1. Crafty Penelope weaves a web by day and unravels it by night. Waterhouse (ca. 1900)

2. Odysseus and Penelope: Husband and Wife as mirror images of each other (8.585-597; 23.262-272)

3. Learning from past mistakes: Comparing the returns of Odysseus and Agamemnon AgamemnonOdysseus Comes back in the openComes back disguised as a beggar Comes back with a concubineHas renounced all past and potential lovers (Circe, Kalypso, Nausikaa) Trusted his wife and peopleWill test everyone, from faithful servant completelyto son, and even his model wife

4. The Odyssey’s “rewriting” of the Iliad: “it all began not with the clash between Agamemnon and Achilles, but with that between Odysseus and Achilles” (Book 8) the Muse inspired the bard86 to sing the famous deeds of fighting heroes — the song whose fame had reached the skies those days: the Strife Between Odysseus and Achilles, Peleus ’ son... how once at the gods ’ lavish feast the captains clashed90 in a savage war of words, while Agamemnon, lord of armies, rejoiced at heart that Achaea ’ s bravest men were battling so.92

5. Odysseus slaughters the suitors

6. Odysseus with his Bow. N.C. Wyeth (20th c.)