Her maids on both sides stood; and thus she spake:
"Hear me, ye Wooers, that a pleasure take
To do me sorrow, and my house invade
To eat and drink, as if 'twere only made
To serve your rapines, striving who shall frame
Me for his wife. And since 'tis made a game,
I here propose divine Ulysses' bow
For that great master-piece, to which ye row.
He that can draw it with least show to strive,
And through these twelve axe-heads an arrow drive,
Him will I follow, and this house forego."
Whereat the herd Eumæus wept for woe.

Then Telemachus set up the axe-heads, and himself made vain essay, the more to tempt the Wooers. And while they after him strove all vainly, Ulysses went out and bespake Eumæus and another herd, Philoetius.

"I am your lord; through many a sufferance tried
Arrived now here, whom twenty years have held
Forth from my home. Of all the company
Now serving here besides, not one but you
Mine ear hath witnessed willing to bestow
Their wishes of my life, so long held dead.
The curious Wooers will by no means give
The offer of the bow and arrow leave
To come at me; spite then their pride, do thou,
My good Eumæus, bring both shaft and bow
To my hands' proof; and charge the maids before
That instantly they shut the door.
Do thou, Philoetius, keep their closure fast."

Then Ulysses claiming to make trial of the bow, the Wooers would have denied him; but Penelope would not; whereas Telemachus made a vow that it was for himself and none other to decide, and the guest should make trial. But he, handling it while they mocked, with ease

Drew the bow round. Then twanged he up the string,
That as a swallow in the air doth sing,
So sharp the string sung when he gave it touch,
Once having bent and drawn it. Which so much
Amazed the Wooers, that their colours went
And came most grievously. And then Jove rent
The air with thunder; which at heart did cheer
The now-enough-sustaining traveller.

Then through the axes at the first hole flew
The steel-charged arrow. Straightway to him drew
His son in complete arms....
"Now for us
There rests another mark more hard to hit,
And such as never man before hath smit;
Whose full point likewise my hands shall assay,
And try if Phoebus will give me his day."
He said, and off his bitter arrow thrust
Right at Antinous, that struck him just
As he was lifting up the bowl, to show
That 'twixt the cup and lip much ill may grow.

Then the rest cried out upon him with threats, while they made vain search for weapons in the hall.

He, frowning, said, "Dogs, see in me the man
Ye all held dead at Troy. My house it is
That thus ye spoil, and thus your luxuries
Fill with my women's rapes; in which ye woo
The wife of one that lives, and no thought show
Of man's fit fear, or gods', your present fame,
Or any fair sense of your future name;
And, therefore, present and eternal death
Shall end your base life."

Then the Wooers made at Ulysses and Telemachus, who smote down first Eurymachus and then Amphinomus. But a way to the armoury having been left, the Wooers got arms by aid of a traitor; whom Eumæus and Philoetius smote, and then came to Ulysses and his son. Moreover, Pallas also came to their help; so that the Wooers, being routed—

Ulysses and his son the flyers chased
As when, with crooked beaks and seres, a cast
Of hill-bred eagles, cast off at some game,
That yet their strengths keep, but, put up, in flame
The eagle stoops; from which, along the field
The poor fowls make wing this and that way yield
Their hard-flown pinions, then the clouds assay
For 'scape or shelter, their forlorn dismay
All spirit exhaling, all wings strength to carry
Their bodies forth, and, truss'd up, to the quarry
Their falconers ride in, and rejoice to see
Their hawks perform a flight so fervently;
So in their flight Ulysses with his heir
Did stoop and cuff the Wooers, that the air
Broke in vast sighs, whose heads they shot and cleft,
The pavement boiling with the souls they reft.