“Behold I will tell thee all the truth,” answered the nurse; “fifty women there are in all in thy house, that card the wool and bear the yoke of bondage.  And of these twelve have been faithless, honouring neither me nor Penelope, their mistress.  But now let me go and tell the news to thy wife, who all this time has been lying in a deep sleep.”

“Rouse her not yet,” said Odysseus, “but go quickly and send those guilty women hither.”

While Eurycleia was gone to summon the maid-servants, Telemachus and the two herdsmen began, by the command of Odysseus, to set the hall in order, and wash away the traces of slaughter.  Presently, with loud weeping and lamentation, the wretched women entered, and were compelled to assist in the horrid task.  The bodies of the slain were carried out, and laid in order along the wall of the courtyard.  Then they washed and scoured the tables, and scraped the floor with spades; and when all was ready Odysseus bade his son and the two others to drive the women forth, and slay them with the edge of the sword.  So these three drove them into a corner of the courtyard, and Eumaeus and Philoetius drew their swords to slay them.  But Telemachus held them back saying:  “Let them die in shame, even as they have lived.”  So they took a long ship’s cable, which was lying in an outhouse, and stretched it across an angle of the wall; to this they attached twelve nooses, and left the women hanging there by the neck until they were dead.

A horrid death was reserved for the traitor Melanthius.  Dragging him out into the courtyard, they cut off his nose and ears, and his hands and feet, and so left him to die.

After that they washed themselves and went back to the hall.  Then Odysseus bade Eurycleia kindle a fire, and bring sulphur to purify the chamber.  And having thoroughly cleansed the house from the fumes of slaughter, he sat down to wait for the coming of his wife.

Odysseus and Penelope

I

Her face beaming with joy, and her feet stumbling over one another in their haste, Eurycleia ascended to the chamber where Penelope lay sleeping.  “Awake, Penelope, awake!” she cried, standing by the bedside; “come and see with thine own eyes the fulfilment of all thy hopes.  Odysseus has come home at last, and all the wooers lie slain by his hand!”

“Thou art mad, nurse,” answered Penelope pettishly, turning in her bed and rubbing her eyes; “why mockest thou me in my sorrow with thy folly? and why hast thou disturbed me in the sweetest sleep that ever I had since the fatal, the accursed day when my lord sailed for Troy?  But for thy years and thy faithful service I would have paid thee unkindly for this wanton insult”

“Heaven forbid that I should mock or insult thee, dear child!” cried the nurse, her eyes filling with tears.  “I have told thee naught but the truth.  The stranger whom we thought a beggar was Odysseus himself.  Telemachus knew this all the time, but kept it from thee by the command of his father.”