From Stories From The Odyssey By H. L. Havell
The Bow of Ulysses
I
The time had now arrived for the great trial of strength and skill of which Penelope had spoken, and which was to decide deeper and deadlier issues than those of marriage. Among the treasures which Ulysses had left behind him was a famous bow, which he had received as a gift from Iphitus, son of Eurytus, whom he met in his youth during a visit to Messene. He who strung this bow, and shot an arrow through a line of axes set up in the hall, was to be rewarded by the hand of Penelope.
"Mother, it is time!" whispered Telemachus, soon after the departure of Theoclymenus. Obeying the signal, Penelope, who had been sitting in the hall listening to the talk of the wooers, left her place, and ascending a steep staircase made her way to the store-room, which was situated at the farther end of the house. In her hand she carried a brazen key with a handle of ivory; and when she came to the door, she loosened the strap which served to draw the bolt from the outside, and inserting the key drew back the bolt. The double doors flew open with a crash, and the treasury with all its wealth was revealed. Great coffers of cedar-wood lined the walls, filled with fine raiment, which her own hands had wrought. It was a cool and quiet retreat, dimly lighted, remote from all rude sounds, full of fragrant odours, and fit to guard the possessions of a prince. And there, hanging from a pin, and heedfully wrapped in its case, was seen the fatal bow. She took it down, and, sitting on one of the coffers, laid it on her knees, and gazed on it fondly with her eyes full of tears. How often had she seen it in the hands of Ulysses, when he went forth at sunrise to hunt the hare and the deer! How often had she taken it from him when he came back at evening loaded with the spoils of the chase! And now a keen shaft from this very bow was to cut the last tender chord of memory, and make her another man's wife!
With a heavy heart she took the bow with its quiver in her hands, and descending the staircase re-entered the hall, followed by her maidens, who carried a chest containing the axes.
"Behold the bow, fair sirs!" she said to the wooers, "and behold me, the prize for this fine feat of archery!" Therewith she gave the bow to Eumæus, who received it with tears; and Philœtius wept likewise when he saw the treasured weapon of his lord. These signs of emotion stirred the anger of Antinous, who rebuked the herdsmen fiercely. "Peace, fools!" he cried. "Peace, miserable churls! Why pierce ye the heart of the lady with your howlings? Has she not grief enough already? Go forth, and howl with the dogs outside, and we will make trial of the bow; yet me thinks it will be long ere anyone here shall string it"
"Anyone save thyself, thou wouldst say!" rejoined Telemachus with a loud laugh. Then, seeing his mother regarding him with gentle reproach, he added: "Tis strange that I should feel so gay and light of heart at the moment when I am about to lose my mother. Zeus, methinks, has turned my brain, and made me laugh when I should weep. But come, ye bold wooers, which of you will be the first to enter the lists for this matchless prize, a lady without peer in all the land of Hellas? Why sit ye thus silent? Must I show you the way? So be it, then; and if I can bend the bow, and shoot an arrow straight, the prize shall be mine, and my mother shall abide here in her widowed state."
So saying he sprang up, flung off his cloak, and laid aside his sword. And first he made a long shallow trench in the floor of the hall, and set up the axes with their double heads in a straight line, stamping down the earth about the handles to make all firm. Then he took the bow from Eumæus; it was a weighty and powerful weapon, fashioned from the horns of an ibex, which were firmly riveted into a massive bridge, and great force was required to string it. Telemachus set the end against the floor, and strove with all his might to drive the string into its socket. Three times he tried, and failed; but the fourth time, making a great effort, he was on the point of succeeding, when his father nodded to him to desist. "Plague on it!" cried Telemachus, laying the bow aside with an air of vexation, "must I be called a poltroon all my life, or is it that I have not yet attained the full measure of my strength? Let the others now take their turn."
Then one by one the wooers rose up, in the order in which they sat, and tried to bend the bow. The first to essay it was Leiodes, a soothsayer, and a man of gentle and godly mind. But he was a soft liver, unpractised in all manly pastimes, and the bow was like iron in his white, womanish hands. "I fear that this bow will make an end of many a bold spirit," he said, little guessing how true his words were to prove; "for better it were to die than to go away beaten and broken men, after all the long years of our wooing."
"Fie on thee!" cried Antinous, "thinkest thou that there are no better men here than thou art? Doubt not that one of those present shall bend the bow and win the lady." Then he called Melanthius, and bade him light a fire, and bring a ball of lard to anoint the bow and make it easier to bend. The lard was brought, and the wooers sat in turn by the fire, rubbing and anointing the bow, but all to no purpose. Only Antinous and Eurymachus still held back, each in the full assurance that he, and none other, had strength to bend the bow.
II
Ulysses sat watching the wooers from his place at the upper end of the hall, and his heart misgave him when he thought of the appalling task which he had undertaken. He had acquitted himself like a hero in many a hard-fought field, but never in all his life had he faced such odds as these. While he thus mused, and weighed the chances in his mind, he saw Eumæus and Philœtius leave the hall together, and pass out through the courtyard gate. Then a sudden thought struck him, and muttering to himself, "I must risk it," he rose and followed the two men. He found them talking together outside the courtyard fence, and in order to make trial of their temper he addressed them in these cautious terms: "Tell me truly, good friends, which side would ye take, if by some miracle Ulysses suddenly appeared in this house? Would ye be for the wooers or for him?"
Eumæus and Philœtius with one voice protested that they were ready to hazard their lives for the rights of their master, whereupon Ulysses hesitated no longer, but answered: "The miracle has been wrought; I am he! After twenty years of toil and wandering Heaven hath brought me home. I have watched ye both, and I know that ye alone among all the thralls remain true to me. Only continue steadfast for this day, and your reward is assured. I will build houses for ye both, close to my own, and ye shall dwell there with your wives, as my friends and neighbours, equals in honour with Telemachus, my son."
The swineherd and neatherd listened with amazement, willing to believe, but still half in doubt; but when Ulysses showed them the scar, which they had seen many a time before, they were convinced, and embraced their old master with tears and cries of joy. Having allowed them some moments to indulge their feelings, Ulysses checked them with a warning gesture. "Take heed to yourselves," he said, "or your cries will betray us. And now mark what I shall tell you. I will go back to the house first, and do ye two follow me one by one. To thee, Philœtius, I give charge to make fast the gate of the courtyard, with bolt, and with bar, and with cord. And thou, Eumæus, when the time comes, shalt bring the bow and place it in my hands, whether the wooers cry out on thee or not; and when thou hast given me the bow, go straightway and command the women to make fast the doors of their apartments, and remain quiet by their work until I have finished what I have to do."
At the moment when Ulysses returned to his place in the hall, Eurymachus was just making a last attempt to bend the bow. "Out on it!" he cried, finding all his efforts of no avail. "It is a shame to think how far beneath Ulysses we all are in the strength of our hands; 'tis this that stings me, much more than the loss of the lady."
"Thou mistakest the cause," answered Antinous. "This day is the holy feast of the divine archer, Apollo, and doubtless he is jealous because we try our skill in his own art on his sacred day. Let us leave the axes where they stand, and try our fortune again to-morrow."
The proposal was received with general applause, and forthwith the whole company called loud for wine, and began drinking heavily to drown their disappointment Ulysses watched the progress of the revel with grim satisfaction, and when the flushed faces and thick talk of the wooers showed that they were far gone in drunkenness he asked, with an air of deep humility, to be allowed to try his hand at stringing the bow. His request was greeted with a loud cry of contempt and indignation from all the wooers; and Antinous especially was highly incensed, threatening him with dire pains and penalties for his presumption. Hereupon Penelope interposed, and rebuked Antinous for his violence. "Why should not the stranger try his skill with the rest?" asked she. "Thinkest thou that the poor man will win me for his wife if he succeeds? Sure I am that he is not so foolish as to entertain such a thought."
"'Tis not for that," said Eurymachus, answering her. "He cannot be so mad as that. But what a shame to all this noble company if a houseless beggar should accomplish a feat which none of us was able to perform."
"Talk not of shame," replied Penelope with scorn. "Are ye not covered with shame already, by your foul deeds done in this house in the absence of its lord? Give him the bow, I say! And if he string it, by Apollo's grace, I will clothe him in a new cloak and doublet, and give him a sharp javelin, to keep off dogs and men, and a two-edged sword, and sandals for his feet, and give him safe conduct to whatsoever place he desires to reach."
The decisive moment was at hand, and Telemachus saw the necessity of removing his mother from the scene of the approaching conflict. "Mother," he said in a tone of authority, "leave these things to me; I am master here. Evening draws on, and it is time for thee to retire."
When Penelope had withdrawn, Eumæus took the bow, and was about to carry it to Ulysses, but paused half-way, in doubt and alarm, for a perfect storm of threats and abuse assailed his ears. "Halt, thou dog! Put down the bow! Art thou tired of thy life?" Appalled by the menacing cries of the wooers, the swineherd stood hesitating; but Telemachus raised his voice, and commanded him instantly to deliver the bow to Ulysses. "I will teach thee," he said, "who is thy master; thou shalt carry the marks of my hands to thy farm, if thou do not as I tell thee. Would that I could as easily drive the whole of this drunken rout from my doors!"
"Well bragged, Sir Valiant!" cried Antinous; and all the wooers laughed boisterously when they heard him. Seizing his opportunity while their attention was thus diverted, Eumæus came and placed the bow in the hands of Ulysses; then, calling Eurycleia, he bade her make fast the door of the women's apartments. Meanwhile Philœtius secured the gates of the courtyard, and returning to his place sat watching the movements of Ulysses. With anxious eye the hero scrutinised the great weapon, turning it this way and that, to see if it had been injured by worms or natural decay. To his great joy he found that it was sound and untouched. Then, easily as a minstrel fastens a new cord to a lyre, without effort he strung the bow, and bending it made the string twang loud and clear, like the shrill voice of the swallow.
A hundred mocking eyes and sneering faces had been turned towards him, as he sat fingering the bow and weighing it in his hands; but pale grew those faces now, and blank was that gaze. To add to their terror, at this moment a loud peal of thunder shook the house. Filled with high courage by the happy omen, Ulysses took an arrow, and, fitting it to the string, sent it with sure aim from the place where he sat along the whole line of axeheads, from the first to the last.
"Telemachus," he said, "thy guest hath not shamed thee. My hand is firm, and mine eye is true, poor worn-out wanderer though I be. Now let us give these fair guests their supper, and afterwards entertain them with music and with dancing, which are the fit accompaniment of a feast."
Then he beckoned to his son to draw near; and Telemachus made haste, and came and stood by his father's side, armed with sword and lance.
