We have reached Book 19 of The Odyssey, and our hero has finally returned home to Ithaca after his long, epic voyage. But Odysseus remains disguised as a beggar. He does not want to reveal his true identity just yet; he does not want Penelope's suitors to get wind of his arrival. Odysseus will not even reveal himself to Penelope, and, like everyone else, she does not recognize her husband: she thinks he is a beggar. She provides him with generous hospitality—a common theme throughout the poem—and instructs her old housekeeper Euryclea to wash the stranger's feet.
Euryclea also used to be Odysseus's nurse when he was a boy; she has bathed him numerous times. As she mixes the water for Odysseus's feet, Euryclea remarks on how similar the stranger looks to her master. It is only a matter of time before Odysseus's true identity is discovered. Despite Odysseus's best efforts to hide his scar, as soon as Euryclea touches it, she knows it is him straight away. The old nurse is so overwhelmed with joy that she allows Odysseus's foot to drop into the basin, spilling water everywhere. Odysseus's identity has finally been revealed, but for now, he swears Euryclea to secrecy. He still has to settle accounts with the suitors, and word must not get out that he is home.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Who notices the scar that gives away Odysseus's identity?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Why is the fact that the Americans are helping the Russians important?
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
There are a plethora of rules that Jonas and the other citizens must follow. Again, page numbers will vary given the edition of the book tha...
-
The poem contrasts the nighttime, imaginative world of a child with his daytime, prosaic world. In the first stanza, the child, on going to ...
-
The given two points of the exponential function are (2,24) and (3,144). To determine the exponential function y=ab^x plug-in the given x an...
-
The play Duchess of Malfi is named after the character and real life historical tragic figure of Duchess of Malfi who was the regent of the ...
-
The only example of simile in "The Lottery"—and a particularly weak one at that—is when Mrs. Hutchinson taps Mrs. Delacroix on the...
-
Hello! This expression is already a sum of two numbers, sin(32) and sin(54). Probably you want or express it as a product, or as an expressi...
-
Macbeth is reflecting on the Weird Sisters' prophecy and its astonishing accuracy. The witches were totally correct in predicting that M...
No comments:
Post a Comment