The Scar and the Bow (Books 19–21)

Godlike Odysseus was left in the hall, planning with Athena the death of the suitors. "Telemachus," he said, "we must carry the weapons of war inside, all of them." So they carried in the helmets and bossed shields and pointed spears, and Pallas Athena went before them with a golden lamp, making a beautiful light. "Father," said Telemachus, "this is a great wonder: the walls of the hall, and the beams of fir, and the pillars, glow as if with blazing fire." "Hush," said his father; "this is the way of the gods who hold Olympus."

Then wise Penelope came down from her chamber, like Artemis or golden Aphrodite, and sat by the fire on her inlaid chair, and spoke to the stranger. "Stranger, first I will ask you this: who are you, and from where?" And he answered: "Lady, no mortal on the boundless earth could find fault with you; your fame reaches the wide heaven. But do not ask about my race and my country, lest you fill my heart with sorrow." She told him then of her own sorrows: of the shroud she had woven for Laertes, and how, after three years, her maids betrayed her; and of her son, now grown, who was angry at the suitors devouring his house.

Then he told her a tale: he was Aethon, a Cretan, brother of Idomeneus, and once he had entertained Odysseus in his house, when the wind had driven him to Crete on his way to Troy. As he spoke, he made many falsehoods seem like truth; and as she listened, her tears flowed and her face melted, as snow melts on the high mountains when the East Wind thaws it after the West Wind has heaped it up, and the rivers rise as it melts; so her fair cheeks melted as she wept for her husband, who was sitting beside her. And Odysseus pitied his weeping wife in his heart, but his eyes stood fixed as horn or iron between his lids, and he hid his tears by cunning.

She tested him: "What clothes was he wearing?" And he described exactly the purple woolen cloak, double, with a golden brooch with twin clasps, on which a hound held a dappled fawn in its forepaws; and the shining tunic, like the skin of a dried onion. She wept more, recognizing the signs, for she had given him those clothes herself. "He will come," the stranger said; "within this very month he will come." But she could not believe it.

She called the old nurse Eurycleia to wash the stranger's feet. And as the old woman took the shining basin and poured in cold water and then warm, Odysseus turned toward the darkness, for he suddenly feared that when she touched him she would recognize the scar.

That scar he had received long ago, when he went to Parnassus, to visit Autolycus, his mother's noble father, who surpassed all men in thievery and in oaths. It was Autolycus who had given him his name; for when he came to Ithaca, at the birth of his daughter's son, and Eurycleia laid the child on his knees, he said: "Since I have come here angry with many men and women over the fruitful earth, let his name be Odysseus, the man of wrath." When the boy was grown, he went to Parnassus, and hunted with his uncles on the wooded slopes of the mountain; and a great boar, lying in a thick lair, sprang out at him with blazing eyes. Odysseus rushed at it first, with his long spear, eager to strike; but the boar was quicker, and struck him above the knee, tearing away much flesh with its tusk, but not reaching the bone; and Odysseus struck it on the right shoulder, and the shining spear went right through, and it fell in the dust, screaming. His uncles bound up the wound skillfully, and stopped the black blood with a spell.

This scar the old woman felt with the flat of her hands, and knew it as she touched it, and let his foot fall. His leg dropped into the basin; the bronze rang, and tipped over, and the water spilled on the floor. Joy and grief seized her heart together; her eyes filled with tears, and her strong voice was choked. She touched his chin and said: "Surely you are Odysseus, dear child, and I did not know you until I had touched my master all over." But Odysseus seized her throat with his right hand, and drew her close with his left: "Nurse, do you want to destroy me? Keep silent, so that no one else in the house will know. If you speak, I will not spare you, though you are my nurse, when I kill the other women." And Penelope did not notice, for Athena had turned her mind away.

Then Penelope told the stranger a dream. "I have twenty geese in the house, that come out of the water and eat wheat, and I delight to watch them. And in my dream a great eagle with a crooked beak came from the mountain and broke all their necks, and killed them, and they lay heaped in the hall; and I wept and wailed. Then the eagle came back and perched on a projecting beam, and spoke in a human voice: 'Take heart, daughter of famous Icarius. The geese are the suitors, and I, who was an eagle before, am now your husband, come home.'" "Lady," said Odysseus, "there is no other way to interpret this dream." But she answered: "Stranger, dreams are hard to interpret, and not all come true. There are two gates for fleeting dreams: one is made of horn, and one of ivory. Those that come through the sawn ivory deceive, bringing words that are never fulfilled; but those that come out through the polished horn bring true things to pass, for the mortal who sees them. I do not think my strange dream came through that gate. But hear this. Tomorrow I will set a contest for the suitors: the axes, which Odysseus used to set up in his hall, twelve in a row, like the props of a ship's keel; and he would stand far off and shoot an arrow through them all. Whoever strings his bow most easily, and shoots through all twelve axes, him I will follow, and leave this house, so beautiful and full of wealth, which I think I shall remember even in my dreams."

That night Odysseus lay sleepless in the porch, on an undressed oxhide, brooding evil for the suitors. And the women who had been sleeping with them came out of the hall, laughing and making merry together. His heart barked within him, as a bitch stands over her tender puppies and barks at a stranger, eager to fight. But he struck his chest and rebuked his heart: "Endure, my heart. You endured worse than this on the day when the Cyclops, unrestrained in strength, devoured my brave comrades; and you endured until cunning brought you out of the cave where you thought to die." Then Athena came down and poured sleep upon his eyes.

The next day was a feast of Apollo. Philoetius, the cowherd, came bringing a heifer and fat goats for the feast; and he spoke kindly to the stranger, and wept for his master, and Odysseus knew that here was another loyal man. Ctesippus, one of the suitors, threw the hoof of an ox at Odysseus, "as a gift of hospitality," but he dodged it. And Pallas Athena stirred the suitors to unquenchable laughter, and turned their wits awry. They laughed with jaws that seemed not their own, and the meat they were eating was dabbled with blood, and their eyes filled with tears. And godlike Theoclymenus cried out: "Wretched men, what evil is this that you suffer? Your heads and faces and knees are shrouded in night; wailing breaks out, your cheeks are wet with tears, and the walls and the beams are spattered with blood. The porch is full of ghosts, and the courtyard too, hurrying down to Erebus into the darkness; the sun has been blotted out of the sky, and an evil mist has spread over everything." But they all laughed at him.

Penelope went up to the high storeroom where her husband's treasures lay, bronze and gold and wrought iron, and there was the bending bow and the quiver full of arrows, which Iphitus had given him long ago, when they met in Messene; Iphitus, whom Heracles later killed in his own house, though he was his guest. She sat down, and laid the bow on her knees, and wept aloud. Then she carried it into the hall, and announced the contest.

Telemachus dug a long trench and set up the axes in a straight line, and stamped the earth down round them; and all marveled to see how neatly he set them, though he had never seen it done. Then he tried the bow himself. Three times he made it quiver, straining to draw it, and three times he gave up; and the fourth time he would have strung it, but Odysseus nodded to him and checked him. Then the suitors tried, one after another, from left to right, as the wine is poured. They warmed the bow at the fire and rubbed it with lard; but they could not string it, for they lacked the strength.

Meanwhile the swineherd and the cowherd went out of the house together, and Odysseus followed them, and spoke: "If Odysseus should come back suddenly, would you fight for him or for the suitors?" And both prayed that he might come. Then he showed them the great scar, and they threw their arms around him and wept, and kissed his head and shoulders. He told them: lock the doors of the women's quarters; bar the courtyard gate; and when I ask for the bow, bring it to me.

Back in the hall, the old beggar asked to try the bow. The suitors were furious. But Penelope said that he should have it; and Telemachus sent his mother to her room, and ordered the swineherd to bring the bow to the stranger. And Odysseus took it, and turned it this way and that, to see whether worms had eaten the horn while its master was away. And as easily as a man skilled with the lyre and in song stretches a string round a new peg, fastening the twisted sheep-gut at both ends, so without effort Odysseus strung the great bow. With his right hand he plucked the string, and it sang beautifully, like the voice of a swallow. Great grief came upon the suitors, and the color left their faces; and Zeus thundered loudly, showing his sign.

He took a swift arrow that lay bare on the table, and laid it on the bridge of the bow, and drew the string and the notched arrow, sitting where he was on his stool, and let it fly, aiming straight. He did not miss the first handle of any of the axes, and the arrow, heavy with bronze, went right through and out at the last. "Telemachus," he said, "the stranger who sits in your hall does not shame you. Now it is time to prepare supper for the Achaeans, while it is still light, and then other entertainment, with song and the lyre, which are the crown of a feast." And he nodded with his brows; and Telemachus girded on his sharp sword, and took his spear, and stood beside his father's chair, armed with gleaming bronze.

(End of Episode 7 — continued in Episode 8: The Return of the King)