Stories from the Odyssey

by H. L. Havell; Homer

So saying he sprang up, flung off his cloak, and laid aside his sword. And first he made a long shallow trench in the floor of the hall, and set up the axes with their double heads in a straight line, stamping down the earth about the handles to make all firm. Then he took the bow from Eumæus; it was a weighty and powerful weapon, fashioned from the horns of an ibex, which were firmly riveted into a massive bridge, and great force was required to string it. Telemachus set the end against the floor, and strove with all his might to drive the string into its socket. Three times he tried, and failed; but the fourth time, making a great effort, he was on the point of succeeding, when his father nodded to him to desist. "Plague on it!" cried Telemachus, laying the bow aside with an air of vexation, "must I be called a poltroon all my life, or is it that I have not yet attained the full measure of my strength? Let the others now take their turn."

Then one by one the wooers rose up, in the order in which they sat, and tried to bend the bow. The first to essay it was Leiodes, a soothsayer, and a man of gentle and godly mind. But he was a soft liver, unpractised in all manly pastimes, and the bow was like iron in his white, womanish hands. "I fear that this bow will make an end of many a bold spirit," he said, little guessing how true his words were to prove; "for better it were to die than to go away beaten and broken men, after all the long years of our wooing."

"Fie on thee!" cried Antinous, "thinkest thou that there are no better men here than thou art? Doubt not that one of those present shall bend the bow and win the lady." Then he called Melanthius, and bade him light a fire, and bring a ball of lard to anoint the bow and make it easier to bend. The lard was brought, and the wooers sat in turn by the fire, rubbing and anointing the bow, but all to no purpose. Only Antinous and Eurymachus still held back, each in the full assurance that he, and none other, had strength to bend the bow.

II

Odysseus sat watching the wooers from his place at the upper end of the hall, and his heart misgave him when he thought of the appalling task which he had undertaken. He had acquitted himself like a hero in many a hard-fought field, but never in all his life had he faced such odds as these. While he thus mused, and weighed the chances in his mind, he saw Eumæus and Philœtius leave the hall together, and pass out through the courtyard gate. Then a sudden thought struck him, and muttering to himself, "I must risk it," he rose and followed the two men. He found them talking together outside the courtyard fence, and in order to make trial of their temper he addressed them in these cautious terms: "Tell me truly, good friends, which side would ye take, if by some miracle Odysseus suddenly appeared in this house? Would ye be for the wooers or for him?"

Eumæus and Philœtius with one voice protested that they were ready to hazard their lives for the rights of their master, whereupon Odysseus hesitated no longer, but answered: "The miracle has been wrought; I am he! After twenty years of toil and wandering Heaven hath brought me home. I have watched ye both, and I know that ye alone among all the thralls remain true to me. Only continue steadfast for this day, and your reward is assured. I will build houses for ye both, close to my own, and ye shall dwell there with your wives, as my friends and neighbours, equals in honour with Telemachus, my son."

The swineherd and neatherd listened with amazement, willing to believe, but still half in doubt; but when Odysseus showed them the scar, which they had seen many a time before, they were convinced, and embraced their old master with tears and cries of joy. Having allowed them some moments to indulge their feelings, Odysseus checked them with a warning gesture. "Take heed to yourselves," he said, "or your cries will betray us. And now mark what I shall tell you. I will go back to the house first, and do ye two follow me one by one. To thee, Philœtius, I give charge to make fast the gate of the courtyard, with bolt, and with bar, and with cord. And thou, Eumæus, when the time comes, shalt bring the bow and place it in my hands, whether the wooers cry out on thee or not; and when thou hast given me the bow, go straightway and command the women to make fast the doors of their apartments, and remain quiet by their work until I have finished what I have to do."

At the moment when Odysseus returned to his place in the hall, Eurymachus was just making a last attempt to bend the bow. "Out on it!" he cried, finding all his efforts of no avail. "It is a shame to think how far beneath Odysseus we all are in the strength of our hands; 'tis this that stings me, much more than the loss of the lady."

"Thou mistakest the cause," answered Antinous. "This day is the holy feast of the divine archer, Apollo, and doubtless he is jealous because we try our skill in his own art on his sacred day. Let us leave the axes where they stand, and try our fortune again to-morrow."

The proposal was received with general applause, and forthwith the whole company called loud for wine, and began drinking heavily to drown their disappointment Odysseus watched the progress of the revel with grim satisfaction, and when the flushed faces and thick talk of the wooers showed that they were far gone in drunkenness he asked, with an air of deep humility, to be allowed to try his hand at stringing the bow. His request was greeted with a loud cry of contempt and indignation from all the wooers; and Antinous especially was highly incensed, threatening him with dire pains and penalties for his presumption. Hereupon Penelope interposed, and rebuked Antinous for his violence. "Why should not the stranger try his skill with the rest?" asked she. "Thinkest thou that the poor man will win me for his wife if he succeeds? Sure I am that he is not so foolish as to entertain such a thought."