The Trial of the Bow — Omens and preparations

Book 20 of The Odyssey by Homer

Odysseus lay down in the entrance hall upon an undressed ox-hide, and the serving women threw many fleeces over him. But he could not sleep. He lay awake turning over in his mind how he should attack the suitors, for they were many and he was alone with only Telemachus and two herdsmen. He turned this way and that, as a man turns a great sausage full of fat and blood over a blazing fire, eager to have it cooked. At last Athena came to him in the form of a woman and stood above his head, asking why he lay wakeful when he was home at last, with his wife and son within the walls. She assured him that she would stand by him even if fifty troops of men surrounded them.

Then Odysseus heard Penelope weeping in the chamber above. In the darkness he thought she stood beside him and knew him, and his heart was stirred. He gathered up the fleeces and prayed aloud to Zeus, asking the father of gods and men to send him a sign. Zeus heard the prayer and thundered from the heights of Olympus, out of a clear sky with no cloud in sight, and Odysseus was glad. The peal rolled across the heavens like a promise that his hour was drawing near.

Near at hand, in the grinding-room, a woman was turning the heavy millstone, weaker than the rest and still at her labor while the others slept. She stopped her work at the thunder and spoke aloud, reading it as an omen. She prayed to Zeus that this day should be the last on which the suitors feasted in the hall of Odysseus, for the cursed grinding had broken her strength, and she wished the meal she ground that morning to be their final one. Odysseus heard her words and took heart, knowing the people of the house were ready.