7.199-239

The king’s remark accords with what his everblooming gardens suggest, that the Phaeacians occupy a place in the cosmic order in between the gods and ordinary mortals. Such a position accords with their rarified civilization and makes Scheria both the geographical and the existential midpoint of Odysseus’s journey from Calypso’s timeless island to the fully human existence that awaits him in Ithaka.

The king’s remarks also touch on a common folktale, of the disguised god who visits the humble dwelling of an unsuspecting mortal couple, whose kindness to the stranger wins them special favor. In one sense, the template seems to fit uneasily over the present situation, in that Alkinous’ palace is an unlikely candidate for a humble dwelling. But the basic dynamic of the folktale, drawing our attention to the boundary between mortals and immortals, keeps surfacing in the poem. Nausicaa tells her servant girls that Odysseus seems like a god to her. Later, she imagines that her rude local suitors might think that the big handsome stranger might be a god in disguise (6.242–43; 280–81). After Athena changes the beggar back into Odysseus, Telemachus thinks he must be a god (16.181–84). Meanwhile, both Athena and Hermes do appear disguised as mortals (1.105; 7.19–21; 10.277–79; 13.221–24).

The folktale’s power to affect the poem’s surface meaning appears strongest in the encounter between Odysseus and Eumaeus in Books 14 and 15. There the actual power imbalance between host and guest creates an undercurrent of irony, as the king, disguised as a seemingly humble traveler tests the generosity of his swineherd. And there is yet another layer of irony in the exchanges, as we learn that the swineherd has been himself displaced by misfortune and treachery from his rightful place in an aristocratic family (15.403–84). The constant oscillation in the social status and identities of the two men taps in turn into the poem’s ongoing meditation on the intricacies of human identity, figured through the polarity between outer appearance and inner reality.

In response to the king’s speculation, Odysseus assures Alkinous that he is in no way like the gods, offering as proof the terrible suffering he has undergone at their hands, which he would describe in more detail, but first he needs to eat. His stomach, he says, is a tyrant that drives him to forget all his sorrows and concentrate on filling her up. The hero’s homely tone here fits with his persona as, “only human,” a downtrodden wanderer. At the same time, his embrace of ordinary, earthy humanity recalls the momentous choice he made in response to Calypso’s offer of immortality (5.214–24). His identity, as the poem defines it, depends on the fact of his mortality, on his constant striving against the forces of oblivion—however appealing in the moment—that threaten him all the way home (see essay on Book 5.192–227).

The guests voice general approval of the stranger’s request for food and drink, and a feast follows. When the festivities conclude, all the locals head home to bed, leaving Odysseus alone in the hall with the royal couple. Once the servants have left, the queen finally speaks:

τοῖσιν δ᾽ Ἀρήτη λευκώλενος ἤρχετο μύθων·
ἔγνω γὰρ φᾶρός τε χιτῶνά τε εἵματ᾽ ἰδοῦσα
καλά, τά ῥ᾽ αὐτὴ τεῦξε σὺν ἀμφιπόλοισι γυναιξί·
καί μιν φωνήσασ᾽ ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα·
"ξεῖνε, τὸ μέν σε πρῶτον ἐγὼν εἰρήσομαι αὐτή·
τίς πόθεν εἰς ἀνδρῶν; τίς τοι τάδε εἵματ᾽ ἔδωκεν;
οὐ δὴ φῆς ἐπὶ πόντον ἀλώμενος ἐνθάδ᾽ ἱκέσθαι;"

White-armed Arete began to speak among them,
for she recognized the mantle and tunic, beautiful
clothing she herself made with her handmaidens.
And addressing him she spoke winged words:
“Stranger, I have some questions for you first:
Who are you and where from? Who gave you these clothes?
Did you not say that you came here by wandering over the sea?”

Odyssey 7.233–39

The queen’s self-confident authority comes through strongly here. Alkinous has played his part in the social arrangements, and now Arete gets down to business with pointed questions. She already knows the answer to one of them, and we sense that things may get tricky for Odysseus. His hosts have given him food and shelter, so their curiosity about his identity is not out of order. Any answer he gives to the queen could put him in a risky position. He seems polite enough, but maybe he stole the clothing from Nausicaa’s laundry basket? Even if Nausicaa gave him the clothes, he must have put the princess in a compromising position, meeting a strange man out in the countryside, the usual venue for rape. Odysseus will navigate the delicate moment with aplomb.

The curious bifurcated structure of this scene has two significant effects: 1) throwing the spotlight on Alkinous’ fumbling of his role as host undermines his masculine authority in the household; 2) making us wait for Arete’s response to the supplicant’s plea gives it greater dramatic weight. In both cases, Homer creates antecedents for important events later when Odysseus arrives at the palace in Ithaka. On the threshold of the Ithakan royal residence, Eumaeus and the beggar discuss strategy. Who should enter first? Odysseus prefers to wait outside despite the threats he’s received from local bullies:

γιγνώσκω, φρονέω: τά γε δὴ νοέοντι κελεύεις.
ἀλλ᾽ ἔρχευ προπάροιθεν, ἐγὼ δ᾽ ὑπολείψομαι αὐτοῦ.
οὐ γάρ τι πληγέων ἀδαήμων οὐδὲ βολάων:
τολμήεις μοι θυμός, ἐπεὶ κακὰ πολλὰ πέπονθα
κύμασι καὶ πολέμῳ: μετὰ καὶ τόδε τοῖσι γενέσθω:
γαστέρα δ᾽ οὔ πως ἔστιν ἀποκρύψαι μεμαυῖαν,
οὐλομένην, ἣ πολλὰ κάκ᾽ ἀνθρώποισι δίδωσι,
τῆς ἕνεκεν καὶ νῆες ἐΰζυγοι ὁπλίζονται
πόντον ἐπ᾽ ἀτρύγετον, κακὰ δυσμενέεσσι φέρουσαι.

I see, I understand. You’re talking to someone who gets the point.
But you go ahead, and I’ll stay behind here.
I’m familiar with blows and things thrown at me;
I have an enduring heart, since I have endured many evils
on the waves and in war; so let whatever comes, come.
But even so, there’s no way to suppress the ravenous belly,
a ruinous thing, which gives many evils to mortals,
because of which well-built ships are guided
over the barren sea, bringing misfortunes to enemies.

Odyssey 17.281–89

Later, when Penelope is finally alone with the beggar, her questions touch on familiar territory:

νῦν μὲν δή σευ, ξεῖνέ γ᾽, ὀΐω πειρήσεσθαι,
εἰ ἐτεὸν δὴ κεῖθι σὺν ἀντιθέοις ἑτάροισι
ξείνισας ἐν μεγάροισιν ἐμὸν πόσιν, ὡς ἀγορεύεις.
εἰπέ μοι ὁπποῖ᾽ ἄσσα περὶ χροῒ εἵματα ἕστο,
αὐτός θ᾽ οἷος ἔην, καὶ ἑταίρους, οἵ οἱ ἕποντο.

Now I think I will test you, stranger, to see
if it is true that there, with his godlike companions,
you entertained my husband in your palace, as you say.
Tell me what kind of clothing he wore on his body, and what
sort of man he was, and his companions who followed him.

Odyssey 19.215-219

Each of these speeches in Ithaka has a clear function in its immediate context. The beggar can wait for a little while, but his hunger will soon drive him to ask the suitors for food. Penelope’s question about Odysseus’s clothing makes sense as a way of testing the stranger’s story about knowing her husband. At the same time, we can see now that Odysseus’s slightly comic preoccupation with his stomach in Scheria foreshadows more serious imperatives in Ithaka, while Arete’s unusually prominent role in welcoming the stranger to her home lays the foundation for Penelope’s crucial role in the return of her husband to power.

Further Reading

Murnaghan, S. 1987. Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey, 91–117. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Thalmann, W. 1992. The Odyssey: An Epic of Return, 58–61. New York: Twayne Publishers.

Tracy, S. 1990. The Story of the Odyssey, 49–50. Princeton: Princeton University Press.