Even Odysseus quailed a little at this; but Athene rebuked him, and moments later the hall was filled with groaning, and all the floor swam with blood. Watching from the rafters in the guise of a swallow, the goddess amused herself by intervening occasionally in Odysseus’s behalf, deflecting a spear-thrust or a sword-blow. Panic settled in the wooers. One by one they fell before the bitter spears of Telemachus and Odysseus, and at last there was quiet. Odysseus looked about, and marked how all around the hall the bodies of the suitors lay heaped in their blood.

Satisfied, he summoned Penelope’s old nurse Eurycleia, stopping her cries of joy when she saw her master — “An unholy thing is it to boast over slain men” — and bade her clean the blood-soaked hall, and light a fire there. Then all in his household who had remained loyal to him came bearing torches, and he welcomed them kindly. All save one: for Penelope was in her bedchamber, and still did not know that her King had returned.