Now the goodly swineherd had taken the curved bow and was bearing it, but the wooers all cried out in the halls. And thus would one of the proud youths speak: “Whither, pray, art thou bearing the curved bow, miserable swineherd, thou man distraught? Soon by thy swine, alone and apart from men, shall the swift hounds devour thee—hounds thyself didst rear—if but Apollo be gracious to us, and the other immortal gods.” So they spoke, and he set down the bow, as he bore it, in that very place, seized with fear because many men were crying out aloud in the halls. But Telemachus on the other side called out threateningly: “Father, bear the bow onward—soon shalt thou rue giving heed to all— lest, younger though I am, I drive thee to the field, and pelt thee with stones; for in strength I am the better. I would that I were even so much better in strength and might than all the wooers that are in the house; then would I soon send many a one forth from our house to go his way in evil case; for they devise wickedness.” So he spoke, but all the wooers laughed merrily at him, and relaxed the bitterness of their anger against Telemachus. Howbeit the swineherd bore the bow through the hall, and came up to wise Odysseus, and put it in his hands.
Then he called forth the nurse Eurycleia, and said to her: “Telemachus bids thee, wise Eurycleia, to bar the close-fitting doors of the hall, and if any of the women hear within groanings or the din of men within our walls, let them not rush out, but remain where they are in silence at their work.” So he spoke, but her word remained unwinged; and she barred the doors of the stately halls. But in silence Philoetius hastened forth from the house, and barred the gates of the well-fenced court. Now there lay beneath the portico the cable of a curved ship, made of byblus plant, wherewith he made fast the gates, and then himself went within. Thereafter he came and sat down on the seat from which he had risen, and gazed upon Odysseus; now he was already handling the bow, turning it round and round, and trying it this way and that, lest worms might have eaten the horns, while its lord was afar. And thus would one speak with a glance at his neighbor: “Verily he has a shrewd eye, and is a cunning knave with a bow. It may be haply that he has himself such bows stored away at home, or else he is minded to make one, that he thus turns it this way and that in his hands, the rascally vagabond.”
And again another of the proud youths would say: “Would that the fellow might find profit in just such measure as he shall prove able ever to string this bow.” So spoke the wooers, but Odysseus of many wiles, as soon as he had lifted the great bow and scanned it on every side—even as when a man well-skilled in the lyre and in song easily stretches the string about a new peg, making fast at either end the twisted sheep-gut—so without effort did Odysseus string the great bow. And he held it in his right hand, and tried the string, which sang sweetly beneath his touch, like to a swallow in tone. But upon the wooers came great grief, and the faces of them changed color, and Zeus thundered loud, shewing forth his signs. Then glad at heart was the much-enduring, goodly Odysseus that the son of crooked-counselling Cronos sent him an omen, and he took up a swift arrow, which lay by him on the table, bare, but the others were stored within the hollow quiver, even those of which the Achaeans were soon to taste. This he took, and laid upon the bridge of the bow, and drew the bow-string and the notched arrow even from the chair where he sat, and let fly the shaft with sure aim, and did not miss the end of the handle of one of the axes, but clean through and out at the end passed the arrow weighted with bronze. But he spoke to Telemachus, saying: “Telemachus, the stranger that sits in thy halls brings no shame upon thee, nor in any wise did I miss the mark, or labour long in stringing the bow; still is my strength unbroken—not as the wooers scornfully taunt me. But now it is time that supper too be made ready for the Achaeans, while yet there is light, and thereafter must yet other sport be made with song and with the lyre; for these things are the accompaniments of a feast.” He spoke, and made a sign with his brows, and Telemachus, the dear son of divine Odysseus, girt about him his sharp sword, and took his spear in his grasp, and stood by the chair at his father's side, armed with gleaming bronze.
Cite This Text