Alcinoüs, the Phaeacian King, helps Odysseus with a ship laden with gifts and a crew to take him back to Ithaca. When Odysseus meets Athena (disguised as a young shepherd, he spins a tall tale.
Athena then appears as herself and laughs:
“You crooked, shifty rogue!
Anyone who could keep pace with your craftiness
must be a canny dealer.”
(Hamilton, 315)
Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, has a plan and disguises Odysseus as a beggar and sends him off to Eumaeus, the swineherd.
Telemachus has a telling dream and secretly returns to Ithaca to seek out Eumaeus.
Odysseus and Telemachus are reunited with the help of Athena. At first Telemachus thinks his father is a god:
“No god. Why take me for a god? No, no.
I am that father whom your boyhood lacked
and suffered pain for lack of. I am he.”
Held back too long, the tears ran down his cheeks
as he embraced his son.
(Fitzgerald, p. 521)
Upon the advice of Athena, Telemachus returns to the palace to hide all the weapons except for his and his father’s. Odysseus returns home a little later that morning in disguise and no one but his old hunting dog, Argo, recognizes him.
Penelope makes an announcement to the obnoxious suitors that she will choose a new husband, but must be treated properly and expects the suitors to present her with gifts to show their good intentions.
Penelope meets the old beggar (Odysseus in disguise) who tells her about her husband’s (his) bravery during the Trojan War. She sends for Eurycleia (Odysseus’ old nurse), to bathe the stranger’s tired feet, but when the old woman sees the scar on the beggar’s foot, Odysseus covers her mouth, and makes her promise not to reveal his identity.
Penelope challenges the suitors; whoever among them can string Odysseus’ great bow and shoot an arrow straight through twelve rings set in a line, will become her new husband.
Odysseus easily meets Penelope’s challenge:
Odysseus easily meets Penelope’s challenge:
But the man skilled in all ways of contending,
satisfied by the great bow’s look and heft,
like a musician, like a harper, when
with quiet hand upon his instrument
he draws between his thumb and forefinger
a sweet new string upon a peg: so effortlessly
Odysseus in one motion strung the bow.
Then slid his right hand down the cord and plucked it,
so the taut gut vibrating hummed and sang
a swallow’s note.
(Fitzgerald, p. 534)
After shooting an arrow straight through the twelve rings, Odysseus takes revenge against the wicked suitors who would steal his beloved Penelope, with the help of Telemachus and Eumaeus.
Still not able to trust that he is who he says he is, Penelope tests Odysseus by telling Eurycleia to set his bed outside the bedchamber:
“Woman, by heaven you’ve stung me now!
. . . An old trunk of olive
grew like a pillar on the building plot,
and I laid out our bedroom round that tree
. . .”
“Their secret! as she heard it told, her knees
grew tremulous and weak, her heart failed her.
With eyes brimming tears she ran to him,
throwing her arms around his neck, and kissed him.”
(Fitzgerald, p. 543)
Knowing that only her husband would know of their marriage bed, Penelope was finally secure in knowledge that Odysseus had at last come home.
(Information Sources:
Edith Hamilton’s exposition “The Adventures of Odysseus,”Mythology, pp. 202-219; 8th Grade English handout, An Epic Poem, translations by Robert Fitzgerald, pp. 488-544)