Then one by one the wooers rose up, in the order in which they sat, and tried to bend the bow.  The first to essay it was Leiodes, a soothsayer, and a man of gentle and godly mind.  But he was a soft liver, unpractised in all manly pastimes, and the bow was like iron in his white, womanish hands.  “I fear that this bow will make an end of many a bold spirit,” he said, little guessing how true his words were to prove; “for better it were to die than to go away beaten and broken men, after all the long years of our wooing.”

“Fie on thee!” cried Antinous, “thinkest thou that there are no better men here than thou art?  Doubt not that one of those present shall bend the bow and win the lady.”  Then he called Melanthius, and bade him light a fire, and bring a ball of lard to anoint the bow and make it easier to bend.  The lard was brought, and the wooers sat in turn by the fire, rubbing and anointing the bow, but all to no purpose.  Only Antinous and Eurymachus still held back, each in the full assurance that he, and none other, had strength to bend the bow.

II

Odysseus sat watching the wooers from his place at the upper end of the hall, and his heart misgave him when he thought of the appalling task which he had undertaken.  He had acquitted himself like a hero in many a hard-fought field, but never in all his life had he faced such odds as these.  While he thus mused, and weighed the chances in his mind, he saw Eumaeus and Philoetius leave the hall together, and pass out through the courtyard gate.  Then a sudden thought struck him, and muttering to himself, “I must risk it,” he rose and followed the two men.  He found them talking together outside the courtyard fence, and in order to make trial of their temper he addressed them in these cautious terms:  “Tell me truly, good friends, which side would ye take, if by some miracle Odysseus suddenly appeared in this house?  Would ye be for the wooers or for him?”

Eumaeus and Philoetius with one voice protested that they were ready to hazard their lives for the rights of their master, whereupon Odysseus hesitated no longer, but answered:  “The miracle has been wrought; I am he!  After twenty years of toil and wandering Heaven hath brought me home.  I have watched ye both, and I know that ye alone among all the thralls remain true to me.  Only continue steadfast for this day, and your reward is assured.  I will build houses for ye both, close to my own, and ye shall dwell there with your wives, as my friends and neighbours, equals in honour with Telemachus, my son.”