Odysseus Strings His Bow
The time had come. The goddess Athena with her blazing eyes
inspired Penelope, Icarius’ daughter, wary, poised,
to set the bow and the gleaming iron axes out
before her suitors waiting in Odysseus’ hall —
to test their skill and bring their slaughter on.
Up the steep stairs to her room she climbed
and grasped in a steady hand the curved key —
fine bronze, with ivory haft attached —
and then with her chamber-women made her way
10 to a hidden storeroom, far in the palace depths,
and there they lay, the royal master’s treasures:
bronze, gold and a wealth of hard wrought iron
and there it lay as well . . . his backsprung bow
with its quiver bristling arrows, shafts of pain.
Gifts from the old days, from a friend he’d met
16 in Lacedaemon —Iphitus, Eurytus’ gallant son.
17 Once in Messene the two struck up together,
in sly Ortilochus’ house, that time Odysseus
went to collect a debt the whole realm owed him,
20 for Messenian raiders had lifted flocks from Ithaca,
three hundred head in their oarswept ships, the herdsmen too.
So his father and island elders sent Odysseus off,
a young boy on a mission,
a distant embassy made to right that wrong.
Iphitus went there hunting the stock that he had lost,
a dozen mares still nursing their hardy suckling mules.
The same mares that would prove his certain death
when he reached the son of Zeus, that iron heart,
Heracles —the past master of monstrous works —
30 who killed the man, a guest in his own house.
Brutal. Not a care for the wrathful eyes of god
or rites of hospitality he had spread before him,
no, he dined him, then he murdered him, commandeered
those hard-hoofed mares for the hero’s own grange.
Still on the trail of these when he met Odysseus,
Iphitus gave him the bow his father, mighty Eurytus,
used to wield as a young man, but when he died
in his lofty house he left it to his son.
In turn, Odysseus gave his friend a sharp sword
40 and a rugged spear to mark the start of friendship,
treasured ties that bind. But before they got to know
the warmth of each other’s board, the son of Zeus
had murdered Iphitus, Eurytus’ magnificent son
who gave the prince the bow.
That great weapon —
King Odysseus never took it abroad with him
when he sailed off to war in his long black ships.
He kept it stored away in his stately house,
guarding the memory of a cherished friend,
and only took that bow on hunts at home.
Now,
50 the lustrous queen soon reached the hidden vault
and stopped at the oaken doorsill, work an expert
sanded smooth and trued to the line some years ago,
planting the doorjambs snugly, hanging shining doors.
At once she loosed the thong from around its hook,
55 inserted the key and aiming straight and true,
shot back the bolts —and the rasping doors groaned
as loud as a bull will bellow, champing grass at pasture.
So as the key went home those handsome double doors
rang out now and sprang wide before her.
60 She stepped onto a plank where chests stood tall,
brimming with clothing scented sweet with cedar.
Reaching, tiptoe, lifting the bow down off its peg,
still secure in the burnished case that held it,
down she sank, laying the case across her knees,
and dissolved in tears with a high thin wail
as she drew her husband’s weapon from its sheath . . .
Then, having wept and sobbed to her heart’s content,
off she went to the hall to meet her proud admirers,
cradling her husband’s backsprung bow in her arms,
70 its quiver bristling arrows, shafts of pain.
Her women followed, bringing a chest that held
the bronze and the iron axes, trophies won by the master.
That radiant woman, once she reached her suitors,
drawing her glistening veil across her cheeks,
paused now where a column propped the sturdy roof,
with one of her loyal handmaids stationed either side,
and delivered an ultimatum to her suitors:
“Listen to me, my overbearing friends!
You who plague this palace night and day,
80 drinking, eating us out of house and home
with the lord and master absent, gone so long —
the only excuse that you can offer is your zest
to win me as your bride. So, to arms, my gallants!
Here is the prize at issue, right before you, look —
I set before you the great bow of King Odysseus now!
The hand that can string this bow with greatest ease,
that shoots an arrow clean through all twelve axes —
he is the man I follow, yes, forsaking this house
where I was once a bride, this gracious house
90 so filled with the best that life can offer —
I shall always remember it, that I know . . .
even in my dreams.”
She turned to Eumaeus,
ordered the good swineherd now to set the bow
and the gleaming iron axes out before the suitors.
He broke into tears as he received them, laid them down.
The cowherd wept too, when he saw his master’s bow.
But Antinous wheeled on both and let them have it:
“Yokels, fools —you can’t tell night from day!
You mawkish idiots, why are you sniveling here?
100 You’re stirring up your mistress! Isn’t she drowned
in grief already? She’s lost her darling husband.
Sit down. Eat in peace, or take your snuffling
out of doors! But leave that bow right here —
our crucial test that makes or breaks us all.
105 No easy game, I wager, to string his polished bow.
Not a soul in the crowd can match Odysseus —
what a man he was . . .
I saw him once, remember him to this day,
though I was young and foolish way back then.”
Smooth talk,
110 but deep in the suitor’s heart his hopes were bent
on stringing the bow and shooting through the axes.
Antinous —fated to be the first man to taste
an arrow whipped from great Odysseus’ hands,
the king he mocked, at ease in the king’s house,
egging comrades on to mock him too.
“Amazing!”
Prince Telemachus waded in with a laugh:
“Zeus up there has robbed me of my wits.
My own dear mother, sensible as she is,
says she’ll marry again, forsake our house,
120 and look at me —laughing for all I’m worth,
giggling like some fool. Step up, my friends!
Here is the prize at issue, right before you, look —
a woman who has no equal now in all Achaean country,
neither in holy Pylos, nor in Argos or Mycenae,
not even Ithaca itself or the loamy mainland.
You know it well. Why sing my mother’s praises?
Come, let the games begin! No dodges, no delays,
no turning back from the stringing of the bow —
we’ll see who wins, we will.
130 I’d even take a crack at the bow myself . . .
If I string it and shoot through all the axes,
I’d worry less if my noble mother left our house
with another man and left me here behind —man enough
at last to win my father’s splendid prizes!”
With that
he leapt to his feet and dropped his bright-red cloak,
slipping the sword and sword-belt off his shoulders.
137 First he planted the axes, digging a long trench,
one for all, and trued them all to a line
then tamped the earth to bed them. Wonder took
140 the revelers looking on: his work so firm, precise,
though he’d never seen the axes ranged before.
He stood at the threshold, poised to try the bow . . .
Three times he made it shudder, straining to bend it,
three times his power flagged —but his hopes ran high
he’d string his father’s bow and shoot through every iron
and now, struggling with all his might for the fourth time,
he would have strung the bow, but Odysseus shook his head
and stopped him short despite his tensing zeal.
“God help me,” the inspired prince cried out,
150 “must I be a weakling, a failure all my life?
Unless I’m just too young to trust my hands
to fight off any man who rises up against me.
Come, my betters, so much stronger than I am —
try the bow and finish off the contest.”
He propped his father’s weapon on the ground,
tilting it up against the polished well-hung doors
and resting a shaft aslant the bow’s fine horn,
then back he went to the seat that he had left.
“Up, friends!” Antinous called, taking over.
160 “One man after another, left to right,
starting from where the steward pours the wine.”
So Antinous urged and all agreed.
163 The first man up was Leodes, Oenops’ son,
a seer who could see their futures in the smoke,
who always sat by the glowing winebowl, well back,
the one man in the group who loathed their reckless ways,
appalled by all their outrage. His turn first . . .
Picking up the weapon now and the swift arrow,
he stood at the threshold, poised to try the bow
170 but failed to bend it. As soon as he tugged the string
his hands went slack, his soft, uncallused hands,
and he called back to the suitors, “Friends,
I can’t bend it. Take it, someone —try.
Here is a bow to rob our best of life and breath,
all our best contenders! Still, better be dead
than live on here, never winning the prize
that tempts us all —forever in pursuit,
burning with expectation every day.
If there’s still a suitor here who hopes,
180 who aches to marry Penelope, Odysseus’ wife,
just let him try the bow; he’ll see the truth!
He’ll soon lay siege to another Argive woman
trailing her long robes, and shower her with gifts —
and then our queen can marry the one who offers most,
the man marked out by fate to be her husband.”
With those words he thrust the bow aside,
tilting it up against the polished well-hung doors
and resting a shaft aslant the bow’s fine horn,
then back he went to the seat that he had left.
190 But Antinous turned on the seer, abuses flying:
“Leodes! what are you saying? what’s got past your lips?
What awful, grisly nonsense —it shocks me to hear it —
‘here is a bow to rob our best of life and breath!’
Just because you can’t string it, you’re so weak?
Clearly your genteel mother never bred her boy
for the work of bending bows and shooting arrows.
We have champions in our ranks to string it quickly.
Hop to it, Melanthius!” —he barked at the goatherd —
“Rake the fire in the hall, pull up a big stool,
200 heap it with fleece and fetch that hefty ball
of lard from the stores inside. So we young lords
can heat and limber the bow and rub it down with grease
before we try again and finish off the contest!”
The goatherd bustled about to rake the fire
still going strong. He pulled up a big stool,
heaped it with fleece and fetched the hefty ball
of lard from the stores inside. And the young men
limbered the bow, rubbing it down with hot grease,
then struggled to bend it back but failed. No use —
210 they fell far short of the strength the bow required.
Antinous still held off, dashing Eurymachus too,
the ringleaders of all the suitors,
head and shoulders the strongest of the lot.
But now
the king’s two men, the cowherd and the swineherd,
had slipped out of the palace side-by-side
and great Odysseus left the house to join them.
Once they were past the courtyard and the gates
he probed them deftly, surely: “Cowherd, swineherd,
what, shall I blurt this out or keep it to myself?
220 No, speak out. The heart inside me says so.
How far would you go to fight beside Odysseus?
Say he dropped like that from a clear blue sky
and a god brought him back —
would you fight for the suitors or your king?
Tell me how you feel inside your hearts.”
“Father Zeus,” the trusty cowherd shouted,
“bring my prayer to pass! Let the master come —
some god guide him now! You’d see my power,
my fighting arms in action!”
230 Eumaeus echoed his prayer to all the gods
that their wise king would soon come home again.
Certain at least these two were loyal to the death,
Odysseus reassured them quickly: “I’m right here,
here in the flesh —myself —and home at last,
after bearing twenty years of brutal hardship.
Now I know that of all my men you two alone
longed for my return. From the rest I’ve heard
not one real prayer that I come back again.
So now I’ll tell you what’s in store for you.
240 If a god beats down the lofty suitors at my hands,
I’ll find you wives, both of you, grant you property,
sturdy houses beside my own, and in my eyes you’ll be
comrades to Prince Telemachus, brothers from then on.
Come, I’ll show you something —living proof —
know me for certain, put your minds at rest.
This scar,
look, where a boar’s white tusk gored me, years ago,
hunting on Parnassus, Autolycus’ sons and I.”
With that,
pushing back his rags, he revealed the great scar . . .
And the men gazed at it, scanned it, knew it well,
250 broke into tears and threw their arms around their master —
lost in affection, kissing his head and shoulders,
and so Odysseus kissed their heads and hands.
Now the sun would have set upon their tears
if Odysseus had not called a halt himself.
“No more weeping. Coming out of the house
a man might see us, tell the men inside.
Let’s slip back in —singly, not in a pack.
I’ll go first. You’re next. Here’s our signal.
When all the rest in there, our lordly friends,
260 are dead against my having the bow and quiver,
good Eumaeus, carry the weapon down the hall
and put it in my hands. Then tell the serving-women
to lock the snugly fitted doors to their own rooms.
If anyone hears from there the jolting blows
and groans of men, caught in our huge net,
not one of them show her face —
sit tight, keep to her weaving, not a sound.
You, my good Philoetius, here are your orders.
Shoot the bolt of the courtyard’s outer gate,
lock it, lash it fast.”
270 With that command
the master entered his well-constructed house
and back he went to the stool that he had left.
The king’s two men, in turn, slipped in as well.
Just now Eurymachus held the bow in his hands,
turning it over, tip to tip, before the blazing fire
to heat the weapon. But he failed to bend it even so
and the suitor’s high heart groaned to bursting.
“A black day,” he exclaimed in wounded pride,
“a blow to myself, a blow to each man here!
280 It’s less the marriage that mortifies me now —
that’s galling too, but lots of women are left,
some in seagirt Ithaca, some in other cities.
What breaks my heart is the fact we fall so short
of great Odysseus’ strength we cannot string his bow.
285 A disgrace to ring in the ears of men to come.”
“Eurymachus,” Eupithes’ son Antinous countered,
“it will never come to that, as you well know.
Today is a feast-day up and down the island
in honor of the Archer God. Who flexes bows today?
290 Set it aside. Rest easy now. And all the axes,
let’s just leave them planted where they are.
Trust me, no one’s about to crash the gates
of Laertes’ son and carry off these trophies.
Steward, pour some drops for the god in every cup,
we’ll tip the wine, then put the bow to bed.
And first thing in the morning have Melanthius
bring the pick of his goats from all his herds
so we can burn the thighs to Apollo, god of archers —
then try the bow and finish off the contest.”
300 Welcome advice. And again they all agreed.
Heralds sprinkled water over their hands for rinsing,
the young men brimmed the mixing bowls with wine,
they tipped first drops for the god in every cup,
then poured full rounds for all. And now, once
they’d tipped libations out and drunk their fill,
the king of craft, Odysseus, said with all his cunning,
“Listen to me, you lords who court the noble queen.
I have to say what the heart inside me urges.
I appeal especially to Eurymachus, and you,
310 brilliant Antinous, who spoke so shrewdly now.
Give the bow a rest for today, leave it to the gods —
at dawn the Archer God will grant a victory
to the man he favors most.
For the moment,
give me the polished bow now, won’t you? So,
to amuse you all, I can try my hand, my strength . . .
is the old force still alive inside these gnarled limbs?
Or has a life of roaming, years of rough neglect,
destroyed it long ago?”
Modest words
that sent them all into hot, indignant rage,
320 fearing he just might string the polished bow.
So Antinous rounded on him, dressed him down:
“Not a shred of sense in your head, you filthy drifter!
Not content to feast at your ease with us, the island’s pride?
Never denied your full share of the banquet, never,
you can listen in on our secrets. No one else
can eavesdrop on our talk, no tramp, no beggar.
The wine has overpowered you, heady wine —
the ruin of many another man, whoever
gulps it down and drinks beyond his limit.
330 Wine —it drove the Centaur, famous Eurytion,
331 mad in the halls of lionhearted Pirithous.
332 There to visit the Lapiths, crazed with wine
the headlong Centaur bent to his ugly work
in the prince’s own house! His hosts sprang up,
seized with fury, dragged him across the forecourt,
flung him out of doors, hacking his nose and ears off
with their knives, no mercy. The creature reeled away,
still blind with drink, his heart like a wild storm,
loaded with all the frenzy in his mind!
And so
340 the feud between mortal men and Centaurs had its start.
But the drunk was first to bring disaster on himself
by drowning in his cups. You too, I promise you
no end of trouble if you should string that bow.
You’ll meet no kindness in our part of the world —
we’ll sail you off in a black ship to Echetus,
the mainland king who wrecks all men alive.
Nothing can save you from his royal grip!
So drink, but hold your peace,
don’t take on the younger, stronger men.”
350 “Antinous,” watchful Penelope stepped in,
“how impolite it would be, how wrong, to scant
whatever guest Telemachus welcomes to his house.
You really think —if the stranger trusts so to his hands
and strength that he strings Odysseus’ great bow —
he’ll take me home and claim me as his bride?
He never dreamed of such a thing, I’m sure.
Don’t let that ruin the feast for any reveler here.
Unthinkable —nothing, nothing could be worse.”
Polybus’ son Eurymachus had an answer:
360 “Wise Penelope, daughter of Icarius, do we really
expect the man to wed you? Unthinkable, I know.
But we do recoil at the talk of men and women.
One of the island’s meaner sort will mutter,
‘Look at the riffraff courting a king’s wife.
Weaklings, look, they can’t even string his bow.
But along came this beggar, drifting out of the blue —
strung his bow with ease and shot through all the axes!’
Gossip will fly. We’ll hang our heads in shame.”
“Shame?” alert Penelope protested —
370 “How can you hope for any public fame at all?
You who disgrace, devour a great man’s house and home!
Why hang your heads in shame over next to nothing?
Our friend here is a strapping, well-built man
and claims to be the son of a noble father.
Come, hand him the bow now, let’s just see . . .
I tell you this —and I’ll make good my word —
if he strings the bow and Apollo grants him glory,
I’ll dress him in shirt and cloak, in handsome clothes,
I’ll give him a good sharp lance to fight off men and dogs,
380 give him a two-edged sword and sandals for his feet
and send him off, wherever his heart desires.”
“Mother,”
poised Telemachus broke in now, “my father’s bow —
no Achaean on earth has more right than I
to give it or withhold it, as I please.
Of all the lords in Ithaca’s rocky heights
or the islands facing Elis grazed by horses,
not a single one will force or thwart my will,
even if I decide to give our guest this bow —
a gift outright —to carry off himself.
So, mother,
390 go back to your quarters. Tend to your own tasks,
the distaff and the loom, and keep the women
working hard as well. As for the bow now,
men will see to that, but I most of all:
I hold the reins of power in this house.”
Astonished,
she withdrew to her own room. She took to heart
the clear good sense in what her son had said.
Climbing up to the lofty chamber with her women,
she fell to weeping for Odysseus, her beloved husband,
till watchful Athena sealed her eyes with welcome sleep.
400 And now the loyal swineherd had lifted up the bow,
was taking it toward the king, when all the suitors
burst out in an ugly uproar through the palace —
brash young bullies, this or that one heckling,
“Where on earth are you going with that bow?”
“You, you grubby swineherd, are you crazy?”
“The speedy dogs you reared will eat your corpse —”
“Out there with your pigs, out in the cold, alone!”
“If only Apollo and all the gods shine down on us!”
Eumaeus froze in his tracks, put down the bow,
410 panicked by every outcry in the hall.
Telemachus shouted too, from the other side,
and full of threats: “Carry on with the bow, old boy!
If you serve too many masters, you’ll soon suffer.
Look sharp, or I’ll pelt you back to your farm
with flying rocks. I may be younger than you
but I’m much stronger. If only I had that edge
in fists and brawn over all this courting crowd,
I’d soon dispatch them —licking their wounds at last —
clear of our palace where they plot their vicious plots!”
420 His outburst sent them all into gales of laughter,
blithe and oblivious, that dissolved their pique
against the prince. The swineherd took the bow,
carried it down the hall to his ready, waiting king
and standing by him, placed it in his hands,
then he called the nurse aside and whispered,
“Good Eurycleia —Telemachus commands you now
to lock the snugly fitted doors to your own rooms.
If anyone hears from there the jolting blows
and groans of men, caught in our huge net,
430 not one of you show your face —
sit tight, keep to your weaving, not a sound.”
That silenced the old nurse —
she barred the doors that led from the long hall.
The cowherd quietly bounded out of the house
to lock the gates of the high-stockaded court.
Under the portico lay a cable, ship’s tough gear:
he lashed the gates with this, then slipped back in
and ran and sat on the stool that he’d just left,
eyes riveted on Odysseus.
Now he held the bow
440 in his own hands, turning it over, tip to tip,
testing it, this way, that way . . . fearing worms
had bored through the weapon’s horn with the master gone abroad.
A suitor would glance at his neighbor, jeering, taunting,
“Look at our connoisseur of bows!”
“Sly old fox —
maybe he’s got bows like it, stored in his house.”
“That or he’s bent on making one himself.”
“Look how he twists and turns it in his hands!”
“The clever tramp means trouble —”
“I wish him luck,” some cocksure lord chimed in,
450 “as good as his luck in bending back that weapon!”
So they mocked, but Odysseus, mastermind in action,
once he’d handled the great bow and scanned every inch,
then, like an expert singer skilled at lyre and song —
who strains a string to a new peg with ease,
making the pliant sheep-gut fast at either end —
so with his virtuoso ease Odysseus strung his mighty bow.
Quickly his right hand plucked the string to test its pitch
and under his touch it sang out clear and sharp as a swallow’s cry.
Horror swept through the suitors, faces blanching white,
460 and Zeus cracked the sky with a bolt, his blazing sign,
and the great man who had borne so much rejoiced at last
that the son of cunning Cronus flung that omen down for him.
He snatched a winged arrow lying bare on the board —
the rest still bristled deep inside the quiver,
soon to be tasted by all the feasters there.
Setting shaft on the handgrip, drawing the notch
467 and bowstring back, back . . . right from his stool,
just as he sat but aiming straight and true, he let fly —
and never missing an ax from the first ax-handle
470 clean on through to the last and out
the shaft with its weighted brazen head shot free!
“Telemachus,”
Odysseus looked to his son and said, “your guest,
sitting here in your house, has not disgraced you.
No missing the mark, look, and no long labor spent
to string the bow. My strength’s not broken yet,
not quite so frail as the mocking suitors thought.
But the hour has come to serve our masters right —
supper in broad daylight —then to other revels,
song and dancing, all that crowns a feast.”
480 He paused with a warning nod, and at that sign
Prince Telemachus, son of King Odysseus,
girding his sharp sword on, clamping hand to spear,
took his stand by a chair that flanked his father —
his bronze spearpoint glinting now like fire . . .