A few moments later he breathed his last.
Inside the palace, they found the suitors feasting. Odysseus went round the tables, begging for food. Some of the suitors threw him some scraps, but their leader was more cruel. He turned to the swineherd and said, “Keeper of Pigs, why do you drag this old corpse into our dining room? Don’t we have enough beggars and pests in this town? Now kindly throw him out before I do much worse to him.”
Eumaeus, the swineherd, replied, “My lord Odysseus was always kind and respectful to old soldiers who were down on their luck. It is his food and wine that you are helping yourself to – and he would gladly spare a few morsels.”
At this the leader of the suitors flew into a rage. “Fine words, swineherd,” he cried, “but this is what I think of your advice!” With that, he picked up a chair and flung it at Odysseus. It hit him on the shoulder. All the suitors burst out into laughter and started to pelt Odysseus and the swineherd with food. They both kept their cool, and retreated further into the palace.
Eumaeus found the old nurse who had looked after Odysseus as a baby. He said that the stranger was weary from tramping, and asked if she would bathe his feet. She gladly fetched hot water and began to do as she was asked. As she washed him, she could not help but notice a scar on the stranger’s leg. Odysseus had gone out hunting as a young man, and the boar had charged at him and dug its tusk into his leg. She recognised the scar at once.
“My Lord,” she said. “You are home at last. Let me rush to your poor Queen and let her know this wonderful news.”
“Hold still,” said Odysseus. “One of the servants might hear her rejoicing and my secret will be out. Don’t breathe a word to a soul, not even to fair Penelope.”
The good old nurse swore that she would keep her master’s secret. As he walked back along the corridor, a maid spat at him and told him to get out of the palace with his begging bowl.
That evening, as Odysseus was sitting on the porch of the palace, along came a real beggar, Irus, and he was a complete scoundrel – a cheat and a sneak thief. He was a favourite of the suitors who recognised him as a kindred spirit. Irus was not pleased to see a rival beggar around the palace, competing with him for scraps.
“Get up and get out, you filthy swine!” he said. “Make yourself scarce before I box you around the ears.”
“What’s gotten into you?” replied Odysseus. “I’ve done you no harm. You’d better keep your mouth shut or you’ll be the one on the wrong end of a beating.”
“Are you threatening me old man?” said Irus. “Well stand up so I can punch your lights out.”
One of the suitors overhead the two old tramps quarrelling and thought it was hilarious. He ordered them both inside so that the suitors could enjoy the spectacle of a beggar’s boxing match.
A space was cleared in the middle of the dining hall. The suitors placed bets on which tramp would knock the other out first. Irus was the clear favourite to win, but then the two men stripped down for the fight. Odysseus’ muscles glistened and all could see that he was built like an ox. Irus began to tremble with fear – but it was too late.
The leader of the suitors whose name was Antinous swiftly changed his wager to back the newcomer. He called out to Irus, “You’ve filled your fat belly with scraps from our table, old goat that you are, but now it seems you’re going to get what’s coming to you.”
Odysseus hit Irus with a glancing blow and he was out cold. The servants dragged him out by his feet and threw him on the dung heap beside the corpse of old Argos.
The suitors gave Odysseus his reward for his victory: scraps of meat from their plates. Antinous said to Odysseus, “That was a good hit from an old swine like you, but don’t get any ideas or become above yourself, or you’ll soon be out on your ear.”
Later that night, Odysseus and Prince Telemachus held a secret conference. This is what Odysseus told his son to do. He must tell his mother to call the suitors together and tell them that she had made up her mind to hold an archery contest. She would marry the man who could string her husband’s old bow and shoot the straightest arrow from it.
Penelope agreed to this idea because she knew that the only man who was strong enough to string her husband’s bow was her husband himself. She thought the contest was a cunning way to show the suitors that not a single one among them was the equal of her true husband.
The next morning the suitors gathered in the dining hall for the contest. They set up a target at the end of the room, and Telemachus handed his father’s great bow to the first to try his aim - but the suitor could not even bend the bow, let alone fire it. The others all laughed at him for being so feeble, but not for long, for none of them had the strength to string the bow. At last their leader, Antinous, took it in his hands, and though he could bend it just a bit, he was far from able to hook the string over its end.
“Fair Penelope must be laughing up in her chamber,” he said. “A fine trick this is of hers, for there’s no man alive who could string this bow.”
Then Odysseus said, “I was once handy with a bow and arrow. I pray let me try my hand.”
The suitors all laughed at the tramp’s boast, but Antinous said, “Certainly. If you string the bow for me I will reward you with gold. If not, I shall beat you within an inch of your useless old life.”
At this, Odysseus picked up the bow and tried it for weight, balancing it in his hand. The suitors mocked him for this display. “Thinks he’s an expert, he does,” they jeered.
Then he placed the bow upright on the ground. He leaned into it, and hooked the string over the end with ease. At first the suitors were astounded, and then they realised that the beggar was the king whose palace and hospitality they had been abusing, and whose wife they had been wooing. The realisation came too late to save their skins, for Odysseus was soon letting arrows fly from the bow, picking them off one by one.
One of the suitors who was better mannered than the others tried to bargain with the king. He swore that if he would spare their lives they would pay him back three times over for what they had taken
0
Reviews (0)