ugh the doorway, as Telemachus had gone, and there they caught
Melanthius, and bound him like a bundle, with a rope, and, throwing the
rope over a rafter, dragged him up, and fastened him there, and left him
swinging. Then they ran back to Ulysses, four men keeping the doorway
against all the wooers that were not yet slain. But the Goddess Athene
appeared to Ulysses, in the form of Mentor, and gave him courage. He
needed it, for the wooers, having spears, threw them in volleys, six at
a time, at the four. They missed, but the spears of the four slew each
his man. Again the wooers threw, and dealt two or three slight wounds,
but the spears of the four were winged with death. They charged,
striking with spear and sword, into the crowd, who lost heart, and flew
here and there, crying for mercy and falling at every blow. Ulysses slew
the prophet, Leiodes, but Phemius, the minstrel, he spared, for he had
done no wrong, and Medon, a slave, crept out from beneath an ox hide,
where he had been lying, and asked Telemachus to pity him, and Ulysses
sent him and the minstrel into the courtyard, where they sat trembling.
All the rest of the wooers lay dead in heaps, like heaps of fish on the
sea shore, when they have been netted, and drawn to land.

Then Ulysses sent Telemachus to bring Eurycleia, who, when she came and
saw the wooers dead, raised a scream of joy, but Ulysses said 'it is an
unholy thing to boast over dead men.' He bade Telemachus and the
servants carry the corpses into the courtyard, and he made the women
wash and clean the hall, and the seats, and tables, and the pillars.
When all was clean, they took Melanthius and slew him, and then they
washed themselves, and the maidens who were faithful to Penelope came
out of their rooms, with torches in their hands, for it was now night,
and they kissed Ulysses with tears of joy. These were not young women,
for Ulysses remembered all of them.

Meanwhile old Eurycleia ran to tell Penelope all the good news: up the
stairs to her chamber she ran, tripping, and falling, and rising, and
laughing for joy. In she came and awakened Penelope, saying:

'Come and see what you have long desired: Ulysses in his own house, and
all the wicked wooers slain by the sword.' 'Surely you are mad, dear
nurse,' said Penelope, 'to waken me with such a wild story. Never have I
slept so sound since Ulysses went to that ill Ilios, never to be named.
Angry would I have been with any of the girls that