tructed thee to do this. But delay no longer the contest of the bow.
Let it be to-morrow.'

'Is that thy counsel, O stranger?' said Penelope.

'It is my counsel,' said Odysseus.

'I thank thee for thy counsel,' she said. 'And now farewell, for I must
go to my rest. And do thou lie down in the vestibule, in the bed that
has been made for thee.'

So Penelope spoke, and then she went to her chamber with her
handmaidens. And in her bed she thought over all the stranger had told
her of Odysseus, and she wept again for him.

XIII

All night Odysseus lay awake, tossing this side and that, as he pondered
on how he might slay the wooers, and save his house from them. As soon
as the dawn came, he went into the open air and, lifting up his hands,
prayed to Zeus, the greatest of the gods, that he might be shown some
sign, as to whether he would win victory or meet with defeat.

And then, as he was going within the house, he heard the voice of a
woman who ground barley-meal between stones. She was one of twelve, but
the other women had fallen asleep by the quern-stones. She was an
ancient, wretched woman, covered all over with the dust of the grain,
and, as Odysseus came near her, she lifted up her hands and prayed in a
weak voice:

'O Zeus, even for miserable me, fulfil a prayer! May this be the last
day that the wooers make their feast in the house of Odysseus! They have
loosened my knees with the cruel toil they have made me undergo,
grinding for them the barley for the bread they eat. O Zeus, may they
to-day sup their last!'

Thus the quern-woman spoke, as Odysseus crossed his threshold. He was
glad of her speech, for it seemed to him her words were an omen from
Zeus, and that vengeance would soon be wrought upon the proud and
hard-hearted men who wasted the goods of the house and oppressed the
servants.

And now the maids came into the hall from the women's apartment, and
some cleaned the tables and others took pitchers and went to the well
for water. Then men-servants came in and split the fagots for the fire.
Other servants came into the courtyard--Eumaeus the swineherd, driving
fatted swine, the best of his drove, and Philoetius the cattle-herd
bringing a calf. The goatherd Melanthius, him whom Odysseus and Eumaeus
had met on the road the day before, also came, bringing the best goats
of his flock to be killed for the wooers' feast.

When the cattle-herd, Philoetius, saw a stranger in the guise of a
be