In The Odyssey Book XXI there is the
following weapons imagery:
the bow and with the iron
axes
the quiver, with the many deadly
arrows
Telemachus girded on his sword, grasped
his spear...
four shields, eight spears, and
four brass helmets with horse-hair
plumes.
Then there's the
great animal imagery and metaphors for how the suitors
die:
As
eagle-beaked, crook-taloned vultures from the mountains swoop down on the
smaller birds that cower in flocks upon the ground, and kill them, for they
cannot either fight or fly, and lookers on enjoy the sport- even so did
Ulysses and his men fall upon the suitors and smite them on every side. They
made a horrible groaning as their brains were being battered in,
and the ground seethed with their blood.
And this
choice nugget:
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.
And then there's this
one:
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
Taken together, Homer's
imagery here is bloody, vengeful, and anthropomorphic. Ordained by the gods, Odysseus'
revenge re-establishes him and Telemachus to their King and Prince statuses and reduces
the suitors to animals helplessly awaiting slaughter. Not only is this one of Odysseus'
more cunning tricks, but it echoes the theme of guest-host relations. Just as Odysseus
and him men were invasive guests with the Cyclops and the Cicones, so too are the
suitors punished for their arrogance.
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