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The Reunion of Penelope and Odysseus*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Chris Emlyn-Jones
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Extract

One of the most striking dramatic features of the climax of Homer's Odyssey is the lengthy postponement of the reunion of Penelope and Odysseus. The sequence of scenes which lead finally to recognition begins at 17.508, when Penelope asks the swineherd Eumaios to summon the disguised Odysseus so that she may question him about her husband. But it is only at 23.205, after many diversions, that she breaks down in tears at the final realization that Odysseus is really home.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , April 1984 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1984

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References

Notes

1. Cf. 13.383ff. where Odysseus acknowledges Athene's intervention as having preserved him from the fate of Agamemnon, who was killed by his wife Klytemnestra and her lover Aigisthos (related by Nestor (3.255–75; 303–10) and Menelaos (4.512–37) to Telemachos). On the influence of the Agamemnon ‘Return’ on the Odyssey, see Holscher, U., Die Atridensage in der Odyssee, in Festschrift Richard Alewyn (Köln-Graz, 1967), pp. 1–16Google Scholar.

2. Odysseus includes Penelope in his instruction to Telemachos not to reveal his identity, at 16.300–4.

3. Fenik, B. (Studies in the Odyssey, Hermes Einzelschr. 30 (Wiesbaden, 1974), p. 40) thinks that O. ‘has sound practical reasons for maintaining his disguise …’ I cannot see what these reasons are in Penelope's case, unless Fenik is thinking of the presence of serving-maids during the interview – surely not a strong psychological or dramatic motive for the postponementGoogle Scholar.

4. This is, in fact, how one of the dead suitors, Amphimedon, explains the recent events to Agamemnon in the Underworld at 24.167–9.

5. For a summary of the Analytic position on this question, see Kirk, G. S., The Songs of Homer (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 245–8Google Scholar.

6. See below, 10ff.

7. The starting-point was the thesis of P. W. Harsh, now generally regarded as highly improbable, that Penelope fully recognizes Odysseus in Book 19 and that all her subsequent words and actions must be seen in this light (‘Penelope and Odysseus in Odyssey XIX’, AJPh 71 (1950), 1–21). The basis for more recent modifications of this thesis was Amory, A., ‘The Reunion of Odysseus and Penelope’ in Essays on the Odyssey: selected modern criticism, ed. Taylor, C. H. Jr (Bloomington, 1963), pp. 100–36Google Scholar. See also Whitman, C. H., Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Oxford, 1958), p. 303CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beye, C. R., The Iliad, the Odyssey and the Epic Tradition (London, 1968), p. 178Google Scholar; and recently Austin, N., Archery at the dark of the moon (California, 1975), pp. 200ff.Google Scholar; Finley, J. Jr, Homer's Odyssey (Harvard, 1978), pp. 3ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nortwick, T. van, ‘Penelope and Nausikaa’, TAPhA 109 (1979), 269–76Google Scholar, and Russo, J., ‘Interview and Aftermath: Dream, Fantasy and Intuition in Odyssey19 and 20’, AJPh 103 (1982), 4–18Google Scholar.

8. Some, e.g. Whitman, op. cit., p. 303, Amory, op. cit., p. 131 n. 6, and Austin, op. cit., p. 208ff. put Penelope's suspicions concerning O's identity as far back as 18.158ff., when, on the prompting of Athene, Penelope descends to the suitors (on this scene, see below 9ff.).

9. Op. cit., p. 105.

10. Prophecy of Theoklymenos the seer: 17.151–61; Omen of Telemachos' sneeze: 17.539–47; Dream of Penelope: 19.535–53; Vision of Theoklymenos: 20.345–57. There are others at which Penelope is not present (15.525–38; 19.36–40; 20.98–121; 20.240–46).

11. Op. cit., 17.

12. On this image, see the interesting hypothesis of Amory, A., ‘The Gates of Horn and Ivory’, YCS 20 (1966), 1–57Google Scholar.

13. Amory, , ‘The Reunion of Odysseus and Penelope’, 106Google Scholar.

14. See 19.300–7 (to Penelope) and 14.152, 14.391ff. (to Eumaios); 18.145–6 (to Amphinomos, one of the suitors); 20.232–4 (to Philoitios, an oxherd).

15. We are also given to understand that Penelope has made a habit of consulting wayfarers and has often been deceived (e.g. Eumaios at 14.124–30). Her scepticism is most notable at the beginning of Book 23, when she persists in asserting that Eurykleia, in believing that Odysseus is really home, is being tricked by some god.

16. Ibid.

17. Cf. Eumaios to Odysseus at 14.361–89, following a prediction by the beggar of O's return. See also Eumaios to Penelope at 17.513—16.

18. See above refs. at n. 8.

19. Russo, , op. cit., 6.Google Scholar An extreme psychological interpretation of the dream of the eagle and the geese suggests that Penelope's sorrow at the slaughter of the geese and her relief that they are in reality unharmed, shows that her unconscious mind is considerably less hostile to the suitors than her conscious (Russo, , op. cit., 9Google Scholar; , van Nortwick, op. cit., 276Google Scholar; for the theory, see Devereux, G., ‘Penelope's Character’, Psychoanalytic Quarterly 26 (1957), 378–86)Google ScholarPubMed. This, in the face of her continual emphatic assertions that she loathes the suitors and their attentions! This hypothesis represents a curious reversion, in the name of modern psychological interpretation, to the Victorian idea that Penelope did not entirely dislike the suitors (see Butler, S., The Authoress of the Odyssey (London, 1897), pp. 130–1)Google Scholar. On the dream, see the sensible remarks of Finley, J., op. cit., p. 19 n. 7Google Scholar.

20. See the pertinent remarks of Podlecki, A., ‘Omens in the Odyssey’, G&R (1967), 12–23, esp. 21–2.Google Scholar

21. Op. cit., p. 46.

22. It is perhaps worth noting that Sophokles' play has also provoked a thesis that Oedipus comes to know the truth at an early stage, in Vellacott, P., Sophocles and Oedipus (London, 1971), p. 104Google Scholar. It is to be hoped that nobody will try to emulate Vellacott's thesis of two levels of audience appreciation by proposing a select audience of cognoscenti in the Homeric context!

23. Cf. also the often-observed irony in O's address to P. in 19.107: ὦ γύναι = ‘lady’ or ‘wife’.

24. 19.361–74. In 362 the omission of an addressee is surely deliberate here (Lattimore, R., in his otherwise excellent translation, The Odyssey of Homer (New York, 1965), includes a ‘to him’, mistakenly). Homer further exploits the ambiguity in σέο, τέκνον (363) for which the most likely addressee is the beggar. It is only when Eurykleia reverts to addressing Odysseus in the third person and the stranger as ‘you’ (370–2), that this ambiguity is resolvedGoogle Scholar.

25. Penelope has also given promises, in less detail, during their colloquy at 19.310–11.

26. On this characteristic, see Hölscher, U., Untersuchungen zur Form der Odyssee, Hermes Einzelschr. 6 (Berlin, 1939), p. 61Google Scholar.

27. I take this position, in the general form I have stated it, to be uncontroversial. The basic work was done by Parry, Milman, ‘The making of Homeric Verse’, Collected Papers, ed. Parry, A. (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar (see esp. ‘Whole Formulaic Verses in Greek and South Slavic Heroic Song’, pp. 376–90) and Lord, A. B., The Singer of Tales (Harvard, 1960)Google Scholar.

28. The idea of the sequence as a compositional device in Homer has been thoroughly explored in certain limited contexts by e.g. Fenik, B., Typical Battle Scenes in the Iliad. Studies in the narrative technique of Homeric battle description, Hermes Einzelschr. 21 (Wiesbaden, 1968)Google Scholar; Krisher, T., Formale Konventionen der homerischen Epik (München, 1971)Google Scholar.

29. So far as I am aware, there has, as yet, been no major study of recognition scenes in the Odyssey comparable in scope with those of Fenik and Krisher on the Iliad (seen n. 28 above). For some discussion of the recognition sequence as a species of ‘Testing’ see Thornton, A., People and Themes in Homer's Odyssey (Otago, 1970), pp. 48ff.Google Scholar

30. For the modern Serbocroatian tradition, see Lord, , op. cit., and especially Appendix III, pp. 242–59, ‘Return Songs’Google Scholar.

31. Conveniently quoted, with translation, in Kakridis, J. T., Homer Revisited (Lund, 1971), pp. 151–3 (in the context of the Penelope-Odysseus recognition)Google Scholar.

32. On έρεθίζω) see LSJ ad loc. The word has clear overtones of unfriendly provocation (Lattimore's ‘stir up’ is rather weak).

33. 24.226–350. On the element of cruelty in this recognition, see the remarks of Walcot, P., ‘Odysseus and the art of lying’, Anc. Soc. 8 (1977), 1–19Google Scholar.

34. But n.b. the Eumaios sequence, when an extended conversation in Books 14–15 (Eumaios' loyalty is tested on several occasions) is put on ice, as it were, until Book 21 when, in a rather abbreviated version of the sequence, Odysseus finally reveals himself. It is hard to find a plausible explanation for the postponement except, perhaps, that there are more important people, such as Telemachos, to come first. Moreover, if, at the beginning of Book 16, Eumaios is ‘in the know’ much of the irony of the Telemachos recognition would be lost.

35. 16.213–19 (Telemachos); 23.231–40 (Penelope). The paucity of similes in the Odyssey (as opposed to the Iliad) may perhaps allow us to read significance into the positioning of several of them immediately after final recognition.

36. The most sensitive and acute commentary on this scene is still Schadewaldt, W., ‘Die Wiedererkennung des Odysseus und der Penelope’ in Neue Kriterien zur Odyssee-Analyse, Sitz. der Heidelberger Akad. der Wiss. Phil.-hist. Klasse (1959)Google Scholar.

37. Schadewaldt, , op. cit., p. 13 23.86–7Google Scholar betray nicely Penelope's confusion, inclining towards a belief that she is hearing the truth. Stanford, W. B. (Homer's Odyssey (London, 1957), note on line 86) is surely mistaken in supposing that there is any ambiguity in ϕίλоν πόσιν here, in view of the following lineGoogle Scholar.

38. See Schadewaldt, , op. cit., p. 16, on Telemachos' role as a ‘Vermittler’.Google Scholar

39. Stanford, , op. cit., note on 188–9 acutely suggests that the idea of the σῆμα of the bed, namely its immovability (23.188–202) only gradually suggests itself to Odysseus in the light of a real σῆμα in the sense that Penelope requires, in the course of this speech, i.e. at 202. Cf. also 206Google Scholar.

40. So, Schadewaldt, , op. cit., p. 16Google Scholar.

41. See above n. 19 for the psychological theory of Penelope's unconscious attraction to the suitors.

42. On the significance of δύναται here, see below 12. At 15.20ff. Athene hurries Telemachos back from Sparta with talk of the fickle θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσι γυναικός.

43. See Kirk, , op. cit., p. 246.Google Scholar

44. Op. cit., p. 120. Note also that Athene informed Odysseus of Penelope's νόος at 13.381.

45. ‘Penelope vor den Freiern’ in Lebende Antike: Symposion fur R. Sühnel, herausg. Meller, H. und Zimmerman, H.-J. (Berlin, 1967), pp. 27–33Google Scholar.

46. The phrase occurs also at 2.92 and 13.381, in the context of Penelope making promises to the suitors but νόος βὲ οἱ ḥλλα μενοίνα. Hölscher's interpretation fits these contexts as aptly as 18.283. Moreover, it is unlikely that the poet would have singled out one example of a formulaic phrase of this kind for special meaning. Thornton, op. cit., p. 98, assumes that the words refer to the forthcoming interview Penelope has arranged with the beggar; but this seems to be reading back significance into a meeting which, at the time, cannot have seemed to her to hold out any more hope than her previous encounters with strangers claiming to have met O. (See 14.126–30.)

47. See Frisk, H., Griechisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg, 1970)Google Scholar, q.v. μενινάω ‘heftig verlangen’ (cf. μένος). Other Homeric uses of the word (see LSJ ad loc.) support this interpretation. On νόος, see Fritz, K. von, ‘νάος and νάειν in the Homeric Poems’, CPh 38 (1943), 79–93, where the word is closely connected with inward vision of what is absentGoogle Scholar.

48. This, like the story of the spinning and unpicking of the shroud for Laertes (2.93–110; 19.138–56) is clearly a folk-tale element in the story. It is perhaps significant that there is a slight discrepancy in Homer's account: at 21.1ff., it is Athene who puts the idea of the bow contest into her mind.

49. Finley, M. J., The World of Odysseus (London, 1962), p. 108Google Scholar, emphasizes the essentially passive role of the δῆμος in the struggle over Penelope's marriage and Telemachos' inheritance.

50. See Hölscher, U., ‘The Transformation from Folk-Tale to Epic’, in Homer: Tradition and Invention, ed. Fenik, B. (Leiden, 1978), pp. 51–67Google Scholar.

51. See Finley, M. I., op. cit., pp. 102–5Google Scholar. ‘That prerogative mysteriously belonged to Penelope’ (104). Thornton, , op. cit., pp. 108–10Google Scholar thinks that Penelope has the right of choice by virtue of Odysseus' decree in his parting words to her before he left for Troy (18.259–70). But this seems to be placing too much emphasis upon a private conversation between husband and wife (hardly a ‘decree’) which would surely have cut little ice with the Ithakan δῆμος or the suitors, even if they can be supposed to have known about it before Penelope's revelation at 18.257ff.

52. Certain contexts suggest that Telemachos has the right to send Penelope back to her parents, but refuses to do so for financial, religious, and social reasons (e.g. 22.130–37 where he is replying to Antinoos' request that he do just that, so that she may marry τῷ ὅτεῳ τε πατήρ κέλται καὶ ἁνδάνει αὐιῆ (2.114). Elsewhere the suitors seem to suppose that Penelope has the sole, or at least, the deciding choice (see 18.288–9)).

53. See also 2.91–110, where the themes are associated by Antinoos, the suitor.

54. To this extent, Amory's picture of Penelope as looking ‘at things only intermittently’ (op. cit., 104) is correct; but, as I made clear above (3ff.), I cannot accept the psychological implications of Amory's thesis for the reunion; Penelope's inability to see things clearly stems entirely from her situation – its causes are wholly external to her.

55. I am not forgetting Odysseus' confinement on Kalypso's island; but this is not given major emphasis in the Odyssey.

56. Repeated by Eumaios to the returning Telemachos in 16.37–8.

57. See Schadewaldt, , op. cit., p. 19Google Scholar.

58. Fenik, , op. cit., pp. 66–70Google Scholar.

59. See Schadewaldt, , op. cit., pp. 13ff. on the dramatic structure, and especially on the element of ‘übereckgespräch’ (16) involving Penelope, Telemachos, and OdysseusGoogle Scholar.

60. None of parallels, Fenik's (op. cit., p. 68) are really comparable to the Odyssey Book 23 example in terms of dramatic suspense and importance of the character who has ‘dropped out of sight’Google Scholar.

61. I have assumed that the choice was Homer's; but I would not thereby wish to exclude the possibility that the poet of the Odyssey was working within a tradition in which this late recognition was normal. Of course, the evidence (or rather, the lack of it) does not allow us to decide.