![]() ![]() The strongest case for concluding that Penelope is at least suspicious that the stranger is her husband begins with her call to Eurycleia to bathe the guest. There was a man, or was he all a dream?" (19.363) (Critics mention this as one of several references to death and rebirth in the epic, other references being Odysseus' return from the Land of the Dead his arrival, naked and caked with mud, on Phaeacia and his return to Ithaca.) Penelope concedes the accuracy of the description of her husband but wonders, momentarily and beautifully, if he ever really existed: "Odysseus. He mentions Odysseus' herald, Eurybates.įinally, he predicts that her husband will return as the old moon dies and a new moon rises that very month. The beggar/Odysseus has impressive answers, citing a purple woolen cape and a gold clasp with a hound clenching a fawn. Penelope tests him by asking specific questions about the clothing and comrades of Odysseus. Odysseus answers with a fictitious autobiography that includes a friendship with her husband. Having in this way identified herself to the visitor, Penelope probes him for information about his background. She was successful in this deception until her own maidservant revealed the truth, a point that also influences Odysseus' eventual judgment of the servants in Book 22. During the day, she worked at her loom in view of the suitors at night, she unraveled the day's weaving. For three years, she held the suitors off through her ruse of the shroud, telling the suitors that she must finish a shroud for Laertes, her father-in-law, against that sad but inevitable time of his death. First she wants the beggar/Odysseys to understand her considerable efforts to dissuade the suitors: She has used her son's youth as an excuse. When Odysseus and Penelope finally meet, she directs the conversation. Beneath the surface, however, the reader can see several indications that Penelope is at least suspicious about the vagrant's true identity. The beggar/Odysseus repeatedly states that her husband's return is imminent she remains skeptical. On the surface, she seems to accept the beggar as another wayfaring stranger, certainly more interesting than most but of no great personal significance to her. Scholars disagree vehemently on how much Penelope knows. This section of the epic is primarily concerned with the question of Odysseus' identity. Odysseus enthusiastically approves of her plan. The challenge involves a feat that only Odysseus has performed before: stringing his great bow and shooting an arrow through a straight row of twelve axes. Odysseus immediately and sternly swears her to silence, forbidding her even to tell Penelope his identity.Īfter the bath, Penelope rejoins the beggar/Odysseus and reveals that she will conduct a contest the following day to select a husband and satisfy the suitors. Stunned, she identifies a scar, over his knee, left by a boar's tusk, and realizes that she is, indeed, bathing, her master. She innocently comments on how much he resembles her king, whom she raised from early childhood. An old nurse, Eurycleia, is assigned the duty of bathing the guest. Penelope seems suspicious about his identity. Melantho, the disrespectful servant girl who sleeps with Eurymachus, confronts the beggar/Odysseus once more.įinally alone with Penelope, Odysseus offers convincing evidence that he knew her husband. Odysseus instructs Telemachus to gather the weapons and hide them where they will not be readily available to the suitors the next day. ![]() The suitors have gone home for the night. ![]()
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