Telemachus; and lord Antinous, as the chief among the suitors, had the
first offer; and he took the bow, and, fitting an arrow to the string, he
strove to bend it, but not with all his might and main could he once draw
together the ends of that tough bow; and when he found how vain a thing it
was to endeavour to draw Ulysses's bow, he desisted, blushing for shame
and for mere anger. Then Eurymachus adventured, but with no better
success; but as it had torn the hands of Antinous, so did the bow tear and
strain his hands, and marred his delicate fingers, yet could he not once
stir the string. Then called he to the attendants to bring fat and
unctuous matter, which melting at the fire, he dipped the bow therein,
thinking to supple it and make it more pliable; but not with all the helps
of art could he succeed in making it to move. After him Liodes, and
Amphinomus, and Polybus, and Eurynomus, and Polyctorides essayed their
strength, but not any one of them, or of the rest of those aspiring
suitors, had any better luck; yet not the meanest of them there but
thought himself well worthy of Ulysses's wife, though to shoot with
Ulysses's bow the completest champion among them was by proof found too
feeble.
Then Ulysses prayed that he might have leave to try; and immediately a
clamour was raised among the suitors, because of his petition, and they
scorned and swelled with rage at his presumption, and that a beggar should
seek to contend in a game of such noble mastery. But Telemachus ordered
that the bow should be given him, and that he should have leave to try,
since they had failed; "for," he said, "the bow is mine, to give or to
withhold;" and none durst gainsay the prince.
Then Ulysses gave a sign to his son, and he commanded the doors of the
hall to be made fast, and all wondered at his words, but none could divine
the cause. And Ulysses took the bow into his hands, and before he essayed
to bend it, he surveyed it at all parts, to see whether, by long lying by,
it had contracted any stiffness which hindered the drawing; and as he was
busied in the curious surveying of his bow, some of the suitors mocked
him, and said, "Past doubt this man is a right cunning archer, and knows
his craft well. See how he turns it over and over, and looks into it, as
if he could see through the wood." And others said, "We wish some one
would tell out gold into our laps but for so long a time as he shall be in
drawing of that string." But when he had spent some little time in making
proof of the bow, and had found it to be in good plight, like as a harper
in tuning of his harp draws out a string, with such ease or much more did
Ulysses draw to the head the string of his own tough bow, and in letting
of it go, it twanged with such a shrill noise as a swallow makes when it
sings through the air; which so much amazed the suitors that their colours
came and went, and the skies gave out a noise of thunder, which at heart
cheered Ulysses, for he knew that now his long labours by the disposal of
the Fates drew to an end. Then fitted he an arrow to the bow, and drawing
it to the head, he sent it right to the mark which the prince had set up.
Which done, he said to Telemachus, "You have got no disgrace yet by your
guest, for I have struck the mark I shot at, and gave myself no such
trouble in teasing the bow with fat and fire as these men did, but have
made proof that my strength is not impaired, nor my age so weak and
contemptible as these were pleased to think it. But come, the day going
down calls us to supper, after which succeed poem and harp, and all
delights which use to crown princely banquetings."
So saying, he beckoned to his son, who straight girt his sword to his
side, and took one of the lances (of which there lay great store from the
armoury) in his hand, and armed at all points advanced towards his father.
The upper rags which Ulysses wore fell from his shoulder, and his own
kingly likeness returned, when he rushed to the great hall door with bow
and quiver full of shafts, which down at his feet he poured, and in bitter
words presignified his deadly intent to the suitors. "Thus far," he said,
"this contest has been decided harmless: now for us there rests another
mark, harder to hit, but which my hands shall essay notwithstanding, if
Phoebus, god of archers, be pleased to give me the mastery." With that he
let fly a deadly arrow at Antinous, which pierced him in the throat, as he
was in the act of lifting a cup of wine to his mouth. Amazement seized the
suitors, as their great champion fell dead, and they raged highly against
Ulysses, and said that it should prove the dearest shaft which he ever let
fly, for he had slain a man whose like breathed not in any part of the
kingdom; and they flew to their arms, and would have seized the lances,
but Minerva struck them with dimness of sight that they went erring up and
down the hall, not knowing where to find them. Yet so infatuated were they
by the displeasure of Heaven that they did not see the imminent peril
which impended over them, but every man believed that this accident had
happened beside the intention of the doer. Fools! to think by shutting
their eyes to evade destiny, or that any other cup remained for them but
that which their great Antinous had tasted!
Then Ulysses revealed himself to all in that presence, and that he was the
man whom they held to be dead at Troy, whose palace they had usurped,
whose wife in his lifetime they had sought in impious marriage, and that
for this reason destruction was come upon them. And he dealt his deadly
arrows among them, and there was no avoiding him, nor escaping from his
horrid person; and Telemachus by his side plied them thick with those
murderous lances from which there was no retreat, till fear itself made
them valiant, and danger gave them eyes to understand the peril; then they
which had swords drew them, and some with shields, that could find them,
and some with tables and benches snatched up in haste, rose in a mass to
overwhelm and crush those two; yet they singly bestirred themselves like
men, and defended themselves against that great host, and through tables,
shields, and all, right through the arrows of Ulysses clove, and the
irresistible lances of Telemachus; and many lay dead, and all had wounds,
and Minerva in the likeness of a bird sat upon the beam which went across
the hall, clapping her wings with a fearful noise; and sometimes the great
bird would fly among them, cuffing at the swords and at the lances, and up
and down the hall would go, beating her wings, and troubling everything,
that it was frightful to behold, and it frayed the blood from the cheeks
of those heaven-hated suitors; but to Ulysses and his son she appeared in
her own divine similitude, with her snake-fringed shield, a goddess armed,
fighting their battles. Nor did that dreadful pair desist till they had
laid all their foes at their feet. At their feet they lay in shoals: like
fishes, when the fishermen break up their nets, so they lay gasping and
sprawling at the feet of Ulysses and his son. And Ulysses remembered the
prediction of Tiresias, which said that he was to perish by his own
guests, unless he slew those who knew him not.
[Illustration: _Rose in a mass to overwhelm and crush those two_.]
Then certain of the queen's household went up and told Penelope what had
happened, and how her lord Ulysses was come home, and had slain the
suitors. But she gave no heed to their words, but thought that some frenzy
possessed them, or that they mocked her; for it is the property of such
extremes of sorrow as she had felt not to believe when any great joy
cometh. And she rated and chid them exceedingly for troubling her. But
they the more persisted in their asseverations of the truth of what they
had affirmed; and some of them had seen the slaughtered bodies of the
suitors dragged forth of the hall. And they said, "That poor guest whom
you talked with last night was Ulysses." Then she was yet more fully
persuaded that they mocked her, and she wept. But they said, "This thing
is true which we have told. We sat within, in an inner room in the palace,
and the doors of the hall were shut on us, but we heard the cries and the
groans of the men that were killed, but saw nothing, till at length your
son called to us to come in, and entering we saw Ulysses standing in the
midst of the slaughtered." But she, persisting in her unbelief, said that
it was some god which had deceived them to think it was the person of
Ulysses.
By this time Telemachus and his father had cleansed their hands from the
slaughter, and were come to where the queen was talking with those of her
household; and when she saw Ulysses, she stood motionless, and had no
power to speak, sudden surprise and joy and fear and many passions so
strove within her. Sometimes she was clear that it was her husband that
she saw, and sometimes the alteration which twenty years had made in his
person (yet that was not much) perplexed her that she knew not what to
think, and for joy she could not believe, and yet for joy she would not
but believe; and, above all, that sudden change from a beggar to a king
troubled her, and wrought uneasy scruples in her mind. But Telemachus,
seeing her strangeness, blamed her, and called her an ungentle and
tyrannous mother; and said that she showed a too great curiousness of
modesty, to abstain from embracing his father, and to have doubts of his
person, when to all present it was evident that he was the very real and
true Ulysses.
Then she mistrusted no longer, but ran and fell upon Ulysses's neck, and
said, "Let not my husband be angry, that I held off so long with strange
delays; it is the gods, who severing us for so long time, have caused this
unseemly distance in me. If Menelaus's wife had used half my caution, she
would never have taken so freely to a stranger's bed; and she might have
spared us all these plagues which have come upon us through her shameless
deed."
These words with which Penelope excused herself wrought more affection in
Ulysses than if upon a first sight she had given up herself implicitly to
his embraces; and he wept for joy to possess a wife so discreet, so
answering to his own staid mind, that had a depth of wit proportioned to
his own, and one that held chaste virtue at so high a price; and he
thought the possession of such a one cheaply purchased with the loss of
all Circe's delights and Calypso's immortality of joys; and his long
labours and his severe sufferings past seemed as nothing, now they were
crowned with the enjoyment of his virtuous and true wife Penelope. And as
sad men at sea whose ship has gone to pieces nigh shore, swimming for
their lives, all drenched in foam and brine, crawl up to some poor patch
of land, which they take possession of with as great a joy as if they had
the world given them in fee, with such delight did this chaste wife cling
to her lord restored, till the dark night fast coming on reminded her of
that more intimate and happy union when in her long-widowed bed she should
once again clasp a living Ulysses.
So from that time the land had rest from the suitors. And the happy
Ithacans with songs and solemn sacrifices of praise to the gods celebrated
the return of Ulysses; for he that had been so long absent was returned to
wreak the evil upon the heads of the doers; in the place where they had
done the evil, there wreaked he his vengeance upon them.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Adventures of Ulysses, by Charles Lamb