85-128^[1] Antinous justifies the Suitors’ behaviour

“Telemachus, great orator and bold spirit,^[2] how you put us to shame, pinning the blame on us! Yet it is not the Achaean Suitors who are at fault, but your own mother, cleverest of women. Three years, almost four, she has misled our Achaean hearts. She holds out hope to all, sends messages of promise to every man, but her mind is fixed on other things. She contrived this piece of cunning, too, in her mind: she set up a great web^[3] in her hall, and began weaving with long fine thread. She said to us: ‘My lords, my Suitors, though Odysseus is dead and you are eager for me to marry, have patience till I complete this work, I do not want it wasted, this shroud^[4] for noble Laertes, ready for when pitiless death’s cruel end overtakes him: since I fear some Achaean woman of this land would blame me, if he who won great wealth lay there without a shroud.’

So she said, and though proud we agreed. Then day after day she wove the great web, but at night, by torchlight, she unmade it. So for three years she cunningly kept the Achaeans from knowing, and so tricked them. But when the fourth year began, as the seasons rolled by, one of her women, knowing all, told us, and we caught her unravelling its fineness. Then she was forced, unwillingly, to complete it.

Here is the Suitors’ answer, for you and the Achaeans to keep clearly in mind: order your mother to marry whomever her father dictates, or whoever pleases her, but send her away. As long as she continues to frustrate the young Achaeans – given her mental powers that Athene granted her above other women, her knowledge in skilful work, sound sense, and intelligence such as we never heard of women of old, Tyro, Alcmene, or Mycene, of the lovely crown, none of them equal to Penelope in clever schemes, though this one was wrongly devised – so long will men consume your goods and livelihood, as long in other words as she keeps to this plan the gods suggest. She is winning great fame for herself, but brings to you regret for your vanishing wealth. And we will not go to our own estates, or anywhere else, until she marries whichever of the Achaeans she chooses.”

129-176: The Eagles’ omen, Halitherses prophesies

Wise Telemachus replied: “Antinous, there is no way I would drive the mother that bore me, and reared me, from my house against her will, while my father perhaps still lives in some far land. It would be wrong for me to repay the bride price to Icarius,^[5] as I must if I choose to send my mother away. I would suffer at her father’s hands, and the gods would send other sufferings, since my mother would call to the avenging Furies on leaving, and men would blame me. I will never command it. If you are angered about all this then leave the palace, and feast elsewhere, move from house to house, and eat your own provisions. If it seems preferable, more profitable to you, to waste one man’s estate without restitution, then do so, but I meanwhile will call on the eternal gods hoping that Zeus might grant a day of reckoning. Then you will be wasted in my halls, without restitution.”

So Telemachus spoke, and Far-Seeing Zeus sent out two eagles from a high mountain peak.^[6] They flew for a while with outspread wings, side by side in the currents of air, but when they were above the voice-filled assembly they swiftly slanted their wings, circling round, gazing down on the heads below, and death was in their gaze. Then they clawed at each other’s head and neck with their talons, and soared away eastward over the roofs of the town. The people saw them and wondered, and considered what this might foreshadow. Then the old hero Halitherses, Mastor’s son, spoke out, for he was the wisest man of his day in bird-lore and prophecy. With goodwill in his heart he addressed the assembly:

“Men of Ithaca, listen to me: and I say these words to the Suitors especially, since disaster approaches them. Odysseus will not be far from his friends much longer, and I believe even now he is near, sowing the seeds of dark death for all these men. Yes, and he will bring trouble to many another of us, who live in clear-skied Ithaca. Let us think in advance how we might prevent all this, or let them prevent it of their own accord, easily their best option. I am not unskilled in prophecy, but have true knowledge. I say that all things for that man will be fulfilled, just as I told him when the Argives sailed for Troy, he among them, resourceful Odysseus. I declared that, suffering many troubles, losing all comrades, he would return in the twentieth year, unknown to all: and now it is coming to pass.”

378-432: Eurycleia denounces the disloyal women

[ ... ] Odysseus too was gazing round the hall to see if any survivors were hiding, trying to escape their dark fate. But he saw that the whole crowd lay covered with blood and dust, like fish, enmeshed in a net^[7] the fishermen have dragged from the grey tide, onto the shore of the bay. There they all lie heaped on the sand, gasping for salt water, while the hot sun takes their life. So the Suitors lay there, piled on one another.

Then resourceful Odysseus spoke to his son: “Telemachus, call Eurycleia, the nurse,^[8] here so I can give her my orders.” Telemachus quickly obeyed his brave father, and rattling the door, shouted to Eurycleia: “Get up, old woman, and come here. You are in charge of the serving-women in this palace.^[9] My father has something to say to you. Come, to his call.”

She gave no reply but opened the doors of the great hall at once, and followed Telemachus. She found Odysseus standing among the corpses, spattered with blood and gore, like a lion come from feeding on a farm bullock, his face and chest drenched with blood, a gruesome spectacle. Odysseus was stained like that from head to foot. Yet she, on seeing the pile of bodies weltering in their blood, was ready to shout aloud in exultation at what had been done. Nevertheless Odysseus restrained her eagerness, and spoke to her winged words: “Old woman, feel joy in your heart, but control yourself, don’t shout it out. It is impious to rejoice at the sight of dead men. These men were destroyed by the gods and their own wicked deeds, respecting no one on earth, noble or base, who mingled with them. So by their foolish indulgence they brought on their shameful death. Now, though, name me the women in the halls, and say which ones are faithless and which are innocent.”

Then loyal Eurycleia replied: “I will tell you it all as it is, my child. You have fifty women serving the palace that we trained to slave away at their duties, and carding the wool. Twelve of them behaved shamelessly, without respect for Penelope or for me. Telemachus is only now a man, and his mother would not let him command the women. But let me run to the shining room above, and carry the news to your wife, whom some god has lulled to sleep.”

But resourceful Odysseus replied: “Don’t wake her yet. First, tell the women who behaved shamelessly to come here.”

433-501 Telemachus executes the serving-women

With this, the old woman went through the hall to tell the women the news and order them to appear, while Odysseus called Telemachus, and the cowherd and swineherd, to him, and spoke with winged words: “Begin carrying out the bodies and tell the women to help, then sponge down the tables and good chairs. When the hall is straight, lead the women out of the house to the place between the round house and the solid wall of the court, and let your long sword take their lives, and their memories of the secret delights of Aphrodite among the Suitors.”

He spoke. Then the women flocked in together, weeping and wailing loudly. They carried the corpses out, and set them down under the portico of the walled yard, propping one against another. Odysseus himself commanded them, and urged them on, forcing them to the work. Then they sponged the tables and good chairs clean. Telemachus, and the cowherd and swineherd scraped the floors of the great hall with spades, and the women threw the refuse outdoors. But when they had set the hall in order, they lead the women out of the great hall to the place between the round house and the solid wall of the court, and penned them up in that narrow space from which none could escape. Then wise Telemachus spoke: “These women who poured scorn on my mother’s head and mine, while they slept with the Suitors, shall not die cleanly.”

So saying, he took a cable from a dark-prowed ship, tied it to a tall pillar, high-up, and noosed it over the round house, so that their feet would not reach the ground. The row of women held up their heads, and the rope was looped round their necks so they might die pitiably, like long-winged thrushes or doves, that are caught in a snare as they try to roost in their thicket, and are welcomed to a grimmer nest. For a little while their feet twitched: but not for long.

Next they dragged Melanthius through the door and into the yard, cut off his nose and ears with the cruel bronze, ripped away his genitals as raw meat for the dogs, and lopped off his hands and feet in their deep anger. Finally, after washing their feet and hands, they returned to Odysseus with the business done.

Odysseus himself spoke to Eurycleia, his faithful nurse: “Old woman, bring some sulphur, and make a fire, so I can purge the hall from this pollution. And tell Penelope and her maids to come here, and all the palace women.”

“My child,” the loyal nurse replied, “all you say is fitting. But let me bring you a tunic and cloak to wear. It would be wrong to stand there in your hall with your broad shoulders clothed in rags.”

Resourceful Odysseus answered: “Let me have that fire in the hall first.” Eurycleia, the loyal nurse, obeyed, and brought sulphur and made a fire. Then Odysseus purged the hall, the yard and the whole palace thoroughly.

The old woman went away then, back through the royal palace, to carry the news to the women and tell them to appear. Out of their hall they ran with torches in their hands. They crowded round Odysseus and embraced him. They clasped his head and shoulders and hands, and kissed them in loving welcome, so that a sweet desire to weep seized him, because he remembered them all in his heart.

1-84: Eurycleia tells Penelope the news

The old woman clambered upstairs,^[10] chuckling aloud as she went, to tell her mistress her beloved husband was home. Her knees were working away, though she tottered as she went. She stood at the head of the bed and spoke to her lady, saying: “Penelope, dear child, wake and see with your own eyes what you’ve longed for all this time. Odysseus is here, he is home after so many years. He has killed all the proud Suitors who plagued the house, wasted his stores, and bullied his son.”

Then wise Penelope woke and answered: “My dear nurse, the gods who can make fools of the wisest, and give insight to the simple-minded, have crazed you and led your wits astray, you who were always so sensible. Why do you mock me, whose heart is full of tears, with this mad tale? You woke me from sleep, sweet sleep that closed my eyelids and wrapped me round. Never have I slept so sound, since Odysseus sailed to [Troy] the Evil that it would be better not to name. Go downstairs again, back to the servant’s hall! If any other of my women had woken me to tell me this, I’d have sent her back there with a flea in her ear, but your old age spares you.”

“Dear child, I wouldn’t mock you,” faithful Eurycleia replied, “it is true, Odysseus is here, he is home, just as I said. He’s the stranger they all insulted in the hall. Telemachus knew long ago he was here, but he managed to keep his father’s plans hidden, till he could revenge himself on those violent and arrogant men.”

At this, Penelope leapt from her bed in joy, and threw her arms about the old woman, with tears springing from her eyes. Then she spoke to her with winged words: “Dear Nurse, come now, tell me truly, if it really is him come home as you say: how could he tackle the shameless Suitors single-handedly, with them always crowding in the house in a pack?”

“I couldn’t see and didn’t ask, but I still heard the groans of dying men,” loyal Eurycleia replied. “We women sat there, terror-stricken, in the furthest depths of our thick-walled quarters, with the doors shut tight, until the moment when your son called to me from the hall, as his father had told him. There I found Odysseus standing over the corpses, lying piled around him on the solid floor. It would have gladdened your heart to see him: all spattered with blood and gore like a lion he was. Now the dead are heaped together at the courtyard gate, and he has had a great fire made, and is purifying our fine house. He sent me to call you, so come with me now, so your hearts may rejoice together, you who have known such suffering. What you long desired has happened at last. He has come home, alive, to his own hearth, to find you and his son here in the palace, and in his own house again he has taken revenge on the Suitors who did him harm.”

But cautious Penelope replied: “Dear nurse, don’t exult over them so soon. How welcome the sight of Odysseus here would be to everyone, above all to me and our son, you know. But this tale must be false. Surely one of the gods has killed the noble Suitors in anger, enraged by the depths of their insolence and their wickedness. They showed respect to never a man on this earth whether those they met were good or evil. So now they have suffered for their own foolish excess. Odysseus though has lost his life far away, and with it the chance of his coming home.”

“My child,” the loyal nurse replied, “what are you saying? That your husband will never return, when he’s here at his own hearth! You never believe a thing! Well, let me tell you of something else that proves it: the scar from the wound the wild boar’s white tusk gave him long ago. I saw it when I washed his feet, and wanted to tell you then, but he clapped his hand over my mouth, and refused to let me speak. Come with me now. I’ll stake my life on it, and if I lie deal me a cruel death.”

“Dear nurse,” cautious Penelope replied: “wise though you are you cannot fathom the minds of the immortal gods. But, let us go to my son, so I can see the bodies of the Suitors, and the man who killed them.”

85-140: Penelope’s uncertainty

So saying, she left her room, and went downstairs, considering whether to remain distant, and question the man who was said to be her dear husband, or whether to approach him, clasp his head and hands and kiss them. But when she had crossed the stone sill, she sat down by the far wall in the firelight, opposite Odysseus, while he sat by a tall pillar, his eyes on the ground, waiting to see if his wife would speak as she looked at him. She sat there silently for a long time, wondering, gazing intently at his face: often failing to recognise this man dressed in foul rags. Then it was that Telemachus spoke his criticism of her behaviour: “My mother, un-motherly and hard-hearted, why do you distance yourself from my father like this, instead of sitting by his side, plying him with questions? No other woman would steel her heart like this, and sit apart from a husband who had just returned to her and his native land, after twenty years of bitter toil. But your heart is always harder than flint.”

“My child,” cautious Penelope answered, “my mind is lost in wonder, and I feel powerless to speak and question him, or even look long at his face. But if it is really Odysseus come home, we two have a better way of recognising one another, because there are secret tokens that only the two of us know.” And noble long-suffering Odysseus smiled at this, and spoke to Telemachus winged words: “Telemachus, leave your mother to put me to the proof, in this, her house: she will soon be enlightened. For now, since I’m covered in dust, and dressed in rags, she thinks me unworthy and won’t concede I am Odysseus. But let us consider what to do for the best. Whatever the country, whoever kills even a single man, even one that dead leaves few behind to avenge him, must go into exile, abandoning his native land and kin, while we have killed the noblest youth of Ithaca, the core of its defence. Take thought of that.”

“Do you take thought, dear father,” wise Telemachus replied, “since they say you are the most resourceful of men, without a mortal equal. We are eager to follow you, and I know we won’t fail to support you to the best of our powers.”

Resourceful Odysseus answered him, saying: “Then I’ll tell you the plan that seems best to me. Bathe first, and dress, and order the palace servants to choose fresh clothes. Then let the divine minstrel play us a lively dance on his sweet-toned lyre, so that anyone outside who hears, neighbour or passer-by, will take it for a marriage feast. That way there’ll be no rumour of the Suitors’ deaths put abroad in the town, before we can reach our densely-wooded farm. Once there we can plan to take advantage of whatever the Olympians send us.”

141-204: The Marriage-Bed

They listened readily to his orders and obeyed. The men bathed and dressed, while the women adorned themselves. The divine minstrel took up his sounding lyre and stirred their desire for sweet music and pleasant dance. The great hall echoed to the footsteps of dancing men, and elegantly dressed women, and hearing the noise outside passers-by said: “Ah, surely someone has married our much-wooed Queen. She was too hard-hearted to tend her husband’s great palace to the end, in hopes of his return.” So they talked, not knowing what was really happening.

Meanwhile the housekeeper, Eurynome, bathed great-hearted Odysseus, there in the house, rubbed him with oil, and dressed him in a fine tunic and cloak. Athene then clothed him in beauty, making him seem taller and stronger, and making the locks of his hair spring up thickly like hyacinth petals. As a clever craftsman, taught his art by Hephaestus and…Athene, overlays silver with gold to produce a graceful finish, so the goddess graced his head and shoulders. He left the bath looking like an immortal. Then he returned to the chair, opposite his wife, and spoke to her, saying: “Lady, you must have been touched by the Olympian gods: they have given you a harder heart than any other woman, one that nothing can soften. No other woman would steel her heart like this, and sit apart from a husband who had just returned to her and his native land, after twenty years of bitter toil. Come, Eurycleia, make me up a bed to sleep in alone, since my wife’s heart is as hard as iron.”

And cautious Penelope answered: “Sir, you must have been touched by those same gods. I am not proud and scornful of you, nor am I confused. I know well how you looked when you sailed from Ithaca in your long-oared ship. Come then, Eurycleia, and have the great bed dragged from the fine bridal chamber he built himself, and cover it with rugs and fleeces and brightly coloured blankets.”

These were words to test her husband. But Odysseus, angered, rounded on his loyal wife: “Lady, those are truly bitter words you speak. Who has moved my bed? That would be hard, even with the greatest skill, unless perhaps some god arrived who could easily choose to set it down somewhere else. But no mortal man alive however young and strong could easily shift it from its place, since a great secret went into its making, and it was my work and mine alone. A long-leafed olive tree, strong and vigorous, and thick as a pillar, grew in the courtyard. I built my room of solid stone around it, finished it off with a fine roof, and added tight-fitting timber doors. I trimmed the trunk from the roots up, after cutting off all the long-leaved olive branches, smoothed it off skilfully and well, and trued it to the line: that was my bedpost. I drilled holes with the auger,^[11] and with this for its beginning fitted all the smooth timbers of my bed until it was complete. I inlaid it with ivory, silver and gold, and stretched shining purple straps of ox-hide across.^[12] That was its secret, as I say: but lady, I no longer know if the bed I made is still in place. Perhaps some man has chopped through the olive-trunk, and shifted it elsewhere.”

205-246: Penelope is convinced^[13]

As he spoke, revealing the unchanged truth she knew, her knees gave way and her heart melted. Bursting into tears she ran to Odysseus, flung her arms about his neck, and kissing his face cried: “Odysseus, don’t be angry with me, you who in everything were always the most understanding of men. Our sorrows came from the gods, who begrudged our enjoying our youth and reaching old age together. Don’t be angry, or upset, because I didn’t give you this welcome the moment I saw you. My heart was always full of fear that some man would come and cheat me with words. Many men are only out for profit. Helen [ ... ] Zeus’ daughter, would never have slept with a stranger from abroad, if she’d known the warrior sons of Achaea would come to fetch her home. A god it was truly that drove her to commit that act of shame: only then did she contemplate the fatal madness that brought us, too, such sorrow. Now you have told me the true secret of our marriage bed, that no other mortal knew but you and I and a single maidservant, Actoris, who was my father’s gift before I came to you, and guarded the door of our fine bridal chamber^[14] – Now, you convince my stubborn heart.”

Her words stirred his heart to a greater longing for tears: and he wept, clasping his beloved, loyal wife in his arms. As welcome as the sight of land to the few surviving sailors, who swim to shore escaping the grey breakers, when their solid vessel driven over the sea by wind and towering waves has been shattered by Poseidon, who, saved from drowning, are overjoyed when their brine-caked bodies touch the land: welcome as that was the sight of her husband, as Penelope gazed at him, never unwinding her white arms from round his neck.

Rosy-fingered Dawn would have risen while they wept, if the bright-eyed goddess Athene had not thought otherwise. She held back the long night at its ending, and golden-throned Dawn by Ocean’s stream, not letting her yoke the swift-hoofed horses ... the colts that draw her chariot, bringing light to men ...