is ready, the Suitors, who have been plotting against the life
of Telemachus, enter; they are divided among themselves, and can show
no concerted action.

III. This banquet is noticeable, inasmuch as Telemachus asserts the
mastery in his own house and defies the Suitors. He honors the beggar
as his guest, and gives warning that nobody insult the poor stranger,
"lest there be trouble." A number of Suitors show their ill feeling;
one of them, named Ktesippus, flings a bullock's foot at Ulysses "for a
hospitable present," at which the latter "smiled in sardonic fashion,"
but said nothing. Telemachus, however, reproves the agressor with great
spirit, and asserts himself anew against all deeds of violence. One of
the more reasonable Suitors, Agelaus, makes a speech, which commends
Telemachus but insists upon his ordering his mother "to marry the man
who is best and who will give most presents." In reply Telemachus
declares that he does not hinder the choice of his mother, but that he
will not force her to marry. "That may God never bring about." (_Theos_
without article.)

Now follows a series of miraculous signs, prodigies, mad doings, which
prefigure the coming destruction. Insane laughter of the Suitors, yet
with eyes full of tears, and with hearts full of sorrow: what does it
all forbode? Here comes the seer Theoclymenus with a terrible
interpretation uttered in the true Hebrew prophetic style: "The hall I
see full of ghosts hastening down to Erebus; the sun in Heaven is
extinguished, and a dark cloud overspreads the land." The Suitors
bemock the prophet, who leaves the company with another fateful vision:
"I perceive evil coming upon you, from which not one of you Suitors
shall escape." More taunts are flung at Telemachus who now says
nothing; he, his father, and his mother, witness the mad banquet, which
is a veritable feast of Belshazzar, and which has also its prophet. The
Hebrew analogy is striking.

_Book Twenty-first._ The test presented in many a tale is here
introduced at the turning-point of destiny. The Bending of the Bow and
skill in the use thereof are incidents in the folk-lore of every
people. The theme is naturally derived from a social condition, in
which the bow and arrow are the chief weapons of defense and offense,
employed against human foes and wild animals. Hence the strong man, the
Hero, is the one able to bend the strong bow and to use it with
dexterity. Such a man uses the chief implement of