with drink, and weakened by long habits of
loose indulgence, and not one of their weapons took effect.

"Now hurl ye your spears!" shouted Odysseus, and the four lances flew,
and four wooers bit the dust. At the next discharge from the wooers
Telemachus received a slight wound on the wrist, and Eumaeus was
similarly injured on the shoulder by the spear of the brutal
Ctesippus. A moment after Ctesippus himself was struck down by the
lance of Philoetius, who mocked him as he fell saying: "There is for
the ox-foot which thou didst lately bestow on Odysseus, thou noisy
railer!"

And so the great fight went on, and at every cast of the spear
Odysseus and his men added another to the list of the slain. Seeing
their numbers dwindling fast, the wretched remnant of the wooers lost
heart altogether and huddled together like sheep at the end of the
hall. To complete their discomfiture a terrible voice was suddenly
heard in the air, and a gleam as from a bright shield was seen high up
among the rafters. "Tis Athene herself come to our aid!" cried
Odysseus; "advance, and make an end of them. Athene is on our side!"
Forthwith they all sprang down from the platform and charged the
wooers, of whom some dozen still remained alive. What followed was not
a battle, but a massacre. Like a drove of kine plunging frantically
over a field, tortured by the sting of the hovering gadfly--like a
flock of small birds scattered by the sudden swoop of a falcon--the
panic-stricken wooers fled hither and thither through the hall,
seeking shelter behind pillars and under tables from the blows which
rained upon them. But vain was their flight. In a very short time the
last of that guilty band was sent to his account, and the great act of
vengeance was completed.

II

Like a lion fresh from the slaughter stood Odysseus, leaning on his
spear, and covered with blood from head to foot. As he glared round
him to see if any of his foes were still alive, his eye fell on
Phemius, the minstrel, who was crouching in a corner near the side
door, and clinging in terror to his harp. Seeing the stern gaze of
Odysseus fixed upon him Phemius sprang forward, with a sudden impulse,
and threw himself at the conqueror's feet, "Pity me, Odysseus," he
cried, "and spare me! Thy days will be darkened by remorse if thou
slay the sweet minstrel whom gods and men revere. I am no common
school-taught bard, who sings what he has learned by rote; but in mine
own heart is a swe