<< Previous : Before the slaughter of Penelope’s Suitors (Book XX)
Penelope fetched the bow, arrows and axes that were stored with Odysseus (Ulysses)’ treasure in a locked room.
The bow was a present from Iphitos whom Odysseus (Ulysses) had met one day at Orsilochus. Odysseus (Ulysses), then a young man, had been sent to the Messenians to obtain compensation for a theft of three hundred sheep carried out by them in Ithaca. On his side, Iphitos had gone in search of twelve mares and their mules that had been lost. Iphitos was the son of Eurytus, the master of Heracles in archery, who gave him his bow when he died. During this encounter, Odysseus (Ulysses) gave Iphitos a spear while Iphitos gave him his bow. But they were not to see each other again, for Iphitos was killed by Heracles who seized his horses in defiance of the hospitality laws.
Odysseus (Ulysses) never took this bow with him when he left for war.
Penelope then announced to the suitors that she would marry the one who would succeed to bend the bow with the most ease and shoot an arrow through the twelve axes. She ordered Eumaeus to bring the bow and axes.
Antinoos ordered the cattleman and the swineherd to wipe their tears because, he said, no one could compare himself to Odysseus (Ulysses) and achieve this feat. But in his heart, he hoped to succeed.
Telemachus put up the axes and then tried three times to bend the bow. Perhaps he would have succeeded in the fourth attempt, but Odysseus (Ulysses) stopped his effort with a sign.
Leiodes the haruspex, son of Œnops, who blamed the impiety of the suitors, was the first of them to try his luck, but he could not bend the bow because he had delicate and weak hands. Then he challenged the others to do so, declaring that this bow would bring misfortune to many of them. All the young people tried in turn but none succeeded. Only the two leaders, Antinoos and Eurymachos with the face of God, had still to compete.
The swineherd Eumaeus and the cattleman Philoetius then left the room, followed by the beggar-Odysseus (Ulysses). The latter, after having tested their loyalty and made sure of their commitment to support him, revealed his identity and showed them his scar on his leg as proof. To thank them for their loyalty, he assured them that he would give them wife, house and property. All three wept with joy at finally being reunited. Odysseus (Ulysses) explained to Eumaeus that he should bring him the bow that the suitors would have refused him and order the women to close the doors of the room and stay in their apartments, no matter what happen.
All three returned to the room while Eurymachos tried in vain to bend the bow. As he complained of being so weak compared to Odysseus (Ulysses), Antinoos comforted him by assuring him that the festival of Apollo celebrated that same day was not conducive to such an exercise, but that the next day would see their victory.
Then the beggar asked to test his vigour with the bow; this provoked the wrath of the suitors who feared that he would succeed. Antinoos, accusing him of drinking too much, evoked the unreason of the Centaur Eurytion. The latter, drunk, wanted to abduct Pirithoos’ wife, thus triggering the Lapiths’ war against the Centaurs, where Eurytion lost his life first.
Antinoos even promised the beggar to send him to King Echetos. But Penelope pleaded for him to be allowed to try his luck, assuring the suitors that she could not marry him. Eurymachos, Polybus’ son, retorted that what he feared was not this unlikely marriage, but the shame that would fall upon them if he succeeded. Penelope then insisted, saying that she would be content only to clothe him anew and give him spear and sword. But Telemachus said he was the only one who could decide on lending the bow and begged his mother to return to her apartments where Athena gave her sleep.
The swineherd Eumaeus took the bow but, frightened by the boos of the suitors, put it back in its place. As Telemachus threatened him, he took the bow again and brought it to the beggar. Then he asked discreetly the nanny Euryclia to close the doors of the room remaining on the maids’ side while the cattleman barricaded the door of the courtyard.
The beggar-Odysseus (Ulysses) took the bow, held it out and made the rope sing. Then Zeus flashed his lightning and this omen delighted the hero. He took an arrow and shot straight at the target through the holes of the axes. Then he gave the signal to Telemachus who took his sword and seized his spear.
Considering that Hermes, the god of the overmind, is the great-grandfather of Odysseus (Ulysses), the beginning of this Book is the link between the work of purification-liberation and that of the ascension of the planes of consciousness.
We already have met Eurytus “a great tension towards the spirit”, the master of Heracles for archery, that is, the one who taught him the art of achieving the goal. He himself had received his bow from Apollo – psychic light – and his name indicates that he could lead to spiritual liberation. But he could not lead beyond: Heracles killed him at the end of the twelve labours because he refused to give him his daughter Iole, a greater “liberation.” Others say that he died at the hand of Apollo because he pretended to compete with the god (only the psychic is able to discern in Truth the evolutionary path).
Some say that Eurytus was the son of Melaneus “a black or perverted evolution” and Stratonike “victory in battle”, Melaneus being himself the son of Apollo and the nymph Pronoe “who furthers evolution”: this parentage indicates that the quest for liberation in the spirit, called by the psychic light, and experienced by renouncing the world, was the result of an inescapable deviance, a sort of consequence of the “fall” in separating duality.
Eurytus’ son, Iphitos,”who tends strongly towards the spirit,” Iole’s brother, also died at the hand of Heracles, either at the same time as his father, or later, when the reorientation of yoga occurred. At this point, the seeker wants to keep the powers acquired in the mind (Heracles wants to seize the horses of Iphitos and for this, kills his host).
The proposed challenge seems to re