The Return of the King (Books 22–24)

Then Odysseus of many wiles stripped off his rags, and sprang onto the great threshold with the bow and the quiver full of arrows, and poured out the swift arrows at his feet, and spoke to the suitors: "This decisive contest is over. Now I will aim at another mark, which no man has yet hit, if I can, and Apollo grants me glory."

He aimed a bitter arrow at Antinous. Antinous was just lifting a fair two-handled golden cup, to drink the wine; death was not in his thoughts. Who would think that one man among many, however strong, would bring evil death and black fate upon him? Odysseus struck him in the throat, and the point went clean through the soft neck. He sank to one side, the cup fell from his hand, and a thick jet of blood gushed from his nostrils; he kicked the table away, and the food was spilled on the floor.

The suitors leaped up in uproar, and looked all around the well-built walls; but there was no shield there, and no strong spear to take. They thought he had killed the man by accident. They did not see, the fools, that the ropes of destruction were already fastened over every one of them. Then Odysseus, looking at them from under his brows, said: "You dogs, you thought I would never come home from the land of Troy, so you wasted my house, and forced my women to sleep with you, and while I was still alive you wooed my wife, fearing neither the gods who hold the wide heaven, nor any vengeance of men to come. Now the ropes of destruction are fastened over every one of you."

Pale fear seized them all. Only Eurymachus answered: "If you are indeed Odysseus of Ithaca, come home, what you say is just. But the man to blame is already dead, Antinous; he drove this on, not so much wanting the marriage as wanting to be king of Ithaca. Spare your people; we will pay you back for all we have eaten and drunk, each of us twenty oxen' worth, in bronze and gold." But Odysseus said: "Eurymachus, not even if you gave me all your fathers' wealth, all you have now and all you could add to it, would I stop my hands from killing, until the suitors have paid for all their insolence."

Eurymachus drew his sharp sword and sprang at him with a terrible cry, and Odysseus shot him in the chest by the nipple, and he fell. Amphinomus rushed at Odysseus with his sword drawn, but Telemachus struck him from behind with his bronze spear, between the shoulders, and drove it through his chest. Then Telemachus ran to the storeroom and brought shields and spears and helmets for his father, himself, the swineherd and the cowherd; and the four of them stood on the threshold, against many.

But Melanthius the goatherd climbed up by the smoke vents to the storeroom and brought out twelve shields and as many spears and helmets for the suitors; and Odysseus' knees and heart were shaken when he saw them arming. When Melanthius went up a second time, the swineherd and the cowherd caught him, and bound his hands and feet behind him, and hoisted him up to the rafters by a twisted rope, to suffer there.

Then Athena came near them, in the likeness of Mentor, in form and voice; and she stirred Odysseus with angry words, and then flew up to the smoky roof beam, and sat there like a swallow to watch. Six times the suitors hurled their spears together, and six times Athena made them miss. Then Athena held up her man-destroying aegis from the roof, and the suitors' minds were panic-stricken, and they fled through the hall like a herd of cattle that the darting gadfly attacks and drives in the spring, when the days are long.

When it was over, Odysseus looked all through the house, to see whether any man still lived and hid; but he saw them all, heaped in the blood and dust, like fish that fishermen have drawn out of the grey sea onto the curving shore in a net with many meshes, and they all lie heaped on the sand, longing for the waves of the sea, and the blazing sun takes their life away.

Phemius, the singer, who had sung for the suitors under compulsion, clasped his knees: "I am a singer, who sing for gods and men; I am self-taught, and a god has planted all kinds of songs in my heart. Do not kill me." And Telemachus spoke for him, and for the herald Medon, who had cared for him as a child; and Odysseus spared them both.

Old Eurycleia, seeing the bodies and the blood, began to raise a cry of triumph. But Odysseus checked her: "Rejoice in your heart, old woman, but keep still, and do not cry aloud. It is unholy to boast over slain men. These were destroyed by the fate of the gods and their own wicked deeds."

Then the twelve maids who had shamed the house were made to carry out the bodies, and wash the tables and chairs with water and sponges; and when they had cleaned the house, Telemachus took them out into the courtyard and hanged them, side by side; and they struggled with their feet for a little while, but not for long. And Melanthius was led out, and mutilated, and killed. Then Odysseus purified the house with fire and sulfur.

Eurycleia ran up to Penelope, laughing aloud: "Wake, Penelope, dear child! Odysseus has come home, and killed the arrogant suitors!" But Penelope would not believe her. She came down, and sat across from him in the firelight, by the other wall; and he sat by a tall pillar, looking down, waiting to see if his noble wife would say something to him when she saw him. She sat a long time in silence, and amazement filled her heart; sometimes she looked at him full in the face, and sometimes did not know him, in the vile rags he wore. Telemachus rebuked her: "Mother, cruel mother, with an unyielding heart! Why do you keep away from my father?" And she said: "My child, my heart is amazed within me. If this is truly Odysseus come home, we two shall surely know each other; for we have signs that we two alone know, hidden from others."

Then she tested her husband. "Eurycleia, make up the strong bed for him, outside the well-built bridal chamber, the bed he made himself. Move it out there for him, and put bedding on it."

And Odysseus, angry, spoke to his true-hearted wife: "Woman, this is a painful word you have spoken. Who has moved my bed elsewhere? It would be hard for a mortal man, even a very skilled one, unless a god came and moved it. There was a great sign built into that bed, and I made it myself, no one else. There was a long-leaved olive tree growing inside the courtyard, thick as a pillar. Around it I built my bedroom, of close-set stones, and roofed it well, and put in jointed doors; then I cut away the leafy branches of the olive, and trimmed the trunk from the root up, and smoothed it with bronze, and made it into a bedpost, and from it I built the bed, and inlaid it with gold and silver and ivory, and stretched across it a thong of oxhide, bright with purple. That is the sign. And I do not know, woman, whether the bed still stands, or whether someone has cut the olive at its base and moved it."

At his words her knees and her heart went slack, as she recognized the certain signs that Odysseus told her. She burst into tears and ran straight to him, and threw her arms around his neck, and kissed his head: "Do not be angry with me, Odysseus. The gods gave us sorrow, they begrudged that we two should stay together and enjoy our youth and come to the threshold of old age. All this time my heart was afraid that some man would come and deceive me with words." And he wept, holding his dear and faithful wife. As welcome as the land is to swimmers whose good ship Poseidon has wrecked at sea, when a few escape the grey sea and swim to shore, their skin thick with brine, and gladly set foot on land, escaping evil: so welcome to her was her husband, as she gazed at him, and she could not let him go from her white arms. And rosy-fingered Dawn would have risen on their weeping, if grey-eyed Athena had not thought of another thing: she held the long night back at the edge of the world, and kept golden-throned Dawn waiting at Ocean's stream.

Hermes led the souls of the suitors down, gibbering like bats, to the meadow of asphodel, where the soul of Agamemnon heard their story, and cried: "Fortunate son of Laertes, Odysseus of many wiles, truly you won a wife of great virtue. How good was the mind of faultless Penelope, daughter of Icarius, how well she remembered Odysseus, her wedded husband! The fame of her virtue will never die."

Odysseus went out to the well-tilled farm of Laertes, and found his father alone in the orchard, digging around a plant, in a filthy, patched tunic, with leather leggings sewn round his shins against the scratches, and gloves on his hands against the thorns, and a goatskin cap on his head, nursing his grief. When patient Odysseus saw him worn with age and with great sorrow in his heart, he stood under a tall pear tree and wept. Even then, by habit, he tested him with a tale, saying he was a stranger who had once entertained Odysseus long ago; and a black cloud of grief covered the old man, and he took the dark dust in both hands and poured it over his grey head, groaning. Then Odysseus' heart was stirred, and a sharp pang shot through his nostrils, and he sprang to him and kissed him: "Father, I am he, the one you ask about, come home in the twentieth year." Laertes asked for a sign; and he showed him the scar of the boar, and then named the trees in the orchard, which his father had given him when he was a child, following him through the garden, asking the names of each: thirteen pear trees, ten apple trees, forty fig trees, and fifty rows of vines. And the old man's knees and heart gave way, and he threw his arms around his dear son, and fainted; and Odysseus held him.

But Rumor went swiftly through the city, telling of the suitors' death; and the families carried off their dead, and gathered in the assembly. Eupeithes, the father of Antinous, stood up, with unbearable grief in his heart for his son, and urged them to take vengeance. And they armed themselves and set out. Three generations stood together: Laertes, his son and his grandson, and the old man rejoiced: "What a day this is for me, dear gods! My son and my son's son are contending about valor." And Athena, standing near him, breathed great strength into him, and he prayed, and poised his long spear, and threw it, and struck Eupeithes through the bronze cheek-piece of his helmet; and he fell with a thud, and his armor clashed about him.

And now Odysseus and his son would have destroyed them all, if Athena, daughter of Zeus who bears the aegis, had not cried out with a great voice and checked all the people: "Hold back, men of Ithaca, from grievous war, and part at once, without bloodshed!" And pale fear seized them, and their weapons flew from their hands and fell to the ground, and they fled toward the city. Then the son of Kronos hurled a smoking thunderbolt, and it fell before the grey-eyed daughter of the mighty father. And Athena said to Odysseus: "Son of Laertes, sprung from Zeus, Odysseus of many wiles, hold back, and stop the strife of all-leveling war, lest Zeus be angry with you." So she spoke, and he obeyed, and was glad at heart. And Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus who bears the aegis, in the likeness of Mentor in form and voice, made a covenant of peace between the two sides for all time to come.

(End of the series — The Odyssey)