book 21-24
By Jake Nelson
book 21
"Listen to me you suitors, who persist in abusing the hospitality of this house because its owner has been long absent, and without other pretext than that you want to marry me; this, then, being the prize that you are contending for, I will bring out the mighty bow of Odysseus, and whomsoever of you shall string it most easily and send his arrow through each one of twelve axes, him will I follow and quit this house of my lawful husband."
Penelope is going to let the suitors kill each other with poison arrows and bow. She says she will marry whoever can string it.
"Come on, then, make no excuses for delay, but let us see whether you can string the bow or no. I too will make trial of it, for if I can string it and shoot through the iron, I shall not suffer my mother to quit this house with a stranger." Telemachus wants to try to string the bow so his mom doesn't leave with one of the suitors.
"But Odysseus, when he had taken it up and examined it all over, strung it as easily as a skilled bard strings a new peg of his lyre." The suitors don't know it's Odysseus, but he strings his bow and the suitors could not.
The main characters in this book are penelope, odysseus, telemachus and the suitors. The suitors all think they're going to get to marry penelope if they can string the bow. instead odysseus is the only one who can string it.
book 22
"Dogs, did you think that I should not come back from Troy? You have wasted my substance, have forced my women servants to lie with you, and have wooed my wife while I was still living. You have feared neither God nor man, and now you shall die."
"Hold!" he cried, "the man is guiltless, do him no hurt; and we will spare Medon too, who was always good to me when I was a boy."
"Begin," said he, "to remove the dead, and make the women help you. Then get sponges and clean water to swill down the tables and seats. When you have thoroughly cleansed the whole cloisters, take the women into the space between the doomed room and the wall of the outer court, and run them through with your swords till they are quite dead, and have forgotten all about love and the way in which they used to lie in secret with the suitors."
The main characters in this book are Odysseus, Telemachus and the suitors and the women in the house. Odysseus tells everybody who he is, and he fights all the suitors and kills them, except for the ones that Telemachus says haven't done anything wrong. He kills the women in the house too who have slept with the suitors and haven't respected Penelope.
book 23
"But what you tell me cannot be really true. It is some god who is angry with the suitors for their great wickedness, and has made an end of them; for they respected no man in the whole world, neither rich nor poor, who came near them, and they have come to a bad end in consequence of their iniquity; Odysseys is dead far away from the Achaean land; he will never return home again."
"When she heard the sure proofs Odysseus now gave her, she fairly broke down. She flew weeping to his side, flung her arms about his neck, and kissed him." Penelope believes it's Odysseus because he was talking to her about their bed he built, and nobody else knows about it except one servant.
book 24
"Rumour went round the town, and noised abroad the terrible fate that had befallen the suitors; as soon, therefore, as the people heard of it they gathered from every quarter, groaning and hooting before the house of Odysseus. They took the dead away, buried every man his own, and put the bodies of those who came from elsewhere on board the fishing vessels, for the fishermen to take each of them to his own place. They then met angrily in the place of assembly." People heard what happened to the suitors and wanted revenge on odysseus
"Then Athena said to zeus, "Father, son of Cronus, king of kings, answer me this question-What do you propose to do? Will you set them fighting still further, or will you make peace between them?"
"And Zeus answered, "My child, why should you ask me? was it not by your own arrangement that Odysseus came home and took his revenge upon the suitors? Do whatever you like, but I will tell you what I think will be most reasonable arrangement. Now that Odysseus is revenged, let them swear to a solemn covenant, in virtue of which he shall continue to rule, while we cause the others to forgive and forget the massacre of their sons and brothers. Let them then all become friends as heretofore, and let peace and plenty reign."
"So she said to Odysseus, "Odysseus, noble some of Laertes, stop this warful strife, or Zeus will be angry with you." Thus spoke Athena, and Odysseus obeyed her gladly. Then Athena assumed the form and voice of Mentor, and presently made a covenant of peace between the two contending parties."
Odysseus and his people were going to fight with the families of the suitors who had been killed but Athena and Zeus decided to end the fighting. Athena told everyone to stop fighting or zeus would be mad, and there was peace between everyone.