Hello fellow-traveller,

Welcome to the Odyssey read-along. Here’s the schedule for you to navigate through this story.

This post, and the ones that will follow, are divided into sections so you can easily follow the text and re-read passages. It does not matter what translation you use — the lines should be the same, although translated differently.

This is the tenth post in the series, if you’re curious about what happened before, please feel free to read the previous weeks’ instalments.

In this journey, I am both an Odysseus and a Telemachus. I might get lost and get stuck on Calypso’s island, yet at the same time, like Telemachus, I need to awaken to act. These are the notes of a fellow-reader, not a scholar.

I’ve just released an interview with Emily Katz Anhalt, a Professor of Classics, discussing how we should read The Odyssey. You can listen to it here:

I hope you will enjoy it.

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This week’s journey (Summary) 🌊 :

Book 21
Penelope fetches the great bow of Odysseus from the storeroom, weeping — She sets it before the suitors with the trial of the twelve axes — Suitor after suitor tries to string the bow and fails — Odysseus, still in rags, slips out and reveals himself to Eumaeus and the cowherd Philoetius, enlisting them as allies — Telemachus tries the bow three times and nearly succeeds; Odysseus stops him with a glance — The beggar asks to try; the suitors object; Penelope insists — Odysseus strings the bow in a single easy motion and sends an arrow clean through all twelve axes

Book 22
Odysseus tears off his rags and shoots Antinous through the throat — He reveals himself to the stunned suitors and bars the doors — The suitors scramble for weapons; a treacherous goatherd arms them from the storeroom — Father and son and two loyal herdsmen hold the hall; Athena appears as Mentor, then watches from the rafters — One by one the suitors fall until the hall runs with blood — The bard Phemius and the herald Medon are spared; the disloyal maids are hanged; the hall is cleansed with fire and sulphur

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BOOK TWENTY ONE

Introduction

My dear reader, so far, over the past eight books, his identity was disguised. He was mapping the territory while hiding the identity of who he truly is.

But after twenty years, Odysseus is finally home, still disguised. And in Book Nineteen, he needed five different ways to persuade his wife, Penelope, of who he is. We explored in Book Nineteen that through vision, body, and mind, he tried to persuade her of who he is.

Book Twenty-One is unique because it is a pivotal moment. For as my reader knows himself, there is a moment in life where reality meets truth, where nothing more can be argued and nothing more needs to be.

Because here, persuasion ends. Everything that came before this book was an act of convincing someone, of walking a doubting witness step by step toward belief. Book Twenty-One does something else entirely. It stops asking to be believed and simply begins to be.

That pivotal moment in this book is represented by the bow, because the bow becomes the first and only witness in this poem that cannot be lied to, cannot be flattered or deceived, and cannot be doubted. It does not listen to a story. It does not weigh a stranger’s claim against its own suspicion. It simply answers, or it does not.

And notice, my reader, that even the moment which sets this whole reckoning into motion is not entirely Penelope’s own. It is Athena who plants the thought in her mind to bring the bow down from its resting place and set the contest before the suitors. Penelope does not choose this morning so much as she is chosen for it, an instrument in a hand greater than her own. And yet the waiting ends all the same, whoever willed it to end.

The suitors, of course, know none of this. They see an old bow and a strange contest, nothing more. But my reader and I know what is coming. We know that the arrow which passes through twelve axes today is the same arrow that will not stop there.

And there is one more thing my reader must carry into this book before we begin. The bow itself is not an innocent object. It was born from a betrayal of guest and host, from Heracles murdering his own guest Iphitus under his own roof to steal the very mares that had brought them together. The weapon that is about to punish the suitors for devouring another man’s home carries, in its own history, the memory of a home once devoured in exactly the same way.

I. The Bow’s Violated History

This entire book is dedicated to, and revolves around, the bow. The story of the bow is unique in itself.

According to the myth, Odysseus was on a mission to recover cattle raided from Ithaca, and he crossed paths with Iphitus, son of Eurytus, who was himself separately searching for twelve stolen mares. The two became guest-friends and exchanged gifts. Iphitus gave Odysseus the bow, while Odysseus gave Iphitus a sword and a spear.

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