Chapter summary
The account of Odysseus ends, and Alcinous's hall falls silent, as if spellbound. Alcinous says that, now that Odysseus has come to his house, he does not believe he will be turned aside from his return again. The clothes, the gold, and the other gifts from the Phaeacian chiefs are already stored in a polished chest; Alcinous proposes that each noble add a tripod and a cauldron, and that afterward the people make up the difference, since it would be too heavy for one man to give so much. The next day they carry the bronze to the ship, and Alcinous himself stows it beneath the benches so that it will not hinder the rowers, and they hold a banquet, with a bull sacrificed to Zeus and the bard Demodocus singing. Odysseus does not stop looking at the sun, impatient for it to set: he wants to leave. He asks Alcinous to send him on his way, thanks him, and prays to find at home his blameless wife and his people in good health; the Phaeacians approve the speech and have the libation prepared. Odysseus places a cup in the hand of Arete, the queen, and wishes her a happy old age; he goes out with a herald to the ship, and Arete sends maidservants with clothing, a chest, and food. On the ship they spread out for him a rug and linen at the stern, so that he may sleep undisturbed; he lies down in silence and, when the rowers begin, falls into a deep, sweet sleep, almost like death, forgetful of all he suffered. The ship flies like four horses yoked together, and before dawn it reaches the island.
The Phaeacians enter the harbor of Phorcys, in Ithaca, where a long-leaved olive tree rises beside the cave of the Naiads, and they set Odysseus on the sand, asleep, with the linen and the rug. They hide the gifts at the foot of the olive tree, off the road, so that no passerby takes them before he wakes, and they return home. Poseidon, however, has not forgotten the threat he made against Odysseus, and goes to complain to Zeus: he will be honored no more among the gods if mortals, the Phaeacians, who are of his own blood, do not honor him. He had always expected that Odysseus would reach home, and he had never entirely denied him the return, because Zeus had promised it with a nod; but the Phaeacians left him in Ithaca asleep, with more gifts than he would have brought back from Troy. Zeus replies that the gods do not dishonor him and that he may punish, as he wishes, the mortals who scorn him. Poseidon wants to destroy the Phaeacian ship on the dark sea, so that they stop escorting men, and to cover the city with a mountain; Zeus advises him to wait until the ship is back in sight of the people and turn it to stone near the shore, in full view of all, and then cover the city. Poseidon goes to Scheria and, when the ship draws near, touches it with his hand and turns it into stone, rooted in the seabed. The Phaeacians marvel; Alcinous recognizes his father's ancient prophecy: Poseidon resented their being safe escorts and threatened to do exactly this. He orders that escorts be ended for any stranger who reaches the city, and that twelve bulls be sacrificed to Poseidon, so that he does not cover the city. They are afraid, prepare the bulls, and pray around the altar.
Meanwhile, Odysseus wakes in his father's land and does not recognize it: he has been away for so long, and Athena has poured mist around him, so that no one recognizes him, neither his wife, nor the citizens, nor his friends, and so that she can tell him everything before the suitors pay for what they have done. Everything looks strange to him, the paths, the harbors, the rocks. He stands up, slaps his thighs, and laments: to what land has he come, a land of violent, savage, and unjust men, or of hospitable people who fear the gods? Where is he to carry so many goods, and where is he going himself? He wishes he had stayed among the Phaeacians. He says the Phaeacian chiefs were neither wise nor just, because they carried him to another land, and he asks Zeus, protector of suppliants, to punish them. He counts the tripods, the cauldrons, the gold, and the clothes and sees that nothing is missing, and he weeps for his homeland as he wanders along the beach. Athena approaches in the form of a young shepherd, graceful, with a cloak folded over, sandals, and a spear, and he rejoices to see a first person; he begs her for protection for his goods and for himself, and asks what land and what people these are. Athena replies that he is foolish, or has come from far away, to ask that: the land is known to many, rough for horses but rich in wheat and wine, and the name of Ithaca has reached as far as Troy. Odysseus rejoices to tread his fatherland and answers with a lie: he says he heard of Ithaca in Crete, where he killed Orsilochus, son of Idomeneus, who wanted to take from him his share of the Trojan booty; that he fled on a Phoenician ship, whose crew he paid to carry him to Pylos or to Elis; that the wind brought them to Ithaca at night and that, while he slept, the Phoenicians unloaded his goods onto the sand and sailed away for Sidon. The narrator says that he did not speak the truth, constantly turning over in his breast a cunning mind.
Athena smiles, strokes him, takes the form of a tall, beautiful woman, and reveals herself: whoever would surpass him in cunning would have to be very clever, even being a god, and he will not give up his deceptions even in his own land. But the two of them are cunning: he is the best of mortals in plans and words, and she is famous among the gods for the same thing. She reminds him that she has always stood by his side, that she made him beloved of the Phaeacians, and that she has come now to arrange a plan, to hide the gifts, and to tell him the evils fate prepares for him in the palace: he must bear them in silence and tell no one who he is, even under the violence of men. Odysseus answers that it is hard to recognize her, that she helped him at Troy but abandoned him after the city fell, and that he has only seen her again among the Phaeacians; he begs her, in his father's name, to tell him whether he is truly in Ithaca, because he suspects she is deceiving him. Athena says that such suspicion is always in his breast, and that is precisely why she cannot leave him: another man would rush to the palace to see his own, but he does not want to know before he has tested his wife, who sits in the chambers, and for whom nights and days are consumed in tears. She never doubted that he would return, but she did not want to confront Poseidon, her uncle, who was angry because Odysseus had blinded his son. To convince him, she shows him the harbor of Phorcys, the olive tree, the cave of the nymphs where he used to offer hecatombs, and Mount Neritum. She dispels the mist, the land appears, and Odysseus recognizes it, kisses the ground, and prays to the Naiads, promising gifts if Athena lets him live and his son grow up.
Athena and Odysseus hide the gifts at the back of the cave, and the goddess closes the entrance with a stone. Seated by the olive tree, they plan the death of the suitors. Athena reminds him that they have held the house for three years, courting Penelope, and that she, weeping for his return, gives hope to all of them with messages while her mind wants something else. Odysseus replies that he would have met Agamemnon's fate in the palace if Athena had not told him everything, and asks her to help him as at Troy: with her at his side, he would fight against three hundred. Athena promises to be with him and says the floor will be stained with the blood and brains of the suitors. So that no one will recognize him, neither they, nor his wife, nor his son, she disguises him: she shrivels his skin, takes away his hair, covers him with rags, and dims his eyes. She sends him first to the swineherd Eumaeus, who loves him, and to his son and prudent Penelope; Eumaeus is with the swine near Raven's Rock and the spring of Arethusa. She herself goes to Sparta to summon Telemachus. Odysseus asks why she did not warn the boy, so that he would not wander suffering across the sea while others devour his goods. Athena replies that he should not worry about Telemachus: it was she who sent him, so that he would win a good name, and he is safe in the house of Menelaus, in plenty; there are young men lying in wait in a ship to kill him, but she thinks the earth will swallow some of the suitors first. She touches him with her staff: his skin, hair, and eyes take on the look of an old man, and she gives him rags, a deerskin, a staff, and a beggar's bag. They part, and Athena departs for Lacedaemon.
Analysis
The book has two halves that mirror each other. In the first, the Phaeacians return Odysseus to Ithaca without his having to do anything, and the price is the stone into which Poseidon turns the ship and the end of the escorts: the last guest they carry is also the one who closes this people's hospitality. In the second, the man who slept on the beach wakes without knowing where he is and, instead of claiming what is his, tells a lie to the first person he meets. Athena tells him why: he does not give up deception even at home, and she accompanies him precisely for that mind.
The return that the poem made readers wait twelve books to see is not an arrival: Odysseus disembarks asleep, does not recognize the land and, before weeping for his homeland, counts the gifts. The homecoming is complete only when the goddess disperses the mist and shows him the harbor, the olive tree, and the cave, and even then the poem puts him back in disguise, this time imposed. The two concealments have the same motive, stated by the narrator: that his wife and the citizens not recognize him before the suitors pay (13.192-193).
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