Book XXI · Ῥαψωδία φ

And then Athena, eyes glinting and locked in, slid the idea straight into her chest,

into the heart of Penelope, Icarius's daughter, that big-brain queen,

to set up the bow for the suitors and the grey iron too,

right there in Odysseus's halls, the contest and the opening move of the slaughter.

So she climbed the tall staircase up through her own house,

a gorgeous bronze one, with a handle of ivory riding on top.

And off she went, heading for the storeroom with her handmaid women,

the furthest one back: that's where the master's treasures were stashed,

the bronze and the gold and the iron that takes forever to forge.

the arrow-holding one, and loads of groan-bringing arrows were packed inside,

gifts a guest had handed him over in Lacedaemon when they linked up,

Iphitus, son of Eurytus, basically a dead ringer for the deathless ones.

The two of them had crossed paths with each other over in Messene,

had rolled up chasing a debt the whole community owed him,

because Messenian men had lifted flocks straight out of Ithaca,

three hundred of them, herders and all, hauled off in their many-benched ships.

That's the errand Odysseus came the long way for as an envoy,

And Iphitus, for his part, was out hunting horses that had vanished on him,

twelve brood mares, with hardy mules nursing right under them:

and those very horses ended up being his death and his fate later on,

once he reached the rock-hearted son of Zeus,

and that guy killed him while he was a guest in his own house,

the savage, no respect for the gods' watching eyes, no respect for the table

he'd literally just laid out for him: and then he killed the man himself,

and kept the strong-hooved horses parked there in his own halls.

the one big Eurytus used to carry around before, but he left it to his boy

when he was dying off in his lofty home.

And Odysseus gave him a sharp sword and a sturdy spear back,

the opening move of a heartfelt guest-friendship: but they never

Iphitus, son of Eurytus, a dead ringer for the deathless ones,

the one who gave him the bow. And Odysseus, that goat, never once

carried it off to war on the black ships,

he kept it instead as a keepsake of his beloved guest, it just

Now when she reached that storeroom, gorgeous among women,

and stepped onto the oak threshold, the one a carpenter had once

planed down like a real pro and squared up dead straight to the line,

and fitted the doorposts on it and hung the shining doors,

and shoved the key in and knocked back the bolts of the doors,

aiming dead on. And they bellowed like a bull

grazing out in a meadow: that's how loud the lovely doors went off,

struck by the key, and they flew open quick for her.

stood lined up, and in them the fragrant clothes were stashed away.

And reaching from there she lifted the bow down off its peg,

case and all, the gleaming case that wrapped right round it.

And she sat herself down right there, laid it across her own knees,

And once she'd had her fill of all those tear-soaked sobs,

she went on her way back to the hall to face the swaggering suitors,

gripping in her hand that back-bending bow and the quiver,

the arrow-holding one: and loads of groan-bringing arrows were packed inside.

lay piled high and bronze too, the master's contest gear.

And when she reached the suitors, gorgeous among women,

she stopped right by the post of the snugly built roof,

holding her glossy veil up in front of her cheeks:

And straight away she spoke to the suitors and let the words fly:

"Listen up, you swaggering suitors, the ones who keep mobbing this house

to eat and drink nonstop, on and on without a break,

the house of a man who's been gone forever, and you couldn't even cook up

nah, it was always just you lot itching to marry me and make me your wife.

But fine, come on, suitors, since here's your contest laid out:

I'll be setting up the great bow of godlike Odysseus,

and whoever strings it the easiest, the bow in his own bare palms,

that's the one I'll go with, walking away from this house,

my bridal home, this gorgeous place, packed full of everything a life needs,

the one I reckon I'll be aching over even in my dreams."

That's what she said, and she told Eumaeus, that goat of a swineherd,

And Eumaeus took it crying and laid it down,

and the cowherd was bawling somewhere else too, the second he clocked the master's bow.

And Antinous laid into them and called them out, naming names:

"You smooth-brained country bumpkins, no thoughts past today,

the woman's heart in her chest? Her spirit's already

sunk in grief anyway, since she lost her dear husband.

So either sit there and feast in silence, or take the crying

outside, off you go, and leave the bow right here behind you,

this polished bow gets strung up that easy.

Because there's not one man in this whole crowd

the calibre of Odysseus: I personally laid eyes on him,

and yeah, I've got the receipts, even though I was still a little kid back then."

on stringing the string and shooting clean through the iron.

And no joke, he was about to be the first to get a taste of the arrow

from the hands of flawless Odysseus, the one he was busy disrespecting

right then, parked in the halls, egging on all his mates.

"Oh my days, Zeus the son of Kronos has truly made me a clown.

My dear mum, switched-on as she is, keeps telling me

she'll follow some other man, walking out of this house:

and meanwhile here I am laughing, lapping it up like a smooth-brain.

for a woman the likes of which doesn't exist now anywhere in Achaea,

not in holy Pylos, not in Argos, not in Mycenae,

not even in Ithaca itself, not on the dark mainland either:

and you lot already know this yourselves. Why am I hyping my own mum?

backing off the bow-stringing forever, let's actually see it go down.

And honestly, I might just have a crack at this bow myself:

because if I string it and shoot clean through the iron,

then my queen mother won't be leaving these halls behind

not when I'd finally be the one able to lift my dad's beautiful contest gear."

He spoke, and shrugged the crimson cloak right off his shoulders,

springing up bolt upright, and slung the sharp sword off his shoulders too.

First he set up the axes, digging one long trench

and tamped the earth in tight all round. Pure shock gripped everyone watching,

at how neatly he set it all up: he'd literally never seen it done before.

And he went and stood on the threshold and started testing the bow.

Three times he made it wobble, straining hard to bend it,

that he'd string the string and shoot clean through the iron.

And yeah, he might've actually strung it, hauling on it a fourth time with everything,

but Odysseus gave him the headshake and held him back, itching as he was.

And then the holy power of Telemachus spoke up among them again:

or maybe I'm just too young and don't yet trust my hands

to fend a man off when somebody starts something with me first.

But come on, you lot who are way stronger than me, get in there,

have your go at the bow, and let's get this contest finished."

leaning it up against the snugly fitted, well-planed doors,

and propped the swift arrow right there against the lovely tip,

then dropped back down onto the chair he'd sprung up from.

And Antinous, son of Eupeithes, spoke up among them:

starting from the spot where the wine-pourer pours."

That's what Antinous said, and the plan landed sweet with them.

And Leiodes was the first to stand up, son of Oenops,

the one who read their sacrifices for them, and beside the gorgeous mixing bowl

who hated their reckless outrages, fully fed up with all the suitors:

he was the first then to take up the bow and the swift arrow.

And he went and stood on the threshold and started testing the bow,

but he couldn't even string it, fully mogged by a bow: way before that his hands gave out from the hauling,

"Mates, I'm not stringing this, somebody else can take it up.

Because this bow's gonna rob a whole lot of our best men

of their spirit and their soul, since honestly it's way better

to die than to keep living and miss out on the thing we always

Right now somebody's still hoping in his heart, yeah, fully craving it,

to marry Penelope, the wife of Odysseus:

but once he's had his crack at the bow and seen how it goes,

let him go court some other long-robed Achaean woman after that,

marry whoever brings the most and shows up as her destined one."

So that's what he said, and he set the bow down away from himself,

leaning it up against the snugly fitted, well-planed doors,

and propped the swift arrow right there against the lovely tip,

And Antinous laid into him and called him out, naming names:

"Leiodes, what kind of take just slipped past the gate of your teeth,

grim and savage, I'm fully heated just hearing it,

if this bow's really gonna rob our best men

Nah, your queen mother didn't birth you the type

to be a guy who draws a bow and lets arrows fly:

but there's other swaggering suitors here who'll string it quick."

That's what he said, and he gave the order to Melanthius, the goatherd:

and pull a big chair up beside it with a fleece laid over,

and bring out a big wheel of fat we've got stashed inside,

so us young lads can warm the bow up, oiling it down with grease,

and have our crack at it, and get this contest finished."

and pulling a chair up he set it beside it with a fleece on top,

and brought out a big wheel of fat they had stashed inside.

With that the young lads warmed it and had their go, but they couldn't

string it, fully mogged by a bow, they came up a long, long way short on the strength.

the ringleaders of the suitors: by a mile the best of them in skill.

And the two of them had stepped out of the house side by side together,

the cowherd and the swineherd of godlike Odysseus:

and out after them Odysseus himself, that goat, came out of the place too.

he found his voice and hit them with these honey-smooth words:

"You, cowherd, and you too, swineherd, should I drop a word here,

or keep it locked? My heart's telling me to come out with it.

What kind of men would you be to fight for Odysseus, if from somewhere he showed up

Would you be backing the suitors, or would you be backing Odysseus?

Tell me straight, however your heart and your spirit calls it."

And then the cowherd man over the cattle came back at him:

"Father Zeus, oh if only you'd pull off this one wish for us,

you'd find out fast what kind of strength I've got and what my hands can do."

And the same way Eumaeus prayed to all the gods

for big-brain Odysseus to make his comeback back to his own house.

So once Odysseus had read their true mindset for real,

"He's home, he's right here, it's me, the man himself, after grinding through so much pain,

I made it back in the twentieth year to my homeland.

And I clock that out of all the servants, you two are the only ones

who actually wanted me back: not one of the others did I ever hear

So to you two, I'll lay out the truth, exactly how it'll go:

if a god folds up these swaggering suitors right under me,

I'll set both of you up with wives and hand you property

and houses built right next to mine: and from then on

But come on, let me show you another crystal-clear sign too,

so you know me well and trust it deep in your hearts,

this scar, the one a boar gouged into me with its white tusk

way back when I went up to Parnassus with the sons of Autolycus."

And once the two of them had eyed it and clocked every detail,

they burst out crying and threw their arms round big-brain Odysseus

and kept kissing his head and his shoulders, hugging him tight in their love:

and just the same, Odysseus kissed their heads and their hands.

if Odysseus himself hadn't reined it in and spoken:

"Quit the bawling and the wailing now, in case somebody clocks it,

coming out of the hall, and then goes and blabs it inside.

So filter in one at a time, not all of us at once,

all the others, every single one of these swaggering suitors,

they won't let the bow and the quiver get handed to me:

but you, goat of an Eumaeus, carrying the bow up through the halls,

go and set it in my hands, and tell the women

and if any of them hears groaning or a racket from inside,

from us men within our walls, nobody is to come

peeking out the doors, they're to stay dead quiet right there at their work.

And you, godlike Philoetius, I'm putting you on the courtyard doors,

Saying this he went inside the snugly lived-in house:

then he sat back down on the chair he'd sprung up from.

And the two servants of godlike Odysseus came in too.

And Eurymachus by now was working the bow in his hands,

he couldn't string it either, mogged like all the rest, and his proud heart let out a massive groan:

and gutted, he found his voice and spoke up, naming his shame:

"Oh my days, the ache I've got, for myself and for everyone.

It's not the wedding I'm grieving over so hard, gutted as I am,

sea-ringed Ithaca, others scattered through the rest of the cities:

no, it's that we're this badly short on raw strength

next to godlike Odysseus, that we can't even string his

bow: it's a disgrace folks down the line will hear about."

"Eurymachus, it won't go like that: you know it yourself too.

Because right now there's this holy feast for the god across the land:

who'd be drawing a bow on a day like this? Nah, just chill and

set it down. And as for the axes, what if we let them all

coming into the hall of Laertes's son Odysseus.

So come on, let the wine-pourer kick things off in the cups,

so we can pour one out and put the curved bow down,

and at dawn give the order to Melanthius, the goatherd,

so we can lay thigh-bones out for Apollo, the famous archer,

and have our crack at the bow, and get this contest finished."

That's what Antinous said, and the plan landed sweet with them.

And the heralds poured water over their hands for them,

and dished it out to everyone, kicking it off with the cups.

And once they'd poured one out and drunk however much their hearts wanted,

the big-brain Odysseus, scheming up his trick, spoke up among them:

"Listen up, you suitors of the queen with the dazzling crown,

it's Eurymachus most of all, and godlike Antinous, that I'm

begging here, since that one even said the right thing:

for now, hands off the bow, and leave it up to the gods:

at dawn the god will hand the win to whoever he fancies.

I can test my hands and my strength, see if I've still got

the muscle that used to live in these once-flexible limbs,

or whether the wandering and the rough living have finished it off for good."

That's what he said, and every one of them was outrageously heated,

And Antinous laid into him and called him out, naming names:

"You sorry excuse for a guest, you haven't got a brain cell in you.

Aren't you happy enough that you get to feast in peace among us,

the big shots, and you don't go short on a single bite, and you get

or beggar gets to sit in on our conversations like this.

The honey-sweet wine's messing you up, the stuff that wrecks others too,

whoever gulps it down greedy and doesn't drink it sensibly.

Wine's what scrambled the Centaur too, famous Eurytion,

when he came among the Lapiths: and once he'd scrambled his brain on the wine,

he went berserk and did terrible things all through Pirithous's house.

And grief gripped the heroes, so they hauled him out the front doorway,

out the door, springing up on him, and lopped off his ears

went off carrying his own ruin in his clown of a head.

That's where the feud between the Centaurs and men first kicked off,

but he was the one who brought the first disaster on himself, sloshed on wine.

And it's the same big pain I'm calling down on you, if you go and

in our land, no, we'll ship you off right quick on a black ship

to King Echetus, the mangler of every mortal alive:

and from there you won't be saved, not one bit. So just chill out

and drink, and quit picking fights with men younger than you."

"Antinous, it's neither right nor decent to short-change

the guests of Telemachus, whoever pulls up to this house.

You actually reckon, if the guest strings Odysseus's great bow

with his bare hands, trusting his own strength,

Not even the man himself is banking on that in his chest:

so let none of you sit here feasting with your heart all heavy

over that, because honestly, no, it just isn't fitting."

And then Eurymachus, son of Polybus, spoke up to her:

we're not reckoning this guy's gonna lead you off, it wouldn't be fitting,

it's just we're cringing at the talk of the men and the women,

in case some lesser Achaean down the line ever says:

'Yeah, men way worse than the flawless man are out here

but some other beggar man, a wanderer who just rolled up,

strung that bow easy and mogged the lot of us, clean through the iron.'

That's what they'd say, and for us those would be straight-up disgraces."

And then big-brain Penelope came back at him with this:

when you lot are out here disrespecting and devouring the house

of a top-tier man: why are you even making these into disgraces?

This guest of ours is properly big and well put together,

and he claims to be the son born from a noble father.

Because here's how I'll say it, and it's gonna get done too:

if he strings it and Apollo hands him the glory,

I'll kit him out with a cloak and a tunic, gorgeous clothes,

and I'll give him a sharp javelin, a guard against dogs and men,

and I'll send him off wherever his heart and his spirit calls."

And then switched-on Telemachus spoke up to her:

"My mum, the bow, not one Achaean is more in charge

of it than me, to hand it over or refuse it to whoever I want,

not any on the islands towards Elis, land of horse pastures:

not one of them's gonna force me against my will, if I'm choosing

to hand this bow once and for all to the guest to carry off.

But head into the house and look after your own work,

to get on with their jobs: the bow's gonna be the men's business,

all of them, but most of all mine: because the power in this house is mine."

And she, properly stunned, turned and headed back into the house,

because she took her son's switched-on words to heart.

she cried then for Odysseus, her dear husband, until

Athena, eyes glinting, dropped sweet sleep onto her eyelids.

And then the goat of a swineherd took up the bow and carried it, the curved one:

and all the suitors started kicking up a racket through the halls,

"Where exactly are you lugging that curved bow, you sorry swineherd,

you lost cause? Pretty soon the fast dogs you raised are gonna

chew you up out among your pigs, all alone, away from people, if Apollo

shows us a bit of mercy and the other deathless gods do too."

spooked, because so many were kicking up a racket in the halls.

And from the other side Telemachus threatened him and shouted out:

"Uncle, push that bow forward: trusting all of them won't go well for you in a sec:

careful I don't chase you out to the fields with rocks,

Oh if only I had it that much over all the suitors

who are in this house, with my hands and my raw strength:

because I'd be sending a fair few of them off in a sorry state, packing,

straight out of our house, since they're cooking up nothing but trouble."

the suitors, and they eased off their harsh anger

at Telemachus: and the swineherd carried the bow up through the place

and set it in the hands of big-brain Odysseus, standing right by him.

And then he called the nurse Eurycleia over and told her:

to lock the snugly fitted doors of the hall tight,

and if any of them hears groaning or a racket from inside,

from us men within our walls, nobody is to come

peeking out the doors, they're to stay dead quiet right there at their work."

and she locked up the doors of the snugly lived-in halls.

And without a sound Philoetius sprang out the door of the house,

and after that he locked the doors of the well-fenced courtyard.

And there under the porch lay a curved ship's cable,

then he sat back down on the chair he'd sprung up from,

keeping his eyes locked on Odysseus. And the man was already working the bow,

turning it every which way, testing it this way and that,

in case worms had eaten the horn while the master was away.

"Yeah, this one's some kind of bow connoisseur, a real sly hand with bows:

either he's got a kit like this stashed at home himself,

or he's itching to make one, the way he keeps

flipping it back and forth in his hands, this trouble-trained drifter."

"Oh I hope he gets exactly as much luck out of life

as he's ever gonna manage at stringing this thing."

That's what the suitors said: but big-brain Odysseus,

the second he'd hefted the great bow and eyed every inch of it,

strings a fresh string round its new peg, no sweat at all,

fastening the well-twisted sheep-gut tight at both ends,

exactly that easy, no strain, peak skill-maxxed, Odysseus strung the great bow.

And reaching over with his right hand he tried the string:

And the suitors caught a massive jolt of dread, and the colour

drained from every face. And Zeus thundered big, flashing his signs:

and then Odysseus, that goat who's been through it, was glad,

because the son of crooked-scheming Kronos had sent him an omen.

bare and ready: the rest were still tucked inside the hollow quiver,

the ones the Achaeans were about to get a taste of any second.

And gripping it by the grip he hauled back the string and the notched end,

right there from the chair where he was sitting, and let the arrow fly,

not even the first axe-handle hole: the beggar just mogged the entire room, the bronze-weighted shaft

went clean through and out the other side. And he spoke to Telemachus:

"Telemachus, the guest sitting in your halls is not putting you to shame,

no I didn't miss the target one bit, and I wasn't worn out

not the washed-up wreck the suitors keep disrespecting me as.

But now it's time to get dinner sorted for the Achaeans

while there's still daylight, and after that to have other fun too,

with the song and the lyre: because those are the garnish of a feast."

Telemachus, the dear son of godlike Odysseus,

and closed his beloved hand round the spear, and right beside him there,

next to the chair, he took his stand, all kitted out in gleaming bronze.