The Bending of the Bow of Ulysses
Proposal of Penelope to the suitors to contend for her hand with the bow and arrows of Ulysses—Their ineffectual attempts to bend the bow—Management of Ulysses to obtain the bow, which he bends with ease, and sends an arrow through the twelve rings set up in a row for the purpose.
Pallas, the goddess of the azure eyes, Woke in the mind of sage Penelope, The daughter of Icarius, this design— To put into the suitors’ hands the bow And gray steel rings, and to propose a game That in the palace was to usher in The slaughter. So she climbed the lofty stair, Up from the hall, and took in her plump hand The fair carved key; its wards were wrought of brass, And ivory was the handle. Soon she reached The furthest room with her attendant maids. There lay the treasures of Ulysses—brass And gold, and steel divinely wrought. There lay His bow unstrung; there lay his quiver charged With arrows; many were the deadly shafts It held, a stranger’s gift, who met him once In Lacedaemon, Iphitus by name, The son of Eurytus, and like the gods In presence. In Messenè met the twain, And in the mansion of Orsilochus, The warlike. Thither had Ulysses come To claim a debt from all the region round; For rovers from Messenè to their ships Had driven and carried off from Ithaca Three hundred sheep and those who tended them. For this Ulysses, though a stripling yet, Came that long voyage, on an embassy, Sent by his father and the other chiefs. And Iphitus had come in search of steeds Which he had lost—twelve mares, and under them Twelve hardy mules, their foals. That errand brought The doom of death upon him. For he came, In journeying, to the abode of Hercules, The mighty hero-son of Jupiter, Famed for his labors, who, in his own house, Slew