Then Athena put it into the heart of Penelope to set the suitors a
final test. She brought forth the bow of Odysseus together with twelve
axes. It had been an exercise of her lord to set up the axes in a
line, string the bow and shoot through the heads of the axes which had
been hollowed for that purpose. She promised to follow at once the
suitor who could string the bow and shoot through the axes. First
Telemachus set up the axes and tried to string the weapon; failing
three times he would have succeeded at the next effort but for a
glance from his father. Leiodes vainly tried his strength, to be
rebuked by Antinous who suggested that the bow should be made more
pliant by being heated at the fire.

Noticing that Eumaeus and Philoetius had gone out together Odysseus
went after them and revealed himself to them; the three then returned
to the hall. After all the suitors had failed except Antinous, who did
not deem that he should waste a feast-day in stringing bows, Odysseus
begged that he might try, Penelope insisting on his right to attempt
the feat. When she retired Eumaeus brought the bow to Odysseus, then
told Eurycleia to keep the woman in their chambers while Philoetius
bolted the hall door.

"But already Odysseus was turning the bow this way and that testing
it lest the worms had devoured it in his absence. Then when he had
balanced it and looked it all over, even as when a man skilled in
the lyre and song easily putteth a new string about a peg, even so
without an effort Odysseus strung his mighty bow. Taking it in his
right hand he tried the string which sang sweetly beneath his touch
like to the voice of a swallow. Then he took an arrow and shot it
with a straight aim through the axes, missing not one. Then he spake
to Telemachus: 'Thy guest bringeth thee no shame as he sitteth in