Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Penelope brought Odysseus’s great bow and a row of axes: whoever could string the bow and shoot through the axe-sockets would win her. The suitors failed one by one; Antinous postponed his try. The beggar asked to handle the bow; despite their rage Telemachus and Penelope allowed it. Odysseus strung it as easily as a singer strings a lyre and sent the arrow clean through. He then nodded to Telemachus; the weapons previously removed by the loyal servants were at hand. In Book 22 Odysseus cast off rags, announced himself, and shot Antinous through the throat as he lifted his cup. Eurymachus tried bargain and then fight; he fell. Telemachus killed Amphinomus; father and son, with Eumaeus and Philoetius, held the doorway while Athena (as Mentor, then as swallow) baffled the suitors’ throws and stiffened the killers. Melanthius was caught fetching arms and later mutilated; the disloyal maids were hanged after being made to clean the hall. Phemius the bard and Medon the herald were spared at Telemachus’s plea. When the fighting ended, Odysseus checked that none of his own had fallen and had the house purified with fire and sulfur. The nostos’s vengeance—promised by Teiresias and Athena—was complete in blood before recognition by wife and father.