Among those present was Theoclymenus, the man of second sight, and in that very hour the vision came upon him, and he cried aloud from the place where he sat:  “Woe unto you, ye doomed and miserable men!  Thick darkness is wrapped about you, the darkness of the grave!  All the air is loud with wailing, and your cheeks are wet with tears.  See, see! the walls and the rafters are sprinkled with blood, and the porch and the courtyard are thronged with ghosts, hurrying downward to the nether pit; and the sun has died out of heaven, and all the house lies in darkness and the shadow of death.”

But the wooers had now recovered from their strange fit, and they laughed gaily at the terrible warning of the seer.  “Poor man!” said Eurymachus, “he has left his wits at home.  Go, someone, and show him the way to the town, if he finds it so dark here.”

“I need no guide,” answered Theoclymenus, “I have eyes and ears, and feet, and a steady brain, so that I shall not go astray.  Farewell, unhappy men!  Your hour of grace is past.”  And forthwith he arose and went his way to the town.

When he was gone the wooers began jeering at Telemachus, and taunted him with the behaviour of his guests.  “Thou hast a rare taste,” said one, “in the choice of thy company!  First, this filthy beggar that cumbers the ground with his greedy carcass, and after him comes the mad prophet, and screams like a raven over our meat”

One meaning glance passed between Telemachus and his father; the day was drawing on, and they cared not now to bandy words with the wooers.  And so the merry feast came to an end with jesting, and mirth, and laughter; and after a few short hours they were to sit down to supper—­such a supper as they had never tasted before, with a hero and a goddess to spread the board.

The Bow of Odysseus

I

The time had now arrived for the great trial of strength and skill of which Penelope had spoken, and which was to decide deeper and deadlier issues than those of marriage.  Among the treasures which Odysseus had left behind him was a famous bow, which he had received as a gift from Iphitus, son of Eurytus, whom he met in his youth during a visit to Messene.  He who strung this bow, and shot an arrow through a line of axes set up in the hall, was to be rewarded by the hand of Penelope.

“Mother, it is time!” whispered Telemachus, soon after the departure of Theoclymenus.  Obeying the signal, Penelope, who had been sitting in the hall listening to the talk of the wooers, left her place, and ascending a steep staircase made her way to the store-room, which was situated at the farther end of the house.  In her hand she carried a brazen key with a handle of ivory; and when she came to the door, she loosened the strap which served to draw the bolt from the outside, and inserting the key drew