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Book 21
Reaching, tiptoe, lifting the bow down off its peg,
still secure in the burnished case that held it,
down she sank, laying the case across her knees,
and dissolved in tears with a high thin wail
as she drew her husband’s weapon from its sheath . . .
In Book 21, Penelope retrieves Odysseus’s bow. The bow, a weapon Odysseus is famous for having mastered but did not bring with him to Troy, is emblematic of Odysseus’s strength and his kingly status before the arrival of the suitors. Penelope begins to sob because she intends to tell the suitors that whoever can string her husband’s bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axes will win her hand in marriage.
So they mocked, but Odysseus, mastermind in action,
once he’d handled the great bow and scanned every inch,
then, like an expert singer skilled at lyre and song—
who strains a string to a new peg with ease,
making the pliant sheep-gut fast at either end—
so with his virtuoso ease Odysseus strung his mighty bow.
Quickly his right hand plucked the string to test its pitch
and under his touch it sang out clear and sharp as a swallow’s cry.
In Book 21, the suitors mock Odysseus, thinking him a beggar, for his willingness to attempt Penelope’s challenge. Following their mockery, Odysseus, in one of the epic poem’s most famous scenes, strings the bow and fires with ease, a stark contrast to the suitors’ failures.
Book 22
Where’s it gone, Odysseus—your power, your fighting heart?
The great soldier who fought for famous white-armed Helen,
battling Trojans nine long years—nonstop, no mercy,
mowing their armies down in grueling battle—
you who seized the broad streets of Troy
with your fine strategic stroke! How can you—
now you’ve returned to your own house, your own wealth—
bewail the loss of your combat strength in a war with suitors?
In Book 22, Athena encourages Odysseus to level the full power of his vengeance against the suitors. Disguised as Mentor, she initially herself holds back, preferring to let Odysseus and Telemachus take back their house before she joins and decisively ends the conflict.
