Odysseus lies awake on an ox hide in the hall, planning the suitors' deaths. He sees the disloyal maids slipping out to sleep with the suitors, laughing as they go, and his heart growls within him like a dog guarding her puppies against a stranger. He strikes his chest and tells his heart to endure: it bore worse things in the Cyclops's cave, when cunning got him out. Still he tosses and turns like a sausage roasting over a fire, wondering how he, one man, can defeat so many. Athena appears and reminds him that he has a goddess on his side; even if fifty bands of men surrounded them, he would still win. She pours sleep over his eyes.
At the same time, Penelope wakes and weeps, praying to Artemis to kill her with an arrow or that a storm wind carry her away, rather than force her to marry a lesser man. She dreams that Odysseus is lying beside her, looking as he did when he left for Troy. At dawn, Odysseus hears her crying and asks Zeus for two signs: a word spoken from inside the house and a sign from outside. Zeus at once thunders from a clear sky, and a woman grinding grain in the mill, exhausted from working through the night, prays that this day will be the suitors' last feast. Odysseus is encouraged.
The household prepares for the feast of Apollo. Eumaeus arrives with fat hogs and asks kindly how the stranger is treated. Melanthius comes with goats and insults Odysseus again, threatening to fight him. Then a new figure appears: Philoetius, the cowherd, who brings a heifer and goats from the mainland. He greets the beggar warmly, saying he reminds him of Odysseus, who may be wandering in rags himself. He weeps at the thought of his master and laments that he must give his herds to the suitors; he would have fled long ago if he did not hope Odysseus would return. Odysseus swears to him that Odysseus will come home while he is still there, and Philoetius and Eumaeus both pray that it will be so.
Meanwhile the suitors are again plotting to kill Telemachus, when an eagle flies on their left holding a dove. Amphinomus says that their plan will not succeed, and they turn their attention to feasting. Telemachus seats the beggar at a small table by the threshold and warns the suitors not to abuse him. Antinous sneers but advises them to put up with the young man's words. Then Ctesippus, a rich suitor from Same, mockingly says that he will give the guest a gift, and hurls an ox's hoof at him. Odysseus ducks his head and smiles a bitter smile, and the hoof strikes the wall. Telemachus angrily says that if Ctesippus had hit him, he would have run him through with a spear. Agelaus, one of the suitors, tries to calm the situation, saying Telemachus should now persuade his mother to marry the best man, since Odysseus will clearly never return. Telemachus replies that he will not force her out of the house.
Then Athena sends the suitors into uncontrollable, unnatural laughter. They laugh with jaws that seem not to be their own, the meat they eat drips with blood, their eyes fill with tears, and they feel like weeping. Theoclymenus cries out in horror, describing a terrible vision: the suitors' heads and faces are wrapped in night, wailing breaks out, their cheeks are wet with tears, the walls and beams are spattered with blood, and the porch and courtyard are full of ghosts hurrying down to the darkness, while the sun has vanished from the sky. The suitors laugh at him, and Eurymachus says he is mad and should be thrown out into the daylight. Theoclymenus leaves on his own, warning that he sees doom coming for them all. The suitors continue mocking Telemachus and his strange guests, but Telemachus says nothing and watches his father, waiting for the signal.
