The Odyssey
fast behind you; then fasten a noose about his body, and string him
close up to the rafters from a high bearing-post,172 that he may linger
on in an agony.”
Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said; they went to the
store room, which they entered before Melanthius saw them, for he was
busy searching for arms in the innermost part of the room, so the two
took their stand on either side of the door and waited. By and by
Melanthius came out with a helmet in one hand, and an old dry-rotted
shield in the other, which had been borne by Laertes when he was young,
but which had been long since thrown aside, and the straps had become
unsewn; on this the two seized him, dragged him back by the hair, and
threw him struggling to the ground. They bent his hands and feet well
behind his back, and bound them tight with a painful bond as Ulysses
had told them; then they fastened a noose about his body and strung him
up from a high pillar till he was close up to the rafters, and over him
did you then vaunt, O swineherd Eumaeus saying, “Melanthius, you will
pass the night on a soft bed as you deserve. You will know very well
when morning comes from the streams of Oceanus, and it is time for you
to be driving in your goats for the suitors to feast on.”
There, then, they left him in very cruel bondage, and having put on
their armour they closed the door behind them and went back to take
their places by the side of Ulysses; whereon the four men stood in the
cloister, fierce and full of fury; nevertheless, those who were in the
body of the court were still both brave and many. Then Jove’s daughter
Minerva came up to them, having assumed the voice and form of Mentor.
Ulysses was glad when he saw her and said, “Mentor, lend me your help,
and forget not your old comrade, nor the many good turns he has done
you. Besides, you are my age-mate.”
But all the time he felt sure it was Minerva, and the suitors from the
other side raised an uproar when they saw her. Agelaus was the first to
reproach her. “Mentor,” he cried, “do not let Ulysses beguile you into
siding with him and fighting the suitors. This is what we will do: when
we have killed these people, father and son, we will kill you too. You
shall pay for it with your head, and when we have killed you, we will
take all you have, in doors or out, and bring it into hotch-pot with
Ulysses’ property; we will not let your sons live in your house, nor
your daughters, nor shall your widow continue to live in the city of
Ithaca.”
This made Minerva still more furious, so she scolded Ulysses very
angrily.173 “Ulysses,” said she, “your strength and prowess are no
longer what they were when you fought for nine long years among the
Trojans about the noble lady Helen. You killed many a man in those
days, and it was through your stratagem that Priam’s city was taken.
How comes it that you are so lamentably less valiant now that you are
on your own ground, face to face with the suitors in your own house?
Come on, my good fellow, stand by my side and see how Mentor, son of
Alcimus shall fight your foes and requite your kindnesses conferred
upon him.”
But she would not give him full victory as yet, for she wished still
further to prove his own prowess and that of his brave son, so she flew
up to one of the rafters in the roof of the cloister and sat upon it in
the form of a swallow.
Meanwhile Agelaus son of Damastor, Eurynomus, Amphimedon, Demoptolemus,
Pisander, and Polybus son of Polyctor bore the brunt of the fight upon
the suitors’ side; of all those who were still fighting for their lives
they were by far the most valiant, for the others had already fallen
under the arrows of Ulysses. Agelaus shouted to them and said, “My
friends, he will soon have to leave off, for Mentor has gone away after
having done nothing for him but brag. They are standing at the doors
unsupported. Do not aim at him all at once, but six of you throw your
spears first, and see if you cannot cover yourselves with glory by
killing him. When he has fallen we need not be uneasy about the
others.”
They threw their spears as he bade them, but Minerva made them all of
no effect. One hit the door post; another went against the door; the
pointed shaft of another struck the wall; and as soon as they had
avoided all the spears of the suitors Ulysses said to his own men, “My
friends, I should say we too had better let drive into the middle of
them, or they will crown all the harm they have done us by killing us
outright.”
They therefore aimed straight in front of them and threw their spears.
Ulysses killed Demoptolemus, Telemachus Euryades, Eumaeus Elatus, while
the stockman killed Pisander. These all bit the dust, and as the others
drew back into a corner Ulysses and his men rushed forward and regained
their spears by drawing them from the bodies of the dead.
The suitors now aimed a second time, but again Minerva made their
weapons for the most part without effect. One hit a bearing-post of the
cloister; another went against the door; while the pointed shaft of
another struck the wall. Still, Amphimedon just took a piece of the top
skin from off Telemachus’s wrist, and Ctesippus managed to graze
Eumaeus’s shoulder above his shield; but the spear went on and fell to
the ground. Then Ulysses and his men let drive into the crowd of
suitors. Ulysses hit Eurydamas, Telemachus Amphimedon, and Eumaeus
Polybus. After this the stockman hit Ctesippus in the breast, and
taunted him saying, “Foul-mouthed son of Polytherses, do not be so
foolish as to talk wickedly another time, but let heaven direct your
speech, for the gods are far stronger than men. I make you a present of
this advice to repay you for the foot which you gave Ulysses when he
was begging about in his own house.”
Thus spoke the stockman, and Ulysses struck the son of Damastor with a
spear in close fight, while Telemachus hit Leocritus son of Evenor in
the belly, and the dart went clean through him, so that he fell forward
full on his face upon the ground. Then Minerva from her seat on the
rafter held up her deadly aegis, and the hearts of the suitors quailed.
They fled to the other end of the court like a herd of cattle maddened
by the gadfly in early summer when the days are at their longest. As
eagle-beaked, crook-taloned vultures from the mountains swoop down on
the smaller birds that cower in flocks upon the ground, and kill them,
for they cannot either fight or fly, and lookers on enjoy the
sport—even so did Ulysses and his men fall upon the suitors and smite
them on every side. They made a horrible groaning as their brains were
being battered in, and the ground seethed with their blood.
Leiodes then caught the knees of Ulysses and said, “Ulysses I beseech
you have mercy upon me and spare me. I never wronged any of the women
in your house either in word or deed, and I tried to stop the others. I
saw them, but they would not listen, and now they are paying for their
folly. I was their sacrificing priest; if you kill me, I shall die
without having done anything to deserve it, and shall have got no
thanks for all the good that I did.”
Ulysses looked sternly at him and answered, “If you were their
sacrificing priest, you must have prayed many a time that it might be
long before I got home again, and that you might marry my wife and have
children by her. Therefore you shall die.”
With these words he picked up the sword that Agelaus had dropped when
he was being killed, and which was lying upon the ground. Then he
struck Leiodes on the back of his neck, so that his head fell rolling
in the dust while he was yet speaking.
The minstrel Phemius son of Terpes—he who had been forced by the
suitors to sing to them—now tried to save his life. He was standing
near towards the trap door,174 and held his lyre in his hand. He did
not know whether to fly out of the cloister and sit down by the altar
of Jove that was in the outer court, and on which both Laertes and
Ulysses had offered up the thigh bones of many an ox, or whether to go
straight up to Ulysses and embrace his knees, but in the end he deemed
it best to embrace Ulysses’ knees. So he laid his lyre on the ground
between the mixing bowl 175 and the silver-studded seat; then going up
to Ulysses he caught hold of his knees and said, “Ulysses, I beseech
you have mercy on me and spare me. You will be sorry for it afterwards
if you kill a bard who can sing both for gods and men as I can. I make
all my lays myself, and heaven visits me with every kind of
inspiration. I would sing to you as though you were a god, do not
therefore be in such a hurry to cut my head off. Your own son
Telemachus will tell you that I did not want to frequent your house and
sing to the suitors after their meals, but they were too many and too
strong for me, so they made me.”
Telemachus heard him, and at once went up to his father. “Hold!” he
cried, “the man is guiltless, do him no hurt; and we will spare Medon
too, who was always good to me when I was a boy, unless Philoetius or
Eumaeus has already killed him, or he has fallen in your way when you
were raging about the court.”
Medon caught these words of Telemachus, for he was crouching under a
seat beneath which he had hidden by covering himself up with a freshly
flayed heifer’s hide, so he threw off the hide, went up to Telemachus,
and laid hold of his knees.
“Here I am, my dear sir,” said he, “stay your hand therefore, and tell
your father, or he will kill me in his rage against the suitors for
having wasted his substance and been so foolishly disrespectful to
yourself.”
Ulysses smiled at him and answered, “Fear not; Telemachus has saved
your life, that you may know in future, and tell other people, how
greatly better good deeds prosper than evil ones. Go, therefore,
outside the cloisters into the outer court, and be out of the way of
the slaughter—you and the bard—while I finish my work here inside.”
The pair went into the outer court as fast as they could, and sat down
by Jove’s great altar, looking fearfully round, and still expecting
that they would be killed. Then Ulysses searched the whole court
carefully over, to see if anyone had managed to hide himself and was
still living, but he found them all lying in the dust and weltering in
their blood. They were like fishes which fishermen have netted out of
the sea, and thrown upon the beach to lie gasping for water till the
heat of the sun makes an end of them. Even so were the suitors lying
all huddled up one against the other.
Then Ulysses said to Telemachus, “Call nurse Euryclea; I have something
to say to her.”
Telemachus went and knocked at the door of the women’s room. “Make
haste,” said he, “you old woman who have been set over all the other
women in the house. Come outside; my father wishes to speak to you.”
When Euryclea heard this she unfastened the door of the women’s room
and came out, following Telemachus. She found Ulysses among the corpses
bespattered with blood and filth like a lion that has just been
devouring an ox, and his breast and both his cheeks are all bloody, so
that he is a fearful sight; even so was Ulysses besmirched from head to
foot with gore. When she saw all the corpses and such a quantity of
blood, she was beginning to cry out for joy, for she saw that a great
deed had been done; but Ulysses checked her, “Old woman,” said he,
“rejoice in silence; restrain yourself, and do not make any noise about
it; it is an unholy thing to vaunt over dead men. Heaven’s doom and
their own evil deeds have brought these men to destruction, for they
respected no man in the whole world, neither rich nor poor, who came
near them, and they have come to a bad end as a punishment for their
wickedness and folly. Now, however, tell me which of the women in the