Just after Eumaeus had left, a huge, ungainly fellow came slouching up to the place where Odysseus was sitting, and eyed him with a look of great disfavour.  He was the town beggar, known far and wide in Ithaca as the greediest and laziest knave in the whole island.  His real name was Arnaeus, but from being employed to run errands about the place he had received the nickname of Irus.  Highly indignant at finding his rights usurped by a new-comer, and thinking to find in that battered old man an easy victim, he began to rate his supposed rival in a big, blustering voice:  “Give place, old man, to thy betters, and force me not to use my hands upon thee.  Begone, and that quickly, or it shall be the worse for thee; out of the way, I say!”

With a stern look Odysseus answered him, and said:  “What possesses thee, fellow, that thou seekest a quarrel with me?  Thou art, as I perceive, a beggar like me, and I grudge thee not anything which thou mayest receive in the way of alms from those who sit here.  There is room on this threshold for us both.  But I warn thee not to provoke me to blows, for old as I am I will set a mark upon thee which thou wilt carry to thy death.”

Trusting in his size, and encouraged by the nods and winks of the wooers who sat near, Irus was only too ready to take up the challenge.  “Hark to the old starveling cur!” he shouted.  “How glib of tongue he is, like any scolding hag!  Get thee to thy fists then, since thou wilt have it so, and I will knock all thy teeth out, if thou hast any left”; and he thrust Odysseus with his foot.

All the wooers now came running up, and crowded round the exasperated beggars, hoping to see fine sport.  Antinous took the lead, such a scene being exactly to his taste.  “Here is matter for mirth,” he cried, laughing, “for many a day.  Make a ring quickly, and let them fight it out.”

In the courtyard there was a red smouldering fire, on which two huge sausages were roasting, a sort of haggis made by filling the belly of a goat with fat and blood.  It was determined to give one of these messes to the winner in the fight; and he also was henceforth to have the sole right to receive the broken meats at the wooers’ feasts.

Odysseus now pretended to draw back, as if he feared an encounter with a man younger than himself; but at last he consented to the match, on condition that the wooers would swear an oath not to strike him a foul blow while he was fighting with Irus.  To this they all agreed, and forthwith Odysseus stripped to the waist, and girded his rags about his loins.  By some strange magic his limbs seemed to have filled out; and when the wooers saw his mighty chest and broad shoulders they cried out in amazement “Methinks Irus will pay dearly for his ire,"[1] said one.  “Look what a brawny thigh the old carle shows under his rags!”

[Footnote 1:  The pun is an attempt to reproduce a similar word-play in the original.]