They all held their peace until Agelaus son of Damastor said no one should take offense at what was just. He told Telemachus and the suitors to accept reality: Odysseus was surely dead. Penelope should marry the best man present and the wealthiest, so Telemachus might hold his own inheritance in peace. Telemachus answered by Zeus and by his father's sorrows that he did not hinder his mother's marriage, and even urged her to choose; yet he would not force her from the house against her will — that heaven forbid. The suitors muttered among themselves, some for marriage talk, some for more wine.
Athena now made the suitors fall to laughing without measure and set their wits wandering. They laughed with jaws not their own; the meat they ate was bloody with blood; their eyes filled with tears, and their hearts foresaw grief. Then godlike Theoclymenus spoke among them: Poor men, what is wrong with you? Your heads and faces and knees are wrapped in night; a cry of woe has blazed up; your cheeks are wet with tears; the walls and the fair panels are sprinkled with blood; the porch and the court are full of ghosts hastening down to Erebus; the sun has perished from the sky, and an evil mist has come over all. Odysseus alone among them kept a steady face, reading the omen as Athena meant it.
They laughed heartily at him. Eurymachus said the stranger who had newly come from abroad was out of his mind; young men should hustle him out to the marketplace, since he finds it like night in here. Theoclymenus answered: Eurymachus, you need not send anyone with me. I have eyes, ears, and feet, and a mind inside me that is not badly made. With these I will go out, for I see evil coming on you which none of you suitors who insult men in Odysseus's house shall escape or avoid. He left the house and went back to Piraeus, who welcomed him.
The suitors glanced at one another and tried to provoke Telemachus by laughing at his guests. Telemachus gave them no heed, but sat silently watching his father, expecting every moment that he would begin the attack on the shameless suitors. Meanwhile wise Penelope, daughter of Icarius, had a rich seat placed for her facing the court and the porch, so that she could hear every word the men in the hall were saying. She sat veiled and still, hearing their laughter and their threats, and her heart was heavy within her.