CLAS 203 Lecture Notes - Patrilineality, Laestrygonians, Anax
Document Summary
Continuing of odysseus in ithica: odysseus, disguised as a beggar, goes to eumaeus" hut. Claims to have met odysseus, will return soon: athena urges tlemachus to go back to ithaca, eumaeus shares his life story with odysseus. Story reveals the precariousness of identity and status once one leaves the security of the oikos (household, identity) Kingship, wealth, and authority require the stable structures of the oikos. That man *odysseus+ is hateful to me *achilles+ like the gates of death, who says one thing but hides another in his heart. Achilles voices contempt for odysseus as rhetorician: a man who achieves victory by cunning speech, not, odyssey: strength. That man *any man+ is hateful to me like the gates of death, who, yielding to poverty, babbles deceitfully. Odysseus, saying this to eumaeus, is about to lie in order to discover if kith and kin have kept faith with him.