![]() ![]() Agamemnon’s ghost celebrates Penelope’s fidelity and compares her favorably to his treacherous wife, Clytemnestra (24.210-23). ![]() The scene in the Land of the Dead may seem tedious, even intrusive, to modern readers but it serves to complete the Agamemnon parallel. 59-64.) The consensus of opinion, however, is that the last book does belong. (For a thorough discussion of the issue, see Fagles and Knox, pp. They suggest that the epic should end when Odysseus and Penelope reunite. Some scholars maintain that a later, inferior poet wrote it. Since classical times, the legitimacy of this final section has been controversial. Only the intervention of Athena, again appearing as Mentor, avoids another major battle and perhaps civil war. More than half of the men follow Eupithes to Laertes’ farm, seeking Odysseus and vengeance. Meanwhile, rumor of the slaughter has spread through the city, and Eupithes, father of Antinous (the aggressive leader of the suitors), calls for revenge. After identifying himself, Odysseus joins Laertes, Telemachus, and the two faithful herdsmen for a homecoming meal. One of the suitors recites the story of the courtship of Penelope, her resistance to the suitors, and Odysseus’ revenge.īack on Ithaca, Odysseus arrives at his father’s farm and approaches Laertes, who looks and acts more like a slave than a former king. These souls pass such Greek heroes as Achilles and Agamemnon. He rebukes them for consuming his father’s oxen and sheep as they pursue their courtship day in and day out when any decent man would simply go to Penelope’s father, Icarius, and ask him for her hand in marriage. Antinous blames the impasse on Penelope, who, he says, seduces every suitor but will commit to none of them.The final book opens with Hermes, the traditional guide, leading the souls of the dead suitors to the Land of the Dead (commonly referred to as Hades). Telemachus then gives an impassioned speech in which he laments the loss of both his father and his father’s home-his mother’s suitors, the sons of Ithaca’s elders, have taken it over. He praises Telemachus for stepping into his father’s shoes, noting that this occasion marks the first time that the assembly has been called since Odysseus left. Although Telemachus suspects that his visitor was a goddess in disguise, he tells them only that the man was a friend of his father.īook 2: When the assembly meets the next day, Aegyptius, a wise Ithacan elder, speaks first. Antinous and Eurymachus, two particularly defiant suitors, rebuke Telemachus and ask the identity of the visitor with whom he has just been speaking. ![]() He then gives the suitors notice that he will hold an assembly the next day at which they will be ordered to leave his father’s estate. He reminds her that Odysseus isn’t the only Greek to not return from Troy and that, if she doesn’t like the music in the men’s quarters, she should retire to her own chamber and let him look after her interests among the suitors. To Penelope’s surprise, Telemachus rebukes her. His song makes the bereaved Penelope more miserable than she already is. After this conversation, Telemachus encounters Penelope in the suitors’ quarters, upset over a song that the court bard is singing. She then tells him that he must make a journey to Pylos and Sparta to ask for any news of his father. She advises Telemachus to call together the suitors and announce their banishment from his father’s estate. Assuming the form of Odysseus’s old friend Mentes, Athena predicts that Odysseus is still alive and that he will soon return to Ithaca. With the consent of Zeus, Athena travels to Ithaca to speak with Telemachus. He has resigned himself to the likelihood that his father is dead. His son, Telemachus, an infant when Odysseus left but now a young man, is helpless to stop them. Meanwhile, a mob of suitors is devouring his estate in Ithaca and courting his wife, Penelope, in hopes of taking over his kingdom. Odysseus languishes on the remote island Ogygia with the goddess Calypso, who has fallen in love with him and refuses to let him leave. All of the Greek heroes except Odysseus have returned home. Book 1: The narrator of the Odyssey invokes the Muse, asking for inspiration as he prepares to tell the story o f Odysseus. ![]()
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