Chapter summary
In the morning, in the hut, Odysseus and the swineherd Eumaeus prepare the meal and send the herdsmen out with the swine. Telemachus arrives, and the dogs, instead of barking, fawn on him. Odysseus notices this and the sound of footsteps, and warns Eumaeus that someone familiar is coming. Before he finishes the sentence, the son is at the door. Eumaeus drops the vessels, runs to kiss his head, his eyes, and his hands, and weeps like a father who receives his only son after ten years away. He says he did not expect to see him again, because he had left for Pylos in secret, and he wonders that the boy prefers the city and the band of suitors to the countryside. Telemachus answers that he came for Eumaeus and to learn about his mother: whether she is still in the house or whether some man has already married her. Eumaeus assures him that Penelope holds out, weeping night and day.
Telemachus enters, and Odysseus, who passes for a beggar, offers him his seat; the young man has him sit again, and Eumaeus improvises another place with branches and a skin. After the meal, Telemachus asks who the stranger is. Eumaeus repeats the Cretan story he has heard, that of a man who wandered through many cities and fled from a Thesprotian ship, and he commends him to the young man's protection. Telemachus is distressed: he is young, does not trust the strength of his arm to defend a guest, and his mother hesitates between keeping her husband's house and following the best of the suitors. He offers the stranger a cloak, a tunic, a sword, and sandals, and proposes that he stay with Eumaeus, but he will not let him go to the house, where the suitors would insult him. Odysseus replies that hearing this breaks his heart, and asks whether the young man submits willingly, or whether the people hate him, or whether he lacks brothers. He says that if he were young and the son of Odysseus, or Odysseus himself, he would rather die in his house than see guests mistreated and maidservants dragged about.
Telemachus explains that the people do not hate him and that he has no brothers: the line has had only one son in each generation, Arcesius, Laertes, Odysseus, and himself, and that is why his enemies are many. The lords of Dulichium, Same, Zacynthus, and Ithaca court his mother, who neither refuses nor decides the marriage, and they consume the house. He has Eumaeus secretly tell Penelope that he has returned safe and sound from Pylos, without any Achaean knowing. Eumaeus asks whether he should also pass by Laertes, who since Telemachus's departure neither eats nor drinks and only weeps. Telemachus tells him to leave him, and that the housekeeper should secretly inform the old man. Eumaeus departs.
Athena sees Eumaeus go out and approaches the hut in the figure of a tall and beautiful woman. Only Odysseus and the dogs see her; the dogs flee whimpering. With a sign of her eyebrows, the goddess calls him out into the courtyard and tells him to reveal everything to his son, that they plan the death of the suitors and go to the city, because she will not stay far off, eager to fight. She touches him with her golden staff: his cloak and tunic become clean, his body grows and rejuvenates, his skin darkens and his beard becomes dark. Odysseus returns to the hut, and Telemachus, astonished, averts his eyes for fear that he is a god, and promises him sacrifices and gifts of gold. Odysseus denies it: he is the boy's father, for whom the young man has suffered so much. He kisses his son and lets fall the tear he had held back. Telemachus does not believe it: he thinks some god is deceiving him so that he will weep more, because no mortal could make such a change alone. Odysseus answers that no other Odysseus will come, that he arrived in the twentieth year, and that the change is the work of Athena, who makes him now a beggar, now a young man well dressed, for it is easy for the gods to exalt or abase a mortal. Then Telemachus embraces him, and the two weep aloud, like birds whose young have been taken, until the young man asks in what ship his father arrived.
Odysseus tells how the Phaeacians carried him to Ithaca asleep, with gifts that he has hidden in caves, and how Athena advised him to come and plan the destruction of the suitors. He asks for the number of the suitors. Telemachus, who had heard of his father's fame, is amazed: two men cannot fight so many. He counts fifty-two from Dulichium, with six servants, twenty-four from Same, twenty from Zacynthus, and twelve from Ithaca, besides the herald Medon, the bard, and two carvers, and he fears that his father will pay dearly for taking them on. He asks him to think of an ally. Odysseus asks whether Athena and Zeus are enough, and Telemachus admits that they are excellent defenders. Then the father lays out the plan. Telemachus will go home at dawn and mingle with the suitors; afterward Eumaeus will lead Odysseus to the city, disguised as an old beggar. If they mistreat him, the son must endure it, even if they drag him by the feet or strike him with spears, and only advise them with gentle words, for they will not listen. When Odysseus gives a sign with his head, Telemachus will carry all the weapons out of the hall to the upper room, and he will tell the suitors that he put them out of reach of the smoke, since iron draws a man in when wine provokes a quarrel. He will leave only two swords, two spears, and two shields, for the two of them. And no one may know that Odysseus has returned: neither Laertes, nor the swineherd, nor any servant, nor Penelope. Only the two of them will test the maidservants and then the servants. Telemachus promises to prove his character, but objects: testing the servants on the farms takes time while the suitors devour the house; let the maidservants be tested, and for now, not the men.
Meanwhile, the ship that had carried Telemachus to Pylos reaches Ithaca. The companions haul it onto the beach, carry the weapons and gifts to the house of Clytius, and send a herald to inform Penelope. The herald and Eumaeus meet in the palace; the herald announces the son's return in front of the maidservants, and Eumaeus repeats the message to Penelope privately and returns to the swine. The suitors, downcast, leave the courtyard and sit down before the gate. Eurymachus proposes sending another ship to call back those who were lying in ambush, but Amphinomus sees that the ship is already anchored in the harbor, laughs, and says it is not necessary. Gathered in the assembly ground, letting no one approach, they hear Antinous: the gods have saved the man, they spent days watching from the heights and nights at sea to kill him, and now it is necessary to plot his death before Telemachus calls the assembly and denounces the plan, because the people no longer favor them and may expel them. He proposes killing him in the countryside or on the road, dividing the goods, and leaving the house to the mother and her husband. If they prefer that he live, let them stop eating what is his, and let each one court Penelope from his own house, with gifts. All fall silent. Amphinomus, chief of the Dulichians and well regarded by Penelope, replies that he does not want to kill him: it is terrible to kill a royal line, and the gods must be consulted first. If the decrees of Zeus approve, he himself will kill him; if not, they should desist. All approve and return to the palace.
Penelope, who had learned of the plan from Medon, comes down with her maidservants and, veiled, stands by the threshold. She rebukes Antinous: the people call him the best on the island in counsel and speech, and he is not such. She reminds him that Zeus protects suppliants, and that Antinous's father took refuge in Odysseus's house when the people, enraged at his alliance with the Taphian pirates against the Thesprotians, wanted to kill him, and Odysseus saved him. In return, Antinous devours the house, courts the wife, and wants to kill the son. Eurymachus calms her: no one will touch Telemachus while he lives, for Odysseus used to seat him on his knees and give him roasted meat, and he loves him above all. The narrator adds that, in saying so, Eurymachus himself was preparing the young man's death. Penelope goes upstairs and weeps for Odysseus until Athena gives her sleep.
In the afternoon Eumaeus returns to the hut, and the three of them prepare supper with a yearling pig. Athena touches Odysseus with her wand and makes him old again, in rags, so that the swineherd will not recognize him and go tell Penelope. Telemachus asks what news there is in the city, and whether the suitors have already come back from the ambush. Eumaeus says he asked nothing, he only delivered the message, and that on his way back he saw from the hill of Hermes a ship full of men, shields and spears, entering the harbor; he supposes it was them. Telemachus smiles and looks at his father, without Eumaeus noticing. When supper is over, they go to sleep.
Analysis
The book has two levels, which the poem sets up in parallel. Above, in the hut, father and son recognize each other and work out the plan; below, in the city, the suitors decide to kill the boy and only postpone it until the gods have been consulted. The recognition is the only one in the poem that happens through words and through the explanation of the disguise, not through a sign on the body, and it costs Odysseus two attempts: the son does not accept his father while he sees in him a god, or a deception sent by some god.
The turning point of the book is the plan. Odysseus asks Telemachus for what the boy has not yet done, to endure an insult to a stranger without reacting, and he imposes absolute silence, which includes Penelope and Laertes. The poem separates those who know (father, son, Athena) from those who do not: Penelope defends her son with arguments of justice, and Eurymachus reassures her while plotting the opposite.
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