Then Hermes drew near leading the ghosts of the suitors. Agamemnon and Achilles were astonished. Agamemnon recognized Amphimedon of Ithaca, who had been his host, and asked what had brought so many fine young men of one age under the earth — shipwreck, or enemies on the mainland?
Amphimedon answered: We were courting Odysseus's wife while he was long gone. She would neither refuse nor finish the marriage; she planned our death. She set up a great loom and promised a shroud for Laertes, weaving by day and unraveling by night. For three years she fooled us; in the fourth a woman told, and we caught her. She finished the web under force.
Then some god brought Odysseus to the swineherd's farm. His son came from Pylos; they planned our end and came to town — Telemachus first, then Odysseus in rags like a beggar. None of us knew him. We mocked and pelted him; he endured. When Zeus roused him, he and Telemachus hid the armor. Then in cunning he had his wife set the bow and the gray iron as a contest for us — and the beginning of death.
None of us could string the bow. When it came to Odysseus we shouted it should not be given; only Telemachus urged him on. He strung it with ease and shot through the iron. Then he stood on the threshold, poured out the arrows, and killed Antinous first. After that he shot the rest; a god was clearly helping. They stormed the hall and struck left and right until the floor ran with blood. So we died, and our bodies still lie uncared-for in his halls; our dear ones at home do not yet know.
Happy Odysseus, Agamemnon said — you won a wife of great excellence. Blameless Penelope remembered her husband; the fame of her virtue will never die, and the immortals will make a song for her among men. Not so the daughter of Tyndareus, who killed her wedded husband and fastened an evil name even on women who act well.