21.16 in Lacedaemon, in Messenia: Lacedaemon, also known as Laconica, is the region around Sparta; Messenia is an area within that region.
21.46 with true aim, thrust back the fastenings: The door seems to be fastened with a leather thong attached to a bolt, which is tied to a hook on the outside when not in use; the key is used to open the door from the outside. The key is presumably a kind of large bronze hook, not serrated in a specific pattern like a modern key.
21.73–74 shoot through all / twelve axes: The mechanics of the axe competition are unclear, but it seems most likely that these are axe heads, without handles, and with round, drilled holes in the end through which the wooden handle could be inserted. The axe heads are lined up, with the holes all aligned straight. The goal of the contest is to shoot an arrow through all of the holes. Scholars debate whether the contest takes place inside the feast hall or in the courtyard outside. It seems most likely that it is inside, with the axes resting on a pile of earth, and perhaps also on some kind of platform, to reduce the danger of spectators being shot.
21.121 trod the earth down flat: If the contest is taking place in the feast hall—which has a finished floor, not dirt—the earth seems to be brought in and heaped up to provide a base for the axes.
21.144 Leodes, their holy man: The holy man is literally a man who performs sacrifices. However, the job description is somewhat fluid, and he also serves as a prophet or diviner.
21.153–55 This bow will take away / courage, life-force, and energy from many / noble young men: Leodes speaks in prophetic language, perhaps unconsciously. His words could suggest only that the attempt to string the bow will discourage those who fail in the attempt; but they can also mean that the bow will kill many men.
21.296 Wine even turned the famous Centaur’s head: The passage refers to the famous drunken brawl between the Lapiths, a Thessalian tribe, and the Centaurs, a wild mountain-dwelling people, later imagined as half-human and half-horse.
21.352–53 The bow is work for men, especially me. / I am the one with power in this house: These two lines echo the words of Hector to Andromache in Book 6 of The Iliad: “War is a job for men, especially me.”
21.392 byblos: A fiber from the papyrus plant, imported to Greece from Egypt and known for its strength.
21.403–5 “I hope / his future luck will match how well he does / in stringing it!”: Dramatic irony: the suitor assumes he will fail in the bow stringing and hopes his life will continue badly thereafter.
21.417 double-dealing Cronus: Cronus, leader of the Titans (divine descendants of Sky and Earth), was persuaded by his mother, Earth, to castrate his father, Sky, which he did with a sickle. Sky threatened revenge, but Cronus killed him, and ruled the world with his sister/wife Rhea. They became the parents of most of the Olympian gods. Cronus swallowed his children when they were born, but Zeus, the sixth child, organized a war against his father, which he won, and he became king in turn.
BOOK 22 SUMMARY
As Antinous lifts his wine-cup, Odysseus shoots him through the neck. He reveals his identity to the suitors and shoots Eurymachus through the nipple. Armed only with chairs and side tables, the suitors try to defend themselves. Telemachus kills Amphinomus, then goes to fetch more weapons from the storeroom. The suitors hope to slip out the back; Melanthius sneaks to the storeroom and gets weapons for them. Odysseus instructs the herdsmen to intercept him and torture him by trussing him up and hanging him from the storeroom roof. In the guise of Mentor, Athena joins Odysseus; many are slaughtered. Phemius and Medon are spared. Soon all the men are dead. Odysseus tells Telemachus to hack to death the girls who slept with the suitors; instead, he hangs them, and the herdsmen mutiliate and slaughter Melanthius. The surviving slave women are brought out to greet their master.
22.74 use tables as your shields: In the usual Greek arrangement, there were light side tables by each diner, rather than a single larger dining table; the suitors are to pick up their tables for self-defense.
22.126–27 There was a back gate in the castle walls, / providing access to the passageway: The exact architectural layout of Odysseus’ palace is difficult to work out from the text. This passage, which has been viewed by some scholars as a later addition to clear up a possible problem with the plot, explains that there is only one exit apart from the main doors of the palace, and it is impossible for the suitors to escape by that route to raise the alarm.
22.222 Your sons will not survive here in these halls: It is unclear in the original whether Agelaus is threatening to kill Mentor’s sons or only banish them.
22.228 Zeus’ favorite child: The original epithet, eupatereios, is an unusual one, suggesting “well fathered.”
22.230 the plan that made the city fall: The trick of the Wooden Horse.
22.423 tolerate their life as slaves: There is an important interpretative question in this line. Some scholars think that the original doulosune (“slavery”) here suggests sexual slavery, and that the line (the Greek reads doulosunes apechesthai) should be interpreted to mean “to hold off against (sexual) enslavement”—that is, to resist the kind of advances made by the suitors.
22.432 who made those treasonous plots while I was gone: The Greek verb mechanoonto (“plotted”—with implications of cunning strategy reminiscent of Odysseus himself) suggests that these girls were deliberately hoping to work against their master—a suggestion that goes well beyond Odysseus’ evidence. I use “treasonous” for a word that can suggest lack of shame as well as other kinds of dangerous or inappropriate behavior (aeikea): it can suggest sexual “shamelessness,” but is not limited to that connotation.
BOOK 23 SUMMARY
Eurycleia tells Penelope that the old beggar is really Odysseus, and that he has killed all the suitors. She is reluctant to believe her slave. Telemachus scolds her. Odysseus tells him they will recognize each other in time, through secret signs; meanwhile, they must make noise as if of a wedding party, to delay the moment when the people of Ithaca realize what has been done to the suitors. Penelope, testing Odysseus, tells Eurycleia to pull the bed frame out of the room and make up the bed for the guest. Odysseus is horrified and tells the story of how he built the bed himself, using a still-living tree that grows in the middle of the palace. Penelope acknowledges him as her husband. They weep. Odysseus tells her about his next journey, to the land of people who do not know the sea. They go to bed together. He tells her an edited version of his adventures. In the morning, Odysseus sends her upstairs while he prepares to fight off the Ithacans.