The Odyssey Book 19: Penelope and Her Guest Night, fire, torchlight and shadows are the backdrop for this essential scene in The Odyssey. Through gradual stages Penelope feels her way towards making the crucial decision to set the contest of the bow. She understands the situation clearly. She recognizes that Telemachus is now in danger because he has come of age, and she must act before a suitor eliminates his claim to the inheritance.  Penelope's response to the hints that Odysseus may be coming home is complex and intuitive. She feels her way into understanding. She receives the omens of his return joyfully but pessimistically. Dreams and omens may be false precisely when she wants them to be true. She must allow her heart to reawaken before she sees the beggar with new eyes. Odysseus' test of Penelope seems cruel. He deliberately tells her stories that reawaken her memories of their life together. He reminds her of their past happiness, their harmonious kingdom, and secrets that only lovers would know. Yet he refuses to reveal his identity. What is he doing? Notice also Penelope's responses. She confides truthfully with the beggar and shares her secrets. She traverses many emotions in her reawakening and weeps many tears, but she concludes the interview by declaring that she is ready to remarry. What is the secret sub-text to the scene? How does it relate to the whole poem's most important themes? 19. 105ff The Interview - It is late at night. In the background the servants are clearing away the remains of the feast. Penelope invites the beggar to sit with her near the fire. The shadows on their faces are illuminated by flickering light. - Odysseus begins by complimenting Penelope in a particular fashion. He compares her fame to that of some god-fearing king who rules well and whose land is therefore prosperous. (19. 117-128) The compliment is formal and proper, but both know that the kingdom is in shambles. If anything, Odysseus is trying to remind Penelope of how things once were on Ithaca. He is moved, but he masks his emotion by suggesting that he is just homesick. (Tears are a typical beggar's ploy to enforce sympathy.) - Penelope's responds to his compliment by admitting the loss of her physical beauty. And she pours out all of her frustrations to this stranger. (Does she tell her troubles to every stranger who happens along?) She admits that she has done a lousy job of keeping the country in order during Odysseus' absence. Her grief has prevented her from attending adequately to public duties. She tells of her failed ruse weaving and unweaving the shroud of Laertes. She confides her worries about Telemachus' situation and admits that she can no longer postpone a decision. (19.138-85) - Odysseus next spins a story in which he claims a royal ancestry. Now he is the brother of Idomeneus, the King of Crete. He claims that he met with Odysseus once while the hero was enroute to Troy and re-supplied his vessels. - Penelope weeps when she hears this story. Homer uses a remarkable soliloquy to describe her emotions. Why is Odysseus causing her such pain? Why does Homer describe it with such beauty? - "As she listened on, her tears flowed and soaked her cheeks/as the heavy snow melts down from the high mountain ridges,/snow the West Wind piles there and the warm East Wind thaws/and the snow, melting, swells the rivers to overflow their banks-/so she dissolved in tears, streaming down her lovely cheeks,/weeping for her husband, sitting there beside her." (19.235-241)  - Odysseus controls his emotions even though his heart goes out to his wife. Why? - Penelope tests the veracity of this story by asking for further proof of its truth. She asks the beggar what Odysseus was wearing, and he describes the brooch Odysseus wore to pin his purple cloak. It pictures "a hound clenching a dappled fawn in its front paws…" (19.264) - Penelope weeps again, but this time for a different reason. She believes the story but is now convinced that Odysseus is dead. Previously her grief had been tinged by hope, but now her grief is suddenly alive. Odysseus forces her to feel more pain by alluding to their love making (19.305) while comforting her with rumors and omens which claim that Odysseus is still alive and enroute home. But Penelope knows that omens can lie. She will no longer allow herself the luxury of hope. She even doubts that he ever existed. (19. 362) - Penelope then terminates the interview. She dismisses the beggar and orders her maids to bathe this stranger and prepare a comfortable bed for him. Odysseus responds in a notable manner: instead of talking about Odysseus, he speaks like him: he doesn't want to be bathed by maids! He's not that sort of beggar! (19. 385-397) - Penelope laughingly tells him that old Eurykleia will look after his needs! She refers to the beggar's aging hands and feet and wonders what Odysseus' own hands must look like now, after so many years. (19.402-409) (Odysseus' ruse has worked. She believes that he is alive once again.) - While bathing Odysseus she touches the old boar's tusk scar on his thigh and instantly recognizes the truth. Odysseus grabs her by the throat and threatens her with death if she reveals the secret before its proper time.  - Homer, in the midst of this highly dramatic moment, inserts a lengthy flashback. Why? It tells the story of the Boar's hunt where Odysseus was wounded and how Odysseus was named. His grandfather Autolycus the thief named him Odysseus, the Son of Pain. (gr. odousamenos: a man who deals out and incurs hatred)  - Interpret the final moments of the scene:  Does Penelope signal Odysseus that she now recognizes him? - Odysseus returns to the fireside and Penelope describes her heart as singing like a nightingale in mourning for her dead son who had been killed by her husband in a fit of madness. (19.585) She asks the beggar what she should do. Will her son send her away if she remarries? The beggar does not respond. Then Penelope asks him to interpret a dream she once had about a mountain eagle sweeping down and killing her geese. She says that the eagle had told her that he was her husband and the dead geese her suitors. The beggar replies, "Odysseus told you himself- he'll make it come to pass." (19.625) Penelope responds that the dream might be false, issuing from the Gates of Ivory. She concludes that she will force the issue by declaring the Contest of the Bow. The Beggar agrees.