Book XXIII · Episode 3 of 4
Test and Recognition
Wedding feigned, Odysseus wins trust
Scenes
- Feigned Wedding Dance — Household feigns wedding, hides massacre
- Household bathes and dons fresh garments
- Bard’s harp fills hall with music, dancing
- Sound of the revelry carries outside
- A passerby assumes queen has remarried
- He calls her worthless for breaking faith
- Odysseus Transformed — Odysseus made radiant, bed ordered moved
- Eurynomè bathes and anoints him with oil
- Athena makes him taller and more stately
- His hair curls like hyacinth blossoms
- Her unyielding heart draws his rebuke
- He orders a bed apart from her
- The Bed’s Secret — Odysseus describes the rooted olive bed
- Penelope orders Eurycleia to move their bed
- Odysseus protests no man could shift it
- He built it around an olive tree
- Gold, silver, and ivory inlay the wood
- He wonders if the tree still stands
- Penelope Embraces Him — Convinced, Penelope embraces Odysseus
- Penelope’s knees give way, her heart melts
- She runs to him, embracing his neck
- She begs Odysseus not to be angry
- A god once deceived Helen, she recalls
- Only handmaid Actoris knew the bed’s secret