She lacks the power to fight them with physical strength so she wards them off with her wits. The suitor Antinous bitterly tells the story of the shroud to the assembly in Book 2: Penelope devoted herself to the shroud for three full years, promising she would choose a husband when she finished. By day, the queen, a renowned weaver, worked at a great loom in the royal halls. At night, she secretly unraveled what she had done, deceiving the young suitors.
The ruse failed only when Penelope was betrayed by a disloyal maidservant. Primarily, the bow symbolizes the physical superiority of the king — an important point in a world in which the mighty prevail. But the bow also symbolizes the maturity and perhaps the character of the king. The suitors can't come close to stringing it Book 21 , illustrating the fact that none of them is capable of leading Ithaca.
Prince Telemachus, trying the bow just for sport, comes close. The reader is told that Telemachus probably could string the bow on his fourth attempt, but his father signals him to desist. We take from this passage that Telemachus is almost ready to be king but patiently and properly acquiesces to his father's judgment.
Only Odysseus can string the bow on his first attempt, and he does so with ease, showing that he is the proper mate for Penelope and the only man ready to be king of Ithaca. Login to rate this Glog. Login to comment on this Glog. Rate It! Comments Login to comment on this Glog. The suitors agree to this, but little do they know that she weaves the shroud by day, and un-weaves it by night. She is eventually betrayed by one of the maids in the house, and forced by the suitors to complete it, although the ruse does last for three years.
The Greeks had no illusion that the characteristic cleverness of Odysseus had a sinister aspect to it, not the least in the way that he deals with the Trojans after the war.
Some of the atrocities at Troy, notably the killing of the young boy Astyanax son of Hector and Andromache , are sheeted home to Odysseus by the poets. Likewise, the Roman poet Vergil in his Aeneid Book 2 emphasises the dark trickery of Ulysses the Roman name for Odysseus in getting the Trojans to drag the Wooden Horse inside the city walls. Even within the Odyssey there is a significant contrast between the careful and clever return of Odysseus, and that of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, who is murdered as soon as he gets home.
The gods are far less prominent in the Odyssey than the Iliad, although Athena in particular has her moments. In many ways Odysseus and Penelope are models of the sorts of things that Athena represents.
The Odyssey also has a more elaborate structure and chronology than the Iliad. The first four books deal with the situation of the house invasion on Ithaca, and the travels of the young Telemachus to mainland Greece. Athena takes Telemachus from the female space of the house to the outside world of male politics.
The folktale world through which he travels in Books 9 to 12 is told indirectly by Odysseus on his journey home to a Phaeacian audience, rather than directly by the poet. This notion of Odysseus as tale teller is central to the Odyssey.
In many ways the Odyssey is the most renowned literary work from Greek antiquity, even though some people would say it lacks the radical brilliance of the Iliad. The story of the Odyssey is a quintessential quest that relates to the passage through life and the importance of love and family and home. The rich variety of mythical narratives in the Odyssey especially his wanderings through a world of wonder and mystery in Books 9 to 12 has meant that the cultural history of the poem is astonishingly large, whether in literature or art or film.
Whole monographs have been written on the reception of Odysseus in later periods. Odysseus, moreover, probably influenced the early comic book superhero Batman in the late s and 40s, just as Greek demigods, such as Heracles and Achilles, help to inform the extra-terrestrial background of Superman. As a human bat, Batman uses disguise to good effect, as Odysseus does, and he thrives on conducting his challenges in the darkness of night.
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