r/bookclub • u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron • May 04 '26
The Odyssey [Discussion 8/8] (Bonus Book) The Odyssey by Homer: Book XXI-End
Welcome to the last discussion...from Troy via a very long side trip and now, really back to Ithica, Odysseus has officially returned!
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Book XXI: An Archery Contest
Athena prompts Penelope to propose an archery contest with a fabled bow and arrow from the days of Heracles, given to Odysseus by his friend, Iphitus, son of Eurytus. We are told obnoxious Antinous would be the first to feel the other end of the arrow at Odysseus's hands. Telemachus sets up and we watch as one by one the suitors fail to do the task.
Odysseus reveals himself to Eumaeus and the cowherd, Philoetius and they help to "herd" the suitors to their doom and keep the rest of the household away.
The suitors suddenly realize it's Apollo's feast day and they shouldn't be shooting arrows...convenient! They propose sacrificing a goat and trying again in the morning when Odysseus asks to have a turn. Of course, they are derisive and threatening, but Penelope intervenes, reminding them of their duty to the stranger as a guest, xenos. Telemachus sends his mom to her room and difuses the mood so operation revenge can begin.
Eumaeus brings the bow and arrow to Odysseus, who can't help but look like he knows what he's doing with it.
Book XXII: Bloodshed
Odysseus rips off his rags, grabs his arrows, and with Telemachus by his side, opens with a arrow through Antinous's throat. The mood shifts immediately and Eurymachus offers a ransom to repay their costs. But Odysseus spurns his offer and counteroffers with fight or run! Eurymachus is the second to die by arrow. Telemachus protects his father from Amphinomus and runs to get armor and more weapons, leaving his father's side.
Although now, Odysseus is armed, the treacherous goat herd, Melanthius, has also armed the suitors. Eumaeus goes to deal with Melanthius while Odysseus and Telemachus go back to the business on hand and Athena drops in as Mentor, to remind him of what a killer he was nine years ago in Troy and foils the spears of the suitors. Euryades and Emaeus come back to help. Only the poet Phemius and the houseboy, Medon, make it out alive.
Eurycleia, the old nanny, is the first to witness the results. Odysseus asks her about the loyalty of the women of the household and twelve women are called in. They clean up the murder scene and Telemachus hangs them in the courtyard afterwards; Melanthius is hacked apart. Then, the house is rightly fumigated before the loyal women are allowed in, to welcome Odysseus back.
Book XXIII: The Olive Tree Bed
Penelope has slept through the whole thing. Eurycleia comes to wake her and tell her the good news that Odysseus is back and the gorefest that was downstairs, but Penelope is cautiously unbelieving.
Meanwhile, with the young men of Ithica slaughtered, Odysseus needs a plan for the community. They put on a feast with music to disguise the events of the day.
Odysseus gets a bath and a glow up from Athena. Still, Penelope tests him, teasing him about their martial bed. Finally, she accepts him as her lost husband and they reconcile and plan together, telling one another of the missing years. Athena, helpfully, extends the night.
The first thing he does the next day is order Penelope to stay inside as he and the A-team of the household go out.
Book XXIV: Restless Spirits
Hermes leads the spirits of the suitors to the underworld. We get reunion with our favorites from the Iliad and get a surprise in Agamemnon joining them and telling Achilles about his burial. Agamemnon is surprised to see young Amphimedon, who recounts his tale. Agamemnon is jelly over Odysseus having a good wife.
Odysseus goes to visit his father, Laertes, over at his farm. On seeing his old father, Odysseus decides to test him instead of revealing himself, going too far in causing his father grief. They have a meal together with the household of Laertes.
Meanwhile, Rumor has been busy spreading the news of the killed suitors. Their families show up to claim the bodies and demand revenge. Athena sees what is happening and consults with father Zeus.
As the families gather at Laertes' farm for violence, three generations of men stand together and kill a bunch of them until Athena intervenes for peace. As Mentor, oaths for peace are sworn before her.
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u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron May 04 '26
1. Let's talk about revenge and retribution. Do you think killing the serving women was fair? Was Eurymachus' offer for recompense worth considering?
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u/psycho4icecream Will Read Anything May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
To me, I don't think the brutal way the serving women were hanged was ok. Even if some of them did choose to sleep with the suitors, I can easily see how others who were basically slaves with 0 legal protection could be forced by powerful armed men to do so. Executing them for it says more about how, during that time, they would have been seen as property who had been "compromised"
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u/missanthrp May 04 '26
I felt similarly. The power dynamics between the suitors and the maids is certainly imbalanced. Even putting aside the possibility of being cohersion, it would also seem like better odds to a disenfranchised maid to take your chances with a rich suitor who may take you as a mistress and offer some element of protection from poverty, rather than waiting for the king who's been gone for 20 years (gone so long that some of the maids have never even met the guy) to suddenly reappear.
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 May 05 '26
No, I did not agree to that. Even if we take Euryclea at her word, the women might have been coerced into sleeping with or otherwise aiding the suitors.
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u/jaymae21 Yearbook Editor-in-Chief May 08 '26
Honestly I think the right thing to do would have been to accept Eurymachus' offer and avoid the bloodshed. But I suppose ancient Greek heroism is different and more violent. If Odysseus had accepted the offer, I would have seen it as him being the bigger person, but perhaps the Greeks would have seen it as weak.
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u/KatiesGoldenDust My Mate May 04 '26
Either I missed the details while reading regarding the women, or their sins weren't really discussed in the book. I feel like I don't have enough information to judge whether their punishment was fair or not. I do believe that Eurymachus' offer was not worth considering though. The suitors' punishment was just to me
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u/Comprehensive-Fun47 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 ||🧠🥉 May 06 '26
From a modern day perspective, absolutely not. Holding women responsible for sleeping with the men who are essentially their captors is not reasonable to me, but consent and coercion weren't considerations at this point in history.
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u/IraelMrad Marius Hater #1 | 🐉|🥇|🧠💯 Jun 09 '26
I was surprised by how violent and descriptive the killing was. I mean, we have all read The Iliad here, but the fact that this was an execution rather than a death caused by a battle made it much more brutal in my eyes.
Margaret Atwood also wrote an interesting novel on the topic, The Penelopeiad, if anyone's interested.
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u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron May 04 '26
1 A. Let's talk about the generational rift. Was killing all the young men worth it, in terms of Ithica's future and the stability of Odysseus's position? How will the community reconcile after such a shocking act of mass violence?
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u/missanthrp May 04 '26
Imagine if after all of that build up, all of the terrible behavior we've witnessed from the suitors, all of the disrespect they've shown to Odysseus, Telemachus, Penelope, hell the entire household staff, Odysseus is just like "Alright party's over, you can all go home now." Narratively, we needed this to happen. Rationally? Yeah, this might have been an ill-considered decision. I was also struck by the fathers of the suitors pointing out that Odysseus not only killed their sons, but also took a ton of other young men on a voyage that took their lives. Not really a good look in terms of his position, but luckily I imagine a god-truce is pretty binding.
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u/psycho4icecream Will Read Anything May 04 '26
the killings were definitely a huge/decisive thing but I think Odysseus created just as much instability as he resolved. After Eupeithes rallied the fathers, Athena had to literally intervene to stop the bloodshed
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 May 05 '26
The narrative has been building up to this, but killing all the suitors was not the most rational decision Odysseus has made, even if the killings were sanctioned by the gods. Material reparations and other punitive measures might have done the trick with less bloodshed.
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u/KatiesGoldenDust My Mate May 04 '26
If the young men were trying to take Odysseus' spot, then yes it was worth it
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u/toomanytequieros Book Sniffer 👃🏼📖 ||🧠🥉 Jul 28 '26
I don't know. Honestly, my hot take is that Odysseus is a anti-hero. Wilson says in her introduction that him restoring his position as head of the patriarchal society in Ithaca is also him choosing to perpetuate what has always been done, a decision against change. And it feels like killing off the new generation of young Ithacans men is also against change. It's making sure that his old ass self is going to keep ruling a he's always done (and probably return to being an absent father to his nation again if he does end up sailing off again). It's quite literally conservative. On the other hand, well, it's also the surival of the fittest, or in this case the smartest and craftiest.
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u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron May 04 '26
4. After all the trials he has undergone, who is Odysseus now? Athena has to remind him of Troy to get him fighting, for example. How will he adjust to the settled life?
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u/missanthrp May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
Maybe this is more for the Marginalia, but one of my favorite poems is Ulysses by Tennyson, and this is the vision of Odysseus/Ulysses I always have in my mind.
He also immediately tells Penelope that he's going to have to go on another trip to an unidentified place and make offerings to the gods to finally appease them. And yes, kudos on the transparency and it's not necessarily his choice, but there's something to this coming up immediately during their reunion scene that makes you think he's already contemplating his next exploits.
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u/KatiesGoldenDust My Mate May 04 '26
Hopefully he adjusts easily. I mean he seemed to be doing just fine on Circe's island, so I would like to think he'd do even better with his own family
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u/IraelMrad Marius Hater #1 | 🐉|🥇|🧠💯 Jun 09 '26
I don't think he will. In the story he made up about being from Crete (if I remember correctly) early in the poem, he says he was a warrior who stayed with his family only for one month after the war before leaving them because he could not adjust to that life. I think this was some kind of foreshadowing.
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u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron May 04 '26
7. Will you continue on another epic journey out of Troy with The Aeneid?
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u/KatiesGoldenDust My Mate May 04 '26
I haven't decided if I'll continue (probably if my schedule allows), but I'm so glad I joined this read-along! I hadn't read this since high school, so it was great to see what everyone was saying. I definitely would've missed a lot of key points if they hadn't been brought up in the discussions!
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May 04 '26
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u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron May 04 '26
Excellent!
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u/missanthrp May 04 '26
100%! I have copies of the Ruden and Lombardo translations, but might need to pick up the Ahl for this reread.
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u/Comprehensive-Fun47 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 ||🧠🥉 May 06 '26
Yes, I would like to keep going! I'm least familiar with the Aeneid out of the three.
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u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron May 04 '26 edited May 05 '26
3. Now, both Penelope and Telemachus have to come to terms with the famillial oversight of a man they haven't seen in over a decade. How will this go?
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u/psycho4icecream Will Read Anything May 04 '26
i mean they both had to adapt to 20 years of living without him and then he comes back as this giant guy who's very authoritative. i think they would genuinely be happy to have him back but also lose a little bit of the free lives or power they had before
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u/missanthrp May 04 '26
From what we see at least, Telemachus seems to come into his own once Odysseus is back. (Maybe commentary on how boys need a strong father figure in their lives?) He schemes with him, fights with him, declares to his mother that he's in charge of this house, etc. I don't know if he'll have any issue on his end. Penelope is another matter. She's depicted in so many different ways throughout the story that it's somewhat hard to pinpoint her true character.
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 May 05 '26
I'm pretty sure there will be a sort of transition period once the initial shock and elation wear off. They've spent 20 years apart and, if Tireisias' prophecy is correct, Odysseus isn't quite done yet.
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u/Comprehensive-Fun47 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 ||🧠🥉 May 06 '26
It's nice to believe there's a happily ever after here, but this ending feels like the beginning of a whole new story. He's been away from home for 20 years, never saw his son grow up, his wife has been harassed in her own home for decades. Think of all the emotional trauma!
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u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron May 04 '26
6. Favorite moments, best revenge, quotes and asides? Anything else to add?
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile May 04 '26
So, there is, or rather was, a further story involving Odysseus. That story is the now lost Telegony of which only two lines survive. We have several summaries of it though and here's a more modern one.
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u/YewBetcha 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 May 04 '26
Tiny moment, but I love the strike of lightning right as Odysseus picks up and strings the bow with ease, you can feel the suitors starting to sweat when that happens.
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u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron May 04 '26
I wonder if there is any interest in Agamemnon’s story, which be found in The Oresteia by Aeschylus?
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u/Opyros May 05 '26
We did read the Oresteia two years ago over on r/AYearOfMythology. I liked it quite a bit.
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 May 05 '26
I would consider joining for those, as I've never gotten into classical Greek plays.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile May 04 '26
I'd totally read those. I mean, I probably already have read them but would totally read them again.
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u/Comprehensive-Fun47 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 ||🧠🥉 May 06 '26
I've read it, but wouldn't be opposed to reading it again with the group.
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May 04 '26
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u/Comprehensive-Fun47 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 ||🧠🥉 May 06 '26
I've listened to it! The music is very poppy and enjoyable.
They actually announced they'll be making an animated film out of it. I love when any musical gets an adaptation.
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u/Comprehensive-Fun47 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 ||🧠🥉 May 06 '26
I liked the last sections the most out of the whole thing.
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u/Opyros Jul 19 '26
I’ve just read about new research indicating that Ithaka may not have been an island after all.
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u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron Jul 20 '26
How interesting! Discoveries about our assumptions on antiquity can change our perspective. I’m just waiting for a translation from Oxyrhynchus to uncover an unknown lost story or epic!
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u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron May 04 '26
5. Let's talk about Homer. If you also joined us for the Iliad, how would you compare these two works in both style and content?
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u/Comprehensive-Fun47 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 ||🧠🥉 May 06 '26
The Iliad felt more like a poem. The Odyssey feels more like a story. Odysseus was more prominent in the Odyssey than Achilles was in the Iliad, which followed a lot of different characters.
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u/llmartian Attempting 2025 Bingo Blackout Jul 09 '26
They Odyssey definitely feels like the more modern,comprehensive story. It follows a lot of the structure we still use today. I'm not sure we can compare them in terms of diction, because it seems everything from the specific words to the rhyme-scheme itself must be decided on by the translators, and apparently many of them have used that leeway to be quite creative. Even the length of the poem changes heavily depending on the translator! I think the the Odyssey has a stronger single-character narrative, but that being said, I think I actually see more character growth in Achilles' story in the Iliad. Odysseus does not change much as a person, but (and this might depend on the translation) in the Iliad Achilles sort of comes to regret some of his prideful choices when Patroclus is killed. Interestingly, I think both reveal a bit about the priorities of the Greeks at the time, and how different it is than to modern storytelling. More focus in both stories, but especially the Iliad, is focused on side-characters who are probably part of a larger cultural canon. The story will often cut away to explain the family history of this person or that, in relation to the gods, and then we never see that person again. I wonder if this is a bit like in Russian literature, where this information is just very culturally important, or if it like in an Avengers movie, where the camera wants desperately to point out that the...idk....magic witch number 4 has showed up for 5 seconds in the background. Either way, it is a pretty interesting difference!
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u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron May 04 '26
2. Is this a comedy or a tragedy in the sense of a happy ending or some kind of a mix?