Confronting the Suitors: Justice and Betrayal

Slaughter in the hall! This week Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by Dr. Adam Cooper of Wyoming Catholic College to discuss Odysseus' revenge upon the suitors in Book 24.

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103.    What happens in book twenty-two?

The time has come. Odysseus stands at the threshold of his home, cries out to Apollo, and lets loose an arrow straight through the neck of Antinous (22.15). It is chaos in the hall, as the “bread and meats [were] soaked in a swirl of bloody filth” (22.21). Eurymachus attempts to broker a true between Odysseus and the suitors—but it is rejected (22.57). Eurymachus then calls the suitors to arms and is subsequently slaughtered by Odysseus (22.73). Telemachus brings armor and weapons to his father, the swineherd, and the cowherd (22.121), but the goatherd, however, is able to sneak weapons and armor to the suitors as well (22.151). On his second run for weapons, the cowherd and swineherd intercept the goatherd and tie him up and hang him from the rafters (22.196).

Athena first arrives in the guise of Mentor (22.217) and then becomes like a sparrow perched on the rafters assisting Odysseus in his slaughter (22.250). She reveals her “man-destroying shield of thunder” and the suitors fall into a panicked madness; as Odysseus and his men went “wheeling into the slaughter, slashing left and right, and grisly screams broke from skulls cracked open—the whole floor awash with blood” (22.311). With only a few suitors left in the hall, Odysseus has no mercy on their prophet but spares the bard and the herald (22.327).

The slaughter of the suitors is complete. Odysseus has the old maid, Eurycleia, send in the female servants who were disloyal (22.458), and these women help to carry out the corpses and clean the home of gore (22.471). Telemachus then oversees the disloyal women being slowly hanged in the courtyard—a “pitiful, ghastly death” (22.487). The goatherd is retrieved and mutilated to death by the swineherd and cowherd (22.500). Odysseus purifies his home with fire and brimstone (22.518). The book ends with the loyal maid servants of the house surrounding Odysseus, and the king breaks down and weeps (22.528).

104.    What should be noted in how the suitors are slaughtered

Odysseus invokes Apollo, the god of archery, on his feast day to help him with his slaughter (22.07). Notice that Homer makes it explicit that the suitors are killed while feasting (22.09). Homer writes, “food showered across the hall, the bread and meats soaked in a swirl of bloody filth” (22.21). It recalls Odysseus’ statement that he is going to give them the feast they deserve (21.477). The mixed imagery of food and slaughter gives credence to seeing Odysseus as the cyclops consuming his guests. One wonders whether Antinous being shot in the throat is symbolic of his constant vile rhetoric throughout the narrative (22.15).

Consistent with what we have previously observed, Eurymachus attempts to talk his way out of the situation, which includes an appeal for the king to spare his own people (22.57). Notice Odysseus says they can fight or flee, but it is not apparent that they can actually flee the situation nor that Athena would permit it (22.69).

Arguably, Odysseus kills Antinous and Eurymachus first to deprive the suitors of their leadership—a fact he would have observed as the beggar. The suitors, which greatly outnumber Odysseus and his men, could overwhelm Odysseus, but instead their cowardice allows them to be picked off individually.

Lastly, as with the cyclops narrative, Odysseus and his men are aware of the irony of guest-friendship, as they, for example, refer to throwing a spear as a guest-gift (22.304).

105.    What should be made of the death of the serving women?

The death of the female servants is one of the most disturbing scenes in Homer. Note the disloyal female servants are made to gather the bodies and clean the gore of the suitors—many of whom were their lovers (22.462). Odysseus makes this comparison explicit when he states the female servants will lie with the suitors in death as they did in life (22.469). Note, however, they Odysseus commands they be cut down with swords (22.468). Telemachus, however, has more cruel designs in mind in recompense for the abuse the disloyal women laid upon him and his mother (22.488). In one of the more famous scenes of the Odyssey, Telemachus has the women hanged slowly (22.497). The deaths are a sign that disloyalty is one of the graver faults in the Homeric world—a lesson shown best in the death of Melanthius, the goatherd.

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