"Queen Penelope," answered
Eurymakhos, "we do not suppose that this man will take you away with
him; it is impossible; but we are afraid lest some of the baser sort,
men or women among the Achaeans, should go gossiping about and say,
‘These suitors are a feeble folk; they are paying court to the
wife of a brave man whose bow not one of them was able to string, and
yet a beggarly tramp who came to the house strung it at once and sent
an arrow through the iron.’ This is what will be said, and it
will be a scandal against us."
"Eurymakhos," Penelope answered,
"people who persist in eating up the estate of a great chieftain and
dishonoring his house must not expect others in the dêmos
to think well of them. Why then should you mind if men talk as
you think they will? This stranger is strong and well-built, he says
moreover that he is of noble birth. Give him the bow, and let us see
whether he can string it or no. I say - and it shall surely be - that
if Apollo grants him the glory of stringing it, I will give him a
cloak and shirt of good wear, with a javelin to keep off dogs and
robbers, and a sharp sword. I will also give him sandals, and will
see him sent safely wherever he wants to go."
Then Telemakhos said, "Mother, I
am the only man either in Ithaca or in the islands that are over
against Elis who has the right to let any one have the bow or to
refuse it. No one shall force me one way or the other, not even
though I choose to make the stranger a present of the bow outright,
and let him take it away with him. Go, then, within the house and
busy yourself with your daily duties, your loom, your distaff, and
the ordering of your servants. This bow is a man's matter, and
mine above all others, for it is I who am master here."
She went wondering back into the
house, and laid her son's saying in her heart. Then going
upstairs with her handmaids into her room, she mourned her dear
husband till Athena sent sweet sleep over her eyelids.
Homer. The Odyssey. Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. Samuel Butler. Based on public domain edition, revised by Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy. A. C. Fifield, London. 1900 (?).
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