The Killing in the Hall

Odysseus threw off his rags and leaped onto the great stone doorsill, the bow in his hands and the quiver full of arrows. He spilled the swift shafts out at his feet and called to the suitors:

“That contest is finished. Now I’ll try a target no man here has ever hit — and see if I can reach it. May Apollo give me the glory.¹”

He aimed a bitter arrow straight at Antinous.

Antinous was just reaching for a fine cup, gold with two handles, lifting it in his hands to drink his wine. Death was the last thing on his mind. Who would imagine that one man, alone among so many men at the feast, however strong he was, would bring black death down on him? The arrow struck him in the throat, and the point drove clean through his soft neck. He slumped sideways. The cup dropped from his hand, and a thick jet of blood came spurting from his nose. His foot kicked the table away and the food spilled onto the floor — bread and roast meat fouled in the dirt.

The suitors burst into an uproar when they saw the man go down. They jumped up from their seats in a panic, looking all around the well-built walls, but there was no shield anywhere, no spear to grab. They shouted at Odysseus in fury:

“Stranger, you shoot men, and you’ll pay for it. You’ve shot your last arrow. Now your own death is certain. You’ve killed the finest young man in Ithaca. The vultures will eat you for this.”

They thought he had hit Antinous by accident. The fools didn’t see that the ropes of death were knotted around every one of them. Odysseus looked at them with dark eyes and said:

“Dogs. You thought I’d never come home from Troy. So you ate my house bare, you forced my slave women into your beds, and while I was still alive you courted my wife, with no fear of the gods who hold the wide sky, no fear that any man’s anger would ever come back on you. Now the ropes of death are knotted around all of you.”

Pale terror gripped them. Each man looked for a way to escape sudden death. Only Eurymachus had the nerve to answer.

“If you really are Odysseus of Ithaca come home, then everything you say is fair. The Achaeans did terrible things, here in your hall and out on your land. But the man who caused it all already lies dead — Antinous. He drove this on, and not so much because he wanted to marry. He had other plans, which the son of Cronus² never let him finish: he meant to be king of Ithaca himself, and to kill your son in an ambush. Now he’s dead, and he had it coming. Spare your own people. We’ll pay you back, all of us, for everything we drank and ate in your house. Each of us will bring you the worth of twenty oxen, in bronze and gold, until your heart is satisfied. Until then no one could blame you for being angry.”

Odysseus glared at him. “Eurymachus, not if you handed me everything your fathers left you, all you own now and whatever else you could scrape together — not even then would my hands stop killing until every suitor has paid for his arrogance. Now you can choose: fight me, or run, whoever wants to dodge death. But I don’t think a single one of you will get away.”

Their knees went weak, and their hearts with them. Eurymachus spoke again:

“Friends, this man won’t hold his hands. He’s got the bow and the quiver, and he’ll keep shooting from that doorsill until he’s killed us all. Think of battle. Draw your swords. Hold up the tables against his deadly arrows. Rush him together, drive him off the doorsill and the doorway, get out into the town, and raise the alarm. Then this man would soon have shot his last.”

He drew his sharp bronze sword, two-edged, and sprang at Odysseus with a terrible shout. In that same instant Odysseus loosed an arrow. It struck Eurymachus in the chest beside the nipple and drove into his liver. The sword fell from his hand. He buckled over the table and crashed down, knocking the food and the two-handled cup to the ground, and beat the floor with his forehead in his agony, kicking and shaking the chair with both feet until darkness poured over his eyes.

Amphinomus came at Odysseus next, charging with his sharp sword drawn, hoping to clear him from the door. But Telemachus was quicker. He hurled his bronze-tipped spear from behind and caught him between the shoulders, and the point burst out through his chest. Amphinomus went down with a thud, his whole face striking the ground. Telemachus sprang back, leaving the long spear stuck in the body, afraid that if he bent to pull it out, one of the suitors might run him through with a sword or strike him down. He ran straight to his father’s side and spoke quickly:

“Father, let me bring you a shield and two spears and a bronze helmet for your head. I’ll arm myself too, and get gear for the swineherd and the cowherd³. It’s better to be armed.”

“Run and fetch them,” said crafty Odysseus, “while I still have arrows to hold them off — or they’ll knock me away from the door while I’m alone.”

Telemachus did as his father said and went off to the storeroom where the gear was kept. He took out four shields, eight spears, and four bronze helmets with horsehair crests, and brought them quickly back. He armed himself first, then the two slaves put on the fine armor and took their places around Odysseus, the man of many schemes.

As long as the arrows lasted, Odysseus kept shooting, picking off the suitors one by one, and they fell in heaps. When the arrows ran out, he leaned the bow against the doorpost of the hall and slung a four-layered shield over his shoulders. On his strong head he set a well-made helmet with a horsehair crest that nodded grimly above, and he took up two stout spears tipped with bronze.

There was a side door in the wall, near the top of the doorway of the great hall, that opened onto a narrow passage, closed by tight-fitting boards. Odysseus told the swineherd to guard it and stand close, since only one man could come at it at a time. Then Agelaus called out to the others:

“Friends, can’t someone climb up to that side door and tell the people in town? Raise the alarm, and this man would soon have shot his last.”

Melanthius the goatherd⁴ answered him. “It can’t be done, Agelaus. The mouth of the passage is far too close to the courtyard gate: one good fighter could hold off all of us there. But wait. I’ll bring you armor to put on, from the storeroom. I think that’s where Odysseus and his son stowed it, nowhere else.”

So Melanthius the goatherd climbed up through the vents of the hall to the storerooms of Odysseus. He took out twelve shields, twelve spears, and twelve bronze helmets with thick horsehair, and hurried back down and gave them to the suitors.

When Odysseus saw them pulling on the armor and brandishing long spears in their hands, his knees went weak and his heart sank. The task had grown enormous. He said quickly to Telemachus:

“Telemachus, one of the women in the house is helping them against us — or it’s Melanthius.”

“Father, the fault is mine,” clear-thinking Telemachus said. “No one else is to blame. I left the storeroom door open, propped wide. Their lookout was sharper than mine. Go, Eumaeus, shut the storeroom door. Find out if it’s one of the women doing this, or Dolius’s son Melanthius, as I think.”

While they talked, Melanthius the goatherd went up to the storeroom again, to bring more armor. The swineherd saw him and said to Odysseus, close by:

“Son of Laertes, born of Zeus, Odysseus of many schemes, there he goes, the snake we suspected, heading for the storeroom. Tell me straight: do I kill him, if I’m strong enough, or drag him here to you, so he can pay for all the arrogance he’s heaped on your house?”

“Telemachus and I will hold these suitors in the hall, however hard they push,” said Odysseus. “You two twist his arms and legs back, throw him into the storeroom, tie boards across the door behind him, then loop a braided rope around him and haul him up a high pillar, close to the rafters, so he hangs there alive, suffering, a long time.”

They went to the storeroom, and Melanthius didn’t notice them come in. He was deep inside, searching for armor, while the two stood waiting on either side of the doorpost. When Melanthius stepped over the doorsill, carrying a fine helmet in one hand and an old wide shield in the other — Laertes’ shield, mildewed, that the old hero had carried in his youth and had long lain unused, its strap-seams rotted apart, they sprang on him. They seized him, dragged him in by the hair, and threw him to the floor, his heart breaking. They bound his hands and feet behind his back with a cruel knot, twisted tight, just as Laertes’ son had ordered. Then they looped a braided rope around him and hauled him up the high pillar, close to the rafters. And you, Eumaeus the swineherd, mocked him:

“Now you’ll keep good watch all night, Melanthius, stretched out on the soft bed you deserve. And you won’t miss golden Dawn rising from the streams of Ocean — the hour you drive your goats in for the suitors’ feast.”

So they left him there, hanging in his deadly bonds. The two pulled on their armor, shut the gleaming door, and went back to Odysseus. The four of them stood in the doorway breathing fury, against many good fighters inside the hall.

Then Athena came near, daughter of Zeus, in the shape and voice of Mentor.⁵ Odysseus was glad to see her and said:

“Mentor, help me fight this off. Remember your old friend, who always did you good. We’re the same age.”

He said it knowing it was Athena, who rallies armies. The suitors shouted from across the hall, and Agelaus, son of Damastor, threatened her first:

“Mentor, don’t let Odysseus talk you into fighting the suitors at his side. Here’s what we’ll do. When we’ve killed these two, the father and the son, we’ll kill you with them. You’ll pay with your own head for what you mean to do in this hall. And once we’ve stripped your strength away with bronze, we’ll throw whatever you own, indoors and out, into the pile with Odysseus’s goods. We won’t let your sons live in your house, or your daughters, or your faithful wife walk free in the town of Ithaca.”

That made Athena angrier in her heart. She turned on Odysseus with sharp words:

“Odysseus, your strength and courage aren’t what they were when you fought nine straight years against the Trojans for white-armed Helen. You killed so many men in that bitter war, and through your scheme Priam’s city with its wide streets fell. How is it that now, on your own ground, in your own house, you whine about being brave against these suitors? Stand here beside me, friend, and watch — watch how Mentor, son of Alcimus, pays back his debts in the thick of enemies.”

But she didn’t yet hand him the victory outright. She still meant to test the strength and courage of Odysseus and his fine son. She flew up to a roof-beam of the smoky hall and perched there, like a swallow to look at.

Now Agelaus, son of Damastor, urged the suitors on, with Eurynomus and Amphimedon and Demoptolemus, Pisander son of Polyctor, and bold Polybus. These were the best fighters left alive. The rest had already gone down under the bow and the thick rain of arrows. Agelaus called out:

“Friends, this man will have to drop his hands at last. Mentor went off after his empty boasting; they’re alone now at the front doors. So don’t all throw at once. You six, hurl your spears first, and may Zeus let us hit Odysseus and win the glory. Once he falls, the others are nothing.”

They threw, all six, as he ordered, straining for it, and Athena made every cast useless. One spear hit the doorpost of the hall, another the tight-fitting door, and another bronze-heavy shaft struck the wall. When they had dodged all the suitors’ spears, Odysseus spoke:

“Friends — now I’d say it’s our turn to throw into the crowd of them, men who want to strip us dead on top of all the wrongs they’ve done.”

They aimed straight ahead and let fly. Odysseus killed Demoptolemus, Telemachus killed Euryades, the swineherd killed Elatus, and the cowherd killed Pisander. All four bit the dust at once, and the rest of the suitors fell back into the corner. Odysseus and his men rushed forward and pulled their spears from the dead.

Again the suitors threw, straining, and again Athena turned most of the spears to nothing. One hit the doorpost, another the tight-fitting door, another bronze-heavy shaft struck the wall. But Amphimedon grazed Telemachus on the wrist, the bronze just scraping the skin, and Ctesippus’s long spear nicked Eumaeus on the shoulder above his shield, then flew on and dropped to the ground.

Then the men around Odysseus threw their sharp spears into the crowd of suitors again. Odysseus, destroyer of cities, hit Eurydamas; Telemachus hit Amphimedon; the swineherd hit Polybus; and the cowherd struck Ctesippus full in the chest and shouted over him:

“Son of Polytherses, you with the mocking mouth, never again give in to your foolishness and talk big. Leave the talking to the gods, who are far stronger than you. This is your gift in return for the cow’s foot you threw at Odysseus when he was begging through his own house.”

The herdsman of the curved-horned cattle finished. Then Odysseus closed in and ran the son of Damastor through with his long spear, and Telemachus drove his spear into the gut of Leocritus, son of Evenor, and the bronze burst out the far side. He pitched forward, his whole face striking the ground.

Now Athena raised her aegis — the man-destroying shield⁶, high from the roof, and the suitors’ hearts shattered. They bolted through the hall like a herd of cattle when the darting horsefly drives them mad in spring, in the season of long days. And the four men fell on them like hook-clawed, hook-beaked vultures sweeping down from the mountains on smaller birds: the small ones flee low across the plain, cowering, but the vultures swoop and kill them, and there is no fighting back and no escape, and the men watching enjoy the hunt. So the four fell on the suitors all through the hall, striking everywhere, and a hideous groaning rose as heads were split, and the whole floor ran with blood.

Leiodes⁷ rushed at Odysseus and grabbed his knees, begging:

“I beg you, Odysseus — respect me, pity me. I swear I never said or did a wrong thing to any woman in this house. I tried to stop the others when they acted like that, but they wouldn’t keep their hands off evil, and now their own arrogance has brought them this ugly death. But I was only their priest, I did nothing, and now I’ll lie here with them. There’s no thanks for doing good.”

Odysseus glared at him. “If you say you were their priest, then you must have prayed many times in this hall that the sweet day of my homecoming would never come, and that you’d take my wife and have children by her. So you won’t escape this miserable death.”

He picked up the sword that Agelaus had dropped on the floor as he died, and struck Leiodes square in the neck. His head was still speaking as it rolled in the dust.

The bard Phemius, son of Terpes⁸, was still dodging black death, the singer the suitors had forced to perform for them. He stood near the side door with his clear-toned lyre in his hands, torn between two choices: slip out of the hall and sit at the well-built altar of great Zeus in the court, where Laertes and Odysseus had burned so many ox-thighs, or run and clasp Odysseus’s knees. He decided the knees were safer. He set the hollow lyre down on the ground between the mixing-bowl and the silver-studded chair, ran to Odysseus, and seized his knees, begging:

“I beg you, Odysseus — respect me, pity me. You’ll grieve later if you kill a singer, one who sings for gods and men. I am self-taught, and a god planted every kind of song in my mind. I can sing to you as though you were a god, so don’t be eager to cut my throat. Your own son Telemachus will tell you I never came to your house gladly or for pay, to sing for the suitors after their feasts. They were too many and too strong, and they forced me.”

Telemachus heard him and spoke quickly to his father, close by: “Stop — don’t strike this man with the bronze. He’s done nothing. And let’s spare Medon the herald too, who always looked after me when I was a child, unless Philoetius or the swineherd has already killed him, or he ran into you while you raged through the house.”

Medon heard this. He had been crouching under a chair, wrapped in a freshly flayed cowhide, dodging black death. He scrambled out, threw off the hide, ran to Telemachus, grabbed his knees, and begged:

“Friend, here I am, hold off, and tell your father not to cut me down in his strength, in his rage against the suitors who wasted his goods and gave you, the fools, no honor at all.”

Odysseus smiled at him. “Don’t be afraid. He’s saved you. So learn it in your heart, and tell others, how much better good deeds are than evil ones. Now both of you, go outside the hall and sit in the court, away from the killing, you and the singer with all his songs, while I finish what I have to do in here.”

The two went out and sat down by the altar of great Zeus, looking all around, still expecting death at every moment.

Odysseus searched his house for any man still hiding alive, dodging black death. He found them all fallen in the blood and the dust, in heaps, like fish that the fishermen have hauled out of the gray sea in their fine-meshed net onto the curving shore, and the fish lie poured out on the sand, longing for the waves of the sea, until the blazing sun takes the life out of them. So the suitors lay heaped one on another.

Then Odysseus said to Telemachus, “Go and call the nurse Eurycleia. I have something to tell her.”

Telemachus did as his father said. He knocked on the door and called to the nurse: “Come, get up, old woman, you who watch over all the slave women in the house. My father is calling you. He has something to say.”

His words found their mark. She opened the doors of the hall and came, with Telemachus leading. She found Odysseus among the bodies of the slain, spattered with blood and gore like a lion that has just fed on a farmer’s ox, its chest and both cheeks smeared red, a thing terrible to look at. So was Odysseus splashed, his feet and his hands above. When she saw the corpses and all the blood, she started to cry out in triumph at the great thing done — but Odysseus held her back, checked her even as she strained:

“Keep your joy in your heart, old woman. Hold back. Don’t shout. It is not right to crow over dead men. The doom of the gods broke these men, and their own cruel deeds. They honored no one who came near them, good or bad, and so their own arrogance brought them this ugly death. Now tell me about the women in the house, which ones dishonored me, and which are innocent.”

“I’ll tell you the truth, child,” said the nurse Eurycleia. “There are fifty slave women in the house. We trained them to work, to card wool and endure their slavery. Of these, twelve in all went the way of shamelessness, honoring neither me nor Penelope herself. Telemachus has only just grown up, and his mother never let him give orders to the slave women. But let me go upstairs and tell your wife. Some god has put her into sleep.”

“Don’t wake her yet,” said Odysseus. “Send these women to me — the ones who plotted shameful things.”

The old woman went off through the hall to call them and tell them to come. Then Odysseus called Telemachus, the cowherd, and the swineherd to him:

“Start carrying out the dead, and make the women help. Then clean the fine chairs and tables with water and sponges. When you’ve put the whole house in order, take the slave women out of the hall, into the space between the round building and the good wall of the court, and run them through with your long swords⁹ until you’ve taken the life out of every one of them, until they’ve forgotten the love they made in secret with the suitors.”

The women came down together, all of them, wailing in dread, the tears running. First they carried out the dead, propping the bodies against each other under the roofed porch of the walled court. Odysseus himself drove them on, hurrying them, and they carried the dead out under compulsion. Then they scrubbed the fine chairs and tables with water and sponges, while Telemachus and the cowherd and the swineherd scraped the floor of the strong-built house with shovels, and the slave women carried it all away and threw it out the doors.

When they had set the whole hall in order, they led the slave women out, hemming them into the narrow space between the round building and the wall of the court, where there was no way to escape. Telemachus spoke:

“I won’t take these women’s lives with a clean death — not the women who poured shame on my head and on my mother, who slept with the suitors.”

He tied the cable of a dark ship to a great pillar and threw it around the round building, stretching it high, so that none of them could touch the ground with her feet. As doves or long-winged thrushes fly into a net set in a thicket, hoping for their roost, and a cruel bed receives them instead, so the women held their heads in a row, with nooses around all their necks, to die the most pitiful death. Their feet twitched a little while, but not for long.

Then they brought Melanthius out through the porch and the court. With the pitiless bronze they cut off his nose and his ears, tore out his genitals to feed raw to the dogs, and hacked off his hands and feet in their fury.

Then, when they had washed their own hands and feet, they went back into the house to Odysseus. The work was done. He said to his dear nurse Eurycleia:

“Bring sulfur¹⁰, old woman, the cure for foulness, and bring me fire, so I can purify the hall. And tell Penelope to come down here with her attendants. And send all the slave women in the house to me.”

“Yes, child, all that is rightly said,” answered the nurse. “But let me bring you a cloak and a tunic to wear. Don’t stand in the hall with rags over your broad shoulders, it wouldn’t be right.”

“First,” said Odysseus, “light me a fire in here.”

She did as he asked and brought fire and sulfur, and Odysseus purified the hall and the house and the court. Then the old woman went off through the fine house to call the women and tell them to come. They came out of their rooms with torches in their hands, and crowded around Odysseus, hugging him, kissing his head and shoulders and taking his hands. A sweet longing to cry came over him, for in his heart he knew every one of them.