So saying, she bade Eumaeus, the noble swineherd, deliver to the suitors the bow and the gray steel.  With tears Eumaeus took the arms and laid them down before them.  Near by, the neatherd also wept to see his master’s bow.  But Antinous rebuked them, and spoke to them and said,—­

“You stupid boors, who only mind the passing minute, wretched pair, what do you mean by shedding tears, troubling this lady’s heart, when already her heart is prostrated with grief at losing her dear husband?  Sit down and eat in silence, or else go forth and weep, but leave the bow behind, a dread ordeal for the suitors; for I am sure this polished bow will not be bent with ease.  There is not a man of all now here so powerful as Ulysses.  I saw him once myself, and well recall him, though I was then a child.”

He spoke, but in his breast his heart was hoping to draw the string and send an arrow through the steel; yet he was to be the first to taste the shaft of good Ulysses, whom he now wronged though seated in his hall, while to like outrage he encouraged all his comrades.  To these now spoke revered Telemachus:—­

“Ha!  Zeus the son of Cronos has made me play the fool!  My mother—­and wise she is—­says she will follow some strange man and quit this house; and I but laugh and in my silly soul am glad.  Come then, you suitors, since before you stands your prize, a lady whose like cannot be found throughout Achaian land, in sacred Pylos, Argos, or Mycenae, in Ithaca itself, or the dark mainland, as you yourselves well know,—­what needs my mother praise?—­come then, delay not with excuse nor longer hesitate to bend the bow, but let us learn what is to be.  I too might try the bow.  And if I stretch it and send an arrow through the steel, then with no shame to me my honored mother may forsake this house and follow some one else, leaving me here behind; for I shall then be able to wield my father’s arms.”

He spoke, and flung his red cloak from his shoulders, rising full height, and put away the sharp sword also from his shoulder.  First then he set the axes, marking one long furrow for them all, aligned by cord.  The earth on the two sides he stamped down flat.  Surprise filled all beholders to see how properly he set them, though he had never seen the game before.  Then he went and stood upon the threshold and began to try the bow.  Three times he made it tremble as he sought to make it bend.  Three times he slacked his strain, still hoping in his heart to draw the string and send an arrow through the steel.  And now he might have drawn it by force of a fourth tug, had not Ulysses shaken his head and stayed the eager boy.  So to the suitors once more spoke revered Telemachus:—­

“Fie!  Shall I ever be a coward and a weakling, or am I still but young and cannot trust my arm to right me with the man who wrongs me first?  But come, you who are stronger men than I, come try the bow and end the contest.”

So saying, he laid by the bow and stood it on the ground, leaning it on the firm-set polished door.  The swift shaft, too, he likewise leaned against the bow’s fair knob, and once more took the seat from which he first arose.  Then said to them Antinous, Eupeithes’ son,—­