Page:The story of Greece told to boys and girls.djvu/99

 CHAPTER XX

THE BOW OF ODYSSEUS

In the hall of the palace the suitors sat feasting, as was their custom. When Eumaeus entered, followed by the beggar, they no sooner caught sight of him than they began to mock at his rags. But Telemachus took a loaf and gave it to the stranger, bidding him go to each prince and beg for himself, for said he, 'Shame is an ill mate of a needy man.'

One haughty suitor, named Antinous, rebuked Eumaeus for bringing a beggar to the palace. 'Have we not here vagrants enough,' he said in angry tones, 'killjoys of the feast?' And he seized a footstool and struck Odysseus on the shoulder.

Penelope heard how Antinous had treated the stranger in her halls and she was angry. Turning to her old nurse Eurycleia she said, 'Nurse, they are all enemies, for they all devise evil continually, but of them all Antinous is the most like to black fate. Some hapless stranger is roaming about the house, begging alms of the men as his needs bid him; all the others filled his wallet and gave him somewhat, but Antinous smote him at the base of the right shoulder with a stool.'

Then she summoned Eumaeus and bade him send the stranger to her, for she wished to know if he had heard aught of Odysseus as he wandered from place to place.

So when evening came the old nurse brought a settle, spread over it a fleece, and placed it near to Penelope. Then the beggar was brought to the queen's room, and, sitting on the settle, he told to her many a tale, and some were true and