Page:The Odyssey (Butler).djvu/363

Rh The store-room could be readied by a passage from a doorway A′, and also by back-passages from a side entrance A″, which I suppose to have been the back door of the house. The women's apartments opened on to the passage leading from A′ to the store-room.

Β and B′ were the Megaron or Megara, that is to say the inner court, of which B′ was a covered cloister with a roof supported by bearing-posts with cross-beams and rafters. The open part of the court had no flooring but the natural soil. Animals seem to have been flayed and dressed here, for Medon, who was certainly in the inner court while the suitors were being killed, concealed himself under a freshly-flayed ox (or heifer's) hide (xxii. 363).

B′ was called the or "shaded" part of the court, to distinguish it from that which was open to the sun. The end nearest the house was paved with stone, while that nearest the outer court (and probably the other two sides) were floored with ash. The part of the cloister that was paved with stone does not appear to have been raised above the level of the rest; at one end of the stone pavement there was a door a, opening on to a narrow passage; this door, though mentioned immediately after the or trap door (xxii. 126), which we shall come to presently, has no connection with it. About the middle of the pavement, during the trial of the axes, there was a seat b, from which Ulysses shot through the axes, and from which he sprang when he began to shoot the suitors; against one of the bearing-posts that supported the roof of the cloister, there was c, a spear stand.

All the four sides of the cloisters were filled with small tables at which the suitors dined. A man could hold one of these tables before him as a shield (xxii. 74, 75).

In the cloisters were also,

d, an open hearth, or fire-place, in the wall at right angles to the one which abutted on the house. So, at least, I read (xxiii. 90).

e, the table at which the wine was mixed in the mixing-bowl as well, of course, as the other tables above mentioned.

f, a door leading into g, the tower in which Telemachus