Odysseus strips off his rags, leaps to the great threshold with the bow and quiver, and pours the arrows at his feet. "The mighty contest is at an end," he declares. "I will now see whether Apollo will vouchsafe it to me to hit another mark which no man has yet hit." He shoots Antinous through the throat just as he is lifting a golden cup of wine to his lips. Antinous falls, kicking over his table and spilling bread and meat. The suitors leap up and look for weapons on the walls, but there are none. They threaten the beggar, thinking he has killed by accident. Odysseus reveals himself: "Dogs, did you think that I should not come back from Troy?" He accuses them of devouring his house, raping his maids, and courting his wife while he lived, fearing neither gods nor men.
The suitors turn pale with fear. Eurymachus blames everything on Antinous, claiming that Antinous wanted to be king and kill Telemachus, and offers to repay every loss. Odysseus replies that he would not stop even if they gave him all their wealth. Eurymachus draws his sword and charges, but Odysseus shoots him in the chest. Amphinomus rushes at Odysseus, but Telemachus spears him in the back. Telemachus then runs to the storeroom and brings back helmets, shields, and spears for himself, his father, Eumaeus, and Philoetius. As long as the arrows last, Odysseus shoots down suitors one by one, then arms himself with a helmet and two spears.
The goatherd Melanthius sneaks to the storeroom, which Telemachus has carelessly left open, and brings armor to the suitors. Odysseus realizes what is happening, and Eumaeus and Philoetius catch Melanthius on his second trip. They tie his hands and feet, hoist him up to the rafters, and leave him hanging in agony. Then Athena appears in the form of Mentor. Odysseus calls on her for help, and she taunts him to show the courage he showed at Troy. But she does not yet give him complete victory, wishing to test his strength and his son's. She flies up to the rafters in the form of a swallow. The suitors hurl spears in waves, but Athena makes them miss, and Odysseus and his men kill those who throw. Philoetius kills Ctesippus, telling him that this is his payment for the ox hoof he threw at the beggar.
Then Athena raises her aegis, the terrifying goatskin shield, from the rafters, and the suitors panic and scatter like cattle stung by a gadfly. Odysseus and his men fall on them like vultures on small birds. The soothsayer Leodes clings to Odysseus's knees and begs for mercy, saying he never did anything wrong and tried to restrain the others. But Odysseus says that as the suitors' priest he must often have prayed that Odysseus would never return, and he kills him. The bard Phemius also begs for his life, saying he sang for the suitors only because he was forced to. Telemachus speaks up for him and for the herald Medon, who cared for him as a child. Medon crawls out from under a cowhide, and Odysseus spares them both, telling them to tell others that good deeds are better than evil ones.
Odysseus surveys the hall: the suitors lie in heaps in the blood and dust like fish caught in a net and dumped on the shore. He calls Eurycleia, who wants to cry out in triumph, but he stops her, saying it is unholy to boast over the dead; they were destroyed by the gods and their own reckless deeds. He asks which of the women were disloyal, and she names twelve of the fifty. Odysseus has these women carry out the bodies and clean the hall. Then he orders that they be put to the sword. Telemachus instead hangs them with a ship's cable in the courtyard, saying they do not deserve a clean death. Melanthius is brutally mutilated and killed. Finally Odysseus purifies the hall with fire and sulfur, and the loyal servants come out to embrace their master, weeping, and he weeps too, recognizing every one of them.
Quoted lines are from Samuel Butler’s 1900 prose translation (Project Gutenberg #1727).
