Nor did that dreadful pair desist till they had
laid all their foes at their feet. At their feet they lay in shoals: like
fishes, when the fishermen break up their nets, so they lay gasping and
sprawling at the feet of Ulysses and his son. And Ulysses remembered the
prediction of Tiresias, which said that he was to perish by his own
guests, unless he slew those who knew him not.
[Illustration: _Rose in a mass to overwhelm and crush those two_.]
Then certain of the queen's household went up and told Penelope what had
happened, and how her lord Ulysses was come home, and had slain the
suitors. But she gave no heed to their words, but thought that some frenzy
possessed them, or that they mocked her; for it is the property of such
extremes of sorrow as she had felt not to believe when any great joy
cometh. And she rated and chid them exceedingly for troubling her. But
they the more persisted in their asseverations of the truth of what they
had affirmed; and some of them had seen the slaughtered bodies of the
suitors dragged forth of the hall. And they said, "That poor guest whom
you talked with last night was Ulysses." Then she was yet more fully
persuaded that they mocked her, and she wept. But they said, "This thing
is true which we have told. We sat within, in an inner room in the palace,
and the doors of the hall were shut on us, but we heard the cries and the
groans of the men that were killed, but saw nothing, till at length your
son called to us to come in, and entering we saw Ulysses standing in the
midst of the slaughtered.
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