The test of the bow is Penelope’s test for the suitors. She claims that she will marry the man who can complete this test because he will be much like Odysseus. The man who completes this will be able to string Odysseus’ bow.

What challenge does Penelope create for the suitors? Whoever could string Odysseus’ bow and fire an arrow through twelve axe handles would be able to marry her.

The emblem of Penelope’s cleverness is the device by which she tricks her suitors for three years, her weaving. She uses the weaving to buy herself time, but the weaving is itself an image of time. Time is a weaving and unweaving; it makes and unmakes beings and relations.

The test was that Penelope says that she will marry whichever suitor can string the bow and then shoot an arrow through 12 axe handles. None of the suitors can even string the bow so none of them even gets a shot at the axe handles. So this is a way of showing that Odysseus is much stronger than any of the suitors.

What is the climax of “death in the great Hall”? Of the climaxes in “the death of the great hall” and “the trunk of the olive tree”, which one is considered the climax of the epic as a whole? He killed him first because he was the leader of the suitors. Why did odysseus choose Antinous as his first victim?

Tearing off his beggar rags, Odysseus boldly catapults himself onto the hall’s threshold, utters a brief prayer to Apollo, and fires an arrow straight through a new target: Antinous’ throat. Odysseus rips through Eurymachus’ chest and liver with an arrow. Amphinomus attacks and is killed by Telemachus.

Q. Quote Analysis: “And the suitors mad with fear / at her great sign stampeded like stung cattle by a river”(1290-1291). The suitors are angry that Odysseus has killed their leader.

What do the suitors look for once Odysseus begins the fight? They try to look for their weapons so they can fight back. He said if he spares the suitors, then they will pay for everything they did while he was gone.

Summary: Book 20 Odysseus worries that he and Telemachus will never be able to conquer so many suitors, but Athena reassures him that through the gods all things are possible. Tormented by the loss of her husband and her commitment to remarry, Penelope wakes and prays for Artemis to kill her.

Antinous

The chief suitors are Antinoös and Eurymachus. Why does Phemius’ song disturb Penelope? The song reminds her of Odysseus’ own wanderings. Odysseus’ father is Laertes.

What does Penelope take out of the closet? Tears flow from Penelope eyes. You just studied 30 terms!

The god Poseidon certainly hates Odysseus, and this is because Odysseus blinded Poseidon’s son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. Odysseus then told the Cyclops his real name, out of pride, so that the monster can tell others who managed to outsmart him. Polyphemus then prayed to his father, Poseidon, to punish Odysseus.

Poseidon can be very ruthless, moody and vengeful. He hated being a subservient to his much more prominent brother, Zeus, and always looked for ways to upstage him. He does not like Athena either, for her arrogance, and disdains the goddess.

According to tradition that appears outside of the Iliad, Hera and Athene were angry with the Trojan Paris (and therefore all Trojans) because Paris chose Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess instead of one of them.

Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although the last son regurgitated by his father….