The three circuits of the suitors : a ring composition in Odyssey 17-22

Abstract

On three occasions in the Odyssey, Homer draws attention to the arrangement of the suitors as they sit in the hall of Odysseus' palace: first, when the disguised Odysseus passes from suitor to suitor begging for food; again, when each suitor in turn attempts to string Odysseus' bow; and, finally, when the suitors are slaughtered in succession at the hands of Odysseus and his small band of followers. On all three occasions--the description of which spans a long stretch of narrative (Books 17-22)--Homer seems to have precisely the same arrangement of suitors in mind. But whereas the sequence in which the suitors are mentioned is the same in the first two circuits, it is exactly reversed in the third.Not

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