The Contest Announced

3“Hear, noble suitors! you who throng these halls,
And eat and drink from day to day, while long
My husband has been gone; your sole excuse
For all this lawlessness the claim you make
That I become a bride. Come then, for now
A contest is proposed. I bring to you
The mighty bow that great Odysseus bore.
Whoever among you he may be whose hand
Shall bend this bow, and send through these twelve rings
An arrow, him I follow hence, and leave
This beautiful abode of my young years,
With all its plenty —though its memory,
I think, will haunt me even in my dreams.”

4She spoke, and bade the master of the swine,
The good Eumaeus, place the bow and rings
Of hoary steel before the suitor-train.
In tears he bore the bow and laid it down.
The herdsman also wept to see again
His master’s bow. Antinous called to both
With a loud voice, and chid them angrily: —