Then through the axes at the first hole flew The steel-charged arrow. Straightway to him drew His son in complete arms.... "Now for us There rests another mark more hard to hit, And such as never man before hath smit; Whose full point likewise my hands shall assay, And try if Phoebus will give me his day." He said, and off his bitter arrow thrust Right at Antinous, that struck him just As he was lifting up the bowl, to show That 'twixt the cup and lip much ill may grow. Then the rest cried out upon him with threats, while they made vain search for weapons in the hall. He, frowning, said, "Dogs, see in me the man Ye all held dead at Troy. My house it is That thus ye spoil, and thus your luxuries Fill with my women's rapes; in which ye woo The wife of one that lives, and no thought show Of man's fit fear, or gods', your present fame, Or any fair sense of your future name; And, therefore, present and eternal death Shall end your base life." Then the Wooers made at Ulysses and Telemachus, who smote down first Eurymachus and then Amphinomus. But a way to the armoury having been left, the Wooers got arms by aid of a traitor; whom Eumæus and Philoetius smote, and then came to Ulysses and his son. Moreover, Pallas also came to their help; so that the Wooers, being routed-- Ulysses and his son the flyers chased As when, with crooked beaks and seres, a cast Of hill-bred eagles, cast off at some game, That yet their strengths keep, but, put up, in flame The eagle stoops; from which, along the field The poor fowls make wing this and that way yield Their hard-flown pinions, then the clouds assay For 'scape or shelter, their forlorn dismay All spirit exhaling, all wings strength to carry Their bodies forth, and, truss'd up, to the quarry Their falconers ride in, and rejoice to see Their hawks perform a flight so fervently; So in their flight Ulysses with his heir Did stoop and cuff the Wooers, that the air Broke in vast sighs, whose heads they shot and cleft, The pavement boiling with the souls they reft. Now all the Wooers were slain, and they of the household that were their accomplices; and the chamber was purified. Then first did tears ensue Her rapt assurance; when she ran and spread Her arms about his neck, kiss'd oft his head. He wept for joy, t'enjoy a wife so fit For his grave mind, that knew his depth of wit. But as for the Wooers, Hermes gathered the souls of them together, and, as bats gibbering in a cavern rise, so came they forth gibbering and went down to the House of Hades. FOOTNOTES: