Why does telemachus execute the maids

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.

Class, Womanhood, and Violence. Odysseus then told Telemachus to hack the Maids up. Then Telemachus and Odysseus hacked up a goatherd who had betrayed him. Eurycleia thought that this would make an example for anyone else thinking about treason. When she woke up, Penelope panicked, asking Eurycleia which Maids Odysseus had killed, and Eurycleia told him he killed the twelve Maids who had been especially rude, including Melantho of the Pretty Cheeks.

Eurycleia seems to support the murder of the Maids. Though Eurycleia judges the Maids for being rape victims, she could easily be in their place. Related Quotes with Explanations. Penelope corrected her, saying that Odysseus had hung the rape victims, the youngest, and the most beautiful Maids. Penelope did not reveal that these were also her spies and confidantes. Eurycleia said that it would not have been proper to have such mouthy and untrustworthy girls in the palace anyway.

Eurycleia then sent Penelope downstairs to see Odysseus. First, they were disrespectful to him and his household, especially the first ones he and his son target with arrows and spear. Second, they were disloyal to Odysseus as ruler of Ithaca in their attempts to displace him by taking his wife. His meeting with Athena in Book 1 changes things. Previous What are card sleeves made of?

Next Who is telling the story in A Rose for Emily? Telemachus kills Amphinomus and then runs to get weapons for himself, Odysseus , Eumaeus, and Philoetius. Odysseus betrays Penelope through his sexual affairs with Calypso and Circe. Calypso, a goddess, keeps Odysseus with her on her island for seven years, until Zeus demands that she release him. Who were the suitors in the Odyssey?

Category: books and literature fiction. The Suitors. Well, the wife and son of Odysseus - Penelope and Telemachus , respectively - were busy fending off a group of ill-mannered, piggish men Homer refers to as the suitors. There are over a hundred of these guys appearing at the home of Penelope and Telemachus while Odysseus is gone. How does Odysseus die? Who kills Odysseus first? Why did Odysseus kill the maids? What is Penelope a symbol of?

How did eurymachus die? Did the suitors deserve to die in the Odyssey? Why did Penelope give the test of the bow?

Who betrayed Penelope in the Odyssey? Why does Telemachus execute the maids? Why did the suitors want to marry Penelope?