Then answered the old beggar-man: "Odysseus will be here when they shoot. It will be Odysseus who shoots between the axes."
Penelope, longing for his words to be true, went up to her room and lay crying on her bed until her pillows were wet. Then Athene sent sleep upon her eyelids and made her forget all her sorrows.
Odysseus, too, would have tossed all night wide awake, with a heart full of anger and revenge, had not Athene gently laid her hands on his eyes and made him fall asleep.
Next day the wooers came to the palace, and with rough jest and rude word they greeted Odysseus.
"Who harms this man must fight with me," said Telemachus, and at that the wooers shouted with laughter.
But a stranger who sat among them cried out in a voice of fear:
"I see your hands and knees shrouded in blackness! I see your cheeks wet with tears! The walls and the pillars drip blood; the porch is full of shadows, and pale ghosts are hastening out of the gray mist that fills the palace."
At this the wooers laughed the more, for they thought the man was mad. But, as in a dream, he had seen truly what was to come to pass.
Weeping, Penelope then brought forth from the armory the great bow with which Odysseus had shot in years that were past. Her heart was full of love for Odysseus, and she could not bear to wed another.
Telemachus then threw aside his red cloak and ranged out the bronze axes.