slashed Amphimedon, and the swineherd struck
at Polybus; the cowherd sliced right through
Ctesippus’ chest, and crowed,
“You fool! You loved
insulting us—now you have stopped your boasting.
The gods have got the last word; they have won.
This is a gift to pay you for that kick290
you gave Odysseus when he walked through
his own house, as a homeless man in need.”
Odysseus moved closer with his spear,
and pierced Agelaus; Telemachus
thrust at Leocritus, and drove his bronze
into his belly. He fell down headfirst,
face smashed against the floor.
Then from the roof
Athena lifted high her deadly aegis.
The frightened suitors bolted through the hall
like cattle, roused and driven by a gadfly300
in springtime, when the days are getting longer.
As vultures with their crooked beaks and talons
swoop from the hills and pounce on smaller birds
that fly across the fields beneath the clouds;
the victims have no help and no way out,
as their attackers slaughter them, and men
watch and enjoy the violence. So these
four fighters sprang and struck, and drove the suitors
in all directions. Screaming filled the hall,
as skulls were cracked; the whole floor ran with blood.310
Leodes darted up to supplicate
Odysseus; he touched his knees.
“Please, mercy!
I did no wrong, I swear, in word or deed
to any of the women in the house.
I tried to stop the suitors, tried to urge them
to keep their hands clean, but they would not listen.
Those fools deserved their fate. But I did nothing!
I am a priest—yet I must lie with them.
Will good behavior go unrewarded?”
The calculating hero scowled at him.320
“If, as you claim, you sacrificed for them,
you must have often prayed here in my hall
that I would not regain the joys of home,
and that my wife would marry you instead,
and bear you children. You will not escape.
Suffer and die!”
Agelaus had dropped
his sword when he was killed. With his strong arm
Odysseus swung, slashed down and sliced right through
the priest’s neck, and his head, still framing words,
rolled in the dust.
The poet Phemius,330
who had been forced to sing to please the suitors,
was huddling by the back door with his lyre,
anxiously considering his choices:
to slip outside and crouch beneath the altar
of mighty Zeus, the god of home owners,
where his old masters burned so many thigh-bones;
or he could run towards Odysseus
and grasp him by the knees and beg for mercy.
He made his mind up: he would supplicate.
He set his hollow lyre on the ground340
between the mixing bowl and silver chair,
and dashed to take Odysseus’ knees,
beseeching him in quivering winged words.
“I beg you, Lord Odysseus! Have mercy!
Think! If you kill me now, you will be sorry!
I have the power to sing for gods and men.
I am self-taught—all kinds of song are planted
by gods inside my heart. I am prepared
to sing for you, as if before a god.
Wait, do not cut my throat! Just ask your son!350
He will explain it was against my will
that I came here to sing to them after dinner.
They were too fierce and they outnumbered me.
I had no choice.”
Then strong Telemachus
turned quickly to his father, saying, “Stop,
hold up your sword—this man is innocent.
And let us also save the house boy, Medon.
He always cared for me when I was young—
unless the herdsmen have already killed him,
or he already met you in your rage.”360
Medon was sensible: he had been hiding
under a chair, beneath a fresh cowhide,
in order to escape from being killed.
Hearing these words, he jumped up from the chair,
took off the cowhide and assumed the pose
of supplication near Telemachus,
and said,
“Friend, here I am! Please spare my life!
Your father is too strong, and furious
against the suitors, who skimmed off his wealth
and failed to honor you. Please, talk to him!”370
Canny Odysseus smiled down and said,
“You need not worry, he has saved your life.
So live and spread the word that doing good
is far superior to wickedness.
Now leave the hall and go outside; sit down,
joining the famous singer in the courtyard,
so I can finish what I have to do
inside my house.”
The two men went outside,
and crouched by Zeus’ altar, on the lookout
for death at any moment all around.380
Odysseus scanned all around his home
for any man who might be still alive,
who might be hiding to escape destruction.
He saw them fallen, all of them, so many,
lying in blood and dust, like fish hauled up
out of the dark-gray sea in fine-mesh nets;
tipped out upon the curving beach’s sand,
they gasp for water from the salty sea.
So lay the suitors, heaped across each other.
Odysseus, still scheming, told his son,390
“I need to say something to Eurycleia.
Hurry, Telemachus, and bring her here.”
Telemachus was glad to please his father.
He pushed the door ajar and called the nurse.
“Nanny, come quick! You have been here for years.
You supervise the female palace slaves.
My father has to talk to you; come on!”
She had no words to answer him, but opened
the doors into the great and sturdy hall.
Telemachus went first and led the way.400
Among the corpses of the slaughtered men
she saw Odysseus all smeared with blood.
After a lion eats a grazing ox,
its chest and jowls are thick with blood all over;
a dreadful sight. Just so, Odysseus
had blood all over him—from hands to feet.
Seeing the corpses, seeing all that blood,
so great a deed of violence, she began
to crow. Odysseus told her to stop
and spoke with fluent words.
“Old woman, no!410
Be glad inside your heart, but do not shout.
It is not pious, gloating over men
who have been killed. Divine fate took them down,
and their own wicked deeds. They disrespected
all people that they met, both bad and good.
Through their own crimes they came to this bad end.
But tell me now about the household women.
Which ones dishonor me? And which are pure?”
The slave who loved her master answered, “Child,
I will tell you exactly how things stand.420
In this house we have fifty female slaves
whom we have trained to work, to card the wool,
and taught to tolerate their life as slaves.
Twelve stepped away from honor: those twelve girls
ignore me, and Penelope our mistress.
She would not let Telemachus instruct them,
since he is young and only just grown-up.
Let me go upstairs to the women’s rooms,
to tell your wife—some god has sent her sleep.”
The master strategist Odysseus 430
said,
“Not yet; do not wake her. Call the women
who made those treasonous plots while I was gone.”
The old nurse did so. Walking through the hall,
she called the girls. Meanwhile, Odysseus
summoned the herdsmen and Telemachus
and spoke winged words to them.
“Now we must start
to clear the corpses out. The girls must help.
Then clean my stately chairs and handsome tables
with sponges fine as honeycomb, and water.
When the whole house is set in proper order,440
restore my halls to health: take out the girls
between the courtyard wall and the rotunda.
Hack at them with long swords, eradicate
all life from them. They will forget the things
the suitors made them do with them in secret,
through Aphrodite.”