The Odyssey Books 20-21 with Thomas Lackey and Dr. Grabowski

Summary

Ascend – The Great Books Podcast

The Odyssey Books 20–21: Prophecy, Portents, and the Test of the Bow

Host: Deacon Harrison Garlick & Adam Minihan
Guests: Dr. Frank Hrabowski, Thomas Lackey
Date: June 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Ascend continues the deep-dive into Homer’s Odyssey, exploring Books 20 and 21. As the narrative approaches the highly anticipated “slaughter of the suitors” in Book 22, hosts and guests discuss the building tension, the growing sense of divine fate, themes of justice, hospitality (xenia), loyalty, and the intricacies of Penelope’s famed test with Odysseus’ bow. The conversation blends literary analysis, historical/cultural context, and recurring philosophical and theological motifs, weaving together Homeric anthropology, Greek ritual, and even Christological parallels.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Building Suspense & Portents Gather (Book 20 Discussion)

Key Scene Recap:

• Odysseus, disguised as the beggar, lies sleepless, outraged at the faithlessness within his house (00:00–08:56).
• He prays to Zeus for a sign; his prayer is answered (see OMEN discussion).
• Preparations begin for a feast in honor of Apollo, introducing a context rich with ritual symbolism.
• New characters: The cowherd (distinct from the goatherd) is introduced as a loyal servant who immediately recognizes something Odysseus-like in the beggar.
• Athena stirs the suitors into a frenzy; prophetic visions abound, notably Theoclymenus foreseeing blood and doom in Odysseus’ halls.
• Ominous similes invoke both pathos and dark comedy.

Notable Analysis & Quotes:

• On Odysseus’ Discursive Self-Mastery:

  “Odysseus speaks to himself again. Bear up, old heart. You've borne worse, far worse...Odysseus is able to contemplate these things internally inside of himself. And so I think that…it's another thing to pay attention to...the maturation of Homer's anthropology.”
  – Harrison Garlick (08:56)

• Homeric Anthropology & the Thumos:

  “He was plotting within his Thumas...It doesn't seem to be just a kind of spiritedness, but there's a kind of intellect...There's an intellectual component here.”
  – Dr. Frank Hrabowski (10:34)

• On the Problem of Vengeance and Divine Justice:
  Odysseus seeks Athena’s counsel for both defeating the suitors and surviving the cycle of vengeance, paralleling the themes of the Oresteia (13:45+). Athena gives a “non-answer”—“have faith”—prompting Odysseus to seek a confirming sign from Zeus.

• The “Inside-the-Prophecy” Dilemma:

  “Being inside the prophecy has a very different view than being outside it…the characters…have a very hard time situating themselves in it even as it unfolds around them.”
  – Thomas Lackey (14:21)

• Similes and Domestic Idioms:
  Odysseus’ intense emotion is rendered in striking, even humorous, similes—“as a bitch mounting over her weak, defenseless puppies” and as “sizzling sausages back and forth, packed with fat and blood” (17:50).

  “The sausage is just a comical simile....it conveys just how hot and steaming Odysseus is at the moment.”
  – Dr. Hrabowski (17:58)

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2. Prophecy, Fate, and the Point of No Return

Theoclymenus’ Prophecy & Divine Intervention:

• Athena accelerates the suitors’ folly, paralleling passages like the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart (“giving the suitors over to their worst actions”) (33:16).
• Theoclymenus receives a vision of the blood-drenched hall, warning the suitors, who dismiss him as mad (40:00).
• The hosts discuss how the suitors, especially the “lukewarm,” are damned along with the worst, for failing to act on warnings or leave the house—raising questions about degrees of culpability and the nature of repentance.

Quote:

“Athena had no mind to let the brazen suitors hold back…She meant to make the anguish cut still deeper…Not only is she not allowing them to repent, she's actually goading them into being worse.”
– Harrison Garlick (39:11)

"[Theoclymenus] delivers the warning. And it's, it's. They'll either heed it or not. But...you can't do...what Laodice does, which is to stay. Continue to offer the sacrifices, continue to give presumably them the...What good is it to continue sacrificing to gods that you are offending daily?"
– Thomas Lackey (40:00)

Parallel Noted:

• The fates of the “lukewarm” suitors echo Christological admonitions: the time for repentance has already passed (35:40).

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3. Loyalty, Recognition, and Social Class in Odysseus' Circle

• The swineherd and new cowherd epitomize loyalty, in stark contrast to the aristocratic suitors (24:20).
• Homer addresses the common folk, elevating their virtue and perhaps directly addressing his own audience (even addressing Eumaeus in second person).
• The discussion draws a clear analogy between the “salt of the earth” followers of Odysseus and the apostles chosen by Christ—not the mighty, but the humble and just (29:22).

Quote:

“No, it is quite noteworthy…that Homer, he elevates these…salt of the earth, these farmers, these, these husbandry men...not ordinarily whom we would think to be part of the Magnificent Seven or the Justice League. So...Homer's doing something here that's quite interesting and maybe even quite subversive for his audience.”
– Dr. Hrabowski (26:16)

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4. The Test of the Bow (Book 21 Discussion)

Origins and Meaning of the Bow

• Odysseus’ bow is not a war-bow but a symbol of guest-friendship (xenia), received as a gift—a powerful sign for the present drama (47:15).
• The backstory is steeped in violations of guest-friendship, notably Heracles’ killing of the bow’s former owner, underlining the story’s central moral themes.

“This gift of guest friendship is going to be what the suitors ultimately fail to pass...the test of stringing this bow.”
– Dr. Hrabowski (47:15)

Penelope’s Agency and Motivations

• Penelope sets the test only after her conversation with “the beggar/Odysseus,” signaling acute intuition or partial recognition (47:39).
• By championing the beggar’s right to participate, Penelope acts both as advocate and enabler of fate.

“She sets up this contest and she's going to be an advocate for the beggar to win. I mean, come on, it's like she has to have some...if the cowherd can look at him and say he looks like Odysseus, it's really hard to believe that his own wife does not.”
– Harrison Garlick (72:14)

Telemachus’ Maturation and Role Play

• Observes the narrative symmetry (“bookending”) between early Telemachus and his present readiness, both in action and rhetoric (20:37–23:33).
• Telemachus attempts the bow and “fails”—but it’s revealed via a signal from Odysseus that he could have succeeded, demonstrating his coming-of-age and cleverness (an Odyssean trait).

Quote:

“He tries it three times and fails; on the fourth time he starts to do it, and at a look from his father, he stops….What Odysseus does easily, Telemachus does with effort. He's not fully his dad yet, but...among all the men...he is finally becoming, in close to at least the image of his father.”
– Thomas Lackey (53:04)

Techne and Ritual: The Bow as Symbol

• The use of fire and lard to “limber” the bow is debated; is it a sign of ignorant amateurism or part of a ritual of anointing, paralleling sacrificial rites? (60:47+)
• The act is interpreted as an unwitting ritual; the suitors prepare their own doom, “anointing” the instrument of their destruction.

Quote:

“There's irony there, but...it's hard to escape the language here of ritual...they're anointing this weapon that will eventually result in their deaths with an oil, much like we would anoint an altar...or ourselves ritualistically.”
– Dr. Frank Hrabowski (63:03)

The Stringing of the Bow: Strength, Skill, and Recognition

• When Odysseus strings the bow, Homer uses the simile of a musician skillfully plucking a string, emphasizing his unique techne rather than brute strength (72:14, 76:39).
• Zeus’ thunder signals divine confirmation of Odysseus’ role and right.

Quote:

“Odysseus strung his mighty bow. Quickly his right hand plucked the string to test its pitch and under his touch it sang out clear and sharp as a swallow's cry. Horror swept through the suitors…”
– Harrison Garlick (quote paraphrased, 72:14)

The Ironic Sacrifice: Ritual and Libation

• As Apollo’s feast day unfolds, the suitors ironically offer libations to the archer god just before their own deaths are decreed (68:20).
• Several remarks link the suitors' behavior to the Euthyphro dilemma—the folly of relying on sacrificial transaction over inner piety (68:41+).

The Failures of the Priest/Suitor

• Leodes, the prophetic suitor, acknowledges the bow will “break the spirit of many”—but neither he nor the “better” suitors heed the signs or choose to leave (56:48, 58:18).
• Their “lukewarm” objections cannot spare them from the judgment soon to come.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On the Parallel Between Greek Narrative and Gospel Imagery:

  “It is hard not...to draw a parallel between Odysseus and Christ. Christ...picks fishermen, tax collectors and you see...the longing for justice that is deeply imprinted within the hearts of these, these salt-of-the-earth men.”
  – Dr. Hrabowski (29:22)

• On the Folly of the Suitors:

  “We fall so short of great Odysseus’ strength, we cannot string his bow. A disgrace to ring in the ears of men to come.”
  – Eurymachus, quoted at 67:04 (paraphrased by the panel)

• On Piety and Divine Justice:

  “Can you just buy the gods off with sacrifices? I think, I think Homer is presenting that as a hard no.”
  – Thomas Lackey (68:20)

• Athena’s Goading and Culpability:

  “Athena had no mind to let the brazen suitors hold back now from their heartrending insults. She meant to make the anguish cut still deeper into...Odysseus.”
  – Narrated by Harrison Garlick (39:11)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• 00:00-10:00 – Intro, recap, key themes: prophecy, guest-friendship, psychology of Odysseus
• 10:00-23:00 – Anthology and pedagogy, dramatic structure, maturation of Telemachus
• 23:00-29:00 – Loyalty, social class, importance of the cowherd and swineherd, Christ-analogies
• 33:00-42:00 – Divine intervention, point of no return, Theoclymenus' prophecy, “lukewarm” suitors
• 47:00-56:00 – The history and symbolism of the bow, Penelope’s role
• 60:00-65:00 – Techne, ritual, the “anointing” of the bow, irony of the suitors’ actions
• 68:00-73:00 – Libations, Euthyphro problem, the limits of sacrificial piety
• 76:00-80:00 – Odysseus strings the bow, similes of music and skill, Zeus’ thunder
• 81:00–end – Foreshadowing Book 22: ritual cleansing, sacrificial language, importance of loyalty, concluding thoughts

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Looking Ahead: Foreshadowing Book 22

Hosts and guests close by urging listeners to pay attention to the following themes in the coming “slaughter in the hall”:

• The ritualistic, sacrificial language describing the suitors’ deaths.
• The centrality of loyalty—and harsher judgment for those closest to the household who were faithless.
• The significance of ritual purification of the house, and the fate of the disloyal maidservants.
• Homer's intentional blending of food (feasting) and gore as motifs, linking back to earlier tales of guest-friendship violated.
• The final gathering of narrative threads: vengeance, justice, and the restoration of cosmic and domestic order.

Quote:

“Loyalty is the standard by which things are judged. And...the closer you were to the house, in a lot of ways, the greater the betrayal.”
– Harrison Garlick (84:11)

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Final Thoughts

This episode intricately weaves narrative, symbolism, and philosophical interpretation, preparing listeners for the climactic justice of Book 22. Homer’s narrative artistry—his use of ritual, simile, and the interplay of fate, piety, and justice—is explored as both poetic and pedagogical, with the panel constantly returning to questions of loyalty, recognition, complicity, and the nuanced interplay between human and divine action.

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Next Episode:
Book 22, “Slaughter in the Hall,” with Dr. Alex Preux.
“Go read it. Read it twice. Watch for how Homer mixes food and gore, and for the language of sacrifice and purification.”

Transcript

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Today on Stand the Great Books podcast, we are continuing our 12 week journey through the Odyssey as we Discuss today books 20 and 21 as we really build up that suspense for the slaughter of the suitors. We're going to discuss the prophecy, the vision that Theo Clementis has of the house of Odysseus drenched in blood and gore. And also discuss the famous test, the test of Penelope as she brings out the bow of Odysseus as a test of the suitors. And then again next week, we're going to discuss the slaughter of the suitors book of 22 with Dr. Alex Preux. It's going to be a fantastic conversation. But before we jump into that, I just want to say that we are currently recording our episodes on Plato's Dialogues. We're going to discuss four kind of short, strange, forgotten dialogues after the Odyssey. We're going to discuss Hipparchus, lovers, Hippeis Minor and Ion. And two out of the four actually are set discussing Homer. They have a Homeric setting. We actually just discussed, just recorded on Hippeus Minor, discussing Achilles versus Odysseus. Are they both liars? Are they both the heroes? Are they both the best? It's a wonderful conversation. So if you enjoy a lot of the moral questions, a lot of the subtle philosophy of Homer, wait till Plato brings this out explicitly and asks very deep moral questions of the Homeric texts. It's very much worth your time. I look forward to discussing those texts with you. But today we're going to look at books 20 and 21 of the Odyssey. And as we have been, we're going to have recourse to our written guide. We have a written guide on The Odyssey, over 100 questions and read the summaries of what happens in book 20 and 21. All right. In book 20, the portents gather. After his conversation with Penelope, Odysseus the beggar lays in bed, alert to the fact the maidservants are leaving the house to go sleep with the suitors. Athena causes him to fall asleep. And in the morning, Odysseus prays to Zeus for an omen of support. His prayer is answered and his heart leapt up. Convinced he'd grind the scoundrels lives out in revenge. The palace is alive in preparation for a feast in honor of Apollo. We are introduced to a new character, the cowherd, who is immediately reminded of King Odysseus when he sees Odysseus the beggar for the first time. Thena stirs up the suitors and one of the suitors throws an ox hoof at Odysseus. Telemachus chastises a suitor and the suitors ask Telemachus to have Penelope choose a new husband. Athena whips the suitors up into a frenzy and the prophet Theocominas leaves the palace as he is so troubled by his visions of a house drenched in blood. The book ends with the suitors mocking Telemachus, Telemachus bearing it stoically while looking at his father and Penelope listening to every word said in the hall. All right, what happens in book 21? The time has come for Penelope's test and the slaughter of the suitors. Penelope brings out Odysseus bow, one he received as a gift of friendship, and Telemachus sets out a line of axe heads the suitors must shoot through. Telemachus gives the first attempt and fails to even bend the bow. Leodes, a suitor, attempts and fails to even bend the bow as well. Antinous, who has been mocking everybody, has the goatherd attempt to limber the bow with fire and grease. Meanwhile, Odysseus takes the cowherd and the swineherd out and reveals himself as their king. The three then plot the death of the suitors and return to the hall. Eurymachus tries and cannot even bend the bow. Antinous, noting that Penelope has given them a test of archery on the feast day of Apollo, leads the suitors in a libation to the archer God. Odysseus, the beggar asks to try and is mocked by the suitors. But with the help of Penelope, Telemachus and the swineherd, he is given the bow. The suitors look on with horror as he plucks the string with ease, like a musical virtuoso. Odysseus lets the arrow fly and the arrow passes through the axe heads perfectly. The book ends with Odysseus calling his son to arms, and as it is time to provide the suitors their supper. Welcome to Ascend the Great Books Podcast. My name is Deacon Harrison Garlick. I live in rural Oklahoma with my wife and five children, serve as a deacon at Holy Family Cathedral, and as Chancellor General Counsel of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa. My free time. I like to help people read the great books and that's our purpose here on Ascend the Great Books podcast. We can be like a small group as you read the great Books together. We'd love to be there with you. We've read the Greek plays, Plato, all kinds of good stuff. We've got some Platonic dialogues on the horizon. We're going to read short stories, a lot of short stories, and then dive back into Plato's Republic. Go check us out on X, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. We appreciate all of our supporters on Patreon who have access to some community chats, talk about the great books with other people who are working through them. And also we have written guides, question answer guides to help you or your small group. And go check out the greatbookspodcast.com okay, we are continuing our 12 week study of the Odyssey prior to the new Christopher Nolan movie coming out, which looks absolutely terrible, but I have to see the movie now because I promised that to you all and I regret it to a certain degree, but we'll have some kind of response episode, I guess. And so anyway, just say a prayer. And on a much happier note, Dr. Patrick Deneen of Notre Dame, author of why Liberalism Failed and Regime Change, will be joining us at the end of our study to discuss his new book, the American Odyssey, what An Ancient Story Reveals About Our Divided Souls, which is out July 21, which is the same day that our podcast will come out. Today, however, we are discussing books 20 and 21 of the Odyssey. We are joined again by Dr. Frank Grabowski, the dean of faculty at Holy Family Classical School, third order Franciscan diaconate candidate, friend, mentor, guide throughout the Odyssey. How are you doing today?

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

Doing great. It's Dr. Frank Hrabowski and my friend Mr. Darcy. He's decided to join us as well. So he's rather aloof, but today he bit more gregarious. He's excited about book 20, that's for sure. He's looking forward to the slaughter of the suitors, as I'm sure we all are.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, that's good. We could use a mascot on the podcast. We don't have a mascot. And welcoming back to the podcast after a long absence in which we were all very sad, but now the light has returned, we're welcoming back Mr. Thomas Lackey, Member of our Sunday Great Books group, independent, scholar, friend, gentleman, everything else. How are you, Thomas?

[Thomas Lackey]

Good. It's nice to be back. It's been too long.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, that's very good. You know, I just, I just want to say that the. I've deeply appreciated the opportunity to reread the Odyssey. Like, you know, we read it a few years ago. I appreciated that read. I think it set an absolute foundation to reading the Greek plays. So I guess if some people are kind of listening and following along, if you're like, where do we go after the Odyssey? Like, I don't Know if I'm ready to jump back into Plato, particularly if you're just kind of new to the great books. Reading the Greek plays is an amazing place, kind of a next step. And I really appreciate, as we move through those. But the opportunity to come back and visit the Odyssey, particularly after having read a lot of Plato, has actually been incredibly refreshing.

[Thomas Lackey]

I was also stunned at just how much I forgot. Right. So just rereading this section and a few, especially trying to like, dig into these, these particular two books. All the little details, you know, you remember the arc, but the. So much of the fun is in the little details. And there's a lot. There's a lot of little details in these two books that are worth calling out.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

I also think maybe just. Just a self critique. A lot of people read these books very quickly because we want to get the book 22. We want to get to the slaughter of the suitors. We have been waiting for this for half, at least half the Odyssey. And so I think that, you know, if I was going to critique myself, I tend to read these very quickly because I want to get to that action. And I think that's one thing that I'm trying to slow myself. And as, as I read these texts. Like, what does Homer the teacher want to offer me here? Like, what's the pedagogical purpose of a lot of these things? Because he does. He offers new characters, he does new things. Like, why do we have these books? I think is a good question to ask.

[Thomas Lackey]

Well, I'd also say that Homer the poet. So not just Homer, you know, the teacher, Homer the poet, I think knows the value of sort of a dramatic pause. Right. So I think you need a moment. You've just had sort of the dramatic reunion with Penelope. Things are still in a little safe and you need this kind of narrative break to set up the. The dramatic scenes that are going to come later. You just can't really stack them in the backpack. You need the ebb and flow. That at a. At a poetic level as well.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Okay, let's dive into book 20 then. Fagles entitles this. Portents gather. So a few things is here, like right at the beginning. So we have Odysseus. He's still in the disguise as the beggar. He's in his house. Just a few things that I would note here. One is at line 20 or so, Odysseus speaks to himself again. Bear up, old heart. You've borne worse, far worse. That day when the cyclops man mountain bolted Your hardy comrades down. So I'm just pointing out again here that Odysseus speaks to himself and he is discursive with inside his own person. So one thing that I think is interesting about these latter books is, is we've praised Odysseus prior to this book of being able to talk to himself and work through things without having immediate recourse to the gods. And this is both something about Odysseus. It's also something about, I think, the maturation of Homer's anthropology. So, you know, instead of having Achilles, you know, rage incarnate about the kill Agamemnon and wisdom pulls him back from that. Odysseus is able to contemplate these things internally inside of himself. And so I think that as we look that I think it's another thing to pay attention to. But it's very interesting to juxtapose that in these later books to how much he relies completely on Athena's judgment of when it is time to act. We'll see several times that like he's looking at to Athena almost as hard as Telemachus is looking to him. And like, where does the judgment come from? I think is an interesting question in these latter books.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

I'm glad you brought up Homeric anthropology, Deacon. He kind of anticipates one of the points I wanted to make, which is that in the early, well, the opening lines of book 20, we're told that Odysseus was plotting within himself. But what it actually says is that he was plotting within his Thumas. It goes to show you how the Thumas for, you know, we keep returning to this term, it's so very important to Homer and to the heroic pursuit of honor. But, but it isn't just a kind of. It doesn't seem to be just a kind of spiritedness, but there's a kind of intellect. I mean, there's an intellectual component here. If he's plotting within his Thumas. The other thing to note is something that Deacon, you and I and some of your other guests have talked about. How Odysseus has learned that this journey home has provided him with important lessons, important experiences. And in particular here he reminds himself of the Cyclops, the cave of the Cyclops, and how he had to show patience when confronting Polyphemus. And it's the same patience now that he is going to have to utilize when confronting the suitors and the, the maids.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

What do we make? There's two things that I would point out here. One, so he asks Athena has these. We finally kind of get an explicit petition to Athena. How can I get these shameless suitors in my clutches? And two, how do I run from their avengers? So this is Odysseus the Beggar, looking to the goddess Athena, goddess of wisdom, strategy, cleverness, et cetera. And he basically has two petitions. How am I finally gonna get rid of all these suitors? And two, if I kill them all, how do I. How's this not to start the cycle of violence? And for those unfamiliar, right, we worked on the podcast after we read Originally back in 2024, after we had read Iliad and Odyssey, we did go into the Greek place and we went to say, like the Oresteia, which is heavily predicated upon the concept of the Blood Avenger. And so, you know, in brief, what is this concept? Well, there's no police force, so if someone murders your brother, you don't call the police. You, you are it. You have to go and you're the Blood Avenger. You go and avenge the murder, you go and avenge the wrong. And of course, like this leads into several problems, one being, well, who adjudicates what's just and unjust and how many times people go to avenge someone who actually was killed, say justly. And so therefore, then they kill someone and then those people's kin want to kill that person. And you see an unending cycle of violence. This is one of the things that the Oresteia takes up and critiques. Here we see Odysseus is anticipating this problem. I've got what, a hundred suitors that I'm. I need to kill. That's roughly what, a hundred families that are then going to send their Blood Avengers after me. How do I do this? I think what's really fascinating there is that her answer is basically a non answer. It's basically just like, have faith, I've told you, right? You, you have to listen to me. I'm not explaining these things to you and I just to maybe jump ahead just a bit. I think it's really interesting that after all this relying on her, she asks the questions, all these things that then at 110, Odysseus asks Zeus for a sign to confirm that he's on the right path. So even though a goddess who he can see just told him stay the course, he still asked Zeus for a bird sign to confirm. So I, I mean, I'm not sure how we interpret this. Like, is he, is he wavering? Is he just. He knows he has to have the divine imprint here, like how do we interpret these passages?

[Thomas Lackey]

I would say a couple of things about this. So one is that the non answer of Athena, I think, and also Zeus's response to his prayer are additional tokens that this is a divine judgment being visited on the suitors through Odysseus. Not just Odysseus's judgment on the suitors. Right. That it's, it's not his plan, it's the God's plan to, to restore an order of justice here. I think the second part is something I'm going to, I'll bring up, I think a little bit more later. But this would be part of it is that. And this is genius of Homer to do, but that being inside the prophecy has a very different view than being outside it. And you see the characters as they're living through these sort of prophetic events because we can hearken back several times. The, the, the fate of, of, of the, of Odysseus and others have been foretold even before he was going to Ithaca that it would take this long to get back and all the rest of it. But within sort of. I almost imagine it as a kind of a snow globe. It's like inside the snow globe everything looks different than from outside. And inside the prophecy, the characters have a very hard time situating themselves in it even as it unfolds around them.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

I would simply tack onto that about the divine judgment that this is guest friendship, this is zinnia. So one way to look at this is that Odysseus thinks it's just to kill his guests, that his guests have violated Gus friendship to such a degree that they deserve death. And in a certain way you have to have Zeus's permission for that. Zeus oversees this sacred ritual. He oversees this, you know, sacred bond. And so therefore, like you have to have his permission to move forward to do that. So it is, it's his. You're correct. It's his justice that he has to enact. You know, one thing that caught my attention about this book and I'm, I'm happy to answer, like, happy to receive some answers here. This book also opens up with two really funny similes about who Odysseus is. And I'm not entirely sure I understand what Homer's trying to do here. So down at line, I don't know, whatever this is, 15 or so Odysseus as he's seeing the fact that his maidservants are sleeping with the suitors. They're sleeping, they're slipping out of the house. Things of this Nature, he says the heart inside him growled low with rage as a bitch mounting over her weak, defenseless puppies. It's like, that's the simile we're gonna go with on Odysseus. And then you only skip down a few more lines and he says, but he himself kept tossing, turning, intent as a cook before some white hot blazing fire who rolls his sizzling sausages back and forth, packed with fat and blood came to broil quickly. Okay, so one, Odysseus is like a female dog that's growling over her puppies. And two, he's like these fat sausages that are grilling on the fire ready to kind of explode. Like, I've never really been settled on what Homer is doing because they're two. They're both right back to back. Like, what Homer's actually doing in these passages outside of the dog example is clearly, you know, there's an intimacy there. This is his home, et cetera. He's watching these things be destroyed that are close to him. The sausages is just a comical simile. Dr. Hrabowski, you don't have any, like, keen insights on the sausage idiom?

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

Well, no, I was going to say about the bitch mounting over her weak, defenseless puppies. We've seen that Homer seems to have a certain sort of fondness for dogs. And mean dogs make an appearance very often. And so this. This would seem just to be continuation of. Of. Of that particular theme. I swear, the sausage is. Well, it's very familiar. I mean, if you're just an average bloke or. Or just a kid listening to this being recited, I mean, that's a very. I mean, the. The image pops in one's mind. I mean, by. By likening him to the sausage that's bubbling and oozing fat. I think that, at least for Homer, does what it's set out to do. And that is, it conveys just how hot and. And steaming Odysseus is at the moment,

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

you know, and it's still. I mean, to a certain degree it's interesting, and maybe that's what we're getting is domestic. Like, in certain ways, they're domestic idioms or similes that we're getting because we also see after the sign of Zeus. So Odysseus has asked for these things. We get this example of then within the halls, a woman grinding grain let fly a lucky word close at hand. She was where the good commander set the hand mills once. Now 12 women and all perform their tasks Grinding the wheat Marley marrow of men's bones. And if you skip down Homer then uses that same line again about Odysseus, he sees this as a lucky omen. And Odysseus heart leapt up, the man convinced he'd grind the scoundrel's lives out in revenge. So we're getting these kind of interesting metaphors as we kind of move through this. Not sure if anyone has any more comments on the opening there. Okay, so moving on, a few high notes. One, it's interesting to me that Telemachus and Eurycleia both know who Odysseus is, but neither one of them know that the other person knows. So they're like pushing back on each other a little bit, but they don't understand that they both actually know what's going on. 2. Something that I think we really have to probably take quite seriously is contextualize the next couple books is that this day is a feast. It's a feast of Apollo, right? So this is on line 170, the public feast. And this is Apollo, the archer God, the God of light, the God of music. Like this is going to give us I think a slow background substructure by which to actually interpret a lot of the events that are coming up.

[Thomas Lackey]

Well, I want to back up very slightly to when Telemachus awakes here because he. There's a. It describes him in my terms this is a Fitzgerald that Telemachus clear eyed as a God, awoke, put on his shirt and belted on his sword and bound rawhide sandals on his feet. Feet that is almost exactly the same language. It might even be exactly if it. That have to go back and see like Greek if this is the same. But the of book two where he's going out to call the assembly where there he's essentially begging everyone else to help him. And I think in a sense these books two to book 20 are bookends to Telemachus's maturation and development where now he's not going. He's not going out and begging the. The Ithacans to please, please come help me, I'm helpless. He's guarding on his sort to go and confront the suitors himself in a more direct way. And I think that there's also in. In terms of a narrative structure it bookends and that there is a prophet in book two that when he. When Telemachus asks the. The for. For aid he stands up and says Odysseus will return. He'll return in. In unknown and wreak vengeance on the suitors. And they will all you know they'll all die. And this is confirmed by birdsign and in tenuous at that moment laughs it all off. He just says look, you know birds, you know birds come. There's lots of natural birds out there. Your ravings or none of this has happened. Plus even if he did come back and even if he could find a way to get rid of us, he'd never be able to deal with all our families. So he'll never do it. It would it. So we've gotten this sort of a, you know, dramatic like foreshadowing. Everything that's about to happen was told to. To the suitors in book two. And it's happening exactly as it was prophesied and they still can't see it.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, that's a good point. And the. Just a few tetherings. Yeah. Antinous idea of he can't deal with our families is then immediately what Odysseus is here interpreting as well is how do I handle the Blood Avenger problem. So those two. I like those tetherings. Yeah. It's interesting to see how many parallels there are between that and is this like a bookend for Telemachus maturation him like in his house.

[Thomas Lackey]

And what he does immediately after this meeting by the way, is Athena's getting on. He goes to the storehouse and gathers up the stores for his journey, for the wine and the stuff like that. In this one he goes to the storehouse and gathers weapons. So there is a, there's a balance. It's a. Between these and I didn't really, I didn't pick up on that the first time I read through. I only picked up on that this time through. And. But it's just interesting how these two books kind of parallel each other.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, no, there's a. That is a fascinating parallel. Yeah. And last time we, we talked about at what point did we. At what point could the suitors no longer repent? At what point is there no metanoia aware for them? And I, I think that a dramatic, A dramatic point, I think is this. When Odysseus enters his home, it talks about the shadow of death. It, it couples him entering his home with the death of Argos.

[Thomas Lackey]

Well, that I think I should bring up at that point that the, the. In the earlier prophecy that's exactly what the prophet told them to do. Not about the Odysseus coming back, but your best course of action is leave right now. Right. And nobody listens. And I think we're going to see that again in a moment. But in the next round of prophecy, because we're have a couple more rounds of prophecy in these two books and they're not going to heed those either.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Right, well, do we, do we want to talk about the goat herd? We're introduced to a new character which I think is interesting this far back in the text, but we're introduced to the goat herd, who is now, excuse me, we're introduced to the cowherd, who's now going to be the juxtaposition, the parallel to the goatherd. So the goatherd, in a certain way is going to prime himself to be considered one of the most unloyal servants in this entire text. And the comeuppance for that is a bit rough. But the cowherd now is being seen as a partner, someone jointly, you know, tethered to the swineherd. There's maybe two thoughts about this that stood out to me. One, it's really interesting to me who Odysseus partners with to retake the polis. So we have a bunch of young aristocratic elite men that are eating him out of house and home, and he's going to partner with, you know, swineherds, cowherds, these kind of agricultural shepherd, you know, run of the earth kind of men to retake his home. And I think, I wonder if there's something to that juxtaposition. The other thing is, is that the cowherd immediately is reminded of Odysseus when he sees the beggar. And this again brings up the concept of to what degree can people actually see that it's Odysseus? And is there a loyalty here? Like, what is it like with Argos? Is there. What is it that allows people to see that this beggar is reminiscent of Odysseus? And if the cowherd can do this immediately, has not Penelope been able to do this? And I think we're going to see a few hints in this book in the way that she acts, that she at least intuits that something more is going on than she realizes.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

No, it is quite noteworthy, Deacon, that Homer, he elevates these, what we would consider common folk, these salt of the earth, these farmers, these, these husbandry men, and also Theoclemenus, the prophet who has confessed to being a murderer. These are not ordinarily whom we would think to be part of the Magnificent Seven or the Justice League. So, yeah, I think Homer's doing something here that's quite interesting and maybe even quite subversive for his audience where we expect some Again to reassemble the great heroes that sieged Troy. And now instead, what we are getting are the people who would be listening to the poem as it was being recited. And I think too, it's worth noting and I'm sure Deacon and Thomas. I mean, you'll remember that Eumaeus is often referred to by Homer in the second person. There are these moments where Homer will say, you swineherd, Eumaeus. And there's a very strange turn of why does he shift from the third person to the second person?

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

And.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

And there must be something to that. It must be a way maybe of relating to those, again, who are their present members of the audience, where they can, in a way insert themselves into the story and. And to see themselves as being just as capable of acts of heroism as you may, as in the others.

[Thomas Lackey]

I think there's a couple of things too. The. The way he chooses to distinguish these characters, I think is interesting because he. I think he distinguishes two things about them repeatedly. Not. Not so, yes, The. The cowherd here, but all of. All of the ones that he picks out that are by compassion and by a. A longing for justice. Right. That's the two qualities they all seem to have. They see the beggar and they see something beyond. They, they. It's like, you know, they see someone who has fallen in hard times and they. To the. For whatever ability they have at the moment, they reach out to him and try to help, which may not be a lot of help, but it's something. Even if it's just sort of a comforting word. I think the second thing is that the conversation then always turns towards looking forward to the writing of wrongs. Like the whole. The whole. It's not just the household, although it is a household. The whole kingdom, the household. Everything has been thrown in disorder. And they're looking for the right order of things to be restored when they see that in the person of their king. And so they're looking for his return. But it's in a sense, I think goes beyond that, that just the right order of, as it were, the cosmos has been disrupted. Right. And they're trying to. They're.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

They're.

[Thomas Lackey]

They're longing for the day that justice will be done.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

And it's hard to not, in a way, draw a parallel between Odysseus and Christ. This Christ is, you know, selecting his apostles. Who does he pick? He doesn't pick the theologians. You know, he doesn't. He doesn't pick the politicians, those who can. Who are, you know, at Least by, by education, skilled in rhetoric. He picks fishermen, he picks tax collectors, and he picks, you know, average people. And so I think that too connects with what you were saying, Thomas. You know, this, this desire for justice that is, that seems to be so deeply implanted within the hearts of these, of these men, these, these, these salt of the earth men. Again, we see the same thing with the apostles.

[Thomas Lackey]

Yeah. And I think that, I mean, I don't want to overplay the Christ analogies, but the idea here that you have the people longing for the return of the king that will, you know, wipe away all the tears and, and affect justice and judgment on the wicked. I mean, that it, it can't be ignored either. Right. That there is a strong sense of putting everything back the way that it should be. That is, it applies to both.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, no, I like that very much. I. One of the comparisons I thought was really interesting is the observation that some of the maidservants who are disloyal to Odysseus probably never met him. Like they, they probably have been born in the house and they've never met him. And so there, there's a, you know, they're supposed to have loyalty to a king that they have never seen. And so I think that actually has some, some deep Christological parallels as well, which will be interesting to see. Then what is their fate when the king actually does return? Does that actually lend them any time of leniency, or are they judged just as harshly as everyone else? I think that's an interesting question. I also like the idea of Odysseus the beggar being somewhat analogous to the situation of Ithaca as a whole. I like that as well that, you know, when Zinnia really is a sign of civilization, then these people who still have loyalty to the throne of Ithaca, when they see a beggar mistreated. Right. Which is a sign of barbarism, which is a sign of this civilization falling apart, that they try and do something to keep it together by helping him. I like that a lot. Yeah. I mean, what do you make though, of like. So we get this back and forth, like, you know, Antinous speaks up, we get another suitor that I don't think we've heard, actually. I think we get, what, maybe two suitors that we've never heard from before. I mean, and then Athena steps in and does something that we have to comment on down at a little after 380. I mean, it reminds me of the Bacchae. And we got to get into that. But anything about this like, you know, I'll critique myself. Like, I feel, I feel like I'm missing something in this book because we have these different suitors coming forward. Like, you know, when we read things like, you know, for instance, like in book nine, when Odysseus is like going to the different islands and different things happens and et cetera, you can see kind of very. I think you can see very clearly a deep Homeric anthropology, a Homeric philosophy that, you know, these different islands are testing the men and Odysseus in different ways. You see, you can see kind of the antecedents of the soul, et cetera. Here we're kind of getting this back and forth of the suitors. I didn't really have a deeper read. I saw this to a certain degree of them locking in their fates of Athena kind of whipping them up into a frenzy of, of they're going to reach a zenith of kind of their, you know, injustice, if you will, before Odysseus comes in. I mean, anything that you thought about with these different suitors coming in and kind of the back and forth, I

[Thomas Lackey]

don't know about the new suitors, but I will say that to continue sort of biblical parallels, I think Athena giving the suitors over to their worst actions is not. I mean, you can make an analogy to something like the, the Exodus with Pharaoh, with God hardening Pharaoh's heart, right? Which is that there, there's. All the opportunities for repentance have been already given. And you would think that there again, there've been prophecy after prophecy. We're going to get another one in a minute. They're set on their course. And it, and the gods seem at this point quite happy to say, well, then you're gonna, you're gonna follow this all the way to the end. There is no turning. All the offenses that you can give will be given. And I think. But I think it's, it's really showing them for who they are. I mean, I think that's the key about it. It's not like Havina is not causing in them something that's not there. She's bringing out something in them that's already there.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

And what do we, what do we make of the fact that the lukewarm seem to have no different fate? So we see this where one of the suitors will be like, hey, I think that's too much like, you know, don't throw the stool or, hey, we can't, you know, Antonous, don't violate guest friendship to that degree. And they're like, okay, so you're kind of curbing the worst of the suitors, but it doesn't seem to be affording anything. You know, Odysseus mind is still churning on bloody work. Athena is still sealing them into their fate. I mean, it's a. Again, like, I'm trying not to jump immediately to the Christological, but it's an interesting comment, even amongst the pagans, that your capacity to repent for Metanoia is not concomitant with your, like, knowledge of it, if that makes sense. So, like, they're still in a situation and they think like, oh, I could. If Odysseus comes home, I can repent. If the king reveals himself, then I'll. I'll repent. And like all these poor souls don't realize that the time for repentance already passed. And there is. There is no Metanoia now. There is no turning around. Their fates are locked in, even if they seem to be on the softer side of the suitors.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

And it challenges us as readers, too, Deacon, to raise the question of culpability in the sense that, you know, the suitors you mentioned as lukewarm. Well, what are they doing exactly to prevent the other suitors from practicing Porzenia? They're chiding them. They're merely standing by. I mean, they're, they're chastising with words, but. But they're not really doing anything explicit, nor are they leaving the palace. And so, you know, there seems to be almost like a moral equivalence here where those, you know, the, the, the antinouses, the, the truly nasty suitors are going to suffer the exact same fate as those that you term lukewarm. And, and maybe again, this is Homer challenging us as readers and listeners to, in a way, to kind of situate the two next to each other and to ask, does one actually deserve a less harsh penalty?

[Thomas Lackey]

Well, so we have here, right after the discussion with the cowherd, is the first of the. Well, not the first. The.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

The.

[Thomas Lackey]

I guess it's really the third of the divine signs. Right? You have the eagles as. The suitors are together and they're plotting to kill. I almost said arrestes again, Telemachus. They see the sign of the eagles and. Let's see, is it. Oh, it's. Empanomos says no luck lies in this plan. Let's think of feasting. All right, so this is. This, to me, is a perfect example of what you mean by someone who's not quite as bad, or maybe he is quite as bad as. But he reads the Sign correctly. Right. Like this is not going to work. But does he take the lesson right? The lesson he should at this point just clear out. They've had the prophecies for what's going to happen. They've, they're, they're here, they're plotting things. They have a sign from a, from, from Zeus directly that there, there is no future in this plan. And instead of heeding the warning, they're like, ah, let's just go back to eating and drinking.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Well, I say, and I think it's important to note that I don't think this was always the case. I do think there's a point in which Athena, you know, drew a line in the sand, if you will, and said there is no repentance after this point. Because in these, these comments that we get that Athena will not allow them to repent happen after Odysseus enters the home. And so that's where I can't. Trying to make that mark because we get a few here. I mean, just to see her influence a little bit before 3:20, it says. But Athena had no mind to let the brazen suitors hold back now from their heartrending insults. She meant to make the anguish cut still deeper into the core of Lachan. Odysseus. Odysseus. So like, not only is she not allowing them to repent, she's actually goading them into being worse. And then we see, I think in a certain way a zenith did this a little bit before 390. So he vowed and Athena set off an uncontrollable laughter in the suitors, crazed them out of their minds. Mad, hysterical laughter seemed to break from the jaws of strangers, not their own. And the meat they were eating oozed red with blood. Tears flooded their eyes, hearts possessed with grief. I mean, it's a very, you know, we think about, I mean, what I thought about, which I mentioned earlier, was the Bacchae, where there's this like, you know, almost possession scene where these are. There's a mania here, a demonic mania, a daemon, right, that causes these people. A spirit comes upon them and they act. I mean, that's a huge line from Homer. This laughter is not their own. So I mean, at this point you have to think about they're really getting set up as an instrument of divine justice and people make different signs of this. They're going to be set up like a sacrifice. They're a sign of injustice. Like they're. At this point the Pharaoh analogy is somewhat apt here. They're being Set up to be pedagogical. And their individual wills I don't think matter much anymore.

[Thomas Lackey]

Well, so I think the analogy that actually came to my mind for this scene more is Cassandra and seeing because you know she talks about the blood dripping from the walls and things of the, of this sort of murderous house. And the prophet Theo Clementos does gives a very similar prophecy just after this. And I think here we see him as the earlier prophet did in book two through fulfilling the role of prophet though, which is to admonish them to, to. To act as an agent of the gods, to give them their divine warning. And just like they did before, they treat him as mad. And I think one key here because I'm going to see Leotes in a, in a minute who is their prophet. He'll be the first to try the bow when we get to book 21. But the Clementis does I think exactly what a prophet in some cases has to do. He essentially shakes the dust off his feet and he leaves because he's delivered the warning. And it's, it's. They'll either heated or not. But I think what you can't do, and this goes to your like your kind of half hearted ones, you can't do like Laodice does, which is to stay. Continue to offer the sacrifices, continue to give presumably them the, the, the. The. What good is it to continue sacrificing to gods that you are offending daily? And I think we're going to see as we get to book 21 because it, it takes fate place on the feast of Apollo. Apollo is obviously archer, but he's also the one who defends the transgression of boundaries. This is why you see him at the beginning, the Iliad going after the Greeks. This is why even, even though, at least if I recall correctly there are certain, you know, they built the ramparts and things that they shouldn't have without offering the exact sacrifices to Poseidon and all the rest of it. But it's actually it's Apollo that ends up inflicting the defense. And over and over again you see that, that Apollo is the one that when a, when a law or boundary has been transgressed, he's the avenger. And they say that they've got their prophet offering sacrifices to Apollo all this time. Well, for what?

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, it's like when Aegistus finally killed Agamemnon and then he offered sacrifices to the gods, the same gods that told him not to do this. Or when Odysseus's men ate the cattle of the sun, and they offer the sacrifice back to them. Yeah, Theocomitus the prophet is interesting because we've been talking about, like, what is his pedagogical purpose? Like, why was he introduced to the Te. You know, the etymology of his name? I looked it up.

[Thomas Lackey]

Yeah.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

I was really curious.

[Thomas Lackey]

Yeah, I did, too. I did, too.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah. My understanding is it may. It's something like, to make the God known or to make the divine known. So he's a revealer. He might be, like, the opposite of eclipso. Eclipso is a concealer. So here is the guy who's going to make this known. And what I liked about this the most is it wasn't even that he just received a prophecy. It's that, you know, he sees this scene of gore walls and handsome crossbeams dripping dank with blood, and he realized there's no escape for any of them, and he just has to leave. Like, the scene itself is so unsettling that he has to get out of the house. And so, yeah, he plays a very particular role, one that I think I'm still learning to appreciate. Any other. We have a little bit here at the end with Penelope, but any other thoughts on book 20? Okay, let's look at book 21. So Odysseus strings his bow. Fagles entitles this. So we are. We are getting quite close. You know, one preliminary that I don't think we've mentioned on the podcast, that I. I just want to point out here, is that there's a certain irony of Odysseus having to deal with suitors in his own house. And I mean, I don't even mean in reference to, like, the Cyclops narrative. I mean that one of the narratives that we haven't. I don't know if we've discussed it much is that it was Odysseus that Helen's father went to when he was having problems with her suitors. So Helen's father, now her father's Zeus. So the. The husband of Helen's mother, when Helen obviously is the most beautiful woman on the planet when he's having problems of all the suitors, and how do I handle this? And this is turning into chaos. If you remember, Helen's father makes them all swear an oath that he's going to pick one. And then if anyone tries to take Helen away from that person, they all will wage war against that person. It's Odysseus that actually comes up with that idea. And he does this in leverage for Penelope. So he does that for Helen's father. And then Helen's father helps him win the heart of Penelope. And so of course, then Odysseus brilliant scheme is also what precipitates the Trojan War. Because then unbeknownst to them, it's not one of the Achaeans that takes off with her, it's Paris. And that's one of the things that, why Agamemnon can get everyone to go to Troy is because they've all sworn this oath regarding Helen. So we could debate, you know, the prudence of that and how that turned out. But I do, I just want to think that as a preliminary, that now it's Odysseus that has to deal with, after giving advice on how to deal with the suitors and precipitating the Trojan War, has now to deal with suitors in his own house, for his own wife. Okay, so Odysseus strings his bow. Okay, so what, what do we take of this bow? We get this backstory. This is not just a normal bow. It's got a context. I've got a lot of questions actually about how this bow works. Now if we remember, Penelope is going to set up this test, we're going to get more about it, but we already saw a snapshot of it already at the end of the other book. So she's going to set up a test for the suitor. She's going to take Odysseus bow, they're going to set up these axe heads and then you have to fire the arrow through all the axe heads, right? Hit the target. Okay, great. But what do we make of this bow? Because if I understand this narrative correctly, Odysseus is a young man, so this is Pre Trojan War, etc. And you know, raiders have stolen, you know, these livestock from Ithaca. And so Laertes sends Odysseus on this mission to go get, you know, to be remedied for these raiders that have stolen his livestock. And on his way to do this, he then meets another young man who has also had things stolen from him. And they become friends. And so then there's an exchange of gifts. So if I recall correctly, right, he gives Odysseus, gives him a sword, and Odysseus receives this bow, which is a foreign bow, and it was a famous bow of his father. And then Odysseus and this individual never see each other again. And this becomes a prized item for Odysseus because I think one of the questions we have to answer, which we're kind of giving an answer to down at line a little after 40 is why Odysseus didn't take this amazing bow to Troy. And I guess my impression was, is because this was not something he would use in war. This was a sign. It's a cherished item of. Of guest friendship. So what are some observations we can make about this bow and its narrative?

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

Well, an initial thought, Deacon, is simply that this. This gift of guest friendship is going to be what the suitors ultimately fail to pass. You know, the test of stringing this bow. And so that's a very kind of a simple read. There might be something more to it than that, right?

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah. No, I think a big part of this is that the fact that the. The bow comes in the context of guest friendship and in the context of just friendship in general, of an exchange of gifts and a fraternity, a relationship that Odysseus treasures. I also don't know what to make of the fact that this individual is killed by Heracles in a violation of guest friendship. So that's line. I don't know. 29 or so the same mares that would prove his certain death when he reached the son of Zeus, that iron heart Heracles, the past master of monstrous works, who killed the man, a guest in his own home, brutal. Not a care for the wrathful eyes of God or right to hospitality he had spread before him. So not only is the bow in the context of friendship, but then the friend himself is killed in a violation of guest friendship by a demigod. The same demigod that was actually presented quite positively in the house of death. Okay, so pushing forward a little bit again. I mean, not to beat this horse to death. What does Penelope actually know? So she. First off, she's now after meeting the beggar, is when she's decided to do the test. And I think that's a big tell. And as she's pulling then, right, this weapon out of its sheath, she's doing these things. She's crying, cradling her husband's back, sprung bow in her arms, its quiver, bristling arrows, shafts of pain. That's at line 70. And then she explains the test that's a little bit before line 90, that they all have to do these things. And then we get like a really. I. I love this. The first time I read the Odyssey, I just loved all of this. So what you think is at least the first time I read this, I thought, oh, they're all. They can't. You know, they're not. This is gonna be like Robin Hood. They can't hit the bullseye, and then Odysseus is gonna come in and, you know, split the arrow in twain. This is going to be like Robin Hood. I love the fact that they can't even string the bow. Like, they. Like they can't even do it. I mean, and it's a. It's such a. It's such a statement of the chasm between these young men and then noble Odysseus and who Odysseus is as a man. Like, it just. It makes them seem so weak and pathetic.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

Well, I want to mention at least a couple of things and. And then certainly I'd like to hear. Hear from Thomas. Well, fun fact. I mean, this is actually something that came out during a conversation that I was having with my freshman when we were reading the Odyssey together at Holy Family is that there are 12 axes that he is or. Or that at least the. The victor is to shoot the arrow through. And there are actually 12, you might call them places or situations that he has to overcome after he leaves Troy to arrive home back at Ithaca. So if you start with the cicones, go to lotus eaters and move your way through, there are actually 12 of them up to the point that he lands on the shores of Ithaca. So that. I mean, clearly that's deliberate, that when Odysseus does shatter these axe heads, that represents his shadow shattering or overcoming all of these. These obstacles, these challenges. And I don't know how far you want to press Deacon and Thomas, but, you know, their inability to string this bow. I mean, is it okay if we go. Move ahead to, like, line 170 and a little after that? Because there's still the moment where Telemachus fails to string the bow. And I think that's very important. I don't want to pass that without at least some sort of recognition.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, two points. One, I have not heard that. I loved tethering the axe heads to the accounts. When we did books 9 through 10 with Dr. Gregory McBrayer, he actually made a big deal that he didn't tether it to the axe heads, but he tethered it. Or he articulated that there's an importance of how many events, because the way we contextualized it was the fact that when you. Whether it's 11 or 12, there's different ways to count it, but Circe ends up being in the middle. And that's a really important aspect, you know, to the story. Can I say something, though, about Telemachus in the way I read this? So Telemachus down at a ma. You know, down at like 120 or so. He, you know, he says, basically, he talks about his mom. He says that, you know, this is. She's going to marry again, forsake our house. Look at me laughing for all I'm worth. Giggling like some fool. Step up, friends. Here's your prize. So this is interesting. Like, this is talking like Telemachus prior to his journey, you know, and then he's talking about them stepping up. And then if you skip a little bit when he tries to do it, this is 150. He says, God help me. The inspired prince cried out, must I be a weakling and failure all my life unless I'm just too young to trust my hands to fight off any man who rises up against me. Come, my betters. So much stronger than I am. Try the bow and finish off the contest. Okay, this is too thick for me. I think he's playing a role. I think. I think young Telemachus is doing his best to be an Odysseus. I think this is.

[Thomas Lackey]

I think this is total.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

I think this is total play action.

[Thomas Lackey]

Oh, I think that's. I think we're meant to take it that way, and I think we're meant to take that in the context also of him being able to string the bow, which none of them are. Right. So this is showing this again to. To say that this book ends his progress or this kind of. This section does. He is now maybe the what Odysseus, I will say, does easily, Telemachus does with effort. Right? So there is one thing, like he's not a. He's not fully his dad yet. We've seen him now where he, among all the men in this place, has finally becoming, in close to at least the image of his faller, where everyone else has fallen short. And it's not only have they fallen short, they realize this, right? And we're going to see this in a minute that one of the suitors actually speaks to this and says, you know, the worst part of it all is that we can't. We can't. Everyone will know that we can't measure up. Not even that we can't make the shot, that we don't even measure up to be.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

To.

[Thomas Lackey]

To get into the position, to be able to take the shot. But yeah, on the Telemachus point, I think this is Telemachus. We are meant to take this as him becoming his father in two ways. Becoming his father in strength and becoming his father in guile.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

So do you Think that Telemachus could string the bow if he. If he wanted to?

[Thomas Lackey]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because he. He tries it three times and fails on the fourth time he starts to do it, and at a look from his father, he stops and then says, you know. Yeah, so, okay, yeah.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

It says, odysseus shook his head in my translation, Thomas. So, yeah.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Oh, no, you're right.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

Addition is like.

[Thomas Lackey]

Because he's gonna ruin everything if he can do it. You know, it's. It's. It spoils the plan. And I think he's not only playing the part here, so he's totally playing the part. But I think his laughter is in one sense genuine. Just like Penelope's teacher. Tears a minute before holding the bow are genuine. These are kind of. At a kind of liminal point of. Of emotion where all the emotions kind of converge. Is. She could be. No matter how you read what Penelope's up to, for example, either she knows it's Odysseus and she's crying for just the joy and stress of the situation, or she knows it's Odysseus, but she doesn't have the insight from Athena and she thinks, well, yeah, he's gonna. He's gonna go down fighting and I've lost him anyway. Or she doesn't know it's Odysseus and she's cherishing the bow that reminds her of her husband. The like of which none of these men are right. And. But in all those cases, it really doesn't matter how you interpret it. The emotion, like, the emotion makes sense, I think, for Telemachus, whether he's playing or whether he. So he's essentially giddy at this point. But is he giddy? Yeah, I mean, what's the why? And I think he's the euphoria of finally coming to the day that he has been yearning for all this. He has finally sees the demise of the suitors on his hand. He's been insured by Athena and by his father that it's coming. And, you know, he's just. He's. He's laughing at them. But as a. But. But as a cover.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, no, you're right again. I should have given these books more attention. Fagles actually says it explicitly at the 3 4, which is winter. It's another thing. We saw that in Ilion 3 fours.

[Thomas Lackey]

I forgot what it was about. Yeah.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

I haven't got a great answer, but we get the 34 thing, a pattern a lot. Yeah. Fagles actually says it explicitly. He would have strung the bow, but Odysseus shook his head and stopped him. Yeah. So he's this. This play acting. I like that. What did you take? I mean, you already kind of mentioned it, but we have. I don't know how you pronounce this guy's name. Leotes.

[Thomas Lackey]

That's what I've got in my book is Laodice, which is too close to Laertes to be. To be helpful, but I guess that's what we've got. Yeah, I wanted to. I wanted to. This was one of the ones that interested me a lot because, you know, I'm not. Don't want to give away too much of what comes ahead in the other books, but let's just say none of the suitors make it right. So Laodes is not. Well, he's introduced for the first time here and. But his role is as a seer or a prophet or a priest. It depends on, kind of on the translation. But there's a component of prophecy to what he does, but on behalf of the suitors. And it, but it makes, like, clearly here that he despises the debauched actions of the other. I'm not like them. It's kind of his, you know, I'm. I'm a different kind of suitor. I'm, I'm. I'm honorable. And all the rest is how I. It's pretty clear he views himself, but the Homer ends up having him give a prophecy, having failed to prefer. When he says that this bow will be the will break the heart and spirit of many strong men and things like, he's back in this prophetic sphere. Right. He's not just like, complaining. He really is telling them what's going to happen. And again, they ought to listen. He ought to listen. He ought to listen to himself and what he's saying, and he still doesn't leave. And I think this is. This is one of these things where, you know, people could argue later whether or not if he really despises their wicked actions, why. Why would he be caught up in the judgment with them? And I think the answer is that he failed in two levels. He failed at the level of a. A man to separate himself from his wicked company. But he also fails at the level of a prophet in that he is there to con, to give a divine message, not to try to bend the gods to the will of the people who employ him. He strikes me a little bit like Balaam, actually, because for Balaam, at least in the Old Testament, at the beginning, you know, he doesn't give in. But we Know, mentioned later in the New Testament that he comes up with a way to basically convince, you know, well, you know, I can't prophecy, I can't give a prophecy other than what God tells me. But if you do this, you can lead the people astray. And that kind of idea of a prophet that can be bought is a betrayal of the prophetic office. And I think that's what Laodes has done, is he's betrayed his office and he ends up ultimately suffering for that.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, no, I like that. I like that a lot. What do we take of Antinous trying to make this better through techne, right? So like at 200 he asks the goatherd Melanthius, you know, rake the fire in the hall, pull up the big stool, heap it with fleece and fetch the hefty ball of the lard, right? So they're going to grease and limber this thing to see if, if they, you know, can't do it. Now granted, the major shooters still haven't tried, right, Being Antonous and Yorimachus, but I've always found that interesting that then they, they try and use it through technique because I think that plays in later. I have a question about the bow and technique in general, but I don't know, it was curious to me. And while they're doing that, then not to jump ahead too much, but while they're doing that, then we kind of get this famous scene of Odysseus the beggar going outside and revealing himself to the cowherd and the swineherd. And once again we get that the scar, this physicality is the sign of proof, right? This is the veracity that the beggar actually is Odysseus. But swineherd was somewhat questionable. The cowherd basically already could tell that this beggar was reminiscent of Odysseus.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

Well, I have a question for you, Deacon. As someone who has gone out bow hunting, is this good techne? I mean, do you rub bows down with grease in order to make them more manageable and pliable? This, it struck me, I mean, I myself am not a hunter, but, but, but this smacks of that, that, that these are amateurs, they don't know what they're doing.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

That could be it. I mean, I, I, I think there's a big question about what kind of bow this actually is, because this is not, this is, this is a foreign bow. So there's some people will make a deal. The fact this is a foreign bow. And so I guess just to play my cards here, there's a question. Is. Is the issue simply strengthening or is it techne as well? So it's not.

[Thomas Lackey]

They don't. They don't know how to string it. Not that quite strong enough to string it.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Right. So they're not strong enough to do it as they think you should do it. They're not strong enough to go and do it. But rather there's a techne to do it that actually allows you. You still have to be strong, but you can do it much eas, you

[Thomas Lackey]

know, much more easy when either one fits Odysseus.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

Right.

[Thomas Lackey]

Because either we're saluting his bare strength or we're saluting his vast knowledge. But either one, they would fall short. And so I'm gonna actually just say it's probably both. Right. Because I like the idea that Homer could be insinuating both, I think.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Well, you would think. Oh, go ahead.

[Thomas Lackey]

The only other thing that's good, I think in the context of the story, though, they're supposed to be doing the right thing. I think there's an idea where it's. It's. It's got. It's old and it's dried out and they're conditioning it is. Is the idea that said. And the reason I like this version, if there are doing the right thing, that. And you can. And again, this is Apollo's feast day, that they are conditioning the instrument one by one. Each of the suitors goes up and they polish it a little bit more. They make it a little bit more ready. They do for Odysseus what Odysseus would have done to prepare the instrument of their own divine. They're almost literally digging their own grace.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

Well, and just to maybe add to what Thomas just said, I was going to mention that the word that's actually translated here is rub it down or is anoint. So they're anointing with this grease or with this oil. And the oil that. The word that Homer uses actually refers to the sort of oil that is used when a. When a guest is welcomed. So it's the oil that is commonly used in practices of Xenia. Right. So we're talking about, you know, there's irony there, but there's. It's hard to escape the language here of ritual. Yeah. So Thomas said they're digging their own grave. Well, they're anointing this weapon that will eventually result in their deaths. Right. With. With an oil, much like we would anoint an altar. Right. Or that we would anoint ourselves ritualistically.

[Thomas Lackey]

Well, I think there's Two things. Oh, go ahead.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

No, I was. No, I was just going to say, Thomas, that. Yeah, I think that. That, you know, what you're suggesting here very much is supported by the language. And so it's hard to miss. I mean, it's very thick here. The symbolism, the ritualistic symbolism is very. Is being poured on very thick by Homer.

[Thomas Lackey]

Well, that's what I was gonna say. There's two things that kind of go with that as well, is. I think you. You have the. The. The notion of it being a divine judgment gets strongly reinforced by this as well. This is. This is essentially. Even though he's. In a weird way, he's in the background of this. This. It. You can see this as the work of Apollo, right. It's his feast day. This is. He is the archer. He's also the one that avenges these transgressions. And he is working through the suitors, sort of like Athena brought on them their laughter, and he's bringing on them their. Their destruction. I think the second thing to that actually goes to the other point that it's very hard to see the prophecy from the inside compared to from the outside. They have no idea what they're doing, even though they are essentially working as the agents of providence against themselves and they don't even realize it.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

I like that a lot. I mean, it makes this text very rich. Yeah, I wonder that. I mean, Dr. Rousey, you're, like, reading. That's around 200 or so. Like, reading that passage in that kind of, like, ritualistic. Like you have both the sacrifice, you have zinnia, like, all those things. That's interesting. I'd like to read that passage in someone other than Fagles, because I think it's hard to get that from. From Fagles, right, Where he talks about the law. He doesn't use language like rub it down with grease, etc. He doesn't seem to use language that exhibits that as much. I mean, even reading it. I really like what you said, and I really like the idea of all the suitors working together to limber up the instrument of their own divine justice. I mean, it's incredibly poetic, but it's hard to read that in that Faggles passage. If he thought that was underneath that, he did not translate it in a way to give that away very clearly. Anything else on the scar? I mean, again, we saw this as physicality. We've seen an emphasis on firsthand knowledge. So they see these things, they're able to do it. Obviously. You know, we've given lots of biblical comparisons today already. But there's a deep parallel here between our Lord and St Thomas as well. Being known by the scars, the king has returned and he is known by his scars. And again, coupling with, you know, this husbandry, agriculture, etc. To overtake his kingdom back from these kind of pampered lords, young lords, little lordlings.

[Thomas Lackey]

Well, and also by the way, that they come and go without a notice from the. They're. They're beneath the notice of the suitors.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, I mean this is, this is your beggar and your cowherd and your swineherd all going outside. No one cares what they're doing.

[Thomas Lackey]

No one's like, what are they up to? It's like, no, this doesn't even.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

I like that. I mean, pushing forward a little bit. Eurymachus is speaking and I think it was Thomas that already mentioned the sentiment. He ends that quote there on Ephra 2:80. What breaks my heart is the fact that we fall so short of great Odysseus strength we cannot string his bow. A disgrace to ring in the ears of men to come.

[Thomas Lackey]

Which is like. It's a wonderful breaking of the fourth wall a little bit as well, because this is of course exactly what's happening.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

And I wonder too, I mean it's interesting that they pivot so Antonous, the old anti intellect. So then he gets the idea. Okay, so we've gone from now techne to which kind of mimicked a ritual to now sacrifice to the gods. What we need to do is a libation. It's a feast day. It's the feast day of Apollo, the archer God. So if the limbering up of the bow of the instrument of their own death is ironic, this also has to be saturated in irony because they're all about to be offered as a sacrifice via a bow, I guess. And Thomas, following your line of logic to the God that deals with, you know, transgressing sacred bounds, they're going to pour out a libation. I mean, you basically have the sacrifice itself pulling out a libation to the God before they are offered up.

[Thomas Lackey]

You know, it's a weird connection to put it back this way, but it's. There's a euthyphro kind of problem being presented here in a very, you know, more like a parable of it. But can you just buy the gods off with sacrifices? I think the, I think Homer is presenting that as a hard no.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

Well, you read my mind, Thomas. I, I wasn't necessarily going to connect this with Euthyphro, but I think you're right. You know, the, the transactional nature of, of piety in the Iliad, I think is, is, Is pretty clear, right? If you need something you, you, you sacrifice the gods. And then of course it's left to them. Gods, do they respond favorably to the sacrifice or not? It's entirely up to them and their arbitrary wills. But I, but I do really do think that it's, it's worth considering that Homer is developing piety, at least his understanding of piety in the Odyssey to involve something more than just transaction, as more than just sacrifice. So, you know, Thomas, you know, you talk about Euthyphro and in Euthyphro, Plato uses two different words for piety. One is Eusebiah, which. First the sort of. The good practices, good pious practices of sacrificing. But then there's Hasia, which is a sort of like internal piety, an internal state of piety. And certainly, I mean Homer isn't necessarily. He doesn't have the sophisticated Platonic understanding of piety in that respect. But I do think that there's something happening within Homer's mind that is convincing him that there's more to honoring the gods than just making dutiful sacrifice. I think that's what you're suggesting, right?

[Thomas Lackey]

Yeah, I, I am and I think, I think there's a sense and because Penelope is going to call this out in a minute where they, when maybe it's even right here where someone talk. I think she pushes back. Well, anyway, somebody. She pushes back against one of the suitors, basically. Are you concerned about your good name now? Right like now. And I think there's one thing to set up because I, there's questions that especially when you get to the, the, the, the judgment on the suitors, this will be even more important. But I think we're, we're getting a case here that the suitors have transgressed every possible moral law and whether. And also in cultural bound, both within the Greek sphere or if you look in the, the sort of Judeo Christian sphere and okay, look at the Ten Commandments which, Accepting maybe the Sabbath things that we want to accept. But looking at their notion of piety both towards God and their honor and, and duties towards men, they have absolutely spurned the signs that the gods have given them. And there have been many. So they, they have. Their contempt for the gods is something Penelope come. Calls out. Absolutely. They've, They've abs. They perverted the guest friendship in the most heinous possible way. They've, They've stolen, they've plotted murder, they're plotting adultery. And I don't think there's a particularly easier case of showing exactly what coveting your neighbor's good or coveting your neighbor's wife could possibly be. And they, they violated every possible moral law and show absolutely no remorse for it. And I, I think Penelope's kind of, you know, put down of them here is quite, quite apt when it comes. I don't think we're quite there but she gets it soon. But now you're concerned about the gods, now you're concerned about your reputation after all of this.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, I mean it's. No, I mean we're, we're basically right there. I mean Antony says has a brief statement but it's, it's your Marcus who ends that his line. It's a little after 360. He says we'll hang our heads in shame. And here comes the matchless queen of cunning just hammering him on this right shame alert. Penelope protested. How can you hope for any public fame at all? You who disgrace devour a great man's house and home. Why hang your heads in shame over next to nothing? Our friend here is strapping well built man and claims to be the son of a noble father. So two things going here. One is what you just articulated well Thomas, which I appreciate. And two is simply that again now she's running interference and is an advocate for the beggar. So I just want to point this in context. So we have this incredibly beautiful smart queen who has a whole kingdom behind her for whoever marries her. She sets up this contest and she's going to be an advocate for the beggar to win. I mean come on, it's like she has to have some. Now again, I've always made the distinction between just because she hasn't she is inclined to believe something doesn't mean that she's gonna allow her heart to believe it. But she, I mean if the cowherd can look at him and say he looks like Odysseus, it's really hard to believe that his own wife does not. Because I think part of this is then what does it take to convince her and what does that look like? And I think Homer's setting that up quite clearly. And so there's this tension in Penelope but she serves as an advocate and of course Anton serves as an advocate as well. We get the reins of power line again from him and part of his maturation to allow Odysseus the beggar to participate in the contest. And Two, I mean, part of that too is Telemachus, because, you know, Penelope technically doesn't know. And so Telemachus is also moving her out of the room as part of that process. Right. And then I think right after this too. Yeah, Eurycleia starts to handle the maids and getting them out of the room and locking the door and things of this nature. Yeah, I mean they're setting the trap, right? Because then the cowherd goes out and he's locking the gates of the court. And so they're setting, they're setting the trap and then I don't, I mean, so here, I mean, how do you take this? So this is, this is Odysseus finally gets the bow, right. This is 450. So they're mocking him, the mastermind in action, etc. But the simile that Odysseus. So here's the thing, the simile that Homer uses to describe Odysseus with the bow seems to me to strike much more as a concept of techne in art than one of strength. Got fast at the either end. So with his virtuoso ease, Odysseus strung his mighty bow quickly his right hand plucked the string to test its pitch and under his touch it sang out clear and sharp as a swallow's cry. Horror swept through the suitors, faces blanching white and Zeus cracked the sky with a bolt his blazing sign. He snatched a wing arrow lying bare on the board and rest still bristled deep inside the quiver. Skipping down a little bit. It says that the bow string back, back right from his stool just as he sat. But aiming straight and true, he let it fly and never missing an axe from the first axe handle clean through to the last, etc. So yeah, I mean it's, it could be it. So he's so much stronger. He's so much everything that he can basically, you know, him pulling this back is, is not even comparable to a feat of strength strength. It's comparable to a musician with their instrument. This is something that he knows how to handle. But I think there has to be like a certain techne here. I never really understood the stool and I didn't like, is the, is that just like the level that the axe heads are on. Does a stool have something to do with how to shoot it correctly? Like, I don't know the, the role of this, that's never shown in the art. Like if you ever look at the art of him doing this, like he's never seen his like sitting on a stool. Well, it seems somewhat ignoble. So anyway, I mean, this is, though I think it lends a certain question to what is it that Odysseus knows to string the bow correctly.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

Well, you're right, Deacon, and anybody who's ever played a sport or, I mean, again, you as a bow hunter, I've always been amazed at, you know, baseball is my favorite sport. And when you look at who the best pitchers have been historically, it isn't always the biggest and the strongest. I mean, sure, there are guys who are 6 foot 7, 8, 250 pounds, who could throw the ball 100 miles an hour, but then you have these crafty pitchers who know how to put certain spins on the ball that can often be far more effective. It's the same with tennis or golf or any sport, really. So, yeah, I do think that Homer is leaning quite heavily into this idea that Odysseus has the key that fits the lock that nobody else does. And so it isn't going to be brute strength. It's not like Thor's hammer, right, where it's only, only someone with the strength of Thor at least. But yeah, I guess even with Thor's hammer, isn't it something along the lines, Thomas, that you have to have a certain sort of purity in order to lift it?

[Thomas Lackey]

I think so. Certainly this is the tact of marvel to. But on that score as well, I think one thing just at a dramatic level, I. Since the poet probably would've been reciting this with a harp or a liar, you can imagine the scene, right? He says this and undoubtedly he plucks the string and you have this one note resonate in the whole. I imagine as he is telling the story, that this is a very, as this dramatic moment in the retelling. And I am.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, I mean this, this is a poor analogy because I, I don't, I don't want to pretend that these two things are comparable too much. But even like for a lot of people, like, yeah, if they bow hunt or use a crossbow or whatever, like if you just walk up to a crossbow and try and that thing and you don't actually know how to do it correctly, you're not going to have the strength. There's no way you won't do it. You've got to loop in the rope a certain way to create a certain tension and only then with a lot of strength can you actually like pull it up. So I imagine it's something like that, that there's a certain technique that then when you use the right amount of Strength, it works other. Outside the technique. You won't know how to do this. The one pushback if I was going to argue against this is the fact that Telemachus almost does it and I don't, I don't, I don't see how Telemachus would know the techne.

[Thomas Lackey]

Well, we've already got that mentioned to us once though that they all marveled when he was setting up the axe heads and he did it in a particular way and they marveled at him because he'd never done it before. He'd never seen it done. So there's. I think that we've already got a hint in here of some sort of inspiration going on in Telemachus actions or genetic, or genetic or, or it, I think that we're getting more and more signs it, it, it know obviously he is Odysseus's son in the, you know, he's taking after his father. I think so I don't. In the Fitzgerald it doesn't do this. In one of the other ones translations after he, he does the bow shot and Odysseus moves over to Telemachus. I thought, I thought the words were. He actually refers to him as my son. And so it's a quality revealing himself but in again this sort of dual meaning way that any older man might turn to a young man and say, oh my son, you know, that's something. But we, of course we know, we know better. And he's revealing, he's revealing himself to, to the suitors in a, in a way that they still failed to see.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Yeah, yeah. In Fagles Telemachus, Odysseus looked to his son and said, your guest sitting here in your house has not disgraced you. I love the end of that, of that paragraph though. He says, but the hour has come to serve our masters, right? Supper in broad daylight, then to other revels, song and dancing, all that crowns a feast. And so obviously next book, book 22 is the famous slaughter in the hall. I just, I don't know, I mean, maybe can we just take a minute and talk about like what are some preliminary questions there? I mean as we, as we read through that next week, I mean, I think there's like for instance, I think one thing that always keeps in my mind is the Cyclops narrative because I think one thing that Homer does very brilliantly in book 22 is we have multiple different threads that have gone through the entire Odyssey and this is the zenith, this is the apogee and he brings them all together and it's almost difficult to even track everything that is occurring. The two that really appeal to me is the cyclops narrative that Odysseus, just like arguably Odysseus violated guest friendship in the way that he treated the Cyclops trying to get a guest gift, etc. And was cursed for it. Now he has to deal with suitors that are consuming him's home and he has to, quote, unquote, consume them. I would watch how much Homer mixes food and gore in the next book, right? So here he's already setting up to it. Let's give them their supper. Give them right this, this feast. And it's interesting how much Homer will mix those two, the food and the blood, in the next book. What else should we look at in the next book?

[Thomas Lackey]

Well, I think one thing is the cleansing of the house, right? I, I, I, this is my read at least that the cleansing that happens is not merely a function of the fact that in the, in the killing of the suitors that, like, the hall got messy. I, I think the more obvious reading is that the house itself needs purified from the defilement of the suitors. So it's, it, it, what if they had all just run away? It still would. I think you'd still see the cleansing in fire and brimstone. So I, it's not just about the blood. It's about, it's, it's a, it was a ritual kind of defilement of the house, and it requires a ritual cleansing.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

And I think to add to that, I think next week, as people read through this watch, the language that treats the suitors as a sacrifice themselves, that they are then offered up to the divine as part of this divine justice. I think a sacrificial, ritualistic language is something else to track in the next book. Dr. Kabowski, any final comments on this book or just any preliminary foreshadows for next week?

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

Well, I like what Thomas just said. I do think that the continuation of Homer's use of language, of ritual, the cleansing of the house, that's something that I think is quite stark, but also just the treatment of the maidens as well, that it isn't just the suitors that are going to suffer death, but it's going to be others who are accomplices. And so Odysseus needs to not only take care of those men, but also the women that also served as those who violated the practices of Xenia. So, yeah, I think that the next book clearly is going to be one where we have to keep our eyes peeled for all of this ritualistic language and the analogy to be drawn between the suitors and animals being led to the slaughter.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

Loyalty. That's what I would say, particularly first time readers. If you haven't read next book, there's scenes that are going to surprise you, scenes that might unsettle you. I would think about loyalty. Loyalty is the standard by which things are judged. And I think, I think you mind. And then the closer you were to the house in a lot of ways, the greater the betrayal. So. Okay, very good. Any other comments on books 20 or 21? All right. Well, Dr. Krabowski, I appreciate it as always. You've been our mentor as we've worked through the Odyssey and we've deeply appreciated. Tom, it's great to have you back. You're welcome to come on anytime. We know you had some life transitions and now you're back and everyone appreciates it. But thank you for joining us.

[Thomas Lackey]

I'm glad to be here. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Deacon Harrison Garlick]

No, very good. All right, everyone. Next week it finally happens. Book 22, Slaughter in the Hall. So go read it. Read it twice. We're actually going to discuss it with Dr. Alex Preux. So it's going to be a wonderful conversation. Looking forward to his thoughts on that. In the meantime, go check us out on X, YouTube, Facebook, Patreon and Instagram and we'll see you guys next week. Thank you.

[Dr. Frank Hrabowski]

Sat.