Why does odysseus kill the servants

Additionally, some of the deaths have a kind of Gothic humor to them, as suitors like Antinous and Eurymachus trip over their dinners. The incapacitation of Melanthius in the storeroom adds comic relief, as does his castration. After all, these are not famous heroes fighting one another but rather one famous hero warding off a bunch of freeloaders.

Ace your assignments with our guide to The Odyssey! SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Why does Telemachus go to Pylos and Sparta? How does Odysseus escape Polyphemus?

Why does Odysseus kill the suitors? How does Penelope test Odysseus? What is happening at the beginning of The Odyssey?

Why does Athena help Odysseus so much? Why does Nestor invite Telemachus to the feast before knowing his identity? Why does Calypso allow Odysseus to leave her island? Why does Odysseus sleep with Circe? Why does Odysseus travel to Hades? Why does Odysseus fail to reveal his identity to Penelope when they are first reunited? Does Penelope really intend to marry one of her suitors?

How do Odysseus and Telemachus defeat the suitors? Summary Books 21— Summary: Book 22 Before the suitors realize what is happening, Odysseus shoots a second arrow through the throat of Antinous. Analysis: Books 21—22 The dramatic scene in which Odysseus effortlessly strings the bow is justly famous. Previous section Books 19—20 Next section Books 23— What does Tiresias say Odysseus should do after dealing with the Suitors?

Make a large sacrifice to all of the gods. Odysseus can't hug his mother because she is dead and that is one of Hades' laws. Tod Naval Pundit. How did Odysseus get rid of the suitors when he arrived home? Athena disguised Odysseus as a beggar.

Penelope said whoever could shoot Odysseus's bow could be her husband. Odysseus shot the suitors as a beggar. Shengjie Teasdale Pundit. Why does Odysseus hide his identity from eumaeus? He is Odysseus ' faithful swineherd. Why does Odysseus hide his identity from Eumaeus? He does not want it known that he has arrived home, and he wants to test Eumaeus ' loyalty to his master.

Helen interprets the sign to mean that Odysseus will soon return to Ithaca and take revenge on the suitors. Nikolina Backofe Pundit. How does Odysseus die? Having come to Ithaca, he drove away some of the cattle, and when Odysseus defended them, Telegonus 3 wounded him with the spear he had in his hands, which was barbed with the spine of a stingray, and Odysseus died of the wound. But others say that Odysseus died of Old Age, as Tiresias predicted.

Lissete Lewicki Teacher. What is so special about Odysseus bow? Odysseus ' Bow. Jonnatan Gramlich Supporter. Why are so few lines devoted to Odysseus actual winning of the contest?

Epic because it is showing honor and loyalty of father and son. Showing he is is heroic fighting against men who took over his kingdom and life.

Showing him making a stand against his enemy. Mima Twardy Supporter. How did eurymachus die? Odysseus, however, maintains that killing will continue until he has satiated his taste for vengeance, whereupon Eurymachus runs at Odysseus with his sword, but Odysseus shoots an arrow into Eurymachus ' chest, stopping him dead.

Jeannette Beutel Supporter. How did Poseidon get revenge on Odysseus? First, Poseidon constantly upbraids Odysseus for blinding his son, Polyphemus, by making his journey home extremely difficult. He wanted to get revenge on Odysseus because he blinded his Cyclops son, Polyphemus. Lance Leonard Beginner. As eagle-beaked, crook-taloned vultures from the mountains swoop down on the smaller birds that cower in flocks upon the ground, and kill them, for they cannot either fight or fly, and lookers on enjoy the sport--even so did Ulysses and his men fall upon the suitors and smite them on every side.

They made a horrible groaning as their brains were being battered in, and the ground seethed with their blood. Leiodes then caught the knees of Ulysses and said, "Ulysses I beseech you have mercy upon me and spare me.

I never wronged any of the women in your house either in word or deed, and I tried to stop the others. I saw them, but they would not listen, and now they are paying for their folly. I was their sacrificing priest; if you kill me, I shall die without having done anything to deserve it, and shall have got no thanks for all the good that I did.

Ulysses looked sternly at him and answered, "If you were their sacrificing priest, you must have prayed many a time that it might be long before I got home again, and that you might marry my wife and have children by her. Therefore you shall die. With these words he picked up the sword that Agelaus had dropped when he was being killed, and which was lying upon the ground.

Then he struck Leiodes on the back of his neck, so that his head fell rolling in the dust while he was yet speaking. The minstrel Phemius son of Terpes--he who had been forced by the suitors to sing to them--now tried to save his life.

He was standing near towards the trap door, [9] and held his lyre in his hand. He did not know whether to fly out of the cloister and sit down by the altar of Jove that was in the outer court, and on which both Laertes and Ulysses had offered up the thigh bones of many an ox, or whether to go straight up to Ulysses and embrace his knees, but in the end he deemed it best to embrace Ulysses' knees. So he laid his lyre on the ground between the mixing bowl [10] and the silver-studded seat; then going up to Ulysses he caught hold of his knees and said, "Ulysses, I beseech you have mercy on me and spare me.

You will be sorry for it afterwards if you kill a bard who can sing both for gods and men as I can. I make all my lays myself, and heaven visits me with every kind of inspiration. I would sing to you as though you were a god, do not therefore be in such a hurry to cut my head off. Your own son Telemachus will tell you that I did not want to frequent your house and sing to the suitors after their meals, but they were too many and too strong for me, so they made me.

Telemachus heard him, and at once went up to his father. Medon caught these words of Telemachus, for he was crouching under a seat beneath which he had hidden by covering himself up with a freshly flayed heifer's hide, so he threw off the hide, went up to Telemachus, and laid hold of his knees. Ulysses smiled at him and answered, "Fear not; Telemachus has saved your life, that you may know in future, and tell other people, how greatly better good deeds prosper than evil ones.

Go, therefore, outside the cloisters into the outer court, and be out of the way of the slaughter--you and the bard--while I finish my work here inside. The pair went into the outer court as fast as they could, and sat down by Jove's great altar, looking fearfully round, and still expecting that they would be killed. Then Ulysses searched the whole court carefully over, to see if anyone had managed to hide himself and was still living, but he found them all lying in the dust and weltering in their blood.

They were like fishes which fishermen have netted out of the sea, and thrown upon the beach to lie gasping for water till the heat of the sun makes an end of them. Even so were the suitors lying all huddled up one against the other.

Telemachus went and knocked at the door of the women's room. Come outside; my father wishes to speak to you. When Euryclea heard this she unfastened the door of the women's room and came out, following Telemachus. She found Ulysses among the corpses bespattered with blood and filth like a lion that has just been devouring an ox, and his breast and both his cheeks are all bloody, so that he is a fearful sight; even so was Ulysses besmirched from head to foot with gore.

When she saw all the corpses and such a quantity of blood, she was beginning to cry out for joy, for she saw that a great deed had been done; but Ulysses checked her, "Old woman," said he, "rejoice in silence; restrain yourself, and do not make any noise about it; it is an unholy thing to vaunt over dead men.

Heaven's doom and their own evil deeds have brought these men to destruction, for they respected no man in the whole world, neither rich nor poor, who came near them, and they have come to a bad end as a punishment for their wickedness and folly. Now, however, tell me which of the women in the house have misconducted themselves, and who are innocent. Of these, twelve in all [12] have misbehaved, and have been wanting in respect to me, and also to Penelope.

They showed no disrespect to Telemachus, for he has only lately grown and his mother never permitted him to give orders to the female servants; but let me go upstairs and tell your wife all that has happened, for some god has been sending her to sleep.

Euryclea left the cloister to tell the women, and make them come to Ulysses; in the meantime he called Telemachus, the stockman, and the swineherd. Then, get sponges and clean water to swill down the tables and seats. When you have thoroughly cleansed the whole cloisters, take the women into the space between the domed room and the wall of the outer court, and run them through with your swords till they are quite dead, and have forgotten all about love and the way in which they used to lie in secret with the suitors.

On this the women came down in a body, weeping and wailing bitterly. First they carried the dead bodies out, and propped them up against one another in the gatehouse. Ulysses ordered them about and made them do their work quickly, so they had to carry the bodies out. When they had done this, they cleaned all the tables and seats with sponges and water, while Telemachus and the two others shovelled up the blood and dirt from the ground, and the women carried it all away and put it out of doors.

Then when they had made the whole place quite clean and orderly, they took the women out and hemmed them in the narrow space between the wall of the domed room and that of the yard, so that they could not get away: and Telemachus said to the other two, "I shall not let these women die a clean death, for they were insolent to me and my mother, and used to sleep with the suitors.

So saying he made a ship's cable fast to one of the bearing-posts that supported the roof of the domed room, and secured it all around the building, at a good height, lest any of the women's feet should touch the ground; and as thrushes or doves beat against a net that has been set for them in a thicket just as they were getting to their nest, and a terrible fate awaits them, even so did the women have to put their heads in nooses one after the other and die most miserably.

As for Melanthius, they took him through the cloister into the inner court. There they cut off his nose and his ears; they drew out his vitals and gave them to the dogs raw, and then in their fury they cut off his hands and his feet.

When they had done this they washed their hands and feet and went back into the house, for all was now over; and Ulysses said to the dear old nurse Euryclea, "Bring me sulphur, which cleanses all pollution, and fetch fire also that I may burn it, and purify the cloisters. Go, moreover, and tell Penelope to come here with her attendants, and also all the maidservants that are in the house.

Do not keep these rags on your back any longer. It is not right. She brought the fire and sulphur, as he had bidden her, and Ulysses thoroughly purified the cloisters and both the inner and outer courts. Then she went inside to call the women and tell them what had happened; whereon they came from their apartment with torches in their hands, and pressed round Ulysses to embrace him, kissing his head and shoulders and taking hold of his hands.

It made him feel as if he should like to weep, for he remembered every one of them. The reader will note how the spoiling of good food distresses the writer even in such a supreme moment as this. It is strange that the author of the "Iliad" should find a little horse-hair so alarming. Possibly enough she was merely borrowing a common form line from some earlier poet--or poetess--for this is a woman's line rather than a man's.

The interpretation of lines is most dubious, and at best we are in a region of melodrama: cf. The [Greek] I take to be a door, or trap door, leading on to the roof above Telemachus's bed room, which we are told was in a place that could be seen from all round--or it might be simply a window in Telemachus's room looking out into the street.