but there reigned not a bitterer banquet planet in all heaven than that
which hung over them this day by secret destination of Minerva.

There was a bow which Ulysses left when he went for Troy. It had lain by
since that time, out of use and unstrung, for no man had strength to draw
that bow, save Ulysses. So it had remained, as a monument of the great
strength of its master. This bow, with the quiver of arrows belonging
thereto, Telemachus had brought down from the armoury on the last night
along with the lances; and now Minerva, intending to do Ulysses an honour,
put it into the mind of Telemachus to propose to the suitors to try who
was strongest to draw that bow; and he promised that to the man who should
be able to draw that bow his mother should be given in marriage--Ulysses's
wife the prize to him who should bend the bow of Ulysses.

There was great strife and emulation stirred up among the suitors at those
words of the prince Telemachus. And to grace her son's words, and to
confirm the promise which he had made, Penelope came and showed herself
that day to the suitors; and Minerva made her that she appeared never so
comely in their sight as that day, and they were inflamed with the
beholding of so much beauty, proposed as the price of so great manhood;
and they cried out that if all those heroes who sailed to Colchis for the
rich purchase of the golden-fleeced ram had seen earth's richer prize,
Penelope, they would not have made their voyage, but would have vowed
their valours and their lives to her, for she was at all parts faultless.

And she said, "The gods have taken my beauty from me, since my lord went
for Troy." But Telemachus willed his mother to depart and not be present
at that contest; for he said, "It may be, some rougher strife shall chance
of this than may be expedient for a woman to witness." And she retired,
she and her maids, and left the hall.