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The dinner indeed had been prepared amid much merriment; it had been both good and abundant, for they had sacrificed many victims; but the supper was yet to come, and nothing can be conceived more gruesome than the meal which a goddess and a brave man were soon to lay before [the suitors] – for they had brought their doom upon themselves.
Odyssey, Book 20; Samuel Butler translation
Book 20 Summary
A group of maidservants leave the house to go sleep with the suitors which angers the disguised Odysseus. He has to force himself to calm down, but nonetheless is unable to sleep. Athena visits and encourages Odysseus that his plans will succeed before causing him to sleep.
In the morning, Odysseus wakes up and prays for a sign from Zeus concerning his success and Zeus answers with thunder which causes one of the serving women to pray for Odysseus’ return. After this, the household awakens and prepares for the suitors’ arrival. Odysseus chats with the swineherd, gets heckled by the goatherd again, and is introduced to the stockman Philoetius, who treats the disguised Odysseus well and wishes for Odysseus’ return.
Meanwhile, the suitors plot again to murder Telemachus, but a bad omen deters them and they go inside Odysseus’ house to eat. Telemachus gives the disguised Odysseus a better place to sit and eat, telling the suitors to not bother him. Nonetheless, one of the suitors throws a piece of meat at Odysseus which he effortlessly dodges. Telemachus rebukes the suitor and another of the suitors tells the rest to not harass Odysseus anymore.
Athena then makes the suitors temporarily insane with uncontrollable laughter and tears. Theoclymenus, Telemachus’ suppliant, predicts disaster for the suitors and leaves the house to get far away from them.
Building Up to the Main Event
The moment when Odysseus will confront the suitors has been building up since practically the beginning of the poem. As soon as the suitors were introduced as antagonists eating up Odysseus’ estate and going after his wife, we knew that at some point there would have to be conflict.
Ever since Odysseus returned to Ithaca, the build up to the confrontation rose. When Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, finally meets the suitors, the build up accelerated. We, the audience, who know the extent of the suitors’ sins, that the beggar is Odysseus biding his time to get his revenge, and the gods’ intention to have the suitors punished, feel the anticipation.
Book 20 is the biggest escalation yet—and it comes in the form of omens.
The first omen is the one Odysseus prays for and Zeus answers in the form of thunder followed by one of the miller women praying that it be the last day the suitors eat in the house of Odysseus.
The second omen comes when the suitors begin to plot the murder of Telemachus yet again, only this time an eagle with a dove in its talons passes on their left (a bad sign in ancient Greek culture). One of the suitors say the plot would fail if they tried, the rest agree, and they go in the house to eat.
I have to wonder if this second omen has a continuity issue. Recall that in Book 2 when Telemachus held an assembly and called out the suitors, he says:
“If, on the other hand, you elect to persist in spunging upon one man, heaven help me, but Jove shall reckon with you in full, and when you fall in my father’s house there shall be no man to avenge you.”
Odyssey, Book 2; Samuel Butler translation
After he said that, a bird omen appeared.
As he spoke Jove sent two eagles from the top of the mountain, and they flew on and on with the wind, sailing side by side in their own lordly flight. When they were right over the middle of the assembly they wheeled and circled about, beating the air with their wings and glaring death into the eyes of them that were below; then, fighting fiercely and tearing at one another, they flew off towards the right over the town.
Odyssey, Book 2; Samuel Butler translation
When a well known prophet in Ithaca interprets the omen as a sign that Odysseus was coming back soon and the suitors better look out, one of the leaders of the suitors, Eurymachus, verbally abused the prophet and the suitors dismissed the omen.
The suitors also ignored other signs that they may be in the wrong like:
A report that one of the Ithacan elders was in two places at once (one was Athena in disguise traveling with Telemachus, the other was the actual person still in town).
Telemachus somehow evading the suitors’ ambush on his return from Pylos
The suitors also dismiss the third omen which I will discuss shortly. So, the suitors are quick to dismiss every other omen or bad sign they’ve witnessed, but choose to heed this one particular omen?
The only reason I can think of as to why is that all the other omens pertained to Odysseus coming back or to their bad behavior regarding their wooing of Penelope whereas this particular omen regards specifically to murdering Telemachus. Perhaps murdering Telemachus is something they don’t really want to do and so are more likely to heed the bad omen? By contrast, they really want to marry Penelope, and so will ignore all the signs that something is wrong.
This is something I understand all too well—wanting to believe so badly that something you are a part of is good, or wanting something so desperately, that you are blind to or flat out ignore the red flags waving right in your face. And it’s only when it blows up in spectacular fashion that you’re forced to acknowledge the warning signs that were there the whole time—assuming you’re not destroyed in the process.
The third omen comes toward the end of Book 20. This one is the most ominous, not to mention creepiest.
After Telemachus tells the suitors he’s not against his mother remarrying, but he refuses to force her to leave the house, this happens.
Minerva no made the suitors fall to laughing immoderately, and set their wits wandering; but they were laughing with a forced laughter. Their meat became smeared with blood; their eyes filled with tears, and their hearts were heavy with forebodings. Theoclymenus saw this and said, “Unhappy men, what is it that ails you? There is a shroud of darkness drawn over you from head to foot, your cheeks are wet with tears; the air is alive with wailing voices; the walls and roof-beams drip blood; the gate of the cloisters and the court beyond them are full of ghosts trooping down into the night of hell; the sun is blotted out of heaven, and a blighting gloom is over all the land.”
Odyssey, Book 20; Samuel Butler translation
Theoclymenus is so freaked out by the vision he sees that he leaves the house to get far away from the suitors.
So, basically, Athena causes the suitors to go temporarily insane and Theoclymenus sees something disturbing and near apocalyptic.
It’s a chilling scene, but it also builds anticipation. The doom of the suitors draws near. Today will be their last. All that awaits them is slaughter.
And we can’t wait for it.
Success Breeds Success
The disguised Odysseus, laying down at the entrance to his house to sleep, watches as a group of his maidservants sneaking out of the house to go sleep with the suitors. This angers Odysseus so much that he considers killing them right then and there. However, he holds himself back. It isn’t time to put his revenge into motion.
What stood out to me, though, was how he held himself back.
“His heart growled with anger at the evil deeds that were being done: but he beat his breast and said, ‘Heart, be still, you had worse than this to bear on the day when the terrible Cyclops ate your brave companions; yet you bore it in silence till your cunning got you safe out of the cave, though you made sure of being killed.’ Thus he chided with his heart, and checked it into endurance…”
Odyssey, Book 20; Samuel Butler translation
Side note: I had to look at other translations to see what Odysseus meant by “though you made sure of being killed.” Basically, Odysseus thought he was going to die in that cave.
Odysseus did two things there:
He hit himself. This, I’m guessing, was to disrupt the chain of thoughts that would have caused him to make a bad choice. This kept a negative feedback loop from starting in his mind.
He reminded himself of a time where he was in a worse situation and managed to get out of it using his wits and remaining calm.
Doing both of these calmed him down and prevented him from making a rash decision.
I want to focus mostly on the second thing Odysseus did. He reflected on a time where he successfully navigated a situation that was far worse than the one he is in now with the suitors. He used a past success to create a present success which is going to create a future success.
This is a very powerful thing—using our past successes to give us enough resolve to carry out a present success. This can happen in two ways:
Have a string of small, present victories that amounts to a larger, future victory.
I’ll give a personal example. Today, I’m getting up at a time in the morning that even six months ago I never thought I would be able to do (I’m writing this on December 2, 2022). In fact, I outright refused to get up before a certain time, and even that time I didn’t like getting up. I didn’t have much a choice though: it was sleep in or lose my job.
I’m someone who highly values my sleep and my free time. The earlier I get up in the morning, the earlier I have to go to bed in the evening. The earlier I have to go to bed, the less free time I have after work to eat dinner and relax. Plus, at least starting out, I know I would have a hard time going to sleep soon enough to get those precious eight hours of sleep.
So, how did I do it? I got up five minutes earlier every morning until I reached my goal. Lets say I started at 7:00am. The next morning I got up at 6:55. The morning after that: 6:50. And so on and so forth.
And you know what happened? I began to think, “If I can get up at 6:50, I can get up at 6:45. It’s only five minutes. How much difference would it make if I got up at 6:45 rather than 6:50?” And those thoughts carried on from 6:45 to 6:40, from 6:40 to 6:35, etc.
Pretty soon I reached my target goal. A string of small, five minute victories led to a larger, one hour victory.
Using a victory over a huge challenge from the past to encourage you during a present, lesser challenge.
The explanation for this is pretty simple: “If I was able to accomplish something big like x, then I can accomplish y because y is not as difficult to do as x.”
Going back to my personal example: after I had achieved my goal and kept it up for a bit I thought, “This isn’t so bad. I should get up even earlier so I have even more time in the morning.” And so I began to get up five minutes earlier every day after that until I achieved my new goal.
I used my past victory over the challenge of getting up one hour earlier to encourage myself to get up 30 minutes earlier than that. 30 minutes is small potatoes compared to one hour. As a result, I now have the success of getting up 1.5 hours earlier than I need to in the morning. If I decided one day to get up 30 minutes earlier than that, I have an even bigger success to encourage me than before. 30 minutes is even smaller potatoes compared to 1.5 hours.
It doesn’t have to be getting up earlier. It could be exercise, reading a book, cleaning your house, etc. “If I can do one push-up, I can do two.” “If I can read five pages, I can read six.” “If I can clean the counter, I can clean the sink.” Rinse and repeat until you achieve your desired goal.
If you want a better explanation of this philosophy, I recommend reading the book The Slight Edge by Jeff Olsen.
That’s all for Book 20 of the Odyssey.
May your days be filled with grace.
-Andronikos
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Thumbnail: Photograph of a Golden Eagle which were associated with Zeus. Seeing one was considered an omen by Zeus.