<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=410327" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Odyssey: Book 21</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Minerva now put it in Penelope's mind to make the suitors try<br>their skill with the bow and with the iron axes, in contest among<br>themselves, as a means of bringing about their destruction. She went<br>upstairs and got the store room key, which was made of bronze and<br>had a handle of ivory; she then went with her maidens into the store<br>room at the end of the house, where her husband's treasures of gold,<br>bronze, and wrought iron were kept, and where was also his bow, and<br>the quiver full of deadly arrows that had been given him by a friend<br>whom he had met in Lacedaemon- Iphitus the son of Eurytus. The two<br>fell in with one another in Messene at the house of Ortilochus,<br>where Ulysses was staying in order to recover a debt that was owing<br>from the whole people; for the Messenians had carried off three<br>hundred sheep from Ithaca, and had sailed away with them and with<br>their shepherds. In quest of these Ulysses took a long journey while<br>still quite young, for his father and the other chieftains sent him on<br>a mission to recover them. Iphitus had gone there also to try and<br>get back twelve brood mares that he had lost, and the mule foals<br>that were running with them. These mares were the death of him in<br>the end, for when he went to the house of Jove's son, mighty Hercules,<br>who performed such prodigies of valour, Hercules to his shame killed<br>him, though he was his guest, for he feared not heaven's vengeance,<br>nor yet respected his own table which he had set before Iphitus, but<br>killed him in spite of everything, and kept the mares himself. It<br>was when claiming these that Iphitus met Ulysses, and gave him the bow<br>which mighty Eurytus had been used to carry, and which on his death<br>had been left by him to his son. Ulysses gave him in return a sword<br>and a spear, and this was the beginning of a fast friendship, although<br>they never visited at one another's houses, for Jove's son Hercules<br>killed Iphitus ere they could do so. This bow, then, given him by<br>Iphitus, had not been taken with him by Ulysses when he sailed for<br>Troy; he had used it so long as he had been at home, but had left it<br>behind as having been a keepsake from a valued friend.<br>Penelope presently reached the oak threshold of the store room;<br>the carpenter had planed this duly, and had drawn a line on it so as<br>to get it quite straight; he had then set the door posts into it and<br>hung the doors. She loosed the strap from the handle of the door,<br>put in the key, and drove it straight home to shoot back the bolts<br>that held the doors; these flew open with a noise like a bull<br>bellowing in a meadow, and Penelope stepped upon the raised<br>platform, where the chests stood in which the fair linen and clothes<br>were laid by along with fragrant herbs: reaching thence, she took down<br>the bow with its bow case from the peg on which it hung. She sat<br>down with it on her knees, weeping bitterly as she took the bow out of<br>its case, and when her tears had relieved her, she went to the<br>cloister where the suitors were, carrying the bow and the quiver, with<br>the many deadly arrows that were inside it. Along with her came her<br>maidens, bearing a chest that contained much iron and bronze which her<br>husband had won as prizes. When she reached the suitors, she stood<br>by one of the bearing-posts supporting the roof of the cloister,<br>holding a veil before her face, and with a maid on either side of her.<br>Then she said:<br>"Listen to me you suitors, who persist in abusing the hospitality of<br>this house because its owner has been long absent, and without other<br>pretext than that you want to marry me; this, then, being the prize<br>that you are contending for, I will bring out the mighty bow of<br>Ulysses, and whomsoever of you shall string it most easily and send<br>his arrow through each one of twelve axes, him will I follow and<br>quit this house of my lawful husband, so goodly, and so abounding in<br>wealth. But even so I doubt not that I shall remember it in my<br>dreams."<br>As she spoke, she told Eumaeus to set the bow and the pieces of iron<br>before the suitors, and Eumaeus wept as he took them to do as she<br>had bidden him. Hard by, the stockman wept also when he saw his<br>master's bow, but Antinous scolded them. "You country louts," said he,<br>"silly simpletons; why should you add to the sorrows of your<br>mistress by crying in this way? She has enough to grieve her in the<br>loss of her husband; sit still, therefore, and eat your dinners in<br>silence, or go outside if you want to cry, and leave the bow behind<br>you. We suitors shall have to contend for it with might and main,<br>for we shall find it no light matter to string such a bow as this<br>is. There is not a man of us all who is such another as Ulysses; for I<br>have seen him and remember him, though I was then only a child."<br>This was what he said, but all the time he was expecting to be<br>able to string the bow and shoot through the iron, whereas in fact<br>he was to be the first that should taste of the arrows from the<br>hands of Ulysses, whom he was dishonouring in his own house- egging<br>the others on to do so also.<br>Then Telemachus spoke. "Great heavens!" he exclaimed, "Jove must<br>have robbed me of my senses. Here is my dear and excellent mother<br>saying she will quit this house and marry again, yet I am laughing and<br>enjoying myself as though there were nothing happening. But,<br>suitors, as the contest has been agreed upon, let it go forward. It is<br>for a woman whose peer is not to be found in Pylos, Argos, or<br>Mycene, nor yet in Ithaca nor on the mainland. You know this as well<br>as I do; what need have I to speak in praise of my mother? Come on,<br>then, make no excuses for delay, but let us see whether you can string<br>the bow or no. I too will make trial of it, for if I can string it and<br>shoot through the iron, I shall not suffer my mother to quit this<br>house with a stranger, not if I can win the prizes which my father won<br>before me."<br>As he spoke he sprang from his seat, threw his crimson cloak from<br>him, and took his sword from his shoulder. First he set the axes in<br>a row, in a long groove which he had dug for them, and had Wade<br>straight by line. Then he stamped the earth tight round them, and<br>everyone was surprised when they saw him set up so orderly, though<br>he had never seen anything of the kind before. This done, he went on<br>to the pavement to make trial of the bow; thrice did he tug at it,<br>trying with all his might to draw the string, and thrice he had to<br>leave off, though he had hoped to string the bow and shoot through the<br>iron. He was trying for the fourth time, and would have strung it<br>had not Ulysses made a sign to check him in spite of all his<br>eagerness. So he said:<br>"Alas! I shall either be always feeble and of no prowess, or I am<br>too young, and have not yet reached my full strength so as to be<br>able to hold my own if any one attacks me. You others, therefore,<br>who are stronger than I, make trial of the bow and get this contest<br>settled."<br>On this he put the bow down, letting it lean against the door<br>[that led into the house] with the arrow standing against the top of<br>the bow. Then he sat down on the seat from which he had risen, and<br>Antinous said:<br>"Come on each of you in his turn, going towards the right from the<br>place at which the. cupbearer begins when he is handing round the<br>wine."<br>The rest agreed, and Leiodes son of OEnops was the first to rise. He<br>was sacrificial priest to the suitors, and sat in the corner near<br>the mixing-bowl. He was the only man who hated their evil deeds and<br>was indignant with the others. He was now the first to take the bow<br>and arrow, so he went on to the pavement to make his trial, but he<br>could not string the bow, for his hands were weak and unused to hard<br>work, they therefore soon grew tired, and he said to the suitors,<br>"My friends, I cannot string it; let another have it; this bow shall<br>take the life and soul out of many a chief among us, for it is<br>better to die than to live after having missed the prize that we<br>have so long striven for, and which has brought us so long together.<br>Some one of us is even now hoping and praying that he may marry<br>Penelope, but when he has seen this bow and tried it, let him woo<br>and make bridal offerings to some other woman, and let Penelope<br>marry whoever makes her the best offer and whose lot it is to win<br>her."<br>On this he put the bow down, letting it lean against the door,<br>with the arrow standing against the tip of the bow. Then he took his<br>seat again on the seat from which he had risen; and Antinous rebuked<br>him saying:<br>"Leiodes, what are you talking about? Your words are monstrous and<br>intolerable; it makes me angry to listen to you. Shall, then, this bow<br>take the life of many a chief among us, merely because you cannot bend<br>it yourself? True, you were not born to be an archer, but there are<br>others who will soon string it."<br>Then he said to Melanthius the goatherd, "Look sharp, light a fire<br>in the court, and set a seat hard by with a sheep skin on it; bring us<br>also a large ball of lard, from what they have in the house. Let us<br>warm the bow and grease it we will then make trial of it again, and<br>bring the contest to an end."<br>Melanthius lit the fire, and set a seat covered with sheep skins<br>beside it. He also brought a great ball of lard from what they had<br>in the house, and the suitors warmed the bow and again made trial of<br>it, but they were none of them nearly strong enough to string it.<br>Nevertheless there still remained Antinous and Eurymachus, who were<br>the ringleaders among the suitors and much the foremost among them<br>all.<br>Then the swineherd and the stockman left the cloisters together, and<br>Ulysses followed them. When they had got outside the gates and the<br>outer yard, Ulysses said to them quietly:<br>"Stockman, and you swineherd, I have something in my mind which I am<br>in doubt whether to say or no; but I think I will say it. What<br>manner of men would you be to stand by Ulysses, if some god should<br>bring him back here all of a sudden? Say which you are disposed to do-<br>to side with the suitors, or with Ulysses?"<br>"Father Jove," answered the stockman, "would indeed that you might<br>so ordain it. If some god were but to bring Ulysses back, you should<br>see with what might and main I would fight for him."<br>In like words Eumaeus prayed to all the gods that Ulysses might<br>return; when, therefore, he saw for certain what mind they were of,<br>Ulysses said, "It is I, Ulysses, who am here. I have suffered much,<br>but at last, in the twentieth year, I am come back to my own<br>country. I find that you two alone of all my servants are glad that<br>I should do so, for I have not heard any of the others praying for<br>my return. To you two, therefore, will I unfold the truth as it<br>shall be. If heaven shall deliver the suitors into my hands, I will<br>find wives for both of you, will give you house and holding close to<br>my own, and you shall be to me as though you were brothers and friends<br>of Telemachus. I will now give you convincing proofs that you may know<br>me and be assured. See, here is the scar from the boar's tooth that<br>ripped me when I was out hunting on Mount Parnassus with the sons of<br>Autolycus."<br>As he spoke he drew his rags aside from the great scar, and when<br>they had examined it thoroughly, they both of them wept about Ulysses,<br>threw their arms round him and kissed his head and shoulders, while<br>Ulysses kissed their hands and faces in return. The sun would have<br>gone down upon their mourning if Ulysses had not checked them and<br>said:<br>"Cease your weeping, lest some one should come outside and see us,<br>and tell those who a are within. When you go in, do so separately, not<br>both together; I will go first, and do you follow afterwards; Let this<br>moreover be the token between us; the suitors will all of them try<br>to prevent me from getting hold of the bow and quiver; do you,<br>therefore, Eumaeus, place it in my hands when you are carrying it<br>about, and tell the women to close the doors of their apartment. If<br>they hear any groaning or uproar as of men fighting about the house,<br>they must not come out; they must keep quiet, and stay where they<br>are at their work. And I charge you, Philoetius, to make fast the<br>doors of the outer court, and to bind them securely at once."<br>When he had thus spoken, he went back to the house and took the seat<br>that he had left. Presently, his two servants followed him inside.<br>At this moment the bow was in the hands of Eurymachus, who was<br>warming it by the fire, but even so he could not string it, and he was<br>greatly grieved. He heaved a deep sigh and said, "I grieve for<br>myself and for us all; I grieve that I shall have to forgo the<br>marriage, but I do not care nearly so much about this, for there are<br>plenty of other women in Ithaca and elsewhere; what I feel most is the<br>fact of our being so inferior to Ulysses in strength that we cannot<br>string his bow. This will disgrace us in the eyes of those who are yet<br>unborn."<br>"It shall not be so, Eurymachus," said Antinous, "and you know it<br>yourself. To-day is the feast of Apollo throughout all the land; who<br>can string a bow on such a day as this? Put it on one side- as for the<br>axes they can stay where they are, for no one is likely to come to the<br>house and take them away: let the cupbearer go round with his cups,<br>that we may make our drink-offerings and drop this matter of the<br>bow; we will tell Melanthius to bring us in some goats to-morrow-<br>the best he has; we can then offer thigh bones to Apollo the mighty<br>archer, and again make trial of the bow, so as to bring the contest to<br>an end."<br>The rest approved his words, and thereon men servants poured water<br>over the hands of the guests, while pages filled the mixing-bowls with<br>wine and water and handed it round after giving every man his<br>drink-offering. Then, when they had made their offerings and had drunk<br>each as much as he desired, Ulysses craftily said:<br>"Suitors of the illustrious queen, listen that I may speak even as I<br>am minded. I appeal more especially to Eurymachus, and to Antinous who<br>has just spoken with so much reason. Cease shooting for the present<br>and leave the matter to the gods, but in the morning let heaven give<br>victory to whom it will. For the moment, however, give me the bow that<br>I may prove the power of my hands among you all, and see whether I<br>still have as much strength as I used to have, or whether travel and<br>neglect have made an end of it."<br>This made them all very angry, for they feared he might string the<br>bow; Antinous therefore rebuked him fiercely saying, "Wretched<br>creature, you have not so much as a grain of sense in your whole body;<br>you ought to think yourself lucky in being allowed to dine unharmed<br>among your betters, without having any smaller portion served you than<br>we others have had, and in being allowed to hear our conversation.<br>No other beggar or stranger has been allowed to hear what we say among<br>ourselves; the wine must have been doing you a mischief, as it does<br>with all those drink immoderately. It was wine that inflamed the<br>Centaur Eurytion when he was staying with Peirithous among the<br>Lapithae. When the wine had got into his head he went mad and did<br>ill deeds about the house of Peirithous; this angered the heroes who<br>were there assembled, so they rushed at him and cut off his ears and<br>nostrils; then they dragged him through the doorway out of the<br>house, so he went away crazed, and bore the burden of his crime,<br>bereft of understanding. Henceforth, therefore, there was war<br>between mankind and the centaurs, but he brought it upon himself<br>through his own drunkenness. In like manner I can tell you that it<br>will go hardly with you if you string the bow: you will find no<br>mercy from any one here, for we shall at once ship you off to king<br>Echetus, who kills every one that comes near him: you will never get<br>away alive, so drink and keep quiet without getting into a quarrel<br>with men younger than yourself."<br>Penelope then spoke to him. "Antinous," said she, "it is not right<br>that you should ill-treat any guest of Telemachus who comes to this<br>house. If the stranger should prove strong enough to string the mighty<br>bow of Ulysses, can you suppose that he would take me home with him<br>and make me his wife? Even the man himself can have no such idea in<br>his mind: none of you need let that disturb his feasting; it would<br>be out of all reason."<br>"Queen Penelope," answered Eurymachus, "we do not suppose that<br>this man will take you away with him; it is impossible; but we are<br>afraid lest some of the baser sort, men or women among the Achaeans,<br>should go gossiping about and say, 'These suitors are a feeble folk;<br>they are paying court to the wife of a brave man whose bow not one<br>of them was able to string, and yet a beggarly tramp who came to the<br>house strung it at once and sent an arrow through the iron.' This is<br>what will be said, and it will be a scandal against us."<br>"Eurymachus," Penelope answered, "people who persist in eating up<br>the estate of a great chieftain and dishonouring his house must not<br>expect others to think well of them. Why then should you mind if men<br>talk as you think they will? This stranger is strong and well-built,<br>he says moreover that he is of noble birth. Give him the bow, and<br>let us see whether he can string it or no. I say- and it shall<br>surely be- that if Apollo vouchsafes him the glory of stringing it,<br>I will give him a cloak and shirt of good wear, with a javelin to keep<br>off dogs and robbers, and a sharp sword. I will also give him sandals,<br>and will see him sent safely whereever he wants to go."<br>Then Telemachus said, "Mother, I am the only man either in Ithaca or<br>in the islands that are over against Elis who has the right to let any<br>one have the bow or to refuse it. No one shall force me one way or the<br>other, not even though I choose to make the stranger a present of<br>the bow outright, and let him take it away with him. Go, then,<br>within the house and busy yourself with your daily duties, your<br>loom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants. This bow is a<br>man's matter, and mine above all others, for it is I who am master<br>here."<br>She went wondering back into the house, and laid her son's saying in<br>her heart. Then going upstairs with her handmaids into her room, she<br>mourned her dear husband till Minerva sent sweet sleep over her<br>eyelids.<br>The swineherd now took up the bow and was for taking it to<br>Ulysses, but the suitors clamoured at him from all parts of the<br>cloisters, and one of them said, "You idiot, where are you taking<br>the bow to? Are you out of your wits? If Apollo and the other gods<br>will grant our prayer, your own boarhounds shall get you into some<br>quiet little place, and worry you to death."<br>Eumaeus was frightened at the outcry they all raised, so he put<br>the bow down then and there, but Telemachus shouted out at him from<br>the other side of the cloisters, and threatened him saying, "Father<br>Eumaeus, bring the bow on in spite of them, or young as I am I will<br>pelt you with stones back to the country, for I am the better man of<br>the two. I wish I was as much stronger than all the other suitors in<br>the house as I am than you, I would soon send some of them off sick<br>and sorry, for they mean mischief."<br>Thus did he speak, and they all of them laughed heartily, which<br>put them in a better humour with Telemachus; so Eumaeus brought the<br>bow on and placed it in the hands of Ulysses. When he had done this,<br>he called Euryclea apart and said to her, "Euryclea, Telemachus says<br>you are to close the doors of the women's apartments. If they hear any<br>groaning or uproar as of men fighting about the house, they are not to<br>come out, but are to keep quiet and stay where they are at their<br>work."<br>Euryclea did as she was told and closed the doors of the women's<br>apartments.<br>Meanwhile Philoetius slipped quietly out and made fast the gates<br>of the outer court. There was a ship's cable of byblus fibre lying<br>in the gatehouse, so he made the gates fast with it and then came in<br>again, resuming the seat that he had left, and keeping an eye on<br>Ulysses, who had now got the bow in his hands, and was turning it<br>every way about, and proving it all over to see whether the worms<br>had been eating into its two horns during his absence. Then would<br>one turn towards his neighbour saying, "This is some tricky old<br>bow-fancier; either he has got one like it at home, or he wants to<br>make one, in such workmanlike style does the old vagabond handle it."<br>Another said, "I hope he may be no more successful in other things<br>than he is likely to be in stringing this bow."<br>But Ulysses, when he had taken it up and examined it all over,<br>strung it as easily as a skilled bard strings a new peg of his lyre<br>and makes the twisted gut fast at both ends. Then he took it in his<br>right hand to prove the string, and it sang sweetly under his touch<br>like the twittering of a swallow. The suitors were dismayed, and<br>turned colour as they heard it; at that moment, moreover, Jove<br>thundered loudly as a sign, and the heart of Ulysses rejoiced as he<br>heard the omen that the son of scheming Saturn had sent him.<br>He took an arrow that was lying upon the table- for those which<br>the Achaeans were so shortly about to taste were all inside the<br>quiver- he laid it on the centre-piece of the bow, and drew the<br>notch of the arrow and the string toward him, still seated on his<br>seat. When he had taken aim he let fly, and his arrow pierced every<br>one of the handle-holes of the axes from the first onwards till it had<br>gone right through them, and into the outer courtyard. Then he said to<br>Telemachus:<br>"Your guest has not disgraced you, Telemachus. I did not miss what I<br>aimed at, and I was not long in stringing my bow. I am still strong,<br>and not as the suitors twit me with being. Now, however, it is time<br>for the Achaeans to prepare supper while there is still daylight,<br>and then otherwise to disport themselves with song and dance which are<br>the crowning ornaments of a banquet."<br>As he spoke he made a sign with his eyebrows, and Telemachus<br>girded on his sword, grasped his spear, and stood armed beside his<br>father's seat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Homer">Homer</a>, translated by Samuel Butler<div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=410327" data-title="The Odyssey: Book 21 de Homer" data-description="Minerva now put it in Penelope's mind to make the suitors try/their skill with the bow and with the iron axes, in contest among/themselves, as a means of bringing about their destruction. She went/upstairs and got the store room key, which was mad..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black