The events that lead up to Odysseus and
Penelope having their time together in Book nineteen, there are some further
questions that we can ask about how this whole set of stories comes about.
What exactly does Penelope know about what's happening in front of her?
It's a very subtle couple of suggestions that Homer makes that maybe Penelope
actually knows a little bit more than we might think that she does.
It's not exactly clear what her state of knowledge is at any point in time, but
it's also seen, instead, there's a little more that she knows.
She's busy with her weaving and her unweaving and this cleverness of Penelope
and her circumspect ability to move around events without necessarily getting right
to them it leads us to have a second look at her and ask the question whether she
might know more than appears at first. So, she has had a back and forth through
Eumaeus to make her connection with Odysseus.
Odysseus is going to come to see her in the evening.
In the building up to that in Book eighteen, she is up in her chambers and
she gets a visitation, Athena, in this figure of Eurynome appears to her and
kinda says you know, it's time to start moving this thing along.
So, get yourself gussied up, and go on down there and talk to these suitors.
And, give a message. Tell them you're kinda ready to bring this
thing to a head. Well, Paulette, Penelope goes ahead and
does that. She puts on her finery comes down from her
chambers as she does, walks in to the public space, and starts to make a speech.
And says, you know, you all have been eating me out of house and home, but it's
time for that to stop. You want to marry me, well, the, well, the
old custom is that somebody wanted to marry a bride should bring the gifts to
that bride rather than taking her stuff to themselves.
So, you all should go off and bring me a bride, sorry, bring me gifts.
And, she couches this in this elegant why? She says, Odysseus told me Just before he
left that is as soon as my son grew some hair on his chin, that if he still wasn't
back by that time, it would be okay for me to go ahead and take up with someone else.
Now, you and I know, reading carefully, Book eighteen, we know that that's a lie.
How is it that we know that? We know it through Odysseus's eyes.
One way of reading this scene is that, we've gotta ask ourselves, why is Penelope
lying? What is it about this particular moment in
time that leads her to come down and spout out this lie to this whole group of
people? One possible answer to this question of
why Penelope lies is contained in the response, that Odysseus gives when he
hears the lie. Odysseus after the lie comes out, page
384, glows with joy at her trickery. Goring gifts from her suitors now
enchanting their hearts with wild, seductive words, but all the while, with
something else in mind. So, what's just happened is that Odysseus,
who happens to be out there among this group of people that Penelope is
addressing, hears from her, from his wife a elaborate lie that talks about how
something that Odysseus asked her to do if he was gone for this long, is now
requiring her to talk to them about bringing this thing to a head, about not
just kinda carrying out with normal business, but we're going to about to
change things around here, and we're going to get into the next stech, step of
events. He asks himself now, why does she,
Penelope tell this lie? Well, Odysseus gives us the answer.
According to him, she's lying with something else in mind.
Now, what's the something else in mind that she's lying in order to do?
Sure, it could be that she just wants to get a bunch of gifts from the suitors,
that's what she says. It could also be, and look at what the
effect is, that this is a way for Penelope to tell that stranger who she knows is out
there in that group of people that if you are really Odysseus, you're the one person
in the world who's going to know that this is a lie.
And if you really are Odysseus, you'll know that there's a subterranean message
here. There is meta data attached to this
message. And if you really are Odysseus out there,
you beggar, you're going to know that this thing is a lie.
No one else in the world will be able to pick up on that.
So, what Penelope has done is made a public statement in front of this whole
group of people such that, if the one out there is a stranger just happens to be
Odysseus, he will know that it's a message for him.
Because it is a purposeful lie that she's now telling to start, to spring things to
the next level. When she's doing that, she's cluing in
Odysseus, if he's out there, that the stage of events is about to happen.
She's going to call these things to a head.
And what she does is say, okay, you're now going to have to compete for me and that's
when the axe trick comes up. And remember, the way that Odysseus gets
his, by cleverness, the bow in his hands and all the other weapons away from the
suitors, he becomes maximally powerful and they become maximally vulnerable.
The way he does that is by using this bow and arrow trick.
So, when Penelope says, yeah, I'm going to take one of you now because Odysseus asked
me, said it was okay for me to do that. I'm going to take one of you now and we're
going to bring things to the next level. She is announcing to Odysseus out there
that this whole things happening based on a lie, and if you're Odysseus you will
pick that up and you'll know. So that you'll be ready to know that
something's up and I'm, in on it. A lie to the broader public is seen
through. Only by the true Odysseus, and this is her
way of seeing if that person is the true Odysseus.
Book nineteen, we get started on the conversation that goes back and forth.
From now until the end of our, our lectures on seventeen through 200, we're
going to be talking about Book nineteen in the, in the, the, the coming two one-half
lectures, two more after this. Nineteen is an amazing book.
All kinds of things happen there. Odysseus and Penelope come together.
They, Odysseus has had his circuitous path throughout the broad sweep of the, of the
world, and even down to the underworld, back through all of his adventure.
He made his way back home, and now he's made it into the inner chambers of his
house. Having a private audiences, audience with
his wife, Penelope. She has gone, gone through her own long
path her suffering, all these years not having had this person nearby has led her
to this spot now in the room with Odysseus.
They're having this private discussion back and forth.
Now, as the this beautiful painting reflects for us its private yes but only
to a degree. Look at the maiden off to the side, off in
the dark, kinda keeping an eye on them. We have to remember that when Penelope and
Odysseus are talking together, there are this whole ring of servant girls that are
around the outside of them, and they can hear just as this person here can
overhear, they can overhear what Penelope and Odysseus are saying.
So, the indirection and the carefulness of both of them in revealing themselves to
each other is likely because they're worried about what the other one is going
to think. But, it's surely also especially in the
case of Penelope, likely the case that she does not want to tip off these serving
maids that there might be something up with this person who just washed on shore.
He might be Odysseus. If they ran and embraced each other right
here in the in their, in, in their chambers on their first meeting, those
servant girls would see what was up and you could be sure that they go off and tip
off the suitors. The surprise of Odysseus's about to spring
on them would be completely lost. So, instead, they're both circumspect.,
both Odysseus and Penelope. She then, in the beginning of their back
and forth, their in this private chamber in the fire light, there's a kind of a
closeness here in this situation to what Odysseus had with Airete.
A closeness with a queen and a grand house in a, in a, by a fire light.
She then asks his identity, his name, where he's from, and his parents.
She also tells him of his, of her own weaving and unweaving.
She kind of lets him in on some of her schemes that she's been trying to play out
with to keep these suitors at bay. On page 395.
Odysseus, then, launches in an answer to her question of who he is on his long lie
about his Cretin background. He gives his name there as Aethon, and
claims to have seen Odysseus who is away at the Dodona.
He says, asking, it's interesting, Odysseus, in his disguise as a beggar,
conveys to Penelope here. He says, your husband, Odysseus, I've seen
him. I know him and I know he's on his way
home. Right now, he's trying to decide whether
he should come back home just straight away or in a disguise.
He's at Dodona, he tells us on page 400, considering whether he should come back
and just reveal himself directly to us, or come back in disguise.
Again, a subterranean message that this Odysseus disguised is saying, if the real
Odysseus ever does come back, maybe I'm him.
If the real Odysseus ever does come back, he's going to be careful about whether he
should come in just waltz right in here, or come back in disguise because things
are a little bit off in his household. Do you think that's wise Penelope?
And Penelope is basically, you know, getting the message that Odysseus is, if
he's coming back, going to be cautious. She then responds, well she, during this
back in forth a little bit prior to this, she responds quickly by saying, okay, I'm
going to test you. You say, you know my husband Odysseus?
Okay, I'm going to test you. 397.
First of all, she starts to ask about his clothes.
So, you think you know Odysseus, what does he wear?
And Odysseus can go through and say exactly what Odysseus wears, being him.
He knows the answer to this question. She then starts to quiz him on more and
more intimate details that only Odysseus would know.
And, this stranger who claims to know Odysseus, is going to have to pass this
test. Eventually, even after he reveals himself
to Penelope and claims that, well, I am the real Odysseus, there's more test's
he's going to have to pass. Penelope will be cautious, she will be
circumspect. Yeah, Odysseus is surely being cautious
here, but Penelope is going to be equally cautious in return.
Neither of the two of them are, are able. They just kinda drop everything and rush
into each others arms, there's too much danger afoot.
Close of Book twenty, we get some further back and forth after all these signs come
unfolding. We talked about some of these in a
previous lecture. The close of Book twenty, we have
Penelope, wise Penelope. She is in this car chair.
She sits within earshot of the door, listening to what's going on.
She hears laughing, rowdy men were told, this is all on page 423.
But as for supper, she says, what could be less enticing, speaking about well, sorry,
I said she says. We don't know for sure this is in
Penelopes's mind. The way Homer tells the story, though,
it's hard to tell, it seems as though, this could just as well be in Penelope's
mind. She's sitting listening and the next thing
we hear Homer saying is, but as for supper, what could be less enticing than
what a goddess and powerful man would spread before them soon a groaning feast
for they'd be first to plot their vicious crimes.
They've been first to plot their vicious crimes.
So, Homer elides the difference between Penelope sitting and listening and this
revelry and this awful stuff that's about to happen to the suitors.
It seems on page 423, that Homer's giving us another hint, that you know what?
Penelope kinda knows these suitors are about to, about to go down.
There's more for us to say about Book nineteen.
The next two lectures will occupy us trying to piece together all the wonderful
things in this intensive book.