Summary:
Book 13- This book is about when the Phaecians first sail Odysseus to Ithaca from Scheria. Odysseus Slept through the whole boat ride even when they docked so the Pheacians carried him to shore with his gifts and then left back to home. Poseidon was very angry that the people whom worship him were helping his “enemy”, so he turned their boat to stone and it sunk when they were just arriving home. So the Pheacians decided to stop helping wayward travelers. When Odysseus is first home he is mad at the Pheacians because he does not think he is in Ithaca because Athena disguised at first, but then Athena disguises herself and tells him it’s Ithaca and then she eventually shows him her true identity. She tells him that his son has gone looking for him and she thinks Odysseus should hide out and plan to punish the suitors and she makes him look like and old Vagabond so nobody will recognize him.
Book 14: Odysseus goes and finds Eumaeus who does not recognize him but invites him in anyway, they eat dinner and Eumaeus starts talking about his former master (Odysseus) and how he fears he is dead and about the new guys in the house who are evil. Odysseus tells Eumaeus that he will see Odysseus again soon. Eumaeus lets this old man that he doesn’t know is actually Odysseus stay at his house. He asks Odysseus about his roots and Odysseus lies and says he is from Crete but said he fought with “Odysseus”. And says he actually got home safely but then took a trip to Egypt that went wrong which is why he showed up there. On his trip he claimed that he saw Odysseus and he was still alive.
Book 15: This book is about when Athena went to Sparta where she found Telemachos and Pisistratus, nestors son sleeping at Menelaus’s castle. So Athena sneaks into Telemachos dream and tells Telemachos to go home because the suitors are planning something evil and they might soon win over his mother. But she tells him to go to Eumaeus’s home first so he will give the message of Telemachos safe return to Penelope. When Leaving Menelaus’s palace Odysseus sees an eagle swoop down carrying a goose stolen from a pen beside him. Helen tells him that it means his father will return and have revenge against the suitors. When they get to Pylos Telemachos has Pisistratus drop him off at his ship but before he leaves a famous prophet Theoclymenus asked to join because he is banned from Argos for killing someone. Telemachos allows him to come and when they get to Ithaca he offers him plenty of hospitality. Then Telemachos gets to Ithaca.
Book 16: Telemachos reaches Eumaeus’s hut where he sees the swine herder has taken in a beggar (Odysseus). They decide that the beggar should stay at the castle with Telemachos. Then Eumaeus goes alone to the palace to tell Penelope that Telemachus has returned. When Odysseus and Telemachos are alone Athena turns Odysseus back to his normal form and the two hug and weep. Odysseus tells him all about his journeys. And then he tells him about his plan to sneak attack the suitors. Odysseus plans to will go to the palace disguised as the beggar and Telemachos will hide he weapons and then the two will kill the suitors. The suitors re-scheme to kill Telemachos.
Themes: Each books connects to the theme loyalty. The majority of the loyalty is between Telemachos and Odysseus, father and son. Telemachos has never even met his father before but he still will do anything to find him. And once they do meet they work together to create a plan to kill the suitors that to me is a great example of loyalty. And the loyalty between Odysseus and the other people he left behind like Emaios and Argos.
Major Characters:
Emaios: A loyal Shepherd, worked for Odysseus. Was actually extremely wealthy. Takes In Odysseus even though doesn’t know it’s actually him because he is disguised as an old beggar.
Theoclymenos: Famous prophet who was banned from his town for killing someone and he asks Telemachos if he can go on his ship and Telemachos allows it.
Amphinomos: The only good man of all of the suitors. Sometimes defends Odysseus and Telemachos.
Symbol:
Food and banqueting/hospitality: In this book the people who are the most hospitable are usually the better people. Which explains the suitors. They were extremely rude to the beggar and were first of all intruding on someone’s home, which showed how they were not good people.
Argos: Argos is Odysseus’s old dog and he symbolizes loyalty. Even though he was still young when Odysseus left he still alive after 20 years waiting for his master to return and once he does he dies happily.
Birds: Birds symbolize messages from the gods. When Telemachos is leaving Menelaos’s palace he sees the eagle, which Helen says, means his father will return home and reclaim his castle.
Favorite Passages:
Book 13: “Father Zeus, I shall never have any respect in our world, now mortal men pay me none! I mean the Phaicacians who actually belong to my own family. Here’s an example. I thought Odysseus was to reach home in all sorts of misery and tribulation: I did not bar his return altogether, because you had solemnly promised him that he should return. And now here are these people, bringing him over the sea in a fast cruiser, planting him down in Ithaca, giving him any amount of presents, bronze and gold in plenty and woven stuffs, more than he could have collected from the spoils of Troy if he had come home with his share intact!”
Book 14: “As for him, his soul has left him by this time, dogs and carrion birds will have torn skin from bone, or he has been food for fishes in the sea, and his bones lie on the shore buried in sand. So we have lost him over there, and he has been left trouble for his friends, most of all for me; I shall never find so kind a master, wherever I go, not even if I go back to my father and mother, the house where I was born and brought up. Indeed I do not mourn so much for them as for him, though I long to see ‘em again and my native land, but I do miss Odysseus since he went away. I don’t like to speak his name, man, although he is absent, but I call him ‘his honor’ even when he is far away.”
Book 15: “You know what a woman’s mind is like; she wishes to enrich the man who marries her, but as for the other husband and his children, once he is dead she forgets them all and never asks about them. The best thing you can do is go back, and put everything in the hands of one women, whichever you think the best, until the gods provide you a good capable wife.”
Book 16: “Oh no, you are not Odysseus my father, but some being more than man come to bewitch me and to make my grief greater than it was.”
