Chapter summary
Odysseus lies down in the vestibule of the house, on an untanned ox-hide covered with sheepskins, and the stewardess Eurynome throws a cloak over him. He does not sleep: he plans evil against the suitors. The maids who used to lie with the suitors leave the hall laughing, and Odysseus, with his spirit stirred, weighs whether to leap upon them and give each one death, or to let them mingle with the suitors once more, the last time. His heart barks within, like a bitch defending her puppies before a stranger, indignant at the vile deeds he sees. He strikes his chest and speaks to his heart: endure, for you have endured something even worse, on the day the Cyclops devoured your companions, and you bore it until your cunning brought you out of the cave. The heart obeys, but Odysseus turns in the bed like a paunch full of fat and blood that someone turns over the fire, thinking how, alone, he will overcome so many.
Athena comes down from heaven in the form of a woman, stands by his head and asks why he is awake again, when the house, the wife and the son are there. Odysseus admits she is right, but tells what troubles him: how to defeat alone men who are always gathered together and, worse, where to flee afterward if he kills them with the will of Zeus and of her. Athena rebukes him for trusting a mortal companion who knows less than she does, she who is a goddess and guards him in all his trials. She says that even if fifty companies of men surrounded them to kill them, he would take their oxen and sheep. She orders him to sleep, because keeping watch all night is painful and soon he will be freed from his troubles; she pours sleep onto his eyelids and returns to Olympus.
When sleep seizes him, Penelope wakes, sits up on the soft bed and weeps; after satisfying her spirit, she prays to Artemis. She asks that the goddess shoot an arrow into her breast now, or that a storm carry her along dark paths to the mouth of Oceanus, as it carried away the daughters of Pandareus, orphans whom the Harpies gave to the Erinyes to serve them. She wants to go under the hateful earth to see Odysseus, and not to gladden the thoughts of a lesser man. She says that grief by day is bearable when night brings the sleep that wipes everything away, but that a god sends her evil dreams: tonight a man like him, as he was when he left with the army, slept beside her, and her heart rejoiced, because she thought it was not a dream but already reality.
Morning comes, and Odysseus hears her weeping and imagines she has recognized him and is standing by his head. He folds the cloak and the hides, sets them on a chair in the hall, takes the ox-hide outside and, with raised hands, prays to Zeus: if the gods gladly brought him by land and sea to his country, after so much punishment, let one of the men who wake up within the house speak a word of good omen, and let another sign from Zeus appear outside. Zeus hears and thunders from the high clouds, and Odysseus rejoices.
The word of omen comes from a servant who grinds grain nearby. There are twelve women at the mills, and all are asleep after grinding the wheat, except the weakest, who has not yet finished. She stops the mill and says to Zeus: he thundered from the starry sky without a cloud, a sign for someone; let him also fulfill the word of this wretched woman, that the suitors make this day their last and final banquet in Odysseus's house, they who loosened her knees with weariness while she ground their meal. Odysseus rejoices at the word and at the thunder, certain that he will punish the guilty.
The other maids light the fire on the hearth. Telemachus rises, dresses, puts the sharp sword on his shoulder, puts on his sandals, takes his spear, and standing on the threshold asks the nurse Eurycleia whether they honored the stranger with a bed and food or left him lying there without care, for his mother, though sensible, honors blindly a worse man and sends the better one away without honor. Eurycleia contradicts him: one should not blame one who is not at fault. The stranger drank wine as much as he wanted, said he had no more hunger, and when he thought of sleeping, refused the bed and lay down in the vestibule on a raw ox-hide, which they covered with a cloak. Telemachus goes out with his spear and two dogs toward the assembly of the Achaeans. Eurycleia orders the maids to sweep and sprinkle the hall, spread purple rugs over the thrones, scrub the tables and clean the mixing bowls and cups, and fetch water from the spring, because the suitors will come early: it is a day of feast for all.
Workers arrive to split wood, and the women return from the fountain; then Eumaeus, the swineherd, arrives with three fat pigs, which he leaves in the pen, and asks Odysseus whether the Achaeans look on him better or still despise him as before. Odysseus replies that the gods ought to punish the outrage these men shamelessly plot in another man's house. Melanthius, the goatherd, arrives with the fattest goats for the banquet and taunts Odysseus: still here, pestering with requests? The two will part only when he feels his hand, and there are other banquets of Achaeans. Odysseus does not reply: he shakes his head in silence, plotting evil. In third place comes Philoetius, the herdsman, with a barren cow and fat goats that sailors brought; he ties them up and asks Eumaeus who the stranger is, who seems like a king, for the gods spin suffering even for wandering kings. He greets Odysseus and laments: he weeps remembering his master, who put him to the cattle when he was young, and today the herd grows beyond measure, but others order him to drive it away to be eaten, without caring for the heir of the house or fearing the gods, only wishing to share out the goods of a man who has been absent so long. He has thought of fleeing with the cattle to another people, but that would be wrong, for the son is alive; worse still would be to keep guarding other men's cattle, and he would have fled to another king, were it not for the hope that the unhappy man will return and scatter the suitors. Odysseus swears by Zeus, by the table of hospitality and by the hearth of Odysseus, to which he has come, that Odysseus will return while Philoetius is there, and that he will see the suitors dead. Philoetius prays to the gods that it come true, and Eumaeus makes the same vow.
The suitors plot the death of Telemachus, but an eagle flies to their left with a dove in its talons, and Amphinomus says the plan to kill Telemachus will not prosper and proposes to think of the banquet; all agree. They enter the house, lay down their cloaks, slaughter sheep, goats, pigs and a cow, divide the entrails, and mix the wine; Eumaeus distributes the cups, Philoetius the bread, Melanthius pours. Telemachus seats Odysseus by the stone threshold in the hall, on a poor bench at a small table, gives him a portion of the entrails and wine in a golden cup, and says that there he will suffer no mockery or violence from the suitors, because the house is not public, but Odysseus's and his by inheritance; he orders the suitors to restrain their tongues and hands. They bite their lips, astonished at the boy's boldness. Antinous says they must accept Telemachus's harsh speech and that only Zeus kept them from silencing him; Telemachus pays him no attention. The heralds lead the sacred hecatomb through the city to the grove of Apollo, and the suitors, after roasting the meat, divide the portions and give Odysseus an equal portion, by Telemachus's order.
Athena does not let the suitors refrain from outrage, so that the pain may sink even deeper into Odysseus's heart. Ctesippus, of Same, a man of lawless deeds, confident in his father's wealth and a suitor for Odysseus's wife, tells the others that the stranger already has an equal portion, which is just, and that he wants to give him also a guest's gift, to pass on to the servant who bathes him or to someone else in the house. He throws at him an ox's foot he took from the basket. Odysseus dodges it, bending his head, and smiles inwardly a very bitter smile; the ox's foot strikes the wall. Telemachus rebukes Ctesippus: it would have been better for him not to have struck the guest, for he would have been pierced by the spear, and his own father would have been seeing to a tomb instead of a wedding. Let no one else commit indecencies in the house: he already perceives and knows the good and the worse, and before, he was a child. He admits they bear to see sheep slaughtered and wine and bread consumed, because it is hard for one man to hold back many, and adds that if they want to kill him, he prefers to die rather than always see unseemly acts, guests mistreated and servants dragged outrageously through the beautiful halls. All fall silent.
Agelaus, son of Damastor, speaks up belatedly to say that no one should be angry at a just word or mistreat the guest or the servants of Odysseus, and he gives Telemachus a piece of advice: while there was hope that Odysseus would return, it was natural to wait in the house, but now it is clear that he will not return; let Telemachus persuade his mother to marry the best man, the one who offers the most, so that he may manage his father's estate in peace while she goes to another house. Telemachus swears by Zeus and by his father's sufferings, whether he died far from Ithaca or wanders somewhere, that he will not delay his mother's marriage, that he will send her to marry whomever she wishes and will give countless gifts besides; but he is ashamed to drive her from the palace against her will, with a word of compulsion, and he asks that a god not permit it.
Athena brings on the suitors an uncontrollable laughter and disturbs their judgment: they laugh with jaws not their own, eat bloody meat, their eyes fill with tears, and their spirit foresees weeping. The seer Theoclymenus asks them what evil they are suffering: their heads, faces and knees are wrapped in night, the lament blazes, their cheeks weep, the walls drip with blood, the portico and the courtyard are full of shades descending to Erebus, the sun has vanished from the sky, and a foul mist spreads. All laugh at him, and Eurymachus says the stranger is mad and orders him led to the assembly, since night seems to him to be here. Theoclymenus replies that he did not ask for a guide, for he has eyes, ears, feet and sense, and he goes out because he sees the evil coming upon the suitors who outrage men in the house of Odysseus; he goes to the house of Peiraeus, who welcomes him.
The suitors provoke Telemachus over the guests: one says no one has worse guests, a vagabond who asks only for wine and food, knowing nothing of work or strength, and another who stood up to prophesy; he advises Telemachus to throw them onto a ship and send them to the Sicilians, where they would fetch a good price. Telemachus pays no heed: he looks at his father in silence, waiting for the moment to lay hands on the suitors. On the other side of the hall, Penelope, daughter of Icarius, seated in a beautiful chair before the door, listens to everything they say. They feast amid laughter, with many beasts slaughtered, but no supper would be more bitter than the one that a goddess and a strong man were soon to serve them, for it was they who began the outrageous deeds.
Analysis
The book is the eve, and nothing decisive happens in it: everything is being set up. Odysseus postpones his anger so as not to spoil the plan, receives from Athena the confidence he lacked, and receives from Zeus the sign he asked for through the mouth of the weakest of the maids, while the suitors, unknowing, prepare the supper from which they will not rise. The man who speaks to his heart as to a dog and is obeyed is the same man who, in the following books, will have to control the bow and the moment.
The book also shows the divided house, and loyalty measured in small people: the maid at the mill, Philoetius, Eumaeus. The outraged hospitality appears on stage (Ctesippus's ox's foot), and Telemachus, who in Book I ordered his mother to be silent, now speaks in the name of the house before the suitors, setting as a limit the treatment of guests and maids.
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