The Odyssey Book 19 Summary

Odysseus, still disguised as the beggar, commands Telemachos to remove the suitors’ weapons from the great hall, as planned.
Telemachos tells Eurykleia to go shut the women in their rooms while he does so. Again, this won’t be suspicious at all.
Odysseus and Telemachos move the weapons together, their path lit by Athene, who is conveniently bearing a torch for the occasion.
For the first time, it seems, Telemachos realizes just how deeply Athene is invested in helping Odysseus. He is awed.
Penelope sits on her chair in her room, awaiting the beggar to come as promised.
Melantho sees Odysseus coming up and insults him; he replies that she should think about what Odysseus would think of her behavior.
Penelope rushes to his aid and dismisses the maid.
The Queen asks the beggar where he is from, but he replies that the topic is too painful to discuss. Instead, he gets information from her.
She tells him about the long years she has spent waiting for her husband to return and how she tricked the suitors with her shroud-weaving routine.
But now she is desperate and has given up hope. She plans to marry a suitor soon, just to get out of Telemachos’s house and let him live in peace. (Nooo!)
Finally, she persuades the beggar to tell her about himself. Odysseus assumes a fake name – Aithon – and weaves a complex story in which he came from Crete, fought in Troy, and later played host to Odysseus.
Penelope gets excited at hearing her husband’s name, but doubts the truth of his tale; she asks for details about Odysseus’s appearance – just to make sure.
The beggar describes Odysseus’s clothing, weapons, and men perfectly, moving Penelope to tears.
He goes on to promise her that Odysseus is returning. In fact, he claims, he will be back…today!
But Penelope remains unconvinced.
Still, she offers the man a bath, clothes, and bed for the night.
The beggar, however, refuses the bath (which is really just a foot washing) unless he gets it from a maid as old and long-suffering as he is.
Playing right into his hands, Penelope offers the services of Eurykleia, Odysseus’s nurse when he was young.
Eurykleia notices the strong resemblance between the beggar and Odysseus, but the beggar brushes it off by saying he gets that a lot.
She begins washing his feet.
Odysseus realizes something and freezes – he must not let her see the scar on his thigh. (Thigh!? Just what kind of foot wash is this, anyway?)
Flashback to the scar story: as a boy Odysseus went on a hunt on Mount Parnassos with his grandfather Autolykos, where he was gashed in the thigh by a wild boar. It left an unmistakable scar.
Of course, Eurykleia spots the mark, knows the man to be Odysseus, and freaks out.
Odysseus whispers to the old woman, so as not to alert the nearby Queen, and vows her to silence – especially with respect to Penelope.
Eurykleia promises to zip it.
In the meantime, Penelope, utterly oblivious, asks the beggar one last question. She describes to him a dream she had in which she joyfully watched the domestic geese in her garden. Sweet, until a mountain eagle swooped down and killed them all.
She and her attendant women began to wail in sorrow, but the eagle came back and spoke, saying that he is her lord returned and the geese are the suitors.
We wish all our dreams interpreted themselves for us.
Still, this isn’t enough explanation for Penelope. She asks the beggar to interpret the dream…again.
The beggar tells her it means certain death for the suitors.
Penelope is still doubtful.
She tells him that she is so tired of the courtship that she will end it tomorrow by issuing a contest in which the suitors must string Odysseus’s old bow and shoot an arrow through twelve consecutive axe heads. She will marry the suitor who wins it.
The beggar promises that Odysseus will be present for the contest.
Still skeptical, Penelope goes upstairs to sleep.

Book 20

Book 18