1. Two Summaries Read “Medon Meets a Cyclops” and “Epic Ways of Killing a Woman,” then write a summa

Epic Ways of Killing a Woman: Gender and Transgression in “Odyssey” 22.465-72
Author(s): Laurel Fulkerson
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 97, No. 4 (Apr. – May, 2002), pp. 335-350
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc. (CAMWS)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3298448
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EPIC WAYS OF KILLING A WOMAN: GENDER AND
TRANSGRESSION IN ODYSSEY 22.465-721

twelve unfaithful serving maids in Book 22 (465-72) other than
to discuss the mechanics of the death,2 which, although

problematic, are far from the strangest aspect of the passage. In
contrast to the numerous detailed studies of the morality of the
suitors’ deaths,3 those who mention the hanging of the serving maids
usually justify or condemn the murder.4 In addition, those who do
comment on the scene frequently find it indicative of Telemachus’
moral character, concluding that it is a sign of Telemachus’
immaturity and/or brutalitys or, on the other hand, that it “shows
Telemachus’ worthiness” to succeed his father.6 In fact, as I will
suggest, the passage may engage with the question of Telemachus’
moral maturity, but also shares important thematic connections with
significant concerns of the Odyssey, and thus deserves careful
examination in its own right. Telemachus’ method of killing the
serving women is not only more appropriate than Odysseus’ order,
but has larger implications for the issue of women’s fidelity
(particularly Penelope’s) in the poem.

i Thanks to Debbie Steiner, who first offered encouragement, to the audience at
the 1999 APA session on Homer, particularly Mark Toher and Erwin Cook, to the
various anonymous readers for this journal, and, as always, to John Marincola.

2 E.g. Stanford 388-9. Typical of the treatment they receive is Davies 535, who
notes that the servants are “(on Odysseus’ explicit orders) awarded a humiliating
mode of death by Telemachus.”

3 Useful treatments of the suitors’ death are Allen (who sees them as wicked
types of the Aristotelean hero) especially 107ff., Jones 198-201, and Said, whose classic
article focuses on their violations of the laws of hospitality.

4 Cf., e.g., Dimock 313-4; Nagler 247.
5 Russo et al. ad 441-73; Felson-Rubin 86-7; Rose 120. Fajardo-Acosta 136 claims

that the deaths of the maids and suitors are “seen by the poet as acts of mindless
cruelty.” Clarke 40 suggests that Telemachus’ “savagery toward the servant girls, like
his occasional harshness with his mother, is part of a deep-seated reaction against an
adolescence spent among women.” I do not intend to address the morality of
Telemachus’ (or Odysseus’) choices about the maids. When I argue below that
Telemachus’ decision is “more appropriate” I merely mean that it better obeys the
gendered constraints the poem seems to impose on means of death.

6Dimock 314.

THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL 97.4 (2002) 335-350

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336 LAUREL FULKERSON

First, the physical aspects of the slaughter of the maids require a
brief look. Odysseus’ plan involves forcing the twelve disloyal
maids to clean up the remnants of the slaughter of the suitors and
then leading them into the courtyard to be executed by the sword
(Od. 22.440-45):

“aUT&rp i Tr’v 6 T”nd’vTa 86pov KaTaKOOaIfoIPlOE,
cphcS igayay6VTES i UaTa0o OPEy6poto,
pEaaoyiY TE O6XOU Kal pipOVOP 5pKEOS aOXh~i,
OEIVIpEVlivat iq)EaIv TaVTVKEOtV, EiG 6 KE TOraycOV
yuXiS i?aq)~XIr OE, Kal KXEX6O6COVT’ ‘Appo8TnqS.

T1V ap’ 01Tr6 o PVIOTrlpoIv Xov PIcYyovT6 TE AX6Opf.”

“Then, after you have got all the house back in good order, lead all
these maidservants out of the well-built palace between the round-
house and the unfaulted wall of the courtyard, and hew them with
the thin edge of the sword, until you have taken the lives from all,
and they forget Aphrodite, the goddess they had with them when
they lay secretly with the suitors.” 7

Telemachus, however, deliberately disobeys his father and
engineers some kind of mass hanging instead of the prescribed death
by sword. The hanging involves a ship’s cable (Tr~iopa), a pillar
(KLcOV), and a round-house (O60Xo); Telemachus describes his
decision as follows (Od. 22.462-73):

“Prl Pv 8 Ka6apcp 6avr6Tcp daTr6 Oubv hXo(l.rPv T6CrA, a’t 11 pi KE(paiXi KT’ 6VEi(Ea XE:av
l.*Irpt 6′ II.ETip Tlrapd6 TE pVfOTlIpoIV Tauov.”
“(.S ap’ Eq), Kati TrETIOFt( VEi6 KUavoTpcPpolo
K1QOVOS E~pclZ CiEy6XS”n Trrpi3aXXE 86Xoio,
V0O6a’ ETrEVTavOOas, Pll1 TI TrOO’v oii0aI5 KOITO.
bS 6″‘ ” Tav il KiXXAa TavUOaTrTEpotI l Tr~XEIa

9pKEI iVITrV1-O)I, T6 0 oT iVi K aK1 ~ pVCp, aiAlv icyOIEVaI, aTUyEp6S ‘ TrE?maTO KT0TOS,
&s a’ y’ EEITIS KEqcpXaS EXOV, 6p1pi t Trncats

Et~pfot p3p6Xoi aotcav, aS”rr Cs oKTIOTCa 06VO0EV.
fioaraipov 6U Tr68Eaao CviPveUVO rrEp, o0 TI pXa ilv.

“I would not take away the lives of these creatures by any clean
death, for they have showered abuse on the head of my mother,
and on my own head too, and they have slept with the suitors.” So
he spoke, and taking the cable of a dark-prowed ship, fastened it to
the tall pillar, and fetched it about the round-house, binding it up
high so that none of them could reach the earth. Like thrushes,
who spread their wings, or wood-pigeons, who have flown into a
snare set up for them in a thicket, trying to find a resting place, but

7 All translations of the Odyssey are modified from Lattimore. Other translations
are mine.

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EPIC WAYS OF KILLING A WOMAN 337

the sleep given them was hateful, so were their heads in a line, and
each had her neck caught fast in a noose so that their death would
be most pitiful. They struggled with their feet a little, not for very
long.

The Oxford commentators (ad 441-73) understandably find this
description “imprecise and probably fanciful,” and note a variety of
insurmountable difficulties, most of which center around the
impossibility of hanging twelve women from a single rope.8 While
this is undeniably true, I suggest that the physical description of the
hanging contains a nexus of imagery that significantly contributes to
the meaning of the scene even as it renders physical reconstruction
of it problematic.

The hanging involves a TrEiOpa, a Kiov, and a 86’Xo.9 The
TrETOpa is a ship’s cable, generally the one that anchors a boat to
land.1- Odysseus is of course a sailor and is linked to the sea in
several passages, most notably at Odyssey 8.202ff. wherein he refuses
to compete in a Phaeacian footrace because he has spent so much
time at sea and his legs are infirm.1″ The fixity of the o1KOS
(symbolized by the Kikov) contrasts to the wanderings of Odysseus
depicted throughout the poem (alluded to by the TrE’apa). We can
discern in the particular materials used to hang the maids a symbolic
resonance for Odysseus and his family–in effect, Odysseus’ return
to (and consequent reestablishment of order in) his house is
paralleled in miniature by the combination of ship and pillar which
are employed to dispose of the final remnants of chaos in the house.

The Kicav most often denotes a roof pillar in the Odyssey;
Demodocus’ chair leans against one, and Odysseus and Telemachus
use one on various occasions.12 More significantly, Penelope’s
chastity is identified with the pillar in Book 23, when we learn that

8 Merry and Stanford ad loc. posit twelve additional nooses, and Merry seems to
envision a pulley system that would lift the maids simultaneously off the ground.
Robert 503 ingeniously but implausibly suggests that the maids are hung “autour de
la tholos, aux chapiteaux de laquelle le cable prenait appui.” Combellack, on the other
hand, suggests that this hanging is portrayed with great verisimilitude.

‘ As one of the reviewers for this journal notes, the word KOLTOS in the passage
quoted above is not without sexual overtones: while it refers to sleep, it of course also
hints at the other activities of the maids during the night.

10 LSJ s.v; cf. Od. 9.136, 10.127, 13.77.
” Cf. too the simile that marks the recognition between Odysseus and Penelope,

in which a sailor finally reaches his home shore (23.231ff.)
12 8.66 and 8.473 (Demodocus); 1.127 and 17.29 (Telemachus); 23.90 (Odysseus).

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338 LAUREL FULKERSON

her bed is fixed (Ep0Eo0S) in part because of a KiCv (191).13 It is likely
although not certain that at Odyssey 22.466 the word refers to a
column located on the outside of the house. Thus although the
maids are hung outside, they are still connected to the house, the
very structure they have threatened by their traitorous actions.’4 A
KiCov also features in the description of the torture of Melanthius at
Od. 22.176 and 193. Melanthius, the brother of one of the maids
(Melantho), is their male counterpart, betraying the household even
after he knows that the beggar is really Odysseus. During the
slaughter of the suitors, he is captured, trussed, and hung from a
K(Kv (22.182-200).15 The pillars, then, connect the disloyal servants,
male and female, to the very structure that guarantees the continued
existence of the house of Odysseus, reinforcing the impression the
poem often gives that faithlessness (in companions, servants and
suitors) deserves punishment.

e6Aot are mentioned only in connection with the maids in the
Odyssey,16 and appear only rarely in literature before the fourth
century. The word seems to refer to any round building with a
round roof, whatever its function. As it happens, O6Xot have not
been discovered on Ithaka, but they were used in Minoan and
Mycenean times as burial chambers and it is quite possible that their
use on Ithaka as burial chambers is assumed by the Odyssey. At any
rate, the discovery of the 66Xos-tombs at Mycenae suggests that it
may not have been so strange as first appears to find a 66Xo5 in
Odysseus’ backyard; this may be a place in the poem where the
“remembered” Mycenean dramatic setting of the Homeric epics is

13 Arete also leans against a pillar (6.307). Nagler 256 finds the pillar used in the
hanging “a terrible inversion of the well-built pillars indoors that are Penelope’s
symbol.” I see it rather as two sides of the same coin: those women who do not spend
their lives near the pillar will inevitably die by it.

14 See below on the significance of the maids’ outdoor death. Cf. too Loraux 24
and 75 note 50 on tragic women’s tendency to hang themselves from the roof-beam
(pACa6pov) of the house.

15 Other mentions of K(OVES in the Odyssey are at 19.38, wherein they glow
because Athene inspires them, and at 1.53, where Atlas holds the pillars that support

the world. The presence of the K(V in the Melanthius scene suggests that a
comparison between Melanthius’ death and the death of the maids might prove
fruitful. It seems to parallel the death of the maids, but is different in key ways. First,
Odysseus’ orders to truss and hoist him are obeyed by Eumaeus and Philoetius (who
are, significantly, servants) (22.171-77; 186-93). Second, although he is hung from a
pillar, he is not killed in that way, but is hacked to pieces, a death which, although
cruel, is nevertheless masculine (22.474-77). As a (male) traitor, he apparently is
considered worthy of being treated as a prisoner of war. (Eumaeus’ words to him at
22.195-6, however, may raise the question of his masculinity: NOv gv y pydrha

-TwrYXu, MEXXVIE, VUKTa (pUVX6EEIS, EOVfI EVL I’avtXaK1 KaTaXEyjYEVOS, COj GE EOUKEV:
Now indeed, Melanthius, will you guard through the night, lying on a soft bed, as is

fittin)At 22.442, 459, and 466. At 22.442, 459, and 466.

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EPIC WAYS OF KILLING A WOMAN 339

influential.” It is far from clear how to understand the 60Xos, but if
it is a burial chamber, its mention may allude to the impending
death of the maids.

The bird imagery proves to be even more significant in
understanding the nuances of the hanging passage.’8 The main
characters of the Odyssey are at times compared to birds, generally at
critical junctures in the plot.”9 So too in their death scene, Odysseus’
faithless servants are compared to birds: they hang “like thrushes20
(KiXXat) with broad wingspans, or wood-pigeons21 (rrTAEtal) who
have flown into a net set up in a thicket, seeking a resting place”
(22.468-70). K(XXaa appear only here in Homer. We learn from
Aristophanes and Aristotle that KiXXat build clay nests in tall trees,
that there are three main types of KiXAat, and that, although
carnivorous, they do not eat the hearts of the animals they kill.
Another Aristotlean tidbit is that thrushes line their nests with

myrtle, which, as is well known, was sacred to Aphrodite and was
often associated with female genitalia.” There is a proverb

KC.qP6TEpOS KfXTIS, “lighter than a thrush,” and the verb KIXAIfco means “to titter or giggle.” Clement of Alexandria found the song of
the thrush, the KiXAtao[p6s, similar to the giggle of a prostitute.
Thrushes, then, may feature in this simile because they are
associated with excessive female sexuality in several ways.23

HEEXtat, doves or wood-pigeons, the other birds to which the
maids are likened, appear in several places in the Iliad, most often
with hawks, to typify timidity as opposed to boldness.24 They were
believed to reproduce in an odd manner, and Aristotle devotes much
attention to their erotic lives.25 Further, Hyginus tells us that

17 Most Mycenean tombs, however, seem to have been built into a hillside, i.e.
outside of a city. Robert, who suggests that Sophocles’ Antigone hangs herself in a
Mycenean tholos-tomb, connects her death with the hanging of the maids of Odysseus
(501-2 with references).

18 Studies on birds in Homer include Losada and Borthwick (on the swallow) and
Boraston (on birds in general). As Loraux notes, birds in tragedy often represent
women who die by hanging (18-19 with citations).

19 Borthwick 16 with citations. Nagler 256 suggests that these birds find their
counterpart in Penelope’s pet geese, who represent the suitors.

20 See Dunbar ad Av. 591, Thompson 148-50 and Pollard 34-5.
21 On peleia as a general designation for pigeon as well as the particular name of

both the rock (columbia livia) and stock dove (columbia oenas), see Pollard 56, Arist. HA
5.544b1 and Dunbar ad 303.

22 Dierbach 61ff. See also Henderson, 1975:134-5 and 1987: ad 838.
23 KXXAat are discussed at Aristotle, HA 6.559a5 and 9.617a18-32; Aelian 1.35; Fab.

Aes. 194; Geopon. 15.1.19; Eubul. 3.220 (5) (Kcp)6TEpoS KLXAriq); Clement Alex. Paed.
2.196. Roisman and Ahl 256 notices the sexual imagery of the birds, but does not give
any specifics.

24Cf. Sauvage 171 and 255-6.
25 They “kiss one another just when the male is about to mount, or the male

would not copulate. An older male would not do so without kissing, at first, but later

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340 LAUREL FULKERSON

Aphrodite was hatched from a pigeon egg near the Euphrates (Fab.
197). Pigeons are sacred to Venus according to Thompson, who
explains this by noting that the Pleiades rise in the House of Venus.26
Sauvage believes that columba is the generic term for a group of
birds, among which is the palumbes, the Latin equivalent for Trria
(243 and 245 and OLD). Palumbes are featured as love-presents in
Latin poetry27 and columbae are proverbially known for their sexual
voracity.28

Finally, the fact that the birds are caught in a EpKoS deserves
brief explication.29 “EpKoS in Homer most often refers to the “barrier
of the teeth,” but is also used of barriers in general and even of a
courtyard.” We shall examine below the connections between
Aphrodite (caught by Hephaistos in a net) and the fate of the maids.
Here it will be sufficient to note that, although this is the only
instance of EpKoS as a net in Homer,31 tragic poets connect net

he will mount without it. Younger males, however, always kiss before copulation […
F]emale pigeons mount one another if no male is present after they kiss as the males
do, and although nothing passes between them, they lay more eggs than if they had
been impregnated, but these eggs of course produce no chicks and are wind-eggs”
(HA 560b 26). Pseudo-Oppian confirms this, adding that breeders place purple cloths
near the birds, which causes them to bear purple chicks (Cyn. 1.353ff.). Thompson
believes that TrrhEat are wild; if in fact they are, this might further suggest an affinity
with the maids.

26 229. Several sources discuss the sacred TrEXELe1Es (apparently identical to
7T6Etat) who gave oracles at Dodona and were later catasterized (Hdt. 2.55; Hes. frr.
240, 319 M-W); the three priestesses who served there were also called “Doves”
(Pausanias 10.12.10, Strabo 7.329, Hdt. 2.55). Cf. Alcman 23.69 and Eur. Orest. 1005 for
the spelling TTEXELd6ES to refer to the constellation (LSJ 2).

” Sauvage 252 with references.
28 Pliny, N.H. X.110: amore insaniunt. Cf. Otto 88 and Sauvage 252-3 on af-

fectionate columbae. Sauvage discusses the association between columbae and
Aphrodite (251 with citations), and suggests connections between women and
columbae (255).

29 The following passages refer to trapping birds in nets: S. Fr. 431, Ar. Av. 528,
Pherecr. 209, Arist. HA 617b24, Plato Soph. 220c2, Quint. Smyrn. 6.125. Nagler notes
that the simile of nets is also used of the suitors, who are “netted fish” (Od. 22.386;
256). Other animals are of course hunted in nets as well (cf. Oppian Hal. 1.33). The
Homeric scholia seem to find the word unfamiliar, since they define it as vOv TCJ
8tKTOc (ad 469).

30 EpKO5 686VTcOV: 11. 4.350, 9.409, et al.; EpKoS as a barrier in general: II. 3.137, 5.90,
et al. and of a soldier: 11. 1.284, 3.229, et al.; ‘pKoS of the courtyard: 11. 16.231, 24.306, et
al.; EpKO5 for “walls” by metonymy: Od. 21.23 = 21.384. It is possibly coincidental that
the maids are led into the courtyard (9pKoS), boundary of the house, before they are
compared to birds in a net (‘pKos), but it is nevertheless a neat parallel. The location
of the olive tree from which Odysseus has made his bed in an 9pKoS may again draw
an implicit contrast between the maids, now trapped in snares, and Penelope, who,
like the olive tree, is still nPTrEoS.

3 Other words for net are also rare: rrEpt3oXh, . 6pKUS, a 6px(PirlX Tpov. and

&ypEvpa do not appear, and 81KTuov appears only in reference to the simile of suitors
and fish (see note 29). Hephaistos uses bEOao( to entrap Ares and Aphrodite in Book
8.

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EPIC WAYS OF KILLING A WOMAN 341

imagery to women with some frequency (Medea’s trap for Creousa
which also literally ensnares her, the EpKOS with which Clytemnestra
traps and slays Agamemnon, and, perhaps most significantly,
Pentheus’ surmise that the Bacchae are iv A6Xapats pvtOeaS cS/
XfKTpCAv EXEOat ~I PAT&TOS EiV EpKEOIV).32

We come now to Telemachus’ choice of hanging for the women
servants, in direct disobedience to Odysseus’ order of death by the
sword.33 Telemachus hangs the women “so that they might die most
pitiably” (STrc~ o’iKrtatra O6votEv, 472), and characterizes hanging
itself as “unclean” (pii … KaOapc OavC6Tc … hXoiprlv, 462).
Telemachus’ meaning is not clear: as the Oxford commentators note,
Kaeap6S does not yet have a religious sense and so Telemachus
cannot be signifying that this death is ritually polluted (nor would he
wish to). They suggest instead that Telemachus refuses to the maids
“a ‘clean,’ in the sense of ‘quick and easy,’ death.”3 Yet the poem
draws attention to the brevity of their death throes (they “struggle a
little with their feet, but not for very long,” 22.473). Nor
(presumably) would Telemachus want to make the death
unnecessarily more complicated for himself. Additionally, since no
blood is shed in a hanging (particularly as opposed to death by
sword), it is, at least physically, a very clean way to die. It is more
likely that by the phrase with KaOapC, Telemachus passes a not a
religious but a moral judgment on the maids. In his opinion, they do
not deserve to die by the sword because they are not themselves
clean.35

There is only one other hanging described in Homer, that of
Epicasta at Od. 11.271ff. She discovers that she has married her son
Oedipus, and as a result commits suicide. There is little information
available for the status of hanging in archaic times, but in Classical

32 Eur. Med. 986; Eur. Elec. 155; Eur. Bacc. 957-8. Also worthy of mention,
although not utilizing the word EpKo0, is Aesch. Ag. 1115, in which Cassandra refers to
the 8iKTUov “At8ou that will entrap Agamemnon. Clytemnestra is associated with a
net precisely in the moment of her betrayal of Agamemnon, and she is linked to the
net at Ag. 1127, Cho. 492ff., 998ff., Eum. 459ff., and 633ff. (Cf. Fraenkel ad Ag. 1127).

33 See Stanford’s note ad loc. on the strong denial of ip1 piv. Odysseus’ ignorance
is rarely emphasized by critics, but is clearly a significant element of the death of the
maids.

34 Russo et al. ad 462. The religious examples of the word cited in LSJ all date
from significantly later. The uses of the word in Homer all refer to things physically
clean (Od. 4.750=17.48, 4.749=17.58, 6.61) or to empty spaces (II. 8.491=10.199, 23.61).

35 See Loraux 14 on death by the sword as “pure” and as opposed to death by
hanging. I follow Stanford’s suggestion that this is an early moral use of Ka6ap6S.

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342 LAUREL FULKERSON

Athens and thereafter it was clearly a dishonorable means of death.36
Hanging is nevertheless (consequently?) the most common literary
method of female suicide.”37 The maids, however, do not commit
suicide: they are murdered. Comparable incidents where women
are killed by hanging occur far less frequently in myth. In fact, the
only other extant example seems to be Pausanias’ version of the fate
of Helen. He states that Helen died by hanging at the hands of her
friend Polyxo, who had handmaidens disguised as Furies kill her:
dTr6yXovo1v Tr’i &ivSpou (3.19.10).38 Helen is the faithless woman
par excellence, and if by chance this tradition of Pausanias’ dates back
to archaic times, it may suggest that murder by hanging is seen as
suitable for women who do not properly control their sexuality. If
the women who were hung (Pausanias’ Helen and the maids) had
possessed the requisite degree of aibc’S, they would have hung
themselves for their behavior.” In the case of the serving women as
with Helen, murder by hanging can be seen as a corrective to the
aberrant behavior in two ways. First, it eliminates the sexually
promiscuous women, which (at least in the Odyssey) is seen as a
necessary part of reaffirming the cultural order. Secondly, because it
is typically a feminine method of suicide, it posthumously forces the
women to atone for their own disloyal sexuality.” They must not
only die, but die in a way that exemplifies their repentance while
making clear their own inability to recognize their actions as
deserving of punishment. To put it another way, it is a worse
punishment for the maids (because it is murder and not suicide),41
but a better punishment for the Odyssean household in its struggle

36 As documented by Loraux 9 and 71 note 8 (cf. Stanford ad 462ff). See too
Griffin, who concentrates on historical Roman rather than literary Greek suicides.

37 There is a clear but unexplored connection between women hanging
themselves (with a girdle or some other woven material) and the quintessentially
feminine (but also devious) attribute of weaving. Examples in the Iliad are Helen, who
also weaves in II. 3.125ff, and Aphrodite, who disguises herself as an old woman who
weaves in II. 3.385ff.

38 Musti ad loc. notes that this passage is “in singolare contrasto con il constante
carattere delle diverse versioni,” in which Helen is an adulteress “impunito,” and
suggests that “il tratto iliadico dell’odio delle altri donne per Elena” derives from the
tradition of her as a goddess (p. 250 and 252). Frazer ad loc. cites Polyaenus 1.13 and
Theoc. 18.43ff. as comparanda.

39 The appearance of Epicasta in the Odyssey supports this theory: she hangs
herself for a sexual aberration immediately upon discovering it. Cf. too II. 3.171ff., in
which Helen wishes she had killed herself before causing the Trojan War. Hers is of
course a rhetorical statement, designed to avert blame from herself (Graver 41-43), but
it is nonetheless significant as an indicator of what might be expected.

40 This is true regardless of whether the women were sexually active voluntarily
or not (discussed below).

41 See Loraux 4 on murdered women in tragedy.

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EPIC WAYS OF KILLING A WOMAN 343

to reestablish order (because it is a female death that neutralizes the
“male” way they lived).

The difference between death by sword and by rope is one of
honor, but death by the sword may also adumbrate the idea of
sexual penetration. As King notes, the hanging of young women
(even after the event) is “culturally opposed to unwanted sex” (119).
Moreover, studies of Greek gynecological texts have revealed a close
association of mouth and female genitals (each called oT6paTa).42 In
fact, the orifices of women are, in general, dangerous; women can be
sexually unchaste or merely talk too much. This occurs as well in the
Odyssey; Melantho’s scolding of Odysseus nearly upsets him into
attacking prematurely, and Telemachus specifically describes the
maids’ crimes as talking and sleeping with the suitors (22.463-4; text
above).43 Telemachus’ decision to kill the errant maids by rope
rather than by sword may reflect a desire to punish them for their
sexuality, perhaps here figured as a poor use of orT6’paTa.
Furthermore, because each of the maids’ “mouths” bring trouble
upon the household, Telemachus’ decision to close one of them by
constricting it reinforces the dangerous connection between
women’s or6TpaTa and is, in contrast to Odysseus’ order to make
another opening with a sword, far more appropriate in the
circumstances.” Death by hanging retroactively corrects the
behavior of the maids.

I now turn to some of the connections between Penelope and
other female characters in the poem. Many critics have noticed
“character doublings” in the Homeric poems.45 Throughout the
Odyssey, Penelope is compared implicitly or explicitly to Melantho,
Clytemnestra, Aphrodite and Helen,46 and the question of her
fidelity is often obliquely raised with reference to these other
women, much as the death of Odysseus’ companions is figured as
their own fault in order to prepare the audience for the death of the

42 Sissa 63; Loraux 61. Cf. Hanson on the supposed enlargement of a woman’s
neck after defloration and the lowering of her voice (328-9 with citations). See too
King 113-9 on parthenoi who hang themselves.

43 Cf. too Sissa 53ff. on the dangers to men from the mouths of women.
4 Cf. Loraux 2 and 71 note 9 on the “too open bodies of women”.
45 Fenik 172-207; Stanford passim.
‘ See Felson-Rubin 39-40 and Suzuki 60ff. on the contrasts the Odyssey estab-

lishes between Penelope and Helen. See too Roisman on Penelope’s comparison of
herself to Helen in Book 23 (62ff.). Antinoos compares Penelope to certain …

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MEDON MEETS A CYCLOPS? ODYSSEY 22.310–80

Tim Brelinski

The Classical Quarterly / Volume 65 / Issue 01 / May 2015, pp 1 – 13
DOI: 10.1017/S0009838814000573, Published online: 02 April 2015

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009838814000573

How to cite this article:
Tim Brelinski (2015). MEDON MEETS A CYCLOPS? ODYSSEY 22.310–80. The
Classical Quarterly, 65, pp 1-13 doi:10.1017/S0009838814000573

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MEDON MEETS A CYCLOPS? ODYSSEY 22.310–80*

ὣς φάτο, τοῦ δ’ ἤκουσε Μέδων πεπνυμένα εἰδώς·
πεπτηὼς γὰρ ἔκειτο ὑπὸ θρόνον, ἀμφὶ δὲ δέρμα
ἕστο βοὸς νεόδαρτον, ἀλύσκων κῆρα μέλαιναν.

So [Telemachus] spoke, and wise Medon heard him; for he had crouched down and was lying
under a chair, and had wrapped around himself the newly flayed skin of an ox, avoiding grim
death. (Od. 22.361–3)

Immediately following the death of the suitors, near the end of Odyssey 22, we witness
three scenes of supplication in quick succession. The first and unsuccessful suppliant is
Leodes, the only suitor to survive, albeit briefly, the Mnesterophonia. The second and
third suppliants, respectively, are the bard Phemius and the herald Medon. Leodes
pleads directly with Odysseus for his life, citing his previous conduct, that he had
said or done no wrong to the women of the household. He also claims that he had actu-
ally attempted to keep the suitors’ bad behaviour in check, an assertion corroborated by
the narrator’s own words (21.146–67). Odysseus rejects Leodes’ plea and decapitates
the prophet, putting a sudden end to his supplication (22.310–29).1 After this failed sup-
plication, Phemius nervously considers either seeking refuge at the altar of Zeus
Herkeios, located in Odysseus’ courtyard, or directly supplicating Odysseus. He chooses
the latter and also appeals to Telemachus as witness that he sang for the suitors only under
compulsion (330–53). Telemachus intervenes and Medon, who overhears Telemachus’
plea for mercy on behalf of Phemius and Medon, suddenly jumps up, throws off the
ox hide under which he has escaped notice, grasps Telemachus by the knees, and asks
the young man to vouch for and save him from Odysseus too (354–77).

These three scenes of supplication, moving as they do from hostility, to seriousness,
to humour, certainly take us, in an almost step-by-step fashion, from violence to levity.
Opinion among commentators, in fact, is nearly universal that this discovery of Medon

* I wish to thank Daniel Holmes for reading and commenting on an earlier draft of this article.
Special thanks are owed to Jenny Strauss Clay both for her many helpful comments and criticisms
on this paper and for her unflagging support generally. Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to
the editor Andrew Morrison and the anonymous referee of Classical Quarterly for their challenging
and thought-provoking comments and suggestions.

1 For a thorough discussion of supplication and a bibliography of previous scholarship, see F.S.
Naiden, Ancient Supplication (Oxford, 2006); for these three supplications: pp. 3–4 and 11. See
also M. Dreher, ‘Die Hikesie-Szene der Odyssee und der Ursprung des Asylgedankens’, in A.
Luther (ed.), Geschichte und Fiktion in der homerischen Odyssee (Munich, 2006), 61–75, at 55–6;
K. Crotty, The Poetics of Supplication: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (Ithaca, NY and London,
1994), 121–9 and 151–6; V. Pedrick, ‘Supplication in the Iliad and the Odyssey’, TAPhA 112
(1982), 125–40, at 133–4; J. Gould, ‘Hiketeia’, JHS 93 (1973), 74–103, at 80–1.

Classical Quarterly 65.1 1–13 © The Classical Association (2015) 1
doi:10.1017/S0009838814000573

under an ox hide is intended to evoke humour and provide relief from the high tension
and drama of the Mnesterophonia.2 Indeed, Odysseus himself genuinely smiles for the
first time in the poem when Medon hastily throws off the newly flayed skin and grasps
Telemachus by the knees in supplication (22.371).3 This transitional scene, however,
accomplishes more than simply lending humour and providing respite to the audience
at a crucial point in the narrative. This deeper significance derives from an earlier inci-
dent, the escape of Odysseus and his men from the Cyclops. Although some have noted
that the herald’s method of concealment hearkens back to the seals’ skins under which
Menelaus and his men hide in order to ambush Proteus (4.436–40),4 the larger context sug-
geststhat Medon’s escape is an allusion toOdysseus’ ownandmore recentlynarrated escape
from the cave of the Cyclops.5 This allusion is, in fact, part of a much larger web of allusions
to the Cyclopeia on Ithaca, which ultimately point to a central issue of the Odyssey: the prob-
lem of the reintegration of Odysseus into the post-heroic world of Ithaca.

There are several factors that favour such a reading of Medon’s method of escape.
First are the numerous references to the Cyclopeia in the Ithacan sequence. The earliest
is in Book 13. When Odysseus awakes on the shore of Ithaca but is unaware that he is
finally home, he exclaims (13.200–2):

ὤ μοι ἐγώ, τέων αὖτε βροτῶν ἐς γαῖαν ἱκάνω;
ἤ ῥ’ οἵ γ’ ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι οὐδὲ δίκαιοι,
ἦε φιλόξεινοι καί σφιν νόος ἐστὶ θεουδής;

‘Oh no! Whose land have I come to now? Are they violent and savage and unjust, or are they
friendly to strangers and god-fearing men?’

2 W.B. Stanford, Homer: Odyssey Books XIII–XXIV (London, 19652), 386, at line 362;
M. Fernández-Galiano, J. Russo and A. Heubeck, A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey, vol. 3:
Books XVII–XXIV (Oxford, 1992), 282–3, at lines 362–3; I.J.F. de Jong, A Narratological
Commentary on the Odyssey (Cambridge, 2001), 540, at line 371.

3 A point noted by both Stanford (n. 2), 386, at line 371 and Fernández-Galiano (n. 2), 284, at line
371. Odysseus does smile at 20.301, but this smile, as Stanford remarks, is more of a ‘sardonic
humourless grimace’ occasioned by Ctesippus’ verbal and (attempted) physical abuse of Odysseus;
see also D. Lateiner, The Sardonic Smile: Nonverbal Behavior in Homeric Epic (Ann Arbor,
1995), 193–5, for more on this sardonic smile. For the meaning of Odysseus’ smiles and how
these smiles occur at important points in the action, mirroring the different stages of the hero’s
resumption of power on Ithaca, see D.B. Levine, ‘Odysseus’ Smiles: Odyssey 20.301, 22.371,
23.111’, TAPhA 114 (1984), 1–9 (5–7 for an analysis of this particular grin).

4 Stanford (n. 2), 386, at line 362; Fernández-Galiano (n. 2), 283, at lines 362–3. The adjective
νεόδαρτος, which is used in both scenes to describe the animal skins that conceal Menelaus and
his men (4.437) and Medon (22.363), appears to be responsible for the focus on parallels with
Menelaus. This is not to suggest that Menelaus’ hiding under a seal’s skin cannot be recalled here
as well. Hiding under animals or animal skins and even inside animals (i.e. the Wooden Horse) is
a common theme in a poem almost obsessed with the opposition of concealing and revealing
(cf. E. Block, ‘Clothing makes the man: a pattern in the Odyssey’, TAPhA 115 [1985], 1–11, on cloth-
ing, disguise and lying). Note too Odysseus’ earlier disguise as beggar to infiltrate Troy (4.242–9),
and Calypso, whose very name suggests ‘concealing’ and ‘covering’, and Odysseus’ clever adoption
of the name that is ‘no-name’. The numerous references to the Cyclopeia in these scenes, I argue (see
below for details), prepare us to view Medon’s method of escape as belonging to this same series of
allusions.

5 B.B. Powell, Composition by Theme in the ‘Odyssey’. Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 81
(Meisenham am Glam, 1977), 46 correctly sees a parallel here with Odysseus’ escape from
Polyphemus, but he simply mentions this in passing and does not develop the point further: ‘a vari-
ation of the ruse by which Odysseus saved himself and his men from Polyphemus’.

TIM BRELINSKI2

Odysseus utters this same phrase just two other times in the poem, the first on his awa-
kening on Scheria (6.119–21), and the second before he sets out to reconnoitre the land
of the Cyclopes (9.175–7). Now, finally on the shores of Ithaca, he is asking, in effect,
whether this land will be inhabited by people like the Phaeacians or the Cyclopes. And
the answer, interestingly, is both. Just as Odysseus will recombine elements of the
Cyclopeia in his own palace so, too, will the Ithacans represent examples of both
good xenia (Eumaeus and Penelope) and bad (the suitors and their partisans: especially
Melanthius and Melantho).

Book 20 opens with an even more explicit reference to the Cyclopeia. As Odysseus
lies down to sleep on the night before the archery contest, he hears his maids running
about the place for a night-time tryst with the suitors. This causes him to exclaim
aloud to himself (20.18–21):

τέτλαθι δή, κραδίη· καὶ κύντερον ἄλλο ποτ᾽ ἔτλης,
ἤματι τῷ, ὅτε μοι μένος ἄσχετος ἤσθιε Κύκλωψ
ἰφθίμους ἑτάρους· σὺ δ᾽ ἐτόλμας, ὄφρα σε μῆτις
ἐξάγαγ᾽ ἐξ ἄντροιο ὀιόμενον θανέεσθαι.

‘Come on now, heart, endure! You endured another and more shameful thing on that day when
the Cyclops, irresistible, devoured my good men; but you bore it until your cunning led you,
certain you were dead, out of the cave.’

Odysseus’ reference to these past events is an important reminder to himself that, just as
he had then to endure Polyphemus’ cannibalism,6 so now, too, he must endure the
maids’ infidelity and the suitors’ devouring of his goods, if he is not to be the victim
again, this time in his own ‘cave’. For his own palace has become a very dangerous
place. The parallels with his former situation are obvious: if Odysseus had followed
his first impulse and killed Polyphemus, he and his companions would have perished
inside the cave; if he punishes the maids now, he will lose the element of surprise
and the 108 suitors will make quick work of him.7

This dilemma leads Odysseus’ thoughts to another and related problem: what to do
after the suitors are dead. Still unable to fall asleep, he is visited by Athena. He asks the
goddess a most pertinent question, ‘What happens if I do kill the suitors?’ (20.41–3):

πρὸς δ᾽ ἔτι καὶ τόδε μεῖζον ἐνὶ φρεσὶ μερμηρίζω·
εἴ περ γὰρ κτείναιμι Διός τε σέθεν τε ἕκητι,
πῇ κεν ὑπεκπροφύγοιμι; τά σε φράζεσθαι ἄνωγα.

‘There’s something else too, and more important, on my mind: “If you and Zeus will it and I kill
the suitors, how could I possibly escape and to where? Come on and think this over.”’

6 When Odysseus, enraged at Polyphemus’ first meal of man-flesh, contemplates stabbing the mon-
ster, he suddenly realizes that to do so would mean their certain doom since they would not be able to
remove the stone from the cave’s entrance (9.299–305). For a thorough discussion of the similarities
between these two situations, see J. Strauss Clay, The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in the Odyssey
(Lanham, MD, 19972), 121–5.

7 Cf. also Odysseus’ deliberation about how to respond to Melanthius’ abuse at the spring of the
Nymphs (17.204–38). There, too, he chose restraint to keep his true identity hidden.

MEDON MEETS A CYCLOPS 3

Just as he must think twice before he acts in the matter of his maids, so here too must
Odysseus keep his wits about him. If he does not, he will be caught in his own house
and be surrounded again, this time not by a band of Cyclopes, but by his own towns-
people. In fact, this is just what Odysseus successfully avoids by advising Telemachus,
immediately after the Mnesterophonia, to bring in Phemius and the maids, who are to
sing and dance so that anyone passing by would imagine that the house is celebrating
a wedding (23.137–40):

μὴ πρόσθε κλέος εὐρὺ φόνου κατὰ ἄστυ γένηται
ἀνδρῶν μνηστήρων, πρίν γ᾽ ἡμέας ἐλθέμεν ἔξω
ἀγρὸν ἐς ἡμέτερον πολυδένδρεον. ἔνθα δ᾽ ἔπειτα
φρασσόμεθ᾽ ὅττί κε κέρδος Ὀλύμπιος ἐγγυαλίξῃ.

‘Lest the rumour of the suitors’ slaughter spread through town before we get out to our many-
treed farm. And there, then, we’ll see what plan Olympian Zeus will hand us.’

Even earlier, when faced with a similar situation, Odysseus, to prevent the suitors from
alerting the townspeople, stationed Eumaeus at the one spot (ὀρσοθύρη) where his
opponents could conceivably carry the news of their ambush to the outside (22.126–
30). This idea was first aired by Eurymachus after Odysseus had refused his offer of
a settlement (22.75–8). A little later, Agelaus attempted to implement the same plan
and urged his companions to get to that very spot to raise the alarm (22.132–4).
Whether captive or captor, Odysseus’ forethought nearly always renders his enemies
resourceless.

These, then, are some concrete examples of the poet returning to the theme of the
Cyclopeia immediately upon the arrival of Odysseus on Ithaca and even on the very
night before and day of the Mnesterophonia. In a sense, Odysseus’ home has become
the Cyclops’ cave; to escape these dangers Odysseus must employ both self-control
and cunning: his signature qualities as embodied in the epithets πολύμητις and
πολύτλας.

In addition to these references to the events and dilemmas Odysseus encountered and
overcame in the Cyclops’ cave, there are also many repeated elements from the
Cyclopeia which actually cast Odysseus in the unexpected role of Polyphemus,8 a
role that has received too little scholarly attention.9 A brief review of the more obvious

8 This is not to suggest that Odysseus’ situation and actions on Ithaca simply repeat Polyphemus’ in
the cave. Odysseus, as I will demonstrate below, reprises significant elements of the ogre’s role there,
but he also repeats some of his actions as Polyphemus’ captive (e.g. he keeps the suitors from announ-
cing their plight to the townspeople, which is parallel to Odysseus’ assumption of a false name to ren-
der Polyphemus’ cries for help useless). Odysseus, thus, combines in this action his former role as
captive (keeping his enemy from seeking help) and Polyphemus’ former role of captor (keeping
his opponents shut in).

9 For an excellent but somewhat brief discussion of Odysseus as Cyclops, see M. Alden, ‘An intel-
ligent Cyclops?’, in Σπονδὲς στὸν Ὅμηρο. Μνήμη Ἰ.Θ. Κακριδῆ (Ithaki, 1993), 75–95, who lists
many of the following parallels between Polyphemus and Odysseus. Alden herself does not offer a
convincing explanation for this pairing of hero and ogre other than to appeal (p. 76) to S. Fenik’s
discussion of doublets (Studies in the Odyssey. Hermes Einzelschriften 30 [Wiesbaden, 1974],
p. 142), suggesting only that the Cyclopeia is a preparatory doublet for Odysseus’ return to Ithaca
as an intelligent ogre. While I agree with her characterization of Odysseus as an intelligent
Cyclops, I offer a different solution to this unexpected pairing in the pages that follow. For additional
discussion of the interconnectedness of Odysseus and Polyphemus, see particularly W.T. Magrath,
‘Progression of the lion simile in the “Odyssey”’, CJ 77.3 (1982), 205–12; N. Austin, ‘Odysseus

TIM BRELINSKI4

details will suffice to illustrate this fact. Odysseus comes home to find his house occu-
pied by strangers, who are slaughtering his animals, drinking his wine and eating his
food, a situation not unlike the one Polyphemus experiences when he returns home
only to find Odysseus and his men eating his cheeses, drinking his milk, and planning
to steal his sheep (9.215–27). Just as Polyphemus makes certain his captives cannot
escape by placing a huge door on his cave’s exit (9.240–3), so too Odysseus locks
the suitors in his house and blocks their escape (21.240–1). Odysseus’ size and strength
are also considerably greater than the suitors’. Our hero claims that Polyphemus lifted a
massive rock and put it into place over the cave’s entrance as easily as a man puts a lid
on a quiver (9.313–14). This brief archery simile looks forward to the slaughter of the
suitors by a master bowman, who is also a master storyteller, which two roles are com-
bined in the narrator’s description of Odysseus as he strings his bow on Ithaca. There the
narrator notes that this bow, which no suitor is able even to bend (21.249–55; 24.170–1),
is strung by Odysseus as easily as a bard fits a string to his lyre (21.404–11). And
Odysseus does all this while seated (21.420)! Just as Polyphemus’ size shocks
Odysseus (9.187–92), so too do the suitors stare in amazement at the beggar’s mighty
arms and legs as he prepares to fight Irus (18.66–71). And Antinous recalls seeing
Odysseus years ago and comments on his exceptional strength, noting that there is no
man among them now like Odysseus was then (21.85–95). Descriptions of blood and
brains also abound in both the Cyclops’ cave and in Odysseus’ palace. Polyphemus
dashes the heads of Odysseus’ companions against the rock like puppies, and their brains
and blood wet the ground (9.289–90); he also tells his favourite ram that he would splatter
his cave with Nobody’s brains, if he could just get hold of that good-for-nothing Nobody
(9.458–60). Athena likewise assures Odysseus that the suitors’ blood and brains will splat-
ter the threshold (13.394–6). And in the case of Antinous, Odysseus’ first kill, the blood
that flows from his nostrils is described with an adjective, ἀνδρόμεος ‘of man, human’
(22.19), that appears only four times in the Odyssey; the other three occurrences are all
applied to Polyphemus’ meals of man-flesh (9.297, 347, 374).10 Odysseus’ first victim,
then, is connected semantically with the Cyclops’ victims, which suggests that the type
of slaughter that is to follow Antinous’ death will be as bloody and inexorable as
Polyphemus’. Then there is Theoclymenus’ eerie vision (20.351–7) of the suitors’ coming
death, which includes a description of the beautiful walls and pillars spattered with their
blood. And Odysseus and his allies, after the suitors have been routed by Athena and

and the Cyclops: who is who?’, in C.A. Rubino and C.W. Shelmerdine (edd.), Approaches to Homer
(Austin, 1983), 3–37; and E.J. Bakker, ‘Polyphemus’, Colby Quarterly 38.2 (2002), 135–50. The sui-
tors, too, act in many ways like Polyphemus, particularly in their eating and drinking and treatment of
strangers. Ctesippus, a suitor described as knowing ἀθεμίστια (20.287), an adjective applied to
Polyphemus’ thoughts as well (9.189), even goes so far as to throw an ox’s hoof at Odysseus as a
ξείνιον (20.287–303), an obvious reference to Polyphemus’ promise to eat Nobody last as a
ξείνιον (9.355–70). For detailed discussion of this and other features shared between Polyphemus
and the suitors, see especially S. Reece, The Stranger’s Welcome: Oral Theory and the Aesthetics
of the Homeric Hospitality Scene (Ann Arbor, 1993), 165–87. Cf. also Alden (this note), 75–6,
89–94; Powell (n. 5), 43–6; and S. Saïd, ‘Les crimes des prétendants, la maison d’Ulysse et les festins
de l’Odyssée’, in Études de littérature ancienne (Paris, 1979), 9–49. There is, of course, much more to
be said about the poet’s use of narrative repetition in general, and Odysseus’ reprisal of the Cyclopeia
on Ithaca in particular. Just such a study forms a chapter in my dissertation ‘Narrative patterns in the
Odyssey: repetition and the creation of meaning’ (Diss., University of Virginia, 2008), 59–104, which
I am currently revising for publication.

10 Both Saïd (n. 9), 40–1 and Reece (n. 9), 174–5 discuss this connection but to make a different
point, that the poet is linking the punishment visited upon the suitors with that applied to Polyphemus.

MEDON MEETS A CYCLOPS 5

simply run for any cover they can find, pace back and forth throughout the halls and strike
the suitors on the head and the ground is said to flow with blood (22.308–9; 24.183–5).
Finally, in a manner reminiscent of Polyphemus’ sitting in the doorway of his cave and
waiting for Odysseus and his companions to attempt to escape, Odysseus, perhaps recal-
ling the earlier escape of Phemius and Medon, returns to the slaughtered suitors lying in
the blood and dust to see if any are trying to escape death by concealment (22.381–2).11

In addition to the above reminiscences of the Cyclopeia, all of which favour a read-
ing of Medon’s successful escape as one more reference to the events in that dark cave,
Medon’s situation also corresponds more closely to Odysseus’ in the cave than to
Menelaus’ on the beach. Odysseus hides under a ram to escape a menacing monster
who knows no mercy (9.424–61); Menelaus lies under a skin to ambush a god
(4.435–55). The former is defensive, seeking to escape certain death, the latter aggres-
sive. Moreover, the hide with which Medon is concealed is the by-product of the suitors’
depredations on Odysseus’ herds, a fact made clear by the adjective applied to this ox
hide (νεόδαρτον, 22.363). Thus, Medon attempts to escape detection under the hide of
an animal that belongs to Odysseus, just as Odysseus escaped death beneath an animal
that belonged to Polyphemus. The shared predicament and method of escape, then, of
both Odysseus and Medon are alone sufficient reason for reading Medon’s escape as
an allusion to Odysseus’ own. The palace has become the cave and Odysseus the
Cyclops.

In the moments following Leodes’ death, Phemius’ deliberations and choice are also
instructive. After he witnesses Leodes’ failed supplication, Phemius weighs anxiously
two options: to seek refuge at the altar of Zeus Herkeios, or to grasp Odysseus’
knees. Phemius chooses the latter. The bard’s rejection of the first option indicates
that he fears Odysseus would ignore his appeal to Zeus. Perhaps the outcome of either
choice would have been the same, had it not been for the intervention by Telemachus, to
whom Phemius appeals as witness of his innocence (22.350–5). Odysseus himself sug-
gests that it was Telemachus who saved Medon and, by association, Phemius (22.372).
Phemius’ fear here also appears to have a solid basis in fact; Odysseus had, after all, just
killed the most ‘innocent’ of the suitors, who also happened to be a prophet.12 Bards
also have a special relationship with the gods, as is made clear in Phemius’ appeal to
Odysseus, and Medon is a herald, a role in Homeric epic considered sacrosanct.13

11 22.381–2: πάπτηνεν δ᾽ Ὀδυσεὺς καθ᾽ …