The Return of Odysseus[1]
Book 21 sets the stage for the slaughter of Book 22. Telemachus has finally accepted Odysseus as his true father and now stands beside the returned king at the end of Book XXI: Odysseus has cast aside his beggar’s rags and now stands regally before the doomed suitors, bow in hand, son by his side, and electrical effects from the gods themselves. You couldn’t ask for anything better out of Hollywood.
The first to take an arrow is Antinoos. At the point that Odysseus finally reveals himself, the suitors had been warned many times and in many ways to vacate the house of Odysseus, so the intensity has been building since Odysseus has returned home: the suitors will soon pay for their perfidy with their blood — nothing they can do will now will save them as book XXII begins with the death of the arrogant and somewhat dense Antinoos.
Book XXII parallels book XXII of the Iliad: the deciding battles in both epics are decided. The Odyssey book XXII reads stylistically similar to the Iliad book XXII: notice the Homeric, or epic, similes of war;[2] the brutality of war is not disguised with florid romanticism — Odysseus shows no mercy as deals out death to the suitors and those who supported them. He has come by stealth and now uses combat to rid his home of the infection. Part of that infection are the twelve maids that helped the suitors by betraying Penelope. Since those maids are part of Odysseus’ own house, they meet a particularly brutal end — only after they clean the carnage of the great hall — as does Melanthios. These descriptions are disturbing, but suggest that one’s house is a sacred place as is one’s duty to that house.
notes
| The Epic of Gilgamesh | |
|---|---|
| The Iliad | |
| The Odyssey | |
| The Aeneid |
|
| Ovid | |
| The Divine Comedy | |
| Beowulf | |
