2.177–223

Halitherses should stop riling up Telemachus, who ought to send his mother to her father and the two of them can arrange for her remarriage. The suitors will not give up their pursuit of Penelope. They fear no one, certainly not Telemachus.

The pattern established in Book 1 continues, with Antinous speaking for the suitors first, then Eurymachus (1.383–87; 400–11; 2.85–128; 178–207). The threatening tone of their responses to Telemachus is increasing, suggesting perhaps some frustration with Penelope’s delaying tactics but also some fear that Odysseus might still be alive. Apart from these two men, the suitors will remain, with one significant exception, an undifferentiated mob until they are singled out by the poet as Odysseus kills them. They number 108, with only twelve from Ithaka, the rest from the surrounding area. As a group, the suitors are distinguished by their lack of self-control, eating, drinking, having sex with the maids. In this quality, they mirror the crew that Odysseus tries unsuccessfully to bring home from Troy (1.6–9, see also essay on 1.1–43). Both groups share one important function in the poem, as foils for Odysseus, who is distinguished by his supreme self-control, which will be sorely tested when the suitors and others abuse him in his disguise as a beggar in Ithaka.

The suitors also play a role in the poem’s (apparently) simple test for assigning moral worth. The overriding imperative of the story is to restore Odysseus to his former status as king, husband, father, and son. The poem’s rhetoric encourages us to cheer anything or person that supports that goal, even if other circumstances we might have qualms. The hero’s lying and other forms of deceit, even his killing, are justified in this view. Likewise, those who stand in the hero’s way must be removed, no matter what we may think of them otherwise. Thus, all the suitors must die, even if from another perspective me might see them as foolish young men who have been swept up in the fervor of the moment. We should approve of Telemachus when he arranges to hang the maids who slept with suitors, without considering whether they might have been abused or mislead by their paramours.

The enduring hold of the Odyssey on the imagination of audiences for three millennia does not seem to fit with the black-and-white quality of this moral universe. In fact, the character who challenges these categories most often is Odysseus himself in the anonymous personae he inhabits as he makes his way home. As the poem progresses, we hear the hero tell autobiographical stories to strangers that create alternate lives, a fugitive murderer (13.256–86), the roving soldier of fortune from Crete (14.191–359), the hapless beggar who meets Odysseus by chance in Crete (19.164-302). As we see these figures in our imagination, scuffling along on the margins of the heroic world that Athena is intent on recreating in Ithaka, the easy judgements about others seem less satisfying. These two worlds collide in a revealing way during a brief exchange that the hero, disguised as a beggar, has with Amphinomus, the “good suitor.” The poet takes pains to distinguish this character from the rest of the suitors. He has stayed around to eat up the household goods and perhaps sleeping with the maids, but he also urges the suitors not to murder Telemachus (16.406) and protects the beggar and the servants in the palace from abuse (18.412).

In response to Amphinomus’s kind treatment of him, the beggar offers wisdom won through suffering and then a warning:

οὐδὲν ἀκιδνότερον γαῖα τρέφει ἀνθρώποιο,
πάντων ὅσσα τε γαῖαν ἔπι πνείει τε καὶ ἕρπει.
οὐ μὲν γάρ ποτέ φησι κακὸν πείσεσθαι ὀπίσσω,
ὄφρ᾽ ἀρετὴν παρέχωσι θεοὶ καὶ γούνατ᾽ ὀρώρῃ: 
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ καὶ λυγρὰ θεοὶ μάκαρες τελέσωσι,
καὶ τὰ φέρει ἀεκαζόμενος τετληότι θυμῷ: 
τοῖος γὰρ νόος ἐστὶν ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων
οἷον ἐπ᾽ ἦμαρ ἄγησι πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε.
καὶ γὰρ ἐγώ ποτ᾽ ἔμελλον ἐν ἀνδράσιν ὄλβιος εἶναι,
πολλὰ δ᾽ ἀτάσθαλ᾽ ἔρεξα βίῃ καὶ κάρτεϊ εἴκων,
πατρί τ᾽ ἐμῷ πίσυνος καὶ ἐμοῖσι κασιγνήτοισι.
τῷ μή τίς ποτε πάμπαν ἀνὴρ ἀθεμίστιος εἴη, 
ἀλλ᾽ ὅ γε σιγῇ δῶρα θεῶν ἔχοι, ὅττι διδοῖεν.

The earth nourishes nothing more frail, 
of all that creep and breathe in this world, 
than humans. A man never believes he’ll suffer, 
as long as the gods give him power, and his knees 
hold their spring. But when the immortals bring pains, 
then he must bear them, though unwilling, in his enduring heart. 
For such is the mind of mortal creatures, 
as the father of gods and humans brings, day by day. 
I was once destined to be fortunate among men, 
and made much wickedness, relying on my strength, 
trusting in my brother and my father. 
And now look. Let no man trample on the laws, 
but receive in silence what the gods give.

Odyssey 18.130–42

The beggar goes on to say that the king, whose stores Amphinomus and his fellow suitors are wasting, is close by and will return soon. He should leave now while he has the chance. But Amphinomus, the poet tells us, “would not escape his fate.” Athena had already “bound him” to die at Telemachus’s hands (18.155–56).

The character of Amphinomus seems to exist in the story only to highlight the unrelenting vengeance of Athena. Here is an apparent anomaly among the selfish, greedy suitors, someone who can see the suffering of others and empathize with them. Surely he can be spared? No, in the absolutist vision of Athena, all suitors must die. Like all gods, she wants what she wants, and no delicate moral scruples will stand in the way. By contrast, the beggar’s speech reflects the vision of human life opposed in the poem to that of the heroic return plot (which is, according to Zeus, Athena’s story (5.22–27)): let no man (even Odysseus) assume that the gods will always make the sun shine on him; pain and misfortune come for us all. These thoughts are exactly those of Achilles in Iliad 24, when he finally lets go of his godlike anger and arrogance by reaching out to Priam, a fellow mortal in pain.

The spirit of these words is also that of the stories told by the beggar and Eumaeus in the swineherd’s outpost. In the face of human suffering, the appropriate response is compassion, not self-righteous condemnation. As hero, Odysseus considers the suitors worthy of immediate death; as beggar, he makes a fleeting connection with one member of a group and tries to save him from the hero and his avenging divine protector. As hero, Odysseus is immune from any feelings of connection. Only as a nameless beggar can he draw on a reservoir of compassion in himself. As is the case all along the journey home, anonymity fosters openness and connection, while kleos, the measure of heroic stature, isolates. While the persona of stranger can serve Odysseus in his manipulation of others, it also carries the spirit of a wider, more nuanced world than the rigid, triumphalist vision of Athena. These alternate worlds coexist in the Odyssey, and the hero is the vehicle for negotiating between them, offering the rich and subtle vision of human experience that has held our attention for so long.

Further Reading

Felson, N. 1997. Regarding Penelope, 111–113. 2^nd ed. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press.

Van Nortwick, T. 2008. The Unknown Odysseus: Alternate Worlds in Homer’s Odyssey, 101–103. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Wohl, V. 1993. “Standing by the Stathmos: The Creation of Sexual Ideology in the Odyssey . Arethusa 26: 24.