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But Ulysses, when he had taken [the bow] up and examined it all over, strung it as easily as a skilled bard strings a new peg of his lyre and makes the twisted gut fast at both ends. Then he took it in his right hand to prove the string, and it sang sweetly under his touch like the twittering of a swallow. The suitors were dismayed, and turned colour as they heard it; at that moment, moreover, Jove thundered loudly as a sign, and the heart of Ulysses rejoiced as he heard the omen that the son of scheming Saturn had sent him.
Odyssey, Book 21; Samuel Butler translation
Book 21 Summary
Penelope goes into the locked storeroom where Odysseus’ treasures and valuables reside and takes out his bow. She presents herself to the suitors and tells them her challenge: whichever of them can string the bow and shoot an arrow through a row of twelve axes can marry her. Telemachus also joins the contest in order to stand up to the suitors and keep them from marrying his mother.
Telemachus goes first and almost successfully strings the bow, but Odysseus gives him a sign to give up and Telemachus pretends to fail. After this, all of the suitors except the ringleaders Antinous and Eurymachus come up to string the bow, but they all fail even after softening it up to make it more bendable.
When Eumaeus the swineherd and Philoetius the stockman leave the area, the disguised Odysseus follows them and reveals his identity to them after confirming their loyalty. He instructs them to enter the house after he does, close and lock the doors and outside gates, order the maidservants to stay in their rooms, and for Eumaeus to hand Odysseus the bow after all the suitors try to string it.
After Eurymachus tries and fails to string the bow, the disguised Odysseus asks if he can give it a try which angers the suitors. When Antinous threatens him with exile and death, Penelope tells him to let the beggar try. Even if he succeeds, is he in any position to marry her?
Telemachus tells Penelope to go into her room and has the bow given to Odysseus. Odysseus looks it over, strings it, and shoots an arrow through all twelve of the axes, shocking the suitors. Odysseus then gives a sign to Telemachus that the slaughtering of the suitors is about to begin.
Telemachus’ Growth
We’ve watched Telemachus’ growth as we’ve gone through the Odyssey. When we were first introduced to him, he was sitting in his house, brooding over the situation with the suitors but not really doing anything about it. And, who would blame him? He grew up without a father or any solid male role models. He was still a child when the suitors first showed up. Plus, there’s a 108 of them as we later found out!
But then, Athena sends Telemachus off on a quest: to find out more about his father Odysseus and whether he might still be alive. She tells him to “Make yourself a name in story.” Even the acceptance of this quest, the taking on of this goal, changes Telemachus. He gains a little bit more confidence, he gets enough courage to call the first assembly since Odysseus left for the Trojan War to publicly confront the suitors, and he actually goes on the voyage.
When Telemachus comes back from his quest and fulfills his goal, he’s a changed man. Even more important, he is now competent enough to help Odysseus with his revenge against the suitors.
Now, in Book 22, we see the culmination of Telemachus’ growth in his attempt to string Odysseus’ bow. He tries and fails three times. Telemachus fails, but he doesn’t give up. On the fourth attempt, he would have succeeded in stringing the bow, but Odysseus gives him a sign to stop and Telemachus pretends to fail again and give up.
None of the other suitors, as we find out, will be able to string Odysseus’ bow. Not only has Telemachus surpassed the suitors, he is now equal to Odysseus in regards to stringing his bow. He can now do something that before only his father was able to do.
Telemachus moves that much closer to being just as great as Odysseus.
This is the power of adventure—of setting a challenging, risky, and fulfilling goal and achieving it.
The Unworthiness of the Suitors
In contrast, none of the suitors were capable of stringing Odysseus’ bow (except one because he never got a chance to string it). In fact, we see some of their insecurities come to light.
[Antinous]: “There is not a man of us all who is such another as Ulysses; for I have seen him and remember him, though I was then only a child.”
[Leiodes]: “My friends, I cannot string it; let another have it, this bow shall take the life and soul out of many a chief among us…”
[Eurymachus]: “I grieve for myself and for us all; I grieve that I shall have to forgo the marriage, but I do not care nearly so much about this, for there are plenty of other women in Ithaca and elsewhere; what I feel most is the fact of our being so inferior to Ulysses in strength that we cannot string his bow. This will disgrace us in the eyes of those who are yet unborn.”
Odyssey, Book 21; Samuel Butler translation
When it came time to prove their worth, to prove that they were equals to Odysseus and therefore good enough to marry Penelope, the suitors failed miserably.
The suitors proved to be all talk once again. All they were good at doing was eating up the estate of another man, lust after his wife, bully his son, sleep with his maidservants, order around his other servants, and play, while that man was away and unable to defend his property and family.
The suitors squandered all of that time with leisure and misdeeds when they could have been improving their bodies, minds, and characters and working toward more reasonable goals. Instead, they just forcibly took what Odysseus had and used coercion to get, or try to get, people to do their will, rather than work hard to obtain it fairly for themselves.
And what did they gain from those years of force and coercion?
Living the life of a king for a few years, followed by a painful death and eternal infamy.
That’s all for Book 21 of the Odyssey.
May your days be filled with grace.
-Andronikos
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Thumbnail: Penelope Weeping Over the Bow of Ulysses by Angelica Kauffman, c. 1779. Public domain.