I
The time had now arrived for the great trial of strength and skill of
which Penelope had spoken, and which was to decide deeper and deadlier
issues than those of marriage. Among the treasures which Odysseus had
left behind him was a famous bow, which he had received as a gift from
Iphitus, son of Eurytus, whom he met in his youth during a visit to
Messene. He who strung this bow, and shot an arrow through a line of
axes set up in the hall, was to be rewarded by the hand of Penelope.
"Mother, it is time!" whispered Telemachus, soon after the departure
of Theoclymenus. Obeying the signal, Penelope, who had been sitting in
the hall listening to the talk of the wooers, left her place, and
ascending a steep staircase made her way to the store-room, which was
situated at the farther end of the house. In her hand she carried a
brazen key with a handle of ivory; and when she came to the door, she
loosened the strap which served to draw the bolt from the outside, and
inserting the key drew back the bolt. The double doors flew open with
a crash, and the treasury with all its wealth was revealed. Great
coffers of cedar-wood lined the walls, filled with fine raiment, which
her own hands had wrought. It was a cool and quiet retreat, dimly
lighted, remote from all rude sounds, full of fragrant odours, and fit
to guard the possessions of a prince. And there, hanging from a pin,
and heedfully wrapped in its case, was seen the fatal bow. She took it
down, and, sitting on one of the coffers, laid it on her knees, and
gazed on it fondly with her eyes full of tears. How often had she seen
it in the hands of Odysseus, when he went forth at sunrise to hunt the
hare and the deer! How often had she taken it from him when he came
back at evening loaded with the spoils of the chase! And now a keen
shaft from this very bow was to cut the last tender chord of memory,
and make her another man's wife!
With a heavy heart she took the bow with its quiver in her hands, and
descending the staircase re-entered the hall, followed by her maidens,
who carried a chest containing the axes.
"Behold the bow, fair sirs!" she said to the wooers, "and behold me,
the prize for this fine feat of archery!" Therewith she gave the bow
to Eumæus, who received it with tears; and Philoetius wept likewise
when he saw the treasured weapon of his lord. These signs of emotion
stirred the anger of Antinous, who rebuked the herdsmen fiercely.
"Peace, fools!" he cried. "Peace, miserable churls! Why pierce ye the
heart of the lady with your howlings? Has she not grief enough
already? Go forth, and howl with the dogs outside, and we will make
trial of the bow; yet me thinks it will be long ere anyone here shall
string it"
"Anyone save thyself, thou wouldst say!" rejoined Telemachus with a
loud laugh. Then, seeing his mother regarding him with gentle
reproach, he added: "Tis strange that I should feel so gay and light
of heart at the moment when I am about to lose my mother. Zeus,
methinks, has turned my brain, and made me laugh when I should weep.
But come, ye bold wooers, which of you will be the first to enter the
lists for this matchless prize, a lady without peer in all the land of
Hellas? Why sit ye thus silent? Must I show you the way? So be it,
then; and if I can bend the bow, and shoot an arrow straight, the
prize shall be mine, and my mother shall abide here in her widowed
state."
So saying he sprang up, flung off his cloak, and laid aside his sword.
And first he made a long shallow trench in the floor of the hall, and
set up the axes with their double heads in a straight line, stamping
down the earth about the handles to make all firm. Then he took the
bow from Eumæus; it was a weighty and powerful weapon, fashioned from
the horns of an ibex, which were firmly riveted into a massive bridge,
and great force was required to string it. Telemachus set the end
against the floor, and strove with all his might to drive the string
into its socket. Three times he tried, and failed; but the fourth
time, making a great effort, he was on the point of succeeding, when
his father nodded to him to desist. "Plague on it!" cried Telemachus,
laying the bow aside with an air of vexation, "must I be called a
poltroon all my life, or is it that I have not yet attained the full
measure of my strength? Let the others now take their turn."
Then one by one the wooers rose up, in the order in which they sat,
and tried to bend the bow. The first to essay it was Leiodes, a
soothsayer, and a man of gentle and godly mind. But he was a soft
liver, unpractised in all manly pastimes, and the bow was like iron in
his white, womanish hands. "I fear that this bow will make an end of
many a bold spirit," he said, little guessing how true his words were
to prove; "for better it were to die than to go away beaten and broken
men, after all the long years of our wooing."
"Fie on thee!" cried Antinous, "thinkest thou that there are no better
men here than thou art? Doubt not that one of those present shall bend
the bow and win the lady." Then he called Melanthius, and bade him
light a fire, and bring a ball of lard to anoint the bow and make it
easier to bend. The lard was brought, and the wooers sat in turn by
the fire, rubbing and anointing the bow, but all to no purpose. Only
Antinous and Eurymachus still held back, each in the full assurance
that he, and none other, had strength to bend the bow.