The Odyssey : Book 21 Flashcards
How does Book 21 start
Penelope gets Odysseus’s bow out of the storeroom and announces that she will marry the suitor who can string it and shoot an arrow through a line of twelve axe heads.
What happened when Telemachus attempted the bow competition
Telemachus attempts to string the bow and fails three times. He is about to succeed on his fourth try when Odysseus (in disguise as the ‘rascally vagabond’) signals him to stop.
Who was the first person to attempt the bow competition
Leiodes, who hated the evil deeds of the suitors. With his ‘unworn, delicate hands’, he failed. He predicts that the princes who try the challenge shall be robbed ‘of spirit and of life’.
What was Odysseus doing while the suitors were doing the competition
Odysseus meets outside with Eumaeus (shepherd) and Philoetius (cowherd), his faithful servants. He reveals his true self, ‘my very self’, and shows them the ‘great scar’ given to him by a wild boar as proof.
What happened when Odysseus asked to have a turn at the contest
Antinous, the violent and arrogant suitor who planned to murder Telemachus, refuses the ’wretched stranger’. Penelope intervened but was shut up by Telemachus and told to busy herself ’with (her) own tasks’
What happened when takes his turn
Odysseus strung the bow ‘without effort’ which ‘sang sweetly beneath his touch’. The ‘son of crooked-counselling Cronos’ sent him an omen and thunderstruck. Odysseus’ arrow flew through the axe handles. Telemachus stood, by his father, ‘armed with gleaming bronze’.
What does Penelope’s choice of contest show
It supports the suspicion that she is aware of the beggar/Odysseus’s real identity.
