When he returned from his bath, the Queen, still more impressed by his noble presence, though yet she knew him not, confided to him a design she had planned to assist her choice among these suitors who were all distasteful to her. She proposed to set them a superhuman task--to bend the great bow of Ulysses and perform the feat in which he used to excel. Two rows of beams, six in each row, should be set at equal distances apart, to support twelve silver ax rings, and through each line of six rings the archer must let fly his arrow straight and true. And the noble archer who should perform this feat should be rewarded by her hand. Ulysses applauded this design, urging her not to fear to name herself the prize, since Ulysses himself would enter the lists before the trial was over, win the prize, and claim her for his own. The following day another great feast was set, and the princes sat down to their feasting. Ulysses by this had watched the behavior of his people, and now understood who were faithful to him and who deserved no trust. Into this scene of revelry Penelope entered with her maidens, bearing the great bow and arrows of Ulysses, and challenged the princes to bend this bow and shoot the arrow through the silver rings as her lord Ulysses had been used to do, promising that he who could accomplish this should be her husband. The beams were already set in place, and Telemachus claimed his right to try his skill first among the suitors, since victory meant to him the safeguarding of a kingdom already his by right of descent. He set the axes in line upon the beams, with the rings ready for the flight of his arrow. Three times his young arm tried to bend the bow, three times he failed. Then all the princes in order, from right to left, took up the bow in turn and tried their skill. In vain they strained their muscles; they rubbed the bow with fat; they warmed it at the flame to make it supple; they tried every device to bend it. The tough bow bent not in their impious hands!