" So they
took a long ship's cable, which was lying in an outhouse, and
stretched it across an angle of the wall; to this they attached twelve
nooses, and left the women hanging there by the neck until they were
dead.
A horrid death was reserved for the traitor Melanthius. Dragging him
out into the courtyard, they cut off his nose and ears, and his hands
and feet, and so left him to die.
After that they washed themselves and went back to the hall. Then
Odysseus bade Eurycleia kindle a fire, and bring sulphur to purify the
chamber. And having thoroughly cleansed the house from the fumes of
slaughter, he sat down to wait for the coming of his wife.
Odysseus and Penelope
I
Her face beaming with joy, and her feet stumbling over one another in
their haste, Eurycleia ascended to the chamber where Penelope lay
sleeping. "Awake, Penelope, awake!" she cried, standing by the
bedside; "come and see with thine own eyes the fulfilment of all thy
hopes. Odysseus has come home at last, and all the wooers lie slain by
his hand!"
"Thou art mad, nurse," answered Penelope pettishly, turning in her bed
and rubbing her eyes; "why mockest thou me in my sorrow with thy
folly? and why hast thou disturbed me in the sweetest sleep that ever
I had since the fatal, the accursed day when my lord sailed for Troy?
But for thy years and thy faithful service I would have paid thee
unkindly for this wanton insult"
"Heaven forbid that I should mock or insult thee, dear child!" cried
the nurse, her eyes filling with tears.
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