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The Odyssey
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Books 13-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 13 Summary: “Two Tricksters”
Odysseys returns to Ithaca in Book 13. Athena reveals herself, and she and Odysseus plan how to rid the palace of the suitors.
After Odysseus finishes his story, Alcinous tells him that he has endured enough and will return home. He instructs his people to bring gifts. At dawn, they load the ship that will bear Odysseus home, then feast, sacrifice, and listen to Demodocus. Though anxious to go home, Odysseus thanks the Phaeacians for their help and gifts, reiterates his desire to leave, and expresses hope of finding his family safe and his wife loyal. The Phaeacians praise his speech, then pray and offer libations to the gods. Odysseus gives Arete a cup and offers wishes for her family’s happiness.
He boards the ship, settles onto a bed that has been made for him, and falls asleep as the ship swiftly speeds him home. At dawn, it arrives at a secluded harbor on Ithaca. The crewmen carry the sleeping Odysseus and his gifts to land, settling him on the sand and placing his gifts in a safe, inconspicuous spot.
Poseidon complains to Zeus that “I will lose all my standing with the gods” (320). He did not interfere with Odysseus’s homecoming because Zeus promised it, but now the Phaeacians, Poseidon’s “very own descendants” (320), have dishonored him by bringing Odysseus home. Zeus disputes Poseidon’s accusation and authorizes him to punish disrespectful mortals. As the Phaeacian ship returns to its harbor, Poseidon turns the ship to stone, prompting Alcinous to recall a prophecy that Poseidon would punish them for helping humans. The Phaeacians prepare a sacrifice.
When Odysseus wakes up in Ithaca, he does not recognize it and is distraught. Athena has shrouded it with mist until she can speak and plan with Odysseus. She appears to him as a young shepherd, and he offers himself as a suppliant and asks where he is. Upon learning that he is in Ithaca, he is overjoyed. He claims to be an exile from Crete who killed the king’s son after a dispute about Trojan spoils. He ambushed the son in the dark, then quickly rowed away and ended up in Ithaca after the ship he was traveling on was blown off course.
Athena smiles, takes his hand, and reveals herself, scolding him for lying but praising his intelligence. He asks why she “gave me no protection” during his trials (327). She replies that she “did not want to conflict with my father’s brother” (327), who was angry that Odysseus blinded Polyphemus, his son. She disperses the mist so that Odysseus will recognize his home, and he offers prayers to the local nymphs.
Odysseus and Athena hide his treasure and plan how to defeat the suitors. He asks her to “weave me a strategy” (329). She affirms her support, disguises him as an old, itinerant beggar, and instructs him to visit the swineherd Eumaeus, a slave and loyal friend who loves Penelope and Telemachus. When he learns that Telemachus is in Sparta, Odysseus questions her judgment, but she reiterates that she is protecting him, then leaves to fetch him.
Book 14 Summary: “A Loyal Slave”
In Book 14 Odysseus goes to the swineherd Eumaeus’s house, where the two exchange stories. Odysseus maintains his fictitious identity as an exile from Crete and discovers that Eumaeus remembers him fondly, continues to honor him, and shows respect for the gods’ laws through sacrifices, prayers, and offering hospitality.
As Odysseus approaches Eumaeus’s farmhouse, the swineherd’s guard dogs almost attack him. Eumaeus calls them off at the last moment, then offers Odysseus food, wine, and a comfortable place to sit. When Odysseus offers Eumaeus a blessing from Zeus, he expresses the importance of honoring guests, foreigners, and strangers, “even those / much poorer than oneself” (334), since Zeus watches over them. Eumaeus, who believes Odysseus is dead, laments his master’s fate and condemns the suitors for plundering his wealth.
Odysseus asks Eumaeus who his master was, saying that he might know him. Eumaeus tells him that Penelope and Telemachus do not trust travelers who claim to have met or known Odysseus. His death ruined them all, and Eumaeus mourns him like a brother “because / he loved and cared for me with so much kindness” (337). Odysseus swears that Eumaeus’s king will return and avenge himself and his household against those who have disrespected his wife and son. Wanting to change the subject, Eumaeus asks who Odysseus is.
Odysseus claims that he is from Crete, the son of an enslaved woman and a nobleman, Castor Hylacides. Though his father respected him “like all his other sons” (338), after his father’s death, his brothers cheated him of his share of his father’s inheritance. He amassed his own fortune through his bravery and military skill. When war broke out with Troy, he was compelled to sail with Cretan King Idomeneus’s contingent. After returning from the war, he decided to sail to Egypt.
When he arrived, he left his men to guard the ships while he went scouting, but his men disobeyed him, killing the local men and enslaving their women and children. He supplicated the king, who protected him, and stayed in Egypt, gaining wealth and esteem. After a few years, a Phoenician convinced him to sail to Libya but secretly intended to sell him into slavery. Zeus wrecked their ship in a storm that drowned the men, but Zeus spared him. He landed on Thesprotia, where King Pheidon pledged to help him get home and where he heard about Odysseus. The king said that Odysseus had gone to seek a prophecy about how best to return home, and when he returned, Pheidon would help him. Pheidon put him on a boat, but the crew, intending to sell him into slavery, brought him to Ithaca, where he escaped. The gods saved him.
Eumaeus pities his guest’s troubles and promises to help him, but he does not believe his story about Odysseus. Eumaeus prepares a meal for his men and Odysseus, offering prayers, sacrifices, and libations, and giving his guest a choice cut of meat. Eumaeus’s slave serves them.
Odysseus decides to test whether Eumaeus will offer him a warm cloak by telling a story. He tells Eumaeus that, when he was at Troy, he, Menelaus, and Odysseus planned an ambush. It was a cold night, and he had forgotten his cloak. Odysseus contrived a ruse that enabled him to get another man’s cloak. Eumaeus rewards him for the “splendid tale” by giving him a spare cloak for the night, then goes out to sleep where he can watch over the pigs. Odysseus is pleased with how well Eumaeus cares for his herds.
Book 15 Summary: “The Prince Returns”
Athena travels to Sparta and urges Telemachus to return home before Penelope’s father convinces her to marry Eurymachus, the suitor with “the most generous gifts” (350). She warns him that the suitors plot to kill him and instructs him to stay with Eumaeus upon his return. At dawn, Telemachus informs Menelaus that he must leave. Menelaus prepares a banquet, asking Telemachus to wait for his gifts, and offers to accompany him throughout the region, which will yield more treasure. Telemachus replies that he does not want to risk losing either his life or his “wealth at home” (351).
Menelaus presents Telemachus with a silver bowl that Hephaestus crafted and the king of Sidon gifted to Menelaus. Helen provides a wedding gown for his future wife. After they feast, Telemachus and Pisistratus prepare to depart. Menelaus provides them with wine to pour libations and wishes them luck, at which point an eagle flies past with a tame, white goose in its talons. Helen declares it an omen that Odysseus is in Ithaca and will avenge his family.
When they arrive in Pylos, Telemachus asks Pisistratus to leave him at his ship so that his departure will not be delayed. Pisistratus complies, loading his ship with gifts and encouraging him to hurry. As Telemachus prays and sacrifices to Athena, a foreigner named Theoclymenus approaches and supplicates him. His relatives are hunting him down because he killed a man. If they catch him, they will kill him too. He asks to travel with Telemachus on his ship, and Telemachus accepts him.
When he arrives in Ithaca, Telemachus sends his men to town. Telemachus suggests that Theoclymenus go to the house of Eurymachus, Penelope’s most eager suitor, then wonders if he will “die a dread death before that marriage” (367). At that moment, a hawk flies past with a pigeon in its claws. Theoclymenus declares it a good omen, saying that Telemachus’s family is the most powerful in Ithaca and will be “kings forever” (368). Pleased, Telemachus tells one of his faithful men, Piraeus, to care for Theoclymenus.
In Ithaca, Odysseus tests Eumaeus’s hospitality. He tells Eumaeus that he plans to go into town and beg, then proceed to the palace, speak with Penelope, and offer to serve the suitors. Eumaeus tells him that the suitors will kill him and urges him to stay. Telemachus will help him when he returns. Odysseus thanks Eumaeus, saying the worst thing humans endure is homelessness. Odysseus asks whether Eumaeus became enslaved because he lived “in a city that was sacked” (363) or because he was kidnapped by bandits. Eumaeus tells his story.
His father, Ctesius, was a king. Phoenician merchants came to his region and seduced a Phoenician slave in his household, offering to bring her home to her wealthy father. She promised to steal treasure from the house and to provide Eumaeus, who was then a child and could be sold for a good price, as extra payment. After a year accumulating wealth through trade, the Phoenicians prepared to sail. The Phoenician woman boarded the ship with Eumaeus but died on board and was thrown into the sea. The ship landed in Ithaca, and Laertes bought Eumaeus. Anticleia raised him alongside her daughter.
Book 16 Summary: “Father and Son”
Father and son reunite and plan to destroy the suitors, with Athena and Zeus’s help.
The following day Telemachus returns to Eumaeus’s farmhouse. Eumaeus weeps, embraces, and kisses him as if he were Telemachus’s own father. Eumaeus confirms that Penelope remains loyal. Odysseus offers his seat, but Telemachus refuses, saying the slaves will find him another. Eumaeus prepares food.
When Telemachus asks about the stranger, meaning Odysseus, Eumaeus provides a short version of his story, then says that he is Telemachus’s suppliant. Telemachus worries that he is too young and outnumbered to defend the suppliant if the suitors attack him. He will provide the stranger with clothes and asks that Eumaeus keep him at his farmhouse.
Odysseus rails against the suitors’ offenses, saying that he “would rather die / in my own house, than watch such crimes committed” (373). He asks if a god has turned the Ithacans against him or if he has brothers to blame. Telemachus explains that neither is the case. The suitors have invaded. Penelope cannot decide whether to remain with her son, respecting her husband’s bed and “public gossip,” or to marry the suitor who most forcefully “asserts himself” and “brings most lavish gifts” (372). The gods will decide the outcome. Telemachus sends Eumaeus to inform Penelope of his return.
After Eumaeus leaves, Athena appears to Odysseus, telling him that the time has come to reveal himself to his son and plot the suitors’ destruction. She restores him to a youthful appearance with fine clothes. Seeing the stranger’s transformation, Telemachus thinks he is a god. Odysseus identifies himself, but Telemachus does not believe him, since only a god could transform himself. Odysseus credits Athena, and Telemachus finally accepts him. Father and son embrace and weep.
Odysseus repeats Athena’s instructions. Telemachus is concerned that they are badly outnumbered and would need help. Odysseus reminds him that Athena and Zeus will provide all the help they need. He instructs Telemachus to return to the palace. Odysseus will return later, in his disguise, with Eumaeus. If the suitors abuse him, Telemachus should not react strongly, only politely tell them to stop, which they will ignore. When Odysseus gives the signal, Telemachus must gather and hide all the weapons, leaving only two swords, shields, and spears for his and Odysseus’s use. When the suitors ask about their weapons, Telemachus should tell them that he removed them for cleaning and because he was concerned they would inspire the suitors to use them against each other during their drunken quarrels. Telemachus should not reveal that Odysseus has returned to anyone. They must first test their slaves’s loyalty, the women’s in particular.
Eurymachus informs the suitors of Telemachus’s return. Antinous calls for them to plot another way to kill him. If the public learns of the suitors’ first failed attempt, public sentiment will turn against them. Their courtship of Penelope will be ruined, and they may be “driven from our land, / to foreign territories” (382). They should rob him and let Penelope decide who to marry. If they are not willing to kill Telemachus, they should leave him his wealth, return to their own homes, and court Penelope by sending gifts. Amphinomous replies that they should determine “the gods’ intentions” before acting (382). The others agree, and they return to feasting.
Having heard of the suitors’ murder plot from Medon, Penelope decides to appear before the suitors. She confronts Antinous, accusing him of having no respect for Zeus’s protection of suppliants and reminding him of how Odysseus protected his father when he was vulnerable. She demands that the suitors stop. Eurymachus assures her that Telemachus is in no danger from the suitors, though he is secretly plotting to kill him. Penelope returns to her rooms and weeps.
Books 13-16 Analysis
Though he has faith in Penelope’s loyalty, Odysseus returning to Ithaca in disguise demonstrates his prudence and self-control. Agamemnon expected to be welcomed with open arms and ended up dead. Odysseus will not make the same assumptions or mistakes. Even with Penelope’s loyalty, he recognizes the importance of assessing the situation before determining the proper course of action. This accords with his tendency for deliberation and prudent decision-making throughout the poem.
When he meets Athena in disguise, he introduces himself as a suppliant who fled from Crete after killing a man. This version of his story allows him to declare himself in need of protection but not weak or physically vulnerable to attack. It is a calculated effort to appeal to the audience he believes himself to be addressing—a shepherd who might decide to take advantage of him. When he tells his story to Eumaeus, Odysseus sticks to his basic script—he is an exile from Crete—but he foregrounds details intended to appeal to what he knows about Eumaeus’s own experiences. Odysseus would have known that Eumaeus was a king’s son who was kidnapped and sold into slavery even before he tells the story. To heighten Eumaeus’s sympathy for him, Odysseus also embellishes his story, incorporating elements of his own experience during his wandering.
Some scholars have theorized that the shifting nature of Odysseus’s lying tales point to a historic element of epic performance: Bards may have composed epics in performance, possibly with no two versions being exactly the same. They would discern what details appealed to their audiences and emphasize those. In the context of the Odyssey’s narrative, the tales’ different emphases demonstrate Odysseus’s adaptability and his skill at public speaking, both considered virtues in the Homeric world.
Wilson’s translation uses English words associated with slavery in the antebellum American South, such as “master” and “house slave,” but enslavement in the Homeric world differed in significant ways that are essential to understanding the narrative. Though he already likely knows Eumaeus’s story, Odysseus in disguise asks Eumaeus whether his enslavement resulted from being kidnapped or having his city sacked. Odysseus’s assumption that one of these two happened to Eumaeus demonstrates the fluidity of enslavement in the Homeric world: One could wake up a prince and fall asleep a slave. Though Eumaeus blames Phoenician traders for his enslavement, no proscriptions prevent Greeks from enslaving other Greeks or slaves from themselves owning slaves (as Eumaeus does). Eumaeus has a genealogy (as does Eurycleia) because enslavement is not identity; family lineage and place of origin are.
Odysseus’s assumed identity—as the son of a nobleman and an enslaved woman—reveals another significant difference between modern and ancient slavery. In the Homeric world, sons born of enslaved women and noblemen belong to their fathers and would be provided for and acknowledged as such. Though Homeric marriages are almost always between one man and one woman, there is no proscription against men fathering children with enslaved women, and these children are not necessarily defined by their mothers’ enslavement.
Just slavery means something different in the ancient world, murder also has different connotations and consequences. Societies in the Homeric world do not have governments with secular, human laws as they exist today. The gods set the rules that govern human behavior, and humans observe them because they fear the gods’ powers. To what extent this was true in the real world of antiquity is an ongoing debate, but in the Homeric world, the characters believe in the gods, who are active and powerful presences. The gods have no explicit, blanket rules against murder. Murderers need to purify themselves, but their act of murder is not always necessarily wrong. It is a private matter that is dealt with by those directly affected. This is why Theoclymenus does not hesitate to reveal that he is fleeing because he murdered someone, and why Telemachus does not hesitate to accept him as a suppliant. Murder’s potential justifiability and definition as a private issue among injured parties becomes especially clear after the suitors’ slaughter in Books 23 and 24.
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