Blogging The Odyssey: Part 12 (The End… OR IS IT?)

We’ve gone on a strange journey together, haven’t we? We learned some life lessons, like “never trash talk a Cyclops,” “cannibals do not have your best interests at heart,” and “don’t touch the cows of the sun god.” We laughed, we cried, we suffered. Boy, did we suffer.

Spoiler alert: I know the title suggests otherwise, but yes, this is the final part. This is the end. It almost wasn’t the end, though, because Odysseus doesn’t know when to quit. See if you can spot the part where I just up and did this:

FX

Book 23: The Great Rooted Bed

Odysseus may have killed the suitors, but Penelope went to bed early and missed the whole thing. Her nurse, Eurycleia, runs upstairs to tell her what happened. At first, Penelope doesn’t believe her, but eventually she comes around.

EURYCLEIA: When I finally left my quarters, it was to find a man in the thick of slaughtered corpses, covered in bloody filth!
PENELOPE: Yeah, that sounds like him.

Still, Penelope is cautious. She wants to make sure this isn’t some all-powerful god parading around the palace in a fake Odysseus man-suit. Real talk: Penelope is the only sensible person in this entire story. Everyone else is like, “OH, THAT’S RIGHT, THE GODS EXIST AND THEY CAN DO ANYTHING, I FORGOT.”

Telemachus chastises his mother for not throwing herself at her husband right then and there, but Odysseus understands her hesitation. He tells Telemachus they have bigger problems—the families of the suitors will want revenge, so they need to be ready. But that’s tomorrow’s problem. For tonight, he instructs Telemachus to gather some friends and throw a party in the royal hall. This way, anyone passing by will just assume Penelope finally picked a husband. They will think “Oh, a wedding, how pleasant!” instead of “I sure hope the castle isn’t full of corpses.”

Penelope tells a handmaiden to drag their marital bed out into the hallway so that Odysseus can sleep on it until they’ve cleared up the matter of his identity. This doesn’t fly with Odysseus. Their bed is immoveable because he crafted it himself, using the trunk of an olive tree around which he then built the entire castle. It’s a symbol of their marriage, and he’s hurt that she forgot. It’s also probably the cutest thing I’ve ever heard of, and yes, I’m including this picture of a dog and cat cuddling, so don’t even ask.

But lest we forget, Penelope is every bit as clever of her husband. She was testing him with information only the true Odysseus would know. Identity: confirmed. They embrace and cry together, and then they stay up all night swapping stories. Presumably, Odysseus skips the part where he completely forgot about her for an entire year to have sex with a sea-witch.

Book 24: Peace

MEANWHILE, IN THE UNDERWORLD…

The god Hermes leads the suitors to the land of the dead. Achilles and Agamemnon are busy having this dumb, hilarious argument over who had the cooler death. As usual, Agamemnon is also complaining about his wife. He’s like the archetypical sitcom husband saying, “WOMEN, AM I RIGHT?”

AGAMEMNON: Hey, Achilles. ACHILLES. Did you know the leading cause of divorce… is marriage?
ACHILLES: Yes, you’ve told me that one.
AGAMEMNON: Did you know the leading cause of being murdered by a TRAITOROUS, HATEFUL TRAMP is also marriage?
ACHILLES: Please stop.

They ask the suitors what happened to them. Amphimedon says that Odysseus killed them all, and he blames Penelope for leading them on. Besides, how were they supposed to know that the beggar was actually a king? If they’d known that, they wouldn’t have thrown chairs at him!

AGAMEMNON: Not to be insensitive—like I get it, you’re dead and that’s sad—but you guys totally deserved it. Penelope’s a good woman. She stayed loyal to her husband all those years. Not like my wife who cheated on me, and then KILLED ME.
ACHILLES: Okay, honestly? If we weren’t already dead, I would kill you too.

Back in the land of the living, Odysseus and Telemachus sneak out of the palace at daybreak. They’re off to visit Odysseus’s dad, Laertes. Remember him? The guy who lost his wife and child and is basically on death’s door? Odysseus finds him outside gardening, and this is what he has to say to this man who has spent the last decade wasting away out of grief: “Your vegetables are looking better than you right now.” JEEZ.

That less-than-stellar greeting notwithstanding, they have a heartfelt reunion… just in time for them to go to war with the suitors’ families.

Odysseus was right. No one’s particularly thrilled that he murdered all of Ithaca’s most eligible bachelors. An angry mob forms and rushes off to the house of Laertes to murder Odysseus for murdering their men, because apparently no one has ever told them AN EYE FOR AN EYE MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD BLIND. There’s a Polyphemus joke in there somewhere, but I’m too dumb to find it.

And then. AND THEN. Everyone’s squaring off for battle—Laertes actually slays the father of Antinous with his spear—and then? Well, then Athena just… calls off the battle, with magic. She says enough is enough. She forces the families to lay down their arms, forget their grudge, and head home. That’s it. That’s all that happens. Just like that, it’s over.

EXCEPT THAT ODYSSEUS ALMOST RUNS AFTER THEM, LIKE A MORON. HE WAS OFF THE HOOK. NOBODY WAS ATTACKING HIM. ATHENA HAD TO SAY, “WHOA, HANG ON, LET’S THINK ABOUT THIS, MY GUY.” HE LISTENS, BUT STILL. I SUFFERED THROUGH 400 PAGES OF YOUR TERRIBLE DECISIONS, ODYSSEUS, AND YOU DIDN’T LEARN A SINGLE GODDAMN THING.

FX

I need to lie down.

Odysseus may not have learned anything, but I sure did. In addition to the life lessons mentioned above, I learned that you should never accept fruit from dubious strangers. I learned that there’s no such thing as “just an eagle”; all eagles are portents of doom. I learned that if you are a nameless crewman, a pagan, or a mortal woman… well, good luck with that.

Above all, I learned about friendship. Right? I think there was something about friendship in there. In fact, I’m sure that there was. Maybe the real odyssey was the friends we made along the way (or something of that nature).

Final thoughts:

1. The ending’s abruptness has been the subject of much debate. Scholars think the story probably ended originally with Odysseus reuniting with Penelope, and that Book 24 was tacked on afterward to tie up loose ends. I’m inclined to agree. That conversation between Achilles and Agamemnon was absurd and I loved every minute of it.
2. If you’re interested in ancient Greek mythology but you’re looking for something a little more modern and accessible, might I suggest The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley (recommendation courtesy of Reneia), or any number of books by Rick Riordan? (I cannot, in good conscience, suggest the movie Troy, but I will anyway, because great things were happening with Eric Bana’s facial hair.)
3. The Odyssey was initially developed in the tradition of good old-fashioned oral storytelling. As someone who does not have the brainpower/sheer strength of will to even remember grocery lists, I find this both baffling and impressive. Scholars like Milman Perry and Albert Lord have proposed that only an illiterate person could have come up with an epic poem like The Odyssey, because literate and illiterate people don’t approach language in quite the same way—once you learn to read and write, they say, you forfeit the ability to compose epic lyrical poetry on the spot. Other scholars have since refuted this. (Clearly, Albert Lord has never seen Lin-Manuel Miranda freestyle on Jimmy Fallon.) If you’re the kind of person who thinks that’s interesting, look up oral-formulaic composition! If you’re not, I’M SORRY TO HAVE WASTED YOUR TIME.

Thanks for sticking with me! This is Elodie the sea-wolf, signing off.

Looking for the rest of our Blogging the Classics series? Check it out here! For all of Blogging The Odyssey, click here!