Odysseus begging
Tell him to beg among them one and all. Shame is not a good thing for a man in need.
Odysseus knows his place. A beggar is not aloud to cross the treshhold without permission. Therefore Telemachos says to Eumaios:
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In this Telemachos gives Odysseus the opportunity to measure his opponents.
Odysseus began to beg of each man singly, working them from the right, extending to each his hands as if he had long been a beggar. Some took pitty and gave him something, and they marveled at him. They asked one another who he was and where he came from.
Odysseus came in at 15:30 and started begging. He begs from all the suitors, so that takes a while. It must have been around 16:00, when Odysseus begged the last one, Antinoös, a leader of the suitors. He refuses to give anything. A discussion follows between Melanthios, Eumaios, Odysseus and Antinoös forcing Telemachos to bring order. He urges Antinoös to give to the beggar.
.. and picking up his footstool he threw it, hitting Odysseus at the base of his right shoulder, where it joins the back.
It did not stagger Odysseus, he sat down near the treshhold and ate. This incident with the footstool leeds us to Penelope:
The judicious Penelope heard of the man being struck in the hall, ...
Penelope called Eumaios (at 16:05?) to herself:
Go, worthy Eumaios, and bring the stranger here so that I may greet him and ask him if perhaps he has heard of Odysseus with the standfast heart, or seen him in person. For he seems to be a much-traveled man.
Eumaios tells her who (he thinks) he is and that the stranger knows that Odysseus is alive and near. The judicious Penelope then answered:
Come, call him here, so that I myself may speak to him directly.
Eumaios went off (16:10?) and asked Odysseus:
Old man -stranger- Penelope, Telemachos' mother summons you.