at
you,--dogs you yourself have bred,--will but Apollo and the other
deathless Gods be gracious!" At these their words the bearer of the bow
laid it down where he stood, frightened because the crowd within the hall
cried out upon him. But from the other side Telemachus called threatening
aloud, "Nay, father! Carry on the bow! You cannot well heed all. Take
care, or I, a nimbler man than you, will drive you to the fields with
pelting stones. Superior in strength I am to you. Ah, would I were as much
beyond the others in the house, beyond these suitors, in my skill and
strength of arm! Then would I soon send somebody away in sorrow from my
house; for men work evil here."

He spoke, and all burst into merry laughter and laid aside their bitter
anger with Telemachus. And so the swineherd, bearing the bow along the
hall, drew near to wise Ulysses and put it in his hands; then calling
aside nurse Eurycleia, thus he said,--

"Telemachus bids you, heedful Eurycleia, to lock the hall's close-fitting
doors; and if a woman from the inner room hears moaning or a strife within
our walls, let her not venture forth, but stay in silence at her work."

Such were his words; unwinged, they rested with her. She locked the doors
of the stately hall. Then silently from the house Philoetius stole forth
and straightway barred the gates of the fenced court. Beneath the portico
there lay a curved ship's cable, made of biblus plant. With this he lashed
the gates, then passed indoors himself, and went and took the seat from
which he first arose, eyeing Ulysses. Now Ulysses already held the bow and
turned it round and round, trying it here and there to see if worms had
gnawed the horn while its lord was far away. And glancing at his neighbor
one would say,--

"A sort of fancier and a trickster with the bow this fellow is. No doubt
at home he has himself a bow like that, or means to make one like it. See
how he turns it in his hands this way and that, ready for
mischief,--rascal!"

Then would another rude youth answer thus: "Oh, may he always meet with
luck as good as when he is unable now to bend the bow!"

So talked the suitors. Meantime wise Ulysses, when he had handled the
great bow and scanned it closely,--even as one well skilled to play the
lyre and sing stretches with ease round its new peg a string, securing at
each end the twisted sheep-gut, so without effort did Ulysses string the
mighty bow. Holding it now with his right hand, he t