"Dropping the basin she fell backwards; joy and grief took her heart at once, her eyes filled with tears and her utterance was checked. Catching him by his beard, she said: 'In very sooth thou art Odysseus, my dear boy; and I knew thee not before I had touched the body of my lord.' So speaking she looked at Penelope, fain to tell her that her lord was within. But Odysseus laid his hand upon the nurse's mouth, with the other he drew her to him and whispered: 'Nurse, wouldst thou ruin me? Thou didst nourish me at thy breast, and now I am come back after mighty sufferings. Be silent, lest another learn the news, or I tell thee that when I have punished the suitors I will not even refrain from thee when I destroy the other women in my halls.'" Concealing the scar carefully under his rags by the fireside he put a good interpretation on a strange dream which had visited his wife. That night Odysseus with his own eyes witnessed the intrigues between his women and the suitors. He heard his wife weeping in her chamber for him and prayed to Zeus for aid in the coming trial. On the morrow he was again outraged; the suitors were moved to laughter by a prophecy of Theoclymenus: "Yet they were laughing with alien lips, the meat they ate was dabbled with blood, their eyes were filled with tears and their hearts boded lamentation. Among them spake Theoclymenus; 'Wretched men, what is this evil that is come upon you? Your heads and faces and the knees beneath you are shrouded in night, mourning is kindled among you, your cheeks are bedewed with tears, the walls and the fair pillars are sprinkled with blood, the forecourt and the yard is full of spectres hastening to the gloom of Erebus; the sun hath perished from the heaven and a mist of ruin hath swept upon you.'" In answer Eurymachus bade him begone if all within was night; taking him at his word, the seer withdrew before the coming ruin. 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.