Book 21 · Book Guide
Penelope brings out Odysseus’s great bow and sets the contest: she will marry whoever can string it and shoot an arrow through twelve axes. One after another the suitors fail even to bend the bow, despite warming and greasing it, and the priest Leiodes, who tries first, senses it spells their doom.
Meanwhile Odysseus slips outside and reveals himself to the two loyal herdsmen, Eumaeus and Philoetius, showing them his scar and giving them their orders. Back inside, the beggar asks for a turn with the bow. The suitors are furious, but Penelope and Telemachus insist; then the doors are locked and the courtyard barred. Odysseus strings the great bow with ease, plucks the string so it sings, and shoots cleanly through all twelve axes as Zeus thunders. He signals Telemachus, who arms himself at his side, and the slaughter is about to begin.
The great bow was a gift of guest-friendship: young Odysseus received it from Iphitus when the two met and swore friendship — and Iphitus was later murdered by Heracles, a guest killed by his own host, one of the darkest crimes in Greek story. Odysseus treasured the bow and never took it to war. So the weapon that executes the suitors carries, in its own history, the exact crime being punished: hospitality betrayed. Homer plants the theme right in the wood and horn of the thing.
A great bow of this kind was built of horn and sinew, and bending it to slip the string on took technique as much as muscle — set it wrong and it fights you. The suitors warm it, grease it, strain at it in turn, and fail; Telemachus, interestingly, would have strung it on his fourth try if his father hadn’t signaled no. Then the beggar asks for a turn, handles it like a singer stringing a lyre — testing it the way a craftsman greets his own work — and strings it sitting down. The bow is a lock only one key fits, and the test is identity itself: the contest Penelope set was, knowingly or not, a search for her husband.
Twelve axes set up in a line, and the arrow threads them end to end. Exactly what the arrow passed through — rings on the axe-heads? the sockets where handles fit? — readers have puzzled over since ancient times, and the poem doesn’t stop to explain what its first audience could evidently picture. The image is what matters: an impossible shot, made from a sitting position, in the master’s own hall, on the archer god’s feast day. Then Zeus thunders once, Odysseus nods to his son, and Telemachus steps to his side armed. The contest is over; the reckoning is next.
Athena moves Penelope to fetch Odysseus’s great bow from the storeroom. The poet tells how the bow was a gift from his friend Iphitus long ago. Penelope cries over it, then carries it down to the hall with the iron axes.
Penelope sets the terms before the suitors: whoever strings the bow and shoots an arrow through all twelve axes will have her as his wife. Eumaeus and Philoetius cry at the sight of their master’s bow, and Antinous scolds them for it.
Telemachus digs a trench and sets up the twelve axes in a perfect line, though he has never seen it done. He tries the bow himself and three times nearly bends it, and would have strung it on the fourth, but Odysseus signals him to stop. He sets it down and invites the suitors to try.
The suitors rise to try in turn. Leiodes the priest goes first, fails, and warns that the bow will be the death of many of them. Antinous has the bow warmed and greased with fat to make it supple, but one after another the young men fall short of the strength to bend it.
Odysseus follows Eumaeus and Philoetius out of the hall and tests them: would they fight for Odysseus if he returned? When they swear they would, he reveals himself and shows them the scar. They cry and embrace him, and he gives them their parts in the plan: hand him the bow, lock the women in, and bar the gates.
Eurymachus tries and fails, groaning at the shame of it. Antinous proposes they stop for the day, since it is a feast of Apollo, and try again tomorrow after sacrificing to the god. The others agree gladly.
Odysseus asks to try the bow, just to test his old strength. The suitors are furious and afraid, and Antinous threatens him. But Penelope insists the guest be allowed his turn, and offers him gifts if he succeeds.
Telemachus declares that the bow is his concern alone and sends his mother up to her room and her weaving. Astonished at his firmness, Penelope obeys and goes up to cry herself to sleep, leaving the men to settle the matter.
Despite the suitors’ shouts, Eumaeus carries the bow across the hall and puts it in Odysseus’s hands, with Telemachus backing him. The nurse Eurycleia locks the hall doors, and Philoetius bars the courtyard gates, sealing the suitors in.
Odysseus turns the great bow over, examining it, while the suitors jeer. Then, as easily as a musician fits a string to his lyre, he bends and strings it, and plucks the cord so it sings clear as a swallow. The suitors go pale, and Zeus thunders in answer.
Odysseus takes a single arrow, sets it on the string, and from his seat shoots cleanly through all twelve axe-heads without missing one. He tells Telemachus the stranger has not shamed his house, and gives the signal. Telemachus straps on sword and spear and takes his place beside his father, armed for the fight to come.
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