Consider the following passages (with Dr. Levine’s comments) when thinking about whether or not Penelope recognizes the beggar as her husband Odysseus. And try to imagine her facial expressions in each of these passages, when she and Odysseus could have been exchanging knowing looks (or not).
17.550ff (Lombardo): Then she [Penelope] called the swineherd to her and said: “Noble Eumaeus, tell the stranger to come here so that I can greet him and ask him if perhaps he has heard anything about Odysseus or seen him with his own eyes. By his looks he is a man who has wandered the world.” And you, my swineherd, answered her: “I wish the men would keep quiet, Lady, for his speech could charm your very soul…”
[Penelope is observing the beggar very carefully, and notices that he has wandered the world… like Odysseus. Euamaeus might be confirming her hunch, when he suggests that this man’s speech could charm her soul.]
17.625ff (Lombardo): When he heard this the swineherd went off, and when he crossed the threshold Penelope said: “You’re not bringing him with you, Eumaeus. What does he mean by this, Does he fear someone more than he should, or is there something else here that makes him hang back? A shy beggar’s a poor one.” And you answered her, Eumaeus, my swineherd: “What he says is right, as anyone would agree, about avoiding the violence of arrogant men. He asks you to wait until the sun goes down. And it would be far seemlier for you too, Lady, if you and stranger had your talk in private.” Penelope answered in her circumspect way: “Our guest is no fool. He sees what could happen. These men are bent on senseless violence, more than any mortal men I can imagine.”
[Penelope compliments the guest before she even meets him; perhaps she suspects from his looks that the beggar is her husband? And Odysseus is no fool, as she notices… or not. And she is eager to meet with the beggar later, at night, and in private. Could she be hoping that he is Odysseus?]
18. 167ff (Lombardo): And now the Grey-eyed One put into the heart of Penelope, Icarius’ wise daughter, a notion to show herself to the suitors. All of a sudden she wanted to make their blood pound — and to make herself more worthy than ever in the eyes of her son and of her husband. With a whimsical laugh she said to the housekeeper: “Eurynome, my heart longs, though it never has before, to show myself to the suitors, hateful as they are…”
[But she supposedly does not know that her husband is there.]
18. 272ff (Lombardo): And wise Penelope answered him: “Eurymachus, the gods destroyed my beauty on the day when the Argives sailed for Ilion and with them went my husband, Odysseus. If he were to come back and be part of my life, my fame would be greater and more resplendent…This isn’t the way suitors usually behave when men compete for the land of a lady, a woman of some worth, a rich man’s daughter. They bring cattle, and fat sheep, to feast the bride’s friends, and they give her glorious gifts. They do not devour another’s livelihood without recompense.” She spoke, and Odysseus, the godlike survivor, smiled inwardly to see how she extracted gifts from the suitors, weaving a spell upon them with her words, while her mind was set elsewhere.
[If they had not talked before, how does the beggar Odysseus really know that Penelope is fooling the suitors?]
19.134ff (Lombardo): And Penelope, watching, answered him [beggar Odysseus]: “Stranger, the gods destroyed my beauty on the day when the Argives sailed for Ilion and with them went my husband, Odysseus. If he were to come back and be part of my life, my fame would be greater and more resplendent so. But now I ache… I just waste away with longing for Odysseus. My suitors press on, and I weave my wiles (dolos — plural). First some god breathed into me the thought of setting up a great loom in the main hall, and I started weaving a vast fabric with a very fine thread…”
[Penelope tells the beggar the whole story of how she tried to put the suitors off, but was betrayed by her serving women. Would she tell such a story to any wandering beggar? It seems that this story is intended to let Odysseus know that she has been working hard to stay loyal to him.]
19.218ff (Lombardo): All lies, but he [beggar Odysseus] made them seem like the truth, and as she [Penelope] listened, her face melted with tears. Snow deposited high in the mountains by the wild West Wind slowly melts under the East Wind’s breath, and as it melts the rivers rise in their channels. So her lovely cheeks coursed with tears as she wept for her husband, who was sitting before her. Odysseus pitied her tears in his heart, but his eyes were as steady between their lids as if they were made of horn or iron as he concealed his own tears through guile (dolos). When Penelope had cried herself out, she spoke to him again, saying: “Now I feel I must test you, stranger, to see if you really did entertain my husband and his godlike companions, as you say you did. Tell me what sort of clothes he wore, and tell me what he was like, and what his men were like.”
[Penelope gives Odysseus the chance to describe accurately the truths that only the two of them would know, and he does.Also, she shows her prudence by being skeptical; she needs to test Odysseus.] . . . She recognized the unmistakable tokens Odysseus was giving her. She wept again, and then composed herself and said to him: “You may have been pitied before, stranger, but now you will be loved an honored here in my halls. I gave him those clothes. I folded them, brought them from the storeroom, and I pinned on the gleaming brooch, to delight him. But I will never welcome him home again, and so the fates were dark when Odysseus left in his hollow ship for Ilion, that curse of a city.”
19.380ff (Lombardo): And Penelope, watching him carefully: “Of all the travelers who have come to my house, none, dear guest, have been as thoughtful as you, and none as welcome so wise are your words. I do have an old and trustworthy woman here, who nursed and raised my ill-starred husband, taking him in her arms the day he was born. She will wash your feet, frail as she is. Eurycleia, rise and wash your master’s — that is, wash the feet of this man who is your master’s age. Odysseus’ feet and hands are no doubt like his now, for men age quickly when life is hard.”
[This might have been the place where in another version of the epic Penelope revealed that she knew that the beggar was her husband: she might have continued: “Come and wash the feet of your master, who has now returned to save us from the evil Suitors.” Or it could be that she was imagining that the beggar looked like her husband, as Eurycleia notices right away 19.413ff (Lombardo): “Many road-weary strangers have come here, but I have never seen such a resemblance as that between you and Odysseus, in looks, voice — even the shape of your feet.”]
19.596ff (Lombardo): [Penelope telling the beggar her dream] “… Then the eagle comes back and perches upon a jutting roofbeam and speaks to me in a human voice, telling me not to cry: ‘Take heart, daughter of famed Icarius. This is no dream, but a true vision that you can trust. The geese are the suitors, and I, who was once an eagle, am now your husband come back, and I will deal out doom, a grisly death for all of the suitors.’ So he spoke and I woke up refreshed, looking around I saw the geese in the house, feeding on wheat by the trough, as before.” And Odysseus, his mind teeming: “Lady there is no way to give this dream another slant. Odysseus himself has shown you how he will finish this business. The suitors’ doom is clear. Not one will escape death’s black birds.”
[Why would the queen tell a stranger an intimate dream like this? If Odysseus and Penelope recognize one another, this scene is a clever way for husband to tell wife that he will kill their enemies.]
19.640ff (Lombardo): [Penelope has just told the beggar about her plan to set up the axes and ask the suitors to shoot an arrow through them, agreeing to marry the one who is successful.] And Odysseus, from the depths of his teeming mind: “Revered wife of Laertes’ son, Odysseus, do not put off this contest any longer, for Odysseus will be here, with all his cunning, handling that polished bow, before these men could ever string it and shoot through the iron.” Then Penelope, still watching him: “If you were willing, stranger, to sit here beside me in my halls and give me joy, sleep would never settle upon my eyes.But we cannot always be sleepless, for every thing there is a season, and a time for all we do on the life-giving earth. I will go now to my room upstairs and lie on my bed, which has become a sorrowful bed, wet with my tears since the day Odysseus left for Ilion, that accursed city. I will lie there, but you can lie here in the hall. Spread some blankets on the floor, or have the maids make up a bed for you.”
[Odysseus could be telling Penelope that he himself would take part in the bow contest. (And why would Penelope tell just any beggar about the contest?) He encourages her to make the challenge, and she proceeds, confident that her husband will not let any of their hated enemies win it. She responds that he gives her joy, and that she would like to stay up all night talking with him — spoiler alert –… as she will do after they finally reunite in book 23.]
20.93ff Penelope has had a dream: “This very night there slept with me again someone who lookedjust like Odysseus when he left with the army, and my heart was glad, because I did not think it was a dream, but the waking truth at last.”
and immediately after:
20.98: She spoke, and Dawn came, seated on gold. Odysseus heard Penelope’s voice as she wept and in that moment between sleep and waking he felt in his heart that she knew him already and was standing beside his head.
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