Chapter summary
Athena puts into the mind of Penelope the idea of offering the suitors, in the palace of Odysseus, the bow and the gray iron as a contest and the start of the slaughter. Penelope climbs the stairs, takes the bronze key with an ivory handle and goes with the maids to the innermost room, where the lord's treasures are kept: bronze, gold and wrought iron, and also the recurved bow and the quiver of moaning arrows, gifts that Iphitus, son of Eurytus, gave Odysseus in Lacedaemon. The poem tells how the two met in Messene, in the house of Orsilochus: Odysseus, still young, had gone to collect a debt from the people of Ithaca, three hundred sheep and their shepherds carried off by Messenians; Iphitus was seeking twelve mares that had been stolen from him. The mares were the cause of his death, when he came to Heracles, who killed him in his own house, though he was a guest, without respect for the gods or for the table he had offered, and kept the animals. Earlier, Iphitus had given Odysseus the bow that had been his father Eurytus's, and Odysseus had given him a sword and a spear, the beginning of a friendship between guests; the two never shared a table. Odysseus never carried the bow to war: he left it at home, a memento of his friend, and used it only in his own land.
Penelope comes to the door of the room, loosens the strap, inserts the key and pushes back the bolts; the doors groan like a bull in a meadow. She climbs the platform of the chests, takes from its peg the bow with its case and, seated, with it on her knees, weeps aloud. After satisfying her weeping, she goes down to the hall carrying the bow and the quiver, while the maids carry the box with the iron. Standing at the threshold, her veil before her face, one maid on each side, she tells the suitors: they use the house to eat and drink without stop, since her husband is absent, and they have found no other reason but wishing to marry her. She proposes the prize: she will set up the great bow of Odysseus, and whoever strings it most easily and sends an arrow through the twelve axes, to him she will go, leaving the house of her marriage, so beautiful and so full of goods that she thinks she will remember it even in dreams. She orders Eumaeus to set the bow and the iron before them. Eumaeus receives it weeping and sets it down; the cowherd also weeps, in another corner. Antinous rebukes them: foolish country folk, who only think of the day, why do you weep and stir the spirit of the lady, who already has grief for having lost her husband? Let them eat in silence or go out to weep, leaving the bow as a hard trial, for he does not believe the bow will string easily: none here is like Odysseus, whom he saw and remembers, though he was a child. His spirit, however, hoped to string the cord and pierce the iron, and he would be the first to try the arrow from the hand of the man he despised in the hall and against whom he incited his companions.
Telemachus then speaks: Zeus has made him foolish, for his mother says she will follow another, and he laughs and rejoices with a senseless spirit. He invites the suitors to compete for the prize, which has no equal in the Achaean land, and says he wants to try too: if he strings the bow and pierces the iron, his mother will not be grieved by leaving with another, because he will then be able to win his father's prizes. He takes off the purple cloak and the sword, lines up the axes in a long furrow, setting them true with a plumb line, and tramps down the earth around them; all marvel at the order he gives, never seen before. He stands at the threshold and tries the bow: three times he shakes it, three times his strength leaves him, hoping to string the cord and pierce the iron, and on the fourth he would have succeeded, had Odysseus not shaken his head at him and held him back, anxious as he was. Telemachus then says he will always be weak, or is too young to defend himself against whoever insults him first, and he hands the trial over to the stronger men; he leans the bow against the doorposts, sets the arrow on the notch, and sits down again on his throne.
Antinous orders everyone to rise in order, from the right, where the cupbearer serves the wine. Leodes, the sacrificer of the suitors, to whom only insolence is repugnant, goes first; he cannot string the bow, because his delicate hands tire, and he says this bow will deprive many nobles of life, for it is much better to die than to live failing at what all of them gather for every day. He advises each to seek another Achaean woman with gifts, and that Penelope be left to whoever gives the most and whom fate designates. He sets down the bow. Antinous rebukes him: his mother did not bear him to string bows and shoot arrows, and others will do it soon. He orders the goatherd Melanthius to light a fire, bring a chair, a hide and a round of tallow, so that the young men may warm and grease the bow and try it. They try and fail, lacking much strength. Antinous and Eurymachus, the leaders and the best in valor, wait for their turn.
Meanwhile the cowherd and the swineherd leave the house, and Odysseus follows them. Outside the door and the courtyard, he asks in gentle words what they would do if Odysseus returned suddenly, brought by a god: would they help the suitors or Odysseus? The cowherd prays to Zeus that this wish be fulfilled, so that he might see the strength of his hands; Eumaeus makes the same vow to all the gods. When he reads the truth in the hearts of both, Odysseus says: here inside I am myself, I have returned in the twentieth year; only these two among the servants have wished for his return. If a god gives him the suitors, he will give each one a wife, goods and a house near his own, and they will be companions and brothers of Telemachus. So that they may recognize him, he shows the scar of the boar's tusk, from when he went to Parnassus with the sons of Autolycus, and pushes aside the rags. The two see it, weep, embrace him, and kiss his head and shoulders, and he kisses them too; they would have wept until sunset, if he had not restrained them, so that no one within might hear. He arranges the signal: they will enter one at a time, he first; the suitors will not let them give him the bow, but Eumaeus will carry it to his hands through the hall; he will order the women to bar the doors of the hall and, if they hear a groan or the sound of men within, they must not come out but stay silent at their work; to Philoetius he entrusts the bolting of the courtyard door with its key and tying it with a cord. He enters, sits where he was, and the two servants follow him.
Eurymachus takes the bow and warms it at the fire, but cannot string it, and he groans: it is not so much the marriage he laments, for there are many other Achaean women, but being so much weaker than Odysseus, a shame that will reach posterity. Antinous says it will not be so: today is a sacred festival of the god among the people, and who would string bows? Let them leave it, let the axes stay where they are, let the cupbearer pour the libation, and tomorrow Melanthius will bring the fattest goats to offer thighs to Apollo, and then they will try the bow. All agree. After the libation, Odysseus, crafty, speaks: he asks Eurymachus and Antinous, whose counsel was just, to leave the bow for today in the hands of the gods, who will tomorrow give victory to whomever they choose; and he asks for the bow to test his strength, whether he still has it as before or whether his wandering life has destroyed it. All are indignant, fearing that he will string it. Antinous insults him: he is mad, is it not enough for him to eat among nobles and hear their talk? Wine harms him, as it did the centaur Eurytion in the house of Pirithous, who went mad and was mutilated, and from there came the fight between centaurs and men; if he strings the bow, he will have no favor at all, but will be sent by ship to King Echetus, scourge of all mortals, from whom he will not escape. Let him drink quietly and not quarrel with younger men.
Penelope intervenes: it is neither fair nor just to insult Telemachus's guest. Antinous fears, perhaps, that if he strings the bow he will carry her home as his wife? Not even he expects that, so let no one spoil the banquet over it. Eurymachus replies that they do not think so, but they are ashamed of what men and women will say: that men far inferior courted the wife of a noble and did not string the bow, while a wandering beggar strung it with ease and sent the arrow through the iron. Penelope retorts that a man who dishonors and devours a noble's house cannot have good fame among the people, and asks why they attach importance to that reproach: the guest is tall, well built, and says he is the son of a good father. Let them give him the bow; if he strings it and Apollo grants him glory, she will give him a cloak, a tunic, a spear, a sword and sandals, and will send him wherever his heart desires. Telemachus intervenes: none of the Achaeans has more right than he to give or refuse the bow, neither the lords of Ithaca nor those of the islands near Elis, and no one will force him, if he wishes to give it outright to the guest. He orders his mother back to her room, to attend to her loom and distaff and to have the maids work: the bow is a matter for men, for all of them, and above all for him, who holds power in the house. She is amazed and goes back, keeping her son's sensible word, and goes up with the maids to weep for Odysseus, until Athena pours sweet sleep upon her.
Eumaeus takes the bow and carries it off, and the suitors shout: where are you taking it, vagabond, the curved bow? The dogs you raised will eat you among the swine, if Apollo is kind. Afraid, Eumaeus sets it down where it is. Telemachus, from the other side, threatens him: let him carry the bow away, or he will drive him out with stones, since he is the stronger. He wishes he were as much stronger than all the suitors, so that he could send someone shamefully out of the house, for the evils they plot. The suitors laugh and drop their anger at Telemachus, and Eumaeus carries the bow through the hall and puts it in Odysseus's hands. He calls Eurycleia and passes on Telemachus's order to bar the doors of the hall; she is speechless and bars them. Philoetius slips out in silence, bars the courtyard and ties it shut with a papyrus rope from a ship, then comes back in, sits down, and watches Odysseus.
Odysseus examines the bow from every side, to see whether woodworm has eaten the horns during the master's absence. The suitors remark: he must be a lover of bows and a bow thief, perhaps he has one like it at home or wants to make one; another wishes the beggar the same fate he will meet in trying to string it. Odysseus, after taking up and examining the bow, strings it like a man who knows the lyre: he stretches the cord around a new peg, without effort. He tests the string with his right hand, and it sounds like a swallow. Pain comes to the suitors, and the color drains from their faces; Zeus thunders a sign, and Odysseus rejoices. He takes an arrow that lies on the table, bare, while the others are inside the quiver, and shoots from his seat on the bench, aiming, missing none of the axes; the bronze arrow passes straight through and out the door. He tells Telemachus: the guest does not shame him, he has hit the mark, he has not tired of stringing the bow, his strength is intact, contrary to what the suitors said when they scorned him. Now is the time to prepare the Achaeans' supper while there is light, and afterward to amuse themselves with song and lyre. He signals with his eyebrows, and Telemachus girds on his sharp sword, takes his spear, and stands beside his father's throne, dressed in gleaming bronze.
Analysis
The bow measures each man in his own way. Telemachus falls just short and is held back by his father; Leodes fails with soft hands and would rather die than keep trying; Eurymachus fails and fears the shame; Antinous puts it off. Around the bow, the song decides above all who rules the house: Penelope proposes the prize, Telemachus takes the word about the bow, and Odysseus passes from beggar to archer without telling the suitors his name.
The song also prepares the shift of scene. The revelation to the two servants and the plan to bar the doors come before the feat, and the bow that Penelope brings in tears is the same one that will serve the slaughter. In the middle of it, the poem tells how Iphitus was killed at his host's table, and the story sets violated hospitality beside the bow that Odysseus kept as a memento of a guest.
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