They feed on grain in her courtyard. They do not know the eagle is coming. In the dream Penelope watches them eat and watches them die. Their necks snap like reed stems. The feathers drift across the stone. She wakes already knowing what they were. Twenty men in her hall, fat on her stores, oblivious. She tells the dream to the beggar by the lamp and waits for him to confirm what she already sees, and he gives her nothing. [SPOILER: The geese in the dream die together and quickly. The suitors die together and quickly. The dream is not a riddle. It is a schedule.]
The Twenty Geese
The geese in Penelope's courtyard, fat on scattered grain. The dream-figure of the suitors eating her stores. Their feathers will scatter like snow.