333 opening glad arms to one another: Some of the most prominent Alexandrian critics regarded this verse [296] as the true “end” or “goal” of The Odyssey, by which they most likely meant the “climax” of the story—an opinion in which many modern critics follow them. It is less likely that they actually believed the poem ought to stop at this juncture. Both ancient and modern critics recognize a phase of “tying up the loose ends,” although in the case of The Odyssey, careful reading convinces us that the “ends” are in no sense “loose” but have been carefully prepared.
337–38 Homer clearly enjoyed using different forms of the same verb (infinitive terpein) in successive lines [300, 301; also 308] to refer to the pleasures of lovemaking and of storytelling, respectively.
348–83 We now get a recapitulation and summary of Odysseus’ travels, this time in strict chronological order, without the complex narrative displacement of The Odyssey itself, which sets Books IX-XII as an inset narrative or flashback. This new narrative, perhaps significantly a Homeric report of Odysseus’ own narrative to his wife, corrects (as it were) the many and ever-shifting tales the “Kretan” told about “his” travels since he arrived in Ithaka.
403 scores I’ll get on raids: On the acceptability of such piracy, see III.79–81, above.
408 My noble father, for he missed me sorely: Odysseus has heard of the depths of his father’s grief, both from the shade of his dead mother (XI.210–19) and more recently from Eumaios (XVI.161–68).
409–10 Odysseus is tactful: as lord of the house, it is his duty to give orders, but he realizes that he is addressing a woman who has managed things quite competently without him through twenty trying years. He tries to be diplomatic, but see the following note.
414 This is the last we see of Penélopê, and although we learn of no subsequent actions on her part, we certainly hear much of her prior actions in the last book of the poem (XXIV.141–67, 187–89, 218–23). Her last words turn out to have been “trials will end in peace” (321), as fine and pious a wish as anyone could want. Still, it is hard, from a modern perspective, not to register dismay that, having had her moment in the sun, Penélopê is ordered to retire to her quarters with her women and stay out of sight (412–14). Would it be stretching too far to compare the late 1940s and ’50s, when those women who had served so well in the factories of wartime economies were encouraged, in some cases virtually ordered, to disappear into their homes and concern themselves once more solely with domestic affairs and consumption (perhaps a little charity work), so that the men returning from the war could resume sole possession of paid labor outside the home? I think not, so long as we remember the different historical contexts of both the poem before us and our own period.
421–22 Athena, having beautified Odysseus at lines 176–84, has been manipulating the progress of night and day since line 272, and Homer emphasizes her continued assistance in the final lines of the book. Her prominence at the close of Book XXIII prefigures her even more direct presence at the close of Book XXIV and the entire epic.
BOOK XXIV
Warriors, Farewell
1–230 Hermês, who guides the souls of the dead to the beyond, is performing his function for the suitors. In many ways this is a totally unexpected opening of this final book, yet upon reflection it is a satisfying novelty. While we left the suitors as a pile of corpses in the hall, we have also been alerted to the storm that is about to break when their relatives discover what has happened to them. So this scene, which presents their souls in Hades, does more than simply recall the presentation of the shades in Book XI. In that episode, Odysseus received important information and prophecies from his mother and Teirêsias, and he engaged in discussions with some of the heroes of The Iliad, which, if not strictly important for the plot of The Odyssey, serve as a commentary and counterpoint to the theme of return. The ghosts of the suitors, as they meet and interact with the ghosts we met in Book XI, confirm that Odysseus not only reached Ithaka but also bested the rivals who had been waiting for him there. All that remains is for him to neutralize the new enemies he has made on Ithaka by liquidating the suitors.
In ancient times, prominent critics already condemned this entire episode as a post-Homeric interpolation. This is not the place to consider or even list the range of their arguments, nor the support or dissent of more modern scholars. It is worth noting, however, that a number of the objections have to do with purported inconsistencies with The Iliad, which ancient and modern “analysts” (on whom, see Introduction, p. xlii) attribute to a poet other than the poet of The Odyssey; very few of the arguments mounted against Book XXIV are based on either the coherence or the logic of The Odyssey itself.
8 rock-hung chain: Of bats, that is.
16–111 The exchange between Akhilleus and Agamémnon provides the poet of The Odyssey an opportunity to revisit and recast, in a minor key, the quarrel between the two most important Greeks in The Iliad. This would certainly not be less attractive, and perhaps it would be even more attractive to a poet of The Odyssey who had himself not created The Iliad, but who certainly knew The Iliad, presumably having sung it countless times.
The very idea of the shades of the suitors in the presence of the shades of the great heroes of the Trojan War reminds us of what might be called the post-Iliadic theme of The Odyssey: these are the men who stayed behind, who did not go to Troy. It may be that in part they belonged to a later generation not old enough to go to the war, and that if they had had the chance they would have acted no less heroically than the Akhaians who went to Troy. But emotionally, this is no satisfying argument: until it has proved itself in war, no generation of men—I use “men” to mean “males”—feels that it has lived up to the veterans of the preceding war, and no veteran of any war feels that even the veterans of later wars, much less those who didn’t serve, have provided an equivalent proof of their “manliness.” Consider the continued importance of military service in the careers and campaigns of the men who run or are considered for the offices of president and vice-president, or the mileage the opposition makes if there is something to criticize about the service record of a candidate—or the president.
25–36 My lord Atreidês …: Akhilleus’ speech to Agamémnon is clearly devised to raise the important thematic issues in The Odyssey and once again point to the fate of Agamémnon as the counterexample par excellence to the career of Odysseus.
30 in the morning of your life: This expression isn’t particularly apt, and it becomes less so when at lines 32–36 Akhilleus says it would have been better had Agamémnon died at Troy, at an even earlier point than he did. The Greek here is “early” [28], and insofar as death is almost always “early” relative to one’s hopes and expectations, we might think of it as meaning “untimely.” Alternatively, we could see this as just one of the illogical juxtapositions that oral composition often leads to. Drama rather than logic (if the beyond is subject to logic) has already led the poet to present at this point what appears to be the first encounter of the souls of Agamémnon and Akhilleus, although both have been dead for some ten years.
35 your son: Orestês, once again Telémakhos’ opposite in the scheme of counterexamples (see Introduction, and I.45–46, above).
38–111 Fortunate hero …: Almost all of Agamémnon’s response (38–107) refers to the death and burial of Akhilleus, which, it is important to remember, occurred after the end of the Homeric Iliad and was not recounted there. Such stories circulated in Homer’s time, even if the “cyclic epics” (which we know only from fragments and summaries) that recounted these episodes in full were written later. Only in the last four lines (108–11; three in Greek [95–97]) does Agamémnon refer to his fate at the hands of his wife and her usurping lover.
Taken together, Akhilleus’ and Agamémnon’s speeches describe the deaths and burial honors (or lack thereof) of two of the “best of the Akhaians,” a category to which Odysseus belongs as well. Odysseus’ death can be foretold but not narrated in The Odyssey as
Homer has shaped it, and indeed, near the end of the preceding book (XXIII.314–17), Odysseus told Penélopê about the death Teirêsias prophesied for him (XI. 148–51). In more ways than one, then, Book XXIV is about “ends,” ends of lives as well as the end of a story. Perhaps we can see the stories of the death and burial of Akhilleus (told in great detail) and Agamémnon as in some way standing in for the unnarrated death of Odysseus. Fitzgerald seems to have intuited something like this when he gave Book XXIV the tide “Warriors, Farewell.” (However “un-Homeric” the tides may be, they can be appreciated as part of the understanding of a fine Homeric scholar.) Odysseus’ death, readers of The Odyssey may surmise from indications in Books XI and XXIII, will be the best of all in Greek eyes: at home and in peace. (Later legend devised violent alternatives, a clear example of epic deflation: the greater the hero, the greater the fall. There have always been, and will always be, revisionists.)
52–104 The apparition of Thetis and the Nereids, the song of the Muses, the divine amphora and trophies—all this evokes, as does the entire underworld episode in Book XXIV, a number of aspects of the “fairy-tale” world in which Odysseus’ own travels took place. Indeed, steady intercourse with the gods is one of the characteristics that marks the age of the heroes, Odysseus included. This human-divine interaction becomes less frequent thereafter, and such latecomers as the suitors have no share in it. The communion of heroes and gods is no better evidenced than by their common grief and communal mourning (72; in the Greek, gods and mortals are even on equal grammatical footing [athanatoi te theoi thnêtoi t’anthrôpoi, 64]).
68 in nine immortal voices: The Greek refers unambiguously to nine muses [60], which some critics take as a sign (in their eyes, a further sign) that the “second nekuia” did not belong to the original, authentic Odyssey. Elsewhere in the poem the Muse is singular (I.1, VIII.68, 79, 513, and 521). Nine as the canonical number of Muses is next mentioned by Hesiod (Theogony, 60, 77–79, 916–17, “next,” that is, unless the Theogony predates this patch of The Odyssey). However, the Muses are frequently multiple already in The Iliad, which is certainly earlier.
74–78 Though a small detail, it is significant for the career of Odysseus that contrary to standard practice (see XI.83, XII.14–15), Akhilleus’ battle gear was not burned with his body but made into a contest prize at his funeral games. In the contest for these arms Odysseus bested Aîas, earning him Aîas’ literally undying anger (see XI.646–74). Akhilleus’ arms were themselves “immortal,” made for him at his mother’s request by Hephaistos (see Iliad XVIII.369–617).
112 Wayfinder: Hermês (see 1–230, above).
119–27 It is a nice touch that Agamémnon addresses questions to the suitors (123–27 [109–13]) that Odysseus had addressed to Agamémnon (when Odysseus encountered him, much to his surprise, among the shades), with only minor variations (XI.462–69, esp. 465–69 [399–403]). The irony of the same questions being asked here of Odysseus’ victims is telling. Certainty about Homer’s intent is clouded, as it so often is, by the nature of formulaic language. On the one hand, in both places the likely causes of death for a warrior are molded into a typical pattern of a triple question. On the other hand, the author of The Odyssey does seem to be in control of formulae and typical scenes more often than not, and it is likely that this is the case here.
144 ever bent on our defeat: Homer’s Amphímedon forcefully claims that Penélopê plotted for the suitors’ death [127]. This may be an exaggeration, but Amphímedon, as victims often do after the fact, imagines and narrates a plot more organized and coherent than it really was. In what follows, note especially lines 188–90, where Amphímedon says that Odysseus “assigned his wife her part: next day / she brought his bow and iron axeheads out / to make a contest.” This would be a natural inference, but we know very well that (at least in the text of The Odyssey that we have) this is not at all how it occurred (see XIX.660–73). Even more: Amphímedon’s narrative presumes either that Penélopê knew the identity of the beggar from the outset (a major, even paranoid misreading) or that she learned it considerably earlier than she actually did.
145–67 Here is one of her tricks …: Different narrators’ differing perspectives and situations account for the differences among the three accounts of the ruse of the shroud: II.96–118 (Antínoös), XIX. 163–82 (Penélopê), and the present one (the ghost of Amphímedon). See also II.101ff., above.
170–80 Unless we invent an informant, this too must be pure inference. But the inferences are correct, with the possible exception of lines 176–77 [156–58] which suggest that Amphímedon believes that Eumaios too was already in on the secret of the beggar’s identity when he led him to town to beg in the hall (in Book XVII). Actually, Eumaios learned the beggar’s identity four books later (XXI.233–54).
183–90 That night…: Note, in addition to his mistaken assumptions that Penélopê knew the identity of the beggar and arranged the contest of the bow on Odysseus’ command (see 144, above), Amphímedon’s other inaccuracies. One is minor: “Zeus” did not give Odysseus the idea of moving the arms “that night;” rather, in his wisdom—whether divinely inspired or not—Odysseus instructed Telémakhos to prepare for this when they were still in Eumaios’ hut (XVI.333–51). The second is of fairly major proportions: the storeroom was not locked (see XXII. 152–220). We can see Amphímedon’s self-serving purpose in spreading this untruth: it is hardly to his or any of his fellow suitors’ credit to admit that they were unable to exploit this potentially fatal oversight on Telémakhos’ part.
194 Only Telémakhos: Not entirely true, since Penélopê also urged that the beggar be given the bow (XXI.349–86, esp. 379). Given his eagerness above to make Penélopê part of the plot, it is somewhat odd that he obscures her role here. Perhaps while he can stomach giving a woman a role of co-conspirator who follows out her husband’s commands or who devises her own acts of deception (the trick of the shroud, described at 145–67, above), he would prefer not to memorialize a scene in which she boldly rebuffed the suitors in the hall.
202–7 Amphímedon’s summary of Book XXII is also self-serving. He describes a monumentally heroic Odysseus aided only by “some god” (204), who slaughtered suitors by the dozen. We know that although Athena was of great help in encouraging Odysseus, four fighters, managed skillfully by the master strategist Odysseus, step by step reduced the number of their opponents, who had some arms and acquired a few more during the course of the battle. Of course, Amphímedon suppresses this; he never reveals the great number of suitors who were present.
209–13 Now in Odysseus’ hall …: Reference to the unburied bodies and the suitors’ uninformed kin is a reminder in the midst of this episode of the danger and difficulty Odysseus has to resolve before the epic can be concluded.
216–28 O fortunate Odysseus …: Amphímedon’s narrative had been calculated to win sympathy, never more so than at its conclusion, and he certainly won’t have expected a response like Agamémnon’s. To call it unsympathetic would be an understatement. Of course it is a nice touch that the ghost of Agamémnon not only gives the final version of the frequent comparison between Klytaimnéstra and Penélopê but in so doing also pronounces the final commendation of Penélopê.
218–20 The girl you brought home …: Fitzgerald’s blended translation [of 193–96a] ascribes Penélopê’s virtue both to her and to Odysseus’ credit (to him for bringing home so “valiant” a wife). This is true to the spirit of the Greek, even if scholars still argue whether the “virtue” of the first line [aretê, 193] belongs to Penélopê or Odysseus, or even both. Fitzgerald’s translation is a diplomatic solution of the controversy.
219 Homer has Agamémnon give Odysseus the epithet kouridios [kouridiou, 196], which may be translated “wedded.” He uses the word again at line 226, which, if the Greek were translated literally, would involve the seemingly redundant “her wedded husband” [200]. Kouridios suggests all the aspects of one’s life which are consequences of being mated to a partner.
The state of being in a good partnership with his wife is as essential to Odysseus’ character as it is to the triumphant story of The Odyssey. And it is essential to the tragic story of Agamémnon that he is the kind of man who would have a Klytaimnéstra as his wife (which I’ve phrased in this way to suggest that he’s as responsible as she).
221–22 The very gods themselves will sing her story …: Might Homer expect his listeners to think of his own poem, sung by the Muse to him (I.1)? Though oblique—because The Odyssey is about much more than Penélopê—it seems very possible, if not inevitable.
226–28 Without the least inkling of the insights of modern feminist theory, Homer captures with unblinking clarity the illogic of the misogynistic perspective: even though Agamémnon has said that Penélopê and Klytaimnéstra will both be the subjects of songs (in other words, they are the archetypes for “good” and “bad” women), for him it is the bad woman who represents the true essence of womanhood, the essence of “even the best.”
Does Homer him- or herself undermine this position by (1) presenting it so blatantly in the mouth of one of the heroes who falls far short of the Odyssean ideal and (2) even more subtly, having Agamémnon, in defiance of his own logic, attribute the song about Penélopê to the gods while making no such claim for the song about Klytaimnéstra? (In this context it is worth noting that “forever” (227) is an interpolation on the translator’s part of which the Greek is innocent [201]). Not without cause have some wanted to argue that the poet of The Odyssey was a woman, as Samuel Butler did in The Authoress of the Odyssey (1897). While his book has long been considered a quaint curiosity by most Homerists, some of the best recent work is finding new ways to talk about female perspectives on and in The Odyssey.
A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald Page 38