CLST 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Telemachus, Eurycleia, Collective Responsibility
● Suitors are pressing Penelope to marry them so one of them could be king - they are
terrible guests
● Telemachos - journey to find Odysseus
● Penelope is Odysseus’ intellectual equal
● Eurycleia recognizes him
● Argos dying is an act of loyalty
Book 21
● In book 19, there is an encounter between disguised Odysseus and Penelope
● He tells her that he has run into Odysseus and he is on his way back
● Bow and arrow contest
● Athena gives Penelope the idea
● The contest give O the opportunity to reassert himself as king and P’s husband
Book 22
● Odysseus kills the suitors
● He spares the bard and the herald (Menon)
● The maids that helped the suitors are forced to clean up the murder, then they are
hanged
● Collective guilt upon the suitors
● Behavior is xenia gone really wrong
● Polyphemos and Odysseus role reversal
Penelope
● Most characterized female in the epic cycle
● She is intelligent
● She uses tricks
● She says she will make a weavy thing and when she finishes she will marry someone,
but she unraveled it every night and started again the next day so she didn’t finish for 20
years
● She manages to maintain power while O is away
● She tests O when he returns
● O built the marriage bed out of the trunk of a tree and it can’t move, she tells O that it
moved, and he gets angry, confirming it is him
● She turns the tables on O
● She is compared to a shipwrecked sailor in her own home - facing the monsters at home
while O faces the monsters at sea
● She is the only one O doesn’t want to lie to.
● Penelope is the ultimate greek wife - waits for O, retains control of the kingdom, doesn’t
step out of her purported role as a woman, is O’s intellectual equal
The Odyssey and the Iliad
● Iliad desire to be immortal, odyssey desire to stay mortal.
● Importance of Xenia
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Document Summary
Suitors are pressing penelope to marry them so one of them could be king - they are terrible guests. Argos dying is an act of loyalty. In book 19, there is an encounter between disguised odysseus and penelope. He tells her that he has run into odysseus and he is on his way back. The contest give o the opportunity to reassert himself as king and p"s husband. He spares the bard and the herald (menon) The maids that helped the suitors are forced to clean up the murder, then they are hanged. Most characterized female in the epic cycle. She says she will make a weavy thing and when she finishes she will marry someone, but she unraveled it every night and started again the next day so she didn"t finish for 20 years. She manages to maintain power while o is away.
