’Wise Eurycleia, Telemachus bids thee bar the well-fitting doors of thy chamber, and if any of the women hear the sound of groaning or the din of men within our walls, let them not go forth, but abide where they are in silence at their work.’

So he spake, and wingless her speech remained, and she barred the doors of the fair-lying chambers.

Then Philoetius hasted forth silently from the house, and barred the outer gates of the fenced court.  Now there lay beneath the gallery the cable of a curved ship, fashioned of the byblus plant, wherewith he made fast the gates, and then himself passed within.  Then he went and sat on the settle whence he had risen, and gazed upon Odysseus.  He already was handling the bow, turning it every way about, and proving it on this side and on that, lest the worms might have eaten the horns when the lord of the bow was away.  And thus men spake looking each one to his neighbour: 

’Verily he has a good eye, and a shrewd turn for a bow!  Either, methinks, he himself has such a bow lying by at home or else he is set on making one, in such wise does he turn it hither and thither in his hands, this evil-witted beggar.’

And another again of the haughty youths would say:  ’Would that the fellow may have profit thereof, just so surely as he shall ever prevail to bend this bow!’

So spake the wooers, but Odysseus of many counsels had lifted the great bow and viewed it on every side, and even as when a man that is skilled in the lyre and in minstrelsy, easily stretches a cord about a new peg, after tying at either end the twisted sheep-gut, even so Odysseus straightway bent the great bow, all without effort, and took it in his right hand and proved the bow-string, which rang sweetly at the touch, in tone like a swallow.  Then great grief came upon the wooers, and the colour of their countenance was changed, and Zeus thundered loud showing forth his tokens.  And the steadfast goodly Odysseus was glad thereat, in that the son of deep-counselling Cronos had sent him a sign.  Then he caught up a swift arrow which lay by his table, bare, but the other shafts were stored within the hollow quiver, those whereof the Achaeans were soon to taste.  He took and laid it on the bridge of the bow, and held the notch and drew the string, even from the settle whereon he sat, and with straight aim shot the shaft and missed not one of the axes, beginning from the first axe-handle, and the bronze-weighted shaft passed clean through and out at the last.  Then he spake to Telemachus, saying: 

’Telemachus, thy guest that sits in the halls does thee no shame.  In nowise did I miss my mark, nor was I wearied with long bending of the bow.  Still is my might steadfast—­not as the wooers say scornfully to slight me.  But now is it time that supper too be got ready for the Achaeans, while it is yet light, and thereafter must we make other sport with the dance and the lyre, for these are the crown of the feast.’