All Characters ... Penelope is Odysseus’s wife. The bed of course can't be moved because it was built into a trunk of a tree. The heroine asks to bring in their marital bed. State a theme from the following: She knew that Odysseus built the bed around an olive tree in their chamber. Penelope’s determination to test Odysseus shows that she is intelligent and not easily tricked. This incident in Book 23 occurs because Penelope, after all she has gone through, finds it hard to believe that it is her husband who has returned. Penelope tests Odysseus identity by suggesting that they move their bed to another room so that she can get used to Odysseus, whom has been away for so long. He is angry because he believes Penelope must have replaced this bed with a movable one. Expert Answers. Only Odysseus should know this. What reason does Penelope give for her doubts that Odysseus will ever reach home? 6. She organizes a shooting competition for the suitors with his husband’s great bow. Only Odysseus, Penelope and one loyal servant have ever seen the bed. Athena thus agrees with Odysseus' plan. In Homer’s epic, Odysseus is reunited with Penelope after he has slain the numerous suitors. (Trans. Penelope no longer doubts his tales, so Odysseus tells her that her husband is in Thesprotia and possesses the means to return soon to his household. Irish Identity and Nationalism Quotes. ... but still Penelope doubts his identity. Though her love for Odysseus is unyielding, she responds to the suitors with some indecision. D promising eternal loyalty to Odysseus. His anger, and the fact that he knows the story of the bed, proves his identity. 8. Summary. Characters. Robert Fitzgerald, Book XVII – XX). asks Telemachus and Eumaeus to … He finds that Penelope has been a faithful wife, while Penelope doubts him as she finds some resemblance between the beggar and his supposedly dead husband. Athena often comes to her in dreams to reassure or comfort her, for Penelope would otherwise spend her nights weeping in her bed. 7. Athena must distract her, for instance, so that she does not discover Odysseus’s identity when Eurycleia is washing him. To be loyal, she has to act disloyal at first; to love him, she has to act as though she doesn't love him. What fear caused Penelope to hold back her belief it was Odysseus for so long? gets him to reveal a secret that only she and he know. The scar is not proof enough for Penelope. So, she conceives a ruse to test the stranger’s identity. Odysseus participates, and wins the contest. Hover for more information. She spends twenty years waiting for Odysseus to return from the Trojan War and inventing strategies to delay the hundred suitors who have been trying to marry her in his absence. asks Athena to prove that he is indeed her husband. In Book IXX, the nurse accidentally discovers Odysseus' identity and turns to tell Penelope who he is, but is unsuccessful 'because Athena had bemused the queen, so that she took no notice, paid no heed.' Although Penelope wishes to believe him, she doubts that she will ever be rejoined with her long absent husband. At first, however, Penelope does not recognize her husband; she is convinced that he is indeed Odysseus, her husband, only after he is able to describe to her the construction of … Her suspicion is not cold-hearted, but just the opposite: she is so loyal to Odysseus that she fears betraying him in any way – even accidentally. Penelope doubts Odysseus' identity, so she A demands that he show the scar he received from a boar.