Lesson 1.7 · Unit 1 · RL.9-10.3, RL.9-10.5
The epic's other two plots
About half the Odyssey has nothing to do with sea monsters. Two other people are conducting long campaigns of their own, and the poem is careful to make both of them versions of the same skill it admires in Odysseus.
- The Telemachy is Books 1 to 4, in which Odysseus's son leaves Ithaca to look for news of his father.
- Telemachus begins passive and ends capable, which makes his plot a coming-of-age story embedded in an epic.
- Penelope holds the household for twenty years against over a hundred suitors, with no army and no legal protection.
- The shroud trick is her best known stratagem: she weaves by day and unpicks the work at night, delaying for three years.
- Her cleverness is the same kind as her husband's, which the poem notices and approves.
- The bed test in Book 23 is her recognition scene, and she conducts it on Odysseus rather than the reverse.
- The poem withholds their reunion for four books after he reaches Ithaca, which is structurally deliberate.
- The three plots converge in Book 22, where father and son fight together in the hall Penelope preserved.
Where students lose marks: describing Penelope as passively waiting. She runs a twenty-year holding action with no force available, and the shroud and the bed are both her operations.
The text. Homer, the Odyssey, Books 2 and 23, in Samuel Butler's 1900 translation. Public domain.
"She set up a great tambour frame in her room, and began to work on an enormous piece of fine needlework. 'Sweet hearts,' said she, 'Ulysses is indeed dead, still, do not press me to marry again immediately; wait, for I would not have my skill in needlework perish unrecorded, till I have completed a pall for the hero Laertes.'... So we gave our consent, and she began her great web. In the daytime she worked at it, but at night she unpicked it."
"Euryclea," said she, "move the bed out of the room that he himself built. Bring the bed outside this room, and put bedding upon it with fleeces, good coverlets, and blankets."
"Wife," said Ulysses, "this is a very serious matter. Who has been taking my bed away? ... There is an olive tree growing in the yard; ... I built my room round this with strong walls of stone."
Step one: examine the shroud stratagem. Penelope cannot refuse the suitors outright, because her husband is presumed dead and custom is against her. So she does not refuse; she accepts and then makes the acceptance conditional on a task she secretly prevents from finishing.
Step two: name the technique. She agrees in order to delay. This is exactly the structure of the Noman trick: solve an unwinnable confrontation by supplying a form of words that satisfies the other party and does something else.
Step three: notice who reports it. The passage is a suitor complaining to the assembly. The poem gives her best trick to an enemy to describe, which makes it testimony rather than boasting.
Step four: turn to the bed test. Odysseus has killed the suitors, been washed and dressed, and is standing in his own hall identified by his nurse and his son. Penelope still does not accept him.
Step five: work out what she actually does. She instructs the nurse to move the bed, knowing it cannot be moved, because Odysseus built the bedroom around a living olive tree that forms one bedpost. If the man in front of her agrees to move it, he is not her husband.
Step six: state who is testing whom. Odysseus has spent the whole poem testing other people with disguises. Here he is the one examined, and he fails to notice until he has already given the answer. Penelope runs the only successful deception practiced on Odysseus in the poem.
Step seven: examine the bed as a symbol. It is rooted, literally, in a living tree that grows out of the ground under the house. A marriage that cannot be moved is the image, and the secret of it is shared by exactly two people, which is what makes it a usable test.
Step eight: state the theme. The poem argues that the household is held together by the same intelligence that gets Odysseus home, and that Penelope's twenty years of holding are the equal of his twenty years of traveling. The reunion is delayed four books so that she can demonstrate it rather than simply be found waiting.
Questions 1 to 5 are recall. Questions 6 to 10 ask for reasoning.
- What are Books 1 to 4 called, and what happens in them?
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The Telemachy; Telemachus leaves Ithaca to seek news of his father
- Describe the shroud trick.
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Penelope weaves a burial pall by day and unpicks it at night, delaying for three years
- What is unmovable about the bed?
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One bedpost is a living olive tree, and the room was built around it
- Who knows the secret of the bed?
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Odysseus and Penelope
- How long after reaching Ithaca does Odysseus reveal himself to Penelope?
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Four books later
- Why can Penelope not simply refuse the suitors?
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Her husband is presumed dead after twenty years, custom expects a widow to remarry, and she has no force available: over a hundred armed men are in her house and her son is a boy. Outright refusal is not an option she can enforce. So she accepts in principle and attaches a condition she secretly prevents from being met, which is the only move her position allows. She has no force and custom is against her, so she must delay rather than refuse
- How is the shroud trick structurally like the Noman trick?
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Both solve an unwinnable confrontation by supplying a form of words that satisfies the other party while accomplishing something else. Odysseus gives a name that is technically true and useless to his enemies; Penelope gives a consent that is technically real and indefinitely deferred. The poem values the same skill in both of them, which is why it is careful to show her using it. Both give a form of words that satisfies an opponent and does something else
- Why does it matter that a suitor reports the shroud trick?
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Because it makes the account testimony rather than boasting. A suitor complaining to the assembly has no interest in making Penelope look clever, and his complaint is that she outmanoeuvred them for three years. Praise from an enemy is the strongest form available, and the poem arranges for her best stratagem to reach the reader that way. Praise from an enemy is stronger than the poem's own claim
- Who is testing whom in Book 23, and why is that significant?
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Penelope tests Odysseus. He has spent the entire poem testing other people with disguises and false stories, and here he is the one examined, and he does not notice until he has already given the answer. Penelope runs the only successful deception practiced on Odysseus anywhere in the poem, which is the strongest possible statement of her competence. She tests him, and it is the only deception that works on him
- Why is the reunion delayed four books?
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So that Penelope can demonstrate her intelligence rather than simply be found waiting. An immediate reunion would make her the object of the homecoming; delaying it gives her a scene in which she designs and executes a test her husband cannot detect. The poem argues that her twenty years of holding the household are the equal of his twenty years of traveling, and the delay is how it makes that case. To let her prove her equality rather than be found waiting