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To: Robwin

The thing that shocked me in the Odyssey, when I read the adult version:

Odysseus kills the suitors of his wife. He makes the maids who had sex with them scrub the blood from the floor, and then he hangs them from the rafters of the hall - pulling them up to slowly strangle.

Did they have much choice about sex? Did they mock Penelope and make her life a misery? One of them betrayed her unraveling the weaving.

But Oddyseus - he who took women captive, who spent a year in Circe’s bed and seven in Calypso’s, he kills them, and is lovingly welcomed by chaste Penelope.

Even Helen is forgiven, the wise and wonderful wife of Menelaus. She is the daughter of Zeus after all - the divine not bound by sexual morality, not like the daughters of men.


14 posted on 12/29/2024 5:43:50 PM PST by heartwood (If you're looking for the /sarc tag, you just passed it..we)
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To: heartwood

And you know who Telemachus guides faithfully.

Re Reading the poem now.


37 posted on 12/29/2024 7:47:38 PM PST by BatGuano
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