This is unit 5/5 on The Odyssey.  You can probably guess the theme for this section: righteousness prevails.  Another theme is that boys need men.

Book 18 opens with the spectacle of a mock battle between "a true scavenger" or bum, who is huge, but soft ("no pith was in him" (18.4) & OD who appears to be a wizened old man.  In part this illustrates how far distant the grandeur of The Iliad has already become.  Our homely world is peopled by degenerates & mama's boys (spoiled children who have failed to become men).  The battle between tramps is less about OD & more about how vicious & sadistic the suitors are.  Thus Antinoos tortures the two powerless bums to amuse the bored youth:
18.42     What a farce heaven has brought this house!
             Into the ring they go, & no more talk!

When OD inadvertently breaks Iros' jaw:
18.108    bright red blood came bubbling from his mouth,
              as down he pitched into the dust, bleating,
              kicking against the ground, his teeth stove in.
              The suitors whooped & swung their arms, half dead
              with pangs of laughter.

What is wrong with these vicious young men?  Why do they find amusement in someone else's pain & tragedy?  There may be other causes, but the most obvious answer is single parent moms.  The brutality of the men's world of The Iliad was initially exciting but ultimately repugnant.  We now seem the same thing about the nonviolent female world of over indulgence & uncritical love.  It has produced vicious sadists who respect no one.  At the end of the ODY, Halitherses, the old diviner, blames the fathers for the character of their sons:
24.470    by your own fault these deaths came to pass.
              You would not . . . put down the riot of your sons.
              Heroic feats they did! -- all wantonly
              raiding . . . dishonoring . . .
              because they thought he'd come no more.

Like the pampered children they are, the suitors thought they could do anything; that there were no boundaries for their behavior.  When all the other suitors are laughing at Iros' scattered teeth & the huge man flailing on the ground, OD discerns that Amphinomos is not howling in drunken amusement.  Notice the implied suggestion that boys learn how to be men from the examples of their fathers:
18.51    Amphinomos, your head is clear . . .
          so was your father's--or at least I've heard
            good things [said] of Nisos the Doulikhion,
            whose son you are, they tell me--an easy man.
            & you seem gently bred.

Perhaps his father was too easy, allowing Amphinomos to be corrupted by his "friends" -- the likes of Antinoos & Eurymakhos.

OD warns the young man that his youthful exemption from fate & justice will end.  In The Iliad, Zeus reflected:
(Iliad)17.500    of all creatures that breathe & move on earth
                      none is more to be pitied than a man.
Because man not only ages & dies, but knows there is nothing he can do to evade this human destiny.  OD tells Amphinomos something similar:
18.146    Of mortal creatures, all that breathe & move,
              earth bears none frailer than mankind.  What man
              believes in woe to come, so long as valor
              & tough knees are supplied him by the gods?
18.154    So I, too, in my time [of youth] thought to be happy;
              but far & rash I ventured, counting on
              my own right arm, my father, & my kin;
              behold me now.

The pampered youths called the suitors have never had to pay for their enjoyment.  They don't even have to count on the power of their sword arm.  They are children whose parents have disastrously made life too easy for them, inculcating the illusion that they are like the gods, forever young & carefree.  OD warns them a day will come when they find themselves in need & powerless; beggars who ask for compassion.  Ask who?  Vicious youths who kick them in the teeth & laugh at their age & weakness?  This world promises to be worse than that of The Iliad.  Our hope is expressed by OD:
18.157    No man should flout the law . . .
              I see you young blades living dangerously
              a household eaten up, a wife dishonored

Amphinomos shivers at the prospect of responsibility & manhood, but he doesn't have the strength of character to leave the party:
18.178    So he sat down where he had sat before.

PEN is seized by the strange impulse:
18.181    to show herself before the suitors;
              for thus by fanning their desire again
              Athena meant to set her beauty high
              before her husband's eyes.

We can understand that this is another test & humiliation for OD.  But what is PEN's motive?  She says:
18.187    I have a craving I,
              I never had at all--I would be seen
              among those ruffians, hateful as they are.

Cravings & impulses have causes that are not apparent at the time, but that are often understood on reflection.  Why does PEN have this urge that she never previously had at exactly this time?  The answer lies in the theme of subliminal recognition of OD.  PEN's subliminal reasoning is that if this man is her husband, she can make him jealous enough to reveal his true identity & rescue her.  She not only entices the suitors with her flirting beauty, PEN implies that she will soon decide to marry one of them.

Viciousness & the pathology of narcissism & immaturity are not exclusively male failings.  PEN retires & OD ironically announces that he ia "a patient man" (18.357), speaking literally about tending the fire all night (in a world without matches), but figuratively about not jealously responding to the flames of lust fanned into fire by PEN's flirting.  The sexually charged atmosphere is contagious:
 18.358    the women giggled,
               glancing back & forth--laughed in his face
Why?  They think the beggar is hanging around the kitchen to ogle the servant girls, perhaps even daring to think, after his triumph with Iros, that he might "get lucky."
18.359    one smooth girl, Melantho, spoke to him
              most impudently.  She was . . .
              taken as ward in childhood by PEN
              who gave her playthings to her heart's content
              & raised her as her own.  Yet the girl felt
              nothing for her mistress, no compunction [about her behavior]
              but slept & made love with Eurymakhos.

Sure enough, Eurymakhos comes looking for his girl friend & is no mood to be called inhospitable with dad's property.  Of course it is OD's property, but the psychology is accurate.  Eurymakhos is a spoiled brat who is all the more inhospitably selfish because he subliminally fears that he is a child who cannot earn or win new wealth to replace that taken by a beggar.  Why else would Eurymakhos over-react to OD's taught:
18.425    You thick-skinned menace to all courtesy!

This is the scene where Eurymakhos throws a stool at OD who hunkers down:
18.435    by Amphinomos' knees,
            fearing Eurymakhos' missile

This marks the nadir of OD's humiliation & powerlessness.  It also illustrates how pathetic this city full of spoiled children is where the only hope for justice is at the knees of Amphinomos, whose sole virtue is that he is the least vicious of the suitors, a boy who prefers to drink & laugh rather than descend into sadistic torture of anyone who threatens to expose how narcissistically pathetic the children are.

When the suitors trail "off homeward drowsily to bed," PEN summons the beggar, ostensibly to repair (as best she can) the breech of hospitality.  Once again PEN's hope is to discover her husband buried in the beggar.  Hoping to be rescued, she confesses:
18.166    I have no strength left to evade a marriage
              . . . my parents
              urge it upon me, & my son
              will not stand by while they eat up his property.

This is also the scene where PEN speaks of the new, feminine ethic:
18.356    The hard man & his cruelties will be
              cursed behind his back, & mocked in death.
              But one whose heart & ways are kind--of him
              strangers will bear report to the wide world,
              & distant men will praise him.

This is moral & political philosophy, but it is also code (the games men & women play with each other).  PEN is telling this man that if he is indeed OD, she does not want such a hard man.  She needs a husband whose heart & ways are kind.  OD "warily" demonstrates humility, if not kindness.  He declines the honors of a soft bed & a bath:
18.373    unless there is an old one [servant], old & wise,
              one who has lived through suffering as I have:
              I would not mind letting my feet be touched
              by that old servant..

Perhaps he is still thinking of Melantho's rebuke:
18.72      so creepy, late at night
              hanging about, looking the women over?
              You old goat, go outside

In any case, PEN obliquely succeeds in exposing OD, who relaxes in his wife's company & goes on too long either investing in his story-telling or perhaps thinking about Melantho's invective.  Thus, OD cannot react quickly enough to evade Eurykleia:
18.384    Come . . .faithful Eurykleia,
              & bathe--bathe your master, I almost said,
              for they are of an age, & now OD'
              feet & hands would be enseamed like his.

Even as she is rattling on, confessing that:
18.405   My heart within me stirs
             mindful of something [I cannot fully bring to consciousness].  Listen to what I say:
             strangers have come here, many through the years,
             but no one ever came, I swear, who seemed
             so like OD--body, voice & limbs--
             as you do.
Even as she says this, Eurykleia's hands discover the scar on OD's leg:
18.421   she knew the groove at once
& croaks:
18.506   You are OD!  Ah, dearchild!  I could not
            see you until now--not till I knew
            my master's very body with my hands!

OD (every person) is a scar, a healed wound. Remember our earlier lesson on the Oedipus complex?  Homer expands on this symbol, saying that Autolykos, Antikleia's father, virtually bestowed the scar in something of an initiation rite:
19.436    call the boy [OD, his grandson]
              by the name I tell you.  Well you know, my hand
              has been against the world of men & women;
              odium & distrust I've won.  Odysseus
              should be his given name.

The boar that almost castrated young OD initiates him to the world, which is pain & trouble.  Long before that physical initiation (so much like adolescent circumcision that was practiced by much of the world as the rite of passage to manhood), Autolykos named his grandson.  Autolykos knows that to survive, the boy must be a warrior.  He wants his grandson to be called "trouble" or odium/OD.  Here comes trouble.  Here comes OD.  The best defense against trouble (death) is to attack.  How different old Autolykos is, who calls himself "a great thief & swindler," from the soft & degenerate fathers & grandfathers of the suitors, whose indulgence so gently leads them to the slaughter!  Autolykos knows that the world is not an invitation to a party.  He demonstrates to his grandson & heir that the world will rip your manhood away.  You had better be ready to meet trouble with trouble:
19.481    [the boar] ripped out
              flesh above the knee, but missed the bone.
              OD' 2nd thrust went home by luck
              his bright spear passing through the shoulder joint;
              & the beast fell.

"& the beast fell."  & these many years later, the suitors lounge in OD's palace eating his barbecued pork with OD consigned to the company of pigs & the swineherd Eumaios. & the beast fell.

PEN has been distracted with her own thoughts & missed this intense but quiet scene.  She now ratchets up the tension even more, one last time hoping to entice her husband to rescue her:
19.565    had I best join fortunes with a suitor . . . .
              is it now time for that?
19.613    I shall decree a contest for the day
19.619    The one who easily handles & strings the bow
              & shoots through all 12 axes I shall marry

Philoitios, the cow herd, adds to the tension.  Will OD be prematurely discovered?
20.209    Sir, I began to sweat when I first saw you,
              & tears came to my eyes, remembering
              OD: rags like these he may be wearing

More tension.  Amphinomos still opposes murdering TEL brazenly in his own house:
20.250    Amphinomos . . . cutting them short [said]:
              Friends, no luck lies in that plan for us,
              no luck, knifing the lad.  Let's think of feasting.

More tension. TEL asserts his authority & the suitors:
20.273   disconcerted, bit their lips
             at the ring in the young man's voice.

Rather than attack TEL, Ktesippos lashes out at the easiest target, OD the beggar:
20.309    fishing out a cow's foot from the basket,
              he let it fly.

TEL dares the suitors to attack him, telling them that he knows they are planning his murder:
20.319    no more contemptible conduct in my house!
              . . . I know what is honorable & what is not.
              Before I was a child
implying that the suitors remain such thoughtless & amoral children.
20.325    I will suffer no more viciousness.
              Granted you mean at last to cut me down:
              . . . better to die [on your feet like a man] than have
              humiliation always before my eyes
caused by the vicious, dishonorable & immoral behavior of spoiled children.  Again, we wonder, where are their fathers?  Not only their actual fathers, but where are the civic fathers?  The police, the courts, the legal system?  None of this exists yet.  & even if it did, it would have been corrupted by the counterfeit father figure, Antinoos/Aigisthos, whose most repellent crime is a kind of pederasty, the attempt to corrupt TEL:
2.318      Come on, get over it [your dike or moral outrage], no more grim thoughts [of justice],
              but feast & drink with me, the way you used to.

Amphinomos falls prey to this corruption, which is perhaps why TEL puts a spear through his back, seeing in him his own image fallen prey to the treachery of Antinoos.  When he visited Menalaos, TEL asked:
3.264    What was the trick Aigisthos used
            to kill the better man [AG]?

We have seen the trick.  It is Helen's trick.  It is Antinoos' oily & snake-like camaraderie, the smile offering to be father or mother or lover, dangling the bait of love & support until they spring the trap & you bleed. You bleed & they laugh.  It has all been a degenerate power game.  A woman's way to kill.  AK is in the ground & Helen, like Aphrodite whom she serves, still trills, being laughter's darling.  Now there is another sound:
21.60    the quiver spiked with coughing death

PEN announces the contest:
21.73    we now declare a contest for that prize.
            Here is my lord Odysseus' hunting bow.
            Bend & string it if you can.  Who sends an arrow
            through iron axe-helve sockets, 12 in line?
            I join my life with his

Antinoos growls, having the best reason to recall the strength of the man he so desperately wished was his father.
21.94    Is there a man here
            made like OD?  I remember him
            from childhood: I can see him even now.

Apparently not!  Because he is standing in front of you, Antinoos.  Of course, Antinoos has every reason to deny that possible recognition, knowing that it annuls or cancels his existence.  OD is not his father.  OD would not father such obsequious & treacherous villainy.

When OD the beggar asks to have a try with the bow:
21.295    irritation beyond reason swept them all [the suitors],
              since they were nagged by fear that he could string it.

A wizened old tramp?  Two things are going on.  First there is the theme of father & children.  The suitors throw various things at OD in almost the same way that a child throws things at its parents in a tantrum.  OD is imperturbable, the adult.  They can hardly control their emotions.  Secondly, there is the theme of subliminal recognition.  Just as AK was the only one capable of wielding the Pelian ash spear that PAT left behind when he wore AK's armor, so too only one man is destined to sing the song of justice with that bow.  These delinquents do not want to know that dad is home.
     When Antinoos cows Eumaios, whose duty it is to bring OD the bow, PEN tips the balance.  Why would she do this, if she did not have a subliminal feeling that this might be OD?
21.325    What are you afraid of [Antinoos]?
              [that he could make the shot &] take me home to be his bride?

For once, Eurymakhos is too quick:
21.335    our ears burn at what men might say
              & women, too.  We hear some jackal whispering:
              "How far inferior to the great husband
              her suitors are!  Can't even budge his bow!
              Think of it; & a beggar, out of nowhere,
              strung it quick & made the needle shot!"
              That kind of disrepute we would not care for.

How like a child, Eurymakhos is concerned with the morality for the rules of a game & apparently has no comprehension of what a monster he is in PEN's eyes; the man who so blithely lied to her face, after a moment before planning to murder her son, boasting like callow child, confident that mom will be charmed by his lie rather than aghast:
16.482    that man does not exist, nor will, who dares:
              lay hands upon your son TEL,
              while I live
She answers in ice:
21.343    Eurymakhos, you have no good repute
              in this realm, nor the faintest hope of it--
              men who abused a prince's house [& hospitality] for years,
              consumed his wine & cattle.  Shame enough.
              Why hang your heads over a trifle now?

Finally OD gets the bow:
21.425    like a musician, like a harper, when
              with quiet hand upon his instrument
              he draws between his thumb & forefinger
              a sweet new string upon a peg: so effortlessly
              OD . . . strung the bow.
              Then slid his right had down the cord & plucked it
playing the song of justice.

Most plot elements in Homer move slowly.  We know what is going to happen long before it does.  How surprising then to have Antinoos killed so quickly in such a wonderfully ironic scene.  The young man must feel that his plans to take OD's place are close to fruition.  PEN has agreed to marry one of the suitors.  No doubt Antinoos is confident that it will be him.  Everything looks rosy:
22.9      just as the young man leaned to lift his beautiful drinking cup,
            embossed, 2-handled, golden: the cup was in his fingers:            .
            the wine was even at his lips: & did he dream of death?
Of course not.  Antinoos was anticipating the taste of the grape, the taste of life.  How shocking to find the taste of his own life's blood.  Does he know there is an arrow in his throat?

OD announces the hour of justice:
22.38    Contempt was all you had for the gods . . . .
            contempt for what men say of you . . . .
            You die in blood.

Eurymakhos hopes to assign all the blame on Antinoos, once again acting as a child might.  Doesn't he know that OD has seen their behavior & suffered insults & humiliations from others besides Antinoos?  Eurymakhos hopes that dad's money will buy him off, as it no doubt always has in the past:
22.48    here he lies, the man who caused them [rash actions] all.
            Antinoos was the ringleader, he whipped us on
            to do these things.
Just like a kid.  "I didn't want to do it.  You can't blame me.  Mikey made me do it.  Punish him."
22.55    As for ourselves, we'll make
            restitution . . .
            & add, each one, a tithe of 20 oxen
            with gifts of bronze & gold to warm your heart.
            Meanwhile we cannot blame you for your anger.

You [Eurymakhos, making yourself at home in my house, with my wife] angry at me [OD]!  Probably we need another arrow to quiet this outrage.  I think here & again in the next scene, Homer illustrates how truly juvenile &/or sociopathic the suitors truly are.  They are not nervous burglars or even timid rapist who are anxiously eager to prove their manhood to each other & get away with something (the typical hope of the child).  Consider the next scene when Eurymakhos plans to have one of the suitors bust out of the locked house to do what?  To call the cops in order to defend the burglars!  Eurymakhos truly seems too childish & immature to comprehend how outrageous his behavior has been & how thoroughly he deserves what he is about to get.  OD announces his terms, his contest:
22.65    You forced yourselves upon this house.  Fight your way out

Despite the numbers, this is an execution of justice rather than a battle.  If the suitors win, civilization dies.  To further illustrate how childish the suitors are -- how little they comprehend the adult world -- consider what happens when Mentor/Athena shows up.  You recall that OD had left his wife, infant son, old parents, & estate in Mentor's hands.  After loyally waiting 20 years for OD's return, how likely is it that Mentor will now be faithless?
20.216  Mentor, don't let OD lead you astray
            to fight against us on his side.
            Think twice: we are resolved--& we will do it--
            after we kill them, father & son,
            you too will have your throat slit for your pains.
            . . . & cutting throats will not be all.
            Your sons
            will be turned out, your wife & daughters
            banished.

Nice boys, these.  Eurykleia is asked to judge the servant girls.  Out of 50:
22.442    12 went bad,
              flouting me, flouting Penelope, too.
22.449    Tell those women
              who were the suitor's harlots to come here.
22.458    take them outside . . .
              & hack them with your swordblades till you cut
              the life out of them

Meanwhile, Eurykleia is exultant over OD's triumph.  For the last time we imagine the contrast between someone like AG, who would undoubtedly consider his victory a personal triumph of HIS power.  In contrast OD recognizes that he has been the instrument of fate, of justice:
22.429    No crowing aloud, old woman.
              To glory over slain men is no piety.
              Destiny & the gods' will vanquished these,
              & their own harness.  They respected no one . . . .
              For this, & folly, a bad end befell them

When PEN sees the encrimsoned man:
22.419   caked with blood like a mountain lion
             . . . baleful & terrifying
she doesn't quite know if this is really her husband of 20 years earlier:
23.94     sometimes as she gazed
             she found him--yes, clearly--like her husband,
             but sometimes blood & rags were all she saw.

PEN says that:
23.108   If really he is OD, truly home,
             beyond all doubt we 2 shall know each other . . . .
             There are
             secret signs we know, we 2.

The sign is their marriage bed:
23.191    There is our pact & pledge . . . .
              An old trunk of olive
              grew like a pillar on the building plot . . . .
              I lopped off the silvery leaves & branches,
              hewed & shaped that stump from the roots up . . . .
              let it serve
              as model for the rest.  I . . .
              inlaid them all with silver, gold & ivory,
              & stretched a bed between

By now you know that English teachers are never satisfied with the literal level.  If all this is invented, & if it is invented by someone who really knows what they are doing (& nobody in the last 3,000 years has surpassed Homer's art), then this is a symbol for something.  What?  2 or 3 associations are obvious.  It is obviously a bed & not just any bed but a marriage bed on which children are conceived.  So it is obviously a symbol for the domesticity: love, children, family live, culminating in the city & civilization.  Secondly, it is made from the olive tree that is the gift from Athena.  In association with Athena & with the fact that it is inlaid with gold & ivory, this bed is not just a utilitarian piece of furniture.  It suggests an altar & that is exactly what it is.
     In the bad old days, the divine demanded blood.  The steep steps at Chichen Itza ran red with the blood from humans whose beating hearts were ripped from their chests in offering to the sun.  Solomon's temple ran red with the blood of thousands of animals.  Only with the offering of their blood would Yahweh listen to his chosen people.  Athena does not want blood.  Somewhat parallel with Moses who claimed that Yahweh wanted his people to lead a life of moral discipline, Homer suggests that Athena wants her devotees to be devoted to domestic & civic values.  Not the magic of spilled blood & the mystery of death; but the culture of the mind & the mystery of invention & new life -- this is what Athenians can offer their god.

In a philosophical sense this is ends Homer's odyssey from the explosion of power in the person of AK to the triumphant marriage of OD & PEN that promises the legacy of Western culture.  But power is not so easily, nor so permanently constrained or controlled.  Aeschylus will take this enigma of how power, that we hope will render justice & with it civic solidarity, is in its execution (such as in the execution of the suitors) viewed by some as a new outrage.  Do you listen to Pacifica or NPR radio?  It doesn't take long to hear this point.
     Antinoos' father, Eupeithes (whom OD had saved from being lynched by his own citizenry, 12.473) now seeks to construe OD's obedience to Reason (Athena) in rendering justice -- to construe this act as a will-to-power, as gratuitous violence:
24.441  Good spearmen by the shipload
            he led to war & lost--lost ships & men,
            & once ashore again killed these [our sons], who were
            the islands' pride.

This may initially sound plausible.  But examine the claims.  Whose fault was it that OD's men perished? At the very beginning of the ODY we are told:
1.8       he fought only
            to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.
            But not by will nor valor could he save them,
            for their own recklessness destroyed them all--
children & fools, they killed & feasted on
            the cattle of Lord Helios, the Sun

Children & fools who refused to listen to Reason.  We are reminded of AK:
(Iliad)18.147    though you love me; you cannot make me listen
If not to Reason, nor Thetis, even great AK must listen to death.

What of Eupeithes' second claim, that the suitors were "the islands' pride."  They were, in fact, the islands' shame, from the time when TEL ineffectively sought to provoke dike in their fathers, telling the assembly:
2.66      The whole thing's out of hand, insufferable.
            My house is being plundered: is this courtesy?
Where is your indignation?  Where is your shame?
until the very end when Halitherses, the diviner, tells Antinoos' father:
24.470   by your own fault these deaths came to pass.
            You would not . . . put down the riot of your sons.

Laertes, of all people, puts a spear through Eupeithes mouth:
24.539    Power flowed into him [Laertes] from Pallas Athena . . .
              & he let fly his heavy spear.
              It struck
              Eupeithes on the cheek plate of his helmet,
              & undeflected the bronze head punched through

Laertes, OD, & TEL:
24.546    would have cut the enemy down
              to the last man, leaving not one survivor
              had not Athena raised a shout
admonishing:
24.551    end your bloodshed, Ithakans, & make peace
Despite the command from Reason, OD:
24.559    reared himself to follow--
              at which the son of Kronos dropped a thunderbolt
& Athena commands:
24.565    Call off this battle now.
OD does so:
24.567    He yielded to her, & his heart was glad.

The question is, why is it important for OD & his blood family not to annihilate his enemies?  Look for this as a Chat question.

Go to the top & click on the next section: Questions.