Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/322

286 itself, which shining surrounded it. And then sitting down there, placing it on her knees, she wept very shrilly; and she took out the bow of the king. But when she was satiated with tearful grief, she proceeded to the palace, to the illustrious suitors, holding the unstrung bow in her hand, and the arrow-containing quiver; and in it there were many grievous shafts. And her handmaidens brought a chest with her; wherein lay much steel and brass, prizes of her king. But when the divine one of women came to the suitors, she stood near the pillar of the stoutly-made roof, holding up a slender veil before her cheeks: [and a prudent handmaiden stood near her on each side:] and she immediately addressed the suitors, and spoke:

"Hear me, ye noble suitors, who press heavily upon this house to eat and drink without ceasing, my husband being absent for a long time; nor have ye been able to make any other pretext for your sedition, but as desiring to marry me, and make me your wife. But come, suitors, since this contest has appeared; for I will put down the great bow of divine Ulysses, and whoever shall most easily stretch the bow in his hands, and shall dart an arrow through the whole twelve hatchets, him will I follow, leaving this house which I entered when a virgin, very beautiful, full of the means of livelihood: which I think I shall sometime remember, even in a dream."

Thus she spoke; and she ordered the divine swineherd, Eumæus, to place the bow and the hoary steel for the suitors. But weeping Eumæus received it and laid it down: and the herdsman wept from the other side, when he beheld the bow of his master, but Antinous chided [them], and spoke and addressed them:

"Foolish countrymen, who think upon things of a day, ye wretched pair, why now do ye shed a tear, and excite the lady's mind in her breast? whose mind even otherwise lies in grief, since she has lost her dear husband. But feast in silence,