Right Kingship, Humility, and Troy = Destroy - "The Odyssey" Book 19 - By Homer

Stephen Alexander Beach 

Book 19 opens up with Odysseus and Telemachus sending the maids to bed after the suitors leave in order to store away all the weapons and armor so that the suitors can't grab them when the attack starts. Telemachus heads to bed and Odysseus goes to test the women and talk to Penelope. Melantho again abuses Odysseus verbally, but he warns her that hubris leads to one's downfall, so watch out! Penelope likewise does the same, "'Make no mistake, you brazen, shameless bitch, none of your ugly work escapes me either - you will pay for it with your life, you will! How well you knew - you hear from my own lips - that I meant to probe the stranger in our house and ask about my husband ... my heart breaks for him.'" Then Penelope sets to question Odysseus about his background. 

Right Kingship

"Fame like a flawless king's who dreads the gods, who governs a kingdom vast, proud and strong - who upholds justice, true, and the black earth bears wheat and barley, trees bow down with fruit and the sheep drop lambs and never fail and the sea teems with fish - thanks to his decent, upright rule, and under his sovereign sway the people flourish." This is the humility of Penelope and Odysseus. They are not perfect, but they honor the gods ultimately and their people flourish. Penelope then describes how she stalled for time with her trick with the loom, weaving and unweaving Laertes' funeral shroud. Odysseus then tells his cover story and focuses on how he knew Odysseus on the way to the Trojan war. Penelope tests him by asking what Odysseus was wearing, and he passes the test, describing the clothes that Penelope sent him off in the war wearing. 

[One note about Odysseus' kingship, while he is, again, not perfect, as he admits saying "In fact Odysseus would have been here beside you long ago but he thought it better, shrewder course to recoup his fortunes roving through the world." But he was for the most part just to his crew and his men and the people he used to rule on Ithaca.]

Troy = Destroy 

There is no getting around the deep sorrow and longing that Penelope has for her husband. She has suffered endlessly these long 20 years not knowing what happened to him, having to raise her son alone, and having this constant barrage of the suitors. "A black day it was when he took ship to see that cursed city ... Destroy, I call it - I hate to say its name!" Odysseus gives an oath that he will return soon, but Penelope is always scared to get too excited with these prophecies and oaths about it. "Odysseus. There was a man, or was he all a dream?" 

Humility, Not Hubris

Here Penelope describes the essence of humility. "If a man is cruel by nature, cruel in action, the mortal world will call down curses on his head while he is alive, and all will mock his memory after death. But then if a man is kind by nature, kind in action, his guests will carry his fame across the earth and people all will praise him from the heart." 

Odysseus then chooses an old maid, the one who raised him from birth, to wash him so that he can be honored by Penelope as a distinguished guest. Eurycleia, while washing him, notices a scar on his body and realizes that it is him! Odysseus then goes into how he received that scar hunting with his grandfather and uncles. He also talks about how his name means "Son of Pain". This of course makes sense given the skill for wiles and trickery that his family had. It not only leads to his benefit many times, but it likewise comes with a downside of punishment and pain as well. Odysseus tells the maid to be quiet and not to say a word that it's him. 

Penelope then goes into describing her sufferings over these years. "All day long I indulge myself in sighs and tears as I see to my tasks, direct the household women. When night falls and the world lies lost in sleep, I take to my bed, my heart throbbing, about to break, anxieties swarming, piercing—I may go mad with grief. Like Pandareus daughter, the nightingale in the green woods lifting her lovely song at the first warm rush of spring, perched in the treetops' rustling leaves and pouring forth her music shifting, trilling and sinking, rippling high to burst in grief for Itylus, her beloved boy, King Zethus' son whom she in innocence once cut down with bronze ... so my wavering heart goes shuttling, back and forth: Do I stay beside my son and keep all things secure— my lands, my serving-women, the grand high-roofed house— true to my husband's bed, the people's voice as well? Or do I follow, at last, the best man who courts me here in the halls, who gives the greatest gifts? My son—when he was a boy and lighthearted— urged me not to marry and leave my husband's house. But now he has grown and reached his young prime, he begs me to leave our palace, travel home. Telemachus, so obsessed with his own estate, the wealth my princely suitors bleed away."

She then offers a dream for Odysseus to interpret. In the dream there are twenty geese feeding in her home when an eagle swoops down and kills them all. He then comes and speaks to her saying that it is her husband who has come to kill the suitors and that this is no dream, but a waking reality. It is obvious what it means, but Penelope still seems unconvinced. But she tells Odysseus that tomorrow is the last day and there is going to be a competition for her hand. 

Sleep, the Place of Dreams

Sleep is portrayed in different ways in the story. For the just it is rest and repose from their sufferings that they endure. It gives them temporary relief. It is also the place of dreams where omens and forebodings can be sensed, or the gods can visit them. Penelope describes them ... 

"Ah my friend," seasoned Penelope dissented, "dreams are hard to unravel, wayward, drifting things— not all we glimpse in them will come to pass ... Two gates there are for our evanescent dreams, one is made of ivory, the other made of horn. Those that pass through the ivory cleanly carved are will-o'-the-wisps, their message bears no fruit. The dreams that pass through the gates of polished horn are fraught with truth, for the dreamer who can see them. But I can't believe my strange dream has come that way, much as my son and I would love to have it so. One more thing I'll tell you-weigh it well. The day that dawns today, this cursed day, will cut me off from Odysseus' house."