{"collection":"Classics","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cla/homer/aoo/aoo36.htm","path":"cla/homer/aoo/aoo36.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cla/homer/aoo/aoo36.htm","text":"ALL night Odysseus lay awake, tossing this side and that, as he pondered on how he might slay the wooers, and save his house from them. As soon as the dawn came, he went into the open air and, lifting up his hands, prayed to Zeus, the greatest of the gods, that he might be shown some sign, as to whether he would win victory or meet with defeat.\nAnd then, as he was going within the house, he heard the voice of a woman who ground barley-meal between stones. She was one of twelve, but the other women had fallen asleep by the quernstones. She was an ancient, wretched woman, covered all over with the dust of the grain, and, as Odysseus came near her, she lifted up her hands and prayed in a weak voice\n\u2018O Zeus, even for miserable me, fulfil a prayer! May this be the last day that the wooers make their feast in the house of Odysseus! They have loosened my knees with the cruel toil they have made me undergo, grinding for them the barley for the bread they eat. O Zeus, may they to-day sup their last!\u2019\nThus the quern-woman spoke, as Odysseus crossed his thresh-old. He was glad of her speech, for it seemed to him her words were an omen from Zeus, and that vengeance would soon be wrought upon the proud and hard-hearted men who wasted the goods of the house and oppressed the servants.\nAnd now the maids came into the hall from the women\u2019s aPartment, and some cleaned the tables and others took pitchers and went to the well for water. Then men-servants came in and split the fagots for the fire. Other servants came into the courtyard--Eum\u00e6us the swineherd, driving fatted swine, the best of his drove, and Phil\u0153tius the cattle-herd bringing a calf. The goatherd Melanthius, him whom Odysseus and Eum\u00e6us had met on the road the day before, also came, bringing the best goats of his flock to be killed for the wooers\u2019 feast.\nWhen the cattle-herd, Phil\u0153tius, saw a stranger in the guise of a beggar, he called out as he tethered the calf in the yard, \u2018Hail, stranger friend! My eyes fill with tears as I look on thee. For even now, clad as thou art in rags, thou dost make me think of my master Odysseus, who may be a wanderer such as thou in friendless lands. Ah, that he might return and make a scattering of the wooers in his hall.\u2019 Eum\u00e6us the swineherd came up to Phil\u0153tius and made the same prayer. These two, and the ancient woman at the quern, were the only ones of his servants whom he heard pray for his return.\nAnd now the wooers came into the hall. Phil\u0153tius the cattle-herd, and Melanthius the evil goatherd, went amongst them, handing them bread and meat and wine. Odysseus stood outside the hall until Telemachus went to him and brought him within.\nNow there was amongst the wooers a man named Ctesippus, and he was the rudest and the roughest of them all. When he saw Telemachus bringing Odysseus within he shouted out, \u2018Here is a guest of Telemachus to whom some gift is due from us. It will be unseemly if he should get nothing to-day. Therefore I will bestow this upon him as a token.\u2019\nSaying this, Ctesippus took up the foot of a slaughtered ox and flung it full at Odysseus. Odysseus drew back, and the ox\u2019s foot struck the wall. Then did Odysseus smile grimly upon the wooers.\nSaid Telemachus, \u2018Verily, Ctesippus, the cast turned out happily for thyself. For if thou shouldst have struck my guest, there would have been a funeral feast instead of a wedding banquet in thy father\u2019s house. Assuredly I should have driven my spear through thee.\u2019\nAll the wooers were silent when Telemachus spoke these bold words. But soon they fell laughing at something one of their number said. The guest from Telemachus\u2019 ship, Theoclymenus, was there, and he started up and went to leave the hall.\n\u2018Why dost thou go, my guest?\u2019 said Telemachus.\n\u2018I see the walls and the beams of the\nSo Theoclymenus spoke, and all the wooers laughed at the second-sighted man, for he stumbled about the hall as if it were in darkness. Then said one of the wooers, \u2018Lead that man out of the house, for surely he cannot tell day from night.\u2019\n\u2018I will go from the place,\u2019 said Theoclymenus. \u2018I see death approaching. Not one of all the company before me will be able to avoid it.\u2019\nSo saying, the second-sighted man went out of the hall. The wooers looking at each other laughed again, and one of them said:\n\u2018Telemachus has no luck in his guests. One is a dirty beggar, who thinks of nothing but what he can put from his hand into his mouth, and the other wants to stand up here and play the seer.\u2019 So the wooers spake in mockery, but neither Telemachus nor Odysseus paid heed to their words, for their minds were bent upon the time when they should take vengeance upon them.","title":"Adventures of Odysseus: Part II: The Odyssey: Chapter XIII","type":"page"}