Leiodes clasped Odysseus's knees: Respect me and have mercy. I never wronged a woman in your halls; I tried to check the other suitors. I, their soothsayer, who have done no wrong, shall lie beside them. Odysseus answered: If you were their soothsayer, you must often have prayed that my return be far from me, and that my wife should go with you. For that you shall not escape. He seized a sword Agelaus had dropped and struck Leiodes in the neck. His head, still speaking, was mingled with the dust. Then there will be no gratitude hereafter for good deeds done, Leiodes had said — and found none.
The minstrel Phemius still avoided black fate. He had sung under compulsion. He set down his lyre and clasped Odysseus's knees: Respect me and have mercy. It will be a grief if you kill a minstrel who sings for gods and men. A god planted song-paths in my mind. Telemachus would tell you I came by force. Telemachus spoke quickly: Hold — do not strike this guiltless man. And save Medon the herald, who cared for me as a child. Medon heard — he lay hidden under a chair under an oxhide — and sprang to clasp Telemachus: Friend, here I am. Hold, or your father will kill me. Odysseus smiled: Take courage; Telemachus has saved you. Go sit in the court away from the slaughter, you and the minstrel, until I finish what I must. The two sat looking about on every side while the killing finished indoors.
The two went out and sat by the altar of Zeus, still expecting death. Odysseus looked about his house. He saw them all fallen in the blood and dust — like fish drawn up on the beach in a net, longing for the waves, poured out on the sand while the sun takes their life — so the suitors were heaped on one another. Not one still lived who could raise a hand against him.