Thus he spake, and Eurymachus waxed yet the more wroth at heart, and looking fiercely on him spake to him winged words: 

’Ah, wretch that thou art, right soon will I work thee mischief, so boldly thou pratest among many lords, and hast no fear at heart.  Verily wine has got about thy wits, or perchance thou art always of this mind, and so thou dost babble idly.  Art thou beside thyself for joy, because thou hast beaten the beggar Irus?’

Therewith he caught up a footstool, but Odysseus sat him down at the knees of Amphinomus of Dulichium, in dread of Eurymachus.  And Eurymachus cast and smote the cup-bearer on the right hand, and the ladle cup dropped to the ground with a clang, while the young man groaned and fell backwards in the dust.  Then the wooers clamoured through the shadowy halls, and thus one would say looking to his neighbour: 

’Would that our wandering guest had perished otherwhere, or ever he came hither; so should he never have made all this tumult in our midst!  But now we are all at strife about beggars, and there will be no more joy of the good feast, for worse things have their way.’

Then the mighty prince Telemachus spake among them: 

’Sirs, ye are mad; now doth your mood betray that ye have eaten and drunken; some one of the gods is surely moving you.  Nay, now that ye have feasted well, go home and lay you to rest, since your spirit so bids; for as for me, I drive no man hence.’

Thus he spake, and they all bit their lips and marvelled at Telemachus, in that he spake boldly.  Then Amphinomus made harangue, and spake among them, Amphinomus, the famous son of Nisus the prince, the son of Aretias: 

’Friends, when a righteous word has been spoken, none surely would rebuke another with hard speech and be angry.  Misuse ye not this stranger, neither any of the thralls that are in the house of godlike Odysseus.  But come, let the wine-bearer pour for libation into each cup in turn, that after the drink-offering we may get us home to bed.  But the stranger let us leave in the halls of Odysseus for a charge to Telemachus:  for to his home has he come.’

Thus he spake, and his word was well-pleasing to them all.  Then the lord Mulius mixed for them the bowl, the henchman out of Dulichium, who was squire of Amphinomus.  And he stood by all and served it to them in their turn; and they poured forth before the blessed gods, and drank the honey-sweet wine.  Now when they had poured forth and had drunken to their hearts’ content, they departed to lie down, each one to his own house.

Book XIX

Telemachus removes the arms out of the hall.  Odysseus disburseth with Penelope.  And is known by his nurse, but concealed.  And the hunting of the boar upon that occasion related.

Now the goodly Odysseus was left behind in the hall, devising with Athene’s aid the slaying of the wooers, and straightway he spake winged words to Telemachus: