If a door requires a doorhook to open, it is permanently locked. What, do you think, is a double-torsion bow? The weapons of heroes often have histories (and even names, like Beowulf's swords, Hrunting and Naegling). Like a Stradivarius violin, an old and tried weapon was a very important and valuable possession. Why is the bow stored unstrung? How do you string a bow?

A strange mood seizes Telemakhos; he sounds almost like a huckster selling his wares--his mother. What is the floor of the hall made of? Read carefully; be sure you know exactly how the contest works. What an odd situation: what if Telemakhos had strung the bow?

Who does the "old soldier" choose as battle companions? Why? Why must the herdsman lock the gate? Notice the "crooked" way Antinoos associates the holy day and Apollo.

Why does Antinoos answer Odysseus' request "at length"? Penelope invokes the rules of hospitality in seeming innocence. What do you think she is thinking?

Things move quickly now. Odysseus is once again "skilled in all ways of contending." Skilled in all ways of contending. How does he string the bow? A moment full of meaning, of slow realization, the world stands still--then stands on its head . . . Zeus agrees. The shot, and then--Odysseus speaks quietly. No need to raise his voice. It is dead quiet in the hall. Let the slaughter begin.

Book Twenty-two

His first act (Help me, Apollo") is against Antinoos. Watch the slow-motion effect of Homer's questions between the arrow loosed and the arrow finding its target. A gruesome and ignominious end.

You may hang up your bow or spear, but you never part with your sword (Telemakhos had his by his side, even though he had to buckle it on.) What is a buckler? His "four-ply" shield is made of leather. Melanthios succeeds in arming twelve of the suitors; many more never get the arms he tries to bring them. Why does Odysseus bother to "save" the goatherd for the time being? "Two score men" left--how many?

What was Odysseus's "stratagem" that "took Priam's town"? ("Cousin" is equivalent to "friend.") Why must father and son still prove themselves? Apparently none of the suitors wonder why Mentor disappears, though the general confusion might account for it. With the appearance of Athena's aegis (look it up both in Hamilton and in your dictionary; it is a good English word), things get a bit unearthly. The falcons provide a wonderfully unusual epic simile. Why is there no mercy to be found in this hall? Watch Phemios ("the poet with his many voices") save his harp, "holy and clear," before he attempts to save his hide.

Look at the epic simile here. Hot blood; cold fish--and then a bloody mountain lion. Why does he stop Eurykleia's cry of triumph? Look at the size of his household; that's wealth. Dying by the sword is a noble death, too good for traitors and sluts. Notice the grim humor in their "dance." Odysseus looks like a beast (much worse than when he appeared to Nausikaa); why does Odysseus refuse to clean up before he confronts his wife?

Book Twenty-three

Now Homer plays with us: Penelope won't believe Eurykleia. Now it is her turn to be cautious, skeptical, tough, cool. Odysseus is "that strange one." They sit a room apart, considering one another.

Children do not, can not understand their parents as husband and wife; Telemakhos proves that. She speaks as if Odysseus weren't there. He gives her some respite in which to decide how to respond to him by giving orders to Telemakhos, and he doesn't push her. Do you know what a hyacinth looks like? "Strange woman"; "strange man." Where does the word "strange" come from (look it up)?

She hasn't just been daydreaming; she's been thinking of a way to prove he is who he says he is, just as she thought of the stratagem of the bow. She, too, is a great tactician. What exactly does she ask Eurykleia to do? Why can't Eurykleia do it? She says, "No one ever matched your caution!"! Athena does them a most wonderful favor. What is it? Does Teiresias's prophesy make any more sense to you now than it did before? Now they must weave tales for one another.

Book Twenty-four

What do you make of the scene in the underworld that opens this last book? (Penelope's weaving story gets told three times.) Just as the Odyssey opens with the story of Agamemnon and Klytaimnestra, so it closes with the same story, a potent comparison (and definition) of good and evil in this culture.

The peaceful life of the countryside is presented in the swineherd's cottage. Here is that same life, lived by an old, but great, man. Odysseus cannot resist his skeptical ways, even when they are inapproriate. Why does Laertes "sift" dirt over his grey head? He is the only one who can pierce Odysseus's tough mental/emotional hide. (But notice that even he asks for proof.) Quite a family of warriors!

An assembly ends the epic, as it opened it. This scene of revenge is not anti-climactic, as it might seem. Justice and honor are two of the major themes of the Odyssey, and these men have lost sons and brothers.

Again, Zeus turns Athena's inquiry back to her. Arkeisiades is Laertes (have you noticed that any man can bear his father's name if you add -ides on the end?). Athena gives him the power to slay Eupeithes? Why?