he mastery." With that he let fly a deadly arrow at Antinous,
which pierced him in the throat as he was in the act of lifting a cup
of wine to his mouth. Amazement seized the suitors, as their great
champion fell dead, and they raged highly against Ulysses, and said
that it should prove the dearest shaft which he ever let fly, for he
had slain a man, whose like breathed not in any part of the kingdom:
and they flew to their arms, and would have seized the lances, but
Minerva struck them with dimness of sight that they went erring up and
down the hall, not knowing where to find them. Yet so infatuated were
they by the displeasure of heaven, that they did not see the imminent
peril which impended over them, but every man believed that this
accident had happened beside the intention of the doer. Fools! to
think by shutting their eyes to evade destiny, or that any other cup
remained for them, but that which their great Antinous had tasted!

Then Ulysses revealed himself to all in that presence, and that he
was the man whom they held to be dead at Troy, whose palace they
had usurped, whose wife in his life-time they had sought in impious
marriage, and that for this reason destruction was come upon them.
And he dealt his deadly arrows among them, and there was no avoiding
him, nor escaping from his horrid person, and Telemachus by his side
plied them thick with those murderous lances from which there was no
retreat, till fear itself made them valiant, and danger gave them eyes
to understand the peril; then they which had swords drew them, and
some with shields, that could find them, and some with tables and
benches snatched up in haste, rose in a mass to overwhelm and crush
those two; yet they singly bestirred themselves like men, and defended
themselves against that great host, and through tables, shields and
all, right through the arrows of Ulysses clove, and the irresistible
lances of Telemachus; and many lay dead, and all had wounds, and
Minerva in the likeness of a bird sate upon the beam which went across
the hall, clapping her wings with a fearful noise, and sometimes the
great bird would fly among them, cuffing at the swords and at the
lances, and up and down the hall would go, beating her wings, and
troubling every thing, that it was frightful to behold, and it frayed
the blood from the cheeks of those heaven-hated suitors: but to
Ulysses and his son she appeared in her own divine similitude, with
her snake-fringed s