What It Is
The bed of olive wood is the bed of Odysseus and Penelope, which Odysseus himself built in Ithaca around a living olive tree with long leaves, as thick as a column. The room was raised around the tree, with close-fitted stones and well-fitted doors, the crown was cut, the trunk was trimmed and bored, and the bed was made from it, worked with gold, silver, ivory, and a strap of leather dyed purple. For this reason it cannot be moved without cutting the tree at its base, and only the two of them, plus one servant, Actoris, who guarded the door of the room, know this.
Where It Appears
The bed first appears as an absence. In Book IV, Menelaus hears from Telemachus that the suitors are consuming the house, and cries out that they wanted to lie in the bed of a strong-hearted man, being weak themselves. In Book XVI, in the hut, Telemachus tells Eumaeus why he came:
ἤ μοι ἔτʼ ἐν μεγάροις μήτηρ μένει, ἦέ τις ἤδη / ἀνδρῶν ἄλλος ἔγημεν, Ὀδυσσῆος δέ που εὐνὴ / χήτει ἐνευναίων κάκʼ ἀράχνια κεῖται ἔχουσα.(16.33-35), whether my mother still stays in the halls, or whether some other man has already married her, and Odysseus's bed, lacking the one who slept in it, lies covered with vile cobwebs.
In Book XIX, Penelope tells the beggar that her spirit is divided between staying with her son, keeping the goods, respecting her husband's bed and her reputation before the people, or following the best of those who court her. It is the same night in which she announces the trial of the bow.
The bed is the center of Book XXIII. The nurse Eurycleia announces that Odysseus has returned, but Penelope does not believe it and explains the slaughter as the work of a god:
ἀλλά τις ἀθανάτων κτεῖνε μνηστῆρας ἀγαυούς, / ὕβριν ἀγασσάμενος θυμαλγέα καὶ κακὰ ἔργα. / οὔ τινα γὰρ τίεσκον ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων, / οὐ κακὸν οὐδὲ μὲν ἐσθλόν, ὅτις σφέας εἰσαφίκοιτο· / τῷ διʼ ἀτασθαλίας ἔπαθον κακόν· αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεὺς / ὤλεσε τηλοῦ νόστον Ἀχαιΐδος, ὤλετο δʼ αὐτός.(23.63-68), but one of the immortals killed the proud suitors, angered by their heart-grieving outrage and wicked deeds. For they honored no one among earthly men, neither bad nor good, who came to them; so through their recklessness they suffered evil. And Odysseus lost, far away, the return to the Achaean land, and he himself perished.
She goes down to the hall and sits before him, silent. Telemachus rebukes her, and she answers:
εἰ δʼ ἐτεὸν δὴ / ἔστʼ Ὀδυσεὺς καὶ οἶκον ἱκάνεται, ἦ μάλα νῶϊ / γνωσόμεθʼ ἀλλήλων καὶ λώϊον· ἔστι γὰρ ἡμῖν / σήμαθʼ, ἃ δὴ καὶ νῶϊ κεκρυμμένα ἴδμεν ἀπʼ ἄλλων.(23.107-110), if in truth it is Odysseus and he has come home, we will certainly know each other even better; for we have signs that we two know, hidden from others.
Odysseus accepts the test, washes, dresses, and Athena pours beauty over him. When he asks the nurse for a bed to sleep in alone, Penelope sets the trial:
ἀλλʼ ἄγε οἱ στόρεσον πυκινὸν λέχος, Εὐρύκλεια, / ἐκτὸς ἐϋσταθέος θαλάμου, τόν ῥʼ αὐτὸς ἐποίει· / ἔνθα οἱ ἐκθεῖσαι πυκινὸν λέχος ἐμβάλετʼ εὐνήν, / κώεα καὶ χλαίνας καὶ ῥήγεα σιγαλόεντα. / ὣς ἄρʼ ἔφη πόσιος πειρωμένη·(23.177-181), come, Eurycleia, spread for him the firm bed outside the solid room that he himself built; there, after carrying the firm bed outside, lay bedding on it, with fleeces, cloaks, and shining coverlets. So she spoke, testing her husband.
Odysseus, irritated, describes what the bed hides:
θάμνος ἔφυ τανύφυλλος ἐλαίης ἕρκεος ἐντός, / ἀκμηνὸς θαλέθων· πάχετος δʼ ἦν ἠΰτε κίων. / τῷ δʼ ἐγὼ ἀμφιβαλὼν θάλαμον δέμον, ὄφρʼ ἐτέλεσσα, / πυκνῇσιν λιθάδεσσι, καὶ εὖ καθύπερθεν ἔρεψα, / κολλητὰς δʼ ἐπέθηκα θύρας, πυκινῶς ἀραρυίας.(23.190-194), within the enclosure grew an olive tree with long leaves, vigorous, in full bloom; its trunk was thick as a column. Around it I built the room, until I finished it, with close-fitted stones, roofed it well over, and fixed close-jointed doors, well fitted.
οὕτω τοι τόδε σῆμα πιφαύσκομαι· οὐδέ τι οἶδα, / ἤ μοι ἔτʼ ἔμπεδόν ἐστι, γύναι, λέχος, ἦέ τις ἤδη / ἀνδρῶν ἄλλοσε θῆκε, ταμὼν ὕπο πυθμένʼ ἐλαίης.(23.202-204), so I declare this sign to you; and I do not know whether the bed is still firm for me, woman, or whether some man has already moved it elsewhere, cutting the base of the olive tree beneath.
And the recognition happens:
ὣς φάτο, τῆς δʼ αὐτοῦ λύτο γούνατα καὶ φίλον ἦτορ, / σήματʼ ἀναγνούσῃ τά οἱ ἔμπεδα πέφραδʼ Ὀδυσσεύς· / δακρύσασα δʼ ἔπειτʼ ἰθὺς δράμεν, ἀμφὶ δὲ χεῖρας / δειρῇ βάλλʼ Ὀδυσῆϊ, κάρη δʼ ἔκυσʼ ἠδὲ προσηύδα·(23.205-208), so he spoke, and her knees and her dear heart gave way on the spot, as she recognized the firm signs Odysseus had described to her; weeping, she ran straight to him, threw her arms around Odysseus's neck, kissed his head, and spoke.
Penelope explains the delay, with the example of Helen, and the poem compares her relief to that of a shipwrecked man who sees land:
ὡς δʼ ὅτʼ ἂν ἀσπάσιος γῆ νηχομένοισι φανήῃ, / ὧν τε Ποσειδάων εὐεργέα νῆʼ ἐνὶ πόντῳ / ῥαίσῃ, ἐπειγομένην ἀνέμῳ καὶ κύματι πηγῷ· / παῦροι δʼ ἐξέφυγον πολιῆς ἁλὸς ἤπειρόνδε / νηχόμενοι, πολλὴ δὲ περὶ χροῒ τέτροφεν ἅλμη, / ἀσπάσιοι δʼ ἐπέβαν γαίης, κακότητα φυγόντες· / ὣς ἄρα τῇ ἀσπαστὸς ἔην πόσις εἰσοροώσῃ, / δειρῆς δʼ οὔ πω πάμπαν ἀφίετο πήχεε λευκώ.(23.233-240), as when land appears welcome to swimmers whose well-built ship Poseidon shatters on the sea, driven by wind and heavy wave; few escape the gray salt sea to the mainland by swimming, and much brine has grown thick on their skin, and gladly they step onto the land, having fled their misery; so welcome to her was the husband she looked upon, and she did not yet fully release her white arms from his neck.
The two go to the bed, and there each tells the other what they suffered, she in the hall, he at sea. Before that, Odysseus warns that one last trial remains, the journey with the oar that Tiresias announced to him (Book XI).
What It Means
The bed is the sign that only the two of them know. Penelope does not accept the scar that Eurycleia offers her (the text does not say why) and announces that there will be signs hidden from others. The trial she chooses is an order that would only lead to harm for anyone who knew how the bed was made, and Odysseus, when he grows angry, shows that he knows. The sign lies in the structure of the house, not in an object one carries, and the word with which he names it, firm, is the same word with which the narrator, verses later, names the signs Penelope recognizes.
Penelope gives two reasons for the delay, and the text leaves both: the rags that kept her from recognizing him, and the fear of being deceived by words, since many plot for ill gain. Telemachus reads her silence as hardness, stone, and Odysseus, later on, repeats the charge, swapping stone for iron. The poem leaves open whether the silence is hardness or caution.
The bed joins what the rest of the poem keeps apart. The hero who lies to everyone, who makes himself No One and a beggar, is recognized by his wife only through a true and private fact, and it is she who tests him, with a trick matching his own: she orders the bed moved to see whether he will fall. Odysseus and Penelope recognize each other by the same cunning with which they hide.
The olive tree appears before the room as shelter. In Book V, the castaway makes his bed of leaves under two intertwined bushes, one of them an olive; in Book XIII, Athena and he hide the gifts and plan the death of the suitors, sitting beside the olive tree at the harbor of Phorcys. The poem does not link the three trees, but in each the hero starts again from the earth.
Relationships
- Standard themes: Home, exile and return, Identity, Truth and lies, Family.
- Characters: Odysseus, Penelope, Eurycleia, Telemachus.
- Neighboring symbols: the scar of Odysseus, the sign that Eurycleia offers and Penelope does not take as proof, and the bow of Odysseus, the morning's trial.