In Book 19 of The Odyssey, Penelope recounts to a disguised Odysseus her dream of a great eagle swooping out of the sky and killing twenty geese she tends to, which leaves her brokenhearted. The eagle tells her to be happy since he symbolizes the husband who will wreak vengeance on her suitors. Whether Homer intended this dream to demonstrate the power of prophecy, a complex psychological statement regarding Penelope’s
And the red-haired Menelaus answered Helen: “There was a tale, my lady. So well told. Now then, I have studied, in my time, the plans and minds of great ones by the score, and I have traveled over a good part of the world but never once have I laid eyes on a man like him— what a heart that fearless Odysseus had inside him! What a piece of work
And even if you escape, you’ll come home late and come a broken man — all shipmates lost, alone in a stranger’s ship — and you will find a world of pain at home, crude, arrogant men devouring all your goods, courting your noble wife, offering gifts to win her. No doubt you will pay them back in blood when you come home! But once you have killed those suitors
