Penelope's Test

Greathearted, home at last, I was bathed by Eurynome and rubbed with golden oil, and clothed again. Athena changed me from an old beggar, back to my old self. But she made me look taller, and massive, with crisping hair in curls. She lavished beauty over me before I appeared in front of Penelope again. When I saw Penelope I said:

“Strange woman, the immortals of Olympus made you hard, harder than any. Who else in the world would keep aloof as you do from her husband if he returned to her from years of trouble, cast on his own land in the twentieth year? Nurse, make up a bed for me to sleep on.” Penelope spoke:

“Strange man, if man you are….This is no pride on my part nor scorn for you –not even wonder, merely. I know so well how you –how he– appeared boarding the ship for Troy. But all the same…Make up his bed for him, Eurycleia. Place it outside the bedchamber my lord built with his own hands. Pile the big bed with fleeces, rugs, and sheets of purest linen.” What she said angered me, for I had made our bed out of a tree, and it could not be moved. I spoke with anger:

“Who dared to move my bed? No builder had the skill for that –unless a god came down to turn the trick. No mortal in his best days could budge it with a crowbar. There is our pact and pledge, our secret sign, built into that bed –my handiwork and no one else’s!” I explained how I built the bed and why it was so important.

Penelope ran to me with eyes brimming tears and throwing her arms around me, she said:

“Do not rage at me, Odysseus!” Penelope asked me to forgive her and explained her reasoning for testing me. She rejoiced and gazed upon me, her white arms around me pressed as though forever.

Odysseus' Revenge

Before beginning my revenge I had my son, Telemachus, take all the armor, shields, and swords and hide them in a room so that the suitors could not fight against us. I spoke to the suitors:
“So much for that. Your clean-cut game is over. Now watch me hit a target that no man has hit before, if I can make this shot. Help me, Apollo.” I planned to get my revenge and I turned to Antinous first. He was ridiculing me and was the cruelest of all the suitors. When Antinous went to sip his wine, I shot an arrow at his throat. Backward and down he went, letting the wine cup fall from his shocked hand. The suitors' anger flared and they yelled cursing words at me. So I replied:
“You yellow dogs, you thought I’d never make it home from the land of Troy. You took my house to plunder….You dared bid for my wife while I was still alive. Contempt was all you had for the gods who rule wide heaven. Your last hour has come. You die in blood.”
The other suitors began to fear me once I told them what I had in store for them. The suitors pleaded with me. They told me that Antinous made them do it all, but I did not believe them, nor did I care. I fought the suitors with Telemachus by my side. My faithful swine herder and the cow herder also assisted us. Athena sent down a thundercloud to shield me. The suitors ran madly, trying to get free. But it was hopeless, none made it out alive.
               

The Challenge

Pressed by the suitors to choose a husband from among them, Penelope said that she will marry the man who can string my bow and shoot an arrow through twelve ax handle sockets. The suitors attempted, but all of them failed. Still in disguise, I asked for a turn. In one motion I strung the bow and  I slid my right hand down the cord and plucked it. The vibrating hummed and sang a swallow’s note. I made it through all the sockets and won the challenge. The suitors were angry and surprised at the same time. Zeus thundered overhead, one loud crack for a sign. I laughed within. I said to Telemachus:

“Telemachus, the stranger you welcomed in your hall has not disgraced you. I did not miss; neither did I take all day stringing the bow. My hand and eye are sound, not as contemptible as the young men say. The hour has come to cook their lordships’ mutton–supper by daylight. Other amusements later, with song and harping that adorns a feast.”

Telemachus agreed. He belted his sword on, clapped hand to his spear, and with a clink and glitter of keen bronze stood by his chair, in the forefront near his father.