which at heart cheered Ulysses, for he knew that now his long labours by the disposal of the fates drew to an end.  Then fitted he an arrow to the bow, and drawing it to the head, he sent it right to the mark which the prince had set up.  Which done, he said to Telemachus, “You have got no disgrace yet by your guest, for I have struck the mark I shot at, and gave myself no such trouble in teazing the bow with fat and fire, as these men did, but have made proof that my strength is not impaired, nor my age so weak and contemptible as these were pleased to think it.  But come, the day going down calls us to supper, after which succeed poem and harp, and all delights which use to crown princely banquetings.”

So saying, he beckoned to his son, who straight girt his sword to his side, and took one of the lances (of which there lay great store from the armoury) in his hand, and armed at all points, advanced towards his father.

The upper rags which Ulysses wore fell from his shoulder, and his own kingly likeness returned, when he rushed to the great hall door with bow and quiver full of shafts, which down at his feet he poured, and in bitter words presignified his deadly intent to the suitors.  “Thus far,” he said, “this contest has been decided harmless:  now for us there rests another mark, harder to hit, but which my hands shall essay notwithstanding, if Phoebus god of archers be pleased to give me the mastery.”  With that he let fly a deadly arrow at Antinous, which pierced him in the throat as he was in the act of lifting a cup of wine to his mouth.  Amazement seized the suitors, as their great champion fell dead, and they raged highly against Ulysses, and said that it should prove the dearest shaft which he ever let fly, for he had slain a man, whose like breathed not in any part of the kingdom:  and they flew to their arms, and would have seized the lances, but Minerva struck them with dimness of sight that they went erring up and down the hall, not knowing where to find them.  Yet so infatuated were they by the displeasure of heaven, that they did not see the imminent peril which impended over them, but every man believed that this accident had happened beside the intention of the doer.  Fools! to think by shutting their eyes to evade destiny, or that any other cup remained for them, but that which their great Antinous had tasted!

Then Ulysses revealed himself to all in that presence, and that he was the man whom they held to be dead at Troy, whose palace they had usurped, whose wife in his life-time they had sought in impious marriage, and that for this reason destruction was come upon them.  And he dealt his deadly arrows among them, and there was no avoiding him, nor escaping from his horrid person, and Telemachus by his side plied them thick with those murderous lances from which there was no retreat, till fear itself made them valiant, and danger gave them eyes to understand the peril; then they which had swords drew them, and some with