Penelope went upstairs to her bedroom, and to a closet where she kept some of Odysseus’s treasures. She unlocked it with a key of ivory and gold, and tearfully drew from within a mighty bow, a gift from Iphitus, and still in its case. She carried it down to the hall, and after reproving the suitors for living so handsomely off her for so long, issued a challenge.
“I will set before you the great bow of Odysseus,” she declared, “and whosoever shall most easily string the bow in his hands and shoot a single arrow through a row of twelve axes,* with him will I go.“
Eagerly, each of the lordly wooers in turn attempted the feat, but none could so much as string the mighty bow, even after Antinous worked it with hot wool-fat to try to make the unyielding wood more supple. At last, Antinous diagnosed the problem. That day was a feast-day of Apollo, the god of archery; no wonder mortals could not perform feats of archery on such a day! They must lay the bow aside, make their humble offerings, and try again tomorrow.
But the travel-worn stranger was not willing to let it go at this.
* Apparently, when a young man Odysseus had amused himself by digging a trench like that dug when constructing a ship, and then arranging twelve axe-heads much as the blocks that support the keel. This allowed him to line himself up in front of the holes in which the axe-handles were normally fitted into the heads. He would then stand back and shoot an arrow through the whole line of them all at once, as through a tube.