Homer

“ Great Demoptolemus Ulysses slew;
Euryades received the prince's dart;
The goatherd's quiver'd in Pisander's heart;
Fierce Elatus by thine, Eumaeus, falls;
Their fall in thunder echoes round the walls.
The rest retreat: the victors now advance,
Each from the dead resumes his bloody lance.
Again the foe discharge the steely shower;
Again made frustrate by the virgin-power.
Some, turn'd by Pallas, on the threshold fall,
Some wound the gate, some ring against the wall;
Some weak, or ponderous with the brazen head,
Drop harmless on the pavement, sounding dead. ”

“ When sultry days, and long, succeed the gentle spring,
Not half so keen fierce vultures of the chase
Stoop from the mountains on the feather'd race,
When, the wide field extended snares beset,
With conscious dread they shun the quivering net:
No help, no flight; but wounded every way,
Headlong they drop; the fowlers seize their prey.
On all sides thus they double wound on wound,
In prostrate heaps the wretches beat the ground,
Unmanly shrieks precede each dying groan,
And a red deluge floats the reaking stone. ”

“ The hour of vengeance, wretches, now is come;
Impending fate is yours, and instant doom."
Thus dreadful he. Confused the suitors stood,
From their pale cheeks recedes the flying blood:
Trembling they sought their guilty heads to hide.
Alone the bold Eurymachus replied:
"If, as thy words import (he thus began) ,
Ulysses lives, and thou the mighty man,
Great are thy wrongs, and much hast thou sustain'd
In thy spoil'd palace, and exhausted land ”

“ Ulysses begins the slaughter of the suitors by the death of Antinous. He declares himself, and lets fly his arrows at the rest. Telemachus assists and brings arms for his father, himself, Eumaeus, and Philaetius. Melanthius does the same for the wooers. Minerva encourages Ulysses in the shape of Mentor. The suitors are all slain, only Medon and Phemius are spared. Melanthius and the unfaithful servants are executed. The rest acknowledge their master with all demonstrations of joy.
Then fierce the hero o'er the threshold strode ”

“ Stretch'd in a long oblivion of their lust."
He said: the lamentable train appear,
Each vents a groan, and drops a tender tear;
Each heaved her mournful burden, and beneath
The porch deposed the ghastly heap of death.
The chief severe, compelling each to move,
Urged the dire task imperious from above;
With thirsty sponge they rub the tables o'er
(The swains unite their toil) ”