The Hanging of the Maids

Main Event #3: Twelve "unloyal" maids, the
youngest and prettiest, the ones closest to Penelope,
were chosen to be killed by Eurycleia, the head maid
of Odysseus and Penelope. Odysseus had told his son,
Telemachus, to chop them to pieces but he instead
hung them all in a row from a ship's hawser.
"What could I do? Lamentation wouldn't bring my
lovely girls back to life." (Atwood 160)