Crafty Penelope weaves a web by day and unravels it by night.Waterhouse (ca. 1900)

Odysseus and Penelope: Husband and Wife as mirror images of each other (8.585-597; 23.262-272)

That was the song the famous harper sang 585 but great Odysseus melted into tears, running down from his eyes to wet his cheeks . . . as a woman weeps, her arms flung round her darling husband, a man who fell in battle, fighting for town and townsmen, trying to beat the day of doom from home and children. 590 Seeing the man go down, dying, gasping for breath, she clings for dear life, screams and shrills— but the victors, just behind her, digging spear-butts into her back and shoulders, drag her off in bondage, yoked to hard labor, pain, and the most heartbreaking torment wastes her cheeks. So from Odysseus’eyes ran tears of heartbreak now. 597

Joy, warm as the joy that shipwrecked sailors feel 262 when they catch sight of land—Poseidon has struck their well-rigged ship on the open sea with gale winds and crushing walls of waves, and only a few escape, swimming, 265 struggling out of the frothing surf to reach the shore, their bodies crusted with salt but buoyed up with joy as they plant their feet on solid ground again, spared a deadly fate. So joyous now to her the sight of her husband, vivid in her gaze, 270 that her white arms, embracing his neck would never for a moment let him go . . .

Learning from past mistakes: Comparing the returns of Odysseus and Agamemnon

Agamemnon Odysseus

Comes back in the open Comes back disguised as a beggar

Comes back with a concubine Has renounced all past and potential

lovers (Circe, Kalypso, Nausikaa)

Trusted his wife and people Will test everyone, from faithful servant

completely to son, and even his model wife

The Odyssey’s “rewriting” of the Iliad: “it all began not with the clash between Agamemnon and Achilles, but with that between

Odysseus and Achilles” (Book 8)

the Muse inspired the bard86

to sing the famous deeds of fighting heroes—the song whose fame had reached the skies those

days:the Strife Between Odysseus and Achilles, Peleus’

son . . .how once at the gods’ lavish feast the captains

clashed90in a savage war of words, while Agamemnon, lord

of armies,rejoiced at heart that Achaea’s bravest men were

battling so. 92

Odysseus slaughters the suitors

Odysseus with his Bow.

N.C. Wyeth (20th c.)