back the bolt.  The double doors flew open with a crash, and the treasury with all its wealth was revealed.  Great coffers of cedar-wood lined the walls, filled with fine raiment, which her own hands had wrought.  It was a cool and quiet retreat, dimly lighted, remote from all rude sounds, full of fragrant odours, and fit to guard the possessions of a prince.  And there, hanging from a pin, and heedfully wrapped in its case, was seen the fatal bow.  She took it down, and, sitting on one of the coffers, laid it on her knees, and gazed on it fondly with her eyes full of tears.  How often had she seen it in the hands of Odysseus, when he went forth at sunrise to hunt the hare and the deer!  How often had she taken it from him when he came back at evening loaded with the spoils of the chase!  And now a keen shaft from this very bow was to cut the last tender chord of memory, and make her another man’s wife!

With a heavy heart she took the bow with its quiver in her hands, and descending the staircase re-entered the hall, followed by her maidens, who carried a chest containing the axes.

“Behold the bow, fair sirs!” she said to the wooers, “and behold me, the prize for this fine feat of archery!” Therewith she gave the bow to Eumaeus, who received it with tears; and Philoetius wept likewise when he saw the treasured weapon of his lord.  These signs of emotion stirred the anger of Antinous, who rebuked the herdsmen fiercely.  “Peace, fools!” he cried.  “Peace, miserable churls!  Why pierce ye the heart of the lady with your howlings?  Has she not grief enough already?  Go forth, and howl with the dogs outside, and we will make trial of the bow; yet me thinks it will be long ere anyone here shall string it”

“Anyone save thyself, thou wouldst say!” rejoined Telemachus with a loud laugh.  Then, seeing his mother regarding him with gentle reproach, he added:  “Tis strange that I should feel so gay and light of heart at the moment when I am about to lose my mother.  Zeus, methinks, has turned my brain, and made me laugh when I should weep.  But come, ye bold wooers, which of you will be the first to enter the lists for this matchless prize, a lady without peer in all the land of Hellas?  Why sit ye thus silent?  Must I show you the way?  So be it, then; and if I can bend the bow, and shoot an arrow straight, the prize shall be mine, and my mother shall abide here in her widowed state.”

So saying he sprang up, flung off his cloak, and laid aside his sword.  And first he made a long shallow trench in the floor of the hall, and set up the axes with their double heads in a straight line, stamping down the earth about the handles to make all firm.  Then he took the bow from Eumaeus; it was a weighty and powerful weapon, fashioned from the horns of an ibex, which were firmly riveted into a massive bridge, and great force was required to string it.  Telemachus set the end against the floor, and strove with all his might to drive the string into its socket.  Three times he tried, and failed; but the fourth time, making a great effort, he was on the point of succeeding, when his father nodded to him to desist.  “Plague on it!” cried Telemachus, laying the bow aside with an air of vexation, “must I be called a poltroon all my life, or is it that I have not yet attained the full measure of my strength?  Let the others now take their turn.”