That night Odysseus and his son removed the arms from the walls, the latter being told to urge as a pretext for his action the necessity of cleaning from them the rust and of removing a temptation to violence when the suitors were heated with wine. At the promised interview with his wife Odysseus again pretended he was a Cretan; describing the very dress which Odysseus had worn, he assured her that he would soon return with the many treasures which he had collected. Half persuaded by the exact description of a garment she had herself made, she bade her maids look to him, but he would not suffer any of them to approach him save his old nurse Eurycleia. As she was washing him in the dim light of the fireside her fingers touched the old scar above his knee, the result of an accident in a boar-hunt during his youth.
"Dropping the basin she fell backwards; joy and grief took her
heart at once, her eyes filled with tears and her utterance was
checked. Catching him by his beard, she said: 'In very sooth thou
art Odysseus, my dear boy; and I knew thee not before I had touched
the body of my lord.' So speaking she looked at Penelope, fain to
tell her that her lord was within. But Odysseus laid his hand upon
the nurse's mouth, with the other he drew her to him and whispered:
'Nurse, wouldst thou ruin me? Thou didst nourish me at thy breast,
and now I am come back after mighty sufferings. Be silent, lest
another learn the news, or I tell thee that when I have punished
the suitors I will not even refrain from thee when I destroy the
other women in my halls.'"
Concealing the scar carefully under his rags by the fireside he put a good interpretation on a strange dream which had visited his wife.
That night Odysseus with his own eyes witnessed the intrigues between his women and the suitors. He heard his wife weeping in her chamber for him and prayed to Zeus for aid in the coming trial. On the morrow he was again outraged; the suitors were moved to laughter by a prophecy of Theoclymenus:
"Yet they were laughing with alien lips, the meat they ate was
dabbled with blood, their eyes were filled with tears and their
hearts boded lamentation. Among them spake Theoclymenus; 'Wretched
men, what is this evil that is come upon you? Your heads and faces
and the knees beneath you are shrouded in night, mourning is kindled
among you, your cheeks are bedewed with tears, the walls and the
fair pillars are sprinkled with blood, the forecourt and the yard is
full of spectres hastening to the gloom of Erebus; the sun hath
perished from the heaven and a mist of ruin hath swept upon you.'"
In answer Eurymachus bade him begone if all within was night; taking him at his word, the seer withdrew before the coming ruin.
Then Athena put it into the heart of Penelope to set the suitors a final test. She brought forth the bow of Odysseus together with twelve axes. It had been an exercise of her lord to set up the axes in a line, string the bow and shoot through the heads of the axes which had been hollowed for that purpose. She promised to follow at once the suitor who could string the bow and shoot through the axes. First Telemachus set up the axes and tried to string the weapon; failing three times he would have succeeded at the next effort but for a glance from his father. Leiodes vainly tried his strength, to be rebuked by Antinous who suggested that the bow should be made more pliant by being heated at the fire.
Noticing that Eumaeus and Philoetius had gone out together Odysseus went after them and revealed himself to them; the three then returned to the hall. After all the suitors had failed except Antinous, who did not deem that he should waste a feast-day in stringing bows, Odysseus begged that he might try, Penelope insisting on his right to attempt the feat. When she retired Eumaeus brought the bow to Odysseus, then told Eurycleia to keep the woman in their chambers while Philoetius bolted the hall door.
"But already Odysseus was turning the bow this way and that testing
it lest the worms had devoured it in his absence. Then when he had
balanced it and looked it all over, even as when a man skilled in
the lyre and song easily putteth a new string about a peg, even so
without an effort Odysseus strung his mighty bow. Taking it in his
right hand he tried the string which sang sweetly beneath his touch
like to the voice of a swallow. Then he took an arrow and shot it
with a straight aim through the axes, missing not one. Then he spake
to Telemachus: 'Thy guest bringeth thee no shame as he sitteth in
thy halls, for I missed not the mark nor spent much time in the
stringing. My strength is yet whole within me. But now it is time to
make a banquet for the Achaeans in the light of day and then season
it with song and dance, which are the crown of revelry.' So speaking
he nodded, and his son took a sword and a spear and stood by him
clad in gleaming bronze."
The first victim was Antinous, whom Odysseus shot through the neck as he was in the act of drinking, never dreaming that one man would attack a multitude of suitors. Eurymachus fell after vainly attempting a compromise. Melanthius was caught in the act of supplying arms to the rest and was left bound to be dealt with when the main work was done. Athena herself encouraged Odysseus in his labour of vengeance, deflecting from him any weapons that were hurled at him. At length all was over, the serving women were made to cleanse the hall of all traces of bloodshed; the guiltiest of them were hanged, while Melanthius died a horrible death by mutilation. Odysseus then summoned his wife to his presence.