Book 23

In between chaotic moments of digression and simultaneous talking (at least one started by yours truly, mea culpa), you had a really good discussion today. The moments of misrule were short lived, thankfully, and I did not have to work terribly hard to get you back on track. Today’s discussion, of course, focused on the bed and Odysseus and Penelope’s reunion. The reunion cannot be complete, however, until Penelope recognizes Odysseus for who he is.

You began the conversation with the observation that Homer describes how “Penelope felt her knees go slack, her heart surrender” (23.231), and how Penelope tells her husband, “’You’ve conquered my heart’” (23.258). You noted that the words “surrender” and “conquer” connote how protected Penelope keeps her heart, as if it were locked inside a fortress. She surrenders to the “raider of cities,” who conquers her heart. Penelope’s ultimate test of this stranger claiming to be her husband centers on the bed Odysseus built his house around.

You connected the bed to Penelope through Odysseus’s question, “’Does the bed…still stand planted firm’” (23.227). You astutely argued that the bed stands for Penelope in this case, and that Odysseus really is asking her about her own loyalty. You connected this image of the rooted bed to the many instances in which Homer and his characters testify to Penelope’s steadfast loyalty. Like the bed cannot be moved by another man, Penelope is rooted and cannot be pried from her love of Odysseus. You also talked about how the bed is made from an olive tree (23.219), a symbol of peace and prosperity, and an emblem of Athena. Around this bed, growing organically from Ithacan soil, this rock solid relationship, Odysseus built his house.

One comment you did not pursue, which I thought you might have, was a critique of how Odysseus speaks about the bed: “Around it I built my bedroom” (23.215). The pronouns are singular. Though he refers to the actual work of construction, in which Penelope played no part, if the bed represents their solid relationship, why does he take all the credit? He built only the literal bed; the metaphorical bed would wither and die without her strength and loyalty.

Ultimately, there reunion is sweet, though, and Athena even “held back the night,” so that they had more time together, enough time to Odysseus to tell his tale and for them to enjoy “delight in sleep” (23.353). Homer compares the joy Odysseus feels to the joy a shipwrecked sailor feels upon making landfall. Penelope here, once again, is the rock solid land (we can talk later about the sexism involved in the woman being immobilized while the man freely travels the waves). You also noted that Homer’s syntax through the epic simile—the long series of clauses, rising and falling like waves, and taking a long time to come to rest at a period—echoes the experience of the shipwrecked sailor.

Book 22

Two themes were caught in the best moments of today’s discussions: hospitality and weaving. Odysseus’ opening shot hits the theme of hospitality as he hits his victim, Antinous, with a “stabbing arrow,” just as the suitor is “lifting a golden loving-cup to his hands” (22.8-9). The cup symbolizes Odysseus’s wealth that Antinous has been exploiting by drinking his wine and eating his livestock. The symbolism of Antinous’ death is underscored by how the suitor dies: “food showered across the floor,/the bread and meats soaked in a swirl of bloody filth” (22.19-20). The filth comes from Antinous’ blood mixing with the dirt floor. This mixture of dirt, blood, bread, and meat symbolizes the way Antinous spent his life over the past few years, sacrificing it to his illegal and immoral pursuit of Penelope and his wasting of Odysseus’ wealth.

You also connected the epic simile describing Odysseus killing the suitors to the theme of weaving. Homer describes Odysseus as a fisherman trawling for fish, “great hauls of them down and out like fish that fishermen/drag from the churning gray surf in looped and coiling nets” (22.410-11). Nets are woven, like Odysseus’ plan, to catch their prey unaware as they swim in the sea. Likewise, Odysseus weaves a plan that catches the suitors off guard, “lusting for fresh salt sea” (22.412). In addition to the way the simile dovetails with the theme of weaving, you also noted the oxymoron of “fresh salt” water. It’s clean, perhaps, but briny, seasoned. You even connected the suitors’ lust for the salt sea to their lust for Penelope. In Book 11, Agamemnon describes Penelope as “much too steady, her feelings run too deep” (11.504). Though in class, when we couldn’t find the reference, you argued that Penelope was the salt sea. However, Agamemnon compares her to a sailing vessel that gains its stability in the sea from its depth. The association still works, just in a different way.

Book 20

The class needs a reminder that discussions are not competitions. If someone beats you to a passage, your role is to engage with and build on their ideas, not to scurry to find a competing passage or to denigrate the contribution of others. If the discussion does not leave time to consider your favorite passage, don’t try and squeeze your ideas into a discussion on another point. Instead, work with the ideas under consideration. Discussions should be exercises in collaboration in which you all help each other to a deeper understanding of the text.

In spite of the competition today, you continued to make connections to ongoing themes as you did yesterday with weaving. Today, you looked at sleep and Telemachus’ maturation. Everyone from Athena to the young man himself seems to recognize that Telemachus has grown up. He even tells the suitors, “the boy you knew is gone” (20.347). Clearly, the suitors do not yet know the man who replaced him, but they will.

Your discussion of sleep was especially interesting because you connected Odysseus’ resistance to sleep to his past troubles with sleep, his seeming distrust of Athena, and his connection to Penelope. Athena tells Odysseus, “so surrender to sleep at last” (20.56). Sleep here is pictured as an enemy of Odysseus, something he must surrender to. Odysseus certainly has treated sleep like an enemy in the past as he fought going to sleep in order to sail single-handedly back to Ithaca from the island of the wind god (10.32-2). Sleep defeated him then as it did on Helios’ island as well.

Interestingly, Odysseus doesn’t trust Athena to take care of him, as shown in her challenge to him, “’Why still awake?’” (20.37). He is awake because he wants to be on watch, not trusting Athena to keep him safe.

Your conversation was far more interesting than I have time to represent here, so feel free to add your own comments, and stop competing in class!

Book 19

Though you did a good job with the epic simile you examined, I was most impressed with the discussion of dreams that “are hard to unravel” (19.631). The verb “unravel” triggered the association with the theme of weaving. Dreams, which come from the gods, are intricately woven; their patterns create beautiful pictures, like the geese of which Penelope says, “’I love to watch them all’” (19.604). However, the individual threads of meaning are hard to separate. Penelope remarks, “Two gates there are for our evanescent dreams,/one is made of ivory, the other made of horn” (19.632-3). The ivory door leads to confusion and the horn gate leads to truth. You could have paid more attention to this remarkable passage, but you at least noted that the difficulty with dreams is figuring out what is mere diversion and what is truth.

Also, Penelope has spent two decades weaving a dream of Odysseus’s return, and she’s having a hard time unraveling it.

Currently, Odysseus and Penelope are weaving plans of their own, plans that they hope will be difficult for their foes to unravel. You underscored this connection between the two by noting that Homer describes Penelope with the epithets “wise” and “seasoned,” which he also uses to describe Odysseus.

Lastly, I want to reiterate my question of whether or not Penelope suspects she is talking to Odysseus when she orders Eurycleia to “come and wash your master’s…” (19.407). I want to Penelope to recognize Odysseus. If she doesn’t, she remains the overly emotional and passive woman who doesn’t earn the epithet, “wise.” If she does recognize Odysseus, then her choice of contest—one she knows that only he can win—shows that she wants to set the stage for his return. She wisely keeps quiet because otherwise Odysseus might become suspicious about how easily she might believe every stranger claiming to be Odysseus.