Now there was a postern in the hall, close beside the great doorway and opening on the corridor. Ulysses had put the swineherd to guard it, and now the boldest of the suitors said to the rest, “Could not some of us force a passage there and raise the cry for rescue?”
“Little use in that,” said Melanthius, “the great doorway is too close, and one brave man might stop us all before we reached the court. I have a better plan. Ulysses and his son have stowed away the weapons, and I think I know where they are. I will go and fetch you what you need.”
With these words he clambered up through the lights of the hall and got into the armory, and fetched out twelve shields and as many spears and helmets, and brought them to the princes. The heart of Ulysses misgave him when he saw the armor and the long spears in their hands; and he felt that the fight would go hard, and said to Telemachus, “Melanthius or one of the women has betrayed us.”
“Father, it was my fault,” said Telemachus; “I left the door of the armory open, and one of them must have kept sharper watch than I did. Go, Eumæus, make fast the door, and see whether this is the doing of Melanthius, as I guess.”
While they spoke, Melanthius went again to fetch more armor, and the swineherd spied him and said, “There is the villain going to the armory, as we thought; tell me, shall I kill him, if I can master him, or shall I bring him here to suffer for his sins?” “Telemachus and I will guard the doorway here,” said Ulysses, “and you and the shepherd shall bind him hand and foot and leave him in the chamber to wait his doom.”
So the two went up to the armory, and stood in wait on either side of the door; and as Melanthius came out, they leapt upon him and dragged him back by the hair and flung him on the ground and bound him tightly to a pillar hand and foot. “Lie there,” said Eumæus, “and take your ease: the dawn will not find you sleeping, when it is time for you to rise and drive out your goats.” With that they went back to join Ulysses, and the four stood together at the threshold,—four men against a host.
Then Athene came among them in the likeness of Mentor, and Ulysses knew her and rejoiced. “Mentor,” he shouted, “help me in my need, for we are comrades from of old.” And the wooers sent up another shout, “Do not listen to him, Mentor; or your turn will come when he is slain.” But Athene taunted Ulysses and spurred him to the fight: “Have you lost your strength and courage, Ulysses? It was not thus you did battle for Helen in the ten years’ war at Troy. Is it so hard to face the suitors in your own house and home? Come, stand by me, and see if Mentor forgets old friendship.” Yet she left the victory still uncertain, that she might prove his courage to the full. She turned herself into a swallow and flew up into the roof and perched on a blackened rafter overhead.
Then the wooers took courage, when they saw that Mentor was gone, and that the four stood alone in the doorway. And one of them said to the rest, “Let six of us hurl our spears together at Ulysses. If once he falls, there will be little trouble with the rest.” So they flung their spears as he bade them; but all of them missed the mark. Then Ulysses gave the word to his men, and they all took steady aim and threw, and each one killed his man; and the wooers fell back into the farther end of the hall, while the four dashed on together and drew out their spears from the bodies of the slain. Once more the suitors hurled, and Telemachus and the swineherd were wounded; but the other spears fell wide. Then at last Athene lifted her shield of war high overhead,—the shield that brings death to men,—and panic seized the wooers, and they fled through the hall like a drove of cattle when the gadfly stings them. But the four leapt on them like vultures swooping from the clouds; and they fled left and right through the hall, but there was no escape.
Only Phemius, the minstrel, whom the wooers had forced to sing before them, sprang forward and clasped the knees of Ulysses and said, “Have mercy on me, Ulysses: you would not slay a minstrel, who gladdens the hearts of Gods and men? The princes forced me here against my will.”
And Telemachus heard and said to his father, “Do not hurt him, for he is not to blame: and let us save the herald too, if he is yet alive, for he took care of me when I was a child.”