The wine cup fell from his hands and Antinous fell dead across the table. Then did all the wooers raise a shout, threatening Odysseus for sending an arrow astray. It did not come into their minds that this stranger-beggar had aimed to kill Antinous.

But Odysseus shouted back to them, 'Ye dogs, ye that said in your hearts that Odysseus would never return to his home, ye that wasted my substance, and troubled my wife, and injured my servants; ye who showed no fear of heaven, nor of the just judgements of men; behold Odysseus returned, and know what death is being loosed on you!'

Then Eurymachus shouted out, 'Friends, this man will not hold his hands, nor cease from shooting with the bow, until all of us are slain. Now must we enter into the battle with him. Draw your swords and hold up the tables before you for shields and advance upon him.'

But even as he spoke Odysseus, with a terrible cry, loosed an arrow at him and shot Eurymachus through the breast. He let the sword fall from his hand, and he too fell dead upon the floor.

One of the band rushed straight at Odysseus with his sword in hand. But Telemachus was at hand, and he drove his spear through this man's shoulders. Then Telemachus ran quickly to a chamber where there were weapons and armour lying. The swineherd and the cattleherd joined him, and all three put armour upon them. Odysseus, as long as he had arrows to defend himself, kept shooting at and smiting the wooers. When all the arrows were gone, he put the helmet on his head and took up the shield that Telemachus had brought, and the two great spears.

But now Melanthius, the goatherd--he who was the enemy of Odysseus, got into the chamber where the arms were kept, and brought out spears and shields and helmets, and gave them to the wooers. Seeing the goatherd go back for more arms, Telemachus and Eumaeus dashed into the chamber, and caught him and bound him with a rope, and dragged him up near the roof-beams, and left him hanging there. Then they closed and bolted the door, and stood on guard.

Many of the wooers lay dead upon the floor of the hall. Now one who was called Agelaus stood forward, and directed the wooers to cast spears at Odysseus. But not one of the spears they cast struck him, for Odysseus was able to avoid them all.

And now he directed Telemachus and Eumaeus and Philtius to cast their spears. When they cast them with Odysseus, each one struck a man, and four of the wooers fell down. And again Odysseus directed his following to cast their spears, and again they cast them, and slew their men. They drove those who remained from one end of the hall to the other, and slew them all.

Straightway the doors of the women's apartment were flung open, and Eurycleia appeared. She saw Odysseus amongst the bodies of the dead, all stained with blood. She would have cried out in triumph if Odysseus had not restrained her. 'Rejoice within thine own heart,' he said, 'but do not cry aloud, for it is an unholy thing to triumph over men lying dead.

These men the G.o.ds themselves have overcome, because of their own hard and unjust hearts.'

As he spoke the women came out of their chambers, carrying torches in their hands. They fell upon Odysseus and embraced him and clasped and kissed his hands. A longing came over him to weep, for he remembered them from of old--every one of the servants who were there.

[Ill.u.s.tration.]

XVI

Eurycleia, the old nurse, went to the upper chamber where Penelope lay in her bed. She bent over her and called out, 'Awake, Penelope, dear child. Come down and see with thine own eyes what hath happened. The wooers are overthrown. And he whom thou hast ever longed to see hath come back. Odysseus, thy husband, hath returned. He hath slain the proud wooers who have troubled thee for so long.'

But Penelope only looked at the nurse, for she thought that her brain had been turned.

Still Eurycleia kept on saying, 'In very deed Odysseus is here. He is that guest whom all the wooers dishonour in the hall.'

Then hearing Eurycleia say these words, Penelope sprang out of bed and put her arms round the nurse's neck. 'O tell me--if what thou dost say be true--tell me how this stranger slew the wooers, who were so many.'

'I did not see the slaying,' Eurycleia said, 'but I heard the groaning of the men as they were slain. And then I found Odysseus standing amongst many dead men, and it comforted my heart to see him standing there like a lion aroused. Come with me now, lady, that you may both enter into your heart's delight--you that have suffered so much of affliction. Thy lord hath come alive to his own hearth, and he hath found his wife and his son alive and well.'

'Ah no!' said Penelope, 'ah no, Odysseus hath not returned. He who hath slain the wooers is one of the deathless G.o.ds, come down to punish them for their injustice and their hardheartedness. Odysseus long ago lost the way of his returning, and he is lying dead in some far-off land.'

'No, no,' said Eurycleia. 'I can show thee that it is Odysseus indeed who is in the hall. On his foot is the scar that the tusk of a boar gave him in the old days. I spied it when I was washing his feet last night, and I would have told thee of it, but he clapped a hand across my mouth to stop my speech. Lo, I stake my life that it is Odysseus, and none other who is in the hall below.'

Saying this she took Penelope by the hand and led her from the upper chamber into the hall. Odysseus was standing by a tall pillar. He waited there for his wife to come and speak to him. But Penelope stood still, and gazed long upon him, and made no step towards him.

Then said Telemachus, 'Mother, can it be that thy heart is so hard? Here is my father, and thou wilt not go to him nor question him at all.'

Said Penelope, 'My mind is amazed and I have no strength to speak, nor to ask him aught, nor even to look on him face to face. If this is indeed Odysseus who hath come home, a place has to be prepared for him.'

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Then Odysseus spoke to Telemachus and said, 'Go now to the bath, and make thyself clean of the stains of battle. I will stay and speak with thy lady mother.'

'Strange lady,' said he to Penelope, 'is thy heart indeed so hard? No other woman in the world, I think, would stand so aloof from her husband who, after so much toil and so many trials, has come back after twenty years to his own hearth. Is there no place for me here, and must I again sleep in the stranger's bed?'

Said Penelope, 'In no stranger's bed wilt thou lie, my lord. Come, Eurycleia. Set up for him his own bedstead outside his bed-chamber.'

Then Odysseus said to her, speaking in anger: 'How comes it that my bed can be moved to this place and that? Not a bed of that kind was the bed I built for myself. Knowest thou not how I built my bed? First, there grew up in the courtyard an olive tree. Round that olive tree I built a chamber, and I roofed it well and I set doors to it. Then I sheared off all the light wood on the growing olive tree, and I rough-hewed the trunk with the adze, and I made the tree into a bed post. Beginning with this bed post I wrought a bedstead, and when I finished it, I inlaid it with silver and ivory. Such was the bed I built for myself, and such a bed could not be moved to this place or that.'

Then did Penelope know a.s.suredly that the man who stood before her was indeed her husband, the steadfast Odysseus--none other knew of where the bed was placed, and how it had been built. Penelope fell a-weeping and she put her arms round his neck.

'O Odysseus, my lord,' she said, 'be not angry with thy wife. Always the fear was in my heart that some guileful stranger should come here professing to be Odysseus, and that I should take him to me as my husband. How terrible such a thing would be! But now my heart is freed from all doubts. Be not angry with me, Odysseus, for not throwing myself on thy neck, as the women of the house did.'

Then husband and wife wept together, and Penelope said, 'It was the G.o.ds did this to us, Odysseus--the G.o.ds who grudged that we should have joy of the days of our youth.'

Next they told each other of things that happened in the twenty years they were apart; Odysseus speaking of his own toils and sorrows, and Penelope telling what she had endured at the hands of the wooers. And as they told tales, one to the other, slumber came upon them, and the dawn found them sleeping side by side.

XVII

And still many dangers had to be faced. The wooers whom Odysseus had slain were the richest and the most powerful of the lords of Ithaka and the Islands; all of them had fathers and brothers who would fain avenge them upon their slayer.

Now before anyone in the City knew that he had returned, Odysseus went forth to the farm that Laertes, his old father, stayed at. As he drew near he saw an old man working in the vineyard, digging round a plant.

When he came to him he saw that this old man was not a slave nor a servant, but Laertes, his own father.

When he saw him, wasted with age and all uncared for, Odysseus stood still, leaning his hand against a pear tree and sorrowing in his heart.

Old Laertes kept his head down as he stood digging at the plant, and he did not see Odysseus until he stood before him and said:

'Old man, thou dost care for this garden well and all things here are flourishing--fig tree, and vine, and olive, and pear. But, if a stranger may say it, thine own self is not cared for well.'

'Who art thou that dost speak to me like this?' old Laertes said, lifting his head.

'I am a stranger in Ithaka,' said Odysseus. 'I seek a man whom I once kindly treated--a man whose name was Odysseus. A stranger, he came to me, and he declared that he was of Ithaka, and that one day he would give me entertainment for the entertainment I had given him. I know not if this man be still alive.'

Old Laertes wept before Odysseus. 'Ah,' said he, 'if thou hadst been able to find him here, the gifts you gave him would not have been bestowed in vain. True hospitality thou wouldst have received from Odysseus, my son. But he has perished--far from his country's soil he has perished, the hapless man, and his mother wept not over him, nor his wife, nor me, his father.'

[Ill.u.s.tration]

So he spake and then with his hands he took up the dust of the ground, and he strewed it over his head in his sorrow. The heart of Odysseus was moved with grief. He sprang forward and fell on his father's neck and he kissed him, saying:

'Behold I am here, even I, my father. I, Odysseus, have come back to mine own country. Cease thy lamentation until I tell thee of the things that have happened. I have slain the wooers in mine hall, and I have avenged all their injuries and all their wrongful doings. Dost thou not believe this, my father? Then look on what I will show thee. Behold on my foot the mark of the boar's tusk--there it is from the days of my youth.'

Laertes looked down on the bare foot, and he saw the scar, but still his mind was clouded by doubt. But then Odysseus took him through the garden, and he told him of the fruit trees that Laertes had set for him when he, Odysseus, was a little child, following his father about the garden--thirteen pear trees, and ten apple trees, and forty fig trees.

When Odysseus showed him these Laertes knew that it was his son indeed who stood before him--his son come back after twenty years' wandering.

He cast his arms around his neck, and Odysseus caught him fainting to his breast, and led him into the house.