Odysseus’ Terrifying Revenge
This chapter focuses on the central revenge story of the Odyssey—Odysseus’ against the suitors. Odysseus’ tisis follows the model of Orestes’ tisis, but with sophisticated adjustments. The warning element takes on considerable emphasis. The suitors’ principal offense is their devastation of Odysseus’ household, especially through their feasting, which is portrayed as cannibalistic. For this, they face a reciprocal punishment: their deaths take the form of an inverted feast. The poem presents one direct, positive view of the justice of Odysseus, while also sowing the seeds for its audience to question this presentation. A careful auditor would note the asymmetry between the suitors’ actual crimes of feasting and wooing and the punishments they receive, which are properly appropriate for genuinely accomplished murder and adultery. The poet’s program of justifying Odysseus would not have succeeded, at least for some auditors.