An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic

by Daniel Mendelsohn

The “sign” is received and understood: now, at last, Penelope recognizes that the stranger is truly Odysseus. For the secret of the bed’s special design, knowledge of which went deeper than any physical marking, was shared by one man: her husband, the only man who had ever had access to her bedchamber and her bed. The bed is, therefore, a dual marker: a sign of Odysseus’ identity and a symbol of Penelope’s fidelity. The queen, “her knees and heart gone slack,” throws herself weeping into her husband’s arms; he weeps, too. The sight of him, Homer says at this moment, is as welcome to Penelope as the sight of dry land is to men swimming away from a shipwreck: a simile that not only suggests, once again, how alike this husband and wife are, but implies that Penelope’s years at home have constituted an “adventure” every bit as harrowing as the ones her husband has had. Only now does the couple retire to the great bed for their first night together in twenty years—a night that, in one of the poem’s loveliest touches, Athena extends, restraining Dawn so as to give the couple more time for their reunion. First they make love; then, the poet tells us, each narrates to the other at length everything that has happened over the past two decades. To my delight, the students perked up a little as we started talking about the scene. I think it’s very fitting that Penelope’s final test for Odysseus is so clever, Tommy said. She doesn’t ask for a sign, but instead tries to trick him. It’s...