-466] THE BATTLE IN THE HALL 339

vicious ways and snap their fingers at me and Penelope herself,
Telemachus has only just grown up and his mother wouldn't
allow him to order the maids about. But let me go upstairs now
to my lady's apartments and give her the news. As luck would
have it she has fallen asleep/

'Don't wake her yet,9 said the wise Odysseus. 'But tell the
women who have disgraced themselves to come here/

The old dame left the hall to inform the women that they
must report themselves, while Odysseus called Telemachus and
the two herdsmen to his side and gave them his immediate
orders:' Start carrying out the dead and make the women help
you. Then clean the tables and our best chairs here with sponges
soaked in water. When the whole place is tidied up, take the
"women out of the hall between the round-house and the great
wall of the courtyard, and use your long swords on them, till
none are left alive to remember their loves and the hours they
stole in these young gallants' arms.

Wailing bitterly, with the tears streaming down their cheeks,
the women all arrived together. Their first task was to remove
the bodies of the slain, which they laid under the portico of the
walled courtyard, propping them one against the other. Odys-
seus himself took charge and hounded them on till they had
finished their unwilling work.

Next they washed down the tables and the beautiful chairs

•with sponges and water, after which Telemachus and the two
herdsmen scraped the floor of the great hall with spades, while
the maids removed the scrapings and got rid of them outside.
Finally, when the whole house had been set in order, they took
the women out of the building, and herded them between the
round-house and the great courtyard wall in a narrow space
from which there was no escape. Then Telemachus spoke.

*I swear I will not give a decent death,' he said, 'to women
who have heaped dishonour on my head and on my mother's,
and slept with members of this gang.'

With that he took a hawser which had seen service on a blue-
bowed ship, made one end fast to a high column in the portico,