Odysseus Strings His Bow
Sometimes small moments in literature can be profoundly powerful. In the Odyssey, Odysseus has spent long years in exile, seeking a return to his home, to what is his. First he is wrapped up in a war that is not his concern, but rather the scheming of Agamemnon. Then there are many problems and issues that delay his return.
When he finally does get back, he finds a pack of men eating all of his food and trying to woo his wife. After everything that has happened to him, to find this sacrilege is a bitter blow. It is not the homecoming he would have hoped for.
Here, the situation is very different. Before, with the war, with all of the distractions and concerns, we saw Odysseus the schemer, the mastermind, playing the game that he was dealt. But here, this is his own dear family.
He is shut inside of the hall with the revelers. The noise of the outside world is closed off. His wife has told the suitors that anyone that can string Odysseus’ bow can marry her. She hopes this challenge will be too great for them, knowing that Odysseus is a man great in both strength and knowledge.
Odysseus is disguised inside of this party as an old man. A few have tried to string the bow but have been unable to bend it at all. Odysseus says to them:
“For the moment, give me the polished bow now, won’t you? So, to amuse you all, I can try my hand, my strength…is the old force still alive inside these gnarled limbs?”
The bow is placed in Odysseus’ hands.
This is a primal moment, a moment of the utmost meaning. To have his bow back in his hands represents the culmination of everything that he has suffered, it represents his return home, his return to both what he is, and what is his.
It is his bow these men have played with. It is his home these men have disgraced. It is his wife these men sought to take.
And with the bow in his hands he can now reclaim it all. For this moment—which the poet sublimely lingers upon—there are no more games or trickery, just the righteous fury of a father and husband.
“Now he held the bow in his own hands, turning it over, tip to tip, testing it, this way, that way…fearing worms had bored through the weapon’s horn with the master gone abroad. A suitor would glance at his neighbor, jeering, taunting, ‘Look at our connoisseur of bows!’”
The bow is sound. Not all has been corrupted. The bow represents his innermost self, his true nature. Despite the passage of time, it is sound. As he centered into himself, still in disguise, he is mocked by the others. He doesn’t even hear them now. He is the master of his own home.
“Odysseus strung his mighty bow…Horror swept through the suitors, faces blanching white.”
At this moment he looks to his loyal son, who has long waited for his father’s return.
“Your guest, sitting here in your house, has not disgraced you…My strength’s not broken yet, not quite so frail as the mocking suitors thought…He paused with a warning nod, and at that sign Prince Telemachus, son of King Odysseus, girding his sharp sword on, clamping hand to spear, took his stand by a chair that flanked his father.”
When his son stands next to him, reunited, the pieces of his self and identity come together. Here is his heir, his blood. No longer a boy, his son stands with his father, a younger version of the old hero. Never doubting, the son’s faith is vindicated. Now father and son are united in purpose and in action.
From here Odysseus proceeds to kill every one of the men who has violated his home. Here Odysseus has drawn the line and says, “This is mine, this is what I love.” The suitors try to bribe him, but he tells them that all the gold in the world would not be sufficient. The only repayment he will accept now is blood. This moment is not about glory, or victory in battle. It is not about the honor of the warrior, but about the sacred duty to protect what we hold most dear. The man who clears that hall is not Odysseus the mastermind and trickster, hero of the Trojan war. It is Odysseus the father, Odysseus the husband.
And for me, as a father and husband myself, it moves me deeply.
