Book 22 in short: The killing of the suitors

Odysseus throws off his rags and shoots Antinous. He then kills the other suitors with the help of Telemachus, Eumaeus, Philoetius and Athena. He spares only the bard and the herald.

Afterwards the maids who slept with the suitors are made to clean the hall, and then are hanged. The goatherd Melanthius, who helped the suitors, is mutilated. Many readers find these scenes hard, and we report them as the text gives them.