Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Casting off rags, Odysseus shoots Antinous through the throat as he lifts a cup—before the suitors know the beggar’s name. He declares himself; Eurymachus tries bargain and is killed; the rest arm as Melanthius fetches shields from the storeroom until Eumaeus and Philoetius bind him. Athena briefly shows her aegis as Mentor’s form, then as a swallow in the rafters, turning the suitors’ throws awry. Telemachus brings spears; Amphinomus and others fall; Odysseus spares only the herald Medon and the bard Phemius at Telemachus’s plea. When all the suitors lie dead, the disloyal women are forced to clean the hall, then hanged; Melanthius is mutilated. Odysseus has Eurycleia count the dead and purify the house with fire and sulfur. The slaughter is nostos completed as civic purge: guest-abuse answered by the restored king’s justice, with limited mercy for the coerced singer and herald.