Odysseus tears off his rags, sheds the arrows at his feet, and says the contest is over; he will try another mark. He shoots Antinous through the throat as the ringleader lifts a two-handled gold cup. The suitors think it a mistake. They look to the walls and find neither shield nor spear. He names them dogs: they wasted his substance, forced the women, and wooed his wife while he was still living. Eurymachus admits the wrong, blames Antinous for wanting to kill Telemachus and be chief in Ithaca, and offers twenty oxen apiece plus gold and bronze. Odysseus will not stay his hand though they give him all they have in the world. Eurymachus charges with a bronze sword. The next arrow takes him by the nipple and lodges in the liver. Amphinomus rushes the door. Telemachus strikes him from behind and leaves the spear in the body so no one can hack at him while he draws it.
Telemachus fetches four shields, eight spears, and four helmets. While arrows last, Odysseus holds the doorway. Philoetius guards the narrow exit. Agelaus wants help called through the trap door. Melanthius knows the armour is in the store-room and brings twelve shields. Odysseus's heart fails him. Telemachus admits he left the store-room door open. On the second trip Eumaeus and Philoetius bind Melanthius, string him to the rafters, and the swineherd taunts him about driving goats at dawn. Athena comes as Mentor, scolds Odysseus for being less valiant on his own ground than at Troy, then sits on a rafter as a swallow so father and son must still prove themselves. Six spears miss. The four kill Demoptolemus, Euryades, Elatus, and Pisander. A second volley grazes Telemachus's wrist and Eumaeus's shoulder. Philoetius pays Ctesippus for the heifer's foot. Athena holds up the aegis. The suitors flee like cattle stung by the gadfly.
Leiodes catches Odysseus's knees and says he never wronged the women and tried to stop the others. Odysseus kills him anyway: a sacrificing priest who prayed the master would stay away. Telemachus spares Phemius the bard and Medon the herald, who crawls from under a heifer's hide. Odysseus sends them to Zeus's altar in the outer court. He checks the floor like fishermen's catch gasping on a beach. Euryclea would cry out for joy. He tells her to rejoice in silence; it is unholy to vaunt over dead men. Twelve of fifty maids have misbehaved. They carry out the dead and swab the cloisters, then Telemachus hangs them from a ship's cable so their feet cannot touch the ground. Melanthius is mutilated and given to the dogs. Odysseus burns sulphur through inner and outer courts. The loyal women come with torches. He remembers every one of them. Penelope still sleeps.
Coming Up in Chapter 23
Euryclea runs upstairs laughing with news Penelope will not believe. In the hall the queen will sit silent across from a man in rags, then test him with a bed no living person could move unless they cut the olive at the root.
