Book 19
1 But noble Odysseus was left behind in the hall, pondering with Athena how to bring death on the suitors; and at once he spoke to Telemachus, and his words had wings:
4 “Telemachus, we must put away the weapons of war inside, every one of them; and as for the suitors, put them off with soft words when they miss them and ask you about them: ‘I have put them away out of the smoke, since they no longer look like what Odysseus left behind when he went to Troy, but are all disfigured, as far as the breath of the fire has reached them. And besides, a god has put this greater fear into my mind, that you might get drunk and start a quarrel among yourselves and wound one another and disgrace the feast and the wooing; for iron of itself draws a man on.’”
14 So he spoke, and Telemachus obeyed his dear father, and he called out the nurse Eurycleia and said to her:
16 “Old mother, come, keep the women in their quarters for me, while I put away in the storeroom my father’s fine arms, which the smoke is tarnishing about the house, uncared for, since my father went away; I was still a child. Now I want to put them away where the breath of the fire will not reach them.”
21 Then the dear nurse Eurycleia said to him: “Child, if only you would someday take thought to care for the house and guard all its possessions! But come, who will go with you and carry a light, since you would not let the maids go ahead, who might have given you light?”
26 Then thoughtful Telemachus answered her: “This stranger here. I will not let a man be idle who touches my measure of grain, even if he has come from far away.”
29 So he spoke, and her word stayed without wings. She locked the doors of the stately halls. And the two of them sprang up, Odysseus and his shining son, and carried in the helmets and the bossed shields and the sharp-pointed spears; and before them Pallas Athena, holding a golden lamp, made a most beautiful light. Then at once Telemachus said to his father:
36 “Father, this is a great wonder I see with my eyes! The walls of the hall, and the fine panels between the pillars, and the rafters of fir, and the pillars that rise up high, all shine before my eyes as if with blazing fire. Surely some god is inside, one of those who hold the wide sky.”
41 Odysseus of many wiles answered him: “Quiet. Keep it in your own mind and do not ask. This is the way of the gods who hold Olympus. But you go and lie down, and I will stay behind here, so that I can stir up the maids and your mother a little more; and she in her grief will ask me about everything.”
47 So he spoke, and Telemachus went out through the hall by the light of blazing torches to go to his room, where he always slept when sweet sleep came to him. There he lay down that night too and waited for bright Dawn. But noble Odysseus was left behind in the hall, pondering with Athena how to bring death on the suitors.
53 Then prudent Penelope came out of her chamber, looking like Artemis or golden Aphrodite. They set a chair for her by the fire, where she used to sit, a chair inlaid with spirals of ivory and silver, which the craftsman Icmalius had made long ago; and beneath it he had set a footstool for her feet, joined to the chair itself, and on the chair a great fleece was thrown. There prudent Penelope sat down. The white-armed maids came from the hall and cleared away the heaps of bread and the tables and the cups from which the overweening men had been drinking; and they threw the embers from the braziers onto the floor and piled much fresh wood on them, for light and for warmth. And Melantho scolded Odysseus a second time: “Stranger, are you still going to make a nuisance of yourself here all night, prowling around the house and spying on the women? Get outside, you wretch, and be glad of your dinner, or you’ll soon be out the door with a torch thrown after you.”
70 Odysseus of many wiles, with a dark look from under his brows, said to her: “Strange woman, why do you set upon me like this with an angry heart? Is it because I am dirty, and wear wretched clothes on my body, and beg through the land? Necessity drives me to it. That is what beggars and wanderers are like. For I too once lived among men in a house of my own, a rich man in a wealthy house, and often I gave to a wanderer, whoever he was and whatever need had brought him. I had servants past counting, and plenty of all the other things by which men live well and are called rich. But Zeus, son of Cronus, ruined it all; he wanted to, I suppose. So now, woman, take care that you too do not someday lose all the splendor in which you now outshine the other maids; take care that your mistress does not grow angry and turn harsh with you, or that Odysseus does not come home; for there is still a share of hope. And if he has perished, as you think, and will never return, still, by the grace of Apollo, his son is grown to such a man now, Telemachus. None of the women in the halls behaves wickedly without his knowing it, for he is no longer a child.”
89 So he spoke, and prudent Penelope heard him, and she rebuked the maid and spoke and addressed her:
91 “You bold and shameless dog, make no mistake: I know the monstrous thing you are doing, and you will wipe it off on your own head. You knew it all very well, for you heard it from me myself, that I meant to question the stranger in my halls about my husband, since I am sorely grieved.”
96 So she spoke, and she said to Eurynome the housekeeper: “Eurynome, bring a chair with a fleece on it, so that the stranger may sit and speak to me and hear me; I want to question him.” So she spoke, and Eurynome very quickly brought a polished chair and set it down and threw a fleece over it; and there much-enduring noble Odysseus sat down. And prudent Penelope began to speak:
104 “Stranger, I will ask you this first myself: Who are you, and where are you from? Where is your city, and where are your parents?”
106 Odysseus of many wiles answered her: “Lady, no mortal on the boundless earth could find fault with you, for your fame reaches the wide sky, like the fame of some excellent king who fears the gods and rules over many mighty men, upholding justice; and the black earth bears wheat and barley, and the trees are heavy with fruit, and the flocks bear young unfailingly, and the sea yields fish, because he leads them well, and the people prosper under him. So now ask me other things in your house, but do not ask about my family and my native land, or you will fill my heart still more with pains as I remember; I am a man of many sorrows. And it is not right for me to sit weeping and wailing in another’s house, for it is worse to grieve forever without end. One of the maids might be indignant with me, or you yourself, and say that I swim in tears because my mind is heavy with wine.”
123 Then prudent Penelope answered him: “Stranger, my excellence, my beauty, and my form the immortals destroyed when the Argives went up to Ilion, and with them went my husband, Odysseus. If he were to come and care for my life, my fame would be greater and finer so. But now I grieve, so many evils has some god let loose on me. For all the best men who rule over the islands, Dulichium and Same and wooded Zacynthus, and those who live around clear-seen Ithaca itself, are wooing me against my will and wearing away the house. So I pay no heed to strangers or to suppliants or to heralds, who work for the people, but I waste away at heart, longing for Odysseus. They press for the marriage, and I spin out tricks. First a god breathed into my mind the thought of setting up a great loom in the halls and weaving a mantle, fine and very wide; and at once I said to them:
141 “‘Young men, my suitors, since noble Odysseus is dead, wait, eager though you are for my marriage, until I finish this mantle—I would not have my spinning go to waste—a burial cloth for the hero Laertes, against the day when the deadly fate of death that lays men out at length shall take him; so that none of the Achaean women in the land may blame me, if he lies without a shroud, who won so much.’
148 “So I spoke, and their proud hearts were persuaded. Then by day I would weave at the great loom, and by night I would unravel it, with torches set beside me. So for three years I kept it secret and fooled the Achaeans; but when the fourth year came and the seasons came round, as the months waned and many days were completed, then, through my maids, the careless dogs, they came and caught me and rebuked me loudly. So I finished it, against my will, because I had to. And now I cannot escape the marriage, and I can find no other plan. My parents are pressing me hard to marry, and my son is distressed at the men who eat up his livelihood, now that he understands; for he is a grown man now, well able to care for a house, a man to whom Zeus grants glory. But even so, tell me your family, where you come from; for you are not sprung from the oak of the old tale, or from a stone.”
164 Odysseus of many wiles answered her: “Revered wife of Odysseus, son of Laertes, will you never stop asking about my family? Well, I will tell you; though you will hand me over to more sorrows than those that hold me now, for that is the way of it when a man has been away from his own country as long as I have now, wandering through many cities of men and suffering hardships. But even so I will tell you what you ask and inquire. There is a land called Crete, in the middle of the wine-dark sea, a beautiful land and rich, washed by water all around; and in it are many men, past counting, and ninety cities. Their tongues are mixed, one with another. There are Achaeans there, and great-hearted Eteocretans, and Cydonians, and Dorians in their three tribes, and noble Pelasgians. Among the cities is Cnossus, a great city, where Minos was king, who every nine years held converse with great Zeus: Minos, the father of my father, great-hearted Deucalion. Deucalion was the father of me and of lord Idomeneus. But Idomeneus went off to Ilion in his beaked ships with the sons of Atreus; and my famous name is Aethon. I was the younger by birth; he was the elder and the better man. It was there that I saw Odysseus and gave him gifts of hospitality. For the force of the wind had brought him to Crete as well, as he was making for Troy, driving him off course past Malea; and he anchored at Amnisus, where the cave of Eileithyia is, in a harbor hard to make, and barely escaped the storm. At once he went up to the city and asked for Idomeneus, for he said Idomeneus was his guest-friend, dear and respected. But it was already the tenth or the eleventh dawn since Idomeneus had gone off with his beaked ships to Ilion. So I took him to my house and entertained him well, treating him with kindness, for there was plenty in the house; and for the other companions who followed him I collected barley meal from the people and sparkling wine and cattle for sacrifice, so that they could have their fill. There the noble Achaeans stayed twelve days, for a great north wind penned them in and would not let a man stand on his feet even on land; some harsh god had roused it. On the thirteenth day the wind fell, and they put out to sea.”
203 He made the many lies he told seem like the truth; and as she listened her tears flowed and her face melted. As the snow melts on the high mountains, snow that the west wind has shed and the east wind thaws, and as it melts the rivers run full: so her lovely cheeks melted as she wept, weeping for her husband, who was sitting beside her. And Odysseus pitied his weeping wife in his heart, but his eyes stood as if they were horn or iron, unmoving between their lids; and by craft he hid his tears. When she had had her fill of tearful lamenting, she answered him again and said:
215 “Now, stranger, I think I will put you to the test, to see whether you really entertained my husband there in your halls with his godlike companions, as you say. Tell me what kind of clothes he wore on his body, and what he himself was like, and the companions who followed him.”
220 Odysseus of many wiles answered her: “Lady, it is hard to say, when it has been so long; for it is now the twentieth year since he went from there and left my country. But I will tell you how my heart pictures him. Noble Odysseus wore a thick purple cloak, a double one, and the brooch on it was made of gold, with twin sockets for the pins, and on its face there was a design worked in: a hound held a dappled fawn in his forepaws and gripped it as it struggled. Everyone marveled at it, how, though they were of gold, the hound gripped the fawn and strangled it, and the fawn struggled with its feet, trying to escape. And I noticed the tunic on his body, shining like the skin of a dried onion, so soft it was, and it gleamed like the sun. Many women, I tell you, gazed at it in wonder. And I will tell you something else, and you lay it to heart: I do not know whether Odysseus wore these clothes at home, or one of his companions gave them to him when he went aboard the swift ship, or perhaps some host, since Odysseus was dear to many; for few of the Achaeans were his equal. I too gave him a bronze sword and a double robe, beautiful and purple, and a tunic with a fringe, and I sent him off with honor in his well-benched ship. And a herald went with him, a little older than he was; I will tell you what he was like as well. He was round-shouldered, dark-skinned, curly-haired, and his name was Eurybates; and Odysseus honored him above all his other companions, because he was like-minded with him.”
249 So he spoke, and stirred in her a still greater longing to weep, as she recognized the sure tokens Odysseus had told her. When she had had her fill of tearful lamenting, she answered him and said:
253 “Now, stranger, though you were pitied before, you will be dear to me and respected in my halls. For it was I myself who gave him those clothes you speak of; I folded them and brought them from the storeroom, and I fastened on the shining brooch to be his ornament. But I will never welcome him home again, come back to his own native land. It was an evil fate that took Odysseus off in the hollow ship to see Evil-Ilion,1 that is not to be named.”
261 Odysseus of many wiles answered her: “Revered wife of Odysseus, son of Laertes, do not mar your lovely skin any longer, or wear away your heart, weeping for your husband. Not that I blame you at all: any woman mourns the wedded husband she has lost, to whom she has borne children in love, though he be a very different man from Odysseus, who they say was like the gods. But stop your weeping and listen to what I say; for I will tell you truly and hide nothing. I have heard of Odysseus’s return, that he is near, in the rich land of the Thesprotians, alive; and he is bringing many fine treasures, which he is begging through the land. But he lost his faithful companions and his hollow ship on the wine-dark sea, coming from the island of Thrinacia; for Zeus and Helios were angry with him, because his companions had killed the cattle of Helios. They all perished in the surging sea; but the wave cast him, on the keel of the ship, onto the shore, into the land of the Phaeacians, who are close kin to the gods. They honored him with all their hearts like a god, and gave him many gifts, and were willing to send him home themselves unharmed. And Odysseus would have been here long ago; but it seemed more profitable to his heart to gather wealth by traveling over much of the earth. So well does Odysseus know profitable ways beyond all mortal men; no other mortal could rival him. So Pheidon, king of the Thesprotians, told me. And he swore to me myself, as he poured an offering in his house, that a ship had been dragged down to the sea and a crew was ready to take Odysseus to his own native land. But he sent me off first, for a ship of Thesprotian men happened to be setting out for Dulichium, rich in wheat. And he showed me all the treasures that Odysseus had gathered: they would feed one man after another down to the tenth generation, so much treasure lay stored for him in the king’s halls. He said Odysseus had gone to Dodona, to hear the will of Zeus from the god’s oak of the towering leaves, how he should return to his own native land after being so long away, openly or in secret. So he is safe, and he will come very soon; he will not be far from his friends and his native land much longer. But still I will give you my oath. Let Zeus be my witness now, first, highest and best of the gods, and the hearth of excellent Odysseus to which I have come: all this will surely be fulfilled as I tell you. Within this very year Odysseus will come here, as this month wanes and the next begins.”
308 Then prudent Penelope said to him: “Stranger, if only this word of yours might be fulfilled! Then you would soon know my kindness and many gifts from me, so that anyone who met you would call you blessed. But this is how my heart forebodes it, and so it will be: Odysseus will not come home again, and you will not get your passage home; for there are no masters in the house such as Odysseus was among men, if he ever was, to send respected strangers on their way and to receive them. But come, maids, wash his feet and make up a bed for him, with bedding and cloaks and shining blankets, so that he can come warm and snug to Dawn of the golden throne. And early tomorrow bathe him and anoint him, so that he can sit inside beside Telemachus in the hall and think of his dinner. And it will be the worse for any of those men who torments him, heart-destroying as he is; he will get nothing more done here, however terribly angry he may be. For how will you learn of me, stranger, whether I surpass other women in mind and shrewd judgment, if you dine in my halls unkempt and in rags? Men’s lives are short. The man who is harsh himself and has a harsh mind, all mortals pray for sorrows to come upon him afterward while he lives, and when he is dead they all mock him. But the man who is excellent himself and has an excellent mind, strangers carry his fame far and wide among all men, and many call him good.” Odysseus of many wiles answered her: “Revered wife of Odysseus, son of Laertes, cloaks and shining blankets became hateful to me on the day I left the snowy mountains of Crete behind, going on board the long-oared ship. I will lie as I used to spend my sleepless nights before; for many nights I have passed on a shabby bed and waited for bright Dawn of the lovely throne. Nor is footwashing any pleasure to my heart. No woman shall touch my foot, of those who are servants in your house, unless there is some old woman, ancient and loyal, who has suffered in her heart as much as I have. Her I would not grudge to touch my feet.”
349 Then prudent Penelope said to him: “Dear stranger, no man so thoughtful has ever come to my house, of all the strangers from far lands who have been my guests, as you are, so thoughtful and so well-spoken in everything you say. I have an old woman with a shrewd mind, who nursed and reared that unhappy man well, taking him in her arms the moment his mother bore him. She will wash your feet, feeble as she is. Come now, rise, prudent Eurycleia, and wash a man who is the same age as your master. And Odysseus too, I suppose, has feet like these by now, and hands like these; for in misfortune mortals grow old quickly.”
361 So she spoke, and the old woman hid her face in her hands and shed hot tears, and she spoke a word of lament:
363 “Ah me, my child, I can do nothing for you! Zeus must have hated you above all men, god-fearing as you were. No mortal ever burned so many fat thigh bones to Zeus who delights in thunder, or so many choice hecatombs, as you gave him, praying that you might come to a sleek old age and raise your glorious son; and now from you alone he has taken away the day of return entirely. So too, I suppose, the women mocked him in strangers’ lands far away, when he came to some man’s famous house, as all these dogs here mock you, stranger; and to escape their insults and their many shameful words you will not let them wash you. But the daughter of Icarius, prudent Penelope, has told me to, and I am not unwilling. So I will wash your feet, both for Penelope’s own sake and for yours, for the heart within me is stirred with sorrows. But come now, take in what I say. Many travel-worn strangers have come here, but I tell you I have never seen anyone so like Odysseus as you are, in build and voice and feet.”
382 Odysseus of many wiles answered her: “Old woman, so everyone says who has seen the two of us with their own eyes, that we are very like each other, just as you yourself have noticed and say.”
386 So he spoke, and the old woman took the shining basin she used for washing feet, and poured in plenty of cold water, and then added hot. But Odysseus sat at the hearth, and quickly he turned toward the darkness; for at once he thought in his heart that when she took hold of him she might notice the scar, and everything would come out. She came close and began to wash her master; and at once she knew the scar, which a boar had once dealt him with its white tusk, when he went to Parnassus to Autolycus and his sons. Autolycus was his mother’s noble father, who surpassed all men in thievery and in oaths; a god himself had given him this, Hermes, for he used to burn thigh bones of lambs and kids that pleased him, and the god gladly stood by him. Autolycus had once come to the rich land of Ithaca and found his daughter’s son newly born. Eurycleia set the child on his dear knees as he was finishing his supper, and spoke and addressed him:
403 “Autolycus, find a name yourself now to give your daughter’s dear son; he is the child of many prayers.” Then Autolycus answered her and said: “My son-in-law and my daughter, give him the name I tell you. Since I have come here as one who has been angry with many, men and women alike, over the much-nourishing earth, let Odysseus be his name, a name with a meaning.2 And when he is grown and comes to his mother’s family, to the great house at Parnassus where my possessions are, I will give him some of them and send him home rejoicing.”
413 For the sake of those gifts Odysseus went there, so that Autolycus would give him glorious gifts. Autolycus and the sons of Autolycus welcomed him with their hands and with gentle words; and Amphithea, his mother’s mother, threw her arms around Odysseus and kissed his head and both his beautiful eyes. Autolycus called on his glorious sons to prepare a dinner, and they heard his urging and at once brought in a bull five years old. They flayed it and dressed it and cut it all into joints, and chopped it skillfully and pierced it with spits, and roasted it carefully and divided the portions. So all day long until the sun went down they feasted, and no heart lacked its share of the equal feast. When the sun went down and darkness came on, then they lay down and took the gift of sleep.
428 When early-born Dawn appeared, the rose-fingered, they went out to the hunt, the dogs and the sons of Autolycus themselves, and noble Odysseus went with them. They climbed the steep mountain of Parnassus, clothed in forest, and soon came to its windy hollows. The sun was just striking the fields, rising from the gently flowing, deep-streaming Ocean, when the beaters came to a glen. Before them went the dogs, searching out the tracks, and behind came the sons of Autolycus, and noble Odysseus went with them, close behind the dogs, brandishing his long-shadowed spear. There in a dense thicket lay a great boar. The force of the wet winds did not blow through it, nor did the shining sun strike it with his rays, nor did the rain pierce it through, so dense it was, and there was a great heap of fallen leaves in it. The noise of the feet of men and dogs came around the boar as they pressed on, driving the game, and he came out of his lair to face them, his bristles raised high and fire flashing from his eyes, and stood close to them. Odysseus was the very first to rush at him, holding up the long spear in his strong hand, eager to wound him; but the boar was quicker and struck him above the knee, and tore away much flesh with his tusk, slashing sideways, but did not reach the bone of the man. And Odysseus struck him, hitting him on the right shoulder, and the point of the shining spear went clean through; and the boar fell in the dust with a scream, and his life flew from him. Then the dear sons of Autolycus busied themselves over him, and they bound up the wound of excellent, godlike Odysseus skillfully, and stopped the black blood with a charm, and quickly went back to their dear father’s house. Autolycus and the sons of Autolycus healed him well and gave him glorious gifts, and quickly sent him home rejoicing to his dear native land, to Ithaca. His father and his lady mother rejoiced at his return and asked him everything, how he came by the scar; and he told them well how a boar had struck him with its white tusk as he hunted, when he went to Parnassus with the sons of Autolycus.
467 This the old woman took between the flats of her hands, and as she felt it she knew it, and let the foot go. The leg dropped into the basin, the bronze rang, and the basin tipped over to one side, and the water spilled out on the ground. Joy and pain seized her heart at once, both her eyes filled with tears, and her full voice was stopped. She touched Odysseus’s chin and said to him:
474 “You are Odysseus, surely, dear child. And I did not know you, not until I had touched my master all over.”
476 She spoke, and turned her eyes toward Penelope, wanting to show her that her dear husband was there in the house. But Penelope could not look her way or notice, for Athena had turned her mind aside. And Odysseus felt for the old woman’s throat and seized it with his right hand, and with the other drew her closer to him and said:
482 “Old mother, why do you want to destroy me? You nursed me yourself at your own breast. And now, after suffering many hardships, I have come in the twentieth year to my native land. But since you have found out, and a god has put it in your heart, be quiet, so that no one else in the halls may learn of it. For I tell you plainly, and it will be fulfilled: if under my hand a god beats down the lordly suitors, I will not spare you, though you are my nurse, when I kill the other maids in my halls.”
491 Then prudent Eurycleia said to him: “My child, what a word has escaped the fence of your teeth! You know how steadfast my spirit is, and unyielding; I will keep it like hard stone or iron. And I will tell you something else, and you lay it to heart: if under your hand a god beats down the lordly suitors, then I will tell you which women in the halls dishonor you and which are guiltless.”
499 Odysseus of many wiles answered her: “Old mother, why will you name them? There is no need. I will watch well myself and know each one. But keep the matter quiet, and leave it to the gods.”
503 So he spoke, and the old woman went out through the hall to fetch water for his feet, for all the first had been spilled. When she had washed him and rubbed him richly with oil, Odysseus drew his chair closer to the fire again to warm himself, and hid the scar under his rags.
508 Then prudent Penelope began to speak: “Stranger, I will still ask you a little more myself; for soon it will be the hour for sweet rest, for anyone whom sweet sleep takes hold of, even in his sorrow. But to me a god has given grief beyond measure. By day I take my pleasure in mourning and lamenting, as I see to my own work and the maids’ in the house; but when night comes and sleep takes everyone, I lie on my bed, and sharp cares crowd thick about my throbbing heart and torment me as I mourn. As when the daughter of Pandareus, the greenwood nightingale, sings her lovely song when spring has newly come, perched among the thick leaves of the trees, and pours out her voice of many notes, trilling it back and forth, mourning her dear child Itylus, whom once she killed with the bronze in her folly, the son of lord Zethus: so my heart too is divided and stirred this way and that, whether to stay with my son and keep everything secure, my possessions, my maids, and my great high-roofed house, respecting my husband’s bed and the talk of the people, or to go now with whichever of the Achaeans is the best, who woos me in the halls and offers bride-gifts beyond counting. My son, while he was still a child and thoughtless, would not let me marry and leave my husband’s house; but now that he is grown and has reached the full measure of youth, he even prays me to go away out of the halls, troubled for his property, which the Achaeans are eating up. But come, interpret this dream for me, and listen. I have twenty geese about the house that eat wheat out of the water, and I warm my heart watching them. And a great eagle with a hooked beak came from the mountain and broke all their necks and killed them; and they lay heaped in the halls, while he rose into the bright upper air. And I wept and wailed, in my dream though it was, and the lovely-haired Achaean women gathered around me as I lamented piteously that the eagle had killed my geese. But he came back and perched on a jutting roof beam, and with a human voice he checked my weeping and said:
546 “‘Take heart, daughter of far-famed Icarius. This is no dream but a waking vision of good, which will be fulfilled for you. The geese are the suitors, and I, who was a bird before, an eagle, have now come back as your husband, who will bring a shameful doom on all the suitors.’
551 “So he spoke, and honey-sweet sleep let me go. I looked around and saw the geese in the halls, pecking at the wheat beside the trough, where they always had.”
554 Odysseus of many wiles answered her: “Lady, there is no way to interpret the dream by bending it to another meaning, since Odysseus himself has shown you how he will fulfill it. Destruction is plain to see for the suitors, for all of them, and not one will escape death and doom.”
559 Then prudent Penelope said to him: “Stranger, dreams are baffling things, hard to read, and not all of them come true for men. For there are two gates of fleeting dreams: one is made of horn, and one of ivory. The dreams that come through the sawn ivory deceive, bringing words that will not be fulfilled; but those that come out through the polished horn bring true things to pass, when a mortal sees them. But I do not think my dread dream came from there; that would be a welcome thing to me and to my son. And I will tell you something else, and you lay it to heart. This dawn that is coming will be a dawn of evil name, which will part me from the house of Odysseus. For now I will set a contest: the axes that he used to set up in his halls in a row, like the props of a ship’s keel, twelve in all; and he would stand far off and shoot an arrow through them.3 Now I will set this contest for the suitors. Whoever strings the bow most easily in his hands and shoots an arrow through all twelve axes, him I will follow, and leave this house of my marriage, so very beautiful, so full of the means of life, which I think I shall remember even in my dreams.”
582 Odysseus of many wiles answered her: “Revered wife of Odysseus, son of Laertes, put off this contest in the house no longer. Odysseus of many wiles will be here before these men can handle this polished bow and string it and shoot an arrow through the iron.”
588 Then prudent Penelope said to him: “If you were willing, stranger, to sit beside me in the halls and give me pleasure, sleep would never be shed upon my eyelids. But there is no way for men to go sleepless forever; for the immortals have set a portion for each thing, for mortals on the grain-giving land. So I will go up to my upper room and lie down on my bed, which has become a bed of groaning for me, always wet with my tears, ever since Odysseus went off to see Evil-Ilion, that is not to be named. There I will lie down; but you lie down here in the house, either making a bed on the floor, or let the maids set up a bedstead for you.”
600 So saying, she went up to the shining upper rooms, not alone: the other maids went with her too. And when she had gone up to the upper rooms with her women, she wept for Odysseus, her dear husband, until gray-eyed Athena cast sweet sleep upon her eyelids.
Notes
1. Evil-Ilion (Greek Kakoïlios): Penelope’s own coinage, “Ilion the evil,” for the city she will not call by its name.
2. Odysseus: Autolycus derives the name from the Greek verb odyssomai, “to be angry, to hate,” so that it means something like “man of wrath,” one who gives anger and suffers it. Homer plays on the same verb at 1.62, where Athena asks Zeus why he is so angry with Odysseus, and at 5.340 and 5.423, of Poseidon’s anger against him.
3. The axes: probably iron axe heads without their handles, set upright in a straight line so that their holes (the sockets for the handle, or rings at the butt) lined up; the archer had to shoot one arrow through all twelve. The exact arrangement is uncertain.