1 00:00:04,082 --> 00:00:11,771 In Book 23, when it starts off what's happening is that Penelope, Penelope's 2 00:00:11,771 --> 00:00:16,618 dream literally becomes a reality. Look at what Eurycleia does to trundle 3 00:00:16,618 --> 00:00:21,241 upstairs and give Penelope the news. The description that Homer gives at the 4 00:00:21,241 --> 00:00:25,716 beginning of 23, is as follows. Her knees bustling, feet shuffling over 5 00:00:25,716 --> 00:00:30,313 each other till hovering over her mistresses head, she spoke, Penelope, 6 00:00:30,313 --> 00:00:34,965 child, wake up and see for yourself with your own eyes, all you're dreamed of all 7 00:00:34,965 --> 00:00:38,577 your days, he's here, Odysseus, he's come home at long last. 8 00:00:38,577 --> 00:00:44,101 That all you dreamed of gives us already an indicator that what we're talking about 9 00:00:44,101 --> 00:00:47,575 is a kind of world of dreams that's actually coming true. 10 00:00:47,740 --> 00:00:51,923 Further, the way Homer positions Eurycleia, he puts her precisely in the 11 00:00:51,923 --> 00:00:55,001 shape of a dream. Remember, what we did earlier when we 12 00:00:55,001 --> 00:00:57,659 talked about dreams and how they appeared to people. 13 00:00:57,832 --> 00:01:01,896 They come down, stand at someone's head and say, hey, why are you asleep? 14 00:01:01,896 --> 00:01:05,001 You should be awake. There's stuff you need to know about, 15 00:01:05,001 --> 00:01:08,459 stuff you need to do. And then, after that, people wake up and 16 00:01:08,459 --> 00:01:11,968 start to carry on with, with whatever it is that's urgent. 17 00:01:11,968 --> 00:01:15,022 And that's Eurycleia that wakes them up to the dream. 18 00:01:15,022 --> 00:01:20,342 Eurycleia is precisely in the position here from Homer of one of these dreams. 19 00:01:20,342 --> 00:01:26,215 The way she shuffles over trundling over to where Penelope is, standing at, 20 00:01:26,215 --> 00:01:30,569 hovering at her head, speaking at her, Penelope, wake up. 21 00:01:30,800 --> 00:01:36,599 These things all position Eurycleia in precisely the spot of a dream. 22 00:01:36,599 --> 00:01:41,203 So now, Penelope is being given the, the word Odysseus is here. 23 00:01:41,203 --> 00:01:44,977 She, immediately, is thrilled but then, she holds back. 24 00:01:44,977 --> 00:01:48,283 Penelope is circumspect. She's very careful. 25 00:01:48,283 --> 00:01:54,057 She's going to jump for joy a little bit, but then, she'll hold herself back, too. 26 00:01:54,295 --> 00:01:57,545 She asks more proof, Eurycleia tells her of the scar. 27 00:01:57,545 --> 00:02:03,141 Penelope hears that and that's pretty good evidence but still Penelope is not going 28 00:02:03,141 --> 00:02:06,062 to just jump right in and say, that's fine. 29 00:02:06,062 --> 00:02:10,832 She needs more testing. Odysseus now has gained access to this 30 00:02:11,043 --> 00:02:17,032 circle the inner rooms, he's cleared house in the, in the exterior rooms he's earned 31 00:02:17,032 --> 00:02:21,050 his way in, but Penelope's not quite ready to have him. 32 00:02:21,050 --> 00:02:28,002 In order to get into that next stage, he's going to have to pass the final test that 33 00:02:28,002 --> 00:02:33,092 she's going to give him. Now when she walks in there's, or when 34 00:02:33,092 --> 00:02:39,006 Odysseus walks in, there's this quite marvelous scene. 35 00:02:39,243 --> 00:02:45,872 She then sees Odysseus and Homer tells us, as soon as she stepped across the stone 36 00:02:45,872 --> 00:02:51,975 threshold, slipping in, she took a seat at the closest wall and radiant in the 37 00:02:51,975 --> 00:02:56,748 firelight-faced Odysseus. Now, circumspect Penelope is making 38 00:02:56,748 --> 00:03:02,936 herself available to Odysseus, she's ready to start to hear what he has to tell her. 39 00:03:02,936 --> 00:03:08,094 But there are bits that need to come up. There's some more information that needs 40 00:03:08,094 --> 00:03:11,508 to pass. Her contemplation, she's thinking things 41 00:03:11,508 --> 00:03:14,052 through. She's calculating where we are. 42 00:03:14,052 --> 00:03:19,073 And they haven't quite come to the point where they're ready to have a shared 43 00:03:19,073 --> 00:03:22,077 embrace. Odysseus is pretty much there but not 44 00:03:22,077 --> 00:03:26,042 quite Penelope. He and her, are going the two of them are 45 00:03:26,042 --> 00:03:31,051 going back and forth in these, in these closing books trying to find their mode of 46 00:03:31,051 --> 00:03:35,014 connection. And Penelope says, eventually, to in a 47 00:03:35,014 --> 00:03:40,875 kind of short, sharp retort as both Eurycleia and Telemachus are saying, come 48 00:03:40,875 --> 00:03:45,961 on Penelope, you should relent. She cuts them off, page 459, and says, but 49 00:03:45,961 --> 00:03:49,899 if he truly is Odysseus home at last, make no mistake. 50 00:03:49,899 --> 00:03:55,745 We, too, will know each other even better. We, too, have secret signs known to us 51 00:03:55,745 --> 00:04:01,090 both, but hidden from the world. It's a way for her to say, step back, 52 00:04:01,090 --> 00:04:06,006 Telemichus, you don't know the full story here. 53 00:04:06,006 --> 00:04:09,909 You're not in control. In fact, I am in control. 54 00:04:09,909 --> 00:04:16,287 So, Penelope is now going to jump in to figure out in her final test whether this 55 00:04:16,287 --> 00:04:20,830 really is the true Odysseus. Now, we've talked in this cover in our 56 00:04:20,830 --> 00:04:25,748 thinking through this epic about the real deep importance of storytelling for 57 00:04:25,748 --> 00:04:30,747 understanding ones own identity. Knowing your past having it as a cohesive 58 00:04:30,747 --> 00:04:36,083 story, sharing it with people all of these things the, the idea of telling and 59 00:04:36,083 --> 00:04:41,599 re-telling all of these things are very important and built in to a Greek notion 60 00:04:41,599 --> 00:04:45,950 of what an identity is. Penelope gives us another way into this 61 00:04:45,950 --> 00:04:49,659 whole question. For her, she, her, her story registers for 62 00:04:49,659 --> 00:04:54,898 us the importance in a Greek context of sometimes not telling, of sometimes 63 00:04:54,898 --> 00:05:01,702 keeping some things secret. We've seen different ways of measuring 64 00:05:01,702 --> 00:05:05,055 what these secrets are. Remember, Odysseus tried to keep his 65 00:05:05,055 --> 00:05:10,036 secret of the scar by holding back Eurycleia's mouth and swearing her to 66 00:05:10,036 --> 00:05:15,023 secrecy under pain of death. He hid his scar underneath his underneath 67 00:05:15,023 --> 00:05:17,087 his clothes so that people wouldn't see it. 68 00:05:18,157 --> 00:05:22,086 But it's something that is public and visible, and he can show it to people. 69 00:05:22,086 --> 00:05:27,024 It's a kind of static mark. It is there that's ready for him to pull 70 00:05:27,024 --> 00:05:30,007 out. He can share it with people to verify who 71 00:05:30,007 --> 00:05:35,153 he is and when he does, it's a simple sharing of information from him to someone 72 00:05:35,153 --> 00:05:39,237 else. Penelope has a different kind of sign of 73 00:05:39,237 --> 00:05:44,088 who she is and also who Odysseus is. The two of them can only verify each 74 00:05:44,088 --> 00:05:50,044 other's identity , can verify each other's identity, through this sign. 75 00:05:50,286 --> 00:05:56,030 And for Penelope, it's her last way of making sure that the person in front of 76 00:05:56,030 --> 00:06:03,048 her is truly Odysseus. The final sign, the sign of signs is, of 77 00:06:03,048 --> 00:06:08,000 course, her bed. This bed that Penelope is going to use in 78 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:13,720 this last proof draws an analogy to another bed that we've seen in this epic 79 00:06:13,720 --> 00:06:17,544 at the close of Book five. Remember, Odysseus there as the firebrand 80 00:06:17,544 --> 00:06:20,889 trying to figure out if he could make it through the night. 81 00:06:20,889 --> 00:06:25,326 Calculating whether it was better off to bury himself under some leaves so that he 82 00:06:25,326 --> 00:06:30,563 could have some shelter and keep his way or not die from exposure to the elements 83 00:06:30,563 --> 00:06:34,745 and then also trying to avoid taking too much shelter in the forest and making 84 00:06:34,745 --> 00:06:38,053 himself a victim to animals at that to be eaten by animals. 85 00:06:38,053 --> 00:06:42,007 At that point, he scoops up a bunch of dead leaves around him. 86 00:06:42,007 --> 00:06:46,876 He's overjoyed at the site, and he buries himself in the leaves of an olive tree. 87 00:06:47,104 --> 00:06:52,210 That bed, at the end of Book five, made it the far, made it the far ends of Odysseus' 88 00:06:52,210 --> 00:06:57,636 journey, is made at the far, is made with material drawn from the farthest point 89 00:06:57,636 --> 00:07:01,731 away from the root of the olive tree. The leaf growing past the roots and then 90 00:07:01,731 --> 00:07:06,512 the, and, and the, the trunk and out the edges of the branches and out to the very 91 00:07:06,512 --> 00:07:11,194 farthest edges we've got the leaves that are sitting out there, well, those then 92 00:07:11,194 --> 00:07:14,440 themselves fall off. So, what the farthest root from an olive 93 00:07:14,440 --> 00:07:19,002 tree that we can possibly be. Odysseus scoops these together, makes his 94 00:07:19,002 --> 00:07:23,043 bed, it's very primitive. There's room for one he's only trying to 95 00:07:23,043 --> 00:07:28,048 keep himself on holding onto that last piece of his identity, his, his own life. 96 00:07:28,271 --> 00:07:34,004 This bed, that, that Penelope starts to make a reference to in her reference to 97 00:07:34,004 --> 00:07:37,061 secret signs that only she and Odysseus are going to know. 98 00:07:37,061 --> 00:07:40,082 This bed is from a different part of the olive tree. 99 00:07:40,082 --> 00:07:43,796 It's actually rooted, isn't it? It's rooted. 100 00:07:43,988 --> 00:07:49,614 Odysseus himself crafted the bed. He made it with his axe handle. 101 00:07:49,825 --> 00:07:56,088 We've seen him wield axe's before to great effect his skill with this is tremendous. 102 00:07:57,209 --> 00:08:01,053 He took a living, breathing tree carved up pieces of it. 103 00:08:01,053 --> 00:08:07,094 Cut other, cut olive wooden valves linked it all together, and left the rooting in 104 00:08:07,094 --> 00:08:10,032 the ground. This is a living tree. 105 00:08:10,032 --> 00:08:15,201 It's not the farthest removed dead part of the tree, it's the living core of the 106 00:08:15,201 --> 00:08:18,058 tree. It's deeply rooted in the ground. 107 00:08:18,058 --> 00:08:22,031 It's immovable. It is a kind of gravitational center of 108 00:08:22,031 --> 00:08:26,533 Odysseus and Penelope's life together. Now, when, when Penelope makes her very 109 00:08:26,533 --> 00:08:30,055 sly, very sly gesture at the very end saying, yes, yes. 110 00:08:30,055 --> 00:08:33,070 He may be Odysseus but we can't really be sure. 111 00:08:33,070 --> 00:08:39,005 We're going to have to wait another night, at which point, everyone's exasperated. 112 00:08:39,005 --> 00:08:44,034 She, at that point, says, just go ahead and we don't want our stranger to have to 113 00:08:44,034 --> 00:08:47,069 sleep on the ground, let's bring out a bed for him. 114 00:08:47,069 --> 00:08:52,287 In fact, let's bring out my own bed so this man can enjoy it and lie down in it. 115 00:08:52,287 --> 00:08:58,222 At which point Odysseus realizes that all of the sly, subtle subterfuges of Penelope 116 00:08:58,222 --> 00:09:03,243 have been put in place because she is testing him with the final test. 117 00:09:03,243 --> 00:09:08,795 The only response that is possible if he truly is Odysseus is the one that he 118 00:09:08,795 --> 00:09:13,670 knows, you can't move that bed. It's rooted in the ground and I'm the one 119 00:09:13,670 --> 00:09:17,838 that made it that way. Now, Penelope then is able to prove that 120 00:09:17,838 --> 00:09:23,090 is truly Odysseus but he, she proves something else to him at the same time. 121 00:09:23,090 --> 00:09:28,621 The reason that the secret configuration of what this bed is all about and how it 122 00:09:28,621 --> 00:09:33,767 works still works for Penelope as a sign of verification, is because she, herself, 123 00:09:33,767 --> 00:09:37,077 has kept it secret all those years that Odysseys is gone. 124 00:09:37,077 --> 00:09:42,020 Imagine if she let lots of people into her bedroom, and lots of people into her bed 125 00:09:42,020 --> 00:09:45,067 while Odysseus was gone. There's no way she could use that bed to 126 00:09:45,067 --> 00:09:48,097 verify that this is truly Odysseus. Anyone would know about it. 127 00:09:48,097 --> 00:09:53,008 But instead, what she's doing is saying, yes, I can verify who you are, Odysseus, 128 00:09:53,008 --> 00:09:55,059 because I'll know that you know about that bed. 129 00:09:55,059 --> 00:09:59,952 But because she's exhibiting to him that she's relying on it to verify his 130 00:09:59,952 --> 00:10:04,904 identity, she's also communicating to him that I have kept our bed secret. 131 00:10:04,904 --> 00:10:08,888 Meaning, that our marriage is exclusive and remains so. 132 00:10:09,111 --> 00:10:16,131 In that communication back and forth not only does Penelope get to verify who 133 00:10:16,131 --> 00:10:20,378 Odysseus is. She gives verification to Odysseus that 134 00:10:20,378 --> 00:10:24,321 she has kept exclusive rights to her with him. 135 00:10:24,509 --> 00:10:29,473 The gender balance is such that Odysseus has not done the same thing, she doesn't 136 00:10:29,473 --> 00:10:34,699 seem to demand it from him. But it's, it's quite a, a subtle craft 137 00:10:34,875 --> 00:10:40,665 that she's able to pull in verifying both Odysseus and herself and having them both 138 00:10:40,665 --> 00:10:44,840 be verified to each other. This is something that she could not have 139 00:10:44,840 --> 00:10:48,977 done had she not lived up to what Odysseus expected of her. 140 00:10:48,977 --> 00:10:53,167 And what those expectations are, are according to, I think, probably our own 141 00:10:53,332 --> 00:10:59,898 contemporary [unknown] imbalanced but she does live up to what her part of the 142 00:10:59,898 --> 00:11:04,023 bargain from an Ancient Greek perspective is supposed to be. 143 00:11:04,023 --> 00:11:07,048 Comparing these two signs is, is interesting. 144 00:11:07,048 --> 00:11:12,047 Remember Odysseus is a marker of his identity, is this one exhibition on his 145 00:11:12,047 --> 00:11:17,028 body, it is a marker of past pain. It's got a story embedded into it, but 146 00:11:17,028 --> 00:11:21,913 it's visible by everybody. What does he have to do to maintain it as 147 00:11:21,913 --> 00:11:24,584 being a marker of Odyssiusness? Nothing. 148 00:11:24,584 --> 00:11:29,493 He doesn't carry it around with him and deciding he was going to show it to. 149 00:11:29,677 --> 00:11:32,531 He will verify himself to whomever he wishes to. 150 00:11:32,531 --> 00:11:36,565 When he gives away information that I am truly Odysseus, he doesn't give anything 151 00:11:36,565 --> 00:11:39,531 extra away. Penelope's sign, her marker of her bed, is 152 00:11:39,531 --> 00:11:44,664 something that she actively must maintain in an ongoing act of the exclusivity of 153 00:11:44,664 --> 00:11:47,909 their marriage, her faithfulness, if you will, to Odysseus. 154 00:11:48,063 --> 00:11:52,278 This ongoing sign is a, is a continuous kind of dynamic sign that she must 155 00:11:52,278 --> 00:11:59,354 maintain in pursuing that she does just as we said maintains her connection also with 156 00:11:59,354 --> 00:12:02,696 Odysseus and her ability to verify that to him. 157 00:12:02,696 --> 00:12:09,409 So now, by the close of 23 the two are becoming to the point where the reunion is 158 00:12:09,409 --> 00:12:20,058 almost ready to happen that's going to come in our next lecture.