The feat of Odysseus

They all gathered in the great hall and set up the twelve axes close to each other, and the fight began. But the gourmand suitors were trying to stretch the great bow of Ulysses. Then the beggar asked to try.

Everyone laughed and let him go. Odysseus seized the bow, stretched it as if it were a toy, and let the shuttle whistling through, and the twelve axes. They are all left to stare at him like losers.

The end of the suitors

Then he threw away the rags, called Telemachus, and they began to kill the suitors. They cried out, they begged, they ran to hide, but he had no mercy on them. Some wanted to fight for their lives, and it was not long before they killed them too.

So, by the afternoon, there was no one left.

Odysseus reveals himself to Penelope

When they had finished, Odysseus went up to the roof to see Penelope. But his faithful wife refused to believe that he was Odysseus. And only when he told her certain signs that only the two of them knew, then she fell, triumphant, into his arms.

For hours Odysseus told her of his sufferings and she did not know what to do to thank him.

The happiest day

Then they went down to the great hall, which the servants had cleared, and there the king appeared to all and spoke to them like a father. Then they sat down at table and ate together, after twenty years of the master of the house being absent.

This was the happiest day of Odysseus' life, the day he returned home to his family.

Odysseus and Laertes

In the morning, the next day, Odysseus got up and left for his estates. There lived his father, the old father, with a servant, because he could not see the suitors eating his child's livelihood. He wandered bitterly about the fields, sometimes climbing up a hill to his best vineyard. And then, tired, he would return to the little house. There the old servant would take care of him before preparing his food.

When Odysseus arrived, he found him digging in the garden. He approached him and greeted him, respectfully. His heart burned at seeing his father unkempt and weak, but he did not tell him who he was, lest anything should happen to him, as old as he was.

So, little by little, as he talked, he told him about one thing and another, about the orchard and the fields and his childhood, and then Laertes understood. And he rose up, old Laertes, and embraced his son, and kissed him, trembling with joy. But his old heart was filled with great joy. And then together, father and son, they returned to the palace.

The end of the story

So Odysseus regained his throne. But many were unhappy about the murder of the suitors, and they protested and rioted. But Odysseus, sometimes with good and sometimes with evil, put things in order, and all were at peace.