e.

The Slaying of the Wooers

I

Stripping off his rags, and girding them round his waist, Odysseus
took the quiver, and poured out all the arrows on the ground at his
feet. "Now guide my hand, Apollo," he cried, "and make sure mine aim,
for this time I will shoot at a mark which never man hit before."

Therewith he bent his bow again, and pointed the arrow at Antinous,
who just at that moment was raising a full goblet of wine to his lips.
Little thought that proud and insolent man, as the wine gleamed red
before him, that he had tasted his last morsel, and drunk his last
drop. He was in the prime of his manhood, surrounded by his friends,
and in the midst of a joyous revel; who would dream of death and doom
in such an hour? Yet at that very instant he felt a sharp, sudden
pang, and fell back in his seat, pierced through the throat by the
arrow of Odysseus. The blood poured from his nostrils, he let fall the
cup, and spurning the table with his feet in his agony he overset it,
and the bread and meat were scattered on the floor.

Then arose a wild clamour and uproar among the wooers, and starting
from their seats they sought eagerly for the weapons which were wont
to hang along the walls; but not a spear, not a shield, was to be
seen. Finding themselves thus baffled, they turned furiously on
Odysseus, shouting, "Down with the knave!" "Hew him in pieces!" "Fling
his carcass to the vultures!" As yet they had not recognised him, and
they thought that he had slain Antinous by mischance.

They were soon undeceived. "Ye dogs!" he cried, in a terrible voice,
"long have ye made my house into a den of thieves, thinking that I had
died long ago in a distant land. Ye have devoured my living, and wooed
my wife, and mishandled my servants, having no fear of god or man
before your eyes. But now are ye all fallen into the pit which ye have
digged, and are fast bound in the bonds of death."

Like beaten hounds, that dastardly crew cowered before the man whom
they had wronged, and every heart quaked with fear. Presently
Eurymachus stood forward, and tried to make terms for them all. "If
thou be indeed Odysseus," he said, "thou speakest justly concerning
the evil doings of the wooers. And there lies the cause of the
mischief, Antinous, struck down by thy righteous hand. He it was who
sought to slay Telemachus, that he might usurp thy place, and make
himself king in Ithaca. But now that he is gone to his own place, let
us