Odyssey Study Guide Contents
The fourteenth Book of the Odyssey is a bit frustrating. There is no plot advance, and it seems as though everything must have a secret, hidden meaning.Why is Odysseus described as cunning for sitting down when the dogs run at him when in the next line it's clear he would have been torn apart had Eumaeus not intervened? Eumaeus calls Odysseus a liar, but continues to treat him with the courtesy required of a host to a guest. He doesn't explain why he is so bent on believing Odysseus is dead. Later, Odysseus tells a story that sounds as though it needs a punchline or something, but it doesn't have one. In the story about Odysseus' life in Crete (his second Cretan Lie -- see Book XIII), there are questions -- what made the king hoist him into the war chariot? and wasn't he ashamed to have dropped his weapons? Eumaeus kills a couple of small pigs because the suitors are eating all the good meat, but then he changes his mind about being frugal, and kills a big one for Odysseus and his men, anyway, with no real explanation.
One way to look at the fourteenth book is to see the exchange between Odysseus and Eumaeus as necessary to show Odysseus that Athena was right -- Eumaeus is trustworthy, and reciprocally, to show Eumaeus that the beggar, who has suddenly shown up, has character traits making him a worthy person. Whatever bonds they forged two decades earlier need to be re-affirmed. This is the start. The next book will continue the bonding.
The Aetolian and the Cloak
In the story Odysseus tells Eumaeus about Thoas in the Trojan War, Thoas thinks a god has beguiled him into forgetting to wear his cloak when he goes out in the cold. It is on the basis of this cleverness(?) that Odysseus expects and actually gets a cloak for the night. It's not Eumaeus' cloak, though. That Eumaeus wears along with his armor when he ventures outside for the night. Eumaeus, as Rick M. Newtons says in "Cloak and Shield in Odyssey 14," won't be duped by the beggar. This failure to be duped partly explains why he won't give Odysseus the cloak and why he is impervious to the lies that Odysseus is still alive.T. Corey Brennan suggests that the appeal for Eumaeus of the story of Thoas dropping the cloak is linked to his hostility towards the person who lied to him about the returning Odysseus. He was, like Thoas, an Aetolian. Odysseus, perceiving the hostility Eumaeus still feels towards that Aetolian, wove the ethnic detail into his cloak tale.
At least that's one Book XIV puzzle with a plausible answer.
References:
"Odysseus, Idomeneus and Meriones: The Cretan Lies of 'Odyssey' 13-19," by Adele J. Haft.
The Classical Journal, Vol. 79, No. 4. (Apr. - May, 1984), pp. 289-306.
"Cloak and Shield in Odyssey 14," by Rick M. Newton. The Classical Journal, Vol. 93, No. 2. (Dec., 1997 - Jan., 1998), pp. 143-156.
"An Ethnic Joke in Homer?" by T. Corey Brennan. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 91. (1987), pp. 1-3.
"The Swineherd and the Beggar," by Gilbert P. Rose. Phoenix, Vol. 34, No. 4. (Winter, 1980), pp. 285-297.
