.” With that he pushed aside his rags and bared the long scar. And the two herdsmen began to weep, clasped their arms about their king, and kissed his head and shoulders. Odysseus kissed them too, and then said: “Do not give way to past grief or present joy, for no one in the palace must know I am here. Let us return to the hall singly. The suitors will not want to give me a turn at bending the bow, but you, Eumaeus, shall take it up boldly and hand it to me. When you have done this, order the handmaids to lock themselves into the women’s chamber. No matter what they hear from the hall, shouts or groans, let none of them dare rush out, but let them stay at their work. You, dear Philoetius, shall see to the outer gate. Bolt it well and secure it with a rope.”

  When Odysseus had given these directions, he returned to the hall, and the herdsmen followed him in. Eurymachus was turning the bow this way and that over the fire, but he could not bend it. He sighed and said: “This really grieves me! Not so much because of Penelope, for there are plenty of other Achaean women in Ithaca and elsewhere. But it is annoying that we should appear so weak compared with Odysseus. Our very grandsons will taunt us with our failure!”

  Antinous, however, reproved his friend for these words. “Do not talk like that, Eurymachus,” he said. “Today is the feast of Apollo, and a holiday is really not the proper time to wage a contest. Let us put aside the bow and go back to our cups. The axes can stay where they are. Tomorrow we shall make an offering to the archer Apollo and try again.”

  But now Odysseus turned to the suitors and said: “You do well to rest today. Tomorrow Apollo, the Far-Darter, will, let us hope, grant victory. In the meantime let me try the bow and see if there is anything of my old strength left in this miserable body.”

  “Stranger,” shouted Antinous, “have you lost your mind? Or are you drunk with wine? Do you want to start a fight, like Eurytion, the centaur, at the wedding of Pirithous? Remember that he was the first to fall, and so you too shall be killed the instant you take the bow in hand, and no one among us will defend you!”

  Here Penelope intervened. “Antinous,” she said in her gentle voice, “how unbecoming it would be to exclude the stranger from the contest! Do you really think that this beggar could bend the bow and claim me as his wife? Surely he himself is thinking of no such thing. It would be quite impossible, so you need not be in the least disturbed.”

  “What we are afraid of, O queen,” answered Eurymachus, “is the gossip that will spread through all of Greece. They will say that only inferior men, not one of whom was able to bend the bow of immortal Odysseus, courted his wife, but that in the end a beggar from heaven knows where bent the bow effortlessly and shot the arrow through the twelve axes.”

  “The stranger is not as base a man as you seem to think,” said Penelope. “Look well at him, and you will see how tall he is and how solidly built. Besides, he claims he is the son of a noble man. Give him the bow! Should he bend it, his only reward shall be a tunic and mantle, sandals, a spear, and a sword. When I have given him these, he shall go wherever he likes.”

  Telemachus interposed at this point and said: “Mother, no one but I has the right to give or withhold this bow. Even if I chose to give it to this stranger to take with him on his wanderings, no one could prevent me. As for you—go to your chamber, to your spindle and loom, for the bow is the business of men.” Penelope heard her son’s firm words with amazement, but did as he said.

  And now the swineherd took the bow in his hands, even though the suitors broke into angry cries. “What are you doing with that bow, you fool?” they roared. “Are you itching to be thrown to your own dogs near the sties?” Eumaeus laid the weapon down in alarm, but Telemachus called in a threatening voice: “Bring it, old man! I am the only one who gives orders here. If you do not obey me, I shall drive you out with stones, even though I am much the younger.” The suitors’ fury changed to amusement, and they laughed as the swineherd brought the beggar the bow. Then Eumaeus secretly bade Euryclea lock in the girls, and Philoetius hastened out of the palace and
carefully made fast the gate of the forecourt.

  Odysseus, meanwhile, examined the bow from all sides. He looked to see whether, in all the years he had been gone, worms had got into the horn, or if anything else had happened to it. The suitors nudged one another, and someone said: “The man seems to know something about bows. Perhaps he has one like this at home, or else he wants to copy this one for himself. Just look at him fingering it!”

  When Odysseus had examined the huge bow from every angle, he bent it, and strung it as easily as a singer strings his lyre. He plucked the string with his right hand to see if it was taut, and it twanged with a high clear sound, like the tone of a swallow. When they heard it, the suitors winced and grew pale. But Zeus sent thunder down from heaven as a happy omen. Then Odysseus took an arrow which had fallen from the quiver and lay on the table before him, gripped the bow, drew back the string, fitted the arrow and loosed it, aiming with a sure eye. And the shaft flew through every hole of the twelve axes, from the first to the last! Then the hero said: “Well, Telemachus, the stranger you took into your palace has not disgraced you. My strength, it seems, is unbroken in spite of the taunts of the suitors. But now the time has come to serve these Achaeans their evening meal. Let us see to it before it grows dark, and later we can have lyre playing and singing and whatever else befits a feast.” And as he spoke, Odysseus gave his son the sign they had agreed on. Quickly Telemachus slung his sword over his shoulder, took his spear, and hurried over to his father, armed with gleaming bronze.

  VENGEANCE

  Then Odysseus stripped off his tatters and sprang to the raised threshold, holding the bow and the quiver full of arrows. There he poured them out at his feet and called down to the suitors: “The first contest is over. Now for the second! But this time it is I who will choose a mark such as no archer has ever hit, and yet I do not think I shall miss!” And as he spoke he aimed at Antinous, who was just lifting his two-handled cup of gold to his lips. The arrow pierced his throat, and the point came out at the nape of his neck. The cup dropped from his hand as a thick jet of blood spurted from his nostrils, and he fell, dragging down with his foot the table and everything on it. When the suitors saw him fall, they leaped from their chairs and ran to the walls to seize weapons, but there was neither spear nor shield to be seen. Then they broke into a storm of abuse. “Why do you shoot at men, accursed stranger?” they shouted. “You have killed our companion, but it is the last arrow you will ever launch! The vultures shall tear your flesh!” They said this thinking that he had shot Antinous by accident, not dreaming that the same fate was in store for them all. But Odysseus thundered down at them: “Dogs! You thought I would never return from Troy, and so you wasted my stores, seduced my servants, courted my wife without having any certainty that I had really died, and feared neither men nor gods! But now your hour is come!”